Murder in the Garden District (Chanse MacLeod Mysteries) (2 page)

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Sheehan,” I said, a little intimidated.

“Mr. MacLeod.” She inclined her head slightly downward in a disdainful nod, and turned her eyes to Barbara. “You may leave us now, Barbara.”

Her tone was dismissive, like Barbara was a servant.

Barbara didn’t react the way I expected her to. She inclined her head respectfully and said, “Of course.” As she pulled the door closed behind her, she gave me an apologetic look and shrugged her shoulders.

I sat down in the wingback chair Barbara had vacated.

“Barbara tells me you need my help.”

“With no offense or disrespect intended, Mr. MacLeod, I cannot express how distasteful this entire matter is to me. I never thought I would see the day when I would require the services of a private investigator. My son, Wendell, was murdered last night in our home. He was shot to death.”

That got my attention.

“And I seem to have gotten myself into a bit of a mess which Barbara assures me you can assist me with.”

Her face and voice were completely without emotion. Her eyes never left mine.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Sheehan,” I said carefully.

The Sheehans were to Louisiana what the Kennedys were to Massachusetts. They’d been actively involved in state and national politics since before the Civil War. The family had produced state and city legislators, mayors, governors, senators, and congressmen. The woman sitting across the coffee table from me was the daughter of a two-term governor and had also been married to a two-term governor, Bobby Sheehan. He’d died of cancer shortly after leaving office. After his death, Cordelia Spencer Sheehan had devoted herself to helping domestic abuse victims. Her foundation, named for her late husband, operated several shelters not just in New Orleans but throughout the state. She’d been recognized for her contributions numerous times. Just a few months ago, she’d gotten some honor from the current governor that had been splashed all over the
Times-Picayune
. Her son, Wendell Sheehan, had been attorney general of Louisiana back in the ’90s and had served on the City Council and in the state Senate. He had run unsuccessfully for mayor in the election after the hurricane, and was rumored to be eying the Senate seat currently held by a Republican from Metairie with a penchant for prostitutes. His political enemies often contemptuously called him a
liberal
, like that should automatically disqualify him for office. I’d voted for him for mayor, and would have gladly voted for him again for the Senate.

I waited for her to go on. The silence became a bit awkward, so I asked, “Who do the police—”

“That’s part of the problem, you see.” A small smile cracked her façade, but disappeared so quickly I wasn’t sure I hadn’t imagined it. “I am afraid they may think I did it.”

My heartbeat accelerated. “Perhaps you should start at the beginning,” I said, leaning back in my chair and taking out a pen and the notepad I kept tucked into my pants pocket.

She inhaled dramatically. “As you know, there was a terrible thunderstorm last night. I was in my room at home, reading. It was late, around eleven-thirty.” She cleared her throat. “I have trouble falling asleep at night, so I often read. My son wasn’t home—he’s been coming home late a lot lately. He is—
was
—looking into the feasibility of running for the United States Senate, and had opened a campaign office. I was reading in my room when I heard the shot.” She closed her eyes, and her left hand went to her throat. “You can only imagine how terrified I was. My first thought was of course for the children. I had no idea what had happened, if there was a burglar in the house or what. I put on my robe and went into the hallway. My granddaughter Alais—Wendell’s daughter—was just coming out of her room. I told her to stay upstairs and call the police. The poor dear was terrified. I opened my grandson Carey’s door to make sure he was okay, but he was wearing headphones and apparently hadn’t heard anything. He didn’t even notice me. So I shut the door and went downstairs.”

“The shot came from downstairs?”

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

She gave me a withering look. “As I said, I went downstairs. The front door was wide open, and there was water all over the hallway floor—tracked in, possibly by my son. When I got to the bottom of the staircase…” She closed her eyes. “I could see my son lying in a pool of blood in the drawing room. I immediately rushed to his side, but there was no pulse. I saw the gun lying there, and I picked it up.”

“You picked it up?” That hadn’t been smart, and she didn’t strike me as being a stupid woman. But then, if I was to believe what she said she’d gone downstairs without knowing if it was safe.

She met my gaze without blinking. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I must have been in shock. When I picked it up the gun went off again. The bullet went into the floor.” Her hands balled into fists. “As I was standing there, my daughter-in-law walked into the room. I immediately knew what had happened.” She pursed her lips again. It was clear she didn’t care for her son’s wife. “She said she’d called the police already.”

“You didn’t see or hear anyone else?”

She shook her head.

“And outside of the family, there was no one else in the house?”

“Not as far as I knew.”

“And what do you think had happened?”

“His wife shot him, of course.” Mrs. Sheehan didn’t bother to try to mask her contempt as she spat the words at me. “And that’s why I need you, Mr. MacLeod. I’ve already retained an attorney named Loren McKeithen, and he recommended you. He advised me to have Barbara work as a go-between.”

I must have frowned.

“Apparently you aren’t fond of Mr. McKeithen?” Her lips curled in what might have been considered a smile.

“We’ve had our differences,” I said cautiously. “But I can work with Loren.”

Loren was the one who’d gotten me into a mess a year ago. He’d brought me into another case, and turned on me when he didn’t like what I discovered. I didn’t trust him.

“Good. The most important thing here is to protect my daughter, and the two of you will need to work together.”

The words sounded hollow to me. And she wasn’t making sense.

“But you picked up the gun,” I said. “You should be more concerned about—”

Her eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t thinking clearly,” she snapped. “I didn’t kill my son. The notion is ridiculous. Only a fool would think I killed my own child. Obviously, it was his wife. After all, it was her gun. Who else could it have been?” Her lips tightened.

I pitied the district attorney who might have to cross-examine her.

“How do you know it was her gun?”

“She told the police it was hers.”

“Did you wipe the gun when you picked it up?”

“Why would I do such a stupid thing?”

“I would think you’d be a little more concerned about having your fingerprints on the gun,” I said, resisting the urge to point out that picking it up in the first place had been incredibly stupid.

“They did a test of some sort on my hands.” She waved a hand. “To see if I’d fired the gun. Of course, I explained how that all happened.” Her smile chilled me. “The idiots didn’t test my daughter-in-law’s hands, even though I told them she’d killed him.”

“What does she say?”

“She told them I killed him,” she sneered, “which is utter nonsense.
She’s
the one with everything to gain.”

“I’ll need to speak with her.”

“You have an appointment tomorrow morning at ten to discuss all of that—and her
ridiculous
story—at our home.”

She handed me a gold embossed card with her name and address on it, then waved her gloved hand dismissively.

“I will pay you, of course, quite handsomely, through Mr. McKeithen’s office. Say, a thousand dollars a day plus expenses?”

That was almost three times my going rate. “That’s very generous.” I replied cautiously.

I’ve always been suspicious of overly generous clients. They tend to take it for granted that I’ll be willing to break the law on their behalf. I may bend the law on occasion, but I won’t do anything that might put me behind bars.

She went on as though I hadn’t said a word, her gloved fingers tapping a steady tattoo on the couch arm.

“I’m paying you to devote yourself entirely to this case, Mr. MacLeod, to the exclusion of all else, so I cannot expect you to not be compensated properly. I know you work for Barbara’s company, but she understands how important this is. And I expect results. There will also be a substantial bonus for those results.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What kind of result are you looking for? Proving your daughter-in-law is guilty?”

She started laughing. It was a very unpleasant sound. She put her hand to her throat.

“Oh, dear me. My daughter-in-law killed my son, Mr. MacLeod. There’s no question about that.” Her eyes flashed angrily. “
Your
job is to find reasonable doubt for the jury, enough maybe to keep the district attorney from prosecuting her. That’s what I’m paying you for.”

I looked her square in the eyes.

“You handled the murder weapon. You even fired it. Even if, as you say,
only a fool
would think you’d shot him, that’s enough reasonable doubt right there to keep your daughter-in-law out of jail. Loren is a damned good lawyer—he’d have a field day with that.”

“Let me make myself clear, Mr. MacLeod,” she said contemptuously. “As long as there is breath in my body, no one named Sheehan will go to prison for anything. No matter what I might think of her and what she has done, my daughter-in-law is a member of my family, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that she does not spend a single night behind bars for her crime—no matter how much I would enjoy seeing that happen. And I am not about to be painted as
a murderer
in a court of law to save her. My son had plenty of enemies. I want you to look outside my family. Is that clear?”

She stood up and walked to the door. “Ten o’clock, tomorrow morning, Mr. MacLeod,” she said, turning back to me. “Do be punctual.”

I heard her heels click softly in the hallway as the door closed behind her.

I poured myself a gin and tonic from the little bar in a corner of the room. It was at my lips when Barbara said from the doorway, “Pour me one of those, will you, dear? That woman will drive anyone to drink.”

Barbara took the glass from me and plopped down on the sofa. I’d never seen her drink anything other than champagne—usually mixed with orange juice. She tossed the drink back like it was nothing and set the glass down on the coffee table.

“I’m sorry to get you involved with that awful woman, but I didn’t have a choice,” she said.

I sat in the wingback chair again. “What do you mean, you didn’t have a choice?”

“Let’s just say I owe her and leave it at that.” Barbara closed her eyes. “I am truly sorry, Chanse, dear. I hope you don’t come to regret working for her like everyone else who deals with her. But please don’t ask me to say any more.”

I knew better than to press her.

As the owner of Crown Oil, Barbara was the wealthiest person in Louisiana. We’d been working together for years. She’d started out as my client, when she was being blackmailed and hired me to help her. She’d slept with a pair of underage bodybuilding twins and there were pictures. The whole thing had been a setup. I’d gotten the pictures and negatives back for her and she had put me on the payroll of Crown Oil as a consultant. I did quarterly checks of the security systems at their refineries and other facilities, and made recommendations for improvements. I did background checks of prospective executives and board members, drawing on my contacts and two years’ experience working in the New Orleans police department. She’d also had me check out several men she became involved with later—when you’re the richest woman in the state, you become a target for fortune hunters. In return for these services, she paid me a generous salary, more than enough to support my own investigation business and pay an assistant, considering that she owned my building and only charged me $100 a month rent for an apartment worth $1,200. In addition to the cushy consulting job, she brought me clients. I wasn’t about to upset the apple cart unnecessarily.

I decided to get whatever basic information I could about the Sheehans and continue making notes.

“They all lived in the same house?” I asked Barbara. “That must have been uncomfortable.”

“It’s Cordelia’s house and she wouldn’t hear of them living elsewhere. Everything is Cordelia’s. She controls the money. Wendell had none of his own. I’m sure he hoped she’d die every day of his life. Imagine having that for your mother. I’d hang myself after twenty-four hours in that place.”

“Did she tell you anything about what happened?”

“Just that Janna killed Wendell, and she needed a private eye whose discretion could be counted on. She knew about you—that damned Loren McKeithen sent her to me.”

I felt sorry for Loren for a moment. Barbara would make him pay for this.

“I’d say Cordelia should be more worried about herself than about her daughter-in-law. She not only handled the gun, she fired it. At least, that’s her story. I take it she didn’t tell you that.”