Murder in the Irish Channel (Chanse MacLeod Mysteries) Read Free Page B

Lorelle are a lot older than me. They’re in their thirties. I was what Ma called a change-of-life baby.” He shrugged again.
    “That’s why he’s so spoiled.” Heather shoved a pile off the couch and sat down, folding her hands on her belly.
    “I’m not spoiled—”
    “The sun rises and shines out of your ass for Mona,” she jeered at him, and looked at me. “Mona thinks I’m not good enough for him, you know. She’s always dropping in here and making fun of the way I keep house, my cooking—she’s awful. ”
    I refrained from mentioning her housekeeping skills left a little to be desired. “So, her name is Mona?”
    Jonny didn’t look at Heather. “Mona Catherine Rowland O’Neill, yeah. Rowland’s the maiden name.”
    I wrote it down. “Did she work?”
    “Not since Katrina.” Jonny frowned. “She used to work as a property manager for an apartment complex on the West Bank before the storm, but the place didn’t reopen right away after Katrina—too much damage, and so Ma just retired.”
    “She always said she was too old to be looking for a new job, so she decided to stay home,” Heather said. She made a face. “She had a nice little nest egg she was sitting on.”
    “My dad was killed when I was little,” Jonny explained. “Mom got a big settlement from the insurance and the company he worked for—he was killed on the job. She didn’t need to work, she just didn’t like sitting around doing nothing—that’s why she got the job in the first place, after I started school.”
    “So, how did she fill her days after the flood?” I asked.
    “She did a lot of volunteer work—you know, helping people rebuild their houses and stuff—I mean, she didn’t do construction work, but for a long time she drove around passing out supplies to people working on houses in the Ninth Ward,” Jonny went on. “She also spent a lot of time volunteering at St. Anselm’s, and you know, she got really involved in trying to save it.”
    That got my attention. “She was one of the protesters at St. Anselm’s?”
    St. Anselm’s had been in the local news for months. One of the side effects from the depopulation of the city after Katrina and the levee failure was a corresponding drop in attendance—and donations—to the Catholic Church. As revenues fell, the archdiocese decided it needed to tighten its belt, and part of that tightening included the closing of two churches in the city. Archbishop Pugh was stunned when the parishioners flatly refused to let their churches be closed, and St. Anselm’s had become the focal point of the battle—because of its location in Uptown New Orleans. St. Anselm’s was technically in the Irish Channel, but it was only a few blocks on the river side of the Garden District on Louisiana Avenue. Our Lady of Prompt Succor on the West Bank wasn’t as beautiful or historic, so the news coverage had focused primarily on the war over St. Anselm’s. The parishioners were fighting the archbishop with everything they could muster. Archbishop Pugh was not from New Orleans originally—which was pointed out fairly regularly by the rebellious parishioners. He also didn’t appreciate the disobedience of loyal Catholics, and imperiously refused to budge or compromise. As the struggle dragged on, it was becoming increasingly acrimonious.
    The St. Anselm’s parishioners had taken to holding twenty-four-hour-a-day candlelight vigils inside the church, and the archbishop had demanded the police evict them earlier the previous week. Every news program in the city had camera crews there that day, it seemed, and public opinion had not taken kindly to the sight of good Catholics being dragged out of their church in handcuffs by the police. An ambitious local politician denounced the police raid as a violation of the separation of church and state. The switchboard at the archdiocese—and at City Hall—had lit up.
    Archbishop Pugh quickly dropped the charges, but the damage was already