“Former employees?” Reuben asked drily.
“Deer, mostly, and this poor, moth-eaten black bear. An armadillo, too, and there’s even a whole stuffed alligator.” She shuddered, recalling how creeped out she’d been by his “curiosities,” though he swore the customers loved them. “Those animals all have glass eyes, too.”
“So you’re thinking…?” Reuben sketched out an arch with the tip of his finger, a bridge from one idea to the next. “That’s a pretty big stretch, from Bambi hunter to psycho killer. What sportsman doesn’t have a few old trophies hangin’ ’round his—”
“We already know he can’t stand me.”
“And I can’t stand Creole cookin’. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna kill and stuff a Cajun chef to intimidate them others.” He shook his head. “Listen, sugar, you’re one heck of a tour guide—I never get tired of hearin’ you tell stories ’bout the ghosts of old N’awlins. But you’d better leave the cookin’ to the Cajuns and the detectin’ to the pros.”
Heat stung her cheeks. “Don’t patronize me, Reuben. I’m serious about him.”
“Then tell it to the police—” he gestured toward the photo but still avoided touching it “—when we turn this thing over to ’em.”
WHEN DETECTIVES ROBINSON AND DAVIS ARRIVED to collect the photo, Caitlyn brought up Josiah Paine immediately, but Robinson’s partner, a pudgy, balding man with woolly gray brows and small, pointed teeth, was quick to shrug it off. “I know Josiah real well. Sure, he burns a little hot, likes to shoot his mouth off, but under all that, he’s a teddy bear. A guy you can always count on for a nice donation when we’re raising money for a cop’s sick kid or something.”
Looking toward Reuben, Davis added, “You remember him, don’t ya, Rube? Picks up rounds at Tujague’s every now and then.”
“That’s what I was tellin’ Caitlyn,” Reuben answered. “Paine’s a lot of things, but he’s no killer.”
Caitlyn might have grown up in Ohio, but she recognized Good Old Boydom when she heard it. Frustrated, she tried zeroing in on Robinson. “You only think you know him.”
Detective Robinson merely frowned and changed the subject. “Didn’t you call us about some picture?”
“In here,” Reuben said, and four sets of footsteps echoed on the marble tile leading beneath an immense chandelier hanging high above them from a vaulted ceiling embellished with hand-painted nymphs and satyrs. The nineteenth-century fresco had cracked and peeled in places, as badly in need of restoration as the rest of this white elephant of a legacy. But that didn’t stop Caitlyn from loving it completely—and hoping, scheming and praying for some way she and her sister might hold on to it.
They passed the formal parlor, filled with prissy, somewhat dusty furnishings that looked far too fine to sit on, and Detective Davis whistled through his small teeth. “Nice place.”
Caitlyn thanked him and said, “The photo’s right here, in the kitchen.”
After giving them a chance to look it over, she said, “She’s definitely the woman from last night’s tour. ‘Eva Rill.’”
Her fingertips formed quotes around the name.
Detective Davis produced an evidence bag and slipped the photo inside. “Maybe we can circulate this, find someone who knows her. If we can bring her in for questioning, check out her family and associates, it’s a good bet she’ll lead us to the killer. Best bet we have,” he said, and turned to Reuben, “unless we can track down this Marcus fellow you told me about when you called.”
“I don’t think he’s involved,” Caitlyn said. “I got the feeling he’s just a really private person. That’s why he didn’t want to be drawn into—”
“We have to consider the possibility,” Detective Robinson said, her light hazel eyes serious, “that Mrs. Rill is this guy’s accomplice—maybe his own grandma, for all we know. Because whoever committed this crime may very well be a man obsessed with you. Sexually obsessed.”
“Why would you say…” Caitlyn was no prude, but she found it hard to get the word out past the sudden lump in her throat. “Why would you say sexually? How can you be certain the killer’s even a man?” Let alone that man? she added silently. And what kind of woman would help her grandson murder someone, anyway?
The two detectives shared an uncomfortable glance.
“What?” Caitlyn pressed. “Someone sent me to find that body, someone who made that poor girl look as much like me as he could. So I have the right to know what this is about.”
“I’m afraid that the dead girl, a Megan Lansky,” Detective Robinson said soberly, “appears to have been sexually assaulted.”
“Wait a minute. I know that name,” Reuben said. “She’s that missing girl—I saw her parents on the five o’clock news, pleadin’ to find out if anybody’s seen her. Pretty little thing.”
Detective Davis nodded gravely, then turned to Caitlyn. “Lansky was a Tulane student, disappeared a couple of nights ago after partying on Bourbon Street. Her friends told Missing Persons she’d mentioned hooking up with some group going on a cemetery tour.”
A chill slithered along Caitlyn’s backbone, then coiled in her stomach. “Are you sure she’s the girl we found this morning?”
“Poor kid’s father just ID’d her.”
Caitlyn’s knees loosened, and she braced herself against the counter. “Do you—do you have a picture of her? The way she looked…before?”
Detective Davis quickly produced one. In it, Megan Lansky smiled, a beautiful girl with wavy, light brown hair and sparkling blue eyes. Beautiful and so young, someone who should be near the beginning of life’s journey instead of lying, pale and bloodless, in a cold drawer at the morgue.
Was she dead because some sick person had thought she resembled Caitlyn? Could it have been some crazy customer from one of Caitlyn’s tours? She thought of drunken troublemakers and one lovesick young man who had sent her a half-dozen admiring emails and phoned repeatedly, coming on way too strong in his quest for a date. But none of them seemed dangerous—or at least not the brand of dangerous that led to things like rape and murder. To gouging out blue eyes and replacing them with green glass.
Tears leaking, Caitlyn shook her head. Her voice trembled, but somehow she managed to remain coherent. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her. What about you, Reuben? Could she have come on one of our tours this week?”
Reuben studied the photo for some time before he shook his head. “Damned shame, a young girl like that. Makes me want to kick the guts out of the sick bastard who would…”
He closed his eyes, his face reddening. “Twenty-eight years on the force, you’d’ve thought I’d grown myself a tougher shell. Maybe it’s for the best I went and got myself…”
Davis’s woolly eyebrows drew closer together. “So neither one of you knew Megan?”
To be absolutely certain, Caitlyn checked their receipts, but Megan Lansky wasn’t listed among the credit card payments.
“You might try the other tour services,” she suggested, and couldn’t resist adding for good measure, “You might try Josiah Paine.”
HOURS LATER, SHE WAS STILL UPSET as Reuben drove her toward the cemetery in his Crown Victoria, a great boat of a car he said reminded him of his days driving police cruisers. Considering the threatening thunder and a new round of storms forecast for this evening, she thought a real boat might come in handy before this night was over.
Hunched over the wheel, he shot a scowl in her direction. “You should be back at home, chère, doors and windows locked tight, and me bunking