G.T. Herren - Paige Tourneur 02 - Dead Housewives of New Orleans (17 page)

The man held up both of his big hands. “I’m sorry.” His voice sounded sincere, and the contrite look on his face convinced me he meant it, wasn’t just saying it.

“I’ll let you pay for my coffee, though,” I replied, feeling more in control of the situation. I took it from the surly counter girl, and took a sip. She’d put too much milk in it, of course, but I didn’t need that much caffeine this late in the day. I walked past him to the condiment table, for a packet of Sweet’n’Low. I stirred with a straw, and sat down at the table where I’d seen him sitting when I arrived.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, sitting down across from me.

“It’s okay,” I said, even though it really wasn’t. “For future reference, remember not to do that with women you don’t know.” I gave him a wan smile. “You probably think I’m being a bitch, but try to remember this: you don’t know what women have been sexually assaulted, you can’t tell if someone’s been abused just by looking at them… it’ll save you a lot of trouble in the future if you think about that and respect people’s personal space in the future.”

His thick black eyebrows knit together. “Were you—”

I narrowed my eyes.

“Sorry. Jesus.” He ran his hand through his thick bluish-black hair. “I’m really making a great impression on you, aren’t I?”

“Why don’t we start over?” I suggested, allowing a faint smile to play at my lips. “Hello, I’m Paige.”

“Billy Barron.” He turned on the full wattage of his smile, and I had to admit I could see where he got the impression he was irresistible to women. He was gorgeous. He was swarthy, with a natural olive tint to his darkly tanned skin. His hair was thick, wavy and bluish-black. He had it pulled back into a ponytail, which ordinarily would have annoyed me to no end, but it actually worked for him. His ears stuck out just a little bit, but not so much that they looked like pitcher handles. His eyes were almond-shaped, dark brown with golden flecks in them, and the whites had no red streaks. His eyelashes were long and curly, the kind women would sell their souls to have naturally. His nose was crooked in the center, like it had been broken once. The crooked lump marred his looks just enough so he looked masculine rather than pretty. His lips were thick and sensual. His teeth were straight and bleached, but one of his front teeth was chipped. He was wearing a black Saints T-shirt that stretched over his strong chest, and the short sleeves looked tight enough to cut off the circulation to his well-muscled arms. There was a gold stud earring in his left ear, and a big LSU ring on his right hand. A gold Rolex adorned his left wrist.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said with a brittle smile. I took another drink of my coffee. The sweetener had helped, but it was still a little too milky. “I have to say, I’m kind of surprised Loren’s letting you talk to me without being present.” I reached into my purse and retrieved my digital recorder, which I set down on the table between us. “I want to be clear up front, Billy— may I call you Billy?” He nodded. “Nothing you say to me is going to be considered off the record.”

“Fair enough.” He held up his big hands again. “Let me apologize again. I wasn’t thinking. I love and respect women and wouldn’t want to ever make you uncomfortable.”

“Consider it forgotten,” I said, remembering the smell of his cologne and the other, deeply buried memories it almost brought to the surface.
I’ll deal with all of that later,
I decided, pushing the memories aside yet another time.

“As for talking to you,” he went on, “I’ve been a fan of yours since you were at the
Times-Picayune.”
He flashed the winning smile at me again, and I had to admit had we not gotten off to such a bad start, it probably would have made my knees a little wobbly. “And I feel like this story might be getting a little out of control.”

“So why are you talking to me?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be talking to someone at the paper, or one of the TV news people? I work for a monthly publication. I might be able to get something into the next issue, but I can’t promise.” No sense in telling him Rachel was already in the process of changing the entire next issue to do a
Grande Dames
cover. “Of course, we do have the space to do the kind of in-depth piece the paper can’t do.” I fluttered my eyelashes at him. “And television news rarely does a piece of more than two or three minutes.”

He nodded. “I just feel like I can trust you.” He reached for my hands but stopped just before taking them. He bit his lower lip. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

I resisted the urge to pat his hands. There was something about him— a charismatic vulnerability, maybe— that just made him seem likable, as though I could trust him, and made me want to comfort him. He was a little too good-looking.
He’s probably had women eating out of his hand his entire life.
“Well, from what I’ve heard, your story—” I paused. “I’m sorry. It just doesn’t make sense to me, and I’m sure it doesn’t make sense to the police.”

“I’m being set up,” he replied, and his lovely lips set into a tense line. “My baseball bats? My witness for one crime is the next victim? Do I really look that stupid?”

I tore my eyes away from the curly black hairs escaping from the neckline of his T-shirt, and the way his nipples were poking through the cotton. I swallowed. “You could just be really clever. But okay, I’ll play along. You’re being set up. Who would do that to you? Who hates you enough to want to see you put away?”

“Well.” He clasped his hands together on the table. “My stepmother’s not exactly a fan.”

“She told me you and your brother are suing her.”

He made a face. “She’s such a fucking drama queen— sorry,” he said quickly, raising his hand as if in surrender.

“Swearing doesn’t bother me,” I replied with a faint smile. “Fuck. See? I can say it without having a conniption. But why would Rebecca want to get rid of you? It seems to me like it’s a lot more likely you’d want to kill her, since she inherited everything.”

“That’s not exactly the truth.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “My father was a bit of a jackass, to be honest, and I hope he’s roasting in hell as we speak.” He laughed. “Rebecca didn’t inherit everything, she inherited
control
of everything.”

What? “I don’t understand.”

“When Dad married her, he changed his will.” He took a deep breath. “He split everything between the three of us— me, my brother Bobby, and Rebecca. When my wife left me—” his face flushed and he looked away from me, “— Dad got pissed at me, and with good reason. I married Laura too fast, way too fast, without thinking. I didn’t have her sign a prenup, and so when we split up, she took me to the cleaners. Dad got pissed.”

I chose not to point out that she took him to the cleaners because she caught him with his tight jeans down. “And?”

“So Dad rewrote his will. He didn’t trust me or Bobby, and he’d only been married to Rebecca for a couple of years.” He shrugged. “So he set up an irrevocable trust. Everything went to that, and the three of us get an income from the trust. Unfortunately, he left Rebecca majority control. She controls how much money Bobby and I get, and she controls the company. But Dad didn’t trust her completely, either, so he left an out. If Bobby and I can prove to the trustee— the Hibernia Bank, just so you know— that Rebecca isn’t running the company well, she’s out and the trust can be broken.”

“I thought she automatically inherited half, regardless of the will, under Louisiana law.”

“She signed a prenup.”

“Ah.”

“Bobby and I have her dead to rights, too.” He smiled, but this time it wasn’t pleasant or charming. “She claims otherwise, but profits are down.” He launched into an explanation that frankly I couldn’t follow— something to do with her selling off some property for income to offset lower profits. When he finished explaining, he added, “We’re having a meeting with the bank next week, and once the bank looks over all the accounts, Rebecca will be out.” He looked at me expectantly.

When he finished, I replied, “Well, I can see why she’d want to get rid of you, but wouldn’t it be easier just to kill you than to go to all this trouble?” I shrugged. “Two murders?”
Maybe three?
“I have to ask, were you sleeping with Fidelis?”

He did a double take. “Fidelis
Vandiver?”
He started laughing. “She’s hardly my type.” He wiped at his eyes. “She was involved with my
father,
for God’s sake. I knew her, we were friends— we both hated Rebecca, for obvious reasons— but I wasn’t seeing her.” He took a deep breath. “I was involved with Chloe, let me get that out in the open before you ask, okay? I wasn’t in love with her, but I did like her. A lot. She was funny and a lot of fun to be around.” His eyes met mine. “I knew she was married, but I also knew the marriage was just a scam. It worked for them, you know? Chloe got to have her fun, without any worries, and she got to be a lady. Why Remy didn’t have a problem with it is beyond me. But hey— who am I to judge?”

God, he was charming. He was winning me over.
Stay objective, Paige.
I remembered something. “Who was your date to the show’s premiere Friday night?”

“You were there?” He leaned back in his chair. “Just an old friend. Amanda Beth Lautenschlaeger.” He laughed. “We used to date when we were kids before her mom sent her off to school. She invited me to the premiere. I thought, why not? I had a date with Chloe later— at the Best Western on St. Charles. For obvious reasons I couldn’t escort her to the premiere. She didn’t want to drive out to my place at English Turn, and even though Remy was out of town she didn’t like fooling around in her own place. It was one of their rules.”

Amanda Beth.

Things started to click into place in my head.

“Did you know Megan Dreher?” Before he could answer, my phone started ringing. I glanced down at it. Abby’s face was smiling at me. “I have to take this; excuse me.” I got up and walked away from the table. “Hey Abby, what’s up?”

“You’re not going to believe this,” she sounded triumphant. “But I finally found out why Amanda Beth got sent away to bad girl school.”

I glanced back at Billy, who was fiddling with his own phone. “What did she do?”

“Well, the records are sealed, but best I can tell, it was vehicular homicide.”

I almost dropped the phone. I hurried outside and sat down at one of the wire tables on the Race Street side of the building. “Vehicular homicide?”

“Yup. It was in the paper— an unnamed teenager was driving and lost control of the car, ran down another girl. Name of Lisa French. Does the name mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“Did some digging there, too. It turns out Lisa French was Megan Dreher’s step-sister. And the girls’ parents came into some serious money right after Lisa was run down and killed. That’s how Megan paid for college. I called the parents, but they wouldn’t talk to me about it.” I heard some papers rustling. “But I did get hold of Amanda Beth’s college roommate, Jane Meakins. Anyway, she confirmed it— one night when they were drinking wine and playing true confessions, Amanda Beth admitted to her that she killed Lisa French with her car. Want me to keep trying?”

“No. I’m good. Thanks.” I disconnected the call. I walked back to the table and sat down. I took a deep breath. “Billy, did you know a girl named Lisa French, by any chance?”

His face paled. “Wow.” He said when the silence was just about to become awkward. “I haven’t heard that name in years.” He swallowed. “Yeah, I knew Lisa French. I used to date her.”

Of course you did.

“What happened to her?”

He looked out the window. “She was killed in a car accident.” He swallowed. “It was a horrible, horrible tragedy.”

“Amanda Beth killed her.” I leaned across the table. “Was she always unstable?”

His head swiveled around. “It was an accident.”

“Was it?” I couldn’t prove any of it, but something in my gut told me I was right. It was all falling into place in my head. “You think someone is framing you, don’t you? Let’s see— a woman you’re sleeping with was just killed. With one of your own baseball bats.”

“You think—” He stopped. “My God.” He swallowed. “We were
kids.”

But the look on his face told me everything I needed to know. He’d always suspected, but hadn’t wanted to believe it, had talked himself out of believing. Denial can be very powerful. “Kids commit crimes all the time,” I replied. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

He swallowed. “We were both going to Newman. We started going steady when we were in the eighth grade. I broke up with Amanda Beth towards the end of our sophomore year, and I started dating Lisa.” He rubbed his eyes. “I was just bored. I wanted something different, you know? Was that so wrong?” He sighed. “But Amanda Beth— she just wouldn’t let it go. She kept calling me, kept turning up at my house or when Lisa and I would be on a date. And then one night…” he swallowed. “We had a fight, Amanda Beth and me. Lisa and I were at Dad’s restaurant having dinner. Amanda Beth showed up and started screaming at us. I dragged her outside to the parking lot, and let her have it with both barrels. Told her to get over it, stop following me around. She left.” His eyes got wet. “And then, I went to get the car. Lisa was standing there at the restaurant entrance, waiting for me to come around. I heard the tires, the brakes, the thud…” He closed his eyes and sat there silently for a moment before continuing. “Amanda Beth always said it was an accident, she’d lost control of the car.”

“But you knew, didn’t you?” I felt a little nauseous.

“I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t want to think it was true.” He nodded. “Her parents sent her away to school, said she was going to get the help she needed.” He held up his hands. “And that was the end of it, you know, until a few months ago. She called me out of the blue, invited me out to dinner. She seemed so much better. I hadn’t thought about her in years. She looked great, and I thought she was doing great.”

“Were you sleeping with her?”

He licked his lips, and shook his head no.

“Did she know about you and Chloe?”

He nodded.

“But you weren’t involved with Fidelis?” That was the part that didn’t make sense. It made sense, if Amanda Beth had slipped off the rails into obsession again, for her to go after Chloe. But why Fidelis? Why Megan?