Murder in the Arts District

by Greg Herren

  “That probably doesn’t sit well with Mrs. Topham.”

  “You bet your ass it doesn’t. But when I asked about the lawsuit, she wouldn’t share any details of the case itself with me. All she said was it was just another example of someone wanting something for nothing, and Sheriff Parlange would be completely justified in arresting the whole lot of them.”

  “Even though she thinks young Mr. Ziebell would be a catch from some of the belles in the parish?”

  “Oh, she doesn’t blame him for anything.” She laughed. “You see, she believes that Ed Byrnes, senior partner of the law firm suing the parish, is just using the case to make Sheriff Parlange look bad and further his own political ambitions, and he’s just using that poor old colored woman.” She scrunched up her face like she’d smelled something foul. “And yes, she did say ‘old colored woman.’ I suppose I should be glad she didn’t use the n-word.” She sighed. “Anyway, once I’d gotten everything out of her I could on that score, I asked her about the robbery. She claims that’s Ed Byrnes using old Mr. Marren to again make Sheriff Parlange look bad. Everyone, it seems, is out to get Sheriff Parlange, who’s just a good Christian man doing the best job he can for the people of the parish.”

  “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” I winced as I shifted again. I was going to have to take another pill.

  “Right? She also made it very clear that he runs the parish. No one gets elected to office without Sheriff Parlange’s support. He’s got the whole parish locked up tighter than a drum.” She dragged another onion ring through the remains of the ketchup puddle. “I didn’t think that kind of thing still existed in the modern world, but it clearly does in Redemption Parish.”

  “Interesting.”

  “So, I thanked her for her time and told her I’d call her if I needed anything else, and walked over to the courthouse, where I found myself a deputy who looked like he had trouble getting laid—it was really just a matter of picking one, you know, like shooting fish in a fucking barrel—and got him to join me for some coffee at the diner.” She took another bite of her sandwich, chewing noisily. “Deputy Sheriff Clay Perlange himself. He just happens to be a cousin of Sheriff Parlange’s wife. Nepotism is the only way that douchebag could get a job in law enforcement. Anyway—the homophobia is strong in this one, believe you me.” She smiled at me, an evil glint in her eye. “I switched tactics. I was still there doing a story for Crescent City, but with him, I acted like I was looking to dig up some dirt on Bill Marren. I told him that there were some questionable dealings with an art dealer in New Orleans I was looking into. Talk about priming the pump!” She scowled. “He also never looked at my face, if you know what I mean. Why any man would think a woman would think it flattering to have him talk to her boobs is beyond me. Deputy Clay Perlange is the kind of man who expects his women to be deferential and wait on him hand and foot—and trust me, he was no fucking prize.” She shuddered. “But good ole Deputy Perlange couldn’t spill dirt fast enough on the Marren-Ziebell household at Belle Riviere.” She took a big pull on the Coke bottle. She leaned back on the sofa, stifling a belch from the carbonation. “Man, living in Orleans Parish we forget sometimes how nasty the bigots can be, you know?”

  I nodded, choosing not to mention there were still plenty of homophobic bigots in New Orleans.

  “I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say fag,” she went on, opening another ketchup packet before grabbing a couple of onion rings and folding them in half before dipping them in the replenished puddle, “but Deputy Perlange—‘call me Clay, pretty lady’—dropped the word into casual conversation like it was no big deal, like decent people still say it. ‘Them fags out at Belle Riviere’ was how he referred to them. Them fags. I wanted to slap the snot out of him. I get no credit for restraint.” She chewed the onion rings and swallowed. “But to be fair, Chanse, much as I hate to be—clearly the sheriff’s department wasn’t about to lift a finger to help ‘them fags’ in any case—it really does sound like it was an inside job. I can’t for the life of me figure out how someone else could get in there to steal the paintings.” She smiled wickedly at me. “He promised to email me the crime scene photos, and there were no fingerprints in the place that weren’t accounted for—either they belonged to Bill and Tom or someone on their staff. And the alarm hadn’t been set? Really? Who does that?” She shook her head, then focused on her sandwich for a moment. “You were out there. The entire estate is surrounded by that brick wall. You have to go over the damned wall to even get into the place, and back over it to get out. There’s a code to open the gate, sure—but you’d have to know the code or someone has to let you in. They had to go in and out through the gate, Chanse. I mean, doesn’t it stink to you, too? And the only thing taken was those three Anschler paintings, nothing else—and there were plenty of other valuable paintings in that studio. Why go to all that trouble to only steal three paintings when you could clean out the whole place?”

  “Could the paintings have been rolled up? Maybe someone went over the fence. And if the other paintings were framed…”

  “The Anschler paintings not only were framed, Chanse, they were supposedly still in the crates. And the crates were gone, too.” She shook her head. “They were too big and bulky for one person to take, let alone go over the fence with them. And no one in the main house heard a car or a truck or anything. So how was it done, Chanse? I don’t think the paintings were ever there. They couldn’t have been stolen, so the only logical answer is they weren’t there to begin with.”

  “But why would they report them stolen, then?”

  “It really doesn’t make any sense. None of it does, Chanse. Why would they report them stolen, and then hire us?” She shook her head. “Seriously, Chanse—why would Tom not have turned on the alarm? And why is Bill so cavalier about the whole thing?”

  “Cavalier?”

  She gave me a look. “Chanse, what would you do if your boy toy didn’t turn on the alarm and you were robbed? And were lucky it wasn’t worse? Would you pat him on the head and say everything’s okay, don’t worry about it?” She laughed. “Hardly!”

  “You met him, didn’t you? What did you think?” When her jaw dropped I waved my hand. “No, I’m not psychic. He called me. We’re meeting later tonight. He mentioned meeting you.”

  “He’s hot,” she admitted with a rueful smile. “I can see why the old man paid for him to go to law school.” She exhaled. “Oh, I suppose that’s bitchy, wasn’t it? He’s good-looking, yes, but he’s smart and charming and funny.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “He kind of charmed me.”

  “He has that effect on people.” I popped the last stray shrimp that had escaped from my po’boy into my mouth and relaxed back into the couch. I’d eaten too much and could feel the lethargic state of deep-fried breading coming on. “What was this case he thinks is behind everything?”

  She blew a raspberry. “Yes, Deputy Dawg wasn’t too forthcoming about that one, believe you me.” She smiled. “I stopped by the parish newspaper office to talk about it. Again, it was like Mayberry, with racism. Though come to think of it, it was kind of odd there weren’t any black people in Mayberry, wasn’t it?” She laughed. “Anyway, the story is this. There’s an older black woman who lived in Avignon, she works mainly cleaning people’s houses. Nice, older lady who isn’t really very educated. Everyone calls her Miss Mamie—her name is Mamie Jackson. Mamie’s been taking care of her great-granddaughter LaToya pretty much ever since LaToya was a baby—her mother’s in jail, armed robbery or something, and Miss Mamie’s son won’t have anything to do with his daughter or her baby. So Miss Mamie, she has to be in her early seventies maybe?—anyway, Miss Mamie is raising LaToya and gets some assistance, because Miss Mamie doesn’t really make all that much money cleaning houses. Well, LaToya’s a bit wild. Long story short, the sheriffs went out to arrest LaToya, and Miss Mamie kind of got in the way. The sheriff’s story is Miss Mamie tried to assault one of his deputies, the deputy sh
ook loose, and Miss Mamie fell and hit her head. Miss Mamie is in a coma, and the firm Tom works for is suing the sheriff. LaToya claims they beat her—and frankly, from the sounds of her injuries, there’s no way she was injured in a fall.” She blew out her breath in frustration. “Tom is pretty sure a jury trial wouldn’t do any good—the people of Redemption Parish would never rule against the sheriff—so they are looking to sue in federal court, claiming Miss Mamie’s civil rights were violated.”

  I frowned. “I can’t believe that hasn’t made the news in New Orleans.”

  “I said the same thing to Tom, but he said that nobody in New Orleans is interested in anything that happens in Redemption Parish, despite its proximity to the city.” She made a face. “He’s said he’s tried to get the newspapers and TV stations here to cover the story but no one will.”

  “But if it becomes a federal trial, it’ll be held in New Orleans, won’t it?” I tried to think but couldn’t remember how federal courts worked. “But yes, I can see why the sheriff might want to bury this case…Would it be possible for the sheriff to have somehow gotten the code for the alarm?” I drummed my fingers on my knee. The heating pad was starting to cool down again, so I pressed the button to get it started again.

  She picked up the garbage, crumpled it all up, and shoved it into the greasy bag she’d taken it out of. She walked into the kitchen, stuffed the bag into the garbage can, and walked back out. “What do you want me to do now, boss? Do you think Collier Lovejoy’s murder is tied into all of this?”

  I grinned. One of the reasons I was grateful to have her working for me was she had a fine reasoning brain and was fiercely intelligent. Even though we were full partners, she still deferred to me on investigations we worked together. At first, it annoyed me because I thought she was either deferring to me as a man (as if she would ever do that) or because of age. But when I finally asked her about it, she just shrugged and said, “I think of you as the senior partner. It’s your business and you brought me in. If you don’t want me to be respectful, I won’t be.” She then rewarded me with a grin so evil it sent chills down my spine.

  I never asked again.

  “Well, the painter had ties to New Orleans and his daughter came here after the war,” I said. “I’d like to track Myrna down, see what she has to say about the provenance, maybe we can go about finding out about the paintings through the back door…find out what happened to them by tracing the estate of the daughter?” I rubbed my chin. “I could swear, though, that Bill told me the daughter”—I reached for my notebook, flipped it open to my notes and found her name—“Rachel Anschler left all of her artwork to the New Orleans Museum of Art.”

  She was typing on her phone as I spoke. “I should find out her local connections, right?” she asked as her thumbs flew over the phone screen. “Don’t you know someone who works at NOMA? Didn’t Rory take you to some parties there?”

  As a Delesdernier, Rory knew practically everyone in the greater New Orleans metropolitan area. His parents had been major area philanthropists ever since his father retired from politics when Rory was just a child. As a result, Rory got invited to practically every party imaginable in the city. “I think the connection at NOMA wasn’t Rory but his mother.” I thought about it for a moment. Rosalie Delesdernier and I had always gotten along. I never got the sense that Rosalie was uncomfortable around me or had a problem with Rory’s being gay. It was his father I was unsure about. Charley Delesdernier had spent most of his adult life in politics in one way or another. He was used to glad-handing people and being phony. There was always a sense of false bonhomie and I was never really sure where I stood with him. I had always been invited to all family holiday events, but didn’t feel comfortable enough to go.

  I’d always felt like a part of Paul’s family, which was another indication Rory and I had been doomed to failure.

  “I’ll call Rosalie, see if she knows anything,” I said. My back was starting to twinge again. I suppressed a moan.

  “Are you all right? You look kind of green.”

  I winced as I stood up. “My back—I need to go lie down, I think.”

  She got up and headed for the door. “I’ll see what I can find out about the local Anschler connection and let you know, okay?”

  I nodded, biting my lip. I closed the door behind her and turned the dead bolt.

  I groped my way down the hallway to the bedroom and collapsed into bed.

  Chapter Seven

  Coquette was on the uptown / riverside corner of Washington and Magazine.

  It was dark when I turned off Prytania toward the river on Washington, which is considered a main street because it has stoplights at the intersections where it crosses major streets. But unlike Louisiana and Jackson, Washington is an incredibly narrow two-lane street with potholes and low branches from massive live oaks. Parking is permitted on both sides of the street, so sometimes it’s impossible for two cars to drive past each other, especially when you’re trying to avoid a pothole so enormous it could break your front axle.

  I grinned as I passed one of the city’s finest restaurants, Commander’s Palace—because on the other side of the street from it sits Lafayette Cemetery Number One. I’ve always found it amusing that one of the city’s most renowned and famous restaurants has a lovely view of a graveyard.

  The food is pretty spectacular there, though.

  I grabbed a parking space on Washington in front of a Greek revival mansion sitting behind an enormous black wrought iron fence. My back was under control—back to the usual dull throb, but I gasped as I got out of the car as the wind blasted me and almost took my Saints cap off my head. It was very dark out; there was no moon in the sky, so it was velvety purple with pinpoints of sparkling lights strewn across it. The huge live oaks blocked what little light was coming from the street lamps. The flickering gas lights on the porches of the mansions cast weird shadows across the tilted sidewalk as the wind rustled the leaves and branches overhead. Some windows still had their twinkling Christmas lights taped to their frames while others were dark and shuttered. It was easy to see why people thought New Orleans was a haunted city and why so many authors wrote books about witches and vampires and werewolves and demons that were set here. I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my long black trench coat, aware that anyone glancing out an upper window in one of the houses and seeing me would think I looked like some kind of supernatural creature. The thought made me smile even though the wind was chapping my lips and turning my cheeks to ice as I walked the half block or so to Magazine Street.

  I could see the building that houses Coquette. It used to be an auto parts store or a hardware store in its past, I couldn’t really remember anything other than there used to be a big orange sign over the doorway. I avoid Magazine Street as much as possible—it’s a two-lane business street that runs from Canal Street to Riverbend. The traffic is always horrendous, as I’d learned when I first moved to New Orleans. Back then, there were stretches of the street that were abandoned with tumbledown buildings. Other blocks had been filled with junk shops masquerading as “antique” stores. But Magazine, like so many other parts of the city, had changed over the years. Now it was a major shopping district with amazing restaurants and coffee shops interspersed between higher-end boutiques and shops. Back when I first moved to New Orleans, a restaurant like Coquette on that corner wouldn’t have lasted a year. I’d only eaten there once, with Rory, his sister Rachel, and her husband Quentin. I’d been surprised by how good the food had been—but then a bad restaurant in New Orleans wouldn’t last a week.

  After Abby had left, I’d taken a Vicodin and lain down for a while until the pain had subsided. I’d spent the rest of the day going back and forth from my desk and my bed, carrying the damned heating pad back and forth with me. The Vicodin made it a lot harder to do the research I needed to do on my computer, as my mind kept wandering and I found myself following links that had nothing to do with what I was trying to find out, as anyon
e browsing the Internet is wont to do. Rosalie Delesdernier had been more than happy to give me the number of her friend at NOMA, a woman named Harley Walters who worked as the museum’s development director. It had been hard to get off the phone. Rosalie was feeling particularly talkative, more so than usual. When I finally made my excuses so I could hang up, she said, “Be sure you use my name with Harley.” She sighed. “It’s been lovely chatting with you, Chanse. I really have missed you. I was really hoping…oh, never mind, it’s none of my business, is it? But don’t be a stranger, Chanse. Maybe we could have lunch or coffee sometime? Just because things didn’t work out with you and Rory doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends.”

  “Thank you, yes, I’d like that,” I said before disconnecting the call. My mind started wandering down the Rory path—Why haven’t I heard from him since I canceled out on him? Maybe I should call him—and was even in the process of calling before I caught myself.

  You know it’s never going to work. You both know it. That’s why you broke up.

  I sighed and called Harley Walters’s number at the museum instead. After three rings it went to voicemail. I left her a brief message, mentioning that I’d gotten her number from Rosalie and that I was calling about the Rachel Anschler endowment. She hadn’t called back by the time I left the house to go meet Tom. I’d also put in a call to Serena Castlemaine’s number, on the card Todd had given me, but it had gone straight to voicemail as well. She was not only a cousin of my primary source of revenue, Barbara Castlemaine, but she’d also become friends with my best friend, Paige. I’d mentioned all three names in my message, but she hadn’t called me back either. One of the great drawbacks of being a private eye is people don’t want to call you back. I find it much more effective to just show up at their offices or homes, taking the chance they’d be there and available to talk.