Neal Rafferty New Orleans Mystery #1: The Killing Circle (A Neal Rafferty New Orleans Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page B

file cabinets, but there was nothing of interest, just copies of orders, brochures, and invoices. There was a toilet and sink at the end of the room. I turned the light off and closed the door securely. Shut tightly you couldn't tell there was a door there unless you happened to spot the knob in the conglomeration of books.
    I closed the front door to Garber's and locked it. Garber's store was on the cornet On the other side a bricked carriageway that led to an open courtyard separated the bookstore from Royal Theatrical Supplies. The closed sign had already been hung in the door, but some lights were on and I could see a woman moving around, hanging costumes on a rack and putting things in order. I knocked. She came to the door and gave me an engaging smile while she jiggled the closed sign up and down.
    I gestured at the bookstore. “Could you tell me when you last saw Stanley Garber?” I asked loudly.
    She looked at me intensely through the glass and then unlocked the door. She was about forty and attractive, in a stagey way, her large features heavily made-up, her short hair dyed jet black. She wore a deeply fringed black shawl embroidered with bright colors.
    “I was wondering when someone would finally come.” Her low, silky voice undulated like the fringe on the shawl. “I don't think anyone has been over there for a week.”
    “You're not sure?”
    She pointed at the air conditioner protruding from high up the brick wall of the carriageway. “He usually turns the air conditioner off at night, and I haven't seen any lights.”
    “When last week did you see him?”
    “Last Monday morning. He was standing in the doorway talking to a young man when I opened up.”
    “Do you know who that was? Could you tell me what he looked like?”
    “No. He had his back to me.”
    “How do you know he was young?”
    She smiled at me indulgently. “I could tell by his stance, the way he held himself. I notice things like that.”
    I looked past her, into the shop, at the costumes and Styrofoam heads with wigs on them. My eyes came back to her jet black hair. I hadn't realized she was wearing a wig. “Of course,” I said. “Could you tell me anything else you noticed about him?”
    “Sure. He was tall, taller than Garber. He had on blue jeans and a T-shirt. His hair was long, shapeless, brownish. He was holding a box. Would you mind coming inside? I'd rather not air condition the street.”
    Everyone is sensitive about their air conditioning in the dead heat of August.
    As I stepped inside she flexed her nose at the smell that was still clinging to me and gave me a peculiar look. I forged ahead quickly.
    “What about the lady who works for Garber, have you seen her?”
    She laughed a slithery laugh. “The kind of hours Lucy keeps, she's got to be balling him for her salary.”
    My eyebrows shot up in surprise.
    “Oh, come on,” she said, “surely in this day and age you're not shocked.” The way she said it, I felt foolish for letting her see my amazement even if she had misinterpreted it. “Who are you anyway? Have I been indiscreet?”
    Somehow this interview was going awry. Maybe it was because I was still shaken from seeing Garber's dead body. In my line of work, the last thing I wanted was for her to think she'd been indiscreet, but she hadn't asked like she was very worried. I thought instead that she had sensed my embarrassment at letting my face be read so easily and was amused. Well, it was her turn in the trenches now. I am, after all, a tough guy from the Channel.
    I hit her with it. “I've just been next door and Stanley Garber is dead. Murdered.”
    Her face registered nothing. A big zero. A cold fish. It irked me. I found the phone by myself and called the police. She had gone beyond the rack of costumes, to the far end of the room where there were two dressing tables, over them mirrors bordered by light bulbs. She was sitting on a stool in front of one of them, the shawl pulled close around her like