Murder in the Irish Channel (Chanse MacLeod Mysteries) Read online

  Abby shrugged. “It’s all a matter of degrees, isn’t it? Once you’ve covered up the crime of child abuse, what’s a little kidnapping? Or murder? Or bribery?”

  “On the other hand, it could have been just some kind of random crime…but her car wasn’t at the church and isn’t at her house. And she wasn’t there Friday morning when the Brownings showed up to take over the vigil. But she definitely showed up on Thursday night.”

  “And the police haven’t found her car anywhere?” Abby squirted ketchup on a stray piece of fried shrimp before popping it into her mouth.

  “Not yet.” I kept thinking as I finished my po’boy. I leaned back against the back of the booth, stuffed and feeling dangerously close to exploding. I covered my mouth and belched. “Then again, Delvecchio’s not exactly known for his work ethic, so he may not have even filed the plate number.” I rubbed my forehead. “So, whoever took her also possibly took her car—and it must have happened while she was at the church.” I pulled my notebook out of my pocket and flipped it open. “I need to talk to the guy she was seeing. And I want to talk to her other kids, too—maybe canvass some of the neighbors around the church.”

  “I’ll talk to the neighborhood people.” Abby ate the last of her onion rings and washed them down with iced tea. “I’ll also work the Barras angle some more, see if I can’t dig up some more stuff connecting the two of them. I’ll check with the fight promoter at the casino over in Biloxi.” She made a face. “I might have to drive over there.” Abby’s car was a twenty-year-old Oldsmobile that had belonged to her grandmother. It ran like it was new, but when it was parked it looked abandoned. The paint job was leprous, the windshield was cracked, and the driver’s side mirror barely hung on to the side.

  “Set it up and we can take my car,” I replied.

  “Excellent. All right, I’m going to get on it.” She grabbed her purse and got up, kissed me on the top of my head, and dashed out the door.

  She always stuck me with the check.

  I paid the bill and left a generous tip.

  The wind had picked up some, and it was even damper and cooler than it had been on my way to the Please You. The dark clouds were getting closer, and it looked like it was raining over on the West Bank. I walked hurriedly down Polymnia Street and looked for Paige’s Toyota. It was a Sunday, and she’d be home if she wasn’t over at Ryan’s. I didn’t see her car, so I kept walking. It had been a while since I’d talked to her, I realized as I crossed Prytania Street and headed for Coliseum Square. She’d gotten serious with Ryan right around the same time she left the paper to be editor-in-chief of Crescent City magazine. I missed her—but was glad she’d finally found someone who made her happy.

  As I crossed Coliseum Square, I saw Rory’s red Mustang parked in front of my apartment building.

  I’d met Rory during the course of a previous case. He’d asked me out when the case was over, and despite my initial misgivings, I had said yes. It was going pretty well between us, actually, which had come as a surprise to me. We were very different. Rory came from a very prominent political family—his father had been mayor years ago, and the Delesderniers were still active in city and state politics. Rory frequently worked on political campaigns and often went up to Baton Rouge to lobby state legislators. He was in his mid-twenties and idealistic—he still believed that hard work, elbow grease, and dedication could change the world.

  I was a little more cynical than that.

  He worked at the NO / AIDS Task Force, out of their satellite office in the Marigny. He was an HIV counselor and ran a program focusing on building a social network outside of the bars for young men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. He loved his job—more of that idealism—and was working on getting his master’s degree in public health from Tulane University.

  Rory and I were comfortable with the way things were—he had his place in the Bywater and I had mine. Every once in a while I wondered if we were going to take our relationship to the next level—which meant moving in together. On paper, it made sense—my rent was ridiculously cheap, and my place was a lot closer to the university campus than his. But we both liked to have our privacy, and the one time it had come up, Rory had said the only thing that made sense was for us to find a two-bedroom place that would be new to both of us.

  We agreed to table the discussion, and it hadn’t come up again.

  I unlocked the front door and grinned. He was sitting on my sofa, the big screen TV turned onto a Real Housewives of Somewhere marathon. “Hey, baby.” He grinned at me. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he patted the sofa cushion next to him. “Did you meet with that fighter guy?”

  I tossed my keys into a dish on my desk and sat down next to him. “Yeah.” Jonny had gone into Rory’s office for an HIV test the day before and had unloaded on Rory his worries about his mom. In turn, Rory had given him one of my cards. “I’m on the case.” I glanced at the television. Two women Botoxed within an inch of their lives were screaming at each other in a restaurant.

  “Sorry, I wish I could just hang out, but I’ve still got some work to do.” I gave him a sad smile. “It shouldn’t take too long—if you don’t mind hanging out for a few more hours?”

  “No worries.” He gave me a big grin. “I’ll just hang out here—I’ve got class in the morning.” Rory always stayed over on Sunday nights. “You up for Chinese for dinner?”

  I kissed his cheek and nodded. “Sounds great.”

  A few moments later I was heading out the driveway in my dark blue Subaru. According to my notes, Jonny’s brother lived in Broadmoor, just before the big curve where Napoleon Avenue turned into Broad Street. I took Martin Luther King to Claiborne and turned left, heading uptown. I turned right again when I got to Napoleon. The house was a few blocks down, just past the corner at Rocheblave. It was a big two-story plantation-style house, with a pair of massive live oaks between the curb and the sidewalk. I parked underneath the first one and shut off the engine. There was a big black Chevy Tahoe with a GEAUX SAINTS bumper sticker parked in the double driveway, in front of a garage. It looked dirty and needed to be washed. The house itself was raised about three feet off the ground, with covered galleries running around the house on both floors. It was painted white, with dark green shutters standing open at every set of windows. The area under the house was fenced in with wooden lattice work, painted green to match the shutters.

  I got out of the car and walked up to the front steps. A few drops of rain hit me, and more started coming down as the sun disappeared behind some dark clouds. There was a crack of thunder, and I dashed up to the gallery as a downpour started. Other than cars driving extremely slowly on Napoleon, and the rain, it was weirdly silent. As lightning lit up the sudden gloom, a black cat made a quick getaway down the gallery, darting off a chair and around a corner of the gallery. A loud crack of thunder set off some car alarms in an annoying cacophony.

  There were two newspapers on the porch just in front of the screen door, and there was some mail crammed in the black metal box next to the front door. I rang the bell and listened. There was no sound from the inside. I pressed the buzzer again a few times for good measure, but there was still no sound from the inside.

  Curious, I pressed my face to the window to the right of the front door and peered through the gloom. No one, apparently, was home—perhaps they were out doing errands. But I didn’t want to dash back to the car in the downpour, so I figured what the hell and walked along the gallery, looking in each window as I went. I went around the corner and along the side gallery toward the back. I looked down at the SUV, listening to the steady downpour drumming on its roof. I reached the back corner of the gallery and looked into the backyard. There was a rusty swing set and a sandbox. Multicolored balls of all shapes and sizes were scattered throughout the grass, which was also scarred in places. I walked around the back and noticed the back door was open.

  There was another flash of lightning that was so close the hair on my arms stood up
, and thunder followed within seconds. More car alarms went off.

  I felt a knot form in my stomach. “Hello?” I called inside, reaching for my phone and unlocking it with a swipe of my finger. I debated getting my gun out of the car—but decided there wasn’t a need. The house was too quiet—whatever was wrong here, there wasn’t anyone around that I needed to worry about.

  Besides, I’d get soaked to the skin.

  I walked over to the back door and nudged it with my toe. The door swung open, and I stepped over the threshold and found myself in a hallway. The door to my immediate right looked to be a utility room—washer, dryer, and a deep utility sink. There was a huge hot water heater in the far corner. To the left was a door to the kitchen. I stepped into the kitchen, calling “Hello” again as I went.

  The kitchen had probably been rather nice at one point, but it was so filthy it was hard to tell. There was an island with a butcher block top in the center of the room, and it was covered with food wrappers, empty plastic bottles, and dirty dishes. Pots and pans hung from a chain suspended from the ceiling above it, and the double sink was also filled with dirty dishes. The coffeepot was half-full, and some bananas had turned black on the counter. There was a small pot on the stove with a couple of hot dogs floating in greasy water.

  I took a deep breath and debated going back outside and just calling the police.

  Something was definitely off here.

  Instead, I walked back into the hallway. Rather than going out the back door, I headed toward the front of the house. The door on my right opened into a large bathroom with a walk-in shower and one of those fancy sinks that cost a ridiculous amount of money. The next door on the left looked like a den of some sort. There was a desk facing the door with a computer on it, and bookshelves had been built into the back wall. I could see flies buzzing around in the air, and I could smell death.

  I could see a pair of loafers sticking out from behind the right side of the desk.

  I took a deep breath and took a few cautious steps into the room. I got about halfway into the room and peered over the top of the desk.

  The man lying there had apparently been shot twice in the chest. The desk chair was lying beside him. He’d been sitting down when he’d been shot. His shirt was soaked in blood, and he was lying in a sticky puddle of dark red. I felt my gorge rising and fought it back down.

  I forced myself to look at the face.

  He was older—and apparently hadn’t exactly aged well, but I recognized Jonny’s older brother from the senior picture on his mother’s living room wall.

  He’d been dead for a while.

  I walked back outside to the gallery, took a few deep breaths, and called Venus.

  Chapter Five

  “You got in late last night.”

  I yawned and poured myself a cup of coffee. “Sorry,” I said, trying not to yawn a second time. I shook my head to try to get some blood flowing into my brain.

  It was just after nine in the morning, and I hadn’t slept particularly well, which was my normal reaction to finding a dead body. I’d decided long ago that the day when finding one didn’t unsettle me on some level was the day I would find another line of work. It had been around two in the morning when I finally made it home, and I’d smoked a joint to relax and help me sleep. It was just after three when I finally fell into bed.

  I stifled another yawn. “Yeah, I just figured it was easier to go down to the police station and give my statement last night so I wouldn’t have to do it today.” I added creamer and sweetener to my coffee and took a long drink. “I didn’t want to wake you when I got home—you were in a deep sleep.” I flashed a tired smile at him.

  Rory had already showered and his bluish black hair was still damp. He was dressed for work in a tight olive green AIDS Walk T-shirt and a pair of jean shorts. He spread peanut butter on an English muffin and looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. “You okay?” he asked in a careful tone.

  I took another swig of the coffee. “All things considered, yeah. I’m just really tired, I didn’t sleep all that great.” I gave him my best effort at a smile. “Besides, it’s not like it was my first time finding a dead body.”

  He visibly winced before he carried his coffee and English muffin into the living room. He sat down on the couch, taking a bite from the muffin. “I know it’s not, but you know if you need to talk about it…” He let his voice trail off.

  I followed him in, sitting down at my desk and turning on my computer. “Really, I’m fine,” I insisted. I swiveled around in my desk chair as the computer sprang to life and gave him a real smile this time. “But I appreciate it. Really.”

  One of the biggest issues we’d faced since we started dating was his job. He was a trained HIV counselor, and his undergraduate degree was in social work. I didn’t believe in “processing my feelings”—it all just seemed a little silly to me. I hadn’t been raised to sit and stare at my navel while getting in touch with myself. The few times we’d had arguments was when I felt like he wasn’t treating me like his boyfriend, but rather like one of his counseling clients. I found myself biting my tongue a lot because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, or escalate a situation to DEFCON 5.

  The constant reassurances that he was “available” for me if I ever needed to “process” my feelings or just needed a shoulder to cry on got on my nerves, frankly.

  It’s not that I didn’t appreciate it—I just didn’t think it was necessary for him to remind me all the time.

  As I’d yelled at him once during an argument, “If I need you to shrink my goddamned head, I’ll fucking tell you!”

  He started to say something, but finished eating the muffin instead and smiled at me. He stood up, brushing the crumbs off his jean shorts. “Okay, well, I’m off to the office.” He leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “I’ve got that work party tonight, remember—you’re more than welcome to come if you want.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll probably be working.”

  “If you change your mind, we’re all meeting at the Bridge Lounge at seven. It would be great if you could make it—everyone would love to see you.” Unspoken were the words since you didn’t go to my supervisor’s birthday celebration two weeks ago.

  I turned back to my computer. “Bridge Lounge at seven. Got it.”

  I heard the front door shut behind him. I sighed and stretched in my chair. I finished drinking the coffee and went back into the kitchen for a refill. He does make good coffee, I thought, taking another sip. It wouldn’t kill me, I reflected, to stop by the Bridge Lounge for a drink or two with his coworkers. I’d already met most of them, and they all seemed like pretty decent people. They certainly did good work for low pay.

  Unless something comes up, I’ll do it.

  Congratulating myself for being such a good boyfriend, I sat back down at my computer. My mind was still foggy, so I paid my bills while I waited for the caffeine to push the cobwebs aside and jump-start my mind. Once I was finished with that, I checked my e-mail—nothing new or interesting there.

  I opened my notepad and opened a new document, and copied all the notes I’d taken so far into it, hoping that doing this mindless task might trigger something in my mind. I saved it under the file name O’NEILL and reread it all one more time.

  Nothing jumped to mind, so I got another cup of coffee and sat down on the sofa.

  Okay, Chanse, think.

  Robby O’Neill had been dead for at least forty-eight hours, give or take, when I’d found him. So he’d been killed sometime on Friday, maybe late Thursday night. The last time anyone had seen his mother was late Thursday night. There was no doubt in my mind that if Mona O’Neill was still alive, she’d disappeared on purpose. But why would she disappear, with her daughter-in-law so close to giving birth? If Mona had voluntarily gone into hiding, the reason had to be pretty extreme—she had to be afraid either for her own life or that of someone who was really important to her. Maybe she’d seen who killed her son?
r />   Maybe she’d killed Robby and gone on the run.

  It was possible, but I discarded that option. Mothers don’t, as a rule, kill their adult children.

  One thing was for sure—I was pretty sure none of this had anything to do with the archdiocese, other than peripherally. This wasn’t the Middle Ages—I seriously doubted the Catholic Church was killing people because they were opposed to closing a couple of churches down.

  No, I was pretty sure the O’Neill situations were one and the same. It was the only thing that made sense.

  One of the reasons I’d decided to head down to the police station and give my statement last night was because I’d given Venus Jonny’s number. She’d called and arranged to have Jonny come down to the morgue and identify the body, and I’d wanted to talk to him myself.

  Jonny was clearly shaken up. His eyes were red, his face pale, and his hands were shaking when he came out of the morgue. “Come on, let’s head down to the Carousel Bar for a drink,” I’d suggested, even though I knew he wasn’t yet old enough to drink. “You don’t look like you’re ready to head home yet anyway.”

  “I got a fake ID,” he replied in a monotone as I led him out of the police station and turned left on Royal Street.

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” I replied with a smile. He hadn’t said another word until we walked up the steps into the Monteleone Hotel and sat down in a dark booth in the Carousel Bar.

  The cocktail waitress barely glanced at his fake ID, and I figured it wasn’t my problem. We both ordered beers, and Jonny started talking in a low voice.

  He didn’t really tell me a whole lot. He and Robby hadn’t been close—they barely spoke or saw each other outside of family get-togethers and holidays, “and Robby didn’t really come to those if he could help it. Ma says since he married Celia he thinks he’s too good for the rest of us. She was a Queen of Rex or something.” Jonny had shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Jonny did know that his brother’s wife and kids were at a beach house in Sandestin, Florida, which belonged to her sister. “Ma wasn’t real happy about that, because the kids were gone for the summer, and of course Robby would never invite any of us over to the beach—he never does.” Robby had been in the habit of driving over to Florida Fridays after work, and driving back to New Orleans late on Sunday nights. Jonny had called his sister Lorelle before coming to the police station and asked her to get a hold of his sister-in-law. “I don’t have her cell or nothing.” Lorelle had called him back and told him Robby had called his wife on Thursday morning and told her that he wasn’t able to make it over this particular weekend, that something business-related had come up, “but he would definitely drive over on Monday and stay the week. Lorelle said Celia said it sounded like it was something important, and he was all excited about it. Celia said she was going to let the kids sleep and head back over here tomorrow. I told Lorelle to tell her if she wanted to stay at Ma’s it was fine with me.” Jonny had shrugged and finished his beer. “Lorelle asked if you could come out and talk to her tomorrow. She said she really wants to talk to you about all this. She’s pretty upset.”