With the right computer databases and some well-placed connections, you can find out a lot about people. On a Saturday night, offices of public records not being open, the information superhighway was our best bet. I didn’t say anything to Jerry about him lying to his wife. I didn’t have to. The right silence will sometimes get a person talking when direct questions might not.
“I’m not cheating on Ally,” he said as he handed me a latte from the private machine in his office.
“Did I saw you were?” I asked mildly. “I’ll tell you this, though. If Marie was supposed to be someplace with me and she really wasn’t, she let me know. It’s called covering your friend’s ass, which I am generally happy to do. In order to be effective at it, however, I have to know said ass is exposed and needing to be covered. This is not the same as exposing yourself as an ass. See the difference? Did you want to get caught at whatever you’re doing?”
“Why do you want to know who owns the building Holly lived in?”
I let the other matter drop. “Call it a hunch.”
“Good hunch,” he looked up from a search program. “It’s owned by a company owned by Douglas MacKay. What gave you the idea?”
“It’s kind of a stretch,” I said. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Does it mean I have to admit I was wrong?”
I was in no mood to appease his ego, but since he was finally helping me, I decided not to push him. “Let’s see if we can find Michael first, okay?”
“Okay. Lay it on me, sister.”
“The MacKays has been in New Orleans a long time. You know how it is with some of the southern families. You develop wealth, you develop power, you branch out into a variety of businesses, you breed a few politicians in the family . . .”
“You’re either organized crime or you have a connection to it.” He finished. “Not all the time, though, Zo.”
“Blame my on-the-lam father,” I replied. “If someone wants to disappear, and/or get themselves a new identity, I’m going to think crime family. Besides, Ian was the drug supplier both here and in California. Can you find out what other properties the MacKays own?”
“This would be a lot easier if a title searcher’s office was open on Saturday night.”
“If you’d listened to me, this could have been done during business hours.” I didn’t mention Marie was going to be doing some searching of her own tomorrow. That might supplement what we were learning and I wanted every fact I could lay my hands on.
“Searching, searching, come on you,” he grunted at the computer. “I pay five hundred bucks a year for this service. Start paying off. Holy cow!” that was as close as Jerry ever got to an expletive. I leaned shoulder-to-shoulder with him and stared at the screen.
The MacKays had a sideline as slumlords. Several buildings in neighborhoods near the Iberville Project, on the dangerous side of Armstrong Park. James lived there because he spent most of his disposable income on studio time and rehearsal space for whatever band he was currently in. Down the river from where we were sitting, they also owned a few buildings in the Irish Channel, some student housing near Tulane, and one home that had been cleaned up recently after being busted as a meth lab.
“That could be a drug connection, Zo. Good thinking, but we can’t prove the organized crime tie, if there is one.”
One thing at a time. “Do you believe I’m not going crazy now?”
“Crazy like a fox. You think Michael is being held in one of these buildings?”
“It stands to reason. He’s got to be alive, Jerry. MacKay’s alive. And if Holly has him, she has the keys to his condo, which means . . .”
“She could have walked right in and spiked your soup while you slept. No need to kill you if nobody believed a word you said.” He put a hand on my shoulder in apology.
“It also gave her the opportunity to get rid of the evidence of said soup once I left. Also, she could have taken or shredded the paper from the printer. Okay, she’s got to be close to Michael’s apartment. Probably on a Streetcar or bus line. If all her money is going to drugs, then I doubt she has a car.”
“She probably has Ian’s,” he pointed out.
“Good point, so I guess we can’t narrow the search that much. Damn.” Something else occurred to me. “At least not that way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it, Jerry. Holly comes from money, right? She likes the good life--she married a doctor with a lot of earning potential. She’s also stayed with her habit of snorting cocaine; she’s never been busted for crack or meth smoking.” If she’d started on the pipe, she might be dead by now. “So I’m thinking, there’s probably a lot of areas in town where’s she’s not willing to go. We can scratch anything around Iberville or Storyville.”
“That still gives us a lot of places to search,” he pointed out.
I thought of something Chas Dupree’s note on Ian’s obituary had said. “Try Bywater. Bywater’s big on gentrification right now. If there’s lots of construction going on, then no one’s going to notice a lot of people coming and going. Do we have anything in that neighborhood?”
“Yep. A Victorian shotgun that’s being gutted and remodeled. It’s being broken up into apartments. Let’s go.”
“Before we do, Jerry?”
“What?”
“Call your wife.”