by Greg Herren
She replaced the tarp and waved for me to follow her. Somehow, I managed to get back to my feet and start walking. My mind was numb, but that was better than hysteria. Doc is dead, Doc is dead, Doc is dead kept running through my head like some kind of twisted refrain.
I followed her until we were standing underneath Doc’s balcony. “At least this time you didn’t find the body,” she said, her face impassive. She folded her arms. “No offense, but I was hoping I’d never see you again.”
“None taken. I was kind of hoping the same thing, to be honest.” I turned and looked back at the corpse. “What happened, Venus? Did he jump?”
Venus’s face didn’t move. “We’re trying to figure that out, Scotty. When did you last speak with him?”
“I—I just talked to him this afternoon.” I leaned against one of the balcony support posts and took some deep breaths. “Oh, no, no.”
The numbness was starting to spread through my body. I made an effort to pull myself together. I wasn’t going to allow myself to melt down in front of Venus Casanova, no matter how justified it was.
“This afternoon? How did he seem?”
“The same as always.” I shook my head. “Fine. He was perfectly fine. I was heading up the street to ride in the Easter Parade. I walked under his balcony—” Was it just six or so hours ago? I swallowed again. “And when I came out he dumped water on me. He invited me up, gave me a towel, and I hung out with him for a little while. I was afraid I was going to be late, so I left and he invited me to stop by again tomorrow afternoon.” I looked at her. “He wouldn’t have done that if he was planning to—you know.” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “And I can’t believe in six hours he would have gotten depressed enough to—you know.”
Venus watched me, and when I had myself back under control, said, “How did you know him?”
“He’s an old family friend. He taught my parents in college.” I turned my back on the street. I didn’t want to keep looking at his body. “I’ve known him my entire life. He is—was—a really great guy—a little cranky sometimes, but he was old, you know?” I thought of something. “He walked with a cane, Venus. He had hip problems, I think it was—and he also had heart problems. I think he had a mild heart attack last December. I don’t think he could have climbed over the railing. No way.” As the words came out, I knew what they meant.
The only way he could have gone over the railing was if he’d had help.
That made it murder.
But why would someone want to murder Doc?
“You’re sure he gave you no hint of any trouble this afternoon?”
I thought for a moment. “You know, he got a phone call while I was there. I don’t know who it was—he took it in another room. But when he came back his face was flushed and he was having trouble breathing. At the time, I just thought he might be having another one of his attacks, you know? I wasn’t sure, though, because I wasn’t completely sure what was wrong with his heart. I think it was a heart attack.” I was babbling, so I clamped my mouth shut and stopped talking. I wrapped my arms around myself. I was shivering.
“You think it may have been the call that upset him so much?”
I nodded. “It had to be. I was worried about leaving him. But after a few minutes, he was back to normal, so I thought he was okay.”
Venus looked out into the street for a moment before turning back to me and shrugging. “At first, it seemed pretty clear that he jumped. But when we saw the inside of his apartment…” She let her voice trail off. “You’re positive he couldn’t have jumped?”
“He couldn’t have jumped.” I kept my voice steady. “There was no way he could have climbed over the railing. He wasn’t that agile.”
She nodded, her face impassive. “His apartment was ransacked,” Venus went on. “Would you know if anything was missing? Can you come up and take a look?”
“I could try.” I thought for a moment. “Although my mother”—I swallowed. Mom. Someone was going to have to tell my parents—“would probably be better, or his maid. He was kind of a pack rat.” I shrugged. “He kept everything, and the place was really cluttered. You think it was a robbery?”
“You mind taking a look around?” she asked, ignoring my own question. “We’re going to need to take your prints, too—if you were there this afternoon, we need to rule your prints out.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go.”
I followed her down the passage to the back stairs. The numbness and shock were starting to wear off. I still was having some trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that Doc was dead. I was also dreading having to call my parents and tell them. When we reached the staircase, Venus turned and asked, “Did he have any relatives?”
“He has a sister up in Vicksburg, I think.” I shook my head. “He never really talked about her much. But my parents—they’d know.”
Venus nodded and started up the stairs with me right behind her.
I don’t know what I was expecting to see when we got up to the apartment, but it was a shock.
Ransacked wasn’t a strong enough word for what had happened to Doc’s apartment. It looked like a bomb had gone off inside. The back parlor, where I’d toweled dry earlier, was completely destroyed. The couch and the chairs had been slashed. Their stuffing spilled out of the rips and was scattered all over the floor. Tables were overturned. Books had been pulled down from the shelves and scattered all over the carpet. Some of them had been torn apart, their pages scattered here and there. The big mirror on one wall in its gilt frame had been smashed. His bric-a-brac, once carefully arranged on tabletops and on the shelves, lay everywhere. Some of it was in pieces. Art had been removed from the walls. Some of it had been ripped from the frames and tossed aside like so much junk. Other frames still held the art, but the glass had been smashed, the prints scarred and slashed. The floor was covered with shards of glass that glittered in the light. My jaw dropped. “Oh, wow,” I whispered. “This is awful.”
Venus just nodded. “You said Garrett was an old family friend?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did he have any enemies?”
“Doc?” I turned back to her in disbelief. “No. Well, yeah. He used to feud with other historians, but it was all academic stuff. He used to talk about it some, but I really didn’t pay a whole lot of attention. But to kill him? And do all this?” I shook my head. “I can’t believe someone would be angry enough over an academic dispute to do this.”
“You’d be surprised what people will do,” she deadpanned.
“I guess,” I replied dubiously, trying to remember what the last feud had been about. We’d been at Mom and Dad’s for dinner in January. Doc was telling us about some scathing critique he’d done for some historical magazine about some book about—what had it been? I hadn’t paid much attention; it all seemed kind of silly to me. “Someone had written a book about the occupation of New Orleans during the Civil War—I don’t remember who or what the name of the book was, but—” I closed my eyes. I could see us all sitting around Mom and Dad’s table. Frank was next to me, and had been rubbing my calf with his foot under the table. Mom, Dad, and Doc had been at the other end of the table. “The book was a defense of Spoons Butler, and Doc was furious about it.” He had been. His face had reddened and he had pounded his fist down on the table a few times to accentuate his points. Benjamin “Spoons” Butler, or Butler the Butcher, had been the military dictator of New Orleans after the city fell to the Yankees. He’d been called “Spoons” because he used his authority to steal everything he could get his hands on—even the silverware. A hundred and fifty years later, Butler was still reviled in a city that never forgot. “Apparently, he’d shredded the book and its conclusions. He really enjoyed that kind of thing, frankly.”
She made a note on her pad, and asked, “I know it’s a mess in here, but can you tell if anything is missing?” When I shook my head, she walked into the hallway.
I followed her. The mess was
just as bad in the hallway. I didn’t see how anyone could tell if anything was missing—not even his maid would be able to tell. Room after room was more of the same. Not a single book was left standing on a bookshelf. The art had all been yanked down from the walls. Not a single chair or couch had escaped being slashed to pieces. Drawers were open, their contents dumped on the floor. I tried not to step on anything, but glass crunched under my feet with every step.
“Some of this art is really valuable,” I said, pointing at a ruined canvas tossed into a corner, scarred from the broken glass. “That’s an original Dureau, it’s worth a lot of money. He lent it for a show at the Museum of Modern Art last summer.” I shook my head. “This couldn’t have been a simple robbery. The art is worth a lot of money, Venus. Why would they damage it rather than steal it? It doesn’t make sense. Whoever did this was looking for something.” A thought tried to form in my mind, but slipped away.
“You have no idea what they could have been looking for? Was there something really valuable he had hidden somewhere in the apartment?”
I shook my head. “No, Venus, I’m sorry. I just don’t know.”
I heard a voice in my head. The entire place was torn apart.
Levi’s grandfather’s place had been trashed, too.
I put that thought aside. It didn’t make sense.
I walked into his bedroom. The mattress and box springs had also been slashed and tossed off the bed. The bed covers were piled in a corner. It was more of the same. The floor was covered in debris from shattered bric-a-brac, destroyed books, and framed art. The carpeting had even been slashed methodically.
“They had to have done this before they killed him,” I said aloud.
Venus nodded. “That’s what we think. This kind of destruction took time. Once he went off the balcony, they only had a few moments to get away before someone called the police—they certainly didn’t have the time to trash the place and get away.”
I winced at the thought of Doc having to witness all of his belongings being destroyed. “Unless he was already dead when they tossed him.” But that didn’t make sense, either. In fact, tossing him off the balcony seemed kind of dumb. While the balcony was certainly high enough for the fall to be deadly, there was also no guarantee the fall would kill him. He could have landed in any number of ways that would have caused serious injuries that might not have been fatal. And if he was already dead, why throw him off the balcony in the first place? They could have just left the body in his apartment, and there was no telling how long it would take before he was found. It could have been days before anyone noticed he was missing. He wouldn’t have been found until his maid showed up.
“Was Garrett in the habit of hiring hustlers?”
“What?” I spun around and stared at her. “I can’t imagine…” My voice trailed off. As long as I’d known Doc, he’d never had any romantic entanglements of any kind. I’d never even been sure he was gay. And while I could hardly picture Doc sitting in a bar hitting on someone, it was equally impossible to imagine him hiring a hustler. He was so fastidious I couldn’t picture him letting a hustler into his home. “I’m not even sure he was gay, Venus. But on the other hand, I can’t imagine him at the Catbox Club tipping the women there.” But surely, he had to have some kind of sexual outlet. Everyone did—whether they liked to admit or not. But I couldn’t picture Doc hiring hustlers, or even letting one into his apartment. He was so fastidious…but maybe he associated sex with being dirty… I put that thought out of my head with a shudder. I didn’t want to go there. “Maybe my mother would know, but I don’t.”
She shrugged and gave me a little half-smile. “Just making sure. All the nudes here in the bedroom are male.” She leaned down and picked up one. “But these are more artistic than pornographic.”
I leaned against the wall. If Doc weren’t already dead, hearing this conversation would give him a stroke. I started to laugh, knowing it was completely inappropriate, but I couldn’t stop myself. The laugh sounded strange to me, and before I knew it I was crying.
Venus just stood there watching me until I got hold of myself.
“Sorry.” I wiped at my face.
“Are you okay?” she asked, not unkindly.
“It’s just a bit much.” I sighed. “I mean, not five hours ago, I was sitting with him in the back parlor, just talking, you know? And now he’s dead. Maybe if I hadn’t left—”
She shook her head. “Then you’d most likely be lying next to him in the street.” She shrugged. “This wasn’t the work of just one person. And there were no signs of forced entry—Garrett let his killers in.”
“Oh God.” I started to retch, but took some deep breaths until it passed.
“And whatever it was they were looking for, they didn’t find it.” She went on, kicking a picture frame out of her way as she headed back to the bedroom door.
The frame skittered across the floor, smacked a book, and flipped over face-up just a few feet away from me.
A young male face in military dress blues stared up at me.
I caught my breath as I recognized the face.
I’d just looked at it earlier that afternoon in a different picture.
Three young GIs in a jungle base camp, mugging for the camera.
I knew he’d looked familiar.
Doc was Moonie.
“Venus!” I called, kneeling down next to the picture. I picked it up, staring at it.
There was no question about it. Doc was Moonie, the friend Levi’s grandfather had sent him to New Orleans to find.
Marty Gretsch had been tortured to death, his house ransacked in much the same manner as Doc’s apartment.
My instinct had been right.
“Yes, Scotty?” Venus said from the doorway.
I stood back up and took a deep breath. “You’re going to need to talk to my upstairs neighbor, Venus. His name is Levi Gretsch, and his grandfather was murdered a few months ago…and his house was trashed the same way.”
Venus raised an eyebrow. “And the connection is?”
“His grandfather wrote him a letter before he was killed, telling him to come to New Orleans and find an old army buddy of his.” I swallowed, pointing down at the picture. “He hired me this afternoon to help him find his grandfather’s friend. All he had was a nickname and an old picture of three Army buddies. Doc was one of the three soldiers—the only one who was still alive.” I sighed. “I thought the guy in the picture looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. The picture was forty years old. And I never saw this one before.”
“All right, let’s get moving.” She gave Blaine some directions I didn’t hear, and we walked down the back stairs.
We walked the two blocks to my apartment in silence. My mind was racing. Surely it couldn’t have been a coincidence that Levi had rented the apartment upstairs from me, and was looking for a man who just turned out to be an old friend of my family? But it had to be coincidence. If he’d known Doc was Moonie, he didn’t need to hire me to find him.
I hate coincidences, but they do happen. In a city like New Orleans, they happen a lot. Levi had said his grandmother was from New Orleans, had gone to school with Millie. Doc was from Vicksburg, had lived in New Orleans for forty years. Maybe that was the connection. Maybe Doc had introduced Marty to his bride. But why didn’t Marty just tell Levi in the letter who Doc was? Maybe he was afraid whoever was after them would find the letter…which meant Levi might be in danger. If the same people had killed his grandfather and now Doc…
I tried to remember every little bit of our conversation, tried to get a sense of whether Levi had been lying to me. I tried to remember his tone of voice, his body language, everything he’d said and how he said it. He’d seemed a confused young man, torn with grief and confusion. Unless he was an incredibly gifted actor, I was pretty sure my impressions were correct.
What the hell was going on? What had the three GIs done over there?
I got my keys out to unlock the iron do
or at my house, but it wasn’t latched.
I turned to Venus as I reached out and pushed the gate. It swung open, hit the wall, and swung back. I put my hand out to stop it from shutting.
Millie and Velma were sticklers about making sure the gate was locked. If the gate was left open, anyone could just walk down the passage and would have easy access to the back stairs—and everyone’s apartments. Millie had even put a spring lock on it so it would slam shut. The only way the gate could be left ajar was if someone had deliberately tried to keep it from shutting.
Millie and Velma would kill for far less than that. Velma had lectured me more than once about the importance of keeping the door closed. “Leaving it open, for any reason, at any time, is grounds for immediate eviction.” Her tone made it clear she was not joking. “Anyone could walk in here. Anyone. And I don’t really want to be robbed, raped, or killed simply because you got careless.” I’d gotten the message, and had passed it along to Frank when he’d moved in. I was certain Levi had gotten the same lecture.
No one who lived in the building would leave that door open.
I looked at Venus. “This isn’t good. I know I shut the door when I left. I heard it slam.” I explained how security conscious my landladies were.
Her eyes narrowed as she flipped open her phone and called for backup. She pulled her gun and slipped the safety off. “He’s on the top floor?”
I nodded.
“Stay here.” Her heels made no noise as she moved down the passageway. “When the squad car gets here, let them know I went in.”
I stood there in the doorway, my armpits clammy with cold sweat. A couple of cars drove past heading uptown. I could hear music from a live band playing at Checkpoint Charlie’s on the other side of Esplanade. Some people were hanging out in front of Charlie’s, drinks in hands, talking and laughing loudly. Further up Decatur Street, I could see street kids camped out in front of some of the closed shops, spare changing people going from bar to bar. The night sky was clear of clouds, stars twinkling in a sea of deep blue velvet. The wind still felt cold and damp. I shivered and rubbed my arms.
