Mortal Sins by Penelope Williamson

Author:Penelope Williamson [WILLIAMSON, PENELOPE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000
ISBN: 9780446554145
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2008-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

“HE WAS BROKE,” FIO SAID.

Rourke had started to bring a hot tamale up to his mouth, but he stopped with it poised in the air and stared at his partner. They were sitting on an iron bench beneath the banana trees in Jackson Square, grabbing a bite of supper in the waning of a Friday that had turned out to be hot and grouchy and long.

Yesterday's edition of the Morning Tribune featuring Wylie T. Jones's column “Why Isn't Cinderella in Jail?” had outsold the competition five to one. As a result, the city's other four newspapers had woken up this morning simultaneously struck with the same revelation: Their street circulation would go up more every day the saga of the matinee idol and her brutally murdered husband dragged on, and a Trial of the Century would milk that baby for all it was worth.

Today's first and extra editions, taking their cue from Wylie T. Jones, had been full of editorials on how all the evidence pointed to the wife having done it, and how nobody, no matter how famous or beautiful, should be above justice and the law. Inflamed by printer's ink, public opinion had turned on Remy Lelourie like a rabid dog, and suddenly the mayor and the city council and the city prosecutor's office and the police department were all asking each other why she hadn't been arrested yet.

“Charlie St. Claire was broke up until Cinderella came along, that is,” Fio said. The big cop seemed to be taking things nice and easy today, but Rourke could sense an undercurrent of constraint now riding between them. It would be a long time if ever, he thought, before he could regain his partner's trust, and the lies and the omissions hadn't even all come out yet.

“St. Claire had been dropping gambling markers on every bookie in town,” Fio went on. “And he'd been playing bourré most every night, stuffing the pot like there was no tomorrow. He'd get hopped up on the happy dust, I guess, and start thinking he was invincible. Near as I can figure it, he's gone through over a hundred thousand dollars of her money in the five months since she said ‘I do.’ Paying off old debts and new ones.”

Rourke tilted his head back, his gaze resting on the cathedral spires. He was hot, aching, and tired, because he'd been run over by a big Lincoln, it was summer in New Orleans, he hadn't slept in years, and he'd spent all day crawling through the city's underbelly trying to find out what had had Vinny McGinty so scared, and what he'd hoped a dragon slayer like Charles St. Claire could do about it.

And, coming up later this evening, there was Bridey's wake to be endured.

“Maybe he made Cinderella marry him so he could get his hands on all her dough,” Fio said. “Maybe he had something on her, was putting the bite on her, and then maybe she turned the tables on him,

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