Free Murder in the Irish Channel (Chanse MacLeod Mysteries) by Greg Herren

toenails were painted the same shade of pink as her shirt.
    “Let me guess—you’re going for sorority princess?” I asked as I slid into the booth across from her.
    She made a face and a gagging noise. “Spoiled Uptown princess, thank you very much—destined to make five future ex-husbands very unhappy. I drove over here in my white Lexus convertible, stopped and got a latte on the way, and was texting the whole time! So I ran a few red lights and didn’t notice those pesky stop signs and didn’t bother to use my turn signal. I’m an Uptown girl!” she replied, giving me a vapid smile and widening her eyes.
    As always, she was incredibly convincing.
    The waitress put a glass of water down in front of me along with a menu. Abby smiled at her. “We’re both going to have shrimp po’boys with onion rings, and I’ll have sweet tea. What do you want to drink, boss?”
    “Sweet tea for me, too.” I smiled at the waitress as she scribbled on her pad, picked up the menus, and walked away. “So, what did you dig up that was so important that it’s costing me lunch?”
    “Well, I don’t think it’s that important—I was hungry and Jephtha’s spending the day with his mom up in Baton Rouge.” She smiled at me. “But I’ll tell you what—that fuckwad Barras sure has got his fingers in a lot of pies in New Orleans.” The smile faded into a frown. “I had no idea how bad it was.”
    “What do you mean?”
    She waved a hand. “I mean, I knew about the Poydras Tower—who doesn’t, you can’t miss that monstrosity—and that he was trying to buy up land from people around town and all, but man oh man.” She shook her head. “But I think…” She sighed. “I really didn’t find any definite connection between Barras and Mona O’Neill, outside of Jonny’s fight career—but there’s some things that look really suspicious, if you have a twisted and devious mind like me.”
    My stomach growled. “What did you find?”
    “Like I said, I don’t have anything concrete.” The waitress placed our glasses of iced tea in front of us, and Abby squeezed a slice of lemon in hers. “But like I said, I do have some suspicions—weird stuff.” She fiddled with her straw wrapper for a moment. She hesitated. Abby had a rather creative mind, but she never liked to play “what if”—she only liked to report facts to me. Her hunches and wild guesses had paid off enough times in the past for me to respect anything she might say, no matter how far-fetched it might sound. But she never liked to theorize in front of me.
    “Abby—”
    She lowered her voice and leaned across the table. She checked to see where our waitress was before she continued. “There’s talk that Barras wants to buy the St. Anselm’s property, but not to develop it into condos or anything like that. You know he lives in the penthouse of Poydras Tower, right? Well, supposedly he wants a house in Uptown—and he wants to turn the church into a house.”
    “Where did you hear that?”
    She rolled her eyes. “On a message board about the church closings.” She immediately held up her hand before I could say anything. “I know you think those are just places for bored crazy people with Cheetos-stained fingers who live with their moms to gossip and say crazy shit, but you’d be surprised at what you can find out on there.” She shook her head.
    “But that doesn’t make a lot of sense, Ab. Why would he want a church, of all places? I would think that would cost a mint to convert into a home. And it’s not like there aren’t any properties for sale in Uptown—or in the Garden District, for that matter. And he’s got the kind of money where he could just knock on someone’s door and make an offer they couldn’t refuse.”
    “He’s notoriously cheap, Chanse. If he can get a nice piece of property like that for next to nothing from the archdiocese, why wouldn’t he? And St. Anselm’s is a beautiful structure, and sound