The Dead Play On

“Son, I was sound asleep—without my hearing aid. If little green men had descended from Mars and blown up the Superdome, I wouldn’t have heard it,” she said.

“We believe he was killed around 5:00 a.m., Mrs. Ruby,” Quinn said. “I’m not surprised you were sleeping, and certainly not surprised you didn’t hear anything. Did you notice that you didn’t see him later in the day?”

“Good heavens, he works nights. I never saw the man until well past noon,” she said.

“What about anyone—his friends and acquaintances, not to mention strangers—you might have seen visiting him?” Quinn asked.

“Mr. Quinn, you may think I’m generalizing, even stereotyping, but musicians only come in strange,” Mrs. Ruby said. “And so do some ex-athletes.”

That drew a smirk from Larue as he looked at Quinn.

Quinn looked back at Mrs. Ruby. “You know me?”

“I followed your football career years ago, young man.” She wagged a finger at him. “And I witnessed your downfall, saw you join the dregs of humanity, and still, like most of this city, when you died on that operating table and came back to life, I said a hallelujah. Yes, I know you. And I know you were a cop and became a private eye, and that you’ve been working weird cases with this one here—” she paused and nodded toward Jake “—and old Angus Cafferty’s daughter. So let’s establish this right away. You work the strange—and musicians are strange.”

“Can you describe any of the friends hanging around in richer detail than just ‘strange’?” Quinn asked her, grinning.

“Sure. I’m eighty-eight. Not much else to do. Traveling too far around the city tires me out, so I sit on the porch a lot. Lord, I do love watching the life around me. And lots of people come and go. A tall, beautiful black man came a lot. When he’s here, the house is a’rocking. I mean, for real. The man is a drummer. Then there’s a woman—let’s see, early forties, pleasant, hardly strange at all, for a musician. Brown hair, brown eyes.” She leaned toward Quinn. “She’s got the hots for the tall black man. There’s a pudgy fellow, about five foot nine. You got pictures? You show ’em to me. You want to get a sketch artist out here? I can have a go. But I don’t think you’re going to find his killer among them. I got a glance at what they did to him—no friend of the man did anything like that.”

“The first you knew about this in any way was when Lacey Cavanaugh came to you?” Larue asked.

Mrs. Ruby winced. “That poor girl. When we looked in that window, we couldn’t see clear. But he wasn’t moving, and I knew...well, I wasn’t giving anybody a key until the cops came. I’d give a lot to help you more. Whoever did this came and went. Guess he was with Larry for a while,” she said quietly, her face grim.

“Mrs. Ruby, thank you for your help. If you think of anything else, anything at all, that could be helpful, you’ll call us?” Quinn asked. Both he and Larue handed her their cards.

She studied the business cards and then looked at the two men. “How long do you think he was in there?” she asked. “An hour? Two hours?”

“One,” Quinn said. Larue nodded his agreement.

“Still, six in the morning—someone should have seen the killer leave,” she said. “I do watch television, you know. I am aware of how things go down.”

“I’m sure you are,” Jake told her. “And we’re doing a canvass of the neighborhood. I have officers going door-to-door.”

“We watch television, too,” Quinn said gravely.

She gave him a swat on the knee. “Behave, young man. I’ll be here, ready to look at pictures, describe people, whatever you need,” she told them.

“Is there anywhere else you can go?” Larue asked her. “Crime scene techs will be coming and going, and there will be officers on hand for a while, but if you feel insecure...”

“I’m not insecure. At my age?” Mrs. Ruby demanded.

“Still, be careful when you open the door,” Jake warned her.

“Detective Larue,” she said. “I won’t be opening my door without seeing who is outside, I promise you. And if I do open the door, I’ll have my Glock in hand and a truckload of silver hollow-point bullets that will take care of any opponent, human or...otherwise. And don’t you worry. I have a permit for it, and I know how to use it.”

“Just don’t go shooting the postman,” Jake warned.

“Want to visit a shooting range with me?” she demanded sharply. “I won’t go shooting any uppity cops, either, I promise. Though it may be tempting.”

Laughing, Jake apologized as they rose.

They left the house and walked down to the street together, ready to head to the hospital in their separate cars.

“I think the old bird likes you best,” Larue told Quinn.

“You acted as if she were senile. Telling her not to shoot the mailman.”

“She’s eighty-eight!”

“And Bob Hope was still performing for our troops at that age,” Quinn reminded him.

Jake nodded thoughtfully. “It’s all good. I’m glad she likes you. You can talk to her once we figure out which of the city’s musicians she might have been talking about. But then, you were good with that charming old battle-ax from Hubert’s case, and that god-awful painting-society matron, Hattie Lamont,” Larue said.

“Not as good as Billie,” Quinn said, smiling.

“They’re seeing each other?”

“Oh, yes. They fight like a pair of alley cats sometimes, but they can’t stay away from one another,” Quinn said.

“And Danni?”

“Danni is great,” Quinn said softly. They’d agreed to take things slowly, which was almost a necessity, given that he was often asked to consult on cases outside Louisiana. But that was something else they shared. They both believed strongly that working to solve strange crimes was an integral part of who they were.

But he loved being back in town, loved being with her. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, five-nine, slim and agile, her every move graceful. Her eyes reminded him of the blue sky on a clear Scottish morning, and her hair was a rich deep auburn. She was deeply compassionate and possessed old Angus’s steely courage and determination—and she was just as stubborn as her father, too.

“She’s expecting you tonight,” he told Larue.

“Yeah, well, I was just coming over with the files on the first case—wanted to see what you thought or what you might know, since you sit in at the clubs sometimes. But then...then we found Lawrence Barrett.” He fell silent.

Quinn turned. The body of Lawrence Barrett was just being carried out.

Ron Hubert nodded to them. “I’ll get you a report as soon as possible,” he promised.

“Two in a week?” Quinn asked. “We’d better get over to the hospital and hope that Lacey Cavanaugh knows something we can use.”

* * *

“Arnie wasn’t messed up,” Tyler told Danni. “Not like that.”

The saxophone was in its case now, and leaning against the counter. She was glad that the shop was empty, because Tyler seemed too upset to care where they were or what was going on.

“Let’s say you’re right. That someone murdered Arnie. Can you think of any reason why?” she asked him.

“That’s the problem,” Tyler said. He leaned an elbow on the counter and looked reflectively into the distance as he spoke. “We’re talking about a good man here. A black man from a poor neighborhood who went to church every week, loved his family, never stole so much as a dime from anyone and did nothing but love his music. He did the right thing—he up and joined the military because he believed we had to support our way of life. When he came home on leave, he did nothing but hug people and play his music. He didn’t talk much about what he’d done, just said that war was ugly, there were good people who were the enemy and some jerks who were on the same side. He believed he made a difference—he got to see schools being built, and people from both sides coming together to dig wells and feed starving kids. And enemy or not, he said it was hard as hell to kill a man. He survived bombs and gunfire and...came home to this. And I knew his death wasn’t right. I knew it wasn’t right from the get-go. He was happy ever since he got home—he came home to his music! His family loved him. They’re good people. They never had much, but what they didn’t have in money, they made up in support. And he never did drugs, not before he went overseas or after he came home. There was no reason for him to walk offstage one night and decide to suddenly stick a needle in his arm. Why can’t anyone else see that?”

“They may question what happened, Tyler,” Danni said. “But we all see the obvious and find it easy to accept, too. You said he was found on the street, a needle in his arm?”

“Yes.”