Murder in the Garden District (Chanse MacLeod Mysteries) (5 page)

She closed her eyes and shuddered.

“I checked for a pulse, and there wasn’t one. I went across the hall to the library to wait for the police to show up. That was when I noticed that the front door was open, and there was water all over the floor. I assumed Wendell had tracked it in—it was really pouring outside. But I couldn’t understand why he didn’t close the door behind him. Too drunk, I suppose.”

“Who else was in the house?”

“Cordelia, of course, and the kids. They’d gone up to their rooms after dinner. About ten, I went in to say good night to them in their rooms.” She smiled faintly. “Carey had his headphones on, he always does. Alais was already asleep.”

“Anyone else?”

“We don’t have live-in help—Vernita, the one who let you in, leaves every day at six—and ever since Rachel and Quentin moved out—”

“Rachel and Quentin?”

“Quentin is Wendell’s cousin, and Rachel is his wife. They moved out about a month ago. Wendell didn’t much care for them, and even though they were in the pool house—”

She pointed behind me. The small building was just beyond the pool.

“It was still too close, as far as Wendell was concerned.”

“And there was no one else in the house?” I pressed.

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Do you know where the children were?”

“They said they were in their rooms.”

“They didn’t hear the shots?”

“I assume they had their headphones on. They always do.”

“And they all had access to your gun?”

“I never lock my room unless I am going to bed,” she said. “So, yes, they could have. Vernita and the maid who comes twice a week had access to it as well, obviously, whenever they were in the house.”

“When was the last time you saw the gun?”

“I went to the shooting range three days ago. When I got back, I cleaned it and put it away.”

“When you found your husband, did you see or hear or notice anything out of the ordinary?”

“Besides my husband’s body? I wasn’t really paying attention. I was in shock. The police found the safe in the drawing room was open—”

Cordelia hadn’t mentioned anything about the safe. Given her instructions, I found this odd. If the safe were open, there was a possibility that Wendell had caught someone robbing it. But how would a burglar have gotten Janna’s gun? A half-decent lawyer could convince a jury someone else could have killed Wendell, even with Cordelia picking up the gun.

“Was anything missing?” I asked. “Had the safe been broken into?”

“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t have access to the safe. Any jewelry I had that was worth anything is in a safety deposit box at the bank. Wendell never gave me the combination to the safe. I have no idea what he and Cordelia kept in there. You’d have to ask her. Or the police.”

 I moved on. “You said that it was about three years ago that your marriage troubles started. Around the time of Katrina?”

“That didn’t help, but no, the trouble started before then, in the spring right after Mardi Gras, I think.” She closed her eyes, thinking back, and opened them again. “Yes, things started to deteriorate around then.”

“Any idea why?”

She went to the sideboard and poured herself a glass of ice water, took a long drink, then sat down and faced me again.

“The initial problem was Carey, my son. You have to understand a few things about this family, all right? Cordelia’s family, the Spencers—well, they were the closest thing to royalty we had in Louisiana, and she was the last one of them. When she was young, things were different. The notion of Cordelia carrying the family banner into politics was just not possible. So her father married her off to Willy Sheehan. The Sheehans were another political family, just not as prominent or as long established as the Spencers. All the Spencer eggs were put in the Sheehan basket, if you want to mix a metaphor. Wendell was their only son. His cousin Quentin had no interest in politics, and Wendell’s only child was a girl. After we’d been married four years it looked like I wasn’t going to give them a crown prince any time soon, so he and Cordelia decided to turn Carey into the royal heir. Wendell had already adopted him.” Her eyes glinted. “And I wouldn’t allow it. I made it clear that my son wasn’t going to be railroaded into politics unless he wanted it. I think Cordelia would cheerfully have shot me. Things were never the same after that.”

“And Carey’s father? How involved was he in your son’s life?”

Her face hardened. “He has nothing to do with Carey—Carey’s never even met him. Leave him out of this.”

“I can’t promise the police will do that.”

She laughed. “Please, Mr. MacLeod. Cordelia killed Wendell. I saw her with the gun. But she’s Cordelia Spencer Sheehan and she’s
connected.
Everyone in this state owes her favors. She isn’t going to jail. She’ll lie—hell, she already has—and they’ll come after me.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid?”

“You don’t know my mother-in-law. There’s no such thing as being too paranoid where she’s involved. Trust me on that. Cordelia is an amazing liar, Mr. MacLeod, and she’s been around the block a few times in her life. Her husband was
governor
, for God’s sake. Do you really think the district attorney is going to want to take on the Sheehan family? I’m sure she’s already pulling strings, making calls. Evidence will be lost. Welcome to Louisiana politics, Mr. MacLeod. It’s is a very ugly business.”

“But won’t being a Sheehan help you in the same way?”

“In Cordelia’s mind, I am not a Sheehan—not by a long shot.”

“Do you think any of your husband’s political enemies could have killed him?”

“I told you, Cordelia killed him. But she doesn’t hold all the cards this time out. This time, I hold the trumps, and today she and I are going to have a little chat.”

She leaned back in her chair, smiling slyly.

“What do you mean?”

“She doesn’t know yet, but when I drop my little bombshell, she’ll stop telling the police and everyone else that I killed her precious son. After all those years of trying, he had to rape me to get me pregnant. And it’s the long hoped for crown prince.”

She got up out of her chair, walked over to the railing and leaned against it, facing me. “I’m carrying the last Sheehan son. I’m sure Cordelia won’t want her grandchild born in prison. She’s going to have to pin her crime on someone else. Things are going to be a lot different around here from now on.”

My head was spinning.
Return the retainer and walk out of here, don’t get involved with these people
, a voice whispered in of my head. But I, too, was caught in a trap not of my own making. If I dropped this case, whatever hold Cordelia had over Barbara would blow up in my face. I could lose my cushy job with Crown Oil. And Cordelia Spencer Sheehan undoubtedly had friends in Baton Rouge who could pull the necessary strings to get my license revoked. There wasn’t any way I could get out of this case.

I stood up and offered Janna my hand across the table.

“Thank you, Mrs. Sheehan—Janna. If I have any other questions, I’ll give you a call.”

She took a card from her purse and slid it across the table, then shook my hand.

“Those are my cell and private phone numbers,” she said. “Call anytime.”

She went down the gazebo steps and along the walk to the back of the main house. The door shut behind her.

As I crossed the lawn, I reviewed what I knew. Janna wasn’t telling me the whole truth, which meant she probably wasn’t telling the police either. Shots fired, and she comes downstairs with a poker? That was almost as stupid as Cordelia picking up the gun. What was she hiding?

I walked around to the front of the house, and stood there. The property was definitely a showplace. Surrounded by an eight-foot-high brick fence, for privacy, the lot took up the entire block and was filled with gigantic live oaks. The house itself, a variation of the Greek revival style raised cottage with a double gallery at the front and a third floor with gables, faced the uptown side street. A fountain bubbled in the area delineated by the circular driveway, which ended in two electronic gates. I’d driven my own car through the gate to my right. It was still open, presumably so I could leave. On the other side of the fence, I could hear the traffic on St. Charles.

I opened the car door and hesitated. Something wasn’t right.

I stood in the driveway. Wendell Sheehan’s black Mercedes was there, presumably where he’d left it the night he died. I walked over to it and glanced up at the second floor of the house. The big windows on the right must be Janna’s bedroom. Then it hit me.

Janna had said her room was at the top of the stairs. How on earth did Cordelia get to Wendell before Janna did, if they both came down almost immediately after hearing the shot? Even if Janna had stopped to call 911, she should have gotten to the first floor long Cordelia. Cordelia claimed she’d looked in on both her grandchildren and only then come downstairs. Yet according to Janna, Cordelia was already in the drawing room when she got there, and she’d heard the second shot while she was on her way down.

What the hell had happened that night?

I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Janna’s number. It switched immediately to voice mail. I hung up and tried the other number.

“Sheehan residence,” a female voice answered.

“This is Chanse MacLeod, I just met with Mrs. Janna Sheehan.” I made my voice as charming as possible. “May I speak with her, please? I forgot something I needed to ask her.”

“Mrs. Sheehan is resting and asked not to be disturbed. I’ll let her know you called.”

The phone disconnected.

My job had just gotten a lot harder.

There’s a storm heading for the Gulf,” Paige said casually as she unwrapped her poʼboy from the grease-blotted butcher paper it had been wrapped in. She might just as well have said
It sure is humid this afternoon
and not the seven words nobody in New Orleans ever wanted to hear again. All of her attention was directed at the sandwich in her hands. She took a healthy bite, and mayonnaise squirted out the sides onto her fingers.

I was sitting in my easy chair, about to bite into my shrimp poʼboy, my teeth just inches from the French bread. I put the poʼboy down.

“You’re not serious.” I said.

Sweat formed in my armpits, and a numbness seemed to paralyze my brain for a moment. It was too soon, far too soon. Almost forty years had passed between Hurricanes Betsy and Katrina; surely we were entitled to another thirty-eight years before the next direct hit.

I didn’t even want to think about evacuating again, of packing what I could fit into my trunk and hitting the road for six weeks or even longer. Frantic questions raced through my mind. Would the levees hold? What if it came up the river this time the way Betsy had in the ’60s? What if, what if, what if. A couple of mild hurricane seasons had made us all a little complacent.

Paige licked the mayonnaise from her fingers and smiled. “Ginevra is its name. Right now it’s only Category 1, but once it hits the warm water in the Gulf…” She gave a half-hearted shrug as though to say
what can you do?
“Anyway, right now we’re in the direct center of the cone of probability, for whatever that’s worth.” She took a healthy swig from her beer bottle. “Absolutely nothing, that’s what it’s worth. It’s just a projection like always, and you know it can turn east or west. But people are starting to get nervous, which I guess isn’t surprising.” She made a face. “I really hate the term
cone of probability
. Why don’t they just say the
sorry, you’re fucked cone
and be done with it?”

I exhaled with relief, willing the stress out of my body. There wasn’t any point getting upset or worried or freaking out yet.

“Are you saying I should start planning?” I asked. My fingers itched for a notepad to start making a list:
Change oil in car, get tires checked, figure out which way to go if I have to leave.

She put her poʼboy down and wiped mayonnaise off the sides of her mouth.

“Well, we don’t want to wait to the last minute again, do we? The governor’s office is in overdrive. They’re probably going to declare a state of emergency tomorrow. City Hall is in a frenzy. Can you believe it? Maybe I’m cynical, but I’ll bet you any amount of money they’ll call for mandatory evacuation really early this time—and I’m leaving.”

She took a swig from her beer.

Paige was still working for the
Times-Picayune
when Katrina hit, and had stayed with a group of other reporters in Baton Rouge, coming into the city every day to report what was going on. She’d never talked to me about what she’d seen, saying only, “That’s what I pay the shrink for.” She’d written a book about the whole experience, and had even found an agent to help place it with a publisher, without luck. Paige had given up on it ever seeing print, and I knew she was disappointed. But whenever I brought it up she changed the subject.

She picked up the sandwich again and gave me a sideways look. “So, you had an audience with Her Majesty the Queen. What did you think of her?”

“What do you think about her?” I countered. “You’ve worked for her for almost a year now, and I’m sure you’ve got an opinion. You always do.”