“It’s a body!” Angie Taylor, Maggie’s assistant, said, her soft, drawling voice filled with both dread and fascination as she swept into the office, bringing Maggie a cup of rich, chicory-flavored coffee. “A murdered body,” she added emphatically. Angie was a dynamo, five feet four in her highest heels, beautifully, compactly built. She was of Cajun descent, with dark, sweeping hair and huge, soulful, sensual eyes. She had a fascination for life, an energy that didn’t quit. She was Maggie’s best friend, as well as the most competent assistant in the world.
“Murder has happened here before,” Maggie murmured, frowning as she tried to look through the crowd. Even from her point here above the street, there was little that she could see. The corpse was in a body bag on a gurney, being wheeled away to the ambulance that would bear it to the morgue. The crowd was just beginning to break up. Officers were still busy behind the crime tape, specialists, technicians, looking for clues.
“The rumor is already rampant on the streets. This body was decapitated.” Maggie felt another little chill snake along her spine. “Male body or female body?”
“Male. A pimp, if the word at Cafe La Petite Fleur is right,” Angie said slowly. The cafe was next door to them. Very convenient. It was new, but the husband-and-wife owner were Creoles with a family history that went back to the origins of the city. Their beignets and cafe au lait were out of this world.
Angie went on, speaking more slowly. “The murder victim was a young guy, handsome fellow. They say he was a pimp working the right kind of girls.”
“It wasn’t like the murder that filled the paper the other day?” Maggie asked, holding back the lace curtains to keep her vigil on the street.
“No, no. The body wasn’t mutilated, just decapitated.”
“Just decapitated,” Maggie murmured.
Angie giggled nervously. “I suppose that is awful enough, isn’t it? It was just the description of the way that poor girl was found in the cemetery ... Well, she was a poor young girl. A fallen angel, if you will.
Now this guy, it seemed, was living off the pain of others.” Maggie cast her a wry glance. “Angie, I don’t think that all prostitutes are actually in pain. Some choose to do what they do because it can be what they consider good money.” She shrugged. “Some women have even made media careers out of being madams!”
Angie wrinkled her nose. “Nobody goes to bed with yucky, hairy, disgusting or gross men without being in pain. My point here is that the fellow murdered last night—or whenever he was murdered—was selling someone else’s flesh and making his money that way. I can’t imagine anything more despicable.” She looked at Maggie and sighed again. “Maggie, it’s just a little bit better because he was bad, evil if you will. And maybe an evil thing happened to an evil person, and that’s just a little bit more right than what happened to that poor young lost girl. Don’t you think that evil pays to evil?”
“No, not always,” Maggie said. Then she smiled, shaking her head. “Angie, you’re looking for a perfect world. If there were a perfect world, wonderful, kind deserving people wouldn’t be crippled and in wheelchairs. Babies wouldn’t die of AIDS.”
Angie sighed with vast impatience. “Just my point. Isn’t it fitting when it’s actually the bad person who has something bad happen to him?”
Maggie had to smile slightly. “What if he wasn’t all bad? What if he had been abused or mistreated as a child? What if he had a deep-seated psychological hatred for women—”
“Maggie, he was bad!” Angie announced with impatience, “He prostituted women for money. An that’s that!”
Maggie lifted her hands, still smiling. “Fine. He gets no excuses. You’ve made your point. Still ...”
“Still what?”
“Two people decapitated in a week.”
“You think it’s the same murderer? One of the victims was a man, one was a woman. One was ripped to shreds and one merely lost his head.”
Maggie hesitated. “Decapitation is not all that common,” she said quietly. “And it’s scary. New Orleans is going to be going insane. Tourists will start staying away if the police can’t make an arrest quickly.”
“Tourists are filling the shop downstairs right now despite the police. Or maybe because of them,” Angie said with a crisp, businesslike warning.
“If Allie and Gema need help, they’ll phone up,” Maggie assured her, leaving the window behind and returning to her desk, sinking somewhat wearily into the swivel chair behind it.
Allie and Gema were the saleswomen who manned the downstairs boutique section of Magdalena’s.
The business had been in Maggie’s family for years. Since before the Civil War, Montgomery women had been designing fine fashion wear. It had been elegant ball gowns at first, and a great deal of the one-of-a-kind garments Maggie designed remained evening wear. But over the last few years, she had found herself working on resort wear and lingerie as well, going along with the times, she assumed. But along with her unique made-to-order designs, she kept a boutique where those without the pocketbooks for one-of-a-kind wear could also find unusual, special pieces. Along with Gema and Allie, she had a staff of twenty seamstresses, two supervisors with two assistants each, a receptionist and an accountant to deal with the goings-on of the business. She created the designs—lingerie, day wear, even jewelry—
and she and Allie usually created the displays that showed through the windows in the downstairs store.
Offices were on the second floor, production was on the third. The building was over one hundred and fifty years old, charming in its architecture, modernized just enough to make it comfortable and convenient, but retaining its character.
Cissy Spillane, the receptionist, a tall quadroon girl with a slim figure and stunning face, tapped lightly on Maggie’s open door. “Maggie, there are two cops in the reception area. They want to speak with you.”
“Me?” Maggie said, startled.
Cissy shrugged. “They asked me a few questions as well, and they want to talk with Angie. But they seem mostly interested in you.”
“Why?”
“Because you own the building,” Cissy said. “At least that’s the way it appears to me.” Maggie glanced at her watch, disturbed that she felt such uneasiness. “I have an appointment at ten—” she murmured.
“It’s Mrs. Rochfort. I’ll hold the old battle-axe at bay!” Angie promised.
There was no way she could refuse to see cops. They’d just come back with deep suspicions and search warrants if she did so.
“Fine. Show them in, please, Cissy,” Maggie told her.
Angie slipped out the door to Maggie’s office behind Cissy. Less than thirty seconds later, Cissy stepped back in, followed by two men. Neither was in uniform.
Maggie rose from her swivel chair and came around her large oak desk, swiftly inspecting the two. They were an impressive pair. The younger man was a tall, well-built redhead with a quick smile and warm brown eyes that seemed to deepen as he watched her approach. He was handsome, in the prime of life, Maggie thought, and wondered if his wife or girlfriend feared for him at his job.
The second man appeared to be more of a veteran, definitely older, yet incredibly attractive. For some strange reason, he caused a little flutter to stir within her heart. He’d been around, she thought, studying the sharp, intriguing blue eyes that studied her so openly in return. He was a tall man, at least six two, quite broad-shouldered, with very dark hair just beginning to acquire a few silver streaks at the temples.
His brows were very dark, handsomely arched. His skin was bronzed from exposure to the sun and there were fine lines about his mouth and eyes. They added character to a face that was arresting, more rugged than handsome, but cleanly, strongly sculpted. There was a fluidity in his movements, something about his eyes, and even the curve of his mouth that was elementally sensual. There was a power about him, a strength of will, that was completely compelling.
“Miss Montgomery?” he asked. He had a deep voice. It was resonant. She felt another little quiver deep inside her.
“Yes, how can I help you?”
“I’m Jack Delaney, Miss Montgomery,” the younger man began, quickly offering her a handshake. “This is my partner, Sean Canady. We’ve—”
“Canady?” she repeated, her eyes falling back upon the older man. Sean.
He nodded, watching her in turn. He smiled. It was a nice smile, rueful, slashed across his bronzed face.
It added charm and an even greater sensuality to his ruggedly hewn features. “Old-time name, I know.
So is yours.”
She nodded as well, and asked him, “Isn’t there a statue of one of your ancestors on a corner not far from here?”
“A great-great-grandfather, I believe. Another Sean. He formed a cavalry company for Dixie and led many a gallant charge against the Yanks, so says the plaque beneath the statue.”
“Ah, yes! I remember the stories about him. He could travel like lightning, so they say.” Canady smiled. “And I admit, I’m entranced to meet you. Magdalena’s was here when Sean was defending his city.”
Maggie nodded. “We’ve changed throughout the years, but yes, it all began back then.”
“We’re sorry to bother you,” Jack said, “but unfortunately, we’ve a few questions we must ask you.”
“Fine,” Maggie told them. “Will you have a seat? Can I get you some coffee?”
“No—” Sean began.
“Yes—” Jack said. He looked at Sean. Maggie decided it was evident, though they hadn’t introduced themselves with any rank, that Sean was the senior man here.
But Sean seemed completely at ease with his authority and needed to prove nothing. He grinned at Jack.
“Sure. Coffee would be nice.”
Maggie went back behind her desk and pressed the intercom, asking Cissy to bring coffee for the gentlemen. She sat then, sweeping a hand out to the richly upholstered Victorian armchairs that faced her handsomely carved desk. The men took the chairs, Sean in front of her to the left, Jack in front of her to her right.