Murder in the Rue St. Ann (13 page)

The woman sitting on the other side wore a police uniform. She had to weigh 300 pounds. She was paging through a tired-looking copy of
People
magazine. An open can of Coke sat next to a partially eaten bag of barbecue potato chips. Her gray-streaked brown hair looked greasy, and was pulled back from her moon face. I stood there for a moment, watching her read about Brad and Jennifer, and finally cleared my throat.

She didn’t respond.

“Um, excuse me?” I asked.

With a very deliberate, slow motion she closed the magazine and turned her head to look up at me. The expression on her face was sullen hostility. She said nothing— just stared at me for a few seconds, then she reached over and pulled a chip out of the bag, put it into her mouth and chewed it at the same slow, deliberate pace.

“Um, I just posted bail for someone.” I said.

She kept looking at me in silence..

Remembering Maxi Legume’s advice, I suppressed my rising anger.
Don’t piss her off, Chanse, she’s already got a serious attitude problem, she’s just looking for someone to take it out on, don’t let it be Paul.

“Can you help me?” I injected a note of pleading in my voice.

“Name?” She reached for a clipboard.

“His name is Paul Maxwell.”

She made a great show of looking at the list. “Name’s not on here.”

“Well, I just posted bail, so—“

“Have a seat and wait.” She put away the clipboard, and went back to the chips.

I swallowed my anger and forced myself to walk away. But I didn’t have a seat. I went back outside and lit a cigarette. At this point, I seriously doubted Paul would give a rat’s ass about my smoking.

I checked back again in an hour, but Paul’s name still wasn’t on the list. I sat down and watched television. I was hungry, but I was afraid to leave in case they released him while I was gone. The morning ticked away.
The Young and the Restless, All My Children, One Life to Live.
Every half hour I went back outside and smoked. Every hour I went back and checked to see if Paul’s name was on the magic list.

General Hospital
was starting when I went back to check again. At this point, I was ready to blow up at the fat bitch, so I was a little taken aback to see a pretty young black woman sitting there instead.

“Oh, Paul Maxwell?” She checked the list and smiled at me. “He’s on his way down. Shouldn’t be more than two minutes.”

I almost collapsed in relief. Finally.

Paul walked through the door as it buzzed. He was rubbing his upper arms with his hands as though he were trying to get warmer. He was in the same clothes he’d been wearing when I’d run into him in the Quarter, only now he looked more rumpled. His blue eyes were completely bloodshot. Stubble sprouted on his cheeks, chin and upper lip. His curls were flattened on one side, and stood out at weird angles from his head on the other side. His face looked bloodless and shiny in the sickly light from the florescent tubes overhead. “Oh, thank God.” He said.  His voice was low and his eyes constantly blinked. He bit his lower lip. “Can you please get me out of here?”

He walked like he’d been kicked in the balls as we passed through the electric doors into the sunshine. His shoulders were hunched and his head was down.

“That was horrible.” He said. He glanced over at me then cast his eyes back down towards the sidewalk as we walked to the parking lot. “They
shackled
me, Chanse.” He shuddered and stopped walking. He started shaking, and put his head down and his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. He made gagging noises. Not knowing what to do, I reached out and patted him between the shoulder blades.

 A police car cruised by slowly, , the driver watched us from behind mirrored sunglasses. Paul turned his head away. I nodded in acknowledgement, and the cop turned his gaze back to the road.

“Come on, honey.” I said. “Let’s go home. Are you hungry?”

He nodded. “A little bit. I didn’t have dinner—“ he broke off. “And this morning I couldn’t eat the breakfast they gave us…oh God.” He shuddered again.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

We headed over to where I’d parked my little red Cavalier. Just when we reached the car, he stopped, threw his arms around me and gripped me with all his strength. At first I just stood there as my ribs were crushed, and then I put my arms around him. His body shook. 
He’s crying
, I realized with a start. I squeezed him tight and stroked his hair.
Poor guy. I do love him
, I thought. I said, “It’s okay, baby. Everything’ll be fine, you’ll see. Everything’s gonna work out..”

He pushed away from me, wiped his eyes and forced a shaky smile. “It’ll have to be, won’t it? I can’t go back to jail. I’d rather die.” He shuddered again. “I’d rather die, Chanse.”

“You aren’t going to jail.” I said, almost to convince myself as well. I unlocked the car. “Come on, get in. Let’s get you out of here and get you something to eat.”

“I just want to go home.” He said. He stared out the window as I turned onto Broad Street. “I’ll just make myself a sandwich.”

“You doing okay?” I patted his leg. It seemed hopelessly inadequate. I suck in these kinds of situations. I’m just not a nurturing person. I never know what to say.

He nodded. “It just doesn’t seem real.” He put his hand on top of mine and squeezed it. “Thanks for posting my bail.”

“Yeah, well, just don’t
jump
bail.” I looked over at him. Even disheveled, he was handsome.  I smiled at him. No, he couldn’t have killed anyone. How could I even think that?

“I’m not going anywhere.” He sighed. “I’ll pay you back the money, Chanse. I swear.”

I didn’t say anything.

I pulled into a spot across the street from Paul’s apartment. He lived on the second floor of a Queen Anne style house on Valence Street between Prytania and Magazine. It was three stories, with an oxagonal tower in the left corner. The coolest thing about Paul’s apartment was his bedroom. It was in the tower— his bed was surrounded by windows. The owners of the house were in the process of repainting it. The outside was stripped down to the bare wood with ladders and a maze of scaffolding decorating the sides. We went to the side door and climbed the wooden steps to his apartment.

Paul’s had three big rooms which were always immaculate. I never could figure out how he did it. New Orleans is a dusty city. I could dust my apartment in the morning and everything would be coated again by the afternoon—so I rarely tried. Paul’s hardwood floors always gleamed like he’d just waxed them. Everything was in its place—nothing was where it shouldn’t be. You’d never find a sock or a dirty pair of underwear underneath his couch.

He walked into the kitchen and put some seven grain bread in the toaster. I headed into the living room and sat on the couch. The living room windows were made of stained glass— the morning sun gleamed through the painted panes and bathed his white leather couch in reds, blues and yellows.

I never felt really comfortable in Paul’s apartment. It was too tidy, clean, neat. Unlike my own apartment, all his furniture matched. His end table gleamed. He always used coasters. It looked more like a show apartment than a place where someone actually lived—which was probably why we spent all of our time at my place.

I sighed and looked up at the print over the fireplace mantel. It was a beautiful nude in black and white. The model’s head was turned away slightly from the camera and was in shadows. The model reclined on a divan with his legs stretched out in front of him. The muscles in his abs rippled, and his strong hairless marble-like legs stretched out leisurely.

With a start, I realized it was Paul. Why had I never noticed that before?

“You sure you don’t want anything?” Paul called from the kitchen.

“Positive.” I got up and walked closer to the picture. Sure enough, it was him. His hair had been cut short-- buzzed Marine style—which brought out his cheekbones more prominently. His eyes were closed,  his body was shaved smooth, and his muscles weren’t as big. I turned and looked at another framed print that hung on the wall beside the fireplace. It was a rear shot, in black and white. The model’s arms were up over his head, revealing the smooth definition in his shoulders and back.

And there was Paul’s mole right above the right cheek. So much for my powers of observation—some detective I was.

Paul sat in the reclining chair with a tuna sandwich on a plate. He placed his glass of ice water on a coaster of green marble and cork.

“When did you pose for these?” I asked, gesturing at the two prints.

“When I was 22.” He took a bite of his sandwich. “I met a photographer at the gym in Dallas. That’s how I got started modeling.”

I didn’t say anything else until he finished eating. He seemed to come back into himself with each bite. He’d also combed his hair.  “How come you never told me you’d modeled?” Nude, I added silently.

He put the empty plate on the table and frowned at me. He pointed at the pictures. “Come on—I thought you knew! I mean, it’s pretty obvious those pictures are of me, isn’t it?”

He had a point. It wasn’t his fault I was so fucking clueless. I’d seen them thousands of times, even commented on them. I’d envied him for owning them.  Now, looking at them again, it was so obvious, I felt like an idiot.

“I mean, my body is shaved and my hair is different, and I’m bigger—“ he gave a weak smile, “and of course I’m older, but you never recognized me?”

“No.”
Enough of this
, I told myself.
Let it go.  He’s just a client—not your boyfriend—establishing his innocence is the most important thing. For now, at any rate
. “You want to tell me what happened yesterday?”

He shuddered again and his face paled. “I went to see Mark. I was going to tell him I wasn’t going to do the cover shoot—because it bothered you.” He flashed a smile at me, as if to say
I’m such a good boyfriend
.

Whatever. “What time did you get there?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said.  “I wasn’t paying attention to the time.” He frowned.

“After you saw him earlier, after you left me,  where did you go?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” He asked, eyebrows going up.

“I need to know exactly where you went, what you did all day.”

“Oh.” He thought for a minute. “After I saw you, I went back uptown to the grocery store. I guess it was around noon. I was there for a while, then went home and checked my email, and then I had some other errands to run.” He rubbed his forehead. “I picked up my dry cleaning, went to Garden District Bookstore to get something to read, and went to the coffee shop on Magazine, to read and think.”

“Which coffee shop?”

“The one by the A&P.”

The Rue de la Course. I nodded. “And then?”

“That’s when I decided to come back and tell Mark I wasn’t going to pose for the cover.”

“Where did you park?”

“On Burgundy between St. Ann and Dumaine.”

“Did you see or talk to anyone between parking the car and when you got to his office?”

“I don’t see how that matters.”

I sighed. “Well, if you ran into someone and talked to them, and you seemed perfectly normal, it could be argued you weren’t on your way to commit a murder.”

“Oh.” He said and scratched his head. “No, I don’t remember talking to anyone.”

“Go on.”

“He lived in the carriage house behind the main house, you know?  Where the office is? That dread-locked girl, whatever her name is, told me to just go around there because that’s where he was.  I walked around, the door was open, so I knocked and went in.” He shivered. “I tripped on something and almost fell. It was a gun. I bent down and picked it up, and it went off—and that’s, that’s wh-wh-when I saw him.” His breath became more labored. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. “I didn’t know what to do.” He winced, remembering. “The gun was so loud, but it didn’t sound real, you know? More like a firecracker or something, just louder. Not like on TV.  Then the next thing I knew the police were there, asking me questions, putting me in the police car—“ he closed his eyes again.

“Why didn’t you just call him?” I crossed my arms.

His eyes opened. “What?”

I crossed my arms. “You could have just called him, couldn’t you? Why was it so important that you had to go see him in person?”

“I—I don’t know.” He was lying. It was easy to see. He wouldn’t look me in the eyes, and his body language had shifted.

“Were you sleeping with him?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.

“WHAT?” He stared at me. “Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know what to think, to be frank.” I sat down and took a deep breath.
Client—not boyfriend
—
client
. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“I wasn’t sleeping with Mark.” He swallowed and leaned forward. “You have to believe that, Chanse. We were involved, yes, but that was over three years ago, and it didn’t last very long.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that yesterday? Why did you pretend you barely knew him?”