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“Son, I was sound asleep—without my hearing aid. If little green men had descended from Mars and blown up the Superdome, I wouldn’t have heard it,” she said.
“We believe he was killed around 5:00 a.m., Mrs. Ruby,” Quinn said. “I’m not surprised you were sleeping, and certainly not surprised you didn’t hear anything. Did you notice that you didn’t see him later in the day?”
“Good heavens, he works nights. I never saw the man until well past noon,” she said.
“What about anyone—his friends and acquaintances, not to mention strangers—you might have seen visiting him?” Quinn asked.
“Mr. Quinn, you may think I’m generalizing, even stereotyping, but musicians only come in strange,” Mrs. Ruby said. “And so do some ex-athletes.”
That drew a smirk from Larue as he looked at Quinn.
Quinn looked back at Mrs. Ruby. “You know me?”
“I followed your football career years ago, young man.” She wagged a finger at him. “And I witnessed your downfall, saw you join the dregs of humanity, and still, like most of this city, when you died on that operating table and came back to life, I said a hallelujah. Yes, I know you. And I know you were a cop and became a private eye, and that you’ve been working weird cases with this one here—” she paused and nodded toward Jake “—and old Angus Cafferty’s daughter. So let’s establish this right away. You work the strange—and musicians are strange.”
“Can you describe any of the friends hanging around in richer detail than just ‘strange’?” Quinn asked her, grinning.
“Sure. I’m eighty-eight. Not much else to do. Traveling too far around the city tires me out, so I sit on the porch a lot. Lord, I do love watching the life around me. And lots of people come and go. A tall, beautiful black man came a lot. When he’s here, the house is a’rocking. I mean, for real. The man is a drummer. Then there’s a woman—let’s see, early forties, pleasant, hardly strange at all, for a musician. Brown hair, brown eyes.” She leaned toward Quinn. “She’s got the hots for the tall black man. There’s a pudgy fellow, about five foot nine. You got pictures? You show ’em to me. You want to get a sketch artist out here? I can have a go. But I don’t think you’re going to find his killer among them. I got a glance at what they did to him—no friend of the man did anything like that.”
“The first you knew about this in any way was when Lacey Cavanaugh came to you?” Larue asked.
Mrs. Ruby winced. “That poor girl. When we looked in that window, we couldn’t see clear. But he wasn’t moving, and I knew...well, I wasn’t giving anybody a key until the cops came. I’d give a lot to help you more. Whoever did this came and went. Guess he was with Larry for a while,” she said quietly, her face grim.
“Mrs. Ruby, thank you for your help. If you think of anything else, anything at all, that could be helpful, you’ll call us?” Quinn asked. Both he and Larue handed her their cards.
She studied the business cards and then looked at the two men. “How long do you think he was in there?” she asked. “An hour? Two hours?”
“One,” Quinn said. Larue nodded his agreement.
“Still, six in the morning—someone should have seen the killer leave,” she said. “I do watch television, you know. I am aware of how things go down.”
“I’m sure you are,” Jake told her. “And we’re doing a canvass of the neighborhood. I have officers going door-to-door.”
“We watch television, too,” Quinn said gravely.
She gave him a swat on the knee. “Behave, young man. I’ll be here, ready to look at pictures, describe people, whatever you need,” she told them.
“Is there anywhere else you can go?” Larue asked her. “Crime scene techs will be coming and going, and there will be officers on hand for a while, but if you feel insecure...”
“I’m not insecure. At my age?” Mrs. Ruby demanded.
“Still, be careful when you open the door,” Jake warned her.
“Detective Larue,” she said. “I won’t be opening my door without seeing who is outside, I promise you. And if I do open the door, I’ll have my Glock in hand and a truckload of silver hollow-point bullets that will take care of any opponent, human or...otherwise. And don’t you worry. I have a permit for it, and I know how to use it.”
“Just don’t go shooting the postman,” Jake warned.
“Want to visit a shooting range with me?” she demanded sharply. “I won’t go shooting any uppity cops, either, I promise. Though it may be tempting.”
Laughing, Jake apologized as they rose.
They left the house and walked down to the street together, ready to head to the hospital in their separate cars.
“I think the old bird likes you best,” Larue told Quinn.
“You acted as if she were senile. Telling her not to shoot the mailman.”
“She’s eighty-eight!”
“And Bob Hope was still performing for our troops at that age,” Quinn reminded him.
Jake nodded thoughtfully. “It’s all good. I’m glad she likes you. You can talk to her once we figure out which of the city’s musicians she might have been talking about. But then, you were good with that charming old battle-ax from Hubert’s case, and that god-awful painting-society matron, Hattie Lamont,” Larue said.
“Not as good as Billie,” Quinn said, smiling.
“They’re seeing each other?”
“Oh, yes. They fight like a pair of alley cats sometimes, but they can’t stay away from one another,” Quinn said.
“And Danni?”
“Danni is great,” Quinn said softly. They’d agreed to take things slowly, which was almost a necessity, given that he was often asked to consult on cases outside Louisiana. But that was something else they shared. They both believed strongly that working to solve strange crimes was an integral part of who they were.
But he loved being back in town, loved being with her. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, five-nine, slim and agile, her every move graceful. Her eyes reminded him of the blue sky on a clear Scottish morning, and her hair was a rich deep auburn. She was deeply compassionate and possessed old Angus’s steely courage and determination—and she was just as stubborn as her father, too.
“She’s expecting you tonight,” he told Larue.
“Yeah, well, I was just coming over with the files on the first case—wanted to see what you thought or what you might know, since you sit in at the clubs sometimes. But then...then we found Lawrence Barrett.” He fell silent.
Quinn turned. The body of Lawrence Barrett was just being carried out.
Ron Hubert nodded to them. “I’ll get you a report as soon as possible,” he promised.
“Two in a week?” Quinn asked. “We’d better get over to the hospital and hope that Lacey Cavanaugh knows something we can use.”
* * *
“Arnie wasn’t messed up,” Tyler told Danni. “Not like that.”
The saxophone was in its case now, and leaning against the counter. She was glad that the shop was empty, because Tyler seemed too upset to care where they were or what was going on.
“Let’s say you’re right. That someone murdered Arnie. Can you think of any reason why?” she asked him.
“That’s the problem,” Tyler said. He leaned an elbow on the counter and looked reflectively into the distance as he spoke. “We’re talking about a good man here. A black man from a poor neighborhood who went to church every week, loved his family, never stole so much as a dime from anyone and did nothing but love his music. He did the right thing—he up and joined the military because he believed we had to support our way of life. When he came home on leave, he did nothing but hug people and play his music. He didn’t talk much about what he’d done, just said that war was ugly, there were good people who were the enemy and some jerks who were on the same side. He believed he made a difference—he got to see schools being built, and people from both sides coming together to dig wells and feed starving kids. And enemy or not, he said it was hard as hell to kill a man. He survived bombs and gunfire and...came home to this. And I knew his death wasn’t right. I knew it wasn’t right from the get-go. He was happy ever since he got home—he came home to his music! His family loved him. They’re good people. They never had much, but what they didn’t have in money, they made up in support. And he never did drugs, not before he went overseas or after he came home. There was no reason for him to walk offstage one night and decide to suddenly stick a needle in his arm. Why can’t anyone else see that?”
“They may question what happened, Tyler,” Danni said. “But we all see the obvious and find it easy to accept, too. You said he was found on the street, a needle in his arm?”
“Yes.”
“No one else around?”
He turned his gaze back to her. “Would you expect a murderer to hang around?”
“What I’m trying to figure out is how someone got him under control so they were able to stick the needle in his arm. There must have been an autopsy.”
“There was.”
“And there was nothing else in his system?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like I’m trained to read a death certificate. There were some chemical names in there I didn’t recognize, but even if they were tranquilizers or something, the cops probably just thought he took them himself. And yes, he’d been drinking.”
The little bell over the shop door rang. A couple of young tourists came in, and Danni excused herself, walking over to ask them if they needed any help. They were looking for a specific line of jewelry, and she carried it. She was glad it was in a display case to one side of the store, not under the counter where Tyler was standing as if unaware of her customers, though he managed a smile when they came over to pay.
But as soon as they were gone, he asked, “Well, what do you think?”
What did she think?
She didn’t know what to think. She remembered Arnie. Like Tyler, he’d been a couple of years ahead of her in high school, but he’d played beautifully even then, and she could remember watching him play in the school band. He’d been a big guy, a solid, muscular six-two, at least.
And he’d had training when he joined the military. He couldn’t have been an easy mark.
But she did find it strange that, if Tyler was right, he would begin with drugs by heading straight for a needle.
“I don’t know what to think,” she said.
* * *
Lacey Cavanaugh was out of surgery. In her horror and anguish, she’d pitched down the steep front steps and smashed a kneecap. The doctor warned Quinn and Larue that she was still under heavy sedation—probably a double-edged good thing. She would otherwise be in tremendous pain over both the loss of her boyfriend and the wreck of her leg.
Quinn was standing closest to her head. She opened her eyes when he took her hand.
“Miss Cavanaugh,” Jake said, “we’re so sorry to bother you when I know you’re hurting in every possible way, but I’m afraid we need to talk to you. I’m Detective Larue, and this is my associate Michael Quinn. We have some questions we need to ask you, because as I’m sure you know, time is of the essence as we try to apprehend whoever’s guilty of your boyfriend’s...death. So if you could just think back, when was the last time you saw Mr. Barrett?”
Lacey stared at him from her haze, tears in her eyes. “Oh, God. Larry...”
Quinn squeezed her hand. “We’re so sorry,” he said softly. “We know you loved him, and that he was a good man.”
Larue stared at him; they didn’t really know that he’d been a good man.
But the words had the desired effect on Lacey. She looked at Quinn with such grief and gratitude in her eyes that he almost regretted being quite so gentle.
“He was the best,” she said softly.
“And we have to find out who killed him,” Quinn said. “You want him punished for what he did, don’t you?”
She nodded. “I last saw Larry...last night. I didn’t stay, because my little sister had a piano recital.”
“So last night at what time?” Quinn asked.
“Seven,” she said.
“And you didn’t go back to his house until this afternoon?” Larue asked.
She didn’t answer. She was staring at Quinn, still holding his hand as if it were a lifeline.
“Lacey, did you talk to him again after that?” Quinn asked.
She nodded.
“When was that?” Quinn asked.
“Last night—well, early this morning. Somewhere around three. He was playing last night at the Old Jackson Ale House. I called him at three because that’s about when he gets home.”
“And everything was fine?”
“Yes. We were both going to sleep. And I was supposed to go over to his house in the afternoon. Which I did. He didn’t answer the door. And then I looked in the window and I couldn’t really see...but it looked like...but I thought he’d be okay, you know?”
She began to sob softly.
She really had loved the man, Quinn thought.
“I’m so sorry,” he said again. “Lacey, can you think of anyone—from his past or maybe your own—who would have wanted to hurt him?”
Tears squeezed between her lashes. She shook her head.
“An ex-boyfriend?” Larue asked.
She opened her eyes and glared at him.
“Lacey,” Quinn said, “we have to ask.”
“No,” she said. “My ex married the girl he was cheating on me with—three years ago. We’re actually all on fairly friendly terms. And he’s in Detroit now, anyway, playing some backup gig there.”
“Thank you, Lacey. I hope you understand, we have to ask. What about the drugs?” Quinn said.
Once again tears streamed from her eyes, silent tears that just ran down her cheeks.
“We argued about the drugs,” she said softly. “I said the pot was fine, but the coke...we didn’t need the coke. He didn’t deal, if that’s what you’re getting at. He just shared with friends. He always shared everything with friends. He helped down-and-out musicians. You don’t understand, everyone liked him!”
“What about his ex-girlfriends? Any crazy ones?” Larue asked.
“Crazy ex-girlfriends?” Lacey repeated. “Pretty much all of them,” she said. “But mostly crazy in a good way. And none living in New Orleans. Suzanne Delmer is working on a cruise ship, and she’s crazy like a happy puppy. Before her it was Janis Bruge, and she’s out in LA now. This can’t have been anyone we know—it can’t have been. There’s just no reason.”
“Okay, so let me ask you something else. When you reached the house, did you see anyone around? Anyone at all?” Larue asked.
She shook her head, biting her lower lip. “There were some kids playing with a football in the street. A UPS truck down a block or so. It was just kind of a lazy afternoon. Typical,” she said.
More tears fell.
