Natalie's Revenge Read online

  Praise for Susan Fleet and ABSOLUTION

  Best Mystery-Suspense-Thriller -- 2009 Premier Book Awards

  “A New Orleans killer thriller.” -- Jan Herman, Arts Journal

  “Relentless tempo and sharp writing.” -- Kirkus Discoveries

  “Creole-flavored suspense, colored with musical connections which Fleet handles with particular deftness.” -- The Attleboro Sun Chronicle

  "A crime drama that stands far above the ordinary whodunit. A wholehearted bravo!” -- K. G. Hunt, The Florida Times-Union

  "First class writing! Fleet goes inside the head of the killer with a rare talent. An 'I couldn't put it down' thriller." -- C. J. Gregory

  Praise for Susan Fleet and DIVA

  "Great character development [and] an absolutely fascinating ending ... a very suspenseful book!" -- Feathered Quill Book Reviews

  "Fleet subtitles Diva, her new killer thriller, a novel of psychological suspense. That's an understatement." -- Jan Herman, Arts Journal

  "Frank Renzi returns in a relentless hunt through ravaged, drug infested neighborhoods in search of murderous thugs and a psychotic stalker. Fleet weaves . . . another nail-biting page-turner!" -- K. G. Hunt

  "Fleet takes us inside the head of an obsessed stalker as he lusts after his victim ... a must-buy book." -- Tom Bryson, author of Too Smart To Die

  "The coolest detective in literature today - Frank Renzi!"--Feathered Quill Book Reviews

  Praise for JACKPOT

  "I so enjoyed this well-written, exciting novel. I liked the characters, the plot, the way [Fleet] uses words to convey the fear and imagery associated with serial murders." -- Diana Hockley, author of The Naked Room.

  "For anyone who loves the gritty, the witty, and perfect descriptions ... Fleet does another superb job of bringing her characters to life. Some readers may never take a chance on the lottery again. A tremendously great series. -- Feathered Quill Book Reviews

  NATALIE'S REVENGE

  "I shall be a champion of justice and freedom."

  -- From the student oath of the International Taekwondo Federation

  A FRANK RENZI MYSTERY - Volume 3

  By

  SUSAN FLEET

  Music and Mayhem Press

  Dedicated to all victims of violence and to their relatives, who suffer the consequences of violent crimes long after their loved ones are gone.

  Natalie's Revenge is a work of fiction. All names, characters, business establishments, incidents and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Susan Fleet

  Excerpt from Jackpot © 2012 by Susan Fleet

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Music and Mayhem Press

  Print edition: Trade paperback

  ISBN-13 978-0-9847235-3-9

  ISBN-10 0-9847235-3-6

  Kindle Edition: This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this e-book and did not pay for it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  No part of this text may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews. For information and permissions contact the author at: www.susanfleet.com

  This book contains an excerpt from Susan Fleet's next Frank Renzi mystery, Jackpot. This excerpt may not be identical to the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  Cover photographs used with permission:

  Sexy gun woman © Jason Stitt - Fotolia.com

  Dragon © Dimitar Marinov - Fotolia.com

  PROLOGUE

  October 1988 New Orleans

  One night Mom didn’t come home.

  Every morning she'd come in my room, wake me with a kiss and say in a cheery voice, “Rise and shine, Natalie. Your breakfast is ready.”

  Not today. Today I woke with a start. Right away I got a creepy feeling. Except for the rain splattering my bedroom window, our apartment was silent and still. I checked my clock radio. The big red numbers said 8:35.

  I was late for school. Even if I stayed up late watching TV, Mom always got me up in time for school.

  Last night before Mom left she said, “Do your homework and go to bed and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I buried my face in the pillow and tried to pretend it was a dream.

  But down deep I knew it wasn’t. I don't know why. Last night Mom left for work at nine o'clock same as always, wearing a pretty emerald-green dress and her lemony perfume. Mom was beautiful, long chestnut-brown hair and big green eyes that she made look even prettier with glittery eye shadow.

  Every night before she left, she always said the same thing:

  Don’t answer the phone. Don’t open the door to anyone. Don’t leave the apartment.

  One night I snuck out to the corner store to buy a snack and the clerk told Mom the next day. Mom got mad and said if I ever did that again, I wouldn’t get my allowance.

  I clenched my teeth, but it didn't make the sick feeling inside me go away. I threw off the sheet, got out of bed and opened my bedroom door.

  The lumpy futon in the living room where Mom slept was still upright, no sheet, no pillow. That scared me even more than the silence. After I left for school Mom usually went back to bed. She needed to sleep because she got home really late. Mom worked as a hostess at a fancy restaurant.

  Or so she said. I’d never been there. I was only ten, but I watched TV, and I didn't think hostesses wore fancy dresses and glittery eye shadow and smelled the way I imagined the women on my favorite TV shows did when they went out on dates with important men.

  A delivery truck rumbled past our door, thumping over the potholes in our street. Our first-floor apartment was noisy, but Mom said hearing traffic noise beat lugging laundry and groceries up two or three flights of stairs. Mom can sleep through anything, but I'm a light sleeper. Sometimes the sounds outside my bedroom window woke me up at night.

  Opposite Mom's futon was the breakfast bar where we ate our meals.

  Normally, my milk and Cheerios and fruit would be there.

  But nothing was normal now.

  I felt sick, like I might throw up, and my hands felt weird, hot and cold at the same time and damp with sweat. Mom always said to call her cell phone if there was an emergency. And if this wasn’t an emergency, what was?

  Padding barefoot over the worn linoleum, I went around the breakfast bar to the alcove kitchen. The telephone was on the wall beside a boxy old refrigerator with chipped enamel. Mom had printed her cell phone number on a pink Post-It and stuck it to the fridge. Beside it was another Post-It with the numbers for police and fire and medical emergencies.

  I couldn't decide what to do. Maybe Mom was just late.

  Maybe the taxi that was bringing her home had a flat tire.

  I looked at the calendar beside the fridge. Right after Christmas last year Mom bought a wall calendar with twelve paintings by Vermeer. Mom loved art. Every month we got to look at a different painting while we ate our meals. The October painting was The Girl With the Pearl Earring.

  The girl was pretty and she had beautiful eyes. But she looked sad.

  Looking at her made me feel worse. My stomach cramped.

  Where was Mom?

  I noticed she'd penciled something on the calendar for tomorrow.

  Natalie. Dentist. 4 PM.

  Then the doorbell rang. My hear
t stopped, at least it felt like it did.

  Don’t open the door to anyone.

  A few weeks ago the doorbell rang right after I got in bed. That never happened and it scared me. When I went to the door and looked out the peephole, some guy with a scraggly gray beard was outside our door. I could see his lips moving, like he was talking to himself. After a couple of minutes, he went away. I figured he was probably a drunk from the French Quarter two blocks away. I went back to bed, but it took me a long time to fall asleep.

  I never told Mom about it. I didn't want to worry her. Mom was already worried about me staying here by myself. She didn't say so, but I could tell.

  The doorbell rang again. My legs felt like Jell-O, quivery and shaky.

  I crept to the door and looked through the peephole the way Mom taught me. A woman in a dark-blue police uniform was standing outside in the rain.

  Police meant trouble. That’s what Mom always said.

  But I was already in trouble.

  Late for school. And Mom wasn’t here.

  And a policewoman was ringing our doorbell.

  I looked through the peephole again.

  The expression on the woman's face scared me. Frown lines grooved her forehead the way Mom’s did when she was worried about something, like when she didn’t have enough money to pay the bills.

  My hands were shaking, but I worked all the locks and opened the door.

  “Natalie?” The policewoman didn’t smile when she said my name.

  I nodded. I was too scared to think, too scared to breathe.

  “I’m Detective Fontenot from the New Orleans Police Department. Your mother’s been hurt.”

  My throat closed up. Mom was hurt. Badly hurt, or she'd have called me.

  I wanted to ask her if Mom was okay, but I was too scared.

  The policewoman rolled her lips together. Her eyes looked sad, sadder than the girl on the calendar. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Natalie, but someone attacked your mother last night.”

  She looked away, like she didn't want to say anything more.

  Then she said in a low voice, "Natalie, your mother is dead."

  CHAPTER 1

  July 24, 2008 New Orleans

  The stench, a pungent mix of urine, feces and rank body odor, was brutal. Twenty-plus years as a detective, he’d smelled his share of stinky corpses, but not many in ritzy hotel rooms. This one was naked, sprawled on a four-poster double bed. A large yellow urine stain soiled the sheet. His head lay on a blood-soaked pillow, a gunshot entry wound centered in his forehead.

  Sometime after midnight someone had called the Hotel Bienvenue desk to report a problem in Room 635. A big problem, big enough for the hotel security guard to call NOPD and have them roust Homicide Detective Frank Renzi out of bed at one a.m.

  Whoever popped the guy shut off the A/C, maybe after the shot, maybe before. Maybe the guy was into hot sex.

  He studied the corpse. No defense wounds, no visible bruises. No doubt about the cause of death. One bullet to the head, over and out.

  Adrenaline boosted his energy level, upping his heart rate. No matter how many murder cases he worked, each one was a fresh puzzle. Who's the victim? Who killed him? And why?

  The person who'd called in the problem hadn’t hung around. Now it was 1:35 a.m. An NOPD officer posted outside the room would fend off any unauthorized visitors. The crime scene techs and a coroner’s investigator were on their way, and so was Kenyon Miller, his partner.

  The cherry-wood desk beside the window was squeaky clean, no dust, no notes. Heavy drapes covered the window, not that anyone could see into a room on the sixth floor. The victim’s clothes lay in a heap on the floor beside the bed, a pair of white jockey shorts on top.

  His partner ambled into the room. “Yo, Frank, smells like we got a stinker,” Miller said, his voice a deep rumble like a slow-moving freight train. He eyed the corpse. “Mm, mm, mm. This’ll cause a shitstorm.”

  “Why? You know him?”

  “Yeah, and I’m not talking about his Yankee Doodle.”

  Every black guy he’d ever worked with had an arsenal of terms for male genitalia, but Yankee Doodle? That was a new one. “Who is he?”

  Built like an NFL linebacker, Miller mopped sweat off his shaven pate with a handkerchief. “Arnold Peterson. Be all kinds of pressure on this one. He's marketing director for The Babylon."

  The Babylon, a recent addition to the French Quarter, was a big gambling casino similar to Harrah's.

  “You positive it’s Peterson?”

  “No doubt in my mind. He's a high-profile guy. I’ve seen him at Saint’s games hanging with his bigwig buddies in a VIP suite.”

  It had taken Frank a while to understand that pro football reigned in New Orleans. Everyone here was a Saints fan. Where he came from the Celtics ruled, or the Red Sox.

  He gestured at the corpse. “Looks like a hit. One shot to the head.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me. What I hear, Peterson’s a real prick, screwed a few people to get the job.”

  “Feels like the A/C’s been off for a while, might complicate the TOD.”

  “The COD is obvious enough," Miller said.

  “I’m going down to the desk and find out who rented the room. Nail down the time of the problem call, too. I want to know who called it in."

  Miller shot him an aggrieved look. “Sure. Go down to the delightfully cool lobby while I sweat it out with the smelly corpse. While you're there why not have a beverage in the air-conditioned lounge and ask the bartender if Peterson was there tonight?”

  “Hey, partner, cut the jive. Neither of us will get much sleep for a while. I’ll do the notification. After the coroner's investigator releases the body, canvass the guests on this floor to see if they heard anything. Then you can go home and catch a few winks.”

  Miller had a wife and two teenagers at home, but no one was waiting for Frank Renzi. Thanks to the real estate slump after Katrina, he’d bought a small condo a year ago. Thanks to his workaholic tendencies, he wasn’t there much. He spent most of his free time at Kelly's house. She was a cop, too.

  On the way to the elevator, he spotted a security camera at the end of the hall. Maybe they’d catch a break with that. They might need one. New Orleans was the murder capital of the country, but most of the victims were drug dealers and gangbangers. A VIP corpse? The media vultures would go crazy. Summers here were brutal, hot and humid, no telling when a hurricane might churn into the Gulf and spawn a massive evacuation with horrendous traffic jams. Just what he needed to go with a murder in a ritzy French Quarter hotel.

  He didn't care if the vic was a VIP or not. Peterson might have been rich and powerful, but rich pricks deserved justice too, and he intended to get it for him. Which meant he wouldn't catch up on sleep anytime soon.

  It also meant he wouldn't see much of Kelly. Bummer.

  He got in the elevator, recalling his last high-profile case. Two years ago a black drug dealer had killed a white woman. All kinds of black-on-black crime in New Orleans, but black-on-white crime? Fuggedaboudit! The ball-busters in the local media put on a full-court-press, badgering NOPD to solve the case on which Homicide Detective Frank Renzi was the lead investigator.

  That’s how he'd met Kelly. He hadn’t seen her since Sunday, and if Miller was right and the corpse was Peterson, he wouldn't be seeing her anytime soon. As lead investigator, he’d be under the gun. Nothing new there.

  Working for Boston PD he’d taken plenty of heat.

  And he knew exactly how unpleasant that could be.

  The elevator swooped to a stop and he stepped into the Hotel Bienvenue lobby. To his left, beyond glass double doors, Royal Street was shrouded in darkness. Just another sweltering night in New Orleans, except for the corpse upstairs. The lobby was deserted. Most of the guests were out partying on Bourbon Street or asleep in their rooms.

  Except for Arnold Peterson, who was in permanent slumberland.

  Light from recessed spotligh
ts in the two-story ceiling dappled the marble floor and tastefully upholstered sofas grouped around low tables. Off to his right, the desk clerk was talking on the phone. He stifled a yawn.

  Those cushiony sofas looked mighty inviting. Thanks to his always-iffy sleep patterns, he hadn't had a good night's sleep in a week. Two nights ago a recurring nightmare jolted him awake. A little girl's face, innocent in death, tears on her cheeks, a blood-soaked shirt. The image still haunted him. He went out for a run, dozed on his couch until it was time to go to work. Last night, weary and exhausted, he'd fallen asleep at midnight, but his ex-wife called at two-thirty, in the midst of one of her frequent panic attacks. He talked to her for a half-hour until she calmed down. But could he get back to sleep? Of course not. He'd tossed and turned until sunrise.

  And now he had a murder to solve. He went to the desk and flashed his ID at a frazzled-looking man in a dark suit. Got no welcoming smile. Bad for business, a guest found murdered in a luxury French Quarter hotel.

  “Did you take the call about the problem in Room 635?”

  “Yes, sir.” A muscle bunched in the desk clerk’s jaw.

  “What time was that?”

  “I'm not sure, exactly. Sometime after midnight.”

  “Was the caller male or female?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. I was checking in two guests at the time.”

  “What did the caller say, exactly?”

  “Exactly?”

  He wanted to smack the guy. He needed to talk to the bartender, and the dull ache in his temples did nothing to improve his mood. “Tell me what the caller said. Tell me whether the voice sounded like a man or a woman. Pretend your job depends on it.”

  Clearly annoyed, the clerk heaved a sigh. “The caller said there was a problem in Room 635 and hung up. I called security, told them to check the room and got back to registering our guests. I can’t tell you if the caller was a man or a woman.”

  He could tell this was going nowhere. “Okay, who rented Room 635?”

  The clerk got on the computer, hit some keys and stared at the screen. Anything to avoid the eyes of the pissed-off homicide detective before him.