Authors: Erica Spindler
He narrowed his eyes. “This isn’t about me, Bayle. And it’s not about you. It’s about catching a killer. And the interests I’m putting first are the department’s. Can you say the same?”
She couldn’t. He saw it in her eyes. She tried to mask it, but whatever her agenda, it ran too deep to hide completely. What the hell was going on with her?
“What do we have?” she asked, voice tight.
Spencer motioned the front parlor. “Take a look for yourself.
“Her name was Louise Latrobe,” he said a moment later, as they joined Stacy beside the vic. “According to her driver’s license—yes, she still had a valid Louisiana license—she was eighty-nine. She was a widow and lived alone.”
Malone allowed himself to see the victim through Bayle’s eyes, as if for the first time. Latrobe lay on the floor between a large window and a wingback chair. She’d been a petite woman, bony in the way some elderly became, neither fat nor muscle to anchor the skin. Her body was twisted slightly, as if she had tried to stop her fall. One hand rested on her chest, the other at her side. Her face had settled into one of those grotesque expressions that made crime-scene humor necessary.
But still, the most startling thing was the orange 4 on her forehead.
“What the hell does that mean?” Bayle asked.
The coroner’s investigator was finishing his examination. He looked up at Bayle. “Indeed, Detective.”
“What are you thinking, Ray?”
“No signs of a struggle. No visible marks on her body. Other than the numeral four, of course. Nails look clean. We’re not going to get a lot from her.”
“How’d he kill her?”
“I’m not certain he did.”
“Excuse me?” Malone said.
“This may be a case of cardiac arrest.”
“Cardiac arrest,” Bayle repeated. “How do you figure?”
“We see this with heart attack victims, hand at her chest, clutching. Not warding off an attacker.”
“So before she had her sudden, excruciating heart attack,” Bayle said, sounding annoyed, “she got her god-awful orange lipstick and marked her forehead with the four?”
“Hardly.” The man made a face as he shook his head. “I’m not saying the killer wasn’t here, I’m just saying I don’t think he touched her.”
“So what happened?”
“The son of a bitch scared her to death.”
The room went momentarily quiet. Then Spencer asked, “Where’s the lipstick?” When none of them responded, he directed the question to the CSI team. “Anybody collect a tube of lipstick?” They hadn’t.
He turned back to Stacy and Bayle. “The binoculars corroborate Gallier’s story.”
“Which was?” Bayle snapped. “I missed it.”
Stacy quickly filled her in, finishing with, “Apparently, Latrobe was the neighborhood busybody.”
“Are you buying Gallier’s story? Seems to me, a spying neighbor’s a damn good motive for murder.”
“Oh, I think it’s a motive, all right. Only I don’t think it’s Gallier’s.”
“I’ll play devil’s advocate here,” Bayle said. “I like Gallier for this. It makes four deaths, all connected to her. We’ve got a snooping neighbor who keeps tabs on her comings and goings. Gallier knew it was only a matter of time before we questioned her.”
“I get that,” Stacy said. “Big problem, though. I was tailing her. Her story dovetails perfectly with what I witnessed.”
“Really?” Bayle cocked an eyebrow. “Where were you when she stopped her car?”
“End of the block.”
“And from that distance you could see her expression and tell that none of this was planned or rehearsed?”
Stacy narrowed her eyes. “Of course not. But as she described, she turned on to Frenchmen, then a couple car lengths in, slammed on the brakes. She sat several moments stopped in the middle of the street, then pulled over and parked.
“Next thing I know, she’s racing across the lawn, heading to Latrobe’s. I watched her knock, peek through windows, go around back, then come back around the front. She was the picture of determination. And then, agitation.”
“Agitation? Interesting.”
“When she entered the house illegally, I went after her. She was completely terrified.”
“That convinces me,” Bayle said sarcastically. “I’ve never run across a perp who deserved an Academy Award for acting.”
Stacy didn’t tolerate sarcasm well. Malone stepped in quickly. “Let’s assume this is the work of the same perp. Accompanying the other three vics was a message. The first, ‘He will come again to judge the living and the dead.’ The second, simply, ‘Judgment Day.’ And the third, ‘He cast out Seven Demons.’ Here, all we have is the number four. What’s he”—he looked pointedly at Bayle—“or
she
telling us?”
“I’ve got it,” Stacy said. “The countdown has begun.”
“The countdown? To Judgment Day?”
“No. The Seven Demons. Father Girod was number one, Preacher was two, Anton Gallier was three, Latrobe is four. Three more to go.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
Wednesday, August 17
4:10
P.M.
When Detective Malone had finally given Mira the okay to return home, Stacy insisted on escorting her. Although Mira had assured the woman it was unnecessary, she was oddly comforted. While being questioned by Detective Bayle she’d gotten the feeling that if Stacy hadn’t been there to back up her version of events, she’d be in handcuffs instead of walking free.
“Do you have someone you can call?” Stacy asked as they made their way down the walkway to the street.
It had rained while she’d been waiting on Louise’s porch. A typical August afternoon shower, it had left the air soupy. “I’ll be fine.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
No, it wasn’t. But she hated to lie to the woman. The one person she wanted to call, she didn’t think she should.
Connor.
A lump formed in her throat. Did she want to call him because of their past relationship? Because he made her feel safe? Or because he said he loved her—and right now she really needed that?
“Mira, do you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Who?”
“My assistant Deni or my friend Connor. I haven’t decided which.”
“You don’t have any family?”
The question crushed her. She fought to keep it from showing. “No, but they’re like my family.”
They reached the street. The ambulance, coroner’s wagon and a couple cruisers had cleared out. The crime-scene van remained, as well as a number of personal police vehicles.
“Which car is yours?” Mira asked.
Stacy pointed to a silver Camry parked across from her house. “Why?”
“I want to know who to look for if trouble comes knocking.”
Stacy smiled. “Let’s hope it won’t. Besides, I have a feeling that once my captain hears about this, I’ll be back to watching daytime TV.”
“I feel your pain.”
Their eyes met and they both laughed. It struck Mira as bizarre that she could laugh now, but at the same time she was grateful for it.
They reached Mira’s drive. Stacy held out her card. “I know you have Spencer’s number, but here’s mine as well.”
Mira took it. “Thank you.”
“Think of me as a cop
and
a friend. I mean it, okay?”
Nola was waiting at the front door for her. Mira unlocked the door, let her out to do her business, then called her into the house. The dog barreled inside and down the hall to the kitchen. Mira followed slowly, listening to the quiet, assuring herself she was alone.
Would she ever feel completely safe here again? she wondered. Acknowledging that only time would tell, she headed to the kitchen, fed Nola, then sat.
Take the next step. Figure this thing out. Mira took a pen and notepad from beside the phone.
Deni,
she wrote.
Chris. Connor.
Dr. Jasper. Her silver-blue Jag.
She reached for her cell and dialed the therapist. The woman answered right away.
“Mira, where are you?”
Instead of answering the question, she posed one of her own. “Have you been looking for me, Dr. Jasper?”
“Yes. You and I had an appointment this morning. I came in early to meet you, but you didn’t show.”
“Do you still drive the Jag sedan? Silver-blue color?”
“Silver Cloud. Yes, but—”
“I just saw you drive by my house. Deni saw you drive by the studio.”
“I’m at the office, Mira. I have been since our scheduled appointment this morning.”
Could Deni have been mistaken? Could she have as well?
Or was Dr. Jasper lying?
“Deni thought she saw Jeff with you.”
“Excuse me, did you say Jeff?”
“Yes. Was he with you?”
“Of course not. He’s dead.”
“He called me last night.”
“What did you say?” She sounded stunned.
“Jeff called. Said he’d be here soon.”
For a long moment the therapist was silent. When she spoke, her tone was measured, her voice low and soothing. As if she were trying to talk sense to a crazy person.
A crazy person. Her.
“Mira, I wish it had been me driving by. I wish Jeff had called or that he’d been in the car with me. But I’ve been here all day and Jeff is dead. He’s dead,” she said again. “I’m so sorry.”
Mira held tightly to the phone, wishing she knew what the hell she was doing.
“You saw what you wanted to see,” the therapist continued. “Last night, you heard the voice you wanted to hear.”
“I was trying to remember, Dr. Jasper. Who recommended you to me?”
Again a moment of silence. “I don’t remember. That was years ago.”
“It was someone from the memorial service. Someone connected to Jeff. Or his family.”
Then she remembered. It hit her like a thunderbolt.
Not a friend of hers or Jeff’s. Charlotte’s friend. Another former Queen of Rex.
Mira pictured her. One of those perfectly preserved matrons, never a hair out of place or nail chipped.
Like Dr. Jasper.
“The mind has power beyond anything we can really imagine,” Dr. Jasper was saying. “I had a patient who ‘believed’ her body into pregnancy. Morning sickness, sore breasts, a swelling belly … She wanted to be pregnant so badly she ‘made’ it happen. Was there a real, live fetus growing inside her womb? Of course not. But her mind had convinced her body there was.”
“Why are you so desperately trying to convince me all this is in my head?”
“Mira, this
is
all in your head. And I’d hardly call my actions ‘desperate.’ I’ve always had your best interests at heart. You were doing so well. We were on the precipice of stopping therapy. Now … your psychological state is more fragile than when we began our work.”
“Whose side are you on, Dr. Jasper?”
“How can you ask me that? Yours, of course.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were friends with the Galliers or that you knew Jeff?”
“I’m not friends with the Galliers and I didn’t know Jeff. Charlotte and I have served on a few committees together. But that’s all.”
“You should have let me know that up front, considering what they’ve put me through.”
“I would have,” she said firmly, “had I thought it anything that would interfere with my ability to counsel you.”
“I trusted you.”
“You still can. I promise you.”
“I’ve got to go.”
“Did you hear anything I said? I’m frightened for you. You’re in a very dangerous place.”
“I heard everything you said. And I’m thinking I might be in danger from you.”
“Mira,” she coaxed, “you know that’s not true. It’s false and it’s destructive. Someone planted that seed. Ask yourself why.”
“I’m hanging up now. Goodbye, Dr. Jasper.”
“No, wait! The police were here. Asking me questions about you.”
“What kind of questions?”
“About your treatment and state of mind. Your feelings for your father-in-law.”
Mira went cold. “What did you tell them?”
“That what we discuss is privileged. But they also asked a lot of questions about Connor Scott. Your relationship with him. Whether I had met him. If you talked about him much. I’m worried about it. They know something. I don’t think you should trust him.”
Mira’s hackles rose. “You’re warning me about Connor? You don’t even know him.”
“I know this all started after he returned to New Orleans. I know you’re emotionally vulnerable right now. I know that when Connor reappeared in your life, so did these … manifestations of Jeff.”
“Are you the one, Dr. Jasper?”
“The one?”
“Who’s been terrorizing me? Who somehow re-created his voice? What about his aftershave? Did I mention the one he preferred? Or did Charlotte Gallier tell you?”
“My God, Mira! Please stop this. Come in. We’ll talk. I have your best interests—”
“Goodbye, Dr. Jasper.”
She hung up. Almost immediately, her cell rang. The therapist calling back. Mira silenced the call. Moments later a text message binged through.
I do have your best interests at heart. You can trust me.
And then, in another text:
Be careful, Mira. Please.
Mira stared at the two text messages, torn. What if she was wrong? What if the therapist was the one person she
could
trust?
She sank onto a bar stool. They’d worked together just over four years. She had helped Mira through some harrowing times. If the therapist hadn’t had her best interests at heart, would she have helped her so much?
How could she be certain?
Call Charlotte and ask her.
Her ex–mother-in-law wouldn’t take her call. She didn’t doubt that for a second. She had people who screened her calls: a butler, housekeeper or social secretary. To make it through the screening process, the woman had to want to speak to the caller. Or want something from him or her.
That was it. Dr. Jasper would call Charlotte.
Mira still had the Galliers’ home number in her contacts list. She dialed *67 to mask her number and called it. The butler answered. “Dr. Adele Jasper,” Mira said, “calling for Charlotte Gallier.”
A moment later, Charlotte came on the line. “Adele, darling, how lovely of you to call.”