The Dead Play On

by Heather Graham

  But she wasn’t sure. She lifted a hand and waved, then shouted, “Way to go! Wow!”

  Then she left, still feeling a little uneasy.

  She turned at the next corner and cut down to Royal Street, heading for her house and her souvenir and collectibles shop, The Cheshire Cat, that occupied a chunk of the first floor.

  The front door was open when Danni reached the shop, which was just as it should have been. They didn’t officially close until seven, and it was barely past six.

  Billie MacDougall—who had been her dad’s right-hand man and assistant until the day he died and was now hers—was behind the counter. Billie looked like a cross between an aging Billy Idol and Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He was skinny as a beanpole, but his looks were deceptive, because he had a wiry strength. He was also the best employee—and friend—anyone could ever have.

  “Dinner!” he said, grinning as he saw her, his Scot’s burr coming out in the single word despite his decades in America.

  She walked to the counter and set down her bags of takeout. “Figures I could help out a friend with a new place and have something wonderful to eat.”

  “Do I smell lasagna?” Billie asked eagerly.

  She smiled. “You do indeed. When Adriana decided to open a restaurant, I suspected it would be Italian, since she’s first generation herself. I’m sure it’s excellent, too. I loved eating at her house when I was growing up.”

  Billie made a face. “You doona like Scottish fare, lass?”

  Danni laughed. “Sure, I love it. Not that it’s plentiful in New Orleans,” she said drily.

  “Plentiful enough in this house. If I’ve made it, it’s Scottish. And you love my cooking.”

  “This is America. We love everything. But if you’ve suddenly discovered that you don’t like Italian, you don’t have to eat it, you know.”

  “Don’t be cheeky, lass. I’ll just take the bags to the kitchen and get things set up,” he told her, grabbing the food. “I’ll go ahead and have me dinner then watch the shop till closing so you and Quinn can take as much time as you like for dinner.” He grinned at her. “That is, if there’s any food left.”

  “I bought a salad, bruschetta and a whole tray of lasagna,” she said. “I don’t believe you could possibly eat it all.”

  “You never do know now, do you? Make fun of me and Scot’s cooking, will you?” Billie said.

  Danni grinned. “Is Quinn back yet? I don’t know why he went to the station if Jake said he was coming here.”

  “He didn’t go to the station,” Billie said, heading toward the kitchen.

  “Then why did you say he did when we talked this afternoon?” Danni asked.

  “I never said that. I said he was on the phone with Larue and then he left,” Billie called from the kitchen doorway. “You just assumed he was going to the station.”

  “Then where did he go?” she asked.

  “Wherever he went, he had to leave quickly,” Billie said. “And I don’t ask the man for a schedule when he leaves the house, just as I don’t ask you. When he’s ready, he tells me. Which is after he tells you, most of the time, so I guess we’ll both know soon enough.”

  “You’re right. I just hope he gets back while the food is still warm,” she said.

  “We do own that thing called a microwave,” Billie said.

  “Ah, but is it Scottish?” she murmured drily.

  “I heard that!” Billie called back.

  Danni grinned, walking around the counter to take the stool behind it. Wolf followed her and curled up at her feet.

  She glanced at the computer; they’d had a busy enough day for a Thursday. Billie had sold a number of the handmade fleur-de-lis necklaces one of the local vendors had started making. They were delicate and beautiful, and while only gold-or silver-plated, they sold for almost a hundred dollars because of the work involved. She was glad to see that people still valued craftsmanship.

  She noticed, too, that he’d also sold several of her own watercolors of the French Quarter. While the shop—and other matters—tended to take up a lot of her time, she had majored in art and actually had something of a local following. She loved visual art, and her favorite medium to work with was either watercolors or oils on canvas. Despite the fact their last case had involved a long-dead artist and a painting, she was determined not to lose her passion for her art.

  The bell over the door gave off its pleasant little tinkling sound, and she looked up.

  It was the sax player.

  In fact, the sax was in his hand, its case in the other.

  “Hello,” she said, frowning slightly. He had followed her here, she thought. Still, it was early evening. There was still light in the sky and plenty of people out and about on Royal Street, many of them seeking restaurants and bars, but some of them shopping, as well.

  And Wolf—though he had risen—didn’t seem to expect any danger. Wolf, she had learned, had a wonderful ability to sense whether people were trustworthy or not.

  He even wagged his tail slightly. Everything had to be all right.

  The door closed behind the sax player. For a moment he looked around the shop. Danni—as her father had—mixed souvenirs and affordable trinkets in with real antiques and collectibles. There was another “collectible” area in the house, in the basement, where she kept items too powerful and dangerous to be sold or even shown. Of course, the basement wasn’t really a basement; the “ground” floor was actually built up above the street, and you had to climb a few stairs to get to it.

  She loved the shop, just as her father had. She had grown up loving it. She had a couple of real medieval suits of armor as display pieces, along with the work of a number of local artists besides herself, both new and antique jewelry, busts, a few nineteenth-century vampire hunting sets, flags, weapons and more. She knew she was good at creating wonderful window displays and that the shop was as much a gallery as a showroom, to the point that sometimes people came just to look around rather than buy. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. It was obviously less than ideal if they didn’t buy, but having such wonderful word-of-mouth reviews had to be good.

  “May I help you?” she asked as the man continued to stand just inside the door, looking around the room.

  He met her eyes at last. “Danni? Danni Cafferty?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Forgive me, but...do I know you?”

  He nodded. “You may not remember me. I’m Tyler Anderson. I was a few years ahead of you in high school.”

  “Tyler—yes!” She remembered him now. She hadn’t thought of him in years. He’d graduated before her, and she hadn’t seen him since. But she remembered. He’d been part of what a number of the magnet-school music students—who had been “adopted” by a Garden District school during the aftermath of Katrina—had called the Survivor Set. As an art student, she’d been dragged in as something of an honorary member.

  It was good to see him again, and she smiled. He really was a beautiful man—he always had been. Almost like a golden god with hazel eyes.

  She walked around the counter. “I haven’t seen you in forever! It’s wonderful that you found me. How have you been?”

  “Fine...good. Mostly,” he said awkwardly.

  “I heard you playing earlier,” she said. “You’re incredible. You always were, but now...wow. You’re really good.”

  “Not that good.”

  “No, trust me. I just heard you, and you are.”

  He shook his head impatiently. “No, no, I...” He paused, looking around the store. “Is anyone else here?”

  “Well, Billie—you remember Billie—is in the kitchen. And Quinn is due home soon.”

  “Quinn... Michael Quinn? The Michael Quinn we knew back in school?”

  “Yes.”

 
; “Are you two married?”

  “No, no. I mean, one day. Maybe. He lives here. Mostly. Not always.” Danni stopped speaking; she was never sure how to describe her complex relationship with Quinn. But then again, she didn’t really have to explain. She added lamely, “We’re together. A couple.”

  “So is it true?”

  “Is what true?” she asked carefully.

  “That he was a cop and then became a private investigator. And you guys look into things that are...different. Bad things, odd things.”

  Danni shrugged uneasily. “I try to collect things that people think may be evil or haunted in some way. You know how people can be. Superstitious.”

  “Is it just superstition?” he asked.

  “People can be wonderful or evil. I think we both know that. But things are just...things. Why? What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “Murder. I think my friend was murdered—and that the saxophone he left me is haunted.”

  She stared at him and murmured, “Okay. Can you...?”

  “Do you remember Arnie Watson?” he asked quietly.

  She did. She remembered his incredible talent, and she remembered seeing a piece written about him by a local columnist just a week or so ago. He’d died on the streets after coming home from the Middle East. After he’d survived three deployments. Somehow that seemed to compound the tragedy of his death.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Arnie was the best,” Tyler said passionately. “An amazing man and an amazing friend.”

  “I believe you,” she said then paused, remembering what she had read. He had died of a drug overdose. So sad, and such a waste of a good man.

  What was even more tragic was that so many soldiers came home only to die by their own hands, their minds haunted by the demons of war.

  “He died of an overdose, didn’t he?” she asked.

  “Damn you, it wasn’t suicide!” Tyler said.

  “I never said anything about suicide.”

  “And it wasn’t an accident. He was murdered. You have to believe me.”

  “I’m more than willing to listen to—”

  Tyler shook his head emphatically. “You have to help me. You have to prove that he was murdered. I know you can do it. And you will. You and Quinn will.”

  “We’re not infallible.”

  “I know you can find the truth. You have to. Because if you don’t, whoever is doing this will kill again. I know it.”

  “Tyler, you can’t know that.”

  “I do know it. And he just might kill me.”

  Chapter 2

  MRS. LIANA RUBY wasn’t as frail as one might have thought.

  They didn’t have to knock on her door; an officer had been keeping watch over her while the police worked in the other side of the duplex. She had been lying on the sofa, but she got up when they came in. She was a little thing, but she quickly offered them tea or coffee, and then, when they declined, she told them, “Well, you may be on duty, but I’m not. Excuse me while I get myself a big cup of tea—with a bigger shot of whiskey.”

  Quinn and Larue sat in her living room and waited. When she rejoined them, she was shaking her head with disbelief. “Sad, sad, sad. Poor man. He may have had his vices, but then, he was a musician. And as sad as it is, it’s true sometimes that the more tormented the musician, the more powerful the song. Why anyone would hurt such a polite fellow, I don’t know. Now, that just sounded ridiculous, I know. But he was courteous and kind, with a friendly word for everyone. Kids threw a football into his car and dented it, and he just threw it back. I asked him if he didn’t want to call the police or file an insurance claim, and he shrugged and told me they were just having a good time. Said the dent gave his car character!”

  “Did you see or hear anything at all unusual earlier?” Larue asked her.

  “Son, I was sound asleep—without my hearing aid. If little green men had descended from Mars and blown up the Superdome, I wouldn’t have heard it,” she said.

  “We believe he was killed around 5:00 a.m., Mrs. Ruby,” Quinn said. “I’m not surprised you were sleeping, and certainly not surprised you didn’t hear anything. Did you notice that you didn’t see him later in the day?”

  “Good heavens, he works nights. I never saw the man until well past noon,” she said.

  “What about anyone—his friends and acquaintances, not to mention strangers—you might have seen visiting him?” Quinn asked.

  “Mr. Quinn, you may think I’m generalizing, even stereotyping, but musicians only come in strange,” Mrs. Ruby said. “And so do some ex-athletes.”

  That drew a smirk from Larue as he looked at Quinn.

  Quinn looked back at Mrs. Ruby. “You know me?”

  “I followed your football career years ago, young man.” She wagged a finger at him. “And I witnessed your downfall, saw you join the dregs of humanity, and still, like most of this city, when you died on that operating table and came back to life, I said a hallelujah. Yes, I know you. And I know you were a cop and became a private eye, and that you’ve been working weird cases with this one here—” she paused and nodded toward Jake “—and old Angus Cafferty’s daughter. So let’s establish this right away. You work the strange—and musicians are strange.”

  “Can you describe any of the friends hanging around in richer detail than just ‘strange’?” Quinn asked her, grinning.

  “Sure. I’m eighty-eight. Not much else to do. Traveling too far around the city tires me out, so I sit on the porch a lot. Lord, I do love watching the life around me. And lots of people come and go. A tall, beautiful black man came a lot. When he’s here, the house is a’rocking. I mean, for real. The man is a drummer. Then there’s a woman—let’s see, early forties, pleasant, hardly strange at all, for a musician. Brown hair, brown eyes.” She leaned toward Quinn. “She’s got the hots for the tall black man. There’s a pudgy fellow, about five foot nine. You got pictures? You show ’em to me. You want to get a sketch artist out here? I can have a go. But I don’t think you’re going to find his killer among them. I got a glance at what they did to him—no friend of the man did anything like that.”

  “The first you knew about this in any way was when Lacey Cavanaugh came to you?” Larue asked.

  Mrs. Ruby winced. “That poor girl. When we looked in that window, we couldn’t see clear. But he wasn’t moving, and I knew...well, I wasn’t giving anybody a key until the cops came. I’d give a lot to help you more. Whoever did this came and went. Guess he was with Larry for a while,” she said quietly, her face grim.

  “Mrs. Ruby, thank you for your help. If you think of anything else, anything at all, that could be helpful, you’ll call us?” Quinn asked. Both he and Larue handed her their cards.

  She studied the business cards and then looked at the two men. “How long do you think he was in there?” she asked. “An hour? Two hours?”

  “One,” Quinn said. Larue nodded his agreement.

  “Still, six in the morning—someone should have seen the killer leave,” she said. “I do watch television, you know. I am aware of how things go down.”

  “I’m sure you are,” Jake told her. “And we’re doing a canvass of the neighborhood. I have officers going door-to-door.”

  “We watch television, too,” Quinn said gravely.

  She gave him a swat on the knee. “Behave, young man. I’ll be here, ready to look at pictures, describe people, whatever you need,” she told them.

  “Is there anywhere else you can go?” Larue asked her. “Crime scene techs will be coming and going, and there will be officers on hand for a while, but if you feel insecure...”

  “I’m not insecure. At my age?” Mrs. Ruby demanded.

  “Still, be careful when you open the door,” Jake warned her.

  “Detective
Larue,” she said. “I won’t be opening my door without seeing who is outside, I promise you. And if I do open the door, I’ll have my Glock in hand and a truckload of silver hollow-point bullets that will take care of any opponent, human or...otherwise. And don’t you worry. I have a permit for it, and I know how to use it.”

  “Just don’t go shooting the postman,” Jake warned.

  “Want to visit a shooting range with me?” she demanded sharply. “I won’t go shooting any uppity cops, either, I promise. Though it may be tempting.”

  Laughing, Jake apologized as they rose.

  They left the house and walked down to the street together, ready to head to the hospital in their separate cars.

  “I think the old bird likes you best,” Larue told Quinn.

  “You acted as if she were senile. Telling her not to shoot the mailman.”

  “She’s eighty-eight!”

  “And Bob Hope was still performing for our troops at that age,” Quinn reminded him.

  Jake nodded thoughtfully. “It’s all good. I’m glad she likes you. You can talk to her once we figure out which of the city’s musicians she might have been talking about. But then, you were good with that charming old battle-ax from Hubert’s case, and that god-awful painting-society matron, Hattie Lamont,” Larue said.

  “Not as good as Billie,” Quinn said, smiling.

  “They’re seeing each other?”

  “Oh, yes. They fight like a pair of alley cats sometimes, but they can’t stay away from one another,” Quinn said.

  “And Danni?”

  “Danni is great,” Quinn said softly. They’d agreed to take things slowly, which was almost a necessity, given that he was often asked to consult on cases outside Louisiana. But that was something else they shared. They both believed strongly that working to solve strange crimes was an integral part of who they were.

  But he loved being back in town, loved being with her. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, five-nine, slim and agile, her every move graceful. Her eyes reminded him of the blue sky on a clear Scottish morning, and her hair was a rich deep auburn. She was deeply compassionate and possessed old Angus’s steely courage and determination—and she was just as stubborn as her father, too.