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Sherilynn Gordon’s story was straightforward: She and Helene had known each other in high school. They’d both gotten into boys, drugs, and trouble, not necessarily in that order. Helene, gorgeous, had “married up” as Sherilynn explained it, trading husband one, a successful electrician, for a second husband, who owned his own insurance company, and finally landing “the big fish,” meaning Hugo Laroche, who had sold his software company years before for upwards of fifty million. “That is if you believe him,” Sherilynn had said with a sneer, indicating she didn’t.
“He lies?”
“Let’s just say stretches the truth, to make himself look better, if you know what I mean. Brags about it.”
“You don’t like him.”
“I’ve never met him.” She eyed Montoya across the table. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Bentz ignored her question. “Did he and Helene get along?”
“I don’t know.” She cocked her head. “But obviously things weren’t exactly perfect, right? I mean it must not have been all sunshine and roses. Otherwise . . .” She shrugged, let the sentence trail off.
“Otherwise what?”
“She wouldn’t be back in the business, right? Obviously there was trouble in paradise.”
“Do you know what that trouble was?” Bentz asked.
“You do know the story about a bird being trapped in a gilded cage, right?” She stared at Bentz as if he were the most dense man on the planet. “She was twenty-five. He was seventy something.” Her gaze sharpened. “What was the trouble in paradise? You tell me.”
They asked a few more questions and learned that, of course, Helene didn’t get along with her husband’s grown children, hated his grandchildren, despised his ex-wife, and wasn’t that fond of her husband. According to Sherilynn, she’d taken up turning tricks for the thrill of it.
“. . . she certainly didn’t need the money. She rented the apartment, paid for everything. All I had to do was keep it in my name, so the old man wouldn’t find out. And she was picky. Didn’t just take a date with anyone. They had to ‘intrigue’ her, that’s what she said. She definitely wasn’t in it for the money.” Sherilynn scoffed at the idea. “And I don’t think it was for the sex—she could’ve gotten that anywhere. It was just that she was getting away with it. Being Helen of Joy, y’know? She told me once that she felt freer, less like she was selling her body, when she was with johns of her choice rather than with her own husband. Limp Dick. That’s what she called him.” A tiny smile touched the corners of her lips. “What does that tell you?”
What, indeed,Bentz thought. “So how did she usually hook up with her dates?” He couldn’t see her walking the streets.
“She has, I mean, had, a Web site.” When they didn’t respond, she said, “Helen of Joy NOLA. Google it.”
Montoya was already on his phone. As the Web site came up on the screen, his eyebrows inched upward.
“So you found it,” she said.
“Do you know who she met up with last night?”
“I already told you. I had no idea. We kept our business separate and that was her idea. She had to keep things on the down low, cuz she didn’t want the old man finding out. He woulda blown a gasket, y’know. If he didn’t have a heart attack himself, he would have killed her.”
“Literally?” Montoya asked.
“Financially,” she said. “And as much as she hated the old man, she sure did love his money.”
“So she gave you no clues as to whom she was seeing.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? No. We each have our own place, right? We just use the studio for, you know, entertaining clients. We keep to a schedule and don’t interfere with each other.”
“But you saw her some of the time.”
“Once in a while. We’d catch up for coffee or a drink, but it didn’t happen often. We each have, had, our own lives.”
“Did she ever mention a priest?” Bentz asked.
“What? A priest? What the hell are you talking about? Oh.” She stopped short. Snapped her glossy-tipped fingers. “I know about this. Saw it on the Internet. A fake priest, right? That’s what you’re talking about. Not a real one. A guy who committed a lot of murders way back when. Oh, Lord.” Her head swiveled, her gaze moving from Montoya to Bentz. “That’s it. You think he killed Helene.”
“We don’t know,” Bentz said.
“Holy Mother of God.” She blanched.
Montoya said, “So it’s important, if you know anything—”
