Читать книгу Let the Dead Sleep - Heather Graham, Heather Graham - Страница 8

Chapter Two

QUINN HAD THOUGHT he’d be able to keep up with Gladys.

Chasing her on foot hadn’t been difficult, but following her once he’d gotten back to his car had proven to be a challenge. Parking in the Quarter was a nightmare, so naturally he’d been two blocks down. Still, Gladys Simon wasn’t exactly a speed demon, so he should’ve managed to catch up with her.

But it was the French Quarter. He should have known but never suspected that a parade would close off Bourbon precisely when he needed to cross it.

Gladys had beaten the parade.

He chafed, waiting. There was no turning; there was no backing up.

Assuming that she’d be headed home, he figured he’d start uptown as soon as he could. He tried to assure himself that Danni Cafferty had called the police and that they’d come by—or social services would—to see to her welfare.

But he couldn’t be sure.

He knew he had to reach Gladys himself. If Danni wasn’t going to take the statue, he had to do it. But he didn’t know whether he dared wait long enough to catch up with Gladys, since she seemed to be at the end of her rope. If Danni had just agreed immediately to come and get the damn thing, he wouldn’t have been so worried.

When he’d tried to call Gladys, she’d refused to talk to him. When he’d tried to see her at home, he’d been put off by a protective housekeeper. He hadn’t known that Hank Simon had the statue in time to try and see the man. In fact, he wouldn’t even have learned about its existence—other than through vague references in art-history books—if it wasn’t for the sniveling Vic Brown, incarcerated now with no bail while he awaited trial.

Vic had sold the bust to Hank Simon. Then, of course, Quinn had found out that Hank had died, which meant his wife now had it.

Vic had shot down three of his associates in the Chartres Street gang before being winged by the police himself. According to Vic, the bust had made him do it.

The newspaper had alerted him to the criminal’s planned defense. Visiting him in his cell had told Quinn that Vic seriously thought the bust had ordered him to shoot his friends—it was them or his own life. A self-defense plea might actually work for the poor bastard; Vic’s attorney, Anthony Everst, was trying to get Vic into a hospital unit. Not a bad call, since the dope dealer and petty crook was ranting in his cell about being damned now that he was no longer possessed.

Despite maneuvering more quickly than the law allowed when he finally cleared the Quarter, Quinn didn’t catch up with Gladys on the road. But when he arrived, he saw that her car was in the driveway.

Apparently Gladys had gotten home without incident.

He left his car and hurried up the walkway to the porch of the beautiful old Victorian house where the Simons—pillars of society, philanthropists in the extreme—had lived. The house, he knew, had been in the Simon family since it was built just prior to the War Between the States. It spoke of old money and genteel living, slow breezes and gracious hospitality.

He banged on the door and pressed the buzzer urgently.

It was opened by the battle-ax of a housekeeper.

“You again,” she said. Her name was Bertie. He knew that from trying to go through her to speak with Gladys before. He’d begun this quest as soon as he’d learned the bust had wound up at the Simon home.

“Bertie, it’s imperative that I talk to Mrs. Simon. I think I can help her. You must know that her mind is unbalanced by grief. I can help her. I swear to you, I can.”

“She’s in mourning,” Bertie said. “And she doesn’t need any ambulance chasers trying to get her to sue on her husband’s behalf or any such thing.” Bertie wagged a finger at him. “I know who you are, Michael Quinn. And I don’t care if you were a cop or if you’ve become a big hero—I heard enough ’bout you and your exploits when you were a boy. No pretty-boy white trash really changes his colors, and that’s the truth of it.”

“Bertie, this has nothing to do with me and everything to do with your employer,” Quinn said, tempted to grab the housekeeper by the shoulders and push her out of his way. “She’s nearly unhinged. She needs help.”

“Not from the likes of you. You get out of here, Mr. Quinn,” Bertie said.

It really was a matter of life and death; still, he didn’t want to force the woman to move if he didn’t have to. One thing he’d say for Bertie—she knew his old reputation and could clearly see his size, but her loyalty to Gladys kept her from giving an inch.

“How about you just ask her if she’ll see me? Tell her it’s about the bust.”

Bertie stiffened. She looked at him and either decided that Gladys was in such bad shape that even he might help or that he might be ready to physically set her aside.

“Fine, you can come in,” she snapped.

She opened the door, and he entered the foyer with its elegant stained glass. He saw the central stairway leading up to the rooms above and balcony from which Hank Simon had thrown himself to his death. Bertie wouldn’t glance in that direction. She stared straight at him and indicated the room to his right. “Go on into the parlor and stay there!” she said firmly.

He nodded and walked in. She followed him, closing the heavy double doors as if that would assure he didn’t wander around the house.

Quinn waited. Handsome portraits of the Civil War–era owners flanked the mantel. The furniture in the room was an eye-pleasing collection of different decades and styles. The chairs were richly upholstered and the room’s central piece—a grand piano—was polished to a magnificent shine.

He sat restlessly in one of the wingback chairs. Bertie was taking way too long.

He stood and walked around the room, feeling a sense of dread, of impending doom. He was ready to break through the doors and burst up the stairs when Bertie reappeared, a look of total consternation on her face.

“You’ll have to come back.”

“That’s what Gladys said?” Quinn demanded.

Bertie hesitated. “I can’t find Mrs. Simon,” she said.

“What do you mean, you can’t find her?”

Bertie crossed her arms over her ample chest. “I mean, she isn’t here. I can’t find her. So you’ll have to come back.”

He shook his head. “Her car is in the drive. She was in the Quarter less than an hour ago and now she’s here—at least her car is. I was right on her heels. She hasn’t gone back out, so she’s here somewhere.”

“Well, she’s not!”

He approached the woman, speaking in a reasonable voice. “Bertie, listen. You don’t know me. All you know about is an old reputation. I’m here to help Gladys—I swear it. We have to search for her. She’s not in her right mind.”

Bertie’s lashes fell over her eyes and she looked downward quickly; she did know that he was speaking the truth.

She looked up at him again. “I have no idea where she is. She’d gone up to her room. Now, she isn’t there.”

“Which room?” he asked.

“Up the stairs, go down the balcony, first door to your left.”

He hurried past her and took the stairs two at a time.

Walking along the balcony, he saw that he was passing the spot where Hank Simon must have hurled himself from the upper level to the floor beneath, breaking his neck. An accident? No...

“Gladys! Gladys, where are you?” he called. “I’ll get the bust out of here right now! Gladys!”

No reply. He dashed into the woman’s room.

Genteel, pleasant, charming. There was a white knit cover on the bed and the pillows were plumped high. An old-fashioned dressing table stood on one side of the room, while a more masculine set of drawers, matching in wood and design, stood against the far wall. White chintz curtains covered the window that overlooked the courtyard. Oils portraying different aspects of Jackson Square and the river graced the walls.

“Gladys?”

The breeze ruffled the curtains. Nothing more.

“Mr. Quinn!”

Bertie hadn’t followed him up the stairs. Her voice wasn’t panicked, nor did it sound relieved. He walked back out to the balcony that looked over the foyer below and leaned against the rail.

It was solid.

Bertie was standing just inside the entry, but she wasn’t alone.

Danni Cafferty had arrived.

“We may be too late,” he said.

Bertie let out a gasp.

Danni frowned, gazing up at him with her deep blue eyes. “Too late?”

“Bertie, go through the rooms downstairs. Look in every closet,” Quinn said. “You—” he pointed at Danni “—get up here with me and start going through all the rooms on the second floor. Bathrooms, storerooms, closets, you name it.”

“Mr. Quinn,” Bertie said indignantly. “Mrs. Simon doesn’t make a habit of hiding in the closet!”

“Just do it!”

Bertie was worried; that much was obvious. She pursed her lips, not happy taking orders from him but willing at that moment to do anything.

Danni, still frowning, made her way up the stairs. He ignored her and returned to the room Gladys had shared with her husband.

He checked in her bathroom and the huge walk-in closet that had probably been another room or a nursery at one time. He peered under the bed. Then he hesitated, studying the open window. Dreading what he might find, he walked to it, stepped out on the inner courtyard balcony and glanced down.

He sighed in relief. There was no broken body on the patio stones below. He inhaled. Had the woman slipped out the back and gone for a stroll?

Danni came in. “I’ve been in a study, two guest rooms, a sewing room and an office and there are no more rooms. I opened every closet door—and checked the other two bathrooms. There’s no one here.”

“It’s all wrong,” he muttered.

“Why are you so sure of that?” she asked.

“I’ve seen what the bust can do,” he told her. And he had. He’d seen the madness in Vic and he knew what Vic had done.

“The bust is just an object!”

He brushed past her. There was a garage on the other side of the courtyard with an apartment above it. There had to be some kind of entry via the bottom of the U—the traditional design of the house—that surrounded the courtyard. He started down the hall but then paused, noting that the trapdoor to the attic wasn’t completely closed.

He cursed, barely aware of Danni standing behind him, watching him as if he should be in a mental ward.

Quinn pulled down the stairs that led to the attic and quickly climbed up them.

At first, he could see nothing. The attic was lit only by a single dormer window and his eyes had to adjust.

Then he heard a scream of horror behind him. Danni had followed him up. She was pointing.

He blinked, and then he saw it. In the shadowed space that fell just to the side of the window, there was a body swinging from the rafters.

He rushed to it, lifting the slim form of Gladys Simon so that the rope around her neck could no longer strangle her. He held her, dug in his pocket for his knife and cut the thick cord, easing Gladys down to the wooden floor. He straddled her, desperate to perform CPR.

But he’d been a cop—and he’d been around.

Gladys was gone.

He kept up his efforts, anyway. He could be wrong....

He vaguely heard Danni calling the police. And he felt her hand on his shoulder.

“She’s dead,” Danni said softly.

He knew it was true.

He sat back on his haunches, bitterly ruing the time it had taken to reach her. When Danni touched him again, he jerked away.

At that moment, he hated her as much as he hated himself.

* * *

Danni felt disjointed.

Horrified and disjointed. The morning had started out like any other—and now she was sitting in the parlor of an uptown home while police and paramedics moved in and out, listening to Bertie cry and Quinn speak with a detective in controlled tones. The way he’d looked at her when he’d given up on resuscitating Gladys had cut her to the core. She felt tremendous guilt, and anger that she should feel that way. She had come when he’d told her to come. She couldn’t have known the woman was going to commit suicide! And she had called the police, and they’d promised to send social services out to investigate.

She was still sitting here—waiting, as the police had asked—feeling as if the earth had tilted slightly off its axis.

She wanted to leave, to go home, forget the horror of seeing Gladys Simon’s body swaying in the shadows, forget she’d seen the woman’s face when Quinn had brought her down.

She’d never forget it, though. Something was unalterably changed and she hated it.

“What do you know about this?”

She startled to awareness; the detective—a man named Jake Larue—was standing beside her, looking down at her.

She raised her hands. “I don’t know anything. I wish I did. Mrs. Simon came into my shop today, swearing that a bust her husband had bought had killed him. She was extremely agitated. I called the police—not the emergency line, she wasn’t walking around with a knife or a gun—and I was assured someone was going to see to her.” Her words sounded defensive, like an excuse. They were an excuse.

Could she have said or done anything that would have saved the woman’s life?

Larue turned to Quinn, shaking his head. “She was bereft. Her husband had just died. You’re trying to tell me she didn’t kill herself?”

“No, I believe she might well have killed herself, but if anyone can answer that question for sure, it’ll be the medical examiner. We searched the house before we found her. The police response when Ms. Cafferty called in the death was excellent—I think a cruiser was here in two or three minutes. No one was crawling around the house or the grounds. I didn’t, however, get into the garage,” Quinn said.

“I have men searching the area now, but if she did kill herself, there’s no reason to expect that someone was in the house.”

“But someone was in here,” Quinn said with certainty.

Larue groaned. “You just said she killed herself.”

“Yes, I believe she did.”

“Then why would anyone have been here?” Larue asked, his eyes narrowed. Danni noted that he wasn’t looking at Quinn as if he was crazy; instead, Larue looked as if he wanted to groan again, sink down in a chair and clamp his head between his hands. He held his ground, though, only a long breath escaping him as he stared at Quinn.

“The bust is gone,” Quinn told him.

“The bust...the bust that supposedly killed Hank Simon?” Larue asked skeptically.

Quinn nodded. “Mrs. Simon was convinced it killed her husband.”

“And you think a bust killed her, too?” Larue asked.

“It doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is what was in her head. If she believed the bust killed him, she might have believed it would kill her,” Quinn said. He shrugged. “Or worse—maybe she believed it would have some kind of dangerous effect on her...I don’t know. I can only say she was acting very erratically and that’s why I came here. I’d seen her in the French Quarter, and to my deepest regret, it seems she was in a far worse frame of mind than I’d imagined.”

Larue sighed. “Quinn, it’s going to get more and more complicated, isn’t it? Every time you’re involved—”

“Wait!” Quinn protested. “You’re the one who asked me to check on Vic Brown and his raving about the bust, remember?”

“I’m not publicizing the fact that I brought you in, you know,” Larue reminded him.

Quinn grinned and nodded slightly.

“We were partners once,” Larue explained to Danni.

“He’s a good cop,” Quinn said. “A really good cop.”

“And Quinn is a damned good investigator, but I am a cop and...well, police forces all over sometimes call on P.I.s. With Quinn, I know it’s cool because even if he doesn’t make big bucks on a case like this, he’s going to be okay financially.”

Danni sensed that Quinn could feel her looking at him curiously. “I have a trust fund from my grandmother, who managed to buy just the right stocks at the right time,” he explained. “So I’m okay when I work on something that doesn’t involve a paying client. Something I’m interested in. And I’m always available for Larue when he needs a little help.”

“Thank God, since the force isn’t rolling in money and I’m going to be stretching the budget to the limit to bring in the overtime on this. I can already see it coming!” Larue turned to Danni. “Thanks to Quinn,” he added.

“But you have to admit it’s worth it. Because I’m usually a step ahead, and you know I do my damnedest to get answers,” Quinn finished for him.

Larue was silent for a minute, then sighed again.

Danni was surprised. She’d never imagined that Quinn was actually accepted by the police force—a force he’d left.

“All right,” Larue said briskly. “So you figure this bust—which Mrs. Simon believes killed her husband—is missing? That someone broke into the house as she was killing herself and stole it?”

“I don’t know if the thief broke in before or after she killed herself, but whoever stole it might have been ready to kill for it, anyway,” Quinn told Larue.

Danni spoke up. “No one needed to kill her for the bust. She wanted it out of the house. She would’ve given it to anyone who asked.”

Both of them looked at her—as if they’d forgotten she was there.

“Yes, she wanted it gone,” Quinn agreed. “But the person who stole it might not have known she was desperate to get rid of it. That’s irrelevant. We were too late, the bust is gone and there’ll be more deaths over it.”

“You’ve lost me, Quinn,” Larue said. He didn’t wait for a response, continuing with, “What about the housekeeper?” He glanced down at the notes on his iPhone. “Roberta Hyson. She didn’t see or hear anyone in the house.”

“This is a big house,” Quinn reminded him. “And I’m not sure about her eyesight or her hearing.”

“Nice...I hope people are kind to you when you’re old one day.”

“I’m not being insulting. The woman is elderly—and she isn’t in this room, so she can’t be insulted.”

It was crazy. Crazy. Danni’s head was pounding. She stood; the men had forgotten her again, anyway.

“If there’s nothing else you need from me, I’m going home,” she said. Her voice sounded distant and a little shaky.

Once again, they both gave her their attention.

“Of course, Ms. Cafferty. If we need you, we know where to find you,” Larue said.

“You’re leaving? Just like that—after this?” Quinn frowned.

“Just like that,” she told him, nodding gravely.

She thought she’d made her escape when she walked out the front door, moved down the steps and past the two uniformed officers standing guard at the entry like carved sentinels.

But she’d barely reached the street when she heard him behind her. And she wasn’t surprised when he grabbed her arm.

She spun around, seething. “Let go of me, Mr. Quinn...Michael, whatever.”

He did, staring at her. She hated the fact that she felt compelled to stare back.

“It’s Quinn. Just Quinn.” He paused. “I guess Angus didn’t talk to you. Either that, or you’re an ice-cold functioning psychopath who couldn’t care less about the lives of others.”

“My father had tremendous patience for people with mental problems. However, I don’t. So leave me alone, or I’ll shout for that friend of yours who’s still in the house.”

He shook his head, disgusted. With her. That seemed doubly galling.

And yet she still felt guilty. Gladys Simon was dead.

But what could she have done? She’d never seen the woman before that day!

To her horror, she blurted out, “It wasn’t my fault!”

She thought he’d lash out at her and insist that it certainly had been her fault.

“No, it was mine,” he said, and she realized he was inwardly kicking himself. For some reason, he seemed to believe that if she’d understood the situation, she might have magically saved the day. “It was my fault. I realize now that Angus never really said anything to you and neither did Billie. There are things you need to understand...but right now, we have to get that bust back.”

“We?” she said horrified. “Look, you don’t even know that Gladys didn’t stash it in the house somewhere. Maybe it wasn’t stolen. Like Larue said, you make everything more complicated.”

As if Quinn had somehow hired him to play a part, Detective Larue appeared on the front porch.

“Quinn!” he called.

“Yeah?”

“We need some help. You were right. The housekeeper didn’t hear a thing—but a window was taken out on the ground level, garage side. The glass was cut out, eased to the ground by some kind of suction device.”

Quinn nodded slowly.

“Still doesn’t mean the bust is gone. Where did she keep it?” Larue asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never been here until today. But I’m pretty sure it was kept in the house. When Hank Simon bought it, he was convinced he’d made the buy of the century.”

“The den—or the salon,” Danni heard herself volunteer. Quinn turned to face her. “She said something in the store about trying to throw it away, trying to bury it, but it kept showing up back in... I’m not sure of the exact word she used, but someplace like an office, den, salon.”

“We’ve checked out Hank Simon’s office,” Larue said.

“There’s a library, but it’s not in there,” Quinn said. “I looked when we got here and were trying to find Gladys.”

Larue motioned to one of the uniformed officers standing by. “As soon as the M.E. retrieves the body and the forensic unit’s finished, I want a more extensive search of the house. Go through closets, bathrooms—everywhere.”

The officer cleared his throat. “What does the bust look like?” he asked. “The house is filled with antiques and bric-a-brac.”

“It’s carved marble. Head, neck and shoulders. Curly hair, classic features. It’s been described as portraying the face of an angel—or a demon. Some say the eyes are demonic, that they seem to be watching you. It was sculpted with a mantle over the shoulders and at a certain angle the mantle can appear to be angel wings,” Quinn told him. “It looks like it belongs in a dé Medici tomb.”

“A dé Medici tomb? Would that be a tomb in one of the St. Louis cemeteries, Lafayette up in the Garden District or out in Metairie?” the officer asked.

“There are no dé Medici tombs around here. No, what I’m saying is that it looks Roman—like something you’d see in a Renaissance church or tomb,” Quinn said.

The officer made a slightly derisive sound. He quieted as Quinn scowled at him. “Sorry, Detective Quinn.”

“I’m not on the force anymore. I’m just Quinn. I’m simply telling you how it’s been described,” Quinn added.

“Head, neck and shoulders—it didn’t get up and walk out, then,” Larue said sardonically.

“No, I don’t think it’s supposed to be able to walk,” Quinn said with equal sarcasm.

Danni wanted to go home. She wanted the day to rewind; she wished she’d never met—and failed—Gladys Simon, and that Michael Quinn had never darkened her door.

“You going to help in the search?” Quinn asked her.

No!

But the way he looked at her...

What was she going to do? Go home and wallow in guilt?

Not fair! She really had no idea what was going on.

She didn’t want to agree. She opened her mouth to say no.

What came out was, “Sure. You don’t think you’re going to find it, though, do you?”

“Nope,” he said. “But what the hell—we can’t be certain it’s missing until we do a thorough search.”

“What about...Gladys? I don’t know how to investigate. I’ll leave fingerprints all over. The crime scene people won’t want us messing things up.”

He grinned and reached into his pocket, producing a wad of balled-up plastic. It proved to be several pairs of gloves. “Not to mention the fact that our fingerprints are already all over the place because we were trying to find her.”

She snatched gloves from him and put them on. As they returned to the house, Larue said to Quinn, “I’m assuming you have some idea of where to look for this bust or statue or whatever if it’s not here?”

“No, not really,” Quinn replied. “But I’ll try to get a lead on it.”

“And if not?”

“If not...” He paused for a minute. His eyes slipped over Danni but she wasn’t sure he was really seeing her.

“If not?” Larue asked.

“If not, I’m afraid we’ll be following a trail of bodies....”