To Murder a Saint (Saints Mystery Series Book 1) Read online

  To Murder a Saint

  By Nicole Loughan

  The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Illustration by LaVO Marketing and Design

  Cover design by Genevieve LaVO-Cosdon, LaVO Marketing and Design

  Author Photograph by Rikki Leigh Shepherd, Rikki Leigh Photography

  Book design and production by Little Spot for Stories

  Editing by Erin McNelis, MFA

  © 2013 Nicole Loughan

  Look for these books by Nicole Loughan

  Saint Series

  To Murder a Saint

  All Saints’ Secrets

  A Masquerade of Saints

  Table of Contents

  Homesick

  City of the Saints

  Life in the dead rooms

  A suspect in custody

  Homesick

  It’s probably a bad sign on a first date that my mind wandered to how best to bury somebody. Namely it wandered to burying Jason Stepwald: lumpy, chubby, balding insurance salesman, Jason Stepwald. Not handsome, full head of hair, marine ‘Semper Fi Jason’ as advertised on his My Date profile page.

  I think I started picturing Jason dead when he would not stop talking about insurance rates while his mouth was stuffed with oysters. The shining grey and white matter swirling around on his tongue as he talked about tort reform set a picture in my mind of him buried in the wet soil of my parents’ front yard. I remember my father telling me when I was young, “The ground here is too wet, cher. If you bury the dead here, they can come back.”

  With those words in my mind I saw Jason lowered into the ground, a respectable burial, and then his decayed corpse bubbled back to the surface, his tongue sticking out. It was the very color of the gelatinous goo currently occupying his mouth.

  My attention came back to living Jason when I inhaled a pungent fish smell. Jason decided that I might try one of his half shell delicacies if it was swirled within an inch of my face.

  “You want one?” he asked. “Clams are an aphrodisiac, you know.”

  “Where I come from we call ‘em oysters,” I told him, pushing his hand away. I noticed that his hands were soft. My dad always said nobody dates a man with soft hands.

  Jason recovered from my slight and said, “So, Fanchon. That’s an interesting name.”

  “Well,” I said. “A name like Fanchon in Louisiana helps people separate poor bayou trash from just plain regular white trash.”

  His eyes grew wide and some of his red wine dribbled down his chin. The red wine glistening on his neck was just too much for the dead Jason image in my head. I had to turn away from him or I was going to lose it.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you or anything like that,” he said.

  While looking away I suppressed a smile and turned back to face him. “It’s fine. If you really care to know it’s a Cajun name. I am from a French parish town near New Orleans. It comes from…”

  He interrupted me. “You know what’s interesting about New Orleans?”

  “I have no idea,” I said resting my head on my hands, giving up on getting a chance to speak.

  “Well it’s interesting because the whole city sits below sea level, you know. What happened with Katrina, it was just a matter of time,” he said chewing with his mouth opened yet again. “That’s the risk of being below sea level; they don’t even offer flood insurance there. I have been to a place in even worse shape called Kiribati. It is so low they will be underwater in the next two years. Talk about an insurer’s nightmare. They are mostly savages in little huts though, so it’s not like they would even have anything to insure.”

  After he steered the conversation to insurance yet again I couldn’t take it.

  “I have to use the restroom,” I said, walking away before he could reply.

  Once safely locked away in the bathroom I sat on a yellow chaise, facing a full-length mirror by the door. I took a deep breath and examined my reflection. I thought I looked pretty good that night, not like my usual self at all. I thought back to how excited I was getting ready with my roommate, Josephine. She sweetly brushed my unruly dark hair, taming it with all her gels and curlers. She pulled out her best red dress and stuffed me into it. It was so tight on me we had to buy stockings that sucked me in from my knees to my chest. I remember I told her, “I hate tight clothes.”

  She replied with her usual pseudo French cadence. “Men here drawn to tight clothes and red like flies to honey, cher. Deese men won’t be impressed dat you know how to gut a fish,” she said as she pushed a stray hair out of my face. “You my beautiful friend, cher. It time you act like it.”

  It was a great compliment to be told I was beautiful by Josephine. She was always the most beautiful girl in school. She was our class prom queen, beating out all four of the other girls in our class of 12.

  It turned out Josephine had put all this effort into me and my appearance and it was a waste of time. I now regretted the strappy heels she insisted I wear. They were pinching off the circulation to my toes and offering zero arch support. With my patience running thin I decided to waste no more time with those shoes or my boring date than was absolutely necessary. It was time to skip out.

  I calmly walked out of the bathroom, nodded my head at the hostess as I passed by the front door and hit the ground running as soon as I reached the sidewalk. I quickly made my way down three long Manhattan blocks before stopping to think about my escape. I had never done anything like that before. Then I thought of what would happen to Jason sitting at the table all by himself, about to realize I was not coming back. He would be humiliated. I felt a pang of guilt and turned around, making a slow, hobbled return to the restaurant. By the time I was back my feet had gone numb and I found our table vacant.

  A young man in a white apron was clearing the dirty dishes from the table into a gray tub.

  I asked, “Did you notice the guy I was sitting with leaving? Was he mad?”

  “No. More embarrassed. He sat there for a while. Made some calls and left. He gave his waitress a nice tip though,” he said holding up a handful of money.

  The fact that he was a good tipper made me feel worse. I assumed he would be a cheapskate. That personality trait would have sealed his fate as a jerk. Now I felt guilty for walking out on him as I was not the type of girl who would do that. I was not the type of girl who dated at all. It was all Josephine’s idea; she even filled out the profile.

  I dawdled for nearly a mile until I was a few blocks from home. I was stopped by my stomach when it rumbled at the smell of fried food and beer. The smell carried me to a hole in the wall bar Josephine and I had visited a couple of times. It was a dark, old neighborhood bar below street level. It had no windows and paneled walls. I remembered liking the food last time we had been. It was just what bar food should be: cheap, greasy and salty.

  I parked myself on a stool by the bar, easy enough as only one of the other seats was occupied. It was only 8:30 which is too early to be at a bar by New York standards. I slid off my red heels and sat them in the seat next to me. The bartender nodded his head to acknowledge me, and I ordered a burger and a beer.

  My food was polished off in record time. I sat sipping my beer and took stock of the nearly empty bar. It had a dart board, a pool table, lots of glowing neon beer signs and an old fashioned juke box in the corner, the kind with dancing lights and records on display on the bottom. I decided it was worth a look. I hopped
off my stool and was halfway to the jukebox when I realized I was not wearing shoes. Walking barefoot was a regular occurrence back home. It was one of the many pleasures of Louisiana summers. I remembered the untreated wood that made up the floor of my parent’s house and the mix of hot, wet air from the swamp that made the wood feel perpetually damp. Even when I lived in New Orleans, Josephine and I could spend an entire day on our front porch or in the yard without a care as to where our shoes were. It was so warm it wasn’t worth the trouble. I imagined the warmth in my feet, but when I opened my eyes I saw that I was standing on a red painted concrete floor that was chipping and peppered with numerous mysterious black circles. I stopped halfway to the jukebox considering what sticky things might be between my toes. I decided I didn’t care.

  That box must have known I was coming for it. When I got there, it was opened to just the page I needed, Southern Rock, and on the top right was Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Born on the Bayou.” I pulled fifty cents out of my ridiculously tiny silver, city girl purse and listened as the record started. I mouthed the words to the song as I walked back to the bar. Beer number two was waiting for me next to my seat. I had just taken a sip when my neighbor Jay walked through the door.

  He was easy to spot. That night he was wearing a silver sequined crop top, giving the appearance of a disco ball hovering above aqua hot pants. Jay was a fan of partial drag. I say partial because he wore the clothes, but refused to wear make-up or wigs.

  When he saw me he ran over and gave me an enthusiastic hug. He pulled away and looked around, “What the hell kind of music is this?” he asked.

  “Hey, I paid for this song,” I told him.

  “Girl, if you have quarters to waste you can do my laundry,” he said. “Oh, do you know what’s going on?”

  “What do you mean? What’s going on with what?” I replied.

  He looked at me puzzled. “Back home, woman. There is an ambulance outside our building, and I heard they were on your floor.”

  “I didn’t know that. I haven’t been home,” I replied. My thoughts went to Josephine. “Do you know which apartment? Have you seen my roommate?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about Josephine,” he said. “It’s probably that shut-in that lives in 3H. I would guess they are waiting on the fire department to cut a hole in the wall big enough to get her out.”

  “I am going to go check on her. Take care of my bill and feel free to drink the beer if you want,” I said tucking a $20 into his palm.

  I forced my pumps back on and started running. Josephine and I lived on the third floor of an antiquated Harlem brownstone. It was in a so-so neighborhood and the appliances were as old as the building, but there were no roaches or rats. And our neighbors were quirky but nice. They were very protective of each other, which reminded us of home. “Nobody messes with those French girls,” they would say. We corrected them several times telling them we weren’t French, but nobody cared about specifics. We sounded French, so we were to them. Josephine’s accent was far worse than mine. She embraced it and loved how it made her stand out. I had taken classes, along with freshly immigrated people from India and Mexico to sound more like an English American and less like a Cajun American. I had no interest in standing out.

  Before I reached the building I saw the red and white strobe of ambulance lights. I followed them to the entrance of my building, which was crowded with people standing around watching the ambulance, waiting to see who was going to come out. I walked past them, up the stairs and through the arched entryway of our building. I took a note to admire the fresh graffiti on our mailboxes. I quickly ascended three flights of stairs. When I reached the top, I took a few deep breaths and found the paramedics wheeling out Barry, the elderly gentleman from 3A. I breathed a sigh of relief. Sorry for Barry but relieved for Josephine. I continued to my door and found it unlocked, which meant Josephine was home. She rarely locked the door. She was used to her parent’s place, which didn’t even have a lock. I found it strange that she wasn’t ogling with the neighbors. I knew she loved to watch other people’s drama.

  I walked in, found the lights on in the kitchen and heard music blaring from Josephine’s room. The first order of business was to get rid of my shoes. I kicked them off into the wall, slid on a pair of thong flip flops and started down the hallway.

  The heavy base of the music made the pictures on the wall buzz with each hit. I knocked on the door hard and yelled, “Josephine, I need to tell you what I did.”

  No reply.

  I knocked again and yelled louder. “Jo, turn the music down. I have to tell you about the guy from the dating site. He was ridiculous.”

  Still no reply.

  “I’m coming in, Jo. The music is too loud.” I pushed the door open, and my senses were overloaded. The room was coated in red. The light from the bedside lamp was absorbed by the overwhelming crimson, giving the air a hue of pink. The ceiling, the floors, the walls, and Josephine’s bed were all wet and dripping with blood. The pool of red on her bed was so thick it was vibrating, creating circular ripples with the rhythm of the music. The worst part I could barely register. In the middle of the floor was a naked body. Only the belly button could look at me as the head was gone along with one of the arms. At the neck and shoulder were jagged stumps with bits of ripped flesh hanging. It looked like the head and arm were torn off. My heart sank and my knees went weak. Then I noticed the remaining hand. Its nails glinted with the sparkle of green polish. I knew that polish. It was Josephine’s. Earlier that day I had told her it was gaudy.

  I started to sway back and forth. I was about to faint when I suddenly felt something touch my shoulder. My senses became acutely focused. I stood motionless afraid of what might be yet to come, but nothing happened. Slowly, I turned my head to look at my shoulder and saw that a large drop of blood had fallen from the ceiling and was making its way down my arm. Moving as little as possible, I backed up and closed the door. I stared straight ahead, my eyes unblinking. Everything on the other side of the door was peaceful and normal, just how it had been that morning. I stared at the door, paralyzed by fear and sadness. All at once I found my breath and forced my feet to run to the hallway. I got to the door and screamed, “Help!”

  The EMTs, still in the hall, heard me and rushed over. I pointed to the bedroom and sank to the floor in the foyer. It was the farthest point in the apartment from the room. The blood on my shoulder had a nagging presence. It wove its way through the fabric of my dress and felt heavy on my skin. I hugged my legs and put my head between them. I heard a paramedic shout, “Oh my god what is it? What do we do?”

  They radioed for help and within minutes my home was filled with crime scene investigators, police officers, firemen, paramedics and a bunch of men wearing white HAZMAT suits, whose job I did not want to know about. They ignored me for a long time, walking around and over me to get to the bedroom. They left me with my thoughts.

  I didn’t understand how this could happen. How could somebody kill Josephine? She was the strongest person I knew. When her sister died she held her family together, when her dad went crazy she kept him out of jail. When my dad started drinking she took me in. She had survived accidents, a stalker and 18 years in a home surrounded by wild animals. It only took two months in New York to kill her.

  I sat in my corner racking my brain. Wondering what had happened. Fear, anguish and loneliness came in waves.

  It occurred to me that I was thinking about death midway through my dinner, and I remembered how my grandmother used to say, “This world sends you warnings before bad come, cher, if you care to listen.”

  I was thinking about that, wondering if the universe was sending me a warning when a detective bent over and put his face in my line of vision.

  “Can we talk?” he asked.

  “Somewhere else please. I don’t want to be here anymore,” I told him.

  “Do you have somewhere we can go?”

  “No. I haven’t lived in the city long. But I
can’t stay here. Can you get me some clothes? Whatever is in my closet. I’m going to burn this.”

  “You want to burn your clothes?” he said eyeing me.

  “Some of what’s in there dripped on me. It’s on my strap.”

  “We are going to have to take that for evidence,” he said.

  “Evidence of what?”

  “We are not sure yet.”

  “Listen, I don’t care what you do with it as long as I never see it again. Can we go?”

  He left for a long while and came back holding a duffle bag full of clothing. “My boss said we could get you a room in a hotel for the night, nothing fancy, very middle of the road.”

  “I live in Harlem. Middle of the road is better than here,” I said.

  I was quiet as the detective drove us to the hotel and through his conversation with the desk clerk. I felt wrong wearing flip flops and a skin tight red dress. It was not somber enough for what I was feeling.

  When we got to the room the detective asked me to sit, and I did, at the edge of the queen bed. He sat in the chair by the window. In typical New York hotel fashion the room was only a few feet wider than the bed so our knees were nearly touching as we spoke. I stared out the window as the detective, his badge read Banyan, peppered me with questions.

  I had done the most out of character things that night. I went on a date with a man from the Internet, then walked out on him, then drank beer alone. I hated that these were the things I had to tell him. I regretted that this was the information they would use to form my character.

  “You went on an Internet date?” he asked.

  “Why do you say it like that?”

  “I thought most of the girls on the Internet were dogs. Woof!” he said.

  “What’s wrong with you? I lost my best friend today and had to see her all...” I trailed off.

  “God, I am a jerk. Sorry. I just have to be sure that I ask everything. I can’t believe a girl like you would be doing that Web dating stuff. You have to make sure you tell me the truth. It’s all going to come up in court one day.”