Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle by Pauline Jones (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

significance of this allusion was not lost on the two detectives who were well acquainted with the dangerously complex nature of political connections in Louisiana. Mickey shifted uneasily as Pryce frowned, one hand fiddling with the papers scattered across the top of his desk.

“How are the ladies?”

“They seem to be fine, sir,” Delaney said, giving Mickey a puzzled look. Mickey shrugged.

“Upset over this business?”

“If you think they are upset, you must not know them, sir,” Mickey said.

The edges of Pryce’s stern, straight mouth twitched, his version of a grin.

“Any connection between this murder and the shooting last night? I understand their niece was with you at the time?”

“We don’t think so, sir,” Delaney said. “Why?”

“Quite a coincidence. Sure it’s one?’

“We can look into it,” Mickey offered, wondering how they’d do that. They knew so little about both incidents. Which was a connection—of sorts.

Pryce shook his head. “Just keep it in mind, in case a connection does emerge. What about Eddie? His fiancée clear?”

“Well, we can’t rule out anyone,” Delaney pointed out. “We’ve found no connection, though we’ve received information she might know something without realizing it. She wasn’t home when we left, but we’re planning on questioning her as soon as she gets back.”

“If you’re worried about conflict of interest, sir—” Mickey began hopefully.

“If I worried about that, Ross, I’d have to disqualify most of the force from every case we have. Just mind how you go. The Seymour’s’ political connections go way back. It’s a—tricky situation. The department will support you, of course, even if you step on some toes. As long as you don’t step unnecessarily.”

“Yes, sir,” the two men chorused. Mickey stirred restlessly. The mandate to investigate was double-edged. But, this was New Orleans. Double-edged mandates were invented here.

“What’s your case load look like right now?”

Heavy to impossible, Mickey wanted to say, but he didn’t. “We’re putting in a lot of time on the Dante thing.”

“You got something on him you haven’t told me about?”

“No, sir.”

“Anything else?”

“Just twenty or so on-goings that aren’t going anywhere right now,” Delaney admitted.

“Then give the Seymour investigation top priority. It could easily go high profile and we want to be ready. But don’t neglect your other cases, of course.”

“Of course.”

Mickey and Delaney exchanged glum looks as they shuffled out. It seemed ironic, Mickey decided as they drove past the prison, to know that the people they arrested would get more rest tonight than they would.

Artie got out of his car, adjusted the Pizza Party shirt he’d lifted from the back of the store and then picked up the pizza he’d bought from the front of the store. The old ladies didn’t like technology, but they loved pizza. The whole situation was costing him way more than he counted on, but inside the house was all the fruit of his scamming labors. Now, when it was too late, he could admit it had been stupid to put all his dollars in one attic, but it had seemed so safe, so secure. And he hadn’t been lying when he told Fern no one wanted to launder dollar bills.

He hadn’t counted on that or that he’d get so many. They’d just flooded in and continued to flood in, one at a time, no matter how fast he spent them. Already he had a trunk full. When he’d seen the nearly empty attic, the urge to fill it had been irresistible.

He hadn’t counted on Luci, of all people, coming here, of all places. The one person on the face of the earth who could bring scrutiny upon him—a scrutiny that would bar him forever from Helen.

It was unfortunate they’d found Hermann, but they didn’t seem to have found the money. Somehow, someway, he had to start moving it out. But to do that, he had to get inside. The pizza would be his calling card. Louise always left people standing in the hall. Once he was alone...

He started up the steps, but was only halfway up when he heard a car stop behind him. With deep foreboding he turned and saw the cops getting out of the car. His turn became a dive into the shrubs by the steps. No, not shrubs. Ivy.

“Ouch,” he said before he could stop himself.

When the sun beats down on New Orleans, it’s easy for outsiders to think it’s just another frenetic city with the requisite old buildings and a swamp for contrast. But with the creeping dusk comes, not a cooling down, but a heating up of the other New Orleans as the night-lifers heed the siren call to pleasure. For the street cops, it’s the siren call to pissed off as they struggle to keep the peace against increasing odds. Night, and the strange allure of the yellow moon, makes their job harder, enhancing what is worst in the violent, the dishonest, and the insane.

Mickey was thinking about the insane as they once more pulled to a stop in front of the Seymour house, which was dark and quiet, except for bits of light that crept past the heavily curtained windows.

The frat house was quiet, too, though light streamed abundantly from each of its uncurtained windows. Mickey shut his door and looked at Delaney over the roof of the car. “Did you hear something?”

Delaney listened for a moment, then shrugged. Together they used the light from the frat house to pick their way toward the Queen Anne house where Velma Verlain, presumed psychic and girlfriend to “business interests in Cleveland” Reggie Seymour dwelled.

The name and the legend were exotic. The lady wasn’t.

Short, pear-shaped, a bit nearsighted, and attired in a polyester pantsuit, she had intense gray eyes that peered at them from under the gray fringe of her plainly cut hair.

Totally concerned citizen, she ushered them into a room that was homey-scented and even more ordinary than she was. She maintained the sensible facade through the opening gambit. Stayed with it throughout a careful perusal of the photo of their John Doe from the freezer, who