Death Before Facebook

Sweet and generous. Considerate. Who wouldn’t fall for that?”
    “Sounds good to me.”
    It sounds like Steve, except he’s real.
    I hope.
    Honey shrugged. “He married me for my money, of course. He always paid a lot more attention to Marguerite—that should have been a clue.”
    “Marguerite? Geoff’s mother?”
    “I just thought he was one of those guys who always flirts with the wife’s friends—you know what I mean? New Orleans is full of them. But, honestly, looking back on it, I really think he was about half in love with Marguerite.”
    Why is she telling me this?
    “I’ve been thinking about her lately, wondering what’s become of her.”
    “She married a man named Coleman Terry.”
    “Have you seen her?” Something hovered in her eyes.
    “Yes.”
    Honey was quiet for a moment, coming to a decision. Dignity didn’t win out. “Well?” she said. “How does she look?”
    “Like someone whose son has just died, I guess.” Skip tried to keep judgment out of the words.
    “God! I’m so tacky I can’t believe it. Well, I can’t help it, I’ve always wondered about it. Marguerite and Pearce, I mean. Because after Leighton died, I don’t know what happened—my friendship with Marguerite just deteriorated, and so did my marriage.”
    “I had the idea your husband met Marguerite when he went to cover the murder.”
    “Oh, no. The three of us used to hang out together all the time. Leighton wasn’t exactly the type to go boogie at Las Casas. God, Pearce was fun then!” She paused. “But then I guess I was too—that was before I became a do-gooder. I had a great pair of old-lady shoes that I sprayed gold.”
    “Hair down to your waist, I guess.”
    “All that stuff. A drink in one hand, a joint in the other.”
    “I wish I’d been around in the sixties.”
    “Oh, my dear, forget it. If you had been, you wouldn’t be young now.”
    “How did you meet Marguerite?”
    “Well, let me think.” In a moment, she said, “We went to hear her sing—at the Dream Palace, I think. Pearce knew her and took me—that was it. He was impressing me.”
    “And you two hit it off.”
    “Oh, God, yes. Marguerite was wild. I envied her desperately.”
    “Why?”
    “Why? Because every man’s head turned when she walked into a room.”
    “Oh, come on, you’re not so bad yourself.”
    “And because she’d do anything.”
    “Like what?”
    “Well, I don’t know that I actually saw her do anything off the wall—maybe she just talked a good game. Or maybe it was because she had this weird cop of a husband—no offense. Do you know about Leighton? What a straight arrow. Hair shorter than mine is now. Anyway, she had Leighton and a little kid and she still hung out every night. And she sang! Everybody loves an artist.”
    “What happened after Leighton died?”
    “She just—I don’t know—never wanted to get together anymore. I thought she was depressed. But maybe there was something I didn’t know about.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    AND MAYBE THERE’S a lot she didn’t tell me, Skip thought as she pulled up in front of Bigeasy’s building. It was above a laundry, one fine old room with fourteen-foot ceilings, where Pearce worked, and a tiny bedroom, both jammed with ancient books and manuscripts, some on shelves, some merely piled. There were two tall windows that opened from the floor, but for some reason Pearce had them covered so that the place was dark. That would have been depressing enough, but the stink of the mildew that permeated the books and papers mingled with that of alcohol—somewhere, Pearce had left the dregs of a drink.
    He wasn’t a bad-looking man, she thought, about average height and average build, with hair that had turned white and looked good on him. He was slightly doughy around the middle, and his face was a little florid, with a few broken blood vessels, but it wasn’t a bad face, not bad at all. He wore khakis and a faded-out polo shirt. His shoulders were a little stooped.
    Your typical aging Deke, she thought—a very specific New Orleans type. But he wasn’t that, probably wasn’t even from New Orleans.
    An aging reporter was probably much the same. As she thought it, she realized that Honey was right—the man looked sixty, not fifty; she’d never have thought to use the word aging with Honey herself.
    He said, “I was wondering when you’d drop by.”
    “I’m surprised you didn’t have people looking out their windows, monitoring my