Black Silk

“Like hell you will,” she snapped.

“Come on, Le Blanc. You’ve got a personal stake in this one. You don’t belong on this case.”

“I’ve been looking for this guy for years. I know more about him than you or anyone else.”

“That might be true. But you also have a major conflict of interest. If the captain knew there was even a possibility that this case is connected to your sister’s murder, he’d pull you off of it in a New York minute.”

“But he doesn’t know. And neither does anyone else.”

“You sure about that?” Vince asked.

“Very few people know I had another sister besides Anne. And the ones who do only know that my sister was murdered while she was attending college in Baton Rouge. It happened years ago, before I even joined the force.”

“And once you tell the captain that the two cases could be related, do you honestly think he’ll let you stay on this one?”

“I don’t intend to tell him,” she informed him.

“And what about me, Charlie? Am I supposed to lie, too?”

“No,” she said more softly. “I’d never ask you to do that. All I’m asking is that you not say anything about my suspicions.”

“You mean you want me to lie by omission,” he said, pointing out the truth of what she was asking of him. Keeping silent would be the same thing in his opinion.

“Only for a few days—just until I have a chance to confirm whether I’m right, whether the guy who murdered the Hill woman is the same one who murdered Emily.” When Vince didn’t respond, she said, “Please, Vince. Just a few days.”

Vince rubbed the back of his neck. “Suppose someone who worked your sister’s case remembers it and sees the similarities? Then what?”

“One of the detectives on Emily’s case retired and the other one took a position out in Texas,” she countered. “Besides, Emily was killed a hundred miles from here, and she and the Hill woman were from two different worlds, and the case has been cold for six years. The police up there have their hands full just like we do. They won’t have time to start looking for a connection between one of their old murder cases and this one. Please, Vince,” she repeated.

Vince sighed. “All right. You just better hope that this doesn’t come back and bite us both in the ass.”

“It won’t. And if it does, I’ll take full responsibility,” she promised. “I’ll tell the captain it was all my doing, that I kept you in the dark.”

“Why don’t we try to keep the lies to a minimum,” he suggested, because there was no way on earth he’d let her take that fall alone. “Now, what do you say we head over to Stratton’s and let the man know that he isn’t going to need his tux after all?”

“What do you think a place like this goes for?” Vince asked sotto voce as the two of them stood in the parlor of J.P. Stratton’s palatial home waiting for the butler to announce them.

“Just the real estate this place is sitting on costs more than you and I will make in a lifetime,” Charlie responded. Half the homes on this stretch of Saint Charles Avenue were more than a century old and had been carved from one-time plantations. A great many of them had been refurbished, the original architecture preserved and they were now designated as historic landmarks. The polished marble floors, sky-high ceilings and the magnificent chandelier were right out of a picture book. They screamed “money.” “You can add another million or two for the house—and that’s without the furnishings.”

Before Vince could respond, the butler reappeared. A dour-looking man in a classic black butler’s suit, the guy could have been anywhere between forty and seventy years old, Charlie thought.

“If you will follow me, Detectives,” he said in a voice that sounded more British than the combination of Brooklyn and the South that typified the speech of most New Orleanians. “Mr. Stratton will see you now.”

Vince exchanged a look with her and she knew he found the exchange as pompous as she had. Silently, they followed the stiff-backed butler down a long hallway with walls that were covered in peach silk fabric and adorned with oil portraits. He stopped near the end of the hall and opened a door for them to enter. Once they were inside, he pulled the door closed in the same quiet manner in which he had walked.

After identifying themselves to Aaron Stratton, they waited while J. P. Stratton barked out instructions to some poor assistant over the phone. “Aaron,” the older man called out.

“Excuse me, Detectives,” he said and went to his father’s side.

While they waited, Charlie used the time to size up J. P. Stratton. Her initial impression was that he was a big man with an even bigger ego. He was also arrogant, chauvinistic and a self-centered ass. She pegged him at about five foot eleven inches, two hundred and ten pounds. He sported a George Hamilton tan that was set off by black hair that a man well past sixty could only have achieved with the help of a hairdresser. His eyes were a deep shade of blue, his nose sharp, his mouth thin. Due to the miracle of Botox or a face-lift or both, his face was completely void of lines. In fact, the bronze skin was so taut, she’d wager a tennis ball could have bounced off it. The suit he wore looked expensive, probably from one of those Italian designers, Charlie thought. He wore a diamond Rolex on his left wrist, cuff links with diamonds set in gold and an onyx-and-diamond ring on his pinkie finger that was so large it could have been used as a weapon. There was a coldness about him that made it easy for her to understand how he had gone through a string of wives. She couldn’t imagine any woman tying herself to such a man.

When he finally ended the call, Charlie introduced herself and Vince. “Mr. Stratton, I’m afraid we have tragic news, sir.”

“If you’re here to tell me that Francesca’s dead, you’re a little late, Detectives,” he said in a deep, blustery voice that he directed at Vince. “When I called to speak with my fiancée, the fool police officer who answered the phone told me she was dead.”

“I’m sorry about that, sir,” Charlie told him.

“You’re going to be even sorrier, Detectives,” he fired back. “I’ve just gotten off the phone with your chief of police and I’ve let him know how incompetent his staff is,” he added, directing his remarks to Vince again and barely glancing at Charlie.

Charlie stepped in front of the man’s line of vision, forcing him to look at her. “The first officer on the scene is a new man, sir,” she explained. “He’ll be apprised of his error in judgment and disciplined, accordingly.”

“He’ll be fired, if I have anything to say about it.”

“Since you’re neither the chief of police nor the officer’s captain, you don’t have anything to say about it,” she said firmly.

Stratton shot to his feet. He moved quickly for a man his age, Charlie thought. She couldn’t help being grateful that she’d been the sister blessed with long legs. With the two inches her boots added to her own five foot seven inches, it made it difficult for Stratton to look down at her.

“Young woman, I—”

“It’s Detective, Mr. Stratton. Detective Le Blanc.”

“Dad,” Aaron said, and stepping forward, he placed a hand on his father’s shoulder. “As you can imagine, Detectives, the news about Francesca’s death has devastated my father.”

The son was definitely not a chip off the old block. To begin with he had a good two inches in height on his father, but he weighed at least twenty pounds less. While he had his father’s mouth, his eyes were green, his hair dark blond. His slacks and shirt were well made and tasteful and, from the way they fit him, it was obvious he kept himself in shape. His hands were strong and his grip had been firm when he’d shaken her hand. Charlie guessed him to be in his late twenties. The younger Stratton had a warmth his father lacked. Yet there was also a coolness. An odd combination, she thought.

J. P. Stratton shrugged off his son’s hand. “I don’t need you to make excuses for me, boy. I’m not devastated. I’m furious,” he informed them. “Three hours from now, five hundred people from all across the state will be arriving at the New Orleans Museum of Art to celebrate my wedding,” he told her, with a sweep of his arm. “Do you have any idea the amount of time and money that went into planning that wedding? Or the headaches canceling it is causing me?”

So much for the brokenhearted groom. “I’m sure I can’t imagine, sir,” Charlie told him, not even attempting to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

Vince shot her a reproving look. “We realize this is a difficult time for you, Mr. Stratton, and we’re sorry for your loss,” Vince said. “But I’m afraid we do need to ask you a few questions.”

“Instead of wasting time questioning me, why aren’t out looking for the person who killed Francesca? You probably don’t even have a suspect yet, do you?”

“Not yet, sir. But we’re working on it,” Vince told him. “We’re interviewing Ms. Hill’s neighbors and checking the security tapes from her building. It would help us if you could tell us when you last saw Ms. Hill.”

When Stratton started to object, Aaron said, “They’re just trying to get a time line on when Francesca was killed.”

“Your son’s right, Mr. Stratton,” Vince informed him. “If we can narrow down the last time anyone saw or spoke to her, it would help.”

Stratton sat down and retrieved a cigar from a humidor on the desk, but he didn’t light it. “I saw her at her apartment around nine o’clock last night. We had a rehearsal dinner earlier that evening and Francesca had a bit too much to drink. I wanted to make sure she was okay.”

From the looks of the apartment, Francesca had continued to party after she’d returned home, Charlie thought as she took out her notebook and pen. “Was she okay?” she asked.

“She was fine, just tired from all the excitement.”

“How long did you stay?” Charlie asked him.

“Until around nine-thirty. Francesca wanted to make it an early night so that she would be rested and beautiful for today.”