Murder in the Rue St. Ann (17 page)

“He didn’t have to be buzzed in?”

“Nah. He knew the gate code. Then about half an hour later, that Paul guy—your boyfriend, I guess—came by looking for Mark. We sent him back, and then the next thing we knew the police were there.” He shuddered.

“You didn’t hear the gun shots?”

“No—the house is built pretty solid, brick. We hardly ever hear anything when we’re in the office from the street or anything.”

“Did you see Ricky leave?”

“No, but unless he came through the office on his way out, I probably wouldn’t have.” He sighed.

“So, anyone who knew the code could have gotten in without your knowing about it?”

“Mark could also buzz people in from his place.”

Interesting. Paul’s story began to make more sense. If he’d gone there to kill Mark, he wouldn’t have gone in through the front, being seen by eyewitnesses who could put him there. And if people could have gotten in without going through the front, any number of people could have come and gone without the people in the office knowing, including Rocky Dahlgren.

“What did you think of Mark?”

“He was a great guy.” Ghentry looked down into his cup. “And smart. Very motivated. He was determined to make a success of the business, and we all worked really hard, you know?”

“So how did you come to work there?”

Ghentry sighed. “I freelance, and was working part time at an antiques store on Magazine Street. After about a month, he called and asked me to meet with him. We talked about writing and what he wanted to do with the magazine; how he wanted to eventually build it up and take it national—you know, like
Instinct
or
Genre.
He’d already made some changes—took it from black and white to full color glossy, really improved the look of it—he didn’t want it to be just another New Orleans bar rag. He had read my writing in some of the other local papers, and he told me I was just the kind of writer he needed. He gave me a couple of assignments and I did them over the next week, before he asked me to meet with him again. I guess it was about late July, when he offered me a part time job. I was supposed to just write stuff for the magazine and do some stuff around the office.”

“And how did that work out?”

“It was fun.” He smiled. “We all loved our jobs—we always had a great time at work. Mark was very generous—he was always ordering lunch or dinner for us, and he was always very supportive and grateful for all the work we were doing. It was a pleasant change, you know what I mean?”

“Did you find him attractive?”

He stared at me. “Are you kidding? You met him, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “But did you think he was attractive?”

He laughed. “How could anyone not? Those eyes, that face—that body! Hell he was gorgeous….of course I was attracted to him. But he was way out of my league—waaaay out of my league. Definitely too good for Ricky.” He grinned at me. “You know what it is about Ricky? He’s a gay geek.” Ghentry laughed. “He doesn’t know the difference between Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, for God’s sake. I saw him and Mark out one night at Oz, and the poor thing can’t dance—he dances like a straight boy. Maybe once he’s shaken off the straight male conditioning, you know what I mean? I mean, he still talks about hunting and fishing, for God’s sake.”

I held my tongue. I’ve never understood the mentality that all gay man worship Liza, Judy, Barbra and Bette; are good dancers, obsess about the Oscars, and always use the word ‘fabulous’ whenever possible. Why couldn’t a gay man be into hunting and fishing, enjoy hockey for the fights? Hell, I’d been a college football player and I never wore speedos. Did that make me a failure as a gay man?  “You said before they didn’t seem happy.”

“Well, Mark didn’t seem to be…..I tried to get him to talk to me a few times about Ricky, but he wouldn’t say anything—but I definitely got the sense there was something weird going on with them.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to explain, it was just a feeling.” Ghentry sighed. “Mark liked gay stuff, you know? He liked dressing nice, going dancing—that kind of stuff. I mean, he was all about supporting gay causes, like NO AIDS and the Community Center. And he could be real queeny sometimes….like he’d dance in the office if he really liked the song playing on the radio—and that wasn’t Ricky at all, so he never acted like that around him. He always butched it up when he was around.”

“Anything else happen yesterday that seemed strange to you?”

 “Well, yesterday was a strange day, you know? You came by in the afternoon—Julian and I were pretty happy Dominique hired you, what the bars are trying to do to her is awful—and Dominique wasn’t the only call he got yesterday that was weird—this guy called a couple of times, and Mark wouldn’t take the calls.”

“Did you get the guy’s name?”

“Ed Smith.” He made a face. “Yeah, right, like I thought that was his name. But Mark wouldn’t take the calls— the guy was more and more pissed and every time he called back.”

“Do you know what he was calling about?”

He shook his head. “No, he just demanded to talk to Mark. It was like three different calls over the space of an hour. So, anyway, Mark just told us to take messages and then went back to the apartment.”

“How did he seem?”

“Kind of nervous.”

I made a note to see if the phone company had a record of the incoming calls. “Do you know why Paul Maxwell came to see him?”

“He told us he’d decided not to do the cover.” Ghentry made a face. “Apparently, being on the cover was upsetting his boyfriend, so he wasn’t doing to do it after all.” He laughed. “That would be you, right?” He shrugged. “If you don’t mind my saying so, I kind of thought you were being a bit possessive.”

I bit my tongue and then said, “Did he seem upset about anything, or angry?”

“No, he just seemed sad. He really wanted to do the cover.” He glanced at his watch. “I really should get back—the phones have been crazy all day.”

The sun had gone down a bit and the afternoon shadows were getting long and cold. I shivered and wished I’d brought a jacket. “Do you know how I can get in touch with Ricky Dahlgren?”

He shrugged as he punched in a code at the gate. “I really don’t know much about him—I’ve only seen him in passing, and never really talked to him much. Zane would probably know.”

We heard the loud voices as we climbed up the steps to the porch. One voice was louder than the other; deeper and more insistent. Ghentry made a face. “Great.”

“What’s going on?”

“Enrique Sanchez.” He made a sound of disgust. “He’s the concert promoter for the company. He books the acts and so on. He’s an arrogant asshole.” He opened the door and the argument abruptly broke off. Julian was sitting at her desk, her mouth open and her arms crossed over her Lilith Fair sweatshirt. Zane was sitting at his desk, his face red. He looked like he was about to start crying at any minute. In the center of the room was a dark man about five ten and carrying about two hundred pounds. He was wearing jeans about a size too small and a plaid flannel shirt. His hair was blue black and slicked down. There were a couple of pinkish red pimples spread over his face. Sadly, he looked like he was 25, tops.

“Can I help you?” His smile was about as slick as his hair.

“I’d like to talk to Zane for a moment.” I put my hands in my pockets., fixing him with an inexpressive stare.

He blinked, and turned his head back to Zane. “Zane?”

Zane rose, wiping his hands on his jeans and taking a deep breath. “Let’s go into Mark’s office.”

I followed him into the room and let out a low whistle. It was a shambles. Papers were scattered everywhere, the trash can and its contents spilled, drawers open. The computer was gone, a clean space in the center of the once-meticulous desk where it had once sat.

Zane sat down in Mark’s chair and threw his arms out. “I’m surprised they didn’t tear up the carpet.”

I took a pile of disheveled papers out of a chair, placing them on a table and sitting down. “The police?”

He nodded. “They tore the place apart.” He put his elbows down on the desk and put his face in his hands. “They fucking took Mark’s computer! How the hell am I supposed to—“ his voice died off in a strangled groan.

“You’ll get it all back.” I looked around the room.
What had the search warrant been for?
The case against Paul must not be very strong if they felt the need to search the office. With a twinge of hope, I put myself into cop mentality. You’ve got a shooter, fingerprints on the gun, gunpowder residue on the suspect’s hands. Sure, there’s no motive, but it literally was a smoking gun.  But maybe the district attorney didn’t think it was open and shut.

“All our financial records were in his computer.” Zane looked at me. “How am I supposed to run the business without that?”

I stared at him. At best, he was maybe 22. “I imagine it would be hard.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.” He stared off into space, his eyes wet. “I can’t run this company without Mark. “

“How did you happen to go into business with him?”

“I met him last spring. At Oz. I was working as a bar-back.”

I looked at his thin arms. Oz’s bar-backs were known for being muscular. They had to be—they lugged tubs of ice and cases of liquor around. I couldn’t imagine Zane carrying two cases of vodka on his shoulder. “Really?”

He nodded. “Yeah, but I never worked behind the bar. They always had me work the door.” He shrugged.

That made sense. “So how did you meet?”

“He came in one night and started talking to me while I was working.” He shrugged. “He was drinking water, I remember thinking he must be rolling or something, but he wasn’t. He told me he wasn’t much of a drinker. I don’t know, I think at some point he told me he was the editor of
attitude
. I told him I’d always wanted to design a magazine, and he told me he wasn’t very good at it, and why didn’t I stop by his office?”

“You’ve done a good job.” I didn’t know if he had, but it never hurts to give compliments.

He smiled. “Thanks. I’d worked here for maybe a week or two when Mark’s partner decided he wanted to close the business down.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah, really. The last thing I wanted to do was go back to Oz to work, you know?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m not into that whole bar thing, you know? So, when Mark suggested we buy the business, I was all for it.”

“How did you swing it?”

“My parents took out a loan for me.” Zane stared out the window.

“How much did Mark put up?”

“Nothing.” Zane twisted his class ring. “He has a trust fund he was going to come into on his next birthday, and then he was going to pay my parents back, but I was going to get fifty percent of the business for allowing us to keep it going.”

“A trust fund.” It sounded like a scam to me. Mark gets Zane and his parents to put up the money to buy the business, which he then gets to run like it’s his. And somehow, I rather doubted Mark had told the Rathburns about his criminal conviction for fraud. “And where was the money coming from to run the business?”

“Well, we do pretty good with the ads from the magazine.” Zane smiled. “And then there was the p.r. business. That was Mark’s idea—to do p.r. and promote concerts.”

 “And how did all that work?”

“Dominique was paying us five grand a month for the pr, and we got to keep the door money from the shows we did there.” He shrugged. “We were losing money on the shows, but they were getting our name out there. We were getting ready to branch out into other venues where we’d make more money.” He sighed. “We were negotiating to do a show with Divas Three out at UNO.” Divas Three was the latest rage in pop music—three black girls with exquisite harmonies who sang dance music and were being heralded as the ‘new Supremes.’ “We’d have made a killing on that show.”

“Can’t you go ahead with it?”

“Not without Mark’s computer.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “I don’t even know how much money we have in the bank.”

“So, you’ve only known Mark for a few months?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know anything about some phone calls Mark got that seemed to upset him yesterday?”

“No.” He shrugged. “Mark got calls like that all the time. He always said it was the nature of the business so I never thought much about it, to be honest.” He sighed. “I don’t deal with conflict well, so I was more than happy to let Mark handle that side of the business.”

“And what can you tell me about his boyfriend—this Ricky Dalhgren?”

“Ricky.” Zane made a face. “What a jerk. Good looking, if you like that type.” Obviously from the look on his face he didn’t.

“You didn’t care for him?”

“No. I didn’t understand what Mark saw in him.” Zane shrugged. “To each his own, I guess. Mark told me once that Ricky told him all he was to him was a big dick and a good massage. I don’t know why anyone would put up with that.”

“Do you have a number for him?”

He shuddered. “God, no. Why would I want his number?”

“And you were here last night?”

“Actually, no.” He smiled. “I had a dinner date last night, so I left around seven to get ready for my date.”