House of Blues (4 page)

He pondered a moment. Finally, he said, "The
couple of the nineties. She's the brains of the operation. Also the
brawn."

Skip smiled. She didn't think he was nearly done.
"How so?"

"
God forbid anyone should call me a
feminist—they shoot guys for that in some parts of town—but,
look, he's got it easy, she's got it hard. She brings home the bacon
and then she cooks it; after changing into some diaphanous frock and
also changing the baby, of course. I guess it's like that apocryphal
old woman said: 'I makes the livin' and he makes the livin'
worthwhile.' "

"I gather you don't think much of your
brother-in-law."

"Oh, completely wrong. Fine fellow. Charming
fellow. Anyone my dad hated can't be all bad."

Skip's heart speeded up.

"But don't get too excited." He shrugged.
"There weren't all that many people he liked."

"Your dad had enemies?"

Grady looked startled. "The kind who'd kill him,
you mean?"

Skip nodded.

"Well, I never thought of it that way. He was
irascible. You don't kill people for that, do you?"

"You tell me."

"Tell you what? Tell you I did it? What is
this?"

Skip said nothing.

"Look, some thug broke in here and killed him.
What could be more obvious?"

"In that case, what happened to Reed and Sally
and Dennis?"

Grady's face, so facile, so obviously trying to
betray no emotion, went slightly pale again. "I don't know. I
don't want to think about it."

Neither do I, she thought. The Heberts were a
prominent family. She didn't know how much money they had, but it
might seem reasonable to someone that they'd pay a good-sized ransom
for a kidnapped member. Perhaps Arthur's murder was the result of a
kidnap gone wrong. But then, why take the remaining three when one
would do?

Because they knew the kidnapper's face.

Which doesn't bode well for their future.

Sugar was beginning to come around again, talking
quietly to Nina. Skip addressed the younger woman: "Do you know
if Reed or Dennis had a gun?"

Sugar said, "I told you—" but Nina
interrupted, smiling, shaking her head. "They wouldn't be caught
dead with a gun. Neither one of them. Dennis—um, lost a relative
once .... " She let her voice trail off, apparently thinking of
something too regrettable to mention.

"
I already told you that," Sugar said; it
sounded a lot like a whine.

"
How about Arthur?""Arthur?"

Skip nodded.

"
Arthur had a gun."

"Where did he keep it?"

"In a safe in his office. Here, I mean. In the
room he called his office."

"
Would you mind telling Mr. Gottschalk? Our
crime lab man."

"Of course not."

Skip smiled sweetly at Sugar. "Will you be all
right alone?"

Sugar looked a little disoriented, as if things were
moving too fast for her. "I guess so. You mean tell him now?"
She put a hand on her chest.

Skip couldn't tell if she was faking or not, but she
nodded at Grady. "You can go with her if you like—just to the
porch. An officer will meet you there."

She wanted some time with Nina. "I feel for
them," she said, nodding at Grady and Sugar.

Nina simply shook her head, as Skip had seen dozens
of friends and relatives do when confronted with death.

"
Have you worked for them long?"

"A few years."

"I gather from Grady the old man was difficult."

She shrugged. "Grady's not so easy himself."

"And Mrs. Hebert?"

"Complicated. I feel sorry for her."

"Why?"

"Arthur treated her like dirt, for one thing.
For another, she's got some real little emotional knots."

"What sort?"

"She doesn't really have a lot of self-esteem."
Phillips thought a moment. "And I guess she thinks she can get
it by pretending."

Nina had a maddening way of throwing out enticing
generalities that made little sense initially. "Pretending
what?" Skip asked.

"Whatever. It varies."

Skip still didn't get it, but she couldn't stay
there. There was too much to cover in a hurry. "Do you know the
family pretty well?"

To her surprise, Nina snorted. "I'd say so.
Grady and I were an item once, God help me." She paused here.
"Reed and I are best friends. And Dennis is my cousin."

"Dennis! But I thought—" She stopped, but
Nina made her complete the sentence. "I thought he was white."

"Oh, he is, I guess. He's from a white branch of
the family, anyway. We didn't grow up together—I didn't even know
about the Fouchers; the white ones. Dennis looked me up when we were
already grown." She snorted again. "He wanted money."

"Was this before or after you knew the Heberts?"

"
Before. He introduced me years later. What you
have to understand is he was a different person then. He was an
addict."

"
I see."

"
Oh, there never was any harm in him; not a bit.
He's a gentle soul—a very sweet man." She stopped and stared
at the wall.

"Lord, lord."

"What is it?"

"I was just thinking how much he and Grady are
alike. Passive. Sweet, but ineffectual."

Grady hadn't struck Skip as sweet, but she kept her
mouth shut.

"No wonder Reed and I hit it off so well. We're
like mirror images, one black, one white. Otherwise, we could be
twins. Well, no, not exactly, I'm more of a rebel than she is.

"Good lord, Goody Two-Shoes is more of a rebel
than she is.

"But how we're alike is—we're real obsessive.
Can't rest till everything's done; and done perfectly.

"But her daddy criticized everything she did,
and to tell you the truth"—she dropped her voice—"her
mama's not much different. Reed never steps outside the lines they
draw, and in the end she can never really believe she can do anything
very well. But of course she's a whiz. Terrific mother, great cook,
runs her house, runs the restaurant, supports Dennis in his little
venture."

"
A nursery, isn't it?"

"Yeah. That's what I mean about him being a
gentle soul. Loves plants to death." Something in her voice
sounded like contempt.

"Reed sounds like she's wound pretty tightly."

Nina shrugged. "I guess. She's so busy being
nice to everybody you wouldn't notice."

Paul Gottschalk came out, trailed by the two Heberts.
He said, "The gun's there all right. I'd be surprised if it's
been fired."

Skip nodded. "Thanks, Paul. I'm going to leave
you folks now."

She wanted to examine the crime scene. "But Mrs.
Hebert, I need you to walk with me through the house when we're done,
to see if anything's missing. Are you thinking of staying with
friends?"

"
I might just stay at Reed and Dennis's house—I
don't think they'd mind, do you?" She looked at Grady, holding
her hands at breast level, rather like a prairie dog. She was
beginning to look tired and very frightened. Skip thought the shock
was starting to wear off.

Grady said, "My hovel certainly isn't suitable."

"Do you think you could maybe . . . She let it
hang, clearly not wanting to ask her son for something.

Grady looked meaningfully at Nina, and Skip realized
he wanted her to come to his rescue. Nina ignored him. Finally, he
said, "Yes, Mother, I'll stay with you," speaking not
nearly so gently as the circumstances called for. To Skip, he said,
"Can I take her there and bring her back when you call?"

"Sure, but one last thing. Can you point out
Reed and Dennis's car?"

"Of course."

He and Skip walked up and down the street. "It's
not here."

"
It's not?"

"
It's a beige Mercedes sedan—do you see one?"

She didn't. She handed out her card, told everyone to
call immediately if they saw or heard from Reed and Dennis, then said
good-bye and went into the house.

The district officers who'd checked out Reed and
Dennis's, and Dennis's parents' house, reported no sign of any member
of the Foucher family. Skip put out a bulletin for them and their
car, asking officers who spotted them to contact her immediately.

Because it was her case, it was her job to stay with
the body till the coroner took it away. She was standing in the
dining room, staring at the carnage, when Paul Gottschalk joined her.

"
What do you make of it?"

"
I give up. You?"

"Well, I've got a theory. We'll have to see if
it checks out, but here's what I think. He was shot first in the
right leg—in the groin, actually, and the bullet hit his femoral
artery. Blood spurted all over the floor, and the impact threw him
back and twisted him toward the right, toward the wall, where he
touched his hand to the wound, then to the wall to steady himself."
He pointed to the handprint.

"
Then more blood spurted all over the
wall—that's why it looks like a knife fight in here. And then he
turned around, he might have even walked a couple of steps, and that
time he got shot in the chest."

Skip nodded, about to say something, but Gottschalk,
strange bird, simply walked away looking satisfied.

When the body had been
removed, Skip called Sugar to come examine her house. Nothing was
missing.

* * *

The last step was to canvass the neighbors, a task
she dreaded. People in the Garden District, with its mansions and its
private patrol service, were probably the most frightened of crime in
the whole city. She didn't want to look at their dilated eyes and
tight lips as they pressed her for details, as they wrung their
manicured hands and begged her to tell them how to protect
themselves.

She didn't have the least idea how to reassure them,
and right now she didn't have time either.

As it happened, the neighbors on the right were on
vacation, according to their own right-hand neighbors. The ones on
the left had been out at the time of the shooting, and the ones
across the street had been closeted in their air-conditioned house.

Two doors down, however, on the Heberts' side of the
street, Mrs. Gandolfo did think she'd heard a shot, had even peeked
out through her curtains. She called her neighbors, the Heberts'
left-hand ones, and getting no answer, dialed the Heberts. A young
man answered and said everything was fine and he hadn't heard a
thing. Reassured, she'd given up.

"When you peeked out," Skip said, "did
you notice any cars parked in front of the Heberts' house?"

"
Not really," said Mrs. Gandolfo. "No
more than usual, anyway. Maybe a beige one, I guess, or white. And
there might have been another one, but I really can't remember
anything about it. You know how your mind registers something, but
you don't necessarily know what?"

"
Can you say anything else about the beige one?"

"No. No, I can't. Except it might have been kind
of small."

A Mercedes sedan was at least middle-sized, in Skip's
view.
 
 

3

Pulses pounding a wild tattoo in her ears, the wheel
slick from her sweat, Reed drove the Mercedes like a sports car,
finding it clumsy on the turns.

My fault, she thought. Dennis could do this better.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, anybody could.

Blind with her own tears, she tried not to think,
just drive.

Oddly, the streets were nearly deserted, or the
Tercel might have hit another car. She might have as well; a cop
might have stopped either one.

But it was a lazy night in the Big Easy—everyone
was home from work and staying in, it looked like.

She thought she could remember these words: "If
anybody follows me, I'll shoot them through the head, I swear to God
I will."

But she wasn't sure. At the time, the words hadn't
even registered. Nothing had. Thought had taken a holiday. Reed
simply acted on automatic pilot.

Her feet had worked. It was that simple.

She had given chase, seen Sally thrown roughly into
the Tercel, as if car seats hadn't been invented, and gotten there
too late. The car door was locked.

Reed was getting flashbacks of the scene, as if they
were part of a dream. In her mind she saw herself as she couldn't
have in real life: tearing out the door, nearly falling down on the
front steps and pausing to right herself, losing precious
milliseconds, tugging at the car door, through the window seeing
Sally's small blond head hit the door on the other side, calling out
her name—Sally!—before hearing the Tercel's ignition. The key had
been left in it, ready to go.

Reed had had to grapple for her own extra key from
under the right fender, a tiny delay that had made the difference.
Then began the chase, Reed still on automatic, just doing what she
had to do to get her child back. She paid no attention at all to
where she was being led, what neighborhoods she went through, where
she got on the expressway—she just drove; and now these scenes had
started flashing, perhaps the first sign of sanity returning. Could
this really be she, Reed Hebert? What did she think she was doing?