“I wish I could help,” she said. “That boy deserves better. Always did.”
She went back to her painting and we headed out. No one said a word until we climbed into the SUV.
“Well, that was a depressing conversation,” Gertie said. “All the stuff about Gil was bad enough but then she had to throw dying into the mix.”
“That and all the mental strain explains her aging so quickly,” I said.
Ida Belle nodded. “I have to wonder how much of her own life she’s projecting onto Tiffany’s.”
“Good question,” I said. “I don’t figure Gil cared much about Tiffany one way or another except for how he thought she made him look, but we never heard anything about abuse and Gil certainly wasn’t a violent felon.”
“But if Lil saw him as just another predator,” Ida Belle said, “and she’s lumping them all in one box…”
“And she’s dying,” Gertie said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “She could have justified killing him. Especially if she thought he was cheating on Tiffany and would abandon her after preying on her. Lil already has a history of being mentally unsound, so her thinking might not be the same as regular people.”
“Motive and opportunity,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie sighed. “Just what we needed—another suspect.”
After our chat with Lil, we grabbed a late lunch in New Orleans, then headed back to Sinful. I’d already checked Tiffany’s car location and it was back in the parking lot across from the hotel we’d seen her leaving earlier. She was supposed to check in with Casey and give her the location she was staying at, so unless someone said otherwise, I was going to assume she’d done so.
“So do we tell Casey any of this?” Gertie asked.
“Tell her what?” Ida Belle asked. “That there’s a ton of suspects, all with motive and opportunity, and we have no proof against any of them?”
“It might send her in the right direction,” Gertie said.
“Or send her boss looking for her source,” Ida Belle said. “And we don’t know what the right direction is anyway. I like Casey well enough, but I’m not interested in spending time in a NOLA jail cell because her boss has a problem with PIs. If we were just dealing with Carter, things would be different.”
“I agree,” I said. “Casey herself warned us to stay low and said she wouldn’t be talking to us. If we had concrete evidence against anyone, that would be different. But all we have is speculation and the same information she’ll get herself as soon as she has time to question everyone again. I don’t think any of the suspects are a flight risk, so if it takes her a couple days to catch up, that’s really not a big deal. And if it keeps us off the hot plate, I’m all for it.”
“You’re right,” Gertie said. “I guess I’m just wanting this one solved and over so that we can get back to enjoying Halloween like we usually do.”
“Who’s saying we can’t?” I asked. “We’re going to be home in plenty of time to go to the festival tonight. And honestly, after the last few days, I think that’s exactly what we should do. Not like we have anything else to look into at the moment.”
Gertie perked up. “That would be great!”
Mannie called while we were on our way back to Sinful with background updates on the list of people I’d given him. I put him on speaker.
“What do you have?” I asked.
“Well, for starters, Lil is actually Emilia Davis and she’s Tiffany Forrest’s mother,” Mannie said. “You didn’t say why you needed these, but given that incident at the Halloween festival and the subsequent finding of Gil’s car, I assume this is now a murder investigation and you’re in the middle of it.”
“Something like that, and yeah, we figured out the Emilia connection and just talked to her,” I said.
“Did she fess up about her mental health stay?” he asked.
“She did,” I said.
“Did she also include that she was arrested twice for assaulting two different men? One was hitting on a much younger server in a bar in New Orleans and the other was a coworker who was cheating on his wife. She got the cheater good—broke his wrist before he managed to get away.”
“Interesting,” I said. “Was this before or after her mental health stay?”
“Before. Apparently, the stay was required by the court as mental health was cited for the reason she shouldn’t be charged.”
“I wonder if it did any good or if she just managed to fool the doctors enough to get released,” I said. “She definitely didn’t mention any of those things.”
“I don’t suppose she would,” he said. “Moving on, Brigette Driscoll is the daughter of a fairly prominent politician and attorney. Family money and all that, but for some reason, he suddenly stepped away from his position with the senate and retired from his firm about five years ago, died not long after. I’m assuming some undisclosed illness, but still trying to run down some information on that. Unfortunately, my contacts don’t lend themselves to higher social circles so I’m limited unless it was big enough to hit the newspapers.”
“Makes sense,” I said.
“I’ll let you know if I get more,” he said. “As for Brigette herself, nothing interesting really. She works for the theater and has a condo in the business district—got a mortgage rate on it that makes me envious as I’m looking to buy right now and rates are high, but that’s the only thing I could find on her except for all the publicity about the plays and some inherited emeralds, which apparently have historical significance.”
“Yeah, I did a bit of research on those jewels myself,” I said. “And it’s interesting, but I can’t work them into why Gil was killed. What about Paul Easton?”
“Nothing on Easton, who might be the most boring person on earth,” he said. “I’m kinda surprised he’s an actor.”
“Yeah, he really doesn’t come across that way,” I said. “But we’ve been told that he comes alive on stage. Last up is Gwyn Simmons. I don’t expect you found anything of interest on her either.”
There was a slight pause and then he began. “I saved her for last. She had a bit of a problem with an ex-husband. Sounds like an abusive situation where she finally managed to get loose. Nothing interesting since then about her life…except her death.”
“What?!”
We all yelled at once.
“Gwyn Simmons committed suicide,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I took a deep breath and let it slowly out, still reeling from what Mannie had just told us.
“When did it happen?” I asked.
“Sometime last night,” Mannie said. “I don’t have much information but apparently, she took a handful of painkillers, drank a lot of wine, went to sleep, and didn’t wake up. I’ll update you if I hear more, but it seems kinda open and shut. No sign of forced entry and she left a note. I don’t know what it included.”