Murder in the Irish Channel (Chanse MacLeod Mysteries) (20 page)

He was only three years older than me, but he looked fifty.

At least.

“Mr. Marino?” I said, hoping my shock didn’t show on my face. “I’m Chanse MacLeod—”

“The detective!” He smiled, managing to look a little less harried, and shook my hand. His was warm, soft, and damp. “Yes, Loren told me you might be coming by at some point. Thank you so much for taking the case! Great having you on board. Come on in.” He gave me an apologetic look as he stepped aside to let me in. “I’m really sorry, everything that could possibly go wrong today has, and the place is a mess, the maid quit—” He broke off and shut the door behind me. “”But you don’t care about that.” He showed me into a living room, through a door to the right of the front hallway. “Can I get you something to drink? Iced tea?”

“Iced tea would be great—it’s kind of hot outside.”

“I’ll be right back. Have a seat—make yourself at home.” He disappeared through a door on the other side of the room.

The living room had been turned into a shrine to Luke’s football career. No, shrine wasn’t the right word—it was a temple. The long wall directly opposite the door had an enormous, almost life-size portrait of Luke in his uniform, holding a football and posing on one knee at the fifty yard line, smiling carefree at the camera. I stepped closer and marveled at it. He’d been even more handsome than I remembered, which made the present-day version even sadder. The entire wall was covered with pictures and awards certificates. His LSU diploma had a place of honor next to the massive portrait, and four team photos were hung directly beneath the diploma. I stepped closer—the team I was on was the lowest one. It had been mounted, and in the lower right corner was an oval-shaped duplicate of the massive portrait. I smiled—I had four of those framed team pictures myself, in a box somewhere in one of my closets. I picked myself out in the picture from Luke’s senior year and smiled at my innocent young face. I was shocked at how young I looked—and how thick my hair had been. I ran a hand through it.

Yes, it had definitely thinned since then.

There was a case beside the front window with game balls and trophies, and I walked over and glanced at them. Luke’s letter jacket from LSU was folded on the bottom shelf, nestled between some game balls and Mandy’s Golden Girl costume. I put my hand against the glass. College seemed like it had been a million years earlier, I thought, and shook my head, turning my back to Luke’s past.
I don’t even know where all my trophies and letter jacket are
,
I reflected.

I hadn’t thrown any of it away—so it was probably all in a box somewhere.

There was a massive plasma television mounted on the opposite wall, and all around it were more framed pictures of Luke—these were from high school and from his brief career with the Chargers.

“Here you go.” Luke walked back into the room and passed me a tall glass of iced tea. I took a drink—it was over-sweetened, but I drank it anyway. “You an LSU fan?”

I gestured to the team picture from my freshman year. “I was a freshman when you were a senior.”

He grinned. “I thought you looked familiar—sorry I didn’t recognize you.” He made a face. “But man, the older you get, the memory just goes. Sit down, sit down, please.” He gestured at the sofa. “Did you play in the pros?”

I shook my head. “I blew out my knee in the Sugar Bowl my senior year. I wasn’t sure if I could make it in the pros—wasn’t sure if I should try.” I shrugged. “I probably wouldn’t have been drafted anyway, and truth be told, I was kind of sick of playing football, so the injury made it all a moot point. Probably for the best.”

“Damned knees—they’re a bitch, aren’t they?” He slapped his left one. “That’s what finished me with the Chargers. Got hit in a game with the 49ers and I heard it go. I still hear that crack in my nightmares sometimes.” He grimaced. “It hurt like a son of a bitch. But like you said, it’s just as well—I wasn’t having much of a pro career, and it probably wasn’t going to get any better, but if I hadn’t gotten hurt I would have kept working, plugging away at it hoping to turn it all around. Still, I was glad to come back home and get my life back together.”

I nodded. “Sorry to hear about the lawsuit.”

He whistled. “Those thieving sons of bitches. I know they got to Mona somehow—and now she’s missing?” He shook his head sadly. “When Loren told me Mona was changing her testimony, it broke my heart. I don’t know how they did it, you know? Mona was like family to me. She worked for me at Cypress Gardens almost right from the beginning.”

“When was the last time you spoke to Mona?” I pulled out my pad.

“It’s been a few weeks—maybe even months. I wasn’t really keeping track, you know?” He crossed a leg. “Mona came by here—she wanted my advice about a contract for Jonny—he got a really good offer from the Barras Casino Group, and she knew that was who I sold Cypress Gardens to—”

“When exactly did you sell Cypress Gardens?”

He nodded. “Didn’t Loren tell you? Yeah, a couple of years after Katrina, I was having trouble keeping the place going.” He shook his head. “I had to take out loans, you know, to do repairs and get the place going again because the damned insurance was taking so long to work out everything—I was stretched to the max, you know? If I didn’t make the bank payments, I would lose the place, and every day I was wondering if that would be the day I would go bankrupt—which is what those motherfuckers at the insurance company were hoping for, you know?” He sighed. “Morgan Barras made me a hell of an offer—enough money to pay off the loans with a little left over to live on. What else could I do?” He made a face. “And now the insurance company is trying to
use
the fact I sold the place to get out from under what they owe me, may the bastards fry in hell for all eternity.”

Surely it wasn’t a coincidence that Morgan Barras had turned up yet again? Aloud, I said, “So she wanted you to look over the contract?”

He nodded. “She also wanted to know what I thought of Barras. Like I said, Mona was like family, and I knew Jonny pretty well—she would bring him around, you know, in the summer when he wasn’t in school. He was a handful.” He smiled, remembering. “I know she was worried about him—even after I sold Cypress Gardens—and you know, I gave her six months’ severance—we stayed in touch. We tried to have dinner or lunch together once a month or so over the last few years. My wife and I—Mona was our babysitter of choice, you know. I still can’t believe she wants to change her testimony.”

“What did you tell her about the contract?”

“I told her it looked fair, but she should have a lawyer look it over. I told her to have Loren look at it—told her not to worry about the fee, I’d just have him bill me. She was family.” He shook his big head again. “She was really worried about Jonny, you know. She didn’t like the girl he married, and that he’d dropped out of high school, and I guess they’re going to have a baby? I also told her that he might be a bit of an asshole, but Morgan was pretty trustworthy. I mean, he offered me a really good price for Cypress Gardens—and to be honest, I would have let it go for a lot less—it had turned into such a fucking nightmare after the storm, you know.” He ran a hand over his head. “I’d have been more than happy to let it go for just taking over the loans, to tell you the truth. I was seriously fucked and was going to have to try to borrow money from my family.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how much did he pay for Cypress Gardens?”

He shrugged. “It’s a matter of public record. I sold him Cypress Gardens for fifteen million. After paying off the loans, I cleared about 1.5 million.” He sighed. “I am suing the insurance company for twenty million—the amount of the loans, loss of business revenues, and legal fees. If the insurance had paid out like it was supposed to, I wouldn’t have had to sell the place or take out the loans. Now they’re saying since I sold out, they shouldn’t have to pay.”

“So, when you saw Mona, she didn’t say anything to you at all about changing her testimony?”

“No. Not a word. When the lawyers called me and told me, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I couldn’t believe it—I still can’t believe it. There had to be a reason. Mona wouldn’t just do that, you know?”

“Do you think they might have bought her off?”

“No. Mona wasn’t like that. How can I make you understand that?” He drummed his fingers on his knee. “I would have trusted Mona with my life. She is one of the most honest people I’ve ever known. She wouldn’t even borrow money from petty cash to buy a soda from the vending machines. So the idea that she could be bought off? It’s ludicrous.”

“What if she needed the money?”

“Well, if she needed money, she could have just asked.” He gestured around the room. “I may not exactly be rolling in money, but I’d help her out if she needed help.”

“Can you think of any reason Mona might have needed money?”

“Mona’s great with money—which was why she was such a great property manager. That woman knows how to stretch a dollar—she could pinch a penny till Lincoln winced.” He laughed. “I can’t imagine Mona herself ever getting into financial trouble—every once in a while I’d try to talk her into investing money, and she would always say the only difference between the stock market and a casino was at least you knew ahead of time the casino was out to take your money. So, bad investments? No, she wouldn’t have ever done anything like that.”

“But what about one of the kids? Did you know her other kids well?”

“I met Lorelle a few times—I liked her.” He frowned. “The older son—Robby? Him, I didn’t care for. There was just something about him I didn’t like, you know? He was—” He fumbled for the words, finally adding, “a phony. One of those guys who want to get rich quick but don’t want to work for it? His wife had money, I think—I didn’t much care for her, either—she was Queen of Rex and he brought it up every time I talked to him, like I give a shit about that? Marinos weren’t good enough for the old-line krewes, we never were. He kept wanting me to invest in things that never seemed legitimate, you know what I mean? He worked in investments, you know, a broker or advisor or something. He was always coming over here, wanting my business, you know? When I’d press for details there never were any—like I’m just going to give him money without a prospectus or something?”

“You didn’t trust him?”

“Not as far as I could throw him.” The contempt in his voice was unmistakable. “He struck me as the kind of person who had big dreams, but never really had the mentality or perseverance to make them happen. One of the big deals he tried to pitch to me was an apartment complex to be built on Claiborne, near the hospitals.” He sighed again. “Now, we all know after Katrina there was a housing shortage here, but there was also a shortage of construction workers. And what he wanted to do was buy out a lot of his neighbors in Broadmoor and build the new complex there—but he couldn’t say for sure whether his neighbors would sell, and blah blah blah.” He scratched his nose. “Like I said, a dreamer with his head in the clouds.” He snapped his fingers. “With no business plan? I would always talk to him, as a courtesy to Mona, but it never amounted to anything. And then a few weeks ago—when was it exactly? Anyway, he came by and wanted to borrow some ‘venture capital’ from me.”

“And how much was that?”

“Fifty thousand dollars.” He shook his head. “He had a promissory note and everything ready for me to sign. But he couldn’t really give me any details about the venture…I told him I needed more information than that. He kept telling me how I could trust him, and so on and so forth…”

Fifty thousand dollars? The amount of the cashier’s check in Mona’s desk drawer?

I cleared my throat and interrupted him. “When exactly was this?”

He nodded. “A couple of weeks ago?” He frowned and stood up. “Let me get my appointment book and I can tell you exactly when it was.” He walked out of the room.

I heard the front door open and close, and got up myself.

Mandy Marino had aged far better than her husband. She was still slender—she could probably still fit into the uniform in the trophy case. She still wore her blond hair long, but she was able to pull the look off. Her face was remarkably free of wrinkles, and her makeup was perfect. She might have thickened a bit in the waist and her breasts might have been a little heavier, but she was still an incredibly beautiful woman.

She walked into the living room and gave a start. “I’m sorry.” She plastered the smile that she’d used as a Golden Girl on her face. She dropped her purse on the sideboard and held out a hand to me. “Mandy Marino, nice to meet you.”

“Chanse MacLeod. I’m investigating the disappearance of Mona O’Neill.”

“Has there been any word? I’m worried about her.” The smile faltered a little bit as she sat down. “I still can’t believe Mona would betray us the way she has. It’s just not like her, you know.”

“It does seem out of character,” I agreed with her.

“I guess it just goes to show you never really know someone.” Mandy got up and poured herself a glass of whiskey. “Do you mind? Would you like one?” I shook my head, and she tossed it back with a single movement. She smiled and sat back down. “It’s been a rather trying day, Mr. MacLeod.”

“Chanse, please.”

“You must call me Mandy, then.” She crossed her legs. “My mother is ill and doesn’t want to stay in the hospital anymore. Which is fine, but she also doesn’t want a full-time nurse—she wants me to take care of her, which just isn’t practical. Does that seem cold and selfish to you?”