by Herren, Greg
He flipped his phone closed and smiled weakly.
“Sorry about that. How can I help you?”
“Are you Stephen Robideaux?”
“I am.”
He stuck his hand out. It was warm and moist and soft. I gave it a brief grasp and shake, letting go as soon as I politely could, resisting the urge to wipe my hand on my pants leg.
“Chanse MacLeod. I stopped by earlier. I’ve been hired by Cordelia Sheehan to look into her son’s death.”
“Rory told me. I have your card here somewhere.” He gestured at the top of his desk, a scattered, disorganized mess, and gave me a sheepish smile. “I was going to call. Anything I can do to help the Sheehans, you can count me in.”
“Do you mind answering some questions?”
“Fire away.” His face went white. “I’m sorry, that was in poor taste, given the circumstances.”
“Rory told me you came down from Lafayette to run Wendell’s campaign?”
“More or less. I worked for the state party for a long time, and I run a consulting business for political campaigns. I’ve helped elect quite a few Democrats to Baton Rouge. But this was my first campaign for a national office. In fact, I was the one who convinced Wendell to run in the first place.”
He seemed proud of himself, a little pompous, like he was trying to impress me.
“Really? How did that come about?”
“When his first wife died and he retired from public life, it was a loss for the entire state. Wendell was a rising star, and with the Sheehan and Spencer names behind him, there would have been no stopping him. He was attorney general, remember, and the state party was prepping him for a run at the governor’s mansion. Next it could have been the White House. You never know.”
He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “But his wife’s death devastated him. He backed away from everything and focused on running the family business and raising his daughter. I thought maybe when he remarried he’d return to politics, but no.”
“He ran for mayor.” I pointed out.
“The hurricane and what happened after woke a lot of us up. Wendell realized that Louisiana—the country—lacked leadership. He saw the direction the country had been going in while he wasn’t involved, and he didn’t like it. Actually, he hated it. So he ran for mayor.”
“I voted for him.” I said.
“As long as I live I will never understand the outcome of that election. Maybe there were shenanigans involved—it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened in New Orleans. But Wendell decided he could do more good for New Orleans, and Louisiana, in the Senate. After the scandal about the incumbent and his penchant for prostitutes, I came down to meet with him. It wasn’t hard to convince him to run for that seat. We were getting support like you wouldn’t believe, from all over the state. The Sheehan name was like money in the bank—or ballots in the box, if you’ll forgive me. Granted, the election is still two years away, but by the time it truly geared up we would have had an unbeatable machine put together.”
“Do you think political enemies could have done this? Someone who didn’t want him in the Senate?”
“I seriously doubt it. Murder isn’t their style. They prefer slander and innuendo. Not that they were in a position to throw stones. I was really looking forward to doing rebuttal ads to whatever they threw at us. There was no viable opponent for the primary; all the primary drama is going to be on the other side, and I don’t think even they would go as far as murder. This whole thing is such a mess. Do the police really think Cordelia could have shot him? I find that so hard to believe. It’s just not like her.”
“I’m not privy to the police investigation, so I can’t answer that. But she fired the gun, and hers were the only fingerprints on it.”
“I’m sure there’s another explanation.”
“You were here the night of the murder?”
“Wendell and I met with some potential donors, and then we came here to make calls. He was in a really good mood. He left around eight.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No. I assumed he was going home.”
“Did you notice anything odd in the days before? Did he seem worried, or upset about anything?”
“Wendell was the consummate politician, always smiling, always cheerful, always in a good mood. He never let anyone see what he was really feeling. To be honest, I didn’t really know him that well. All we ever talked about was politics, the state of the country, strategy, what he wanted to do when he got to the Senate.”
“And how did things seem between Wendell and his wife?”
“I couldn’t have picked a better wife for a candidate.”
This was the first time anyone had said something positive about Janna.
“Really? I was under the impression she was a liability to him.”
“Not at all. Wendell was Louisiana aristocracy, born to privilege and power. So of course he’d be called an elitist. But his wife was young, beautiful, smart, engaging, with a charisma all her own. She was brought up poor, went to public schools. The bastard son could have been a problem, but when you balance that against an opponent who goes to prostitutes, it didn’t seem like such a big deal. And while Wendell was pro-choice, the fact that his wife chose to keep her baby instead of having an abortion was something we could work with. It made her even more appealing to voters. She could talk about what she went through, her decision to have the baby. Wendell was perfect. Janna was perfect. And with Cordelia out there campaigning—she’s part of what we call the Holy Trinity, along with Lindy Boggs and Marjorie Morrison—the Republicans wouldn’t have had a chance.”
“How did Wendell feel about Janna being involved in the campaign?”
“At first he was worried about how she’d do, how she would handle the pressure. I met with her a few times, and talked to her. She’s very bright, and learns fast. I like her a lot. We did a luncheon up in Baton Rouge where she spoke to the League of Women Voters. They would have elected her. After that, Wendell had no doubts about her.”
“Did they seem happily married?”
“I don’t know what went on when they were in private, but publicly they were a happy, loving couple.”
“What about his friends, the people he hung out with and confided in?”
“I don’t think he really had a lot of close friends. He knew a lot of people, but I don’t think you could call them friends.” Stephen shook his head. “I can’t help you there.”
“And you have no idea where he might have gone when he left here on Monday night?”
“Not if he didn’t go straight home.”
His cell phone rang, a tinkling version of Alice Cooper’s old hit “Elected.” He looked at it. “I have to take this. Do you mind?”
I offered him my hand. “Thank you.”
“Anything I can do to help, just let me know.”
“One last thing. Do you know how his first wife died?”
“She fell down the stairs and broke her neck. A terrible tragedy.”
He answered the phone.
I waved and walked out into the sunshine.
*
Within seconds I was drenched in sweat. I removed my shirt, tucked it through a belt buckle and walked down Melpomene towards home.
Grace Sheehan fell down a flight of stairs and broke her neck. Roger Palmer had fallen down a flight of stairs and broken his neck. This was too many coincidences involving the same group of people, and the common denominator was Wendell Sheehan. Abby had said it was almost like Roger Palmer’s death was a blueprint for Wendell’s, but there were more similarities between Roger’s death and Grace Sheehan’s. Was it possible that Wendell was somehow involved in both accidents?
At Coliseum Square, I looked to see if the car was parked in the same place, and cursed myself for being a paranoid idiot when it wasn’t. There was no reason for anyone to be staking out my house. But my job required me to be suspicious. If it was something, at leas
t I’d alerted Abby to it.
I climbed my steps and unlocked the front door. When I pushed it open, a large manila envelope skidded across the floor to behind my sofa. I locked the door behind me, picked up the envelope and carried it to my desk. I checked my phone for messages—there weren’t any—and sat down and opened the envelope.
It contained about thirty sheets of paper. Each sheet had photocopies of three checks drawn on an account titled WENDELL SHEEHAN, DISCRETIONARY FUNDS, and each check was for five thousand dollars. All of them were made out to Kenneth Musgrave. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. The top sheet was dated October 1, 1999. Each successive check was dated the first of the month, and every check was for five thousand dollars. Wendell had paid Kenneth Musgrave over five hundred thousand dollars in a little less than ten years.
Who the hell was he, and what was the money for? Blackmail? And who’d put the envelope through my mail slot?
Curiouser and curiouser, I thought as I turned on my computer.
Chapter Five
Loren McKeithen tossed the photocopied checks onto my coffee table.
“I have no idea who Kenneth Musgrave is, or what this is about,” he said. “It could be blackmail, but it could also be any number of other things. I don’t see what relevance it has to what’s going on now, though. You think this might have something to do with Wendell’s death?”
He picked up his tall glass of vodka tonic and took a drink. My own drink sat untouched on the table. Loren had finally returned my call while I was at the gym. It had been almost a week since I’d worked out (I find it good for clearing the mind). He always brought a bottle of premium vodka with him when he came to my apartment. He was one of those people whom drink never seemed to affect. I’d learned that it was best to be on my guard around him—and vodka, no matter how premium, was not my friend in that situation.
“There’s a reason the name isn’t familiar to you,” I said, ignoring his question. “I did some poking around after I got these. Kenneth Musgrave was Grace Sheehan’s half-brother. They had different fathers.”
“Then it was probably a family thing.”
I picked up my glass and took a sip. It was damned good vodka.
“Family members have stooped to blackmail before. Regardless, I’m curious as to who thought I should know about this—and why.”
“I’m sure you’ll get to the bottom of it,” Loren said.
He was a short man, about five-foot-five and always impeccably dressed, but he had a presence that made him seem much taller. He’d always had a bit of a paunch, and in the years since Katrina, it had expanded into a full-blown potbelly. He wore round-framed glasses and slicked his dark hair down, claiming it helped hide the balding. (It didn’t.) Like a lot of people in New Orleans with racial mixing in their genetic history, his skin was toffee color. He was probably the best criminal lawyer in town, and he was very active in gay politics. We’d been friends of a sort before our run-in during the last case he’d referred to me.
“I appreciate your taking on the case,” Loren said. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
Which is why you had Cordelia pressure Barbara into pressuring me, I thought.
“Which begs the question, why me?” I replied.
He smiled enigmatically. “I prefer to work with the best. What happened last time wasn’t personal. I want you to know that.”
It wasn’t quite an apology, and the compliment was meaningless. He’d throw me under the bus again if he thought it was in his client’s best interests. Loren’s first allegiance was to his clients. That made him a great lawyer, but also made him slippery to deal with. I’d made the mistake of trusting him once, and I never would again.
“If I’d thought it was personal, I wouldn’t have taken the case—and you sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting on my couch,” I said evenly.
“Fair enough.” He opened his briefcase and placed a file folder on the coffee table. “Here’s the autopsy report you requested.”
I resisted the urge to start reading it.
“Tell me, Loren, what exactly is the point of my investigation?”
“Didn’t Cordelia explain what she wanted?”
He kept his voice and face expressionless.
“If you’ll excuse my language, it was a bunch of horseshit.”
“Well, that’s honest, at any rate.”
“Which is more than I can say for either Janna or Cordelia.”
“Oh?”
“I know you can’t tell me anything, but if they gave the police the same stories, I don’t understand why Cordelia hasn’t been arrested. Scratch that. I do understand why she hasn’t been arrested.”
“You think the police are cutting her slack because of who she is.”
“You tell me. A man is shot to death, someone is found holding the murder weapon, her fingerprints are on the gun, her hands test positive for residue, yet she hasn’t been arrested. How often does that happen?”
“When you put it that way, it does look suspicious. Maybe it’s because she has the best attorney in New Orleans. Maybe it’s because she’s powerful and has a lot of friends in high places that owe her favors. If it were anyone other than Cordelia Spencer Sheehan, they’d probably be in jail. It’s not for me to say if that’s right or wrong. I work with what I have. My top priority is always the client. I’d have to say Cordelia’s position and standing are assets, and I’ll use everything I can to protect her.”
“You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed their stories don’t mesh. To believe them you have to accept that Janna and Cordelia are not only stupid, they’re incredibly stupid.”
“Smart people do stupid things sometimes, Chanse. It happens every day, and more often than you think. I seem to remember you handling a murder weapon fairly recently.”
“True, but when I handled it, it wasn’t a murder weapon.”
“Touché.”
Loren put down his drink.
“Put yourself in Cordelia’s place for a minute, Chanse. She’s a mother who walked into her own drawing room and discovered her son’s dead body. Obviously, she wasn’t thinking clearly.”
I took another small sip from the drink and put it down.
“You might be able to convince a jury of that, but I don’t buy it, and I don’t think you do, either. And we both know Venus and Blaine won’t believe it for a second.”
“Leave the legal strategy to me, Chanse. That isn’t what you were hired to do. Find someone outside the family to pin this on.”
Loren polished off his drink. I picked up his empty glass and went into the kitchen to mix him another vodka tonic.
“It seems to me that all Cordelia has to do is blame Janna, and all Janna has to do is blame Cordelia,” I said as I carried the drink back and sat down.
“What’s wrong with that equation, Chanse?”
When I didn’t answer, Loren went on.
“Cordelia’s gotten herself into a bad situation, certainly, and she may truly believe Janna killed Wendell. But the most important thing for Cordelia is to protect the family name. Apparently you didn’t grasp that when you met with her.”
“She came through loud and clear. I just don’t get it.”
“You don’t have to get it, Chanse. Just do what she wants. Wendell Sheehan had enemies. Focus on them.”
“Like Kenny Musgrave?” I said frostily.
“Bingo. I doubt that Cordelia herself slipped those photocopies through your mail slot, but she has plenty of employees. This Kenneth Musgrave may be Grace’s half-brother, but he isn’t a Sheehan. Neither Cordelia nor Janna will be available to you for future questioning.”
He held up his hand as I started to protest.
“I know what you’re going to say, but you need to look elsewhere. You won’t have access to either Mrs. Sheehan, and they aren’t going to let you anywhere near the kids. You’ll be fired first. The last thing you want to do is get on the wrong side of Cordelia Spencer Sheehan, Ch
anse. She’s a very vindictive woman—especially when it comes to her family. Just do what she wants. Stay away from them. Wendell had plenty of enemies.”
“None of whom had access to his wife’s gun or could have gotten into and out of the house without anyone knowing. And there’s another thing. Wendell’s whereabouts are unaccounted for during three-and-a-half hours that night. He left his campaign office at around eight. According to the Sheehans, he didn’t get home until eleven-thirty. It’s a fifteen-minute drive, tops.”
“Find out where he was and who he was with,” Loren said. “Check into Kenneth Musgrave. You might be surprised by what turns up.”
That sounded like I was being sent on a wild goose chase. This entire thing went against my grain, and I said so.
Loren laughed. “Once a cop, always a cop,” he said. “Nobody’s asking you to frame anyone, Chanse. Is it so hard for you to conceive that everything that happened that night happened exactly the way they said it did? Can’t you for one minute imagine that neither Janna nor Cordelia killed Wendell?”
“I’d find it a lot easier to believe if they weren’t lying,” I said.
“Open your mind to the possibility.”
Loren removed a check from his briefcase and passed it to me. I looked at it and put the check down on the table.
“Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money,” I said. “Is this a bribe?”
“For God’s sake, Chanse. No one is asking you to do anything unethical or immoral. What if, in the course of your investigation, you find out someone else did kill Wendell Sheehan? Take this check to the bank, cash it, and do what Cordelia wants. Run your investigation predicated on the idea that neither woman committed this crime. Presumption of innocence, remember? You just need to find someone—anyone—who had reason to want Wendell Sheehan dead, and who doesn’t have an alibi for the night of the murder. It’s a pretty decent payday—and it’s not a bad thing to have Cordelia Spencer Sheehan in your debt.”
He stood up, closing his briefcase. I went to see him out.
“And what if I find evidence that Cordelia or Janna actually did kill him?”
