Royal Street Reveillon

by Greg Herren

  “You know Amanda?” Serena asked.

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” I replied, and the other woman rose from her chair to offer me her hand.

  “I’m Margery’s daughter, Amanda,” she said, our hands barely touching. She gave me the phoniest smile I’d seen in years. She sat back down, smoothing out her black silk Phillip Lim skirt and crossing her long legs. She wore a peach silk Phillip Lim T-shirt, and her shoes were peach leather Jimmy Choos. Her legs were, frankly, extraordinary, and she was tall enough—and beautiful enough—to be a supermodel. Her skin was flawless, and she’d pulled her chestnut brown hair back from a widow’s peak into a chignon. A perfectly round diamond hung from each ear on a two-inch gold chain. There was a golden squirrel pinned to her left shoulder, studded with diamonds. Her makeup was perfect, accentuating the strong cheekbones in her heart-shaped face, and her waist was so tiny that it almost didn’t seem human. She pursed her lips as she took a sip from an enormous crystal martini glass with two speared olives sunken at the bottom of what must be highly expensive gin.

  She was the woman I’d seen with Billy at the premiere party on Friday night.

  Despite my request for water, Margery handed me a martini glass filled to the absolute brim with the same liquid. “You do drink gin, don’t you?” she asked as she settled into her own chair, picking up her own glass and taking an enormous swig. “I do love a good gin, don’t you?”

  I took a sip. It was perfect—but then, why wouldn’t it be? Margery Lautenschlaeger was probably one of the definitive experts on liquor in a city where practically everyone drank heavily every day. I took another sip and set the glass down carefully on a gold coaster with the Black Mountain Liquor logo on it.

  “You were at the premiere Friday, weren’t you?” Amanda asked, leaning forward in her chair. “I think I saw you there?”

  I nodded. “Yes. I was with my nephew.”

  “The poor boy Eric drugged,” Margery replied with a slight shake of her head. “I’m so sorry that happened. How is the poor boy doing?”

  “That was the boy?” Amanda made a face. “The police don’t think…” Her voice trailed off.

  There was something about her that wasn’t quite right. But I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

  “He’s still a suspect, of course, but the police pretty much have ruled him out as one…or so they say.”

  Anger flickered across Amanda’s face. “You can’t trust the police, Mr. Bradley.”

  “Call me Scotty, please.” I took another sip of the martini, glad I’d decided to Uber rather than drive.

  “Serena tells us you’re a private investigator, Mr. Bradley,” Margery said, glancing at her daughter with what looked like concern. “And you are looking into the murders? To try to clear your nephew?”

  “Murder investigations are best left to the police,” I replied carefully. “But yes, I’m doing some digging around, see what I can find out.”

  “Do you think the murders are connected?” This was from Amanda. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Serena was watching her closely.

  Interesting.

  “It would make the most sense if they were.” I turned to Margery. “Have the police talked to you?”

  “Me?” Margery looked surprised. “Why would they talk to me? I wasn’t even at that stupid after-party. I came directly home after the premiere.”

  “I mean regarding Chloe’s murder, sorry.”

  “That bitch!” Amanda exploded. “No one is sorry to see her dead!”

  “Amanda!” Margery snapped, giving her a dark look. Amanda looked down and started playing with the hem of her skirt. “Forgive my daughter. She’s very protective of me, and this frivolous and absurd lawsuit Chloe was threatening me with…well, it was all nonsense, of course. My attorneys—and the network’s—assured me she and her husband wouldn’t prevail in court.” Her eyes glittered. “I wasn’t worried about that. They were just trying to make a lot of noise. The network, of course, came up with an absolutely ridiculous compromise…” She waved a bejeweled hand. “I’m sorry I said it, I shouldn’t have said it, but that woman.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry she’s dead, of course, and I feel terrible for her husband, but Chloe Valence had a very trying personality. She deliberately tried to provoke arguments with people and certainly never took any responsibility for her own actions.”

  She still doesn’t know the lawsuit wasn’t real. Probably best, I decided, not to be the one to tell her.

  “You talked to Remy, didn’t you?” Serena asked in the silence that followed.

  I nodded. “Yes, and he’s devastated. He has an alibi for the time she was killed, and for the time Eric was killed, as well. He was out of town.”

  Serena and Margery exchanged a glance. “But Remy was the only person who had a motive to want to kill them both.” Margery leaned forward in her chair. “So, if Remy couldn’t have done it, maybe he hired someone.”

  “Maybe it was that Vandiver creature,” Serena finished her martini and popped one of the olives into her mouth. “They were both awful women, but they certainly hated each other far more than they enjoyed torturing us.”

  “The two women didn’t get along?” I asked. “Was it real, or was it for the show?”

  “Maybe someone is killing all the Grande Dames,” Amanda said with an icy grin. Her eyes glinted. “If so, they certainly started in the right place.”

  Serena had gone almost completely pale. She got up and refilled her glass from the pitcher on the sideboard, plopping another two olives in to the glass and heading back to her chair. She took a healthy gulp once she was sitting down. “Jesus, Amanda. Don’t say things like that out loud.”

  “You said Fidelis and Chloe hated each other?” I said again, looking at Margery. “Is that true, Mrs. Lautenschlaeger?”

  “Margery,” she said, emptying her own martini glass and setting it back down. “Call me Margery, Scotty. And yes, it’s true. It went deeper than just a storyline for the show.” She sighed. “Why I ever let you talk me into going on that horrible show, Amanda, I’ll never know. If this stupid lawsuit wasn’t bad enough, murder?” She rubbed her eyes. “I shall never leave this house again.”

  “Drama queen.” Amanda shook her head. She gave me a not-pleasant smile. “Pay no attention to my mother.”

  “It was your idea for your mother to be a Grande Dame?”

  Amanda nodded. “They originally asked me, but I thought Mother was better suited to it.” She shrugged, her shoulders lifting slightly. “These shows all have a formula, you know, and when Eric Brewer told me who had already agreed to do the show, I knew that Mother was a better fit—they didn’t have an older woman to be the voice of reason, to be a mothering influence on the rest of the cast, to, you know, pour oil on the troubled waters and smooth out differences and disagreements between the women.”

  I nodded. I knew exactly what she meant. The best example of “older voice of reason” on the Grande Dames shows was Alison Flax on the Manhattan franchise. Alison was a wealthy widow who mentored the younger women, always available for advice, mediation, and support. Alison Flax was the gold standard women on the other franchises patterned themselves on—and always came up short. She had parlayed her enormous popularity into a nationally syndicated call-in radio advice show and had published several best-selling books.

  “Obviously, I was wrong,” Amanda finished grimly. “Rather than calming things down, Mother jumped into the conflicts with both feet.”

  “That’s a little unfair,” Serena said. “Amanda, you weren’t always around. You don’t know how awful those two bitches were to your mother.” Serena turned to me. “Almost from the very start, they both were gunning for Margery—and the rest of us, too, for that matter.” She patted her lacquered hair. “And each other.”

  “I couldn’t believe how rude they both were to me, in my own house,” Margery continued. “I’m curious to see how much of that will actually be on the show, should they eve
n bother to air the show now.” She looked at her hands, folded in her lap. “Maybe that would be the best thing for everyone, really.”

  “Is that a possibility?” I asked.

  “The network is considering that option,” Serena replied. “It’s kind of in poor taste to air a show where one of the women has been murdered, I suppose.”

  “The entire show is in poor taste,” Margery snapped. “And yes, Scotty, they were horribly rude to me at my own party. If it had been one of my actual parties—not something being filmed for the show, I mean, I would have tossed them both out. But that’s neither here nor there, I suppose.” She rubbed her forehead. “And now murder. More than one murder. Anyway, I shouldn’t have let either of them get under my skin the way they did.” She shook her head. “But of course, we also have those awful production people trying to stir up animosities. I shouldn’t have said what I did about Remy Valence, no matter how much his wife aggravated me, even if it is true. I was mortified.”

  “It’s about time someone called Remy Valence out as a gay man,” Amanda replied with a laugh, her eyes gleaming maliciously. “And on camera!”

  “It was hilarious!” Serena laughed along with her. “You should have seen the look on Chloe’s face—it was priceless. When the episode airs—if it airs, I suppose—you can bet I’ll watch that scene over and over.” Her smile widened. “It was brilliant.”

  “It wasn’t my proudest moment,” Margery admitted. “But I’m not sorry I did it. She needed to be put in her place. And then for her to act all wounded.” Her face twisted. “Besides, it’s not like everyone in New Orleans doesn’t already know about Remy and his little apartment in the Quarter.”

  I hadn’t known, but it didn’t surprise me.

  “If you have things you don’t want the world to know, you don’t go on a reality TV show,” Margery went on. “I knew that’s how it all worked, you know—if I had any deep dark secrets, I wouldn’t have done the show. But Chloe—”

  Amanda cut her mother off. “Chloe thought she could have her cake and eat it, too. You know she put herself through college as a stripper over in Biloxi, don’t you?”

  “I’ve heard that,” I said, very carefully, “but I was never sure if it was true.”

  “Oh, it’s true.” This from Serena. “That’s where she first met Billy Barron—and where she first started sleeping with him.” She shook her head, and her earrings caught the light and flashed fire. “That’s why she and Fidelis hated each other, you know. They were both sleeping with him, all these years—even when he was married.” She waved her hand. “His wife had no idea what was going on—she took him to the cleaners in the divorce, you know—but if she’d known about the other women?”

  I didn’t want to let on I already knew this. “So, Fidelis and Chloe were both involved with Billy Barron?”

  But before anyone could answer, Margery stood up. “I’m sorry, but I’m feeling terribly tired. My apologies, Scotty, it was delightful to meet you at last. Give my best to your grandmothers.” She paused on her way out, examining a chair. She looked back at us. “That Fidelis Vandiver and her stupid tanning bronzer. She got it all over my furniture, ruined some of it. This chair…” She shook her head, then swept out of the room.

  The woman knew how to make an exit.

  “The bronzer is why I call Fidelis the human stain.” Serena laughed.

  “I knew she wouldn’t go through with it,” Amanda said with a sigh.

  “That doesn’t mean you can’t,” Serena replied.

  “Let me ask you something.” I leaned forward in my chair. “You seem pretty certain that Chloe was a stripper—”

  Serena interrupted me. “She wasn’t just a stripper, she was a whore.” She nodded at Amanda. “Give it to him.”

  Amanda opened her purse and pulled out a manila envelope, which she passed over to me. “Go ahead, open it up. I paid good money for this stuff.”

  I opened the envelope, sliding out a stack of photographs. The one on top was Chloe—a much younger Chloe, to be sure, but it was easily recognizable as Chloe. She was stark naked, sitting on a bed with her legs spread wide.

  “Talk about morally corrupt,” Serena sneered. “The tramp.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Five of Wands

  The courage to fight for what’s right

  Frank and Colin love lecturing me about the rules of working as a private eye. And to be fair, Frank had over twenty years with the FBI, and Colin…he’s kind of a gay James Bond for hire.

  Me? I was a personal trainer and go-go boy.

  “Everyone,” Frank told me once, “is a suspect, no matter what you may think you know about them and their motivations.”

  But the killer is almost always a close family member.

  As I waited for my Uber in the dimly lit foyer of Margery’s castle, I felt ruling her out as a suspect was a pretty safe bet. She certainly wasn’t tall enough to swing a baseball bat at Eric’s head. Chloe had also been more on the tall side. Margery hadn’t been at the party, either—although she could have gotten one of the key cards from someone else.

  She was certainly rich enough to hire someone, though.

  And maybe that was the solution to the time frame problem—she could have hired two killers.

  But she didn’t have a good enough motive. So she hadn’t known the lawsuit was a phony storyline for the show…but even if it were real, how much could the Valences have gotten out of her? I didn’t know how rich she was, but both liquor companies were printing money. She was considered one of the richest women in the South—not just in New Orleans. Hadn’t she just donated several hundred thousand dollars to the New Orleans ballet?

  The lawsuit was nothing more than an inconvenience, and people didn’t commit murder over inconveniences.

  Her daughter, though…

  I pulled out my phone again as my Uber came through the front gates and started up the sloping driveway. I walked out on the front porch, waved, and glanced down at my phone.

  No messages, no missed calls, no text messages.

  Frank, where the hell are you?

  I pulled up Brandon’s contact information again and hit Dial as I walked down the front steps to the idling car, a black Honda Civic. This time the driver looked to be a college-age young man, with a bright smile and smattering of pimples spread over his very pale face.

  I said hello as I got into the front seat. I hung up when Brandon’s voice mail picked up again. No sense in leaving yet another message.

  We were just passing the Superdome on Claiborne when my phone chimed. I fished it back out of my coat pocket to see there was a text from Frank: Sorry, didn’t mean to worry you. I went for a run to clear my head.

  I rested my head against the cold window. Hallelujah.

  No worries, on my way home, I replied. I was still planning on ripping him a new one, but it could wait till I got home.

  No sense in typing it all out with my thumbs.

  I opened my social media apps, typed in Taylor’s name, and looked through his home pages. Nothing had been posted since we left for the party on Friday night. His last update—be jealous, bitches! Off to see the premiere of the Grande Dames of New Orleans! #ilovemylife—choked me up a little.

  Had I but known, we’d have stayed home and watched it when it aired, like everyone else.

  Come home, Taylor, wherever you are.

  The manila envelope Amanda Lautenschlaeger handed me was resting in my lap. I didn’t know if the pictures were relevant, nor could I quite understand why Amanda had thought it was important that not only see them but have copies. So Chloe had a bit of a sordid past? Paige had hinted at the same thing Friday night.

  I didn’t see how the pictures were relevant, other than letting me know Amanda Lautenschlaeger hated Chloe.

  There was something…not right about her.

  I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but I hadn’t imagined it.

  The way her eyes kept flicking back a
nd forth, the strange half-smile, the absolute hatred that dripped from her voice when she talked about Chloe…

  Some background checking on that one was definitely in the cards.

  And Megan, Fidelis, Amanda, and Billy had all gone to high school together. Diva approached Amanda first, but she’d turned them down, recommending Margery instead. That also didn’t seem right.

  Why wouldn’t Brandon return my calls?

  He wasn’t flirting with you Friday night. You’re way too old for him anyway.

  Yeesh, how I hate that voice in my head! I sighed. The driver put in his ear buds and started talking on his phone. He turned right onto Esplanade.

  I shifted the envelope in my lap. I guess my reaction to Chloe’s nude photos wasn’t quite what the ladies had been expecting. Naked pictures—in this day and age who doesn’t have nude pictures floating around out there?

  Sure, they were explicit—you couldn’t pull the old but it’s art argument with these. This was porn. But celebrities leak their own sex tapes all the time. Enterprising paparazzi could, if patient enough, get a nude shot of almost any star.

  And that’s not even taking sexting into consideration, or the myriad hookup apps. How many young athletes had nudes from hookup apps go public?

  Quite a few.

  And the websites catering to celebrity nudes were legion.

  Almost every day I got a push notification my phone from some gay “news” website it seemed like some other singer or actor or celebrity or whoever’s NUDE PICS HAD LEAKED!!!!

  Yawn.

  I don’t care about Justin Bieber’s dick pic or anyone else’s.

  I prefer the real thing instead of a picture any day of the week.

  So why did they think it was pertinent for me to see—let alone have copies of—nude pictures of Chloe obviously from her college days?

  If anything, it made me more sympathetic to her.