Murder in the Rue Ursulines

I smiled back and turned my attention back to the line. He looks familiar, I thought, and then dismissed the thought. Everyone in the Quarter looks familiar. New Orleans is a very small town, no matter what anyone thinks, and you see the same people all the time. I ordered a large regular coffee and walked over to the condiment bar. I added sweetener, half-and-half, and some vanilla powder. I walked outside and grabbed a table that a couple of kids who looked like gutter punks had just vacated. I sat down and sipped my coffee.

I was about halfway through the coffee when Rosemary Shannon came walking up Decatur Street from the direction of Esplanade. She waved at me and smiled. She was wearing a cloth jacket over a University of Kansas sweatshirt and jeans, and a baseball cap that she’d tucked her hair into. She darted across Barracks Street. “Hi,” she said, sitting down breathlessly. “Thanks for meeting me.” She wasn’t wearing make-up, and there were dark smudges under her eyes. She looked an if she hadn’t slept.

“Not a problem. Do you want some coffee?”

She shook her head. “No, I’ve had plenty today. Any more and I wouldn’t be able to sleep for a week.” She yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. “Sorry. I was with the police till really late last night, and then I was too upset to sleep. Every time I started to drift off, I had nightmares.” Her eyes got watery again, and she closed them, biting both lips. “I’m still in shock, I guess.”

“It had to be a terrible experience for you.” I said, injecting sympathy into my voice.

“Oh, it was so awful!” Her voice trembled, her eyes widening. “She was just lying there, in a puddle of blood…”her voice trailed off, and a tear slid out of her right eye. She wiped at it. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” I reached over and placed a hand on top of one of hers.

“If I’d only known I wouldn’t have left her alone in the house!” she cried out, and her entire body trembled. “I would have never left her, you have to believe me, Chanse!”

“So, do you mind telling me exactly what happened yesterday afternoon?”

She got control of herself again. “Well, she was in quite a state after you left-I mean, she was already in a bad mood-I think you could tell that, couldn’t you?” She sighed. “After I let you out, I went back and insisted again that I hadn’t been on her computer. But she didn’t seem to care. I asked her if she wanted me to call everyone and ask them about it-you know, Darlene and Brett and Charity”-I recognized the names from the list she’d given me- “and she said to forget about it, she didn’t care. She was in a really bad mood-it was more than just a migraine. She told me to fire Darlene and Charity-and replace them.”

“She didn’t want to fire Brett?”

“Oh, no.” She gave me a sly smile. “She’d never fire Brett. Then, she got a call on her cell phone. She sent me out of the room…and then she called me back in about half an hour… She was in a much better mood then. She told me she was expecting someone to come by around five, and she gave me the rest of the day off, told me to go on home, she wouldn’t need me again until morning.” She blew out her breath. “I hadn’t been back to my own place in days, so I was pretty happy about it. I decided to treat myself to dinner at Angeli, and so just before five I left the house.”

“She didn’t tell you who was coming over?” I asked. “Was it the guy she was seeing?”

Rosemary rolled her eyes. “Oh, she told you about that? No, it wasn’t Brett-she wouldn’t have made me leave if it was just him.”

“She was dating her trainer?”

“I wouldn’t call it dating.” Rosemary made a face. “They never went anywhere-he just came over to the house. It wasn’t anything serious, you know. Brett was just for fun.” She leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “I got the impression it was Freddy Bliss who was coming over.” She looked around to see if anyone was within earshot. “I mean, she didn’t say it in so many words, but she kind of hinted at it. It wasn’t the first time she’d sent me out of the house because she wanted privacy.” She gave me a knowing look. “She never did that when Brett was coming by. She didn’t care that I knew about him. I pretty much knew everything that was going on in her life, but these secret visits…there weren’t a lot of them, you know. Just every once in a while-and she always sent me home.”

“You never asked?”

“Of course not!” She looked shocked. “It wasn’t any of my business…although now I wish I had.” She sighed. “She wouldn’t have told me anyway, I guess. She would have just gotten mad. She had quite a temper…especially if it was one of her bad days.”

“Why did you assume it was Freddy Bliss who was coming over?”

“Who else would it have been?” She shrugged. She leaned forward and lowered her voice again. “Besides, one time when she told me to leave, the next morning I found a cell phone in the living room. It wasn’t hers.” She blushed. “I checked the stored numbers…and called one stored as MAIN HOUSE. Jillian Long answered it herself.” She gave me a sly look. “I just said I’d found the phone on the street, and she thanked me and asked me to put it through their mail slot.” She gave me a triumphant smile. “Jillian had no idea what was going on, but I knew. Freddy and Glynis were seeing each other behind Jillian’s back.”

I didn’t respond. My head was spinning. If Freddy and Glynis were seeing each other, not only did Freddy have a stronger motive-it also gave Jillian one. “Did you tell the police all of this?”

“Of course I did. Why wouldn’t I?” She made a face. “I didn’t work for them.”

I nodded. “So, why did you go back to the house?”

“I forgot my car keys.” She sighed. “I keep the keys for Glynis’s house on a separate ring. I don’t like having lots of keys, and after I ate dinner, I got to my car and realized I didn’t have MY keys. So I went back to get them.” She gave a shudder. “I mean, I knew Glynis would be mad at me for coming back, but I figured I could slip in and out without her knowing I’d been there. I always put my own keys on the table in the front room, and I was in such a hurry to leave that I just walked right out without them.” Her eyes filled again. “But when I got there, and put my key in the front door, I locked it. Then I knew something was wrong. Glynis was a stickler about locking the house-she would have never let someone in and left it unlocked.

“ She kept her own keys in the lock on the inside of the front door. So I unlocked the door and went in-and her keys were there on the inside, hanging from the lock, where they should be. The house was, you know, really quiet.” She took a couple of deep breaths. “I picked up my keys, and went down the hall to the living room-I just figured, you know, I would check and see if she was all right. I wouldn’t go back to the bedroom, in case Freddy was still there…” Her voice trailed off for a moment, and her eyes filled with tears. This time she let them flow. “The living room door was open, and from the hall I could see her. She was just lying there…her head in a puddle… and I started screaming.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “It was so awful…”

“Why did you call Freddy and Jillian before you called 911?”

“I did?” She shook her head. “Yes, yes, I guess I did.” Her lower lip continued to tremble. “I wasn’t really thinking, I guess.”

“How did you know their number?”

“I-“ She thought for a moment. “Yes, my cell phone wasn’t charged, I remember now. I got my phone out and it was dead. Glynis’s phone was there on the table, so I picked it up and I must have hit redial when I turned it on. Yes, I remember now. I spoke to Freddy, I told him what had happened and asked what I should do. He told me to call 911.” She gave me a funny look. “How did you know I did that? The police didn’t ask me about that. I’d completely forgotten about it.”

“Freddy told me.” I replied. I watched her face. “The police will ask you about it. They’ll check her phone for incoming and outgoing calls.”

“Oh.” She shrugged. “It’s not a big deal, really. Is it?”

“It looks funny,” I answered, “that you would call Freddy and Jillian before you called the police.”

“Well, I didn’t do it on purpose. Like I said, I must have hit redial when I turned her phone on.” She narrowed her eyes a bit. “Chanse, you have to understand. I was in so much shock, I wasn’t really thinking, you know? It was a horrible thing. Horrible.” She shuddered. “It brought back so many horrible memories…I found a suicide once.”

“I beg pardon?”

“My parents died when I was really young.” Her voice got very small. “I was in foster care. When I was a teenager, I was placed with this family who took in about twelve foster kids on a farm. One of the boys killed himself. I found him.” She began to shudder again. “And when I walked in and saw Glynis…it was like reliving that whole horrible time again.” She started crying in earnest now, her small body shaking.