Murder in the Garden District (Chanse MacLeod Mysteries) Read Free Page B

been through it myself. Until, of course, I married Charles Castlemaine and suddenly had more money than God at my disposal. The power of being richer than they are can never be underestimated.” She gave me a hard smile. “They’re polite to me now, but I’m not one of them. I never will be. And neither will Janna.”
    “Do you think she could have killed him?”
    Barbara didn’t answer me at first, and when she finally spoke, she didn’t look at me.
    He was a horrible man, Chanse, an absolutely horrible man. Every bit as awful as his mother. If Janna did kill him—and I am not saying she did—I’m certain she had her reasons.”
    She glanced at her watch.
    “Good Lord, I have to get running. I have a meeting in half an hour.”
    She rose and walked quickly to the door.
    “You can see yourself out, can’t you, dear? And again, I am so sorry.” She winked at me. “I promise to make it up to you.”

    *

    As I sat in my car waiting for the air-conditioning to kick into gear, I called my research assistant, Abby Grosjean. “We got a job,” I said when she answered. “I need you to find everything you can on Wendell Sheehan, his wife, Janna—hell, anything you can find out about the entire Sheehan family.”
    “Wendell Sheehan was killed last night,” Abby said. “It’s all over the news.”
    “That’s right,” I said. “We’re working for the Sheehan family.” I looked at Barbara’s house. “I need it as soon as possible. And while you’re at it, find out everything you can about Barbara Castlemaine.”
    “The boss ? Are you sure?”
    “I’m sure.”
    I’d never checked out Barbara before. I’d always considered it an invasion of her privacy. I knew some of her secrets, of course—you couldn’t work as a private eye for someone as long as I’d worked for Barbara without learning some things about her. And from time to time she’d let something personal slip. But I’d never done a background check on her, and now my curiosity was piqued. She obviously hated Cordelia Spencer Sheehan and her son. So why would she do her a favor?
    Maybe I should just leave Barbara alone—she might not appreciate the intrusion into her privacy, and she was certainly my golden goose. I’d be up shit creek if I lost the Crown Oil gig, and with Abby on salary now, it wasn’t just me that would be affected.
    Then again, Cordelia had something on her—and for Barbara to put up with the dismissive way the old woman treated her, it had to be something really bad. Truth be told, if I was careful, the only way Barbara would find out was if I told her—and I could make that decision later.
    As for Janna Sheehan, it would be interesting to meet her. I already felt a little sorry for her—under the best of circumstances, it couldn’t be easy to be that woman’s daughter-in-law.

    *

    I parked in the lot alongside my house and went into the living room of my apartment on the first floor in the front of the building. Plopping down on the sofa, I called my best friend, Paige.
    Paige and I went back all the way to our college days at LSU, which now seemed a million years ago. She’d been a reporter for the Times-Picayune until last year, when she’d accepted the job as editor-in-chief at Crescent City . In that short time she’d turned the glossy monthly from a barely break-even piece of fluff into a must-read for locals. When she’d been at the Times-Picayune , she’d often pulled information from the morgue for me, and while she didn’t have that same kind of access at Crescent City , she might know someone at the paper who would do her a favor. She answered on the first ring, breathless.
    “Chanse! I can’t talk long—deadline looming. How’s your mother? How are you?”
    “Hanging in there, and my mother…”
    I hesitated. Paige had been the one to convince me to go to see her in the first place.
    “She’s responding to the treatments, but who knows?”
    “I’m so sorry… Look, Chanse, it’s