by Greg Herren
“But Chloe—”
“Chloe was sleeping with Billy,” Paige replied. “Amanda thinks Billy belongs to her.”
But what about Eric Brewer’s murder?
“Paige knows how to reach me,” Megan said. “If you need me.” She got up and walked out of the coffee shop.
“Oh, and it gets better.” Paige flipped through the file and pulled out another printout, which she pushed across the table. This was a copy of an old police report. It was a criminal assault case—and the person being charged was Amanda Lautenschlaeger.
The victim was Jane Barron, and the date on the report was twenty years ago.
“Jane Barron was Billy’s first wife.” Paige said.
I read the incident report.
Mrs. Barron was returning from an evening out with some of her coworkers (they work at a real estate management company). According to Mrs. Barron, Ms. Lautenschlaeger was hiding in the bushes at the Barron home, waiting for her to come home. She attacked her with a baseball bat, but Mrs. Barron was able to get away, running over to a neighbor’s and taking refuge in their home while Ms. Lautenschlaeger screamed incoherently outside. Suspect was still screaming on the front lawn when squad cars arrived, and armed with the bat. Suspect surrendered bat without incident and didn’t resist arrest.
A baseball bat.
Just like Eric and Chloe.
“Are you okay?” Paige asked. “Seriously, dude. You look terrible. Is it because Taylor was there when Eric was killed?”
I exhaled. “Taylor’s father tried to kidnap him and haul him off to a gay conversion therapy camp run by someone from his church.” I ran my hand over my head. It sounded crazier when said out loud.
She looked horrified. “That’s still a thing? What the fuck is wrong with people?”
I nodded. “Well, it’s in Mississippi,” I said, with the typical Louisiana contempt for our neighbor state. “We were lucky to get him back without having to get the police involved.” I shrugged. “We still might press charges. If Taylor wants to, I mean. He’s already had a hell of a weekend.”
“It’s going to get worse,” she replied grimly. “His name is starting to get out there as the guy who was with Eric the night he was killed.” She lowered her voice, checking around to see if anyone was within hearing range. “I mean, it was already out there, but it’s starting to pick up steam. I saw him mentioned on one of the Diva gossip blogs a little while ago, and someone found his Facebook page and his Instagram…” Her voice trailed off as I pulled out my phone and texted Frank: Taylor needs to lock down his social media. Paige says his name is getting out there.
Frank: Will do.
“If there’s anything I can do…”
“Thanks,” I replied. “If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.”
She shuffled through the pages again and pulled out another. There was a grainy, poorly reproduced picture, but the caption was clear: Newman High School Homecoming King Billy Barron and Queen Amanda Lautenschlaeger were crowned last night in the school auditorium. Billy is on the football and baseball teams, and Amanda is a Newman cheerleader.
The look on Amanda’s face as she glanced adoringly at Billy was…at first glance, it looked like any other picture of this type: two happy, excited teenagers enjoying a highlight moment of their high school experience. But a closer look—the look on Amanda’s face was both sly and possessive at the same time; she didn’t look…
She didn’t look sane.
It was a bad reproduction, of course, and it might have just been something else, just a weird moment captured based on the timing of the picture being snapped; who hasn’t ever had a picture taken where they look completely insane, one step away from being put in straitjacket? God knows there are plenty of those of me in existence, most of them preserved forever in my Jesuit High School yearbooks.
“Do you think Amanda killed Chloe and Fidelis?” I said.
“I think she’s obsessive about Billy Barron,” Paige replied. “And they were killed with what were probably baseball bats. And both women were currently involved with Billy Barron…and Fidelis knew about Deborah.” She folded her arms. “Wouldn’t hold up in court, but it’s a good theory, don’t you think?”
I touched the article about the assault on Jane Barron. “Is she still around?”
Paige grinned. “Remarried, lives Uptown with her second husband and family. You think maybe we should drop in for a visit?”
I looked at my watch. “Tell you what, let me run home and check on Taylor, see how he is…and if he’s okay, you’re on.”
“Excellent.” She stood up. “Let me get another cappuccino.”
I braved the cold, hurrying and almost bumping into several other pedestrians who also weren’t paying any attention, their heads bent against the cold. The air was frosty cold, and damp. It felt like it was getting colder as I hurried down the passage from the gate to the courtyard. As I climbed the steps to my apartment, taking them two at a time, I couldn’t stop wondering about Paige’s theory, and the biggest hole in it.
Why would Amanda Lautenschlaeger kill Eric Brewer?
It didn’t make sense.
Maybe there was a problem stemming from her helping cast the show? I made a mental note to try Brandon again.
The heat from my apartment felt fantastic when I opened the door and headed down the hallway. I could hear Rhoda talking. When I reached the living room, Rhoda and Lindy were back on their computers, both looking up and smiling at me. Frank was sitting in one of the wingback chairs. There was no sign of Taylor or his mother.
“Where’s Taylor?”
“I gave him a Xanax and sent him to bed,” Frank replied. He looked utterly exhausted, and I couldn’t say I blamed him in the least. “My sister…” He sighed. “I sent her back to her hotel room.”
“Did Taylor talk to her?”
Frank shook his head. He looked like he’d aged ten years since I’d seen him last. “I sent her on her way before he got here. She had the decency to understand he might not be thrilled to see her.”
“How did he seem to you?”
“Hanging on by a thread.” Frank shook his head sadly. “I just hope he’s not going to be scarred by this.”
“By finding out that his parents are even worse than he already thought they were?” I said without thinking.
Frank flinched.
I sat down on his lap and kissed his neck. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I know she’s your sister.”
He nodded.
“Are you going to be okay?” I filled him in on what Paige had found out. “We’re going to go talk to Jane Barron, see if she can fill in some gaps about Amanda.”
“Go. I’ll stay here in case Taylor needs me.”
I thanked the Ninjas again for rescuing Taylor, giving them each a hug and kiss. “I’m going to interview a potential background witness,” I said, “What are you two doing?”
“Trying to see if we can find Colin,” Lindy replied. She stood up and Rhoda slid into the chair, her fingers flying across the keyboard. Lindy stretched, her back cracking. “It’s very weird…but until we know something for sure…”
My heart sank. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not,” she replied with a shrug. “There seems to be a blackout on Blackledge operations, and it’s worldwide. No one’s heard anything, no one’s talking, and no one knows what’s going on.” She exhaled and looked over at Rhoda. “I’m worried about Colin, honestly.”
I took a deep breath. “But he always lands on his feet.”
She nodded, but she wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Yes, he does. And we’ll keep looking. Go.” She added in a whisper, “And don’t worry—we’ll stay here to keep watch on Frank and Taylor.”
“Thank you,” I whispered back.
She grinned. “What is the point of knowing Ninja Lesbians if you can’t put them to good use?”
Chapter Twenty-one
The Sun, Reversed
&nb
sp; Future plans clouded
“Yikes,” Paige said, glancing up at me. She looked pale. “These are revolting, and I didn’t think I could be shocked anymore.” She started flipping through the photos of Chloe again, her eyes wide. Every so often she’d stop, swallow, and shake her head. “My God.” She whispered finally, slipping them all back into the envelope and fastening it closed, “I think I need some brain bleach.”
I sipped from my cappuccino. I probably didn’t need more caffeine—my heart was beating a little too fast, and my mind was bouncing from one crazed thought to another.
What I needed was to take a Xanax and sleep for about three days, but that wasn’t an option—not with the possibility of Russian assassins showing up at any minute as I was hoping that Colin was okay and alive wherever he was and would stay that way, worrying about Taylor’s mental and emotional health, needing to figure out what to do about his mother…
On top of the murders. Because that’s just how things go in my life.
At least I felt safer knowing Lindy and Rhoda were watching the apartment. You can’t do better than Mossad agents when it comes to security.
A crazy laugh bubbled up. Taylor’s awful father and his partner in homophobic crime sure didn’t see the Ninja Lesbians coming.
I was only sorry I couldn’t be there when housekeeping discovered them in the morning, bound and gagged in the wreckage of their room.
Go ahead and file a police report, assholes. See how that works out for you.
Frank was right. There was no way they could without implicating themselves in a kidnapping.
At least they had plenty of time to come up with a story for the maid when she showed up.
“I didn’t like her when we worked together at the paper,” Paige went on, pushing the envelope across the table to me, shuddering slightly.
“What was she like?” I asked, pushing everything else out of my mind and forcing myself to focus. “Remy loved her…but I’ve not heard anything positive about her from anyone.” Which was kind of sad.
Paige made a face. “I feel like…well, like such a bitch now.” She ran a hand through her mop of hair. “I’m not—have never been—patient with what I see as bullshit, and Chloe was just so full of shit.” She pointed at the envelope. “Those pictures prove I was right, but it doesn’t make me feel better. I can’t imagine where she must have been in her life—what must have been going on with her—that resulted in those pictures being taken.” She barked out a laugh. “Those aren’t artistic nudes—I had friends who made money modeling nude for artists in college. You can’t claim those pictures have any value other than…” She shuddered again. “Fueling masturbatory fantasies.”
“Nudity doesn’t shock me,” I replied. “But those are…they need to be burned. I don’t even want to turn them over to Venus and Blaine.”
“The negatives aren’t there anyway,” Paige pointed out. “Destroying those won’t get rid of them forever.”
“Yeah.”
“Poor Chloe.” Paige stared into her coffee cup. “At the paper she was—I guess the right word is prissy.” She rolled her eyes. “Very uptight, like there was a stick shoved so far up her ass you could see it when she opened her mouth. Maybe it was a reaction to her past.”
“You mean like how someone can be a big partier and then find religion, and they’re more hung up about it than people who’ve been religious their whole life?”
“Exactly like that. You know, she actually put up one of those swear jars—you know, so if you swore you had to put a dollar into it? In a fucking newspaper office!” She smiled faintly at the memory. “I made a big show of putting a twenty in it as a prepayment, and then just stood there and talked as loudly as I could about how fucking stupid a fucking swear jar was…and that was the last of that. God, I was such a bitch. I should have been more supportive of her…but she drove me nuts.” She tapped her fingers on the table. “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t support other women…but Chloe…she wasn’t good, you know? She wasn’t a good reporter. She flirted and played up to all the guys, and she didn’t support other women, but that doesn’t excuse my behavior.” A flush began spreading up from her neck to her face.
“No sense in beating yourself up over it,” I said, but clearly she needed to get it out of her system.
She went on like I hadn’t spoken. “There were rumors around the paper, of course, that she’d been a stripper at one of the men’s clubs in Biloxi, that she’d worked as an escort…and of course, when she was promoted to editor, people said she’d slept her way into that job, too.” She exhaled. “Instead of shutting that shit down I listened to it—what does that say about me? It was typical misogynist bullshit…but the truth was she wasn’t qualified for the job and she didn’t deserve the promotion. Maybe she was just better at office politics than the rest of us.”
“Did you read her book?”
“Crazy White People? Of course.” She fiddled with the lid of her cup. “It was terrible, you know, typical white savior bullshit…but I was jealous.” She looked at me. “I have three unpublished novels in a drawer in my apartment.”
“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “She quit working at the paper when she married Remy?”
Paige nodded. “That was when she wrote her book. She wasn’t quitting because she got married but so she could write her book.” She rolled her eyes. “I know she meant well with it, but…white people solve racism books are so 1950s, you know?”
“Apparently there’s still a market for them.”
“I think she was genuinely surprised when the backlash came, and of course they canceled the film version.” Paige rubbed her temples with her thumbs. “I didn’t like her, but now that she’s dead I’m kind of second-guessing that, I suppose. Maybe I could have been kinder to her while she was alive. Maybe…”
“Maybe your instincts were correct,” I said, staring into the bottom of my now-empty cappuccino cup. “My mother always says how much she hates the hypocrisy of death; how an awful person dies and then everyone cries about how wonderful they were when they actually weren’t.” Mom’s always pragmatic, if a little callous at times.
“Yeah, if someone hadn’t killed her, I’d still loathe her.” She laughed. “That, though”—she pointed at the envelope—“now I can’t help feeling sorry for Chloe. Digging those pictures up was some serious dirty pool for Margery to pull, and especially for reality television. This franchise of the show…Lord.” She waved her hand. “Oh, I know people have parlayed sex tapes into reality stardom and made entire brands and careers from it, but that wasn’t what Chloe was doing. I don’t know how she thought being on the show would improve her brand as an author…maybe some publicity for her next book, but…these pictures,” she swallowed, “would have destroyed her in New Orleans. She was all about being a Garden District lady, even though she wasn’t to the manor born.”
It was one of the great reality show mysteries: why go on a reality show when you have skeletons in your closet?
Because they always wind up on camera.
“All right, enough about Chloe. Fill me in on Fidelis.” I took the file folder from her and slipped it into my backpack.
“She was also killed sometime after the party on Friday night, maybe early Saturday morning,” Paige replied with a shiver. “They didn’t find her until today, when her cleaning service showed up—she didn’t have someone in every day. According to the cops, there were no signs of a break-in, nothing was taken. She was in her nightgown and robe, on the floor of her living room. Just like Eric and Chloe, struck in the head with a blunt instrument with terrific force…a blunt instrument they think was most likely a baseball bat.”
“What about the security guard?”
Paige looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “What security guard?”
“At the guard shack. No one gets into English Turn—”
She cut me off. “She doesn’t live in English Turn anymore. She bought a house in old M
etairie and moved a few months ago.” She rolled her eyes. “Moving back to this side of the river was part of her storyline for the show.”
As a fan of the Grande Dames shows, I shuddered inwardly. There was nothing more tedious than a Grande Dame building a story line out of finding a new place to live…but tired as those stories were, they popped up on every franchise almost every season.
“The cops are still canvassing the neighbors, but last I heard, no one had seen anything out of the ordinary.” She shivered again as she finished her coffee. “Producer and two of the cast, all killed on the same night with the same kind of weapon.”
“If it was the same killer, he had a busy night,” I said idly. “From the Aquitaine to the Garden District to old Metairie.”
“He or she,” Paige said grimly.
“You’re sure it was Amanda, aren’t you?”
Paige nodded. “She killed someone when she was a teenager, Scotty. Deliberately. And her mother bought her out of it. She went after Billy’s wife with a bat. That can’t be a coincidence.”
Or, I thought as we got up to go, someone’s doing a great job of framing Amanda.
Paige’s car was parked about two blocks away from Café Envie, and we walked as quickly as possible. As we shivered in her car while waiting for the heater to start blowing hot air, she commented, “Hard freeze again the next two nights, and it may snow tomorrow.”
Snow in New Orleans is rare—so rare, in fact, that when it does happen no one knows what to do. The city literally comes to a screeching halt. City hall and city services shut down; they sometimes even close I-10 through the city. Most of our pipes aren’t insulated, so hard freezes mean having to leave faucets running slightly so the pipes don’t freeze and crack. Houses in New Orleans are built for comfort in our miserably hot and humid summers and are designed to be colder inside than outside. Heat rises, so when you turn on the heat it just rises up to those gorgeous eighteen-foot-high ceilings. The cold creeps in through the windows and the wind somehow finds every crack and crevice. Instead of running up the power bill in a futile attempt to heat up the apartment, it’s just easier to put on layers and bury yourself under blankets.
