Murder in the Rue Ursulines

down my spine. “How-“

Loren wiped at his forehead with a handkerchief and shoved it back into his pants pocket, only to start sweating again. “Her assistant came back to the house and found her about an hour ago.”

“And we called Loren.” Jillian said, sucking on the end of her cigarette.

“She called here? Why would she do that?” I looked over at Freddy. His eyes were watery, and he was biting his lower lip. “You did tell her to call the police, right?”

“Of course I did.” Jillian snapped. “She was hysterical, not thinking clearly. Of course, I asked if she was certain Glynis was dead, but she said she checked for a pulse, and there wasn’t one. I told her to hang up and call 9-1-1.” She shook her head.

I can certainly attest to the horrible shock of discovering a dead body. It’s happened to me more times than I would prefer. “Did she say anything else?”

“Apparently, Glynis was hit over the head with her Emmy.” Jillian’s voice shook a little bit. She glanced at Freddy.

“That Emmy meant everything to her.” Freddy said in a monotone.

My God, I picked up that stupid thing, I thought, a ball of acid starting to form in my stomach.

Loren patted at his forehead again. “Of course, the police are going to check the phone records-and how is it going to look when they see Rosemary called here before she called them?”

“It’s going to look bad, is how it’s going to look.” Jillian stubbed her cigarette out. “Can’t you just hear the news jockeys? Why did Glynis Parrish’s assistant call Frillian before she called the police? What are they trying to hide?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. A woman was dead and she was worrying about what the papers would say? “Um, I’m sorry, but-“

“You think I’m a cold bitch, don’t you?” Jillian lit another cigarette, her shaking hand barely able to click the lighter on. “This is a terrible tragedy, make no mistake about it, Chanse. I didn’t want her dead, and I certainly didn’t want this to happen. But going to pieces about it right now is the worst thing Freddy and I can do.”

Freddy opened his mouth and then shut it again.

Jillian blew smoke towards the ceiling fan. “This is going to sound incredibly callous, Chanse, and I want to make it clear that on a personal level, I’m horrified. I just frankly feel kind of numb right now. Poor, sweet Glynis.” She swallowed. “This is a horrible, horrible thing to have happened. I feel terrible because I knew and liked her. Her family and friends and fans are going to be devastated. But this is going to be a nightmare-not just because we lost someone we were close to-but because this is going to be prime scandal material.” She patted Freddy’s leg with her free hand, which was still trembling. She seemed like she was barely holding it together.

“This is going to be a feeding frenzy for the media. This could have a serious impact on our work with Project Rebuild-if people think we’re involved somehow…and the press is going to have a field day with this. It’s going to be news all over the world.” She stubbed the cigarette out angrily. “And that stupid assistant calling here-what was she thinking? One would almost be tempted to think that she was deliberately trying to cause trouble for us…” she waved her hand. “But I suppose there’s no sense being angry with her, the poor thing. It must have been quite a shock to come home to find Glynis murdered like that…” She shuddered and her eyes filled with tears. She wiped at them angrily with her free hand. “DAMN it.”

“It is going to look bad-” I started to say, but she interrupted me.

“Assistant calls Frillian before police,” She made air quote marks, letting tears slip from her huge eyes. “That’s going to be the headline, you know. They’re going to drag out all the nonsense about the divorce again. People will speculate that we did it-it doesn’t matter that neither one of us could have done it.” She sighed. “And those damned e-mails she was sending us…well, you read them. It’s going to look like we killed her to shut her up, keep her from spilling some big secret about us.” Again she grabbed Freddy’s hand, squeezing it tightly, “There isn’t anything, of course. I want to keep those e-mails out of the newspapers.”

“But-“ I was confused. I remembered her saying at Loren’s office, there are things about us we don’t want anyone to know. “I don’t think that’s going to be possible, Jillian. The police will check out her computer, And they’ll find them-so it would be better to be up-front about it-otherwise, the police will think you’re trying to hide something.” I shrugged. “It seems to me that unless the e-mails are evidence, there’s no reason for anyone outside of the investigation to ever know about them.” She seemed a bit paranoid.

She glanced at Freddy, and turned back to me again. She bit her lower lip. “There has to be a way.” She let go of Freddy’s hand. “Okay, we weren’t completely honest with you this morning. We suspected Glynis was sending the e-mails, but we didn’t want to tell you that, because we wanted you to have an open mind, not focus on her in case we were wrong. My mother? She isn’t smart enough to send e-mails, frankly.” She gave a bitter laugh. “My mother isn’t sober long enough to learn how to work a computer. And now we know Glynis sent them, anyway… What we want you to do now is find out who killed Glynis.”

I shook my head. “That’s best left to the police, Jillian. They’re better equipped to handle this kind of thing, and I’m not going to have access to the evidence.”

“The police are going to be under pressure from the media-and every blogger in the world. Everyone is going to be focused on us.” She made a face. “We want to release a statement through our publicist saying that we’ve hired you to help the police look for Glynis’s killer.”

I couldn’t believe her self-absorption. I wasn’t a reporter, but it seemed to me like the real story was Glynis’s murder-not Frillian.“With all due respect, Jillian, I’m not sure how I feel about being used as a public relations ploy.” I was tempted to remind her of how O. J., after his farce of a trial, had claimed he was going to devote the rest of his life to finding the real killers of his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman. The comparisons were going to be made, in my opinion, and no one would take my hiring seriously. “If you really want me to find Glynis’s killer, I’ll do what I can- but like I said, the police have all kinds of access…”

“It’s not a publicity ploy.” Her voice was firm. I recognized the tone-she’d used it when she’d played Mary Queen of Scots. “With no offense intended, I’m not sure I trust the police. In these kinds of cases, they always seem to botch things up. And I certainly don’t trust the New Orleans district attorney’s office. This is going to be very high-profile, Chanse-it would be even if we weren’t involved.” She wiped at her face. “Glynis was a celebrity too-and she was a pretty nice person, to boot. I liked her. She and Freddy were still close. I want her killer found, Chanse. This case has to be solved. Glynis deserves that.”

I could understand her concern. As long as Glynis Parrish’s killer was free, her murder would haunt Freddy and Jillian-and their careers. No one would ever forget it. It would be headlines for months, maybe years. Then there would be books, documentaries, maybe even movies. Everyone would have an opinion, and Jillian was right. The blogosphere would go crazy debating who killed Glynis. Glynis’s entire life and career would be put under a microscope. Personal information she would have never shared willingly with the public would undoubtedly leak out of the police department and the district attorney’s office-things that could prove embarrassing to Frillian. E-mails, phone records.

Everyone who had anything to say or write about the situation would make a nice sum of cash selling information and stories to the tabloids. The stigma would follow them around for the rest of their lives-the question was, would their careers hold up under the dark cloud?

The thought of the feeding frenzy that was about to explode made my blood run cold.

And the murder of a movie star was a public relations nightmare for the rebuilding of New Orleans.

The city’s rising crime rate had made national news. One broadcaster had even called living here “like being in the Old West.” What nobody ever mentioned was that crime had been a huge problem before the flood. When the filthy water receded and the rebuilding began, we’d all kind of hoped that with the help of our federal government, the problems that existed before would be solved. Instead, the government had washed its hands of New Orleans, and the body count started to rise again. The question was, would the media fixate on Frillian, or the crime rate of New Orleans? Or would it be both?

And how would this affect the rebuilding of the city’s film industry?

Film had become a big business in New Orleans over the last ten years. A concerted campaign had been launched by the city and the state to lure filmmakers and television producers to the city; it was called “Hollywood South.” The city, recognizing that it simply couldn’t depend so heavily on tourism, had bent over backwards to make the Hollywood types welcome here. After all, the movie industry was recession proof; tourism wasn’t. When the