Murder in the Rue Chartres Page 15

  “Ethics,” she snorted. “That’s a good one around here.” She looked around. Dr. Bright’s office door was shut. She gave me a funny look and gestured toward the front door with her head. “I don’t want to talk about this inside the building. You never know who’s listening.”

  That was the last thing I’d expected to hear. Curious, I followed her out the front door. Once we were down the front steps, she put a hand on my arm. “You repeat anything I say to you and I will deny every word of it, you understand me? Come on.” She walked quickly out into the parking lot, where she stopped and lit a cigarette.

  I also lit one. “Well?”

  “Look, I’ve worked at this place a long time. I’m taking early retirement—my husband is sick and I need to take care of him—complications from what happened to him over there and the goddamned government won’t do a thing about it, the fucks—and my last day is coming up in a week or so.” She flicked ash. “About twenty-five years ago, a nurse decided to talk to Dr. Bright about Miss Hollis, because she didn’t think what was going on around here was right—ethics, you understand—and the next day, they found some missing medications in her locker. She was accused of stealing drugs…like Rose Calloway would ever do such a thing. But she lost her job, and you know damned well she couldn’t find work, like they’d give her a reference—they even called the police in and threatened to file charges. I sometimes wonder what ever happened to her…but they have ways around here, Mr. MacLeod, so like I said, I’ll tell you a few things I know, but I will deny every word of it if you repeat it.” She blew out a plume of smoke. “They don’t like any of us to talk to anyone about Catherine Hollis.”

  “Scout’s honor, I won’t say a word to anyone,” I said, feeling kind of stupid, but it seemed to reassure her. “But Dr. Bright has only been here for ten years—how could…?”

  “His father, the elder Dr. Bright, ran the place then.” She gave me a lopsided smile. “When his father died ten years ago, the board hired his son to take his place…and if anything, the son is worse than the father.” She shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong; most of our patients here belong here, and they get the best treatment available, therapy, drugs, you name it. But they’re allowed visitors and the occasional phone call. Not Catherine. She isn’t allowed any freedoms, except once a day she’s allowed to walk around the grounds of the place—with two armed security guards, of course. The only time she’s ever allowed to be by herself is when she is in her room.”

  “It sounds like she’s a prisoner instead of a patient.”

  “You’re quick, aren’t you?” she said mockingly. “When they brought Miss Hollis here originally,” she dropped the cigarette and crushed it under her foot, “St. Isabelle’s was in financial trouble. Dr. Bright the elder was, well—let’s just say he was bad with managing money and leave it at that. Then, about mid-July of 1973, a big black limousine pulls into the drive with Louisiana plates. Percy Verlaine himself. He goes in and meets with Dr. Bright for about an hour…and our money troubles are over. Percy’s ‘generosity’ lands him a seat on the board, and at the next board election, he’s president of the board…We all got huge pay raises, too…but I’m getting ahead of myself. About a week or so after Percy Verlaine comes calling, his niece is admitted as a patient here—and only Dr. Bright’s patient, just like only the younger Dr. Bright sees her now. They passed her from father to son…no other doctor has seen her in all the time she’s been here.”

  “That’s odd,” I replied.

  She rolled her eyes. “Your damned straight it’s odd. Every other patient in St. Isabelle’s sees several doctors, you know. But not Catherine Hollis. She belongs to Dr. Bright, and Dr. Bright alone …and the other doctors know better than to even suggest they see her for any reason. He says she’s uncomfortable around strangers, that another doctor might cause a psychotic break. I think that’s bullshit, but I’m not a doctor. My opinion isn’t worth two cents around here. And I need my paycheck, so I just keep my mouth shut and do my job.”

  “You think Percy had her committed here, and she doesn’t belong here?”

  “She thinks she belongs here now, whether she really does or not.” She stared at me. “She didn’t when she was brought in.” She clicked her tongue. “Let me put it to you this way. Have you ever seen one of those movies where someone who’s not insane is put in a mental hospital? You know how they always manage to get out at the end, and expose the horrors they experienced inside? Well, St. Isabelle’s isn’t one of those places—we take very good care of our patients here—but if someone sane is kept in a place long enough, given enough drugs, and told on a daily basis they aren’t sane, you can drive them insane.”

  “My God.”

  “When she first came here, she was disturbed, all right,” Amanda went on. “She had terrible mood swings; she was real manic—hysteria one minute, deep morbid depression the next and you never had any idea when the change was coming. She fought the nurses, she fought Dr. Bright, she tried to escape—they had to put her in a straightjacket a few times, or strap her to her bed to sedate her. But you know something? If you were sane, wouldn’t you fight at first? Try to escape?”

  “Yeah.” For a moment, I tried to think about what that would be like. It made the gooseflesh stand up on my arms.

  “And when you slowly begin to realize you’re never going to escape? That there’s no way out? She isn’t allowed calls. She’s allowed to write letters, but Dr. Bright doesn’t mail them. She is completely isolated here.” She paused to give her words greater emphasis. “For thirty-two years.”

  My God. I couldn’t even begin to imagine it.

  “And of course, at first she used to want to call the police… Then she would get hysterical, and fight. She used to scream she would see them all in jail, every last one of them.” She shrugged. “Then of course they’d sedate her.”

  “So, you think Dr. Bright—staying here—drove her insane?”

  “I don’t know whether she’s in her right mind or not, but I can assure you, Dr. Bright doesn’t know either—and besides, I wouldn’t take his word for anything.” She spat contemptuously. She shrugged her shoulders. “You saw her. She has some lucid moments, when she’s flirtatious and acts like she’s the belle of the ball, and then she’ll lapse into childlike speech and behavior. Sometimes I wonder if it’s all an act—the way she copes with everything. I don’t know. I don’t think even she knows herself anymore.” She shrugged. “And I’ll deny every last bit of this if you repeat it to anyone. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve never met.” She turned on her heel and walked back into the house.

  *

  I watched her, and once the door shut behind her, got into my car, and drove off the grounds.

  My mind was racing.

  Percy Verlaine had locked his niece away in a mental hospital shortly after his son-in-law vanished without a trace.

  It didn’t take quantum physics to connect those dots.

  Percy Verlaine had killed Michael Mercereau, and Catherine Hollis knew it—might even have been a witness. And what better way to get rid of the only witness to your crime than to have her declared mentally incompetent and have her locked away for the rest of her life in a mental hospital?

  It was so perfect it made my blood run cold. Who would listen to her, in a mental hospital? It would all be dismissed as part of her delusions. And Percy could walk away from a crime scot-free, without a care in the world.

  It would take a lot of money and power, but Percy Verlaine had both. To spare, and then some.

  But then Iris decides she wants to find her father—and Percy can’t have that either. She’d even made the trek up to Cortez to see Cathy. What had Cathy told her? Had Cathy told her the truth…and was that why she’d hired me? To find the proof that her grandfather had killed her father, and finally get some justice for the father she never knew?

  Only Iris knew for sure, and she too was dead.

  But would I be able to prove it? What evidence
existed besides what possibly was locked inside Cathy’s head—and after thirty-two years at St. Isabelle’s, she wouldn’t exactly make a credible witness.

  I glanced at my watch. I wasn’t going to have time to stop to eat anywhere if I was going to make it to Jolene McConnell’s on time, so I drove out onto I-55, barely avoiding being crushed by a speeding eighteen-wheeler who didn’t slow or even attempt to change lanes. I flipped him the bird and started heading south.

  As the countryside sped past my windows, I couldn’t stop wondering about how to proceed with my investigation. Iris must have believed there was a way to prove that Percy had killed Michael, but without being able to question her, I had no idea where to start looking. And even if I might not ever be able to prove Percy had killed Michael, it might be possible to prove Percy had killed Iris. It was difficult to wrap my mind around the notion that he’d killed his own granddaughter—but then again, he couldn’t have. He wasn’t physically capable of it—there was no way he could have gotten himself in that wheelchair up the stairs at her home. He must have hired someone to kill her—and that person wasn’t exactly going to confess.

  This case was now growing beyond my abilities and access to information. I was going to have to give it all back to Venus, who’d have to go to the district attorney to get subpoenas for financial records, phone records, and so forth, to try to locate the money trail murder for hire always left behind in its wake. No matter how careful someone might be, there’s always some kind of paper trail. Even the wealthy and powerful can’t completely disguise moving money around, and most killers for hire don’t take checks; so there was evidence of unexplained cash somewhere…but again, it could take auditors and forensic accountants months, if not years, of searching through Percy’s accounts, and those of the company, to turn something up And even to get that ball rolling, I was going to have to give Venus probable cause, and without some evidence as to why Percy had Iris killed, no district attorney in his right mind was going to take on Verlaine Shipping’s wealth and power—and battery of attorneys.

  Maybe Jolene McConnell somehow held the key.

  *

  I was about an hour north of Jackson and the highway was deserted when I noticed a green pickup truck—one of those gigantic monsters with double wheels in the back on both sides—coming up rather quickly behind me. I was plugging along at a respectable eighty miles an hour, so he had to be going about a hundred, minimum. I watched as he got closer and closer—with no indication of either slowing down or changing lanes.

  “Slow down, buddy,” I muttered as my heart rate started to increase. If he didn’t slow down…

  The green truck slammed into the back of my Cavalier.

  I was thrown forward by the impact, and my head exploded with pain as it hit the steering wheel. Dazed, I screamed a few incoherent obscenities as my car started swerving out of control, onto the shoulder on the right side of the road. I could feel the dirt beyond the pavement starting to give way just as the back of my car reconnected with the highway. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw the truck go past on the shoulder, but the windows were tinted dark, so I couldn’t see the driver in that split second before the truck was speeding away down the open road. My heart racing, I kept fighting the wheel, reacting solely by instinct, my foot stabbing at the brakes as the back of the car kept fishtailing, hoping against hope that it wouldn’t go off the road and flip over, and then it swooped around and came to a stop. The engine stalled.

  I sat there, hyperventilating and trying to catch my breath while I listened to the engine tick. After a few seconds I started the car and pulled over to the shoulder, black spots still dancing before my eyes, and shut the engine off again.

  I don’t know how long I sat there. Finally, I opened the car door and got out onto shaky legs, holding the side of the car for support as I shook a cigarette out and managed to light it. Two puffs later, I walked around to the back of the car and took a look.

  One of my rear taillights was broken, and the trunk had crumpled a little bit, but that was it.

  I was lucky not to have been killed.

  I leaned back against the trunk and took another drag on my cigarette. My heart rate was slowing down, and my mind was starting to clear. I pulled my cell phone out, but didn’t open it. I was a gay man out in the middle of nowhere, Mississippi—did I really want to call a county sheriff? Granted, there were no rainbow stickers, pink triangles, or SILENCE EQUALS DEATH bumper stickers on my car shouting to the world, HEY I’M A GREAT BIG HOMO, but nevertheless, my standard rule of thumb is never to deal with Southern county sheriffs if it can be at all avoided. Besides, all I knew for sure was that it had been a big green truck—I didn’t get the plate number, or even know if it was a Mississippi truck, nor had I seen the driver. And big green trucks were hardly rare in Mississippi—every other Jim Bob probably had one. Without a police report, my insurance company wouldn’t pay for the repairs, but again, I could just pay for it myself and my rates wouldn’t go up.

  Still, it was incredibly unnerving.

  “Another random highway incident,” I said out loud as I got back into the car, but froze as I placed the keys into the ignition.

  Now, what were the odds of me almost being killed by a hit-and-run driver on my way back from seeing Catherine Hollis?

  Iris had been killed the day after she’d gone to Cortez to see Cathy. I was almost killed on my way back from seeing her.

  Like Venus, I don’t like coincidences, but as I started back out onto the highway, I couldn’t connect the accident to my visit. No one had known I’d gone up to Cortez other than Joshua Verlaine, and I doubted that he’d told anyone or that Dr. Bright was somehow behind it—since he, according to Nurse Amanda, was part of the cover-up of Michael Mercereau’s murder—no, that didn’t make sense either. If Nurse Amanda was right, and Catherine was being kept there as a prisoner, Dr. Bright had to know what I’d been told. And if by going there, Iris had signed her death warrant as well, how had anyone known what Catherine had told her?

  You never know who’s listening, Amanda had said in the empty hallway before she’d led me outside. I hadn’t given that a second thought when she’d said it, but now…

  *

  Jolene McConnell lived in a neighborhood that looked like it had been built in the big boom of the 1950s, when every new housing development seemed to think that the ranch house style was the greatest thing to hit architecture since the pyramids. Although the houses had been maintained and the lawns kept up, there was a sense of tiredness to the neighborhood—a feeling that its best days were past and decline had set in. When I pulled up to the curb in front of her address, her house was like every other one on the block—other than the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the front yard. I got out of the car and walked up to the house, ringing the doorbell. I heard movement inside, and then the door opened.

  “Mrs. McConnell?” I asked.

  She nodded, and held the door open so I could come inside. She was still in her white nurse’s uniform, and the tired sense I’d gotten from the neighborhood was heightened by the décor of her living room. The white sofa and matching reclining chair were covered in plastic. The walls were painted a dull beige, and a brown shag carpet covered the floor. A dusty upright piano was shoved into a corner, and photographs in cheap frames lined its top. There was a painting of Jesus with a halo on the walls; other than that, they were bare. “You want some tea?” she asked in a quiet voice with a slight echo of the Lower Ninth Ward to it. “I just made some. It’s sweetened, though.”

  “That would be nice, thank you.”

  “Have a seat,” she said before walking into the kitchen. I sat down on the sofa, plastic squeaking underneath me. She came back in with two tall glasses of iced tea, handed me one, and sat down in the recliner. “You know, I don’t know what you think I can tell you. My brother’s been gone for over thirty years. If he wanted to be found, he’da been found by now.”

  “Were you close to him, Mrs.
McConnell?”

  “Call me Jolene.” She reached up and removed her cap, letting her shoulder-length gray-streaked black hair fall. “No, I wasn’t close to my brother Michael.” She looked up at Jesus on the wall. “He was about five years older than me, and he never had much time for me growing up. After he got married, none of us saw him much, really. He sure never talked to us much…I think we embarrassed him, after he got used to bein’ around those fine high-falutin’ Uptown society folks. His wife, though, Margot—” her lined face creased into a smile, “I always liked Margot. She was always real nice to me.”

  “Really?” No one yet had said a kind word about Margot, so I was a little surprised.

  “Really.” She took a sip of her tea. “Margot paid for me to go to nursing school, and she was always giving me a call, meeting me for lunch, buying me things, you know. Michael was lucky to marry her—though you’d never know it from the way he acted.”

  “They weren’t happily married?”

  “Margot was miserable being married to him, but she loved him, God rest her soul, and did what she could to make the marriage work.” She looked up at Jesus again. “My brother was one of those men who should never get married, you know.” She shrugged.

  “Meaning exactly what?” I asked, but even as the words came out of my mouth, I knew exactly what she meant.

  “I guess there’s no shame in telling you now, since Margot’s passed on, and can’t be shamed by it anymore. He liked men.” She shook her head. “The way the Lord intended for a man to like women. Oh, it was horrible, just horrible. I remember this one time, when he was seventeen, Mama caught him with another boy, out in the back yard, and she screamed so loud she liked to brought the house down or wake the dead or both. When Daddy got home he beat Michael almost to death, and then he had to go see the priest. Father Darrin was such a good man…and Michael, I’ll never forget how Michael told Mama and Daddy he’d see them in hell one day.” She shuddered. “It made my blood run cold the way he talked to Mama and Daddy—until Daddy threw him out of the house. Why he couldn’t understand they were trying to save him from his own sin, I’ll never know.”