Murder in the Rue Ursulines

by Greg Herren

“Hey, you have dinner plans? Ryan has his kids tonight, and I thought he should have some quality time with them.” She said. She’d been dating Ryan Tujague for a few months now. Usually she blew off a guy after a couple of dates, so this could be serious. I was happy for her. She’d had a rather checkered past when it came to men.

  I replied without missing a beat. “It’s really insulting that you only call me when your boyfriend blows you off, you know.” Paige and I met in college, and have been close ever since. Her favorite thing to do is give me shit—and over the years, she’s gotten really good at it. I don’t mind, because I know it’s how she shows affection. So I give her shit right back. People listening to us talk would probably think we couldn’t stand each other. Her sense of humor is a little warped, so we make a good pair. There’s nothing quite like watching a bad movie with her over a few joints and a bottle of wine. She worked as a reporter for the Times-Picayune, and had even been nominated for a couple of Pulitzer prizes. One of the paper’s biggest stars, she was remarkably humble about it. When people complimented her on something she’d written, she’d just dismiss it with a simple, “Just doing my job, but thanks.”

  She’s also been a valuable resource for me with her access to the paper’s morgue. Through her job, she met a lot of people in town—and for some reason, people liked to tell her things.

  Since the storm, though, she’d expressed a lot of dissatisfaction with her job, and was threatening to quit every other day. I doubted she ever really would—she loved being a reporter. I couldn’t imagine her doing anything else, to be honest with you. She loved New Orleans as much as I did, even though what she saw in the city while doing her job often broke her heart.

  “But alas, my social calendar is open—which is really a rather sad commentary on me, isn’t it? So instead of telling you to go fuck yourself, which is I what I should do, I’ll be more than happy to let you treat me to Port of Call.” I looked at my watch. It was just past one. “Say around six?”

  “Great. I could really use a Port of Call burger.” She let out a sigh. “I am having the shittiest day; you have no idea. I am about ready to kill someone—I’ll tell you all about it at dinner.” She moaned. “And I don’t mean Ryan.” She hung up.

  I found the list of phone numbers Frillian had given me. I dialed Glynis Parrish’s number. I stopped before pushing the ‘send’ button.

  They’d only hired me to find out who was sending the e-mails. They’d said nothing about confronting the person. Technically, my work was done. All I had to do was call Loren, let him know that the e-mails had been sent from Glynis’ computer, and the job was over. Five thousand dollars for taking a meeting and spending about twenty minutes playing Tourist Season was really a pretty decent payday. I’d have to return the rest of the retainer they’d given me, but I could just drop a check to Loren in the mail.

  But this had been way too easy, and that didn’t sit right with me.

  I couldn’t get rid of the feeling there was more going on here than just these e-mails.

  Just because Glynis’ computer had been used to send the e-mails didn’t mean that she had sent them. And they’d hired me to find out who had.

  I might as well get her side of the story before turning everything over to Frillian. They had said everything was fine between them and Glynis. It hadn’t quite rung true to me.

  I hope I don’t live to regret this, I thought to myself.

  I hit the send button on my cell phone and it started dialing.

  Maybe some day I’ll learn.

  Chapter Three

  As I maneuvered my car into a parking spot on Burgundy Street in the Quarter, I couldn’t help but think, Paul would have been so thrilled to meet Glynis Parrish. When he was alive, we used to watch her television comedy series together every Thursday night. It was one of our favorite shows—even the episodes that weren’t quite up to its usual standard of excellence were better than every other show on the air. She’d played a young woman just out of college who’d gotten a job at a sports magazine (obviously based on Sports Illustrated) and found herself in ridiculous situations almost every week.

  The show had run almost seven years before Glynis pulled the plug, deciding to try to make it on the big screen. It was odd that she’d gotten a role in a movie being filmed in New Orleans after her ex-husband and his new wife had been so public about moving here. It could, of course, just be a coincidence. After all, before the failure of the levees, New Orleans had been actively courting film and television series. With our economy in such a shambles since the disaster, the return of ‘Hollywood South’ had been a triumph for the city. I turned the car off and took a deep breath.

  Paul.

  It had been four years since he was killed, and while the passage of time had helped some, I wasn’t completely over it yet. I sometimes wondered if I ever would get over it. My therapist thought I was making progress, but I wasn’t quite so sure Since his death, I’d dated a couple of guys, trying to move on with my life, but one after another, the relationships fizzled out. My therapist suggested that they failed because I kept myself emotionally unavailable to anyone new. It sounded like pseudo-psycho bullshit to me, and whenever he brought that up, it never failed to piss me off. I’d made myself emotionally available to my last boyfriend, hadn’t I? And look how that had turned out. I’d started dating Allen, the guy who owned Bodytech, my gym, after the hurricane. It had gone well for a few months, but he’d eventually gotten back together with his ex. Things had been awkward at the gym for a while, but we’d somehow managed to get past it. My therapist thought that was a positive thing. I just figured it was easier to do than find a new gym.

  As I locked my car, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, willing the sadness away by focusing on the job at hand. Maybe someday I’ll be able to remember without getting sad, I thought, as I firmly closed and locked that door in my mind.

  Ah, progress.

  I started walking towards the corner at Ursulines. The house Glynis was renting was between Burgundy and Dauphine, in the lower Quarter. This part of the Quarter was mostly residential and quiet. You’d never know that the madness of Bourbon Street was just a short walk away. I didn’t expect Glynis to confess to sending the e-mails—that would be too much to hope for—and I decided to approach the entire subject in a non-threatening way. Frillian had claimed there was no animosity there, but I wanted to see how Glynis reacted to my questions. I wasn’t even sure how my clients wanted this whole thing handled, but I needed to find out who else had access to Glynis’s computer. As I rounded the corner, I decided the best way to play this was to be on her side, to act as if I believed she hadn’t sent them.

  The house she was renting was nice, but looked like nothing spectacular from the street. It was a one-story Creole cottage, painted a deep purple, with yellow shutters. There was no front yard; the house, like most in the French Quarter, was right on the sidewalk. It was a four-bay, with two sets of french doors and two sets of double-hung windows between them, their yellow shutters closed. Two large pots of trailing flowers hung on chains from the roof overhang.

  I climbed up the short flight of stairs to the set of doors on the right—where the doorbell was-- and stood a moment before ringing. Glynis had answered my call, and when I’d identified myself, she’d interrupted me, “Yes, yes, Freddy told me you might call. You might as well come over and let’s get this over with.” She hadn’t sounded pleased, but I could hardly blame her.

  I took a deep breath and knocked. I heard footsteps moving toward the front door.

  It swung open and I found myself looking down at a small, rotund woman with reddish-blonde hair. She was wearing a gray T-shirt with the Make levees not war slogan on the front, and a pair of black jeans. Her pale round face was covered with freckles, and she smiled, revealing slightly crooked teeth. Her greenish-gray eyes lit up, taking her from slightly plain to pretty. “Yes?”

  “I’m Chanse MacLeod,” I replied. “Here to see Ms. Parri
sh?”

  “Yes, yes, we’re expecting you.” She held out a small hand for me to shake. Her hand was soft, warm, and a little damp. “I’m Rosemary Shannon, Glynis’s personal assistant. Won’t you come in?” She stood aside to let me pass, and I walked into the sparsely furnished front room. A couple of wingback chairs faced a fireplace on the far wall, with a table in between them. There was a faded Oriental rug on the floor, and the walls were bare except for some Audubon reproductions. She closed the french doors and turned the key in the lock. “I’ve never met a private investigator before,” she said, looking me up and down, still smiling. “Your work must be terribly exciting.” She giggled— a surprisingly girlish sound for a woman I judged to be in her early to mid-thirties. Her voice also sounded younger than I would have expected, almost like that of a thirteen-year-old. She stared at me expectantly.

  “Not really,” I replied, giving her a little smile in return. “It’s not like it is on television.Usually, it’s quite boring.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she replied, the smile never wavering for a moment. “I used to want to be a private eye when I was young.” She laughed. “If you can imagine that. I wanted to be one of Charlie’s Angels.” She shrugged, a tiny movement. “Glynis is in her study. Come this way.”

  I followed her down a hallway that ran the length of the house, and she knocked lightly on the second door before opening it. “Glynis? Mr. MacLeod is here.”

  I walked into a beautiful room painted a dark emerald green. The fixtures were all brass, and the hardwood floors gleamed. A brass chandelier cast light into every corner of the room. The furniture looked expensive, but comfortable and lived in. Glynis Parrish was seated on a green and gold brocade sofa, the day’s newspaper spread out all around her on the cushions and the floor in front of her. She folded the section she’d been reading and let it drop to the floor. On the coffee table in front of the sofa stood a golden statue of a winged woman holding a globe—an Emmy award. Right next to it was a closed MacBook Pro laptop computer. She rose, and held out her right hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. MacLeod,” she said, giving me a warm smile.

  “Call me Chanse.” I said, shaking her small hand.

  She, like Freddy and Jillian, was diminutive. She couldn’t have been taller than five feet, and her figure was equally small, and almost girlish. She was wearing a very tight, low-cut tank top that emphasized her large breasts and deep cleavage. Her waist was small, her hips flaring slightly in her tight low-rise jeans. She was barefoot, her toenails painted red. Her dark brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing just a hint of blush. Her eyes were slanted, almost cat-like, and they glittered green in the light from the chandelier.

  She applied no pressure to the handshake, her hand limp and dry in my much bigger paw. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she looked tired. Her chin was dotted with small red pimples, and after I released her hand, she self-consciously ran her hand over her chin. Her nails looked ragged and chewed. “Please, have a seat. And call me Glynis.” Her green eyes flashed at me. She plopped back down on the couch. She folded her legs underneath her. She saw me looking at her Emmy and smiled. “You can pick it up, if you’d like. Everyone always wants to.” She shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  What the hell, I thought, bending down and hefting it in my right hand, grasping the winged woman around the waist. It was surprisingly heavy. On a gold band around the base were engraved the words Outstanding Achievement by A Lead Actress in a Comedy Series: Glynis Parrish in SPORTSDESK. I set it back down. “Thank you.”

  “Like I said, everyone wants to do that. The great aura of an award, I suppose. But then again, I take it with me everywhere.” The corners of her mouth lifted a little bit, her eyebrows arching up in self-mockery. “I was nominated seven times, but only won once.” She shrugged. “After winning, it didn’t seem quite as important as it did all the times I lost. Please, have a seat.”

  I sat down in a green wingback chair, sinking several inches down into it. She gave me a smile. “I don’t really know why Freddy wanted me to meet you, or why he needs a private eye, but I can never say no to him.”

  “Did you need anything else, Glynis?” Rosemary asked from the doorway.

  “May I offer you something to drink, Chanse? I have practically everything.” Glynis asked me in a pleasant tone. “The bar is quite well-stocked.”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “I’ll call you, Rosemary, if we need anything,” she said, dismissing her assistant without even looking at her. I heard the door shut behind me, and the sound of footsteps receding to the back of the house. She closed her eyes for a moment, her face expressionless, then opened them and smiled again. “I’m not having a good day, I must apologize to you in advance.” She sighed. “What can I help you with, Chanse? What’s going on with Freddy?”

  I cleared my throat. “Well, Freddy and Jillian—“ it took a conscious effort not to say Frillian—“have hired me to look into something, and I’m hoping you can help me out.” I made my voice sound as sincere as I could. Granted, I wasn’t in her league as an actor, but I could play a part too.

  “What’s this all about?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. “I have to admit, when Freddy called and was so mysterious about my talking to a private eye, I agreed to see you more about satisfying my own curiosity than anything else…” She shook her head, the ponytail flying. “We’ve been divorced for years now. And while we get along better than can be expected under the circumstances, I don’t mind admitting that I’m sick to death of talking about Freddy and his new wife.” Her voice dripped with scorn as she said the last three words. “I’m tired of being defined as the sad little wife he left for the glamorous superstar.”

  I put the file folder containing the printouts on the coffee table. “Someone has been sending Freddy threatening e-mails.”

  She looked me directly in the eyes. “And Freddy thinks I may have sent them?” She threw her head back and laughed the way she had on her show. “Oh, the arrogance! Some things never change. I guess he thinks I’m just sitting around pining away for him.” The catlike eyes rolled. “Trust me, Mr. MacLeod—Chanse—most days I don’t give Freddy and his wife a first thought, let alone a second. That was a hundred years ago, it seems. We’ve all moved on—even though the tabloids love the idea that I’m pining away. I can assure you that is most definitely not the case.” She scratched her chin again. “In fact, I’m seeing someone else now—I won’t say who, because we’re not ready to go public with our relationship. I’m sure you can understand why. I’m tired of being tabloid fodder. Was I upset when he left me for someone else? Of course I was! Who wouldn’t be? But I have moved on.”

  Considering her reluctance to refer to Jillian by name, I found that a little hard to believe. I cleared my throat and plunged forward. “Well, unfortunately, I’ve traced the e-mails to the computer they were sent from.” I leaned forward and removed the receipt from the folder and handed it to her. “They were sent from a Mac you bought..” I gestured at the laptop. “Is that your only computer?”

  “But that’s impossible.” She took the receipt and looked at it, then set it back down on top of the folder. Her eyes widened, her forehead creased. She shook her head. “I mean, that’s a copy of my receipt, but I can assure you I haven’t been e-mailing Freddy threats—or e-mailing him about anything, frankly. If I want to talk to him, I call him.” She made a helpless gesture. “I mean, yes, I have a website and I have e-mail, but I don’t usually use the computer for much of anything.” She shrugged again. “Most of the e-mail comes from my website, and someone in my publicist’s office takes care of all of that for me, answering it, sending out autographed pictures, things like that.” She picked up the folder and opened it. She pulled out one of the printouts and squinted at it. “This isn’t my e-mail account.” She put the folder back down with distaste.

  I hadn’t expected her to admit to sending the e-mails, so I went ahead with my game plan.
“I didn’t think so, honestly. Who all has access to your computer?”

  “Well, it’s always here in the house—I never take it on set with me. So, anyone who comes into the house could access it—but why would anyone do such a thing? That doesn’t make any sense. I mean, why my computer?” Her eyebrows came together and her face reddened a bit. “That’s simply intolerable.”

  “Someone could be trying to make trouble for you.” I replied, injecting sympathy into my voice. “Who regularly comes into the house?”

  “Well, Rosemary, obviously. She’s here every day, and sometimes stays over.” She rubbed her eyes, and leaned forward. “My housekeeper Cindy comes in three times a week and is here all day—usually when I’m on the set. She does the grocery shopping and makes meals as well as cleaning. My trainer, Steve Marren, comes by here when I’m not working. I have a massage therapist—Tony— who comes in twice a week. And of course, my director and cast mates stop by every once in a while.” She shrugged. “I’m not much for entertaining, frankly, but I guess any one of them could get on my computer without my knowing it. But why would they send…” she stopped, picking up the folder again and opening it. She paged through the e-mails. “These e-mails are absolutely vile.” She tossed the folder back down on the table, her face showing her distaste. She narrowed her eyes. “I most certainly didn’t write or send them. If they came from my computer, someone else had to have sent them.” She stood up. “ROSEMARY!” she bellowed, making me jump. She smiled at me. “Sorry.”

  The door opened and Rosemary stepped into the room. “Yes. Did you need something?”

  Glynis stood up in a fluid motion. “Rosemary, you haven’t been using my computer for anything, have you?”

  “Of course not!’ Rosemary’s face reddened.

  “If you’re lying to me—“

  “No, no, no!” Rosemary cowered, stepping back into the doorway.

  I stared at her. She acted like she was afraid of Glynis. I looked over at Glynis. Her hands were on her hips and she was breathing hard, her face red. Her eyes narrowed as she took a few steps forward. Rosemary visibly shrank. Glynis’s voice continued to rise as she spoke. “Have you seen anyone—Darlene, Brett, Charity, anyone—using my computer?”