G.T. Herren - Paige Tourneur 02 - Dead Housewives of New Orleans (11 page)

But in the presence of these three women I felt like white trash.

“You were at the premiere last night,” Amanda Beth announced, leaning forward in her chair. “You were with that really handsome tall man with the amazing body.” She turned to Serena. “I pointed him out to you, Serena.”

Serena’s pink tongue flicked at her lower lip before she replied. “A hot piece of manflesh.” She winked at Amanda Beth, and they both laughed. “Is he single?”

“He’s gay.” I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, and turned to Margery. “Athalie said you wanted to see me because Chloe Valence is suing you?”

“That
bitch!”
The words exploded out of Serena like she’d bitten into something rotten and was spitting it out. “Someone needs to take that bitch out and give her a good horsewhipping.”

“Interesting you should say that,” I replied, turning back to her. “She was found dead this afternoon in her back yard. Blunt force trauma to the head.” I closed my eyes. “Actually, I was the one who found her.”

The room was uncomfortably silent other than the ticking of the enormous Sèvres clock on the mantelpiece— which, I noticed, was about five minutes slow. They stared at me, the color drained from their faces.

“How awful,” Margery said finally. She seemed like she was going to say something else, but finally just took another gulp of her martini.

“Horrible as she was, she didn’t deserve that. I suppose any number of people would have wanted to kill her— she treated people so badly,” Amanda Beth managed to finally say. She smiled at me. “Didn’t you use to work with her?”

“Well, yes.” I thought it best not to mention how I felt about Chloe.

“I would imagine the police have a long list of suspects,” Amanda Beth went on. “Serena threatened to kill her last night after the after party, didn’t you?”

“Well, I didn’t mean it, obviously. She made me angry— people say things like that all the time when they’re angry.” Serena cleared her throat. “Obviously, I didn’t kill her. I couldn’t kill anyone.” She glanced over at Margery. “I mean, we didn’t get along but that’s hardly a motive to kill someone.” She turned her big eyes to me. “Right?”

“Such a tragedy,” Margery clicked her tongue, shaking her head from side to side sadly. “Although I have to say it doesn’t surprise me. She moved through life like a pinball, damaging everyone she came into contact with.” She took another drink from her glass. “First Fidelis, now Chloe. What is going on?”

“Maybe someone is killing all the Grande Dames,” Amanda Beth said with an icy grin. Her eyes glinted. “They certainly started in the right place.”

Serena had gone almost completely pale. She got up and refilled her glass from the pitcher on the sideboard, plopping another two olives in the glass and heading back to her chair. She took a healthy gulp once she was sitting down. “Jesus.” She took a deep breath. “You know, my first thought when I heard about Fidelis this morning was ‘I bet Chloe had something to do with it.’ They were both awful women, but they certainly hated each other far more than they enjoyed torturing us.”

Amanda Beth said nothing, just sat there very quietly with her hands folded in her lap, her face completely impassive. Her large brown eyes locked on mine. “Why was she suing you, Margery?” I asked, still watching her daughter.

Margery shook her head. “Does it really matter now? She’s dead, the whole thing is over.” She rubbed her eyes and took another big drink of her martini. “Remy must be devastated. I’ll have to send him something.”

“Don’t be stupid, Mother.” Amanda Beth finally said. “She might have been suing you— and the network— but it was all about
him.
” Her face twisted. “Mother had enough of Chloe’s behavior and said something she shouldn’t have. It was true, of course, but Chloe and her husband threatened legal action.” She rolled her eyes.

I turned away from Amanda Beth and smiled at Serena. “You said Fidelis and Chloe hated each other?” I asked.

Serena nodded. “Serious bad blood there, but don’t know what it was about.”

“Did you know what it was about, Mrs. Lautenschlaeger?”

“Margery,” she said, emptying her own martini glass and setting it back down. “Call me Margery, Paige. And no, I didn’t know what their problem was with each other.” She sighed. “Why I ever let you talk me into going on that horrible show, Amanda Beth, I’ll never know. If this stupid lawsuit wasn’t bad enough, murder?” She rubbed her eyes. “I shall never leave this house again.”

“Drama queen.” Amanda Beth shook her head. She gave me a not-pleasant smile. “Paige, pay no attention to my mother.”

“It was your idea for your mother to be a Grande Dame?”

Amanda Beth nodded. “They originally asked me, but I thought Mother would be better suited to it.” She shrugged, her shoulders lifting slightly. “These shows all have a formula, you know, and when Abe Golden told me who had already agreed to do the show, I knew that Mother was a better fit— they didn’t have an older woman to be the voice of reason, to be a
mothering
influence on the rest of the cast, to, you know, pour oil on the troubled waters and smooth out differences and disagreements between the women.”

I nodded. I knew exactly what she meant. This role was filled by Alison Flax on the
Marin County
show, a wealthy widow who mentored the younger women, and was always available for advice, mediation, and support. Alison Flax was the gold standard the ‘voice of reason’ women on the other franchises aspired to be. She had parlayed her enormous popularity into a nationally syndicated call-in radio advice show, and had published several bestselling books.

“Obviously, I was wrong,” Amanda Beth finished grimly. “Rather than calming things down, Mother jumped into the conflicts with both feet.”

“That’s a little unfair,” Serena said. “Amanda Beth, you weren’t always around. You don’t know how awful those two bitches were to your mother.” Serena turned to me. “Almost from the very start, they both were gunning for Margery— and the rest of us, for that matter.” She patted her lacquered hair, which sprang back into place once she stopped. “And each other.”

“I couldn’t believe how rude they both were to me, in my own house,” Margery continued. “They didn’t show any of it last night, Paige— it was all left on the cutting room floor, I guess. I wanted to throw them both out of my party, to be honest, but I was contractually obligated to have them there.” She made a face. “But that’s neither here nor there, I suppose. Chloe and her husband’s attorneys sent me— and the network— a cease and desist letter.”

“Why?”

“She called Remy Valence out as a gay man,” Amanda Beth replied with a laugh, her eyes gleaming maliciously. “And she did it on camera!”

“It was hilarious!” Serena laughed along with her. “You should have seen the look on Chloe’s face— it was priceless. When the episode airs—
if
it airs, I suppose— you can bet I’ll be watching that scene over and over again.” Her smile widened. “It was
brilliant.”

“It wasn’t my proudest moment,” Margery admitted. “But I’m not sorry I did it. She needed to be put in her place. And then for her to act all wounded.” Her face twisted. “Besides, it’s not like everyone in New Orleans doesn’t already know about Remy and his little apartment in the Quarter.”

I hadn’t known, but it didn’t surprise me.

“If you have things you don’t want the world to know, you don’t go on a reality TV show,” Margery went on. “I knew that’s how it all worked, you know— if I had any deep dark secrets I wouldn’t have done the show. But Chloe—”

Amanda Beth cut her mother off. “Chloe thought she could have her cake and eat it, too. You know she put herself through college as a stripper in Biloxi, don’t you?”

“I’ve heard that,” I said, very carefully, “but I was never sure if it was true.”

“Oh, it’s true.” This from Serena. “That’s where she first met Billy Barron— and where she first started sleeping with him.” She shook her head, and her earrings caught the light and flashed fire. “That’s why she and Fidelis hated each other, you know. They were both sleeping with him, all these years— even when he was married.” She waved her hand. “His wife had no idea what was going on— as it was, she took him to the cleaners in the divorce— but if she’d known about the other women?”

My head was spinning. Finally, after a brief moment of silence, I said, “And now they’re both dead. Tell me, though, Margery, I’m curious. Why was it so important you talk to me about all of this? Surely you have enough lawyers on hand to handle the cease and desist letter from the Valences. I really don’t understand what I have to do with any of this.”

“Now that she’s dead it doesn’t matter.” Margery stood up. “I’m terribly tired, if you’ll excuse me?” She walked over to me, and leaned down. “I’m so sorry to have dragged you into this, Paige, and I do appreciate your willingness to help me. I won’t forget it.”

She swept out of the room.

“She wanted you to expose Remy and Chloe both in
Crescent City,”
Amanda Beth said with a sigh. “But she’s right, it doesn’t really matter any more.”

“Let me ask you something.” I leaned forward in my chair. “You seem pretty certain that Chloe was a stripper—”

Serena interrupted me. “She wasn’t just a stripper, she was a whore.” She nodded at Amanda Beth. “Give it to her.”

Amanda Beth opened her purse and pulled out a manila envelope, which she passed to me. “Go ahead, open it up. I paid good money for this stuff.”

I opened the envelope, and slid out a stack of photographs. The one on top was Chloe— a much younger Chloe, to be sure, but it was easily recognizable as Chloe. She was stark naked, sitting on a bed with her legs spread wide.

“Talk about morally corrupt,” Serena sneered. “The tramp.”

I woke up when Skittle started smacking me in the face with his paws.

As soon as my eyes opened, he immediately went into love-kitty mode, purring and head-butting me. Blearily, I looked over at my alarm clock. Seven thirty-one. “You couldn’t let me sleep in this morning?” I said in an aggrieved tone, pushing the blankets aside and standing up. He leaped off the bed and started twining himself, still purring, around my legs. I sighed, staggered over to the plastic box where I kept his food, filled his bowl, and refilled his water as well before going into the bathroom and washing my face. I scrubbed my teeth, scowled at myself in the mirror, and headed downstairs.

I’d set the coffee-maker to brew before I’d gone to bed, so the kitchen smelled like fresh brewed coffee. I sighed and gratefully poured myself a cup. I tossed a bagel into the toaster and washed down two Ibuprofen tablets with coffee. My head ached slightly, but it wasn’t that bad. I gingerly reached to the back of my head and felt the lump, wincing with pain as my fingertips made contact. Note to self— don’t touch lump again. As I waited for the bagel to pop up, I looked over at my desk. All the windows around it were covered in condensation, which meant it was probably muggy as hell outside. But there was a lot of light and it wasn’t raining any more. When the bagel popped up, I smeared peanut butter on it— fat free peanut-butter, stupid diet— and took two big swigs of the coffee before sitting down at my desk.

The manila envelope Amanda Beth Lautenschlaeger had handed me last night was propped up against my computer screen. I took a bite out of the bagel and resisted the overwhelming urge to burn the damned pictures.

Just having them in my apartment made me feel slimed.

I hadn’t reviewed the pictures in Margery’s drawing room— I’d made some excuses and my escape shortly after they’d been plopped into my lap. I’d saved that pleasure for when I got home.

They were easily the most revolting pictures I’d ever seen in my life.

I’m not a shrinking violet, nor have I been particularly sheltered. I was a crime reporter for the
Times-Piacyune
for years. I’ve interviewed rape victims. I’ve seen dead bodies or the aftermaths of shootings and car accidents. I’ve seen pornographic films and magazines. I’ve seen naked bodies before. I’ve certainly had more than my fair share of sexual partners in my lifetime.

But these pictures— maybe it was because I knew and disliked the model, I don’t know. But as I flipped through them, each one more degrading than the last, I found myself starting to feel sorry for Chloe. She was so young in the pictures— she couldn’t have been much older than twenty, if that— and the forced, pained smile and the sadness in her eyes almost made me want to cry. No woman—
girl—
should ever have to degrade herself this way, and her youth made it even sadder.

I couldn’t imagine being so desperate for money that I would pose that way.

It broke my heart.

And now, knowing she had done this, my entire perspective on her had changed.

No wonder Chloe had been so prim and proper at the paper. No wonder she was so desperate to have people think she was a lady. No wonder she’d been willing to marry a closeted gay man for social position and financial security.

It was the final piece of the puzzle that solved the mystery of who she was, and why she was the kind of woman she’d been.

I’d felt like the worst kind of hypocrite when I’d gone to bed, and this morning in the harsh morning light filtering through the condensation on my windows, I was truly sorry Chloe was dead. I wanted to apologize to her for all the terrible thoughts I’d had about her, all the times I’d been mean to her. Sure, Chloe had been awful to me and to other women, and the way I’d treated her had been a reaction to that. But now? Now I could understand her better.

We had a
lot
more in common that I’d ever thought possible.

Like me, Chloe had reinvented herself and tried to put a past she was ashamed of behind her. I’d heard she was originally from Monroe. If she’d had to work as a stripper and prostitute to put herself through college— well, the odds were she didn’t come from a particularly good background. And these pictures…

Amanda Beth and Serena had explained to me that once Margery got the cease and desist letter from the Valences’ lawyer, they’d taken matters into their own hands. The great irony was Serena, looking for a private eye to dig up dirt on Remy and Chloe, had turned to her cousin-in-law Barbara for help. Barbara, of course, had referred her to none other than my best friend, Chanse MacLeod. Chanse had been the one who dug up these pictures of Chloe— and the equally sordid ones at the bottom of the stack, the ones of Remy
in flagrante delicto
with another man. I didn’t blame Chanse for not telling me— his clients paid for confidentiality, naturally, and a private eye who blabs to people won’t be in business for long. I didn’t want to know how he got the pictures that certainly would have ended any threats of legal action from the Valences once and for all.