“Suicide, obviously,” Maureen said. “She was mentally unstable and off her meds. At least, she was six weeks ago. I can’t imagine things had improved for her since then, when she’d been killing people. The Watchmen are hunting her. We’re hunting her. God only knows what demons she had chasing her all her life. She had no allies, no family, no money. The razor was right there by her hand.” She paused. “But somebody called it in. We came to the cemetery because somebody reported a body inside. You think someone else was here while she was still alive?”
Atkinson shrugged. “Maybe, probably. People sneak in here three, four nights a week. Somebody unrelated to the incident could’ve seen her, thought she was already dead, called it in. That’s not what bothers me.”
“Why do it up here in the Garden District?” Maureen asked.
Atkinson looked around. “Pretty glorious cemetery. Probably not many paranoid schizophrenics in here.”
“Trust me,” Maureen said, “there’s plenty. They were just rich.”
“Fair point,” Atkinson said. “But think about this. True, from what we know of her, Leary lived downtown, but the killing she did, at least the ones that we know about, she did uptown. Cooley was killed in Central City. And then Gage was killed, what, a mile and a half from here? So she stole in the Quarter, lived in the Bywater and the Marigny, but she did her murder up here. It’s pretty consistent to find her here when you think about it.”
“Except for the fact that this time she was her own victim.”
Atkinson shook her head. “Nope.”
“What is it, then?”
Atkinson raised her hand and touched her cold fingertip to the artery in Maureen’s throat. “That right there? With a blade like Leary carried? That’s a flick of the wrist. Less effort than it takes to toss a bottle cap across the room. The wound she had? It’s vicious. That’s a murder wound if I ever saw one.”
Maureen touched her throat, put her finger where Atkinson’s had been. She could feel her pulse throbbing underneath her skin, still warm where Atkinson had touched it. The detective was right, of course. Seemed obvious now. No matter how much she hated herself, no matter how crazy she was, Leary couldn’t cut herself deep and wide like that, couldn’t open herself up like that without flinching, without collapsing or dropping the razor.
“So who killed her?”
“That question, Officer Coughlin, is why I get out of bed every afternoon.” Atkinson tilted her head back and touched her own jugular. “This. I keep coming back to this. Had to be someone who knew her. Someone who knew how she worked. Someone whose purpose would be served by killing her just this way, the way she killed the others.”
“Revenge,” Maureen said.
“Who’s in town raising hell over his dead son?” Atkinson asked.
Maureen thought again of Dice, of her warnings. She’d have to be careful about what she told Atkinson. But she did have to tell. “Listen, I saw Dice the other night. I was downtown, on Frenchmen, for a show. She appeared out of nowhere, must have followed me to my car.”
“I should’ve heard about this sooner.”
“I was suspended,” Maureen says. “I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone on the job.”
Atkinson frowned at her. “You pick that night to follow the rules.”
“Okay, you’re right, I could’ve made it work,” Maureen said. “Anyway, I’m telling you now. She told me there were rumors in the streets about someone looking for Leary. Somebody had been working the downtown neighborhoods at night, asking questions about her to the street kids. A man. Dice thought he might be NOPD.”
“She give you a description?”
“She hadn’t seen the man herself,” Maureen said. “She’d just heard that he was looking.”
“I thought she was your snitch,” Atkinson said. “She didn’t bring you anything else?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. She’s not my snitch.”
“What does this person want with Leary?” Atkinson asked.
“Dice didn’t say. She didn’t know. She just asked me to back off.”
Atkinson raised her eyebrows. “Why would she ask you that?”
“You know what I mean,” Maureen said, recovering. “She asked me to maybe get this other cop to back off. She seemed concerned for Leary’s safety. Like maybe the search was more personal than professional.”
Atkinson walked over to a marble bench in front of one of the larger tombs. She sat, leaned her elbows on her knees. That marble has to be ice cold, Maureen thought.
“You think Gage did this?” she asked. “You think he knows Leary killed his son?”
“I’m assuming he knows how his son died,” Atkinson said. “What kind of wound he suffered. If she has a history, he might recognize the method. I don’t know who she is to him. I don’t know what he knows about her, or even about his son.”
“Revenge would explain why he’s in New Orleans,” Maureen said. “Revenge and to shut Leary up if he’s involved with the Watchmen himself. He had to figure she’d fall into our hands eventually, by way of a shelter, jail, or the emergency room. There weren’t really any other options for her. Asking about the death of his son would be good cover for being in the city.” She paused. “But then why tell the cops you’re here in the first place if you’re in town to commit a murder? Why not do the deed and slip back out of town?”