A Streetcar Named Murder by T. G. Herren

Author:T. G. Herren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

Chapter Eleven

Nothing will break up a party faster than ambulances, fire trucks, and the police.

The time between calling 911 and the arrival of the first cops on the scene seemed to take forever, but it couldn’t have been long—there was a police station a block up the street. I was cold and shivering, but I also didn’t want to leave poor Collette’s body unattended and go back inside. We hadn’t been friends, but it just seemed … disrespectful. And I had to meet the cops anyway to show them where the body was.

I vaguely remember the first car pulling up in front of the Rampart Street gates, lights flashing. I had my arms wrapped around myself for warmth but started waving with my right hand. I pointed out where the body was—the cops were an older Black man and a younger white woman—and the woman went back to the car to get me a blanket to wrap myself in while she took my information and my statement.

“Darling!”

I had just finished giving Officer Bourgeois my statement when I heard Lorna call my name. She’d texted me when she somehow managed to hear the sirens over the loud dance music and realized she hadn’t seen me in a while, so I was texting her back—Out front with a dead body—just as an ambulance pulled up onto the sidewalk in front of the gates. I waved at them to get their attention as my phone dinged with her reply: On my way. She came running up in her high heels just as the EMTs started checking out the—Collette’s—body. She put an arm around me and started rubbing the center of my back with her other hand.

“Darling, are you all right?” she whispered, glancing over to where the Black cop was watching the EMTs check Collette’s vitals—which I could have told them was a waste of time but was probably procedure.

I shivered. “I just feel so bad for Collette.”

Lorna’s eyes widened. “Collette Monaghan?” she whispered back to me. Other cops were arriving. A fire truck pulled up alongside the fence on the side street connecting Rampart to Basin. A white van with the words NEW ORLEANS CRIME LAB stenciled on the side pulled up onto the sidewalk outside the front gates.

“Yes,” I whispered back to her.

“So you were too late,” Lorna replied grimly, gesturing with her hand to the crime scene. Cops were blocking off the area and weren’t allowing partygoers to exit through the front doors of the auditorium. There were flashes of light from where Collette’s body lay, crime techs taking pictures of the body and other pieces of evidence around it.

“Just a little,” I replied, watching a new arrival to the scene. He wasn’t wearing a uniform but had on a long jacket over a pair of slacks and a Saints baseball cap on his head. He talked to the evidence collectors, and the young woman cop pointed to me. He nodded and headed to where Lorna and I were standing.

“Mrs. Cooper?” he asked, holding out a hand for me to shake.

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