Read Murder in the Rue Ursulines for Free Online Page A

also been a valuable resource for me with her access to the paper’s morgue. Through her job, she met a lot of people in town—and for some reason, people liked to tell her things.
    Since the storm, though, she’d expressed a lot of dissatisfaction with her job, and was threatening to quit every other day. I doubted she ever really would—she loved being a reporter.  I couldn’t imagine her doing anything else, to be honest with you. She loved New Orleans as much as I did, even though what she saw in the city while doing her job often broke her heart. 
    “But alas, my social calendar is open—which is really a rather sad commentary on me, isn’t it? So instead of telling you to go fuck yourself, which is I what I should do, I’ll be more than happy to let you treat me to Port of Call.” I looked at my watch. It was just past one.  “Say around six?”
    “Great. I could really use a Port of Call burger.” She let out a sigh. “I am having the shittiest day; you have no idea. I am about ready to kill someone—I’ll tell you all about it at dinner.” She moaned. “And I don’t mean Ryan.” She hung up.
    I found the list of phone numbers Frillian had given me. I dialed Glynis Parrish’s number. I stopped before pushing the ‘send’ button.
    They’d only hired me to find out who was sending the e-mails. They’d said nothing about confronting the person. Technically, my work was done. All I had to do was call Loren, let him know that the e-mails had been sent from Glynis’ computer, and the job was over. Five thousand dollars for taking a meeting and spending about twenty minutes playing Tourist Season was really a pretty decent payday. I’d have to return the rest of the retainer they’d given me, but I could just drop a check to Loren in the mail.
    But this had been way too easy, and that didn’t sit right with me.
    I couldn’t get rid of the feeling there was more going on here than just these e-mails.
    Just because Glynis’ computer had been used to send the e-mails didn’t mean that she had sent them. And they’d hired me to find out who had.
     I might as well get her side of the story before turning everything over to Frillian. They had said everything was fine between them and Glynis. It hadn’t quite rung true to me.
    I hope I don’t live to regret this, I thought to myself.
    I hit the send button on my cell phone and it started dialing.
    Maybe some day I’ll learn.

Chapter Three
     
    As I maneuvered my car into a parking spot on Burgundy Street in the Quarter, I couldn’t help but think, Paul would have been so thrilled to meet Glynis Parrish. When he was alive, we used to watch her television comedy series together every Thursday night. It was one of our favorite shows—even the episodes that weren’t quite up to its usual standard of excellence were better than every other show on the air. She’d played a young woman just out of college who’d gotten a job at a sports magazine (obviously based on Sports Illustrated) and found herself in ridiculous situations almost every week.
     The show had run almost seven years before Glynis pulled the plug, deciding to try to make it on the big screen. It was odd that she’d gotten a role in a movie being filmed in New Orleans after her ex-husband and his new wife had been so public about moving here. It could, of course, just be a coincidence. After all, before the failure of the levees, New Orleans had been actively courting film and television series.  With our economy in such a shambles since the disaster, the return of ‘Hollywood South’ had been a triumph for the city. I turned the car off and took a deep breath.
    Paul.
    It had been four years since he was killed, and while the passage of time had helped some, I wasn’t completely over it yet. I sometimes wondered if I ever would get over it. My therapist thought I was making progress, but I wasn’t quite so sure  Since his death, I’d dated a couple of guys, trying to move