“You accessed the database at this college?” One of her eyebrows went up, and she put her pad down. “I don’t think-“ she glanced over at Blaine, “-that we really need to know any more about that. And I don’t want to see anything you might have downloaded or copied from their database.” She smiled. “We’ll just call that an anonymous tip.”
I went on, explaining how I’d seen Freddy’s senior picture-complete with braces-and made the connection to Joey Rutledge. “I went to the Brass Rail last night and talked to him,” I ignored the knowing smirk on Blaine’s face, “and he told me all about how he knew Rosemary Shannon, and how he was there the night of the murder. And I planned on bring him in today to tell you all this himself. My identification was all fucked up, so I knew we needed him to come forward.”
She sighed and closed her notebook. “Yeah, I’m sure you would have. This just sucks, you know? You’re absolutely positive he was the guy?”
“Every Wednesday afternoon, he picked up Glynis’s drycleaning and dropped it off at six. He ran errands for Rosemary sometimes. He thought it was her house.” I cursed myself again. “I bought his innocent act, you know. I really thought he didn’t know what he was involved in.” I thought for a moment. “It’s still possible he didn’t know. But after I filled him in-he had Rosemary over a barrel. I’d be willing to bet he called Rosemary as soon as I left the bar.” I groaned. “Maybe tried to get money out of her, I don’t know. But his being there with her before she called anyone…her story was she came home and found Glynis right away was kind of blown.”
“You know as well as I do none of this will hold up in court, Chanse-it’s hearsay, and without the kid to back you up, no judge will allow it.”
“And a defense attorney would have a field day with you, buddy.” Blaine shook his head. “Your credibility is completely worthless, you know. Frillian paid you, first you were sure it was Freddy, now you’re convinced it was this kid. And all Rosemary has to do is deny all of this. It’s your word against hers. And you seeing the kid there-well, maybe he killed Glynis.”
“I know, I know.” I slammed my fist down on my knees. “I completely blew it. And now the kid’s dead because I didn’t think ahead. Why didn’t it even occur to me he’d call Rosemary?”
“You want to know what I think?” Venus glanced over at Blaine, who shrugged. “I think Rosemary’s our killer. Her story checks out, but barely, and it means nothing anyway. She could have just as easily killed Glynis, left the house and ran her errands, making sure everyone in every store and the waitress at Angeli remembered her-she made herself very conspicuous everywhere she went; making sure she talked to a clerk in every store about something strange-something they would be sure to remember later-and then went back to the house, met Joey there, let him in, she keeps him there and watches until someone comes along, and then gets him to leave and he’s seen…”
“And then he called her last night, and she killed him.” I swallowed.
“Well, we were inclined to write it off as a mugging.” Blaine replied. “He’s a small guy, for one thing, and he was carrying a backpack filled with cash as well as his wallet. His fellow dancers warned him to take a cab rather than walk back to the Marigny-but all he said was, he wasn’t going home. His phone was taken, his wallet was emptied, and the backpack, and he was shot twice in the chest. He was dead by the time help could reach him. Someone in the vicinity heard the gunshots and called it in.”
Venus interrupted Blaine. “We’re tracing his phone carrier to get a record of his calls. One of the other dancers, I forget his name, said that before he left he called someone and was talking very quietly on his phone. The other dancer just assumed he was setting up a trick or something. Apparently, Joey was very secretive.”
I closed my eyes. “He called Rosemary, told her someone recognized him, was asking him questions about that night and what he was doing in the house?”
“And he asked her for more money.”
“He played right into her hands. I wonder if she intended to kill him all along.” I shrugged. “All she had to do was take his phone, his wallet and his backpack, and presto! It looks like another random mugging, another murder in the Quarter.”
“And we have no way of proving that she killed either of them.” Venus sighed. She stood up and gave me a long hard look. “Don’t beat yourself up over this, Chanse. This wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known he was going to be killed-nor do you know for sure that it was because you talked to him.”
“Thanks.” I walked them to the door. It was nice to hear, but I didn’t believe it for a minute.
“If you find out anything-not that I am encouraging you to keep investigating, mind you-next time let me know right away, all right?” She gave me a hug.
I closed the door behind them and ignored the sound of the reporters shouting questions at them. I lay down on the couch and covered my eyes. Poor Joey. You never try to blackmail someone who’s already killed. But then, he had no idea she’d been killing people for years.
At least, if she truly is Karen Zorn.
My fax machine rang, startling me. I jumped up and walked over to it. It whirred, and a piece of paper started printing out. My heart started racing as I looked at the caller ID and recognized the Kansas area code.
When it finished printing, I grabbed it.
It was a reproduction of a senior class photo. Across the top of the printout, before the photograph, was written This is Karen’s senior picture. If you see her, tell her to call her mother.
I stared at the picture.
She’d changed over the years, but there was no mistaking her.
Rosemary was Karen Zorn.
I remembered Brett saying, “She told me she was relatively new in town, didn’t know anyone, so I kind of always tried to be nice to her. But it was like she took my being nice the wrong way. She started buying me presents. At first, it was just kind of sweet, you know what I mean? Nothing inappropriate…, like she always had the kind of protein bars I liked… She would call me all the time-on the stupidest pretext… I figured she was just lonely and wanted someone to talk to, you know? Then it started getting really weird … I let it go as long as I could. Finally I told her she had to stop buying me things and calling me all the time. And then she turned on me. She told Glynis I’d said some inappropriate things to her.”
And Freddy: She used to bring me presents, buy me lunch and stuff like that… She was always willing to buy beer or food or something. She was always around. It got to be a joke around the house-my little stalker. I wouldn’t sleep with her. There was just something about her that didn’t strike me as being quite right, you know what I mean? But at that party, I was just drunk enough… the next morning I was hungover and felt like shit. And she wouldn’t shut up. She kept going on and on about how happy she was… it freaked me out. I told her I’d made a terrible mistake, that I didn’t love her, and she needed to leave…and then on Monday she went to the dean and accused me of rape.”
A definite pattern of behavior there.
I picked up my phone to call Venus when it started ringing.
The caller ID said PAIGE. I flipped the phone open. “Hello?”
There was silence at the other end. “Hello? Paige, are you there?”
And then I heard Paige say, clearly, “Rosemary, you aren’t going to get away with this, you know. You might as well put the gun away.”