Authors: Greg Herren
“You were following the people following us?” I gave Colin another dirty look. Seriously, would it have killed him to tell me they were protecting us?
Colin winked at me as Lindy nodded. “Of course. Fortunately when we got the call from Tel Aviv about being loaned out to Blackledge, we were already in the States.”
“Yes, thank you for ruining our vacation in beautiful Palm Springs,” Rhoda deadpanned, smacking Colin on the arm. “First one we’ve had in years, and of course we don’t even get to relax in the sun for two full days before we get the call.”
“Can I help it if I wanted the best?” He leered at her.
She smirked. “Well, it’s true that we’re the best, of course.”
“Good work, thank you.” Colin replied as we reached the body under the live oak.
He was lying facedown in the mud and was wearing all black. He looked to be about six feet tall or so, and in pretty good shape. He was wearing a black stocking cap on his head. There was a bleeding hole in his back and a pool of blood puddling in the dirt beneath him.
“Not a professional,” Rhoda said contemptuously. “Definitely an amateur. He was easy to spot on your tail, and the shooting? Pfah.” She pointed back to the house. “Look at the ridiculous angle he was trying for! He would have to be a trained sniper to make that shot—or incredibly lucky. And a trained sniper he was obviously not.” She shook her head. “Why he did not wait makes no sense to me. Or why he did not lie in wait for you at the bottom of the stairs, where he could get off clear shot at short range—it makes no sense.” She shrugged. “Amateurs.”
I looked in the direction she was pointing and could see she was right. It was a ridiculous angle to try for. He could have easily hidden between the cars. From there, even if he opened fire when we came out onto the back gallery, he could have had a clear and easy shot.
I turned at the sound of footsteps coming up behind us on the sidewalk. Venus Casanova and her partner Blaine Tujague were coming up behind us. “How did you get here so fast?” I asked. “I didn’t hear your car.”
Venus’ face was impassive. “We live on Coliseum Square.” She gestured over her shoulder with her left hand. “Just a few houses down from here.”
I did a double take. “Together?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but no—I live in the carriage house behind Blaine’s house.” She waved her hand. “That doesn’t matter. So, what do we have here?” she asked, kneeling down next to the body as a pair of squad cars came racing around the corner at Martin Luther King. “Who shot him?”
“That would be me.” Rhoda stepped forward, and nodded. “He was shooting at Abram and Scotty—”
“Colin,” Lindy interjected, and Rhoda looked nonplussed for a moment.
“It’s all right.” Venus held up her hand. “I know his real name, but for simplicity’s sake—and my case file—we’ll just call him Colin, shall we?” She took her notepad out of her jacket pocket. “Blaine, you take the women. I’ll talk to the locals.” She gestured with her head to the left side of the tree. We walked over and waited while she gave the patrolmen instructions. As they started taping off the area, she walked across the wet grass toward us, an expectant look on her face.
“Scotty didn’t know Lindy and Rhoda were trailing us,” Colin said before either Venus or I could say anything. “I mentioned we were getting some backup, but I didn’t tell him they were here.”
“And why didn’t you?” I glared at him. “You scared the crap out of me with all that stuff about the car following us, when you knew all along—”
“Stop!” Venus said in her “I’ve had enough of this crap” voice, holding up her hand. “This is my investigation and I don’t want to hear any gibberish. Let me ask some questions—and I’m not going to tolerate any sidetracking, got it?”
We both nodded.
“First off, does this have anything to do with the Tara Bourgeois or Marina Werner murders?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I mean, I think so, but—”
“It’s possible.” Colin cut me off. “Yesterday a car tried to run us down on Bourbon Street—and today, when we drove out to the Dove Ministry, what appeared to be the same car followed us out there.” He shrugged. “After we had dinner in Metairie, I thought I saw the same car following us down here. Turns out I was right—Rhoda and Lindy had that car in their sights the entire time.”
“And what exactly are you doing down in this neighborhood in the first place?”
“My aunt Enid lives in that building right there.” I pointed at the house. “Those are her windows on the second floor. We had some questions for her, and when we came out, this guy started shooting at us.”
Venus’ right eyebrow drifted up a bit, as did the right corner of her mouth. “An interesting woman.”
To say the least
,
I thought. “She was at the memorial service tonight at Dove Ministry for Marina and Tara—we wanted to know why. Why weren’t you and Blaine there? Don’t the cops always show up at memorial services for the victim?”
Venus rolled her eyes. “We were ordered not to.” She shrugged. “Even though the two cases are definitely linked by the gun, Kenner has refused to give up jurisdiction on the Werner murder. We’re refusing to give up jurisdiction on the Bourgeois murder. We’re kind of at an administrative standoff.”
“Dear God,” Colin replied. “What is it with Americans being so goddamned territorial? Isn’t catching the killer the most important thing?”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Venus smirked. “But that’s a fight going on with the higher-ups—the ones who want to be on TV every chance they get. This is a big case, Colin. The Kenner detective in charge of the Werner investigation went to the Academy with me—I’m godmother to his kids. So we’re sharing information.” She glanced over as the crime lab truck drove up. “Don’t go anywhere. Excuse me for a minute.”
“Like we’d go anywhere,” I muttered. On the other side of the live oak I could see Lindy and Rhoda gesticulating while they spoke to Blaine, who looked confused.
Then again, that was a pretty normal expression for him. He’s not one of my favorite people.
“I think we should tell Venus what we know, trade information,” Colin whispered to me.
“What do we know?” I looked at him. What the hell was he talking about? “And she’s not going to—” I stopped talking as he got a smug look on his face. I knew that look.
“She will.”
I sighed as Venus made her way back over to us. “Does the name Roger Kennicott mean anything to either of you?”
“Is—
was
that his name?” I shook my head. “I’ve never heard of him.”
“Me, either,” Colin said. “Venus, I think we should all pool our information—I can get a background on this guy a lot faster and more thoroughly than the NOPD.”
Her eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth. She closed it again with a sigh. “And if I say no, you’ll just make a call and I’ll wind up having to anyway, right?” She sighed resignedly. “For the record, I find that to be incredibly irritating.”
“Catching the killer is the most important thing, right?” I pointed out.
She nodded. “Go ahead, see what you can find out about him. His driver’s license number is LA 1000352.”
Colin winked at her and walked away from us, pulling out his cell phone.
“I’m sorry,” I commented. “We must drive you crazy.”
“Yeah, well—believe it or not, you’re not the biggest pains in my ass.” She laughed and looked back over at the body. Camera flashes were going off as the medical examiner poked around. “But Colin has resources I can’t access, and like you said, catching the killer’s the most important thing. I don’t give a damn who gets credit, you know?”
“You’ll get the collar, Venus,” I pointed out. “We can’t arrest anyone, after all. You don’t really think Emily killed Marina Werner, do you?”
She sighed. “We had enough evidence to book her, Scotty. The district attorney’s office is riding the commissioner’s ass on this one. This has all the makings of one of those cases that’ll go national if we don’t solve it quickly. After the hurricane, with all the bad press the city officials got, and with crime on the rise again—” She sighed. “And of course, the Saints are getting the city a lot of great press. If we can’t resolve the murders of two high-profile nationally known women—one of whom was dating one of the Saints—it’s going to look bad. Really bad. Baton Rouge hasn’t gotten in on the act yet, but the governor has national aspirations, you know. The last thing we need is pressure from upriver.” She glanced at me out of the side of her eyes. “But off the record, no, I don’t think she killed Marina Werner, and neither does my buddy in Kenner. She certainly didn’t kill Tara Bourgeois—her alibi more than holds up.” A vein started pulsing in her temple. “But it was the same gun that killed them both—your mother’s gun.” She sighed. “Every time the Bradleys get involved in one of my cases, it’s worse than a goddamned migraine—no offense.”
“None taken,” I replied meekly.
“She’s going to get a low bail, is my guess. She’ll be out in the morning.”
Colin came walking back over to us with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Blackledge is on it, Venus. They’re going to e-mail me a report in a few minutes.”
“Thanks,
Abram
.” She gave him a mock salute.
“Looks like it’ll be Agent Golden in your report after all, huh?” I sighed. “So, who are you really looking at for this?” There are benefits sometimes to having a superspy boyfriend when you’re a private eye.
“I don’t have any evidence, but my gut tells me there’s something not right about Joe Billette,” Venus said slowly. “No alibi for either murder, and he had some serious issues with both women.” She nodded. “You know, he was blackmailing them both. He admitted to demanding half a million dollars from Tara to make the sex tapes go away. Turns out Marina Werner made a down payment of a hundred thousand to him last week. She was supposed to make the last payment on Monday night—but she called him on Sunday afternoon to tell him she was finished with it all, she wasn’t going to pay another red cent. He warned her he’d go public but claims she told him to do what he had to do, he wasn’t getting another cent from her. He was furious, to say the least, and called Tara. He says Tara was stunned Marina had changed her mind, told him she would talk to Marina and resolve whatever the problem was.”
“So, he was a blackmailer,” I replied. It wasn’t really much of a stretch to leap from blackmail to murder—but usually it was the
blackmailer
who wound up dead. “Wow, the first tape was released on Tuesday morning. He sure worked quick.”
“Tara had until that morning to get the money to him,” Venus went on. “Obviously, she was dead by then, so he went ahead and e-mailed the digital file to one of those tabloid shows when he didn’t hear from her—they paid him a pretty penny for an exclusive.” She shook her head. “He was pretty shook up when he found out she was dead.” She made a face. “You know he actually asked me if I thought the value of the remaining tapes would go up because she was dead?”
“Ew,” I said involuntarily. “What is
wrong
with people?”
“You tell me,” she replied wryly as Colin’s phone beeped. He excused himself and walked away. “So, what have you boys turned up?”
“We-ell,” I said, thinking. I gestured over to my aunt’s windows. “My aunt was at the memorial service. Apparently, she was friends with both Tara and Marina—that’s how my dopey cousin Jared met Tara in the first place, Enid set them up together.” I shook my head. “She’s a member of the Dove Ministry.”
“Those are some seriously whacked-out people,” Venus commented. “But what would—” She broke off as Colin came walking back over, a big grin on his face. “What’s the word?”
“Roger Kennicott is—
was
—employed as security at none other than the Dove Ministry of Truth.” He glanced down at his phone again. “He has a record—nothing major, some assaults—mostly bar fights—from when he was in his twenties. He was dishonorably discharged from the military—I couldn’t get those records.” He winked. “At least, not yet. But he went to work for the Dove Ministry about four years ago, after doing a couple of years for his last arrest. He’s been clean ever since.”
“Why was someone from the Dove Ministry following us?” I turned and stared at the body. “And tried to kill us yesterday? Why? What do we have to do with them?”
Blaine came walking over to us. Lindy and Rhoda were standing, watching him, with their arms around each other. “The car was registered to the Dove Ministry,” Blaine said with a big grin. “I got an APB out on it now.” He gestured back over his shoulder at the Ninja Lesbians and whistled. “Their story checks out. We found a bullet in the railing of that building, just where they said we would—and it’s a slug from a Colt, which is what the victim is carrying.” He was bouncing on the balls of his feet. “This is definitely linked to the Dove Ministry, Vee. I can’t wait to hear the good reverend try to talk his way out of this one.”
“Don’t call me Vee,” she replied irritably. She filled Blaine in on what Blackledge had dug up on Kennicott. His smile grew wider and wider.
“Yes!” He did a fist pump. “Come on, let’s get out there and bring down some homophobe ass!”
I’d often wondered about Blaine’s sexuality. During the Mardi Gras case, he tried playing me by claiming we’d had a one-night stand once—and I almost fell for it. After that, I’d been sure he was straight—and that was, I realized, part of the reason I didn’t care for him. I didn’t appreciate some straight cop playing gay to weasel his way into my confidence.