G.T. Herren - Paige Tourneur 02 - Dead Housewives of New Orleans (18 page)

And why did she get them all on the show?

I turned off the recorder and threw it into my purse.

“You think Amanda Beth is the one, don’t you?” He looked sick. “Do you think Margery is in danger?”

“She wouldn’t hurt her own mother, would she?”

He rubbed his eyes. “Margery and Amanda Beth have a… a
complicated
relationship.” He shrugged. “Mothers and daughters, you know.”

Did I ever!
I hadn’t spoken to my own mother in over fifteen years. “But if Margery helped her get away with murder once before…”

His face was grim. “Amanda Beth was really angry about being sent away to St. Agnes. Being sent away from
me.”

I felt my stomach starting to knot up. “But that was better than going to
jail.”

“I told you, it’s complicated. Some days Amanda Beth acts like Margery’s her best friend, other times she blames her for ruining her life.”

Lisa’s death could easily be explained away as an accident… three dead Grande Dames in three days wouldn’t be as easy, no matter who your lawyer was and how much money you had.

I was torn. Should I call Venus?

“You look worried.” Billy raised his eyebrows. “About Margery? Do you think she’s in danger? Maybe we should call the police?”

“And tell them what? We
think
Amanda Beth is the killer? With no proof? They wouldn’t do anything.” I shook my head, but my gut was telling me I was right.

“I’m going over there.” He pushed his chair back and stood up.

“Billy—”

“Amanda Beth would never hurt me.” He crossed his arms, and the veins in his forearms bulged out even more.

“Famous last words.” I pushed my chair back and stood, pulling my phone out of my purse.

His jaw set, and a muscle in his cheek started jumping. “I can clear this all up, I know.”

“Billy, that’s just crazy.” I shook my head.
Men.
“You think Amanda Beth won’t hurt you but you don’t KNOW that.”

“I’m going.”

“Then I’m coming with you.”
Idiot!

“You don’t have to—”

I held up my hand, and hit the speed dial for Venus. It went to voicemail after three rings. “Hey, Venus, it’s Paige. Billy Barron and I are going over to Margery Lautenschlaeger’s. I don’t have any proof, but I’m almost certain— no, I’m pretty certain— her daughter is the killer. Call me as soon as you can.”

My ‘idiot-girl’ alarm was going off. But surely, if everything I suspected was right, Amanda Beth wouldn’t hurt me in front of Billy?

Oh, for God’s sake, Paige, put on your big girl panties! You don’t even know if Amanda Beth is there.

I followed him out of the coffee shop. He was parked on Magazine Street, and I was more than a little surprised to see he drove a green Volvo. As he clicked it unlocked he gave me a sheepish look. “Probably figured I’d drive a Corvette, right? But I sometimes have my brother’s kids, and there’s nothing safer than a Volvo.”

I melted a little bit more on the inside.

As he drove us Uptown, the whole story of his relationship with Amanda Beth came pouring out of him.

He had the decency to blush when he admitted he’d been her first, and that he’d broken up with her because of her possessive neediness. “She was really jealous,” he said as he turned from Felicity onto St. Charles. “But she was never, you know,
Fatal Attraction
scary.” He hadn’t even gone out with Lisa French for very long when she was killed. “So I believed Amanda Beth when she said it was an accident. I guess I wanted to believe her, because otherwise…” After they’d both graduated from college, they’d started seeing each other again, but it didn’t last very long… because he’d met Laura deSimone, whom he eventually married. “I blew it with Laura, I know, I never should have gotten mixed up with the other woman, but how was I supposed to know she’d hire a private eye to follow me and take pictures?”

“Pictures?” I interrupted him. “There were pictures?”

In my mind I saw those horrible photographs of Chloe— and the ones of Remy with some young hustler boy.

“Yeah, it’s one of the reasons Laura cleaned up on me when she divorced me.” He shook his head. “She always swore she had nothing to do with them— someone had sent them to her. I just figured she never wanted to admit she was that sleazy.”

“Maybe she wasn’t.”

“You think that was Amanda Beth, too?” He barked out a bitter laugh. “You think she’s some kind of criminal mastermind?”

I think she’s obsessed with you and will do whatever’s necessary to have you.

But I just shook my head as he took the turn into the Lautenschlaeger driveway. We drove up the small hill in silence, and he switched off the car. As I got out of the car, I thought I saw the curtains move at the window just to the right of the door. We climbed the steps to the front door together and he rang the buzzer. He gave me a weak smile while we waited. All of the front windows of the house were dark. I heard the deadbolt sliding back.

“Oh, dear God, what are you doing here?” Margery looked uncharacteristically sloppy. Her hair was unkempt, and she was wearing a long red Chinese silk dressing gown. She was wearing little make-up, if any, and looked much older than she usually did. The front of the dressing gown was dusted with cigarette ash, and what looked like grease spots were scattered liberally over the top. Her eyes looked a little wild. She glanced around outside, and I couldn’t help but notice her hands were shaking.

“You need to just get out of here.” She pushed Billy, looking worriedly over her shoulder.

“Is everything all right, Mother?” I heard Amanda Beth say from behind Margery.

“Everything’s
fine.”
Margery snapped, gesturing with her head for us to go. “It’s just that reporter— you know, Paige Tourneur? From the magazine? I was just telling her I don’t have time to talk to her right now.” And again, she gestured with her head, her lips clamped tightly together and her eyes wild.

“Don’t be silly, Mother.” The door swung wide, and I was staring right into Amanda Beth’s eyes. She was wearing a sweatshirt, and a pair of loose fitting jeans, She had purple crocs on her feet. Her right hand was out of sight, behind her back.

She blushed a little bit when she noticed Billy, and one of her hands went up to her hair, smoothing it down. She simpered a bit. “Billy! What a surprise!” She glanced back at me, and her eyes were hard and cold.

“We were just leaving,” I said hurriedly.
This is not good, we’ve got to get out of here
flashed through my mind. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” Amanda Beth snarled. Her right hand came up, and she was holding what looked like an enormous gun. She gestured with it. “Both of you, get inside.”

She stepped aside so we could enter. Billy and I exchanged looks, and the door shut behind us.

Amanda Beth had the gun trained on me as she backed away from us across the foyer and into the hallway, stopping in the big doorway. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” She sneered at me. “You had to go digging into the past, didn’t you?” She laughed, and it was an unpleasant sound. “Did you think Jane wouldn’t call me and tell me someone came snooping? It was you, wasn’t it?” She pointed the gun back at Billy. “She felt bad— the stupid bitch! She spills the beans and then she feels bad, calls me to apologize! She’s lucky she isn’t here now!” She swung the gun, holding it with both hands, and swung it like a bat, making a popping noise like the bat was connecting with something. “I’ll take care of her, though. She’ll get what’s coming to her.” She smiled again, her eyes lighting up. “They always do.”

While it wasn’t the first time a gun’s been pointed at me, it’s not something you ever get used to. I wasn’t even aware I was holding my breath until I exhaled loudly enough to have her swing the gun towards me.

“I’m sorry,” I heard Margery mutter next to me. “I’ve been trying to get her to turn herself in.” She stifled a sob.

Amanda Beth’s voice was shaky, and the gun swung back around to Billy. “Go away, Billy. Go home. This doesn’t concern you.”

“Amanda Beth, what are you doing?” Billy said softly, like he was talking to a small child. A chill went down my spine. “What’s wrong with you, baby?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Wrong with
me?
What do you think is wrong with me? How can you ask me that after everything I’ve done for you?” Her voice got louder with each word, and the hand holding the gun was trembling a little bit.

That wasn’t reassuring.

“Mandygirl, you know you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved,” he said, his voice still soft. “The other women didn’t mean anything to me, you know that.”

“I can’t let her go, Billy,” she replied. “She knows too much.
She talked to Jane! Behind my back! They always talk about me behind my back!”
She screamed the last words out, spittle flying.

My God, she’s completely lost it.

Billy started walking towards her slowly, his hands up.

“Stay away from me, Billy. You stay away from me!” Her voice rose. “You— you don’t love me. All I wanted was for you to LOVE ME!” She screamed the last words, more spittle flying. “Was that so much to ask? WAS IT?”

Margery looked like she was going to start crying at any moment. “Amanda Beth—”

“SHUT UP, Mother!” She swiveled the gun back and forth between Billy and her mother and me. “All of it was for you, Billy. All of it. I got rid of them all for you. Fidelis, she didn’t care about you, she was just using you… why couldn’t you see that, Billy? What did you see in her?”

“I wasn’t— Fidelis and I weren’t— there wasn’t anything going on between us, Amanda Beth.” Billy sounded surprised.

I glanced over at Margery. She was pale, and beads of perspiration dotted her forehead.

“Don’t you lie to me, Billy Barron,” Amanda Beth went on. “You were
my
date at the premiere, but I saw you with her. I saw you talking, I saw you KISS her.” Her face looked sad, and God help me, I actually started to feel sorry for her. “Why wasn’t I ever enough for you, Billy? Why?”

“Amanda Beth—”

“She was helping Rebecca, you know. I heard them talking in the ladies’ room…” She tilted her head to one side. “It wasn’t enough for her to be with you but then to turn on you? It felt good, you know. Killing her…”

Margery let out a choked sob. “Amanda Beth, please, put the gun down, we can get you help…”

“Like before?” Amanda Beth swung around to her mother with the gun. “You’re going to have me locked up again, Mother?”

Keep talking,
I thought,
please, just keep talking.

I reached into my purse and put my hands on my iPhone.

I took my eyes off Amanda Beth for a moment to look at it. It was locked. Irritated, I swept a finger along the bar and unlocked it. I touched the contacts icon, all the while cursing Steve Jobs.
Goddamned fucking touch screen phone!

It’s not easy to go through all that touch nonsense when you’re trying to call the goddamned police with a maniac holding you at gunpoint.

“What are you doing!” Amanda Beth screamed at me. “Get your hand out of your purse, bitch! Do you think I’m crazy?”

Oh, you have no idea.

I complied. I glanced down into my purse, and swore silently again. Instead of the call button, I’d hit the text message button.

Fucking
useless
phone.

“As for that whore Chloe…” Amanda Beth started giggling. She was pointing the gun directly at Billy, who was about halfway across the foyer now. “Chloe was all wrong for you and she was causing problems for my mother and then, you know, Megan, she wanted money. She called me and she wanted money because she knew it was me doing it all, she figured it all out. She was going to go to the police and she had to be stopped. Money wasn’t going to be enough for that bitch this time—”

Margery started crying. “Baby, please, put the gun down. I’m begging you. Please.”

Amanda Beth turned the gun towards her mother. “It’s gone too far, Mother!” she ranted. “You ruined my life!”

While Amanda Beth was screaming at her mother, out of the corner of my eye I saw Billy move a few more steps forward. He gestured at me with his head, and I assumed he wanted me to distract her.

“And you tried to run me over?” I asked when she paused for breath. “After you killed Megan?”

The gun swung around to me. She looked puzzled. “I didn’t try to run you over.” But the puzzlement faded away and her face turned red again as she shouted, “
You shouldn’t have called Jane!”

If it wasn’t Amanda Beth, then who?

Yeah, that’s what you need to be worried about right now, with a crazy woman holding a gun on you. Talk about Stupid Girl.

I could hear my heart pounding as I desperately tried to think of something, anything, to say.

Billy took another step forward.

“Stay back!” She swung the gun around again and pointed it at him.

While she was focused on him, I started slipping over to the wall on the side. If he kept her distracted long enough…

“Give me the gun, Amanda Beth,” he said softly. “You’re not well, like you weren’t when you hit Lisa with your car. We need to get you some help, now. And if you get help, we can be together. Isn’t that what you want, Mandygirl?”

I glanced over at Amanda Beth but she was completely focused on Billy.

“Do you mean that?” Her face looked so hopeful that my heart almost broke for her. “It’s all I wanted, you know, Billy. All I ever wanted.” She smiled so longingly. He was almost close enough to grab the gun. Seeing my chance, I started creeping along the wall. Margery looked over at me…

And so did Amanda Beth.

I froze.

Amanda Beth turned the gun towards me.

What happened next was pure instinct— because I would have never in a million years have leaped at someone holding a gun. I may be Stupid Girl sometimes, but I’m not
that
stupid.

So, I threw my purse at her.

The gun went off. My ears started ringing and I could smell the powder.

Now
I leapt. I crashed into Amanda Beth’s legs and the two of us went down on the marble floor.