“I meant, around the same time as everyone else.”
“So someone must have seen you leaving? Someone?” Micki looked toward the bar, the crew who had worked the night before, from one person to the other in question. Their expressions began to register suspicion.
“I don’t feel so well,” Cherry said, taking a step backward. “I need to sit down. I’ll just—”
He turned and ran.
Micki took off after him. He moved really fast for a guy in three-inch heels, darting past the officer stationed at the club’s entrance and into the crowd of the curious clustered beyond the crime tape.
But his luck didn’t hold. The famously derelict French Quarter streets proved his undoing. He landed sprawled and weeping on the pavement.
Micki reached him, pinned him down with a knee to his back. “You have the right to remain silent—” She wrenched one arm around behind his back, snapped on the cuff. “Whatever you say can and will be held against you in a court of law.”
The other arm, wrist cuffed. “Do you understand these rights as I have presented them to you?”
“I didn’t mean to do it!” he cried. “It just happened!”
“Do you understand these rights?” she asked again, as Carmine sauntered up, two uniforms with him.
“Yes! Yes, I understand! But you have to believe me, it was an accident!”
“Dude, you shot him four times.”
“But I never meant…I promise, I—” He started to sob.
Angelo bent and helped him to his feet. “So, why’d you do it, man?”
“Desi had everything…she wouldn’t share. I just…suddenly, I couldn’t…I just…snapped.”
Same as Vanderlund, Micki thought.
Fricking weird.
Micki met Angelo’s gaze. She saw by his expression he was thinking the same thing.
Chapter Ten
7:10 P.M.
Micki sat at her desk. The sun had nearly completed its descent and the shift in lighting fit her mood.
“Good news,” Angelo said, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair. “The major gave us a pass tonight. Job well done, he said.”
“I feel like we didn’t do anything.”
“You serious?” He shrugged into the jacket. “Murder, confession, arrest. Case cleared. Times two. It doesn’t get better than that.”
She looked away, then back. “Something’s wrong with this. Tell me you don’t feel the same way.”
“I don’t. Look, it’s weird, hell yeah. But so what? Life is weird and everybody is freaking nuts.” He shook his head. “Two murders, two days. Both closed. We’re a helluva team. Let’s grab a beer at Shannon’s to celebrate.”
“You go. I’m beat.”
“C’mon, Dare. A beer and some backslapping will do you good.”
“So would sleep.” She forced a smile. “Really, I’m toast.”
“Your loss, partner.”
She watched him go, then turned to their report. Neither of the victims nor their killers had known each other. They travelled in different circles. Big time different. The modes of death, also different.
But in a bizarre way, everything else pointed to connected crimes. Both victims were queens. Both killed by a rival. In each case a crime of passion in which the perps claimed to have snapped.
She and Angelo had missed something.
Micki got to her feet and grabbed her jacket. She hadn’t been lying when she told Carmine she was beat. But she wasn’t going home to rest.
Chapter Eleven
7:50 P.M.
A sign announcing Tonight’s Show Canceled hung on Club Me-Oh-My’s entrance, accompanied by black netting and a mourning wreath. Micki tried the door, found it locked, and peered through the window. A couple dozen or so folks stood at the bar, some more were seated at tables or milling about. She spotted Mustang and knocked.
He came to the door, peeked out. She held up her shield, though from his expression she knew he recognized her.
He cracked open the door. “How can I help you, Detective?”
“I was hoping to ask you and your employees a few more questions.”
He frowned. “I thought you got your man?”
The bitterness in his tone didn’t really surprise her. In a way she was the enemy for uncovering the killer from among them. “I just want to make certain we didn’t—” Micki bit that back and started again. “I want to get this right. I know you do, too.”
He cracked the door a bit wider. “Go on.”
“Were you surprised about Cherry?” she asked.
“Yes! My God, I was stunned.”
“Did you suspect Cherry was jealous of Desiree?”
“Sure I did. Show business is tough, especially when you’re always playing second fiddle. But kill over it?” He leaned closer, lowered his voice. “We’re a close community. We protect each other. We hold each other up. This…no. Not possible.”
“I agree.”
His jaw dropped. “But…I don’t— Cherry confessed.”
“To pulling the trigger, yes. But I have a strong feeling there’s something else going on.”
“Like what?”