Slash and Burn

by Valerie Bronwen

  Focus, Tracy.

  Her MacBook Pro must have been the murder weapon—it looked like the killer had picked it up and clubbed her on the side of the head with it. I could see where it had connected with the side of her face, and she’d gone down on her side. She was wearing the same thing she’d been wearing when she spoke to me outside the Carousel Bar. The killer had apparently just reached for whatever was convenient to use.

  So it wasn’t premeditated—which was small comfort to Demi.

  The killer hadn’t come to her room intending to kill her.

  So, he or she didn’t know about the pictures she had? Of the killer going to Antinous’s room?

  Her laptop was destroyed, so the originals were gone unless some tech could put the thing back together again. Maybe the memory chip was intact and could just be put into another one.

  But other than the wreckage of the computer and the body on the floor, the room was very tidy. She was obviously very fastidious. The closet door was ajar, and I could see her shoes neatly lined up inside. It looked like she’d hung up her clothes by color, as well. The bed was still made, but given her skin tone and the gelid look of the blood on the side of her face, she had most likely been murdered yesterday during the early evening—probably not long after she’d given me the flash drive and fled from the Monteleone Hotel.

  Her friends hadn’t seen or heard from her after that, as I recalled them telling me at the reception, and yet—

  The door had opened when I’d knocked on it. Had they not stopped by her room to check on her?

  That seemed peculiar to me. They were all staying here and had planned on going to the party together. Why wouldn’t they have come by and knocked on her door before they headed over to the party? I certainly would have, especially if the friend I had plans with wasn’t answering my calls or responding to my texts. And I hadn’t knocked very hard on the door. If my light knock got the door to swing open, surely their knock would have as well. So why didn’t they come by to check up on her?

  Yeah, that was definitely odd. And if not before the party, why wouldn’t they have checked on her after?

  Focus on the details, Tracy.

  I inhaled again. The room smelled musty. The walls were painted a dark emerald green, with gold fleur-de-lis stenciled at regular intervals. The room itself was long and narrow—there was a small kitchenette with a sink, a coffeemaker, and a microwave on the granite counter, with a large white old-model refrigerator shoved into the corner. The bathroom door was closed, and the carpet was dingy looking. It looked brownish now, but had probably been gold to match the fleur-de-lis on the walls at one point. Of course, there was a wide dark stain around her head from the blood.

  They’re going to have to replace this carpet.

  Thick gold-and-green brocade curtains hung on the wall farthest from the front door, which was where undoubtedly she’d stood at the window and taken pictures of the pool courtyard—

  Was I in those shots?

  I cursed myself for not thinking to look. I’d been so focused on trying to identify the man on the second-floor gallery I hadn’t thought to check anything poolside. If I was actually in the pictures, that would give me—well, the police—an idea of the time frame and whether that man was the actual murderer.

  Well, at least Dani had been smart enough to copy the images onto my laptop—because I was going to have to turn the flash drive over to the cops now for sure.

  If she was killed because of those pictures—

  A wave of nausea swept over me, and feeling light-headed, I stepped back outside the door. I started to reach for the doorknob to pull the door closed—but remembered in the nick of time that I shouldn’t touch anything. I could hear police sirens getting closer.

  No one knows you have the flash drive, so calm down, Tracy. No one besides Dani, that is, and I doubt she’s the killer.

  That made me feel a little better, but I was still nervous. The flash drive was burning a hole in my shoulder bag.

  I looked at my watch and was amazed to see I’d only been inside Demi’s room maybe five or seven minutes at the most—it seemed like I’d been in there for hours. I swallowed, and shivered. The rain had gotten heavier and was coming down really hard now, big fat drops of water that smacked against the railing of the landing. The wind had also picked up and was driving the heavy drops almost to where I was standing. I took another few steps back as I felt some rain mist on my arms, and the goose bumps came up again. It felt like the temperature had dropped about twenty degrees while I’d been inside, and the blasts of wind were bone-chillingly cold.

  The sounds of police sirens got louder and finally stopped entirely just as lightning flashed blindingly close, followed by thunder so loud the building seemed to shake and my teeth went on edge.

  A few moments later, the door to Room 322 opened and Pat came out, closing the door behind her and checking to make sure it was locked. She had a black purse over her shoulder and was wearing jean shorts and one of those horrible T-shirts reading I got Bourbon-faced on shit Street with the drunk guy with Xs for eyes leaning on a lamp post. She turned and started in surprise when she saw me standing by the stair railing. “Well, hello,” she said hesitantly, a confused look on her face. “What are you doing here, Tracy?”

  “I came by to talk to Demi,” I replied slowly, watching her face for her reaction. Might as well get it over with. “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”

  She blinked at me. “Bad news?”

  “I’m afraid she’s dead, Pat.” I said it flatly, without emotion.

  She blinked at me a few more times, her forehead crinkled in confusion. “Dead?” She frowned. “Is that supposed to be some kind of joke? If so, it’s not very funny and really in bad taste, given what happened here the other night.” Her voice was very much mom-giving-recalcitrant-child-a-lecture. “You really should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “I wish it were a joke,” I replied. I gestured toward the door to Demi’s room with my head. “I knocked and her door wasn’t closed—I walked in and there she was, on the floor.”

  All the color drained out of her face, and she leaned heavily against the door to her own room. “Oh my God.” She still had her room key in her hand, so she shoved it into the lock and opened the door. She backed into the room, not taking her eyes from my face until I could no longer see her. Worried, I walked over to her door and looked inside. She plunked down on the edge of her bed, looking confused and worried. She looked at me again, unbelieving. “Dead. Demi is dead.”

  “I’m afraid so, Pat.” I took the liberty of walking into her room and sat down next to her on the edge of the bed. I put my arm around her shoulders, and she didn’t react to my touch at all. I noticed she was shivering a little bit. Her room was just as cold as Demi’s had been.

  “I can’t believe it,” Pat went on in a toneless voice. “How did this happen? Why? Who would want to kill her?” She turned her head to look at me, and her eyes were glassy and watery. “Demi wouldn’t hurt anyone, ever.”

  “I don’t know who did it,” I replied softly. “It looks like someone picked up her laptop and clubbed her with it.”

  A hand flew up to her mouth, and tears started coming from her eyes. “Oh, no. Oh, my God.” She choked up, and I tightened my grip on her shoulders as she shook with sobs.

  “You didn’t see or talk to her at all after she left the Monteleone yesterday afternoon?” I prodded gently. “When she walked out of the bar with me was the last time you saw her?” I didn’t add the qualifier alive.

  She put her head down on my shoulder and wiped at her eyes. “N-no.” She took a deep breath. “After she walked out of the bar with you, I never saw her again. Wow—I—I’m never going to see her again!” She broke out into sobs again, and I patted her shoulder helplessly. I am really terrible in these kinds of situations.

  She picked her head up again. “Her husband! Her kids! What am I going to tell them?”

  Husband and
kids?

  “Demi was straight?”

  “She always told everyone she was bi, but she hadn’t been with another woman since college, and that was twenty years ago.” Pat nodded. “She was more bi-curious, if anything, really. I mean, I didn’t know her when she was in college, but from everything she told me, it was more about where she was at emotionally than actually really being into women, if that makes any sense. She’d been with a real dick of a guy, abusive physically and emotionally, and she was fragile, and this other woman came along and kind of helped her put the pieces back together again…and then she met the guy she eventually married, and that was it for women for her. I think—I think maybe if she hadn’t gotten married…” Her voice trailed off. “All of her fiction was from a bi or lesbian perspective. She was actually quite a good writer. I think she was brainwashed into who she was supposed to be, if that makes any sense? The longing in her stories…” She wiped at her eyes. “She was an amazing writer, actually—her short stories would just break your heart. I encouraged her to come to this event…I thought maybe if she got away from her suburban soccer mom existence it might do her some good—and she deserved a break from being wife and mother, you know?” A soft sob escaped from her lips. “Why did I tell her to come? She’d be alive if I hadn’t talked her into coming!”

  I grabbed her wrists firmly. “Do not blame yourself for this, Pat. It isn’t anyone’s fault except the bastard who killed her.”

  “But why would anyone kill Demi? She was such a nice person. She’d do anything for anyone without complaint. All you had to do was ask her…all she ever wanted was what was best for people. This was her first trip anywhere without her family. Writing was her dream, the one thing that was really hers, you know?”

  “Did you know her family?” I thought it was best to keep her talking. She was on the edge of going into either shock or hysterics or both, and it was the least I could do.

  Pat shook her head. “No, I live in Denver. She’s from Arizona—Flagstaff.” She cleared her throat. “We actually met because we were in an anthology together, Fire Down Below, and I really liked her story and asked the editor to put me in touch with her. We kind of hit it off, and I kind of was giving her career advice. She really was an innocent about everything—how publishing works, how good she was as a writer—I mean, her stories were so powerful, so touching…they made you think.” She shook her head slightly. “She just happened to see the submissions call for Fire Down Below and wrote a story. She had no idea about anything in the business. It was almost cute how naïve she was.”

  Sounds like the blind leading the blind to me, I thought, but didn’t say anything. “So you encouraged her to write?”

  She nodded and sniffled again. “Uh-huh.”

  I heard heavy steps coming up the stairs. I patted her shoulder again and got up to look outside. Perfect—it was my old buddy Al Randisi. He was holding a dripping umbrella, and his slacks were wet from the knee down. He wasn’t wearing a jacket or a tie, just a white dress shirt with the top buttons undone so I could see curly black-and-gray chest hair.

  “You got here pretty fast.” I said. Behind him I could see the EMTs coming up the stairs, and some uniformed cops.

  “When I heard there was another body here on the radio, I made a beeline over here.” He scowled at me. “I might have known you’d be here.”

  Irritated, I drew myself up to my full height and scowled back at him. “I’m just as delighted to see you again as you are to see me, Detective.” I refrained from adding douchebag.

  He gave me a look as he pulled out a notebook from a shirt pocket and flipped it open. “Tracy Norris, mystery writer.” He started writing. “You know, the way you keep popping up at my crime scenes is starting to look kind of funny—what are the odds that the same person would be at two different crime scenes on two different days?” His beady little eyes darted over at me, looking me up and down in a sleazy way that made me feel more than just a little bit dirty. “So, where’s today’s body?”

  I gestured over to the door for Room 323. “In there. The door’s not shut—you can just push on it and it’ll open.” I held up my hands and he gave me an inquiring look. “I didn’t touch the knob, and I didn’t touch anything inside that I can remember. I knocked and the door opened. I saw her feet and went inside. She’s dead, Detective—it’s pretty apparent.”

  He nodded and pushed on the door, going inside when it swung open. I leaned against the wall, feeling weary suddenly. The adrenaline was wearing off and I was starting to feel the shock. I put my hands on my knees and bent over, putting my head down and taking long, deep breaths until my head cleared again. I got out of the way as EMTs carrying equipment walked past me, followed by the uniformed officers.

  A few moments later, Randisi came back out. He gestured for me to follow him and led me down the stairs and down a hallway to an enormous sitting room. There was a coffee machine sitting on a bar next to a wicker basket full of muffins and bagels in cellophane. “Have a seat,” he said over his shoulder to me. “Want some coffee?”

  “Yes, that would be nice.” The room was as frigidly cold as every other room in the hotel, and I shivered as I sat down in a red velvet wingback chair that groaned a bit. “Cream and sweetener, if you don’t mind.”

  He sat down in the matching chair on the opposite side of a small table. He set my coffee down on the table and took a drink from his.

  “Thanks,” I said, picking up the little Styrofoam cup. Granules of the sweetener were floating on top of the liquid. I sighed to myself and took a drink. It was actually better than I would have thought, and I took another sip.

  “So,” he said, giving me a wry look, “two bodies in three days. That’s a record, I think, for an innocent bystander.”

  “Yeah, well.” The coffee was starting to warm me up, which felt good. I leaned back into the chair, holding on to the cup that was now warming my hands. The room was musty-smelling, like every old house in New Orleans. There was a worn carpet on the floor, and large oil paintings hung on the walls. The room was clearly an interior one, since there were no windows. “Believe me, it wasn’t by choice. Obviously.”

  “But this time you knew the victim?”

  I nodded. “Only slightly. I don’t even know her last name. I just met her for the first time yesterday. She was in my workshop yesterday afternoon.” I stifled a laugh.

  He gave me a sharp look. “You think it’s funny?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course not, Detective Randisi. It’s just that this is almost exactly the same conversation we had Thursday afternoon. I didn’t know her well. Her name was Demi something or another. I met her for the first time yesterday morning in the CC’s on Decatur. She and some friends are here for the same conference I’m here for. They sat at the next table, and I heard them talking about Antinous Renault’s death, and so I talked to them about it. They knew Antinous much better than I did, obviously—I’d never even heard of her before meeting her on Thursday.” I quickly went over some of the things we talked about in the coffee shop yesterday morning.

  “Sounds like a lot of people at this conference wanted to see Antinous Renault dead.” He gave me another look. “Her real name, by the way, was Diana Browning. It was on her passport.”

  I nodded. “Like I told you Thursday, she never told me her real name, but she did tell me Antinous Renault was a pseudonym. She was apparently a pretty toxic person.” I didn’t tell him about her blog or her website; I’m sure others he’d talked to already had. It’s been my experience the police—no matter how incompetent or stupid—do not appreciate lay people telling them how to do their jobs.

  And Detective Randisi definitely wouldn’t appreciate any suggestions from me.

  On the plus side, he didn’t seem as dick-holish this morning as he had on Thursday.

  “So, you barely knew this woman yet you came over here this morning to her hotel room? Why?” He raised his eyebrows.

  I reached into my bag. I
dug around inside until I found the flash drive and handed it over to him. “I was returning this, and I also wanted to ask her why she’d given it to me in the first place.” He listened without reaction as I explained how she’d approached me in the Carousel Bar yesterday and given it to me.

  “You think she saw someone that spooked her, and she got out of there?” He kept making notes.

  “Yeah. I don’t know who or what it was.” I spread my hands helplessly. “I wish I knew more.”

  “And what’s on this flash thingy she wanted you to see so badly?”

  “There’s a folder of pictures,” I said carefully. “I looked at them this morning on my computer. She was taking pictures of her arrival—the airport, the cab into the city, the hotel. She took pictures of the pool from her window, and apparently she got some pictures of a man going into Anti—into Diana Browning’s room.” Calling her Diana Browning made it seem less real to me; she’d never been that name, that identity, when she’d been alive to me, so using that name made it seem like the murder had happened to someone else.

  “Do you know who the man was? Did you recognize him?”

  I bit my lower lip. “He looked familiar, but no, I couldn’t say positively I could identify him. I don’t make a habit of noticing men, Detective.” Make what you will of that—but if you’ve investigated the conference you already know I’m a lesbian. “It was also kind of blurry, and you can’t get a really good look at his face or even his head—the angle she was taking the pictures at weren’t the best. I mean, he could be anyone, really.” I added quickly, “I tried to make the pictures bigger in my computer, to see if I could get a better idea of who it was, but they just pixilated.” I held up my hands apologetically. “Sorry.”

  He made a face. “Too much to hope for, I suppose.” He gave me a lopsided smile. “We got some computer people who might be able to do something with it, you never know.” He scratched his head. “You been pretty helpful today, Miz Norris.”

  I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. He was like a completely different person from the misogynist ass I’d had to deal with Thursday afternoon. Surely he hadn’t had a personality transplant since then? “Thank you,” I replied cautiously.