by Linda Barnes
“Mary Spraggue Hillman. Runs the Spraggue Foundation out of Boston.”
“As in Davison Spraggue?”
“Yes,” Spraggue said flatly. His robber-baron great-grandfather had a name to conjure with still, years after his death.
“Oh my, yes.” Rawlins made a face. “And you’re … I didn’t put it all together. Hell, reckon I’d better quit flirting with her then.”
“Please,” Spraggue said, “forget about the Foundation. Forget about the old tyrant. It’s been a while since anybody’s flirted with her. I think she’d love it.”
“I don’t know. People might take it bad. I don’t want folks, least of all you, to get the idea that money buys justice around here.”
On Rawlins’ round face was the look of suspicion Spraggue had almost gotten used to seeing when people found out he was one of “those” Spraggues. One of the joys of inherited wealth.
Spraggue said, “Is there anyplace I can buy us some coffee? I’ll pay for it, if you won’t count it as a bribe.”
The sergeant’s lips spread in a slow grin. “You sure couldn’t bribe nobody with the coffee here. It ain’t worthy of the name. I bring in my own.” He hefted another thermos out of the second sack. “In that first file drawer over there, there’s two cups.”
The top drawer of a newer file cabinet was sectioned off by a few hanging files. Instead of papers it held packages, small tins, and tiny bottles. Creole mustard. A quart of Tabasco. Stuff so potent the peppery smell was starting to escape. Two hefty mugs were stored under the letter c.
“That’s my survival drawer,” Rawlins explained. “Lieutenant rents it to me in exchange for coffee. If’n I have to eat store-bought stuff at my desk at least I can season it up to where I can taste it.”
The coffee was strong, laced with chicory.
“Is this lieutenant in charge of Dora’s case?”
“Nope,” the sergeant said. “That’s me. We work cases on rotation, and my name came up on the roster.”
Spraggue said, “So which civic-minded citizen told you about Dora marrying this Fontenot guy?”
“Woman named Denise Michel. Local celebrity.”
“She’s supposed to be a friend of Miss Levoyer’s. Doesn’t that strike you as odd behavior for a friend, Sergeant?”
“Nope. Never strikes me that telling the truth to the police is odd behavior.”
“Okay. You can make a case for Dora disliking Fontenot, but—” Spraggue started.
“Look, son, I don’t make arrests just on motive. Lots of folks hated Joe Fontenot. Everybody I interviewed said he was one son of a bitch. But I got more than motive here, I got the whole rest of the shebang—means, opportunity, the works.”
“Could you spell it out?”
“The knife belongs to your Miss Levoyer. She don’t deny it. And it’s got her prints all over it. That’s means as far as I’m concerned.”
“Pretty dumb to use such an identifiable weapon.”
“I never did see any study of murderers that put ’em in the same class as Rhodes scholars.”
Spraggue sipped his coffee.
“And she was right there at that dinner party,” Rawlins continued. “Your aunt tell you that? Your Miss Levoyer had opportunity.”
“So did a couple thousand other people.”
“Not so many as you’d think.”
“Hotels are public places.”
“Sure are,” Rawlins agreed. “But the private rooms at the Imperial Orleans can be pretty damn private. You know they had a guard at the door taking invitations and ticking off the names on a list?”
“But there might have been people who came in through another door.”
“No other door to come in through. The two rooms, the ballroom where the dinner was and the second room where the display was, do have separate entrances, so they can be used by two groups, say. But for that night the door from the hallway to the display room was locked. The only entrance was through the main ballroom door, and there was someone on that door all night. The killer was on the invitation list.”
“What about the waiters? They didn’t come through the main door—and where waiters can pass others can pass.”
“True. But the hotel staff isn’t a bunch of waiters picked up for a special banquet. There’s always a banquet at the Imperial Orleans. And the waiters are well-known.”
“That doesn’t mean one of them didn’t hate Fontenot.”
“From what I hear all waiters hate all cooks and vice-versa. We questioned the staff and we were satisfied. And none of them mentioned any extra waiter, anybody unfamiliar.”
“Everybody looks familiar in a waiter’s uniform.”
“So you’re imagining some impostor waiter, somebody lurking in the kitchen, waiting his chance—”
“It’s possible.”
“But it’s so fancy,” Rawlins said. “And right now we got a nice simple solution. I like simple solutions. Nine out of ten times, they’re the goods.”
“This is the tenth time.”
“You’re so sure about that?”
“How many people were at that dinner?”
Rawlins shrugged. “Eighty.”
“Well, even if nobody extra waltzed in and the kitchen staff is as pure as snow, that’s seventy-eight people with as much opportunity as Dora.”
“But only one with that knife. You ask her about that knife.”
“I will, Sergeant.”
“You gonna keep callin’ me ‘sergeant’?”
“Would you prefer ‘detective’?” Spraggue asked.
“I hate callin’ people by what they are instead of who they are. If you call me ‘sergeant’ or ‘detective,’ I gotta ‘mister’ you back. You got a first name, right?”
“Michael.”
“Mine’s Gorman, so folks call me ‘Rawl’ for my last name.”
“Mostly, I’m Spraggue. So folks won’t call me ‘Mike.’”
“I’ll tell you something, Spraggue: Most murders are pretty damn pat. Wife kills a husband. Husband kills a wife. Most of the time we find the guy standing over the body with the knife or the gun, still wondering what he did. The rest of the time, somebody turns himself in a day or two later, saying I don’t know what came over me, but she insulted me something terrible and I couldn’t take that, now could I? Most murders are the same damn thing.”
Rawlins refilled his coffee mug, dumped in two spoons of sugar, and said, “Look, I’m sorry about this. I’d just as soon have met your aunt on another occasion. But I’m satisfied we got the right person. The D.A. agrees. And that’s where my job ends.”
“Not necessarily.”
“No?”
“You could help me find a loose end to pull at.”
“Huh?”
Spraggue slipped a faded photostat out of a plastic sleeve in his wallet, placed it on the desk.
Rawlins fingered the card, read it all the way through. “One Massachusetts private investigator’s license, expired,” he said. “Your aunt said you were an actor or something.”
“Right now, I’m in the ‘or something’ phase.”
Rawlins studied the card. “Six-feet-one. You still weigh one-seventy-five?”
Spraggue shrugged.
“I’m shorter than you, but I sure weigh more. This here says brown eyes and yours look kinda yellow, but I’ll pass on that. What it don’t say is why anybody with your last name would want a crummy private eye license.” The suspicion was back in Rawlins’ voice.
“I’d rather be playing Broadway leads. Nobody’s offering.”
“Is there somebody in Boston who’ll vouch for you?”
“Captain Hurley. Homicide.”
“I’ll check that out.”
“I want to see the coroner’s report. I’d like to know why you’re so damn sure it’s Dora’s knife. A knife’s a knife, and from what Mary said, there were knives all over the room. I’d like to know what Fontenot had on him when he died—”
“You
don’t want much, do you?”
“I’m just anticipating a little. How long do you think it’s going to take for that high-priced attorney to file a discovery motion?”
“It’s, uh, irregular.”
“You know, that woman who’s stuck in your cell makes the best cup of coffee I’ve ever tasted.”
“She use chicory?”
“Her own blend of beans. Colombian and Kenyan. Grinds it fresh every time.”
“Okay,” Rawlins said. “Okay. Just do me a favor. Tell your aunt I’m cooperating with you.”
“Sure. Now Dora said that Fontenot used a different name when he married her. If a guy uses an alias once, he might do it twice. How about running his prints?”
“Seems a whole lot like blaming the victim to me. Poor guy’s dead—”
“That’s right. Beyond blame and praise and jail and all that crap. Dora’s not.”
“Well …” Rawlins sucked in a deep breath. “If I do, you’ll have to tell your aunt I cook the best gumbo in town. That means you want a taste.”
“I’m done with my coffee. Just pour me a little in the same mug.”
“Hot” wasn’t the word to describe Rawlins’ gumbo. It was like a test. Spraggue could feel the heat rise in his throat and his face turn red. When he didn’t cough or choke, and he managed a smile, Spraggue knew he’d passed.
Buy Cities of the Dead Now!
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Steve Appelblatt, Richard Barnes, James Morrow, and the staff of the Bill Rodgers Running Center for information and criticism generously given.
About the Author
Linda Barnes is the award-winning author of the Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries. Her witty private-investigator heroine has been hailed as “a true original” by Sue Grafton. Barnes is also the author of the Michael Spraggue Mysteries and a stand-alone novel, The Perfect Ghost.
A winner of the Anthony Award and a finalist for the Edgar and Shamus Awards, Barnes lives in the Boston area with her husband and son. Visit her at www.lindabarnes.com.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1984 by Linda Appleblatt Barnes
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1451-9
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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