G.T. Herren - Paige Tourneur 01 - Fashion Victim Read online

  G.T. Herren - Paige Tourneur 01 - Fashion Victim

  Paige Tourneur [1]

  G.T. Herren

  booksBnimble (2012)

  * * *

  Tags: Mystery: Cozy - Reporter - New Orelans

  Mystery: Cozy - Reporter - New Orelansttt

  To hear her buddy Chanse McLeod tell it, Paige Tourneur is rotund, cute as a button, a truly bad driver, and the best friend a gay P.I. could possibly have. Now Paige gets a chance to tell it herself in her own witty and worldly-wise way. And it seems like she has quite a past that’s starting to haunt her.

  Paige has long since left the Times-Picayune, played out a stint on television, and has now landed a job at Crescent City Magazine, which sends her out to do a personality piece on bitchy fashion designer Marigny Mercereau. Only Marigny ends up dead fifteen minutes before her fifteen minutes of fame.

  Twisting through Marigny’s creepy past, Paige is accompanied, as always, by best friend Chanse, her cop buddies Venus Casanova and Blaine Tujague, and her new boyfriend, Blaine’s brother Ryan. So what happens when a woman meets the perfect man and her past comes calling?

  Praise for FASHION VICTIM, the first book in G.T. Herren’s Paige Tourneur Missing Husband Series:

  “A delicious, witty, deftly plotted mystery, G.T. Herren’s Fashion Victim offers up a compulsively readable tale— Devil Wears Prada meets Agatha Christie.”

  —Megan Abbott, Edgar-winning author of Queenpin and Dare Me

  “Set against the dark and vibrant backdrop of wondrous New Orleans, Herren’s wit and ingenuity make his mysteries a constant pleasure.”

  —Alex Marwood, author of The Wicked Girls

  “Fashion Victim is a witty, engrossing slice of New Orleans life (and death). When a reporter sets out to profile a murdered designer, she must work around the post-Katrina reality of lost records and missing persons. Lucky for the reader, this means piecing together delicious bits of gossip and hints of hushed-up scandal. Wry observations about old money in the new New Orleans add extra sparkle to a plot full of lively characters and satisfying twists.”

  —Lia Matera, author of the Willa Jansson and Laura Di Palma series

  Praise for Greg Herren, G.T.’s alter ego:

  “Herren, a loyal New Orleans resident, paints a brilliant portrait of the recovering city, including insights into its tight-knit gay community. This latest installment in a powerful series is sure to delight old fans and attract new ones.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Herren does a fine job of moving the story along, deftly juggling the murder investigation and the intricate relationships while maintaining several running subjects.”

  —Echo Magazine

  “So much fun it should be thrown from Mardi Gras floats!”

  —New Orleans Times-Picayune

  “Greg Herren just keeps getting better.”

  —Lambda Book Report

  FASHION VICTIM is the first book in the Paige Tourneur Missing Husband Series.

  FASHION VICTIM

  A Paige Tourneur Mystery

  By

  G.T. Herren

  booksBnimble Publishing

  New Orleans, La.

  Fashion Victim

  Copyright © 2012 by Greg Herren

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover by Andy Brown

  eBook edition by booknook.biz

  ISBN 9781625170279

  www.booksBnimble.com

  First booksBnimble Publishing electronic publication: December 2012

  Contents

  Start Reading

  Full Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  There really needs to be a law against serving cheap red wine at a boring party.

  The person who invents a pill you can take to either prevent or cure a hangover will win the Nobel Prize and my undying gratitude, I thought as I staggered down the long and steep curving staircase from the second floor of my apartment to the first, my hand clutching the railing with a death grip. I reminded myself for the umpteenth time to remind my cleaning lady not to polish the stairs again— every time she did they became slick as oiled ice, and one of these days I was going to slip and kill myself.

  I also gave myself a good cussing out for drinking so much of that cheap red wine they’d been serving. I’d been bored out of my mind, and each glass made the party a tad bit more interesting. I had a vague memory of pouring myself into a cab, and I hoped I hadn’t made a complete fool of myself.

  Now that I was editor of Crescent City magazine, the last thing in the world I needed to be doing was offend people, so I’d started restricting my wine consumption in public. So far, I’d managed two years in the job without saying anything untoward.

  In public, anyway— these days, I was only pissing people off by doing my job, which was the way it should be.

  Somehow, I safely made it to the bottom of the steps without either slipping off the stairs or tripping over Skittle, my oversized orange and white cat. He just stared at me from the doorway to the kitchen, blinked, and howled.

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re hungry, I get it,” I said, stepping over him and reaching for the canister of dry cat food. I filled his bowl before staggering the length of my narrow kitchen to the coffee maker and pushing the “brew” button. I’d had the foresight to get it ready before leaving for the fashion show last night, on the distinct possibility I would be in this kind of shape this morning. I tossed a bagel into the toaster and grabbed the cream cheese from the refrigerator.

  Fuck the calories, and fuck the diet. This was an emergency.

  I finished the bagel as I walked over to the table in the little breakfast nook. I started feeling better as it started soaking up the alcohol, and I closed my eyes in relief. Skittle hopped up on the table and glared at me through narrowed eyes. I made a face back at him. I wasn’t in the mood for cattitude just yet.

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead as I started sorting through my memories of the wretched fashion show.

  Fashion shows are not my thing, as a rule. Sure, I have a closet full of gorgeous designer clothes, but I buy those for practically nothing at thrift stores and consignment shops in Uptown. I’ve outgrown what my best friend used to call my “gypsy on acid” look, but I can still give Stevie Nicks a run for her money when I feel like it. But this had been Marigny Mercereau’s first show in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, and my boss decided this was a big enough deal to warrant putting Marigny on the cover. She was getting the full treatment— coverage of the runway show, a cover shoot, and an in-depth interview. I wasn’t convinced she deserved it, frankly. Don’t get me wrong— I knew it was a good thing that the House of Mercereau was open for business again. Any business coming back since Katrina was terrific, a sign that things were getting back to normal— whatever that meant in New Orleans.

  But a cover story on a business whose primary clientele was rich women, drag queens, and high school girls in the market for a prom dress?

  I pointed out to my boss this was hardly a newsworthy enough story in our post-Katrina world to warrant such coverage— even if Marigny was a huge advertiser, which she never had been and was unlikely to become. Since I’d gone to work at Crescent City, we’d moved away from being a fluff magazine about the city to doing more in-depth investigative pieces— because as a monthly, we could do the kind of in-depth reporting the city’s daily and weekly papers couldn’t, and we were doing quite well with this kind of hard-hitting journa
lism.

  I didn’t understand the return to fluff, but I gave in with good grace.

  Choosing your battles wisely is becoming a lost art.

  I didn’t even bat an eye when the interview was assigned to me— at Marigny’s request. I knew her— I’d dated one of her sons briefly in the pre-Katrina world, and for some reason Marigny liked me. She seemed rather pretentious to me, and her sense of humor was odd… and it’s not like I was really into the entire fashion scene. But before I had a chance to say okay, my boss gave me the whole “team player” speech.

  Obviously, she was expecting me to pitch a fit of some sort.

  But I loved working at Crescent City, and I really liked my boss. It was a great job, and a huge improvement over working at the city’s daily paper— and besides, there was that whole choose your battles wisely thing. I figured I could use the good will I’d earn doing the Marigny Mercereau interview to my advantage later. We’d scheduled the interview for later this afternoon— so I really needed to pull it together. Marigny had also sent me tickets to her fashion show last night— enclosing them in a card with the note So looking forward to seeing you again, xoxoxoxoxo Marigny— in what she called her “trademark” pink ink.

  After all, nothing screams “professional” like pink ink, right?

  So I’d left the office early yesterday and come home like a good girl. I dug through my closet until I found a nice black dress in my closet— you can never go wrong with basic black— and took a cab I had every intention of expensing to the House of Mercereau.

  My cell phone started vibrating on the table, which sent the cat scurrying up the stairs at high speed. I opened my eyes and looked down at the screen. My boss’s smiling face filled the screen. For a brief moment I considered not taking the call, but I’d played the “oh I forgot to charge my phone” card a few too many times lately. With a sigh, I touched the red “accept” bar and picked up the phone.

  “Paige!” Rachel Delesdernier Sheehan managed to sound both cheerful and professional— a trait that in anyone else would annoy the hell out of me. But now, she seemed breathless and not herself. “Have you heard?” She went on, without giving me a chance to respond, “I’m sorry if I woke you up, but I had to call as soon as I heard the news.”

  “What news?”

  “About Marigny.” She took a deep breath. “She was murdered last night.”

  I couldn’t have heard that right. I shook my head. “What?”

  “Marigny was shot to death last night. In her own house.”

  “Marigny’s dead?” I replied, trying to wrap my mind around it.

  I’d just seen her, barely twelve hours earlier. I closed my eyes, and remembered her rushing up to greet me when I arrived at the party, her arms open wide, a big smile on her face. “Paige darling! It’s been too long!” she’d said, crushing me in a hug and giving me a wet kiss on each cheek.

  Dead? Murdered?

  “You’re sure?” I said slowly.

  “Yes, it was on the radio just a minute ago.” Her voice sounded shaky. “I’m in my car, so I pulled over and called you immediately. There was a press conference…”

  My fingers were already flying over the keyboard on my laptop, pulling up the website for a local television station. And there it was— Local fashion maven murdered! I clicked on the link and started reading. “I found an article online,” I said into my phone, headache and nausea forgotten. It was basic— just stating the facts. Marigny Mercereau was found shot to death in her home earlier this morning— I glanced at the clock, she was found almost three hours ago— by her son. The police were investigating, blah blah blah.

  “Obviously, this changes everything.” Rachel was saying. “Can you—”

  “Yeah, I’ll head down there and see what I can find out,” I replied, disconnecting the call. As I gulped down the rest of my coffee, I dialed my best friend— who happened to also be a private eye. It went right to his voicemail, so I left a message as I bolted up the stairs to take a shower and get dressed. As I showered, I went over the night again.

  Marigny had seemed no different than she ever had. She always wore her long blonde hair in a braid down her back— someone had once told me rather nastily that Marigny wore it that way because she’d heard the weight of the braid would pull the skin on her face tighter. She was dressed badly— I always found it interesting that New Orleans’s only serious fashion designer didn’t seem to know what looked good on her and what didn’t. She was wearing a long dress made of some shiny blue material that gave her pale skin a bluish tint. Her make-up was also always bad— and there was always too much of it. She was a short woman, even shorter than me— and so an Empire waist was a mistake. She did, however, have enormous breasts that were pushed up to the point they looked like they were ready to explode out of her low cut dress. We’d made small talk— nothing much, the inane stuff two people who don’t really know each other say at parties— but we had confirmed the interview for today. That was the last thing she’d said to me before moving on to work the crowd.

  It was the kind of crowd I expected— a lot of rich New Orleans women, some of whom I recognized. There was a lot of expensive jewelry on display, and I was amazed so many women were wearing heels— despite the fact that the party was in the front yard of the House of Mercereau. A six foot tall black cast iron fence enclosed the front yard. The front gate was usually wide open during business hours. Last night, the gate was manned by an off-duty cop and a skeletal young woman with her auburn red hair cut into a bob. I recognized the lacy blue dress she was wearing— it had all the hallmarks of a Marigny Mercereau original; the strange neckline, the three quarter sleeves, and the slenderizing silhouette. She was standing next to the cop with a clipboard, taking people’s tickets as they came in or checking their names off a list. She looked like she could stand to eat a French fry or a cupcake or maybe both. She had given me a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes when I passed her my ticket.

  I headed to the bar, smiling and nodding politely to any number of society queens and nouveau riche social climbers and asked the tuxedoed bartender for red wine. I turned and surveyed the yard as I sipped one of the worst red wines of all time. The massive live oaks twinkled with little white Christmas tree lights, and a jazz quartet began playing in the far corner. I fidgeted, finished the glass, and got a second. It was pretty acidic, and I was glad I had some antacids in my purse— I was definitely going to need them later. I recognized a tall woman who was clutching the arm of Marigny’s gay son, Jackson— but it took me a moment to place her. Oh, yes, Fidelis Vandiver— one of the women on that horrible reality show, supposedly about rich society women in New Orleans.

  I’d never even heard of Fidelis Vandiver before the article in the paper announcing who was in the cast. But since the filming had started, the six women were harder to avoid than stinging caterpillars in May.

  I’d heard the filming for the first season was finished, which explained why she didn’t have a camera crew with her.

  Jackson looked like a deer in headlights— and I was about to be merciful when he managed to pull free from her and head for the bar. He smiled when he saw me, and I offered him my cheek for the traditional air kiss.

  “Paige! You look amazing, as always,” he lied graciously. Jackson had always hated the way I dressed; when I had been dating his older brother Aramis (I’m not making that up— but I sort of wish I were, for his sake) he had offered umpteen times to make over my wardrobe. But other than that he was charming and funny, so I let him live. “Where’s Ryan? Surely you’re not stag tonight.”

  “It’s his weekend with the kids.” I smiled back at him. Ryan was Ryan Tujague, the guy I’d been seeing regularly for the last two years. Ryan lived on the north shore but worked in the city as a partner in his law firm. Sometimes he brought the kids into the city for the weekend, staying at his apartment in the CBD, but this weekend his eleven-year-old, Tucker, had a Little League game so they were staying at his hous
e on the north shore. I hated when Ryan spent the weekends on the north shore— but truth be told I still wasn’t completely comfortable around the kids. I could have spent the weekend over there myself, but I used the incredibly convenient excuse of the piece on Marigny to get out of it. “So, yeah, I’m here by myself.”

  He ordered a Scotch on the rocks and winked at me. “I hear you’re doing the interview with Mother.” He frowned at my glass and asked the bartender to refill it. “I’m sure you’re looking forward to that.” He leaned in really close to me and whispered, “Just remember everything she tells you is a lie.”

  Before I could follow up on that, he took his drink and disappeared back into the crowd. I was already feeling more than a little buzzed— I was on my third glass in less than ten minutes— so I decided to slow it down a bit. I spent the rest of the party sipping red wine and talking with people I knew slightly— the kind of tedious conversation that makes me want to slit my wrists, so I kept gulping down the wine and getting more. By the time we moved inside for the fashion show, I was already tipsy if not drunk— and once I settled into a metal folding chair inside, it took all of my faculties to focus on the show itself.

  The clothes, to be kind, were not to my taste.

  I escaped as soon as the show was over and called a cab from the sidewalk.

  Just remember everything she says is a lie.

  I definitely needed to have a little chat with Jackson.

  Chapter Two

  Before heading down to the House of Mercereau, I reviewed the notes I’d pulled together for the interview— all the background information I could find on her. Well, all the background information my intern Latrice could find, to be honest— and there wasn’t as much as I would have thought there would be. Most of it was fluff from the society pages in the Times-Picayune. Apparently, she’d never been considered newsworthy.