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defensive right now. He’d probably have to resort to ancient torture—the rack, thumbscrews or the like—to get her to talk right now. And no matter what kind of bad press the force might get upon occasion, he thought dryly, they had yet to resort to thumbscrews.
    “Jimmy, I think we’re finished here,” he said. He kept his eyes locked on Ann Marcel’s. “Mrs. Marcel, it’s quite obvious you’re not fond of my company, nor that of my partner. Please don’t behave stupidly because of that fact. You’re going to want to go home. To shower and change if nothing else. Don’t go home alone. Officer Holly Severt will be happy to see you back when you’re ready to leave. I’m not sure if the police have finished up gathering evidence at your place or not, but Holly can stay the night as well, to look after you.”
    “Thank you, Lieutenant. I don’t believe I need to be looked after,” she said.
    “No?” Mark crossed his arms over his chest. “If you’re right, and your husband was attacked, you could be in very grave danger yourself, Mrs. Marcel. Especially if you’re not sharing with us everything you know—everything that he might have said.”
    She didn’t reply. She appeared somewhat pale again, but that was all.
    “Good night, Mrs. Marcel. Don’t go home alone.”
    This time, she didn’t dispute him.
    She stood like a regal statue, despite the fact that she was laden with dry blood. Small, delicate in face and stature, soft blond hair framing her face.
    She could be hard as nails, he warned himself.
    Obviously. Because when he turned to leave her, he knew for a fact that she had created a wall against him.
    She was lying through her teeth.
    Somewhere along the line, Marcel had said something else to her.
    Something that mattered.
    He knew it. Cop gut reaction.
    Marcel had said something to her that would be the key to all the answers. What the hell was it?
    And how in hell was he going to get it out of her?

four
    A NNABELLA’S WAS ALREADY IN full swing for the evening when the girls began to whisper nervously back in the dressing room. “Undressing” room, Gina L’Aveau had called it. Shaking her head, Cindy McKenna wiped tears of disbelief from her face over the events of the evening.
    Things had begun fairly normally at the club that night. Then an off-duty cop had brought in the word that Gina was dead. The guy who had done it was in the hospital, half-dead, probably dying himself. It was the artist, the cop had said. A New Orleans home-grown son, a fine handsome white man, apparently just freaked out over something Gina had said, something in her life. Oddly enough, the showing of Jon Marcel’s paintings of his Red Light Ladies had just opened; if the cop had things straight, the paintings were selling like hot cakes.
    Nothing like a bit of the kinky or macabre to boost sales, Cindy thought resentfully.
    The painting of Gina wasn’t in with the showing. Jon Marcel hadn’t finished his rendition of her. Not yet. Cindy had seen it, though—and it was his best. Everything fine and beautiful about Gina had been caught in that painting. Jon had said that he would never sell it.
    Jon hadn’t committed the murder. Cindy knew it. For a fact. He’d cared about Gina. He’d cared about all the girls. He’d been curious about them. Like a writer might have been curious, like any man who wanted to find out about people and tell their stories. Only Jon Marcel told his stories with his paints. So the cops had the wrong guy.
    And it didn’t matter if Jon Marcel was wearing Gina’s blood. Marcel hadn’t done it. Simple. Case closed. Cindy wondered if she’d get a chance to see Jon. Maybe she’d go to church tomorrow morning and say a few prayers. Maybe she’d go see Mama Lili Mae out in the bayou and try a potion to keep him alive. Maybe she’d try both prayers and voodoo to help with the situation. Cindy McKenna had left her home and gone for nearly four years to a good Ivy League college,