Sweet Dreams Boxed Set (166 page)

Angry. Lashing out at her former employer. Hardly a reliable witness.

But all she had.

“That day my partner and I were interviewing Dr. Blackwood, I asked if she practiced hypnotherapy and she said no. I saw your face; you knew she was lying.”

“Yes.” She looked down at her hands, then back up at Micki. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“Why do you think she did that?”

Pam frowned. “Maybe she was hiding something?”

“Exactly what I think. She ever talk to you about what she does? About therapy in general or hypnotherapy in particular?”

“Some. She once told me that in the wrong hands hypnosis could be a dangerous thing. Something like, she could just as easily instill anxiety and fear in a person as alleviate it.”

Micki made a note and Pam went on. “She started quoting cases of ritualistic abuse in children and hypnosis being used to manipulate the mind of the abused. It creeped me out so much I almost quit then.” She looked down at her hands. “I wish I had.”

“But you didn’t. Because of the money.”

She inclined her head. “I think she got off on watching me squirm. I even told her I had kids and didn’t want to hear anymore, but she didn’t stop.”

Pam shuddered and rubbed her arms. “I was never so happy to get out of anywhere. I felt like I needed a bath, it was that icky.”

“Many therapists record their sessions with patients. Does she?”

“I don’t know. She takes notes, but transcribes them herself because of patient privacy laws.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me, Pam? Anything at all?”

“Only one thing, it’s probably nothing…but I kept thinking how ironic it was.”

“What’s that?”

“The beauty parlor she goes to. It’s called The Queen Bee Salon.”

Chapter Sixteen

11:00 A.M.

Ten minutes later, Micki had corralled Carmine with the promise of a late lunch, her treat. Now that she had him buckled in the Taurus and traveling seventy miles per hour, she figured it was safe to fill him in.

“It’s been a busy morning,” she began. “Renee Blackwood called me. After she’d fired her receptionist, Pam. Who then paid me a visit at the Eighth.”

For a long moment, he simply gazed at her. She kept her eyes on the road but was aware of his stare.

Micki glanced at him. “Say something.”

“You’re a bit of a pit bull, aren’t you?”

Not what she was expecting. “Meaning?”

“You sink your teeth in, then you won’t let go.”

Not the nicest mental picture, but she supposed an accurate one. “I can live with that.”

“So my question is, why?”

“Why what?”

“Why the call from Blackwood? Why’d she fire her receptionist and why did said receptionist pay you a visit at the Eighth?”

She quickly explained it all—driving by Blackwood’s office, seeing Pam Barnes, stopping and questioning her. Then the fallout this morning.

“Blackwood threatened me,” she said. “Asked how I’d feel if I lost what I held most dear.”

“Son of a bitch, Dare. You call her on it?”

“Of course. She laughed it off. Just a rhetorical question, she said. Here’s the thing, I don’t think she’s done.”

“I don’t get it. Done with what?”

“I think there’s going to be a third dead queen.”

He didn’t respond, so she pressed on. “Bad things happen in threes. Isn’t that what your mama always told you?”

“I played ball, Dare. Three strikes and you’re out.”

His subtext wasn’t lost on her. “I know I’m right about this, Angelo. I know it.”

“You’re sure this doesn’t have something to do with your history with shrinks?”

She appreciated his candor. He thought it; he said it. She owed him the same. “Maybe at first. Not now. Not after this morning. Think about it, partner. Fire her receptionist? Just for talking to me?”

“Because she lied about talking to you,” he corrected.

She ignored him and went on. “Then she calls me, a police officer, and delivers a ‘back off or else message’? C’mon, what’s she trying to hide? It’s got to be something big to risk threatening a cop.”

He sighed. “We’re not going to lunch are we?”

“Sure we are. Just one quick stop first.”

“Where?” he asked, tone cautious.

“The salon where Blackwood gets her hair done. It’s called the Queen Bee Salon and Spa.”

“Aww, shit. That’s just too frickin’ freaky to be a coincidence.”

***

They were too late, Micki saw as the Queen Bee came into view. Four cruisers sat in front of the salon, lights flashing. One officer stood at the corner, diverting traffic around the scene, several others were taking statements from witnesses in various states of hair horror—tin foil, curlers, and caps. A CSI van parked directly in front and crime tape stretched across the salon’s front entrance.

Their credentials got them through to the inner perimeter. The officer there held out the log. “You don’t have enough to do over at the Eighth?”

He looked at Angelo when he said it. “Yeah, right,” he answered. “This one may be related to another case we’re working.”

“Doubt it. Seems pretty cut-and-dry.”

Angelo snorted at the pun. “Good one.”

“Thanks.” He grinned. “I thought so, too.”

“What happened?” Micki asked.

“Stylist attacked the owner of the salon with a pair of scissors. Came right out of the blue. One minute everything’s fine, the next it’s pandemonium.”

Bingo, Micki thought. “Owner’s dead?”

“Nah, she managed to fight her off. Got cut up pretty bad, but nothing life threatening.”

“She still here?”

He shook his head. “The ambulance left with her just before you got here.”

“The perp?”

“Dead.”

“Excuse me?”

“Turned the scissors on herself. Jammed them into her own throat.” He shook his head, expression disgusted. “Who does that?”

“Body’s still here?”

“In the tranquility room. That’s where she did it. Detective Parsons’ in charge. He’s the one wearing—”

“—the orange tie,” Angelo finished for him. “We know each other. Thanks.”

They crossed to the other detective, moving around techs in the process of collecting and documenting evidence. Angelo greeted Parsons with a slap on the back, then introduced Micki.

He eyed them both suspiciously. “What’s up?”

“This attack is similar to two others we’re investigating. Exploring a possible connection.”

“This is a crazy one,” Parsons said. “Unique, as crimes go. Perp was cutting a client’s hair. Ms. Bea walked by, said something and our girl went nuts. Came at her with her shears.”

“What’d she say?” Micki asked.

“Apparently, something she says all the time. ‘It’s good to be a queen.’ I don’t know, seems pretty innocuous to me.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. One of the other stylists said it was part of her schtick. You know, since it was the Queen Bee Salon and she was the Bee. Beatrice LaTour.”

“It’s kind of cute,” Carmine said. “You know, the play on words.”

Parsons shrugged. “I think so, too. Apparently Ms. Schaefer had heard it once too often.”

“How’d Schaefer end up dead?”

He opened his notebook, skimmed his notes. “Half dozen witnesses said the same thing. LaTour fought, blood flew, and suddenly Schaefer was on her feet, running toward the spa area.”

“Nobody stepped in to help? Or tried to stop her?”

“It happened so fast, they said. Shampoo girl locked herself in the color closet and called 9-1-1.”

“Mind if we ask the witnesses a few questions?”

“I’m done for now, go ahead.”

Micki and Carmine made the rounds. Every witness gave pretty much the same version of events. A sudden explosion of violence that ended as suddenly as it had begun.

A short time later they sat in her car, engine running. Micki looked at Carmine. “What do you say we stop by the hospital, see if LaTour is up to answering a few questions?”

“Works for me.” He snapped his seat belt. “I could blow off Blackwood’s connection to two dead queens, but not a third. Not yet.”

“She’s involved somehow. I know it.”

“Mad Dog,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“That’s you. Mad Dog Dare.”

She cocked an eyebrow, amused. “Don’t want to give pit bulls a bad name, is that it?”

“Exactly.”

“Great,” she muttered, and pulled away from the curb. The name was just awful enough to stick.

Chapter Seventeen

1:20 P.M.

The doctors had admitted Beatrice LaTour for observation, even though her wounds were mostly superficial. Her husband and grown children were clustered around her bed; the woman looked pretty beat up.

After introductions, Micki said, “Ms. LaTour, are you up to answering a few questions?”

Her eyes filled with tears, her chin trembled, but she said she was. Micki looked at her family. “I’ll need you folks to wait outside while we interview her.”

One of the young men began to protest; LaTour’s husband stepped in. “It’s okay. You kids go on.” He looked back at Micki, expression determined. “I’m staying.”

She didn’t blame him and agreed. As the door shut behind them, she turned back to Beatrice LaTour. “I understand Liz Schaefer’s attack was completely unprovoked.”

She nodded. Her husband caught her hand, curved his fingers around hers.

“Do you remember the last thing you said before the attack?”

“It’s good…to be—”

“A queen?”

“Yes,” she managed.

“Fine. Ms. LaTour, Beatrice, do you recognize the name Renee Blackwood? She’s a local psychiatrist?”

She indicated she did and Micki went on. “How do you know her?”

“A client,” she managed, voice thick, slurry.

“Whose client?”

Her chin wobbled some more. “Liz’s.”

“Liz Schaefer’s? The woman who attacked you?”

A look of horror sprang into her eyes. She seemed to press herself back, into the bedding.

“Liz Schaefer?” she asked again, as gently as she could.

“Yes.”

“Was Liz also a patient of Dr. Blackwood’s?”

She shook her head. “Not that I— I don’t think so.”

“Were they friends?”

She shook her head again. Micki looked at Carmine, frustrated. Working to hide her disappointment. She had needed Blackwood to be counseling Schaefer. It would’ve furthered the connection between the other cases and established means and opportunity.

They were so close.

But so damn far.

Angelo stepped in. “Can you think of any other way Liz might have been interacting with Renee Blackwood?”

For a moment, the woman stared blankly at him. Then she blinked. “There was something…”

She went silent. Micki realized she was holding her breath and released it.

“Ms. LaTour,” Angelo prodded gently.

“That’s right, she was helping Liz—”

“Helping her what?”

“Quit smoking.”

Chapter Eighteen

1:55 P.M.

“That’s it!” Micki exclaimed as they simultaneously slammed their car doors. “We’ve got the bitch.”

“Not so fast, Dare. So Blackwood was helping her quit smoking. It doesn’t prove—”

“The hell it doesn’t. How do shrinks help folks quit smoking, lose weight or whatever other nasty they’re trying to kick? They hypnotize them.”

Micki flipped on the cherry light mounted to her dash. “The power of suggestion, partner. Instead of helping Vanderlund, Chablis, and Schaefer overcome their feelings of anger or jealousy, she fed their feelings. She put them under. Maybe she planted some sort of trigger? Something that made them…just snap?”

“I like this,” Carmine said. “She would know their hot buttons. The thing that always set them off.”

“In Schaefer’s case, there’s no doubt what hers was.”

“It’s good to be a queen.”

“Exactly.”

“We don’t even know if she practiced hypnotherapy on Vanderlund or Chablis.”

“Oh, she did. I’m certain of it. That’s why she lied when we interviewed her. Her first screw up.”

Angelo agreed. “She lied for the same reason every other guilty-as-sin perp does: to hide the truth.”

Micki tightened her fingers on the steering wheel, weaving in and around the traffic that refused to yield. “If we get confirmation from Vanderlund and Chablis that she treated them using hypnosis, we bring it to the Major. See if he’ll agree to a search warrant request.”

“Agreed.” He grabbed the door handle as she made a sudden swing left. “Why, Dare? Why would a respected shrink do this? Chance blowing it all?”

She thought of what Pam had told her. That Blackwood had enjoyed firing her. That she’d seen it in her eyes.

Micki glanced at him. “Just for the fun of it?”

“Which would make her one scary, evil bitch.”

“Actually, partner, that’d make her a sociopath.”

***

Both Vanderlund and Chablis had bonded out.  Interestingly, Bitty Vanderlund’s bail had been set at five million dollars, Chablis’ at five-hundred thousand. Micki wondered at the judges reasoning. Both suspects had committed murder, both crimes had been excessively violent. Was the difference in the bonds due to a perceived value of the victims? Or the perpetrators?

Justice in New Orleans, a snapshot of justice in America.

They decided to try Bitty Vanderlund first. Her husband refused to let them in.

“She couldn’t answer any questions even if I did allow you to speak with her,” he said. “She was in such a state, our physician prescribed anti-anxiety medication. At least she can sleep now.”

Micki wondered if he could. It looked as if he’d aged ten years since the last time she’d seen him. And he was angry. She saw the accusation in his eyes. As if, despite his wife’s full confession, despite the physical evidence against her, he believed her innocent.

She did, too. But couldn’t share that with him, for obvious reasons. Micki handed him her card. “Have her attorney contact me. It’s just two questions.”

He stared at the card a moment, then looked back up at her. “The questions, what are they?”