Ill Will (40 page)

When I’d got here in the middle of the day, the garage was pretty full, but now with the doctors’ offices closed, it was empty. I’d parked on the next-to-top floor and there were few cars around. I looked at my phone. She hadn’t replied to my text.
It’s late
, I told myself,
time to get out of this empty area. I’ll catch up with her later and we can sort it out.

I got in my car. Before I pulled out I texted her number,
Hey, sorry we couldn’t meet. When do you want to reschedule?
It bothered me that she hadn’t replied. I wanted to see if something that needed an answer would get her attention. She had gone to a lot of trouble to set up this meeting.

I heard a vehicle start on another floor. Again my instincts kicked in and I slid down in my seat to make it look like no one was in my car. I kept my eyes on the rearview mirror, not even sure what I might see. I heard the rush of tires, someone going too fast for this space and a black SUV zoomed by in my mirror. It was speeding and my angle was too extreme for me to get more than that. Big, dark, I couldn’t even tell what make it was.

My phone chimed with the text message sound.
Everything is okay. We don’t need to meet
, from Lydia.

Now I was annoyed. If it was okay and no meeting was required, why hadn’t she bothered to tell me that before I’d come here? She couldn’t have known I was right across the street with Cordelia. If I hadn’t gone on her wild goose chase, I’d be home by now.

“Fuck you,” I muttered.

I heard another car start. I wondered if it was Lydia. Or just another odd coincidence. Cordelia had mentioned that she was driving some hybrid car—a blue Prius. I again slid down in my seat.

Again the car was going too fast, taking no account that anyone else might be pulling out. This time it was a blur of red, some fancy sports car. I waited until I could no longer hear the roar of its exhaust before sitting up and starting my car.

But instead of heading to the exit, I kept going up to the top floor. Why had those two cars been in such a hurry to get away? Probably because they wanted to get home in time for a TV show, but I was already here, my curiosity was piqued. This way I could have “closure” on my snooping. If the top floor was empty I could go home and not wonder about this ever again.

As my car nosed up around the last curve, it seemed that the TV show was the mostly likely reason. I didn’t see any vehicles, no one was up there. But then in the far corner I saw there was one car. Probably someone else who had come like I had, when it was parked up, and ended up in the last spot.

It was a small car.

A blue car.

A blue Prius.

Phone. Gun. Flashlight. The gun in one hand, the flashlight in the other. The phone was relegated to my pocket.

It was still most likely that I was overreacting, tired. Just yesterday I’d seen two red Mini Clubmans parked next to each other. There had to be more than one blue Prius in the area. And even if this was Lydia’s car, she might have had some emergency to deal with—either professionally or personally.

I looked carefully around before getting out of my car, but could see no one. I left the keys in the ignition, not even properly parking. Using the flashlight, I quickly scanned the parking lot, but the dark corners were empty save for a couple of soda cans and the contents of someone’s ashtray.

Now I turned my light on the Prius. Someone was in the car.

I didn’t move and neither did she.

No one in a big empty parking lot who has just had a bright light shined on them doesn’t move. Unless they’re setting a trap.

I edged closer. Still no movement.

A trap? Asleep? Dead?

I circled around from the back of the car to the driver’s side, still keeping a good ten feet away.

Now I got a clear look at the person. Lydia. Slumped over the steering wheel.

“Lydia!”

She didn’t answer.

“Lydia!” I called again. But now I was close enough to see the bullet hole in the back of her head and knew she would never answer.

I shoved my gun in my waistband, barely remembering to click the safety on, and grabbed my phone, hastily dialing 911.

I told the operator my location and my emergency. For now I kept it brief. I’d been at the hospital with someone, returned to the parking lot, and found someone slumped over in her car.

But it wasn’t that simple, nowhere near that simple. The shot was a professional execution. One bullet to the brain. Her purse had been emptied on the seat next to her. I was betting that was to make it seem like a robbery. Low-life thugs can certainly shoot their robbery victims, but not with this accuracy and precision.

Given the location, the paramedics were here almost immediately.

In the two minutes it had taken them to arrive, I had seen all I needed to see. Lydia was clearly dead, her eyes open and glassy, a massive amount of blood soaked into her seat. She was probably dead the minute the trigger was pulled. Her skin was warm to the touch; if it had the faint beat of life, she could be just sleeping. She hadn’t been dead long.

I moved away from them, properly parking my car on the far side, out of the way. I couldn’t leave, not until the police got here, but I had no interest in watching the futile efforts of the EMTs.

Several police cars arrived, sirens and flashing lights. I wondered why they needed them to spiral up seven flights to the top of a parking garage. One patrol officer asked me two yes-or-no questions—had I found the body and would I stay until the detective arrived.

I replied yes to both and then was left to wait. More cars arrived.

I didn’t recognize the detective who ambled over. But I did know his attitude—he seemed like he didn’t want to be here, and because he didn’t want to be here, he would make everyone else join him in his misery.

He didn’t introduce himself. “You’re damn lucky. This is why we tell people it’s not good to be alone in dangerous places. This was a robbery gone wrong. You could have easily been dead in your car.”

I’d been debating how much I wanted to let the police know. Selfishly, how involved I wanted to be. But also that this was turning into a complicated mess. Just my luck to have a police detective who clearly didn’t like complicated messes when he was the one to catch the case. He seemed to have already latched onto the quick and easy explanation—a robbery gone sour.

“What the hell were you doing up here anyway?” he demanded, the first question he’d asked after his lecture.

“I was with my partner over in the hospital,” I explained.

“Partner?” He squinted his eyes at me. “Business partner?”

“The person I live with.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

I didn’t see how that had anything to do with this investigation. “Why do you need to know that?”

“I ask the questions here. You don’t like it, we can go downtown.”

Power mad bastard. “She has cancer,” I said tersely.

“What, you queer?”

I stared at him. Most of the NOPD are pretty cool. They deal with Mardi Gras and Southern Decadence with aplomb, letting the leather boys pose with them for pictures. I get the one remaining homophobe. “I guess if you’re going to ask questions like that we’re going downtown. I need to stop by the internal affairs guys anyway.”

He stared at me. Finally backed down, “What time did you find the body?”

I glanced at my watch. “An hour ago, around nine thirty.”

“Can you be more exact?”

“Nine thirty-one.”

“What did you do?”

“Called nine-one-one.”

“Anything else?”

“Waited for the EMTs.”

“When did they get here?”

“Nine thirty-three.”

“You see anyone around here?”

“When I was getting in my car, two cars from up here came by. A dark SUV and a red sports car.”

“You get a look at the people driving them?”

“No, they were going far faster than they should have been and I just glimpsed them in my rearview mirror.”

“You weren’t parked on this floor?”

“No, one level down.”

“So what where you doing up here?”

“Got turned around and missed the exit.”

“And just happened to notice a dead woman in the car?”

“She wasn’t driving fast. I wondered about those two cars speeding out of here, so I looked carefully,” I explained. It was as close to the truth as I felt I could get with him.

“Next time you might want to curb your curiosity. You almost walked into a bad robbery. These punks don’t give a damn who they kill. They probably got twenty dollars from her.” He started stalking away from me.

“Pretty good shots for punks.”

He turned back. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

“Shot at the base of the skull. Professional execution.”

“You been watching too many crime shows.” He turned away and kept going.

I could pull out my license to indicate I knew more than the average Josie parked in front of
Law & Order
. But Nameless Asshole didn’t want a complicated case, and I would get the opposite of thanks if I pointed out the holes in his robbery gone wrong theory.

“Am I free to go?” I yelled.

He didn’t bother answering.

I took that as a yes. They could stop me if they really didn’t want me to leave.

They didn’t. No one even glanced my way as I drove off.

I was beyond tired by the time I got home. It had been an emotionally exhausting day. I shut my brain off, helped by gulping half a glass of Scotch and fell into bed, only pausing long enough to toss off my clothes. My teeth could survive missing one brushing.

But the alarm clock woke me early—I had set it—and the events of yesterday loomed over me.

Cordelia was in the hospital. I needed to get up there and see her.

Lydia was dead.

Lydia hadn’t sent the text.

I had the kind of hangover that doesn’t come with alcohol. In retrospect, I should have just jumped through whatever hoops Nameless Asshole would have required for me to give him all the info. Lydia and I were supposed to meet last night to look at records and see if someone was cooking the books. She hadn’t showed. She had been what I thought was paranoid about secrecy, worried that someone might find out she suspected. Someone wanted her silenced.

Someone had walked up to her car, put a gun against her skull, and pulled the trigger. It had probably happened so quickly, she had no time to react. If she was lucky, she had no time to think and realize she was about to get killed. It had been a cool, professional hit.

If she had died shortly before I found her, then it was likely that the two cars I saw had something to do with it. If she had been dead for a while, then maybe it was just coincidence that they left around the same time. She was parked in a dark area—or had the light been destroyed? I saw her because I was looking. Most people would have just gone to their cars and left.

A dark SUV and a red sports car. I had seen a dark SUV and a red car out in New Orleans East. No, it wasn’t the same. The car out in the east had been a very high-end car. Even though I’d managed only a glimpse, this one was not nearly as fancy.

And how could these two cases be connected anyway?

But they could. Reginald Banks had been a patient with this group and he had taken The Cure. For the kind of money he was making, Grant Walters had to be doing more than NBG and selling The Cure. How about insurance fraud? That would be a moneymaker.

He would have the connections to bring the kind of professional who killed Lydia. He could even be that kind of killer. His eyes were hard and flat, as if people were only to be used or shoved out of his way.

The only thing that didn’t make sense was the text. That was amateur. Someone panicking and hoping that a few words could make it all go away.

I grabbed my phone and replied,
Okay, cool. Glad things are okay. You have a great weekend.

It was a long shot—the phone was probably in a landfill by now, but I wanted them to think their ruse had worked. Meth heads like Dudley were bad enough, I didn’t need a pro after me as well.

I felt numb, surrounded by circling events that felt like they were spinning out of control.

I forced myself to eat a good breakfast, resisting the urge to add a Bloody Mary to it.

Cavalry. That’s what I needed.

Really wanting that drink, I picked up the phone and dialed Joanne. She wouldn’t be happy that I’d made a mess for her to clean up—withholding information from an asshole. But it was info the cops needed to have, otherwise Lydia would be another victim of a senseless robbery and no one would look any further.

“What?” she answered the phone.

I gave as brief an explanation as I could. The silence when I finished didn’t bode well.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Not giving me time to answer, she said, “Look, I’m in Baton Rouge, I’ll deal with it Monday when I’m back in the office.”