Hot Blooded Murder (30 page)

“I feel uneasy, Mrs. –Daisy. I feel as though you are not safe. Did you know that it is possible Cade Pritchard was assaulted last night quite brutally for non-payment of gambling debts?”

“Oh no! I mean he’s an awful worm of a person. But an actual assault–that could mean they’re also after Anton–does Anton know this?”

“I have no way to know. My source, whom I trust, didn’t have any information about your husband. Where is he now, Daisy?”

“I–I’m not sure. He said he’d be home for dinner but it’s way past time for that and no sign of him, no call. But he could show up anytime. So look–Ms. Wiley, Bryn–I’m ready to go to the police with all of this. I can even give them paperwork, documents, from Anton’s office here at home. They show he’s been involved with that parody of a woman’s shelter in the Vieux Carré. I can even show where he’s been cheating on his income taxes. Gayle is on alert for me at the Longley Shelter after I talk to the police, and–will it help if I talk to the–”

There was a thump and a loud gasp in my ear. Then Daisy Delon crying, “Anton, quit! I’m on the phone!”

I heard Anton in the background. “Talkin’ about the po-lice?”

Oh no
!

“No, dear, just girly talk, you’ve misunderstood–”

There was a thud, another sharp cry. The phone falling? A blow to Daisy? Anton’s voice, closer now. “Ah misunderstood nothin’, you whore! “

“No! Anton–Anton! Anton! No!” Shrill cries. Desperate pleading. “
Nooooo!
” Huge bangs and bashing sounds. Someone panting hard.

Aghast, I stared at my bookshelves. He was beating her up as I listened, so angered he didn’t care she was on the phone. I scrabbled for my cell phone. Dialed 911 on it as I kept the land phone jammed to my ear.

Sounds. Blows. Thud, thud–

What was their address? Damn!
What was it
–“Nine-One-One” said, in an official voice, “What is your emergency?”

“Hello! I am on the phone with Mrs. Daisy Delon, wife of Anton Delon in Metairie. I forget the address, but I hope you can look it up–right now as I speak, I can
hear
Mr. Delon beating up his wife. It’s terrible! Can you send help right now?”

“What is the address?”

“I don’t have it in front of me. Can you please look it up? Anton Delon. Metairie. Hurry please, he’s brutalizing her, it sounds like.” I listened, horrified, to Daisy’s screams of pain and suddenly I thrust the receiver to the cell phone so the dispatcher could hear the screams. “Hear that?” I demanded, “that’s Mrs. Delon right now.”

“We have found the address. A car is on its way. Please remain on the line so we can get more information from you.” I wanted off, I wanted to leap into my car and drive over there right now–

The cries over the line were diminishing. I had a terrible, unspeakable feeling of what I might be the audio witness to. I heard whimpers, another thud, a whimper, a thud. The thuds had a sickening, wet sound to them. Then silence. Footsteps. Heavy breathing.

Click. The phone was hung up.

I was trembling, my hand sweating as it clenched the receiver that now played dial tone.

Voice quaking, I told the dispatcher who I was, where I lived, my cell phone number and I said as soon as we finished, I would drive across the lake to the Delon home. Then I could answer any questions the police might have when I got there. Finally, she let me off the phone.

I dashed into the bedroom, looked at Lu. Fast asleep. Then to the office, a scrabble through my paperwork and I found the Delon address. I grabbed my handbag and the cell again and took off.

In the car I had the sense to call MacWain. Tuan answered and I filled him in. Things were expanding in most terrible ways. I asked him to try and get a hold of Mrs. Gayle Johnson and told him about the shelter at 1010 Longley Drive. “Mrs. Delon is going to need someone with her and Mrs. Johnson is a trusted friend.” Tuan assured me he’d get Gayle Johnson. I said, “She can get there quicker than me and Daisy Delon needs help fast. At least I hope, fervently, Tuan–” tears flooded my eyes–“that she needs help. Otherwise–” Now I turned the key in the ignition. Held the phone between shoulder and ear. The seat belt did its automatic slide and fastened itself around me. A Tempo feature that tonight I liked. I put the car in Reverse. “Got it all, Tuan?”

“Got it, Bryn, look! You be careful now. Stay away from that Anton guy. He sounds deadly.”
God, I hope not!

“I will,” and I pressed Off and headed out my driveway. I raced along dark country roads toward the Causeway.

As I drove over the long bridge, there was an eerie part-moon over the lake. The waters were troubled. Like black paint they heaved in erratic waves off to my right. I gripped the wheel and settled in for a long, musing journey. I wondered if we had the killer, Anton. He was definitely a man on the edge. Losing his business of many years, apparently huge gambling debts, a violent man, a trained killer, and it might even have been him last night, walloping Theo with the same baseball bat that probably killed Marcie. He could have easily knocked Marcie out in her kitchen, flung her body over his shoulder, thrown her down–
no!
–dragged her along the barn aisle–those long brownish red streaks I’d seen the very first day all this started–a trail of blood from the head wound he’d inflicted in her kitchen. Then into the stall and whomp whomp whomp and farewell Marcie. With her dead, his fraud on the sale of the farm would perhaps never come to light. The false appraisal, the connection between him and Cade, him finding out Cade had buyers through Marcie for the sumptuous property. With Marcie gone, the gambling-whoring cronies Cade and Anton got all the money from the property’s sale. It all fit. And now if the Jefferson Parish sheriff’s people got there fast enough, he’d be caught his hands covered in his wife’s blood. God. It all fit so well! I left the bridge and headed for Metairie. He’d clobbered Theo, intending to kill him too when the neighbor lady showed up on her tractor. Theo being the last and main threat to the whole crooked farm deal going through, since he is possibly still a legal owner. He may have heard about Cade’s assault and been warned himself. Hence, he goes out and attempts to kill Theo to placate the thugs who beat up Cade, and insure the deal moves to fruition. I was driving down hot dark Veterans Boulevard. Soon I’d make a swing into the Bayou St. John’s neighborhood of Old Metairie. I decided it wasn’t the Takeur’s. They were pawns, rude pawns, just people with sufficient money to buy the place fast. And the plot was so complicated I thought it was beyond their capabilities. But not beyond Anton’s. I decided with some smugness, we had our murderer.

I pulled up and slammed to a stop. Ten police cars, at least, were parked around the Delon residence. Two were up on their lawn. An ambulance was parked, rear doors open. Dread washed over me. Slowly I got out. Blue lights strobed over me, over the house, the neighborhood.

Chapter Thirty Two

I threaded my way through Jefferson Parish sheriff cars clustered like pods around the mothership, the ambulance. Rapid pulses of red and blue light streaked the night-dark lawn.

I paused by the empty ambulance. “What are they waiting for?” I asked the night air. “They should have had her to the hospital long before this–” I shut up. Then I ran up to the open front door. Two uniformed deputies guarded the entrance. I halted before them.

“Deputy. I’m Bryn Wiley. I was on the phone with Mrs. Delon when she was attacked. I made the 911 call. I’m an acquaintance of Mrs. Delon’s. I’d like permission to enter.”

“I’ll have to check. You wait right here.”

Along with a babble of voices from inside the house, I heard feminine sobbing. I fervently hoped it was Mrs. Delon.

“Detective Juarez says come on in.”

I entered, and turned off the foyer to the left, toward the large white living room. On the threshold I stopped. The all-white room was slashed dramatically in red. Several police people were ranged about. Directly in front of them lay a body, arms flung wide, face red and unrecognizable. I knew it was Mrs. Daisy Delon. Beyond this the big form of Anton hunched in a white linen chair, face in his hands. Weeping. The feminine sobbing I’d heard. A detective, a tall thin black man, stood over him, a tiny notebook open, pen in hand, and gazed on him sympathetically. Must be Juarez. I wanted to vomit.

No one noticed me. The investigators moved like worker ants over the room, taking photos, dusting, examining, consulting. From a flurry of voices behind me in the entrance, I recognized Gayle Johnson’s contralto. I turned my head. Then she was next to me, staring, seeing Daisy’s broken body. She made a huge cry and rushed into the room. Immediately a deputy restrained her. The detective beside Anton looked over at her. “Please, ma’am, don’t touch anything.”

Gayle saw Anton. Her hand shot out, finger pointing. “He did it! Arrest him! He did it!” Her voice was ragged with angry tears.

Anton ceased crying and raised his head. “Who the hail are you?”

“Mrs. Delon’s partner in the Longley Women’s Shelter. Gayle Johnson.”

“Whut is she talkin’ about? Ah nevah heard of the Longley Women’s–”

“Of course not! Daisy kept it secret from you.” Gayle turned and faced Detective Juarez who listened with interest. “Mrs. Delon funded a battered women’s shelter. I administered the place for her. Sadly, she was too often a recipient of our services. I have documented and photographed her more than once, from all the beatings she received at the hands of this man, her husband.”

I spoke up, “Detective, I’m able to add to that. I was on the phone with Mrs. Delon when this murder occurred. She called to tell me her husband might be involved in a killing that happened last week on the Northshore. She was in the midst of telling me how she’d made up her mind to go to the police when suddenly she gasped, then screamed in pain. I distinctly heard her say ‘Anton, no!’ several times. I called 911 while I listened to this horrific event unfold. Anton Delon weeps crocodile tears. He beat his wife to death. I heard it.”

The detective looked at Gayle and me with almond-shaped, ancient Egyptian eyes. “Are both of you prepared to come to the station and make statements to that effect?” His accent sounded more like the Bronx than the Deep South. This was the typical lower Ninth Ward accent of New Orleans.

Gayle and I agreed. Wearily Detective Juarez turned and spoke to a uniformed officer. “Cuff him, read him his rights, book him. I’ll finish up then meet everyone at the station.” He flipped his little book closed, stowed it in an inside pocket of his tan, double-breasted suit. His fingers looked long enough to span over an octave on a piano and were as exquisitely formed.

“Detective, if I might make a request,” I said, “can you ask him if he also murdered Mrs. Marcie Goodall?”

Suddenly Anton spoke. “Ah had nothin’ to do with her death! Nothin’!” Two officers were getting him to his feet. He tried to shrug them off, but one grabbed an arm and jerked it behind his back. Anton’s face got red. He cursed, yelled, “Ah want mah attorney.”

“Certainly, Mr. Delon, as soon as we book you,” said the detective and commenced reading Anton his rights. Anton shouted over him.

“Ah want mah attorney now! Do you know who Ah am?”

The EMS team arrived and brought a gurney through the unpleasant muddle of people in the foyer. The officers shouldered the still-cursing Anton out, while the gurney tried to make it through to pick up the body of Daisy. Myself, and Gayle Johnson backed in confusion out of the way. Gayle cried hard. I patted her forearm. Then I drew her deeper into the hallway and put an arm around her shoulders. I held Gayle while she sobbed. We watched the stretcher go by empty, then depart freighted with a black zipped-up body bag. I turned Gayle away from the sight. Looking on I felt enormous sadness.

“Can I call someone for you, Gayle?” I asked when her crying had worn down.

“I’ll be okay. I can drive. Jus–she was such a kind lady. Smart. Such a good friend….”

“I am so sorry, Gayle,” I said. I slid my arm from around her and she looked at me gratefully. “You are some mama’s nice girl. Thank you. That was very kind.”

“Glad to help you, Gayle. You’re an impressive woman.”

“You too,” said Gayle.

“Ride with me to the station?”

“Oh no–”

“You’ve got to. I’ll drive you back to your car later. You don’t need to be driving right now, Gayle.”

“Okay. That’ll be fine then.”

We muddled our way out and down the street to the Tempo. I helped Gayle into the passenger seat, and then I got into the car. Like a premature funeral procession, we followed departing police cars and the ambulance down the dark street away from the posh Bayou St. John neighborhood.

At the police station I answered Detective Juarez’s questions. Gayle was in another room. I had a feeling she’d be here longer than me. After an hour had passed, it seemed I’d answered everything they wanted to hear and so I was let go. Detective Juarez assured me he’d see Gayle was returned to her car. Somberly I drove the length of the Causeway. Halfway home, my cell rang and I dug it out of the black handbag.

“Sorry to call so late.” Theo. I was happy to hear how recovered he sounded. “I’m out at the farm. Not moved back in yet, but was worried about that old mare, so I came out from town to check on her.”

“I’m not home. On the Causeway.”

“Know it’s real late. You eat yet? I’m goin to buy Chinese and since it looks like I’ll be askin’ you to come out here and watch this here mare for foalin, least I kin do is buy you some food.”

“Yes, I’ve eaten, thanks anyway, but something terrible has happened, Theo.” I told him of the death of Daisy Delon.

“That is jus’ awful, Bryn. Sounds like we’ve found our killer, don’t you think, Bryn?”

“Maybe.” Even though I was almost agreeing, I still had an uneasy feeling. Second Brain was making rumbles, unsettling me. I wanted it to quit. I wanted this to be over and for normal life to resume. I wanted Anton to be the murderer.