Chapter 12

I managedto control my surprise as I pulled a card from my pocket and handed it to her. “Tuck that away somewhere. If you think of anything else, give me a call or email. Whatever works best for you.”

She nodded, looking relieved that we were prepared to leave. We hurried behind her to the door and wasted no time climbing in the vehicle and clearing out of the estate. The gate was already open when we got to it, and the guard gave us a wave as we drove past. I couldn’t help but notice that he looked relieved as well.

What the hell kind of hold did Sebastian Perkins have over his household?

It was almost as if we’d been waiting to drive off the property to speak because once we’d turned onto the main road, we all started talking at once.

“Mandy is afraid of her husband.”

“Do you think Lindsay’s father got her killed?”

“Lindsay was working for Brett Spalding’s company?”

The last statement was mine and Ida Belle and Gertie both paused and then started exclaiming all over again.

“That’s a hell of a coincidence,” Ida Belle said.

I nodded. “I don’t like it, but I can’t come up with any good reason for Brett to have targeted Lindsay that way. It couldn’t have been good for his business to have an employee murdered.”

“I wonder why Kelsey didn’t mention it,” Gertie said.

“She didn’t even know Ryan’s last name at the time,” Ida Belle said. “Why would she know his girlfriend’s? And it doesn’t sound like she was ever in the know on Brett’s business dealings, nor did she want to be. With the news coverage being so minor, she might not have put it together.”

I pulled out my cell phone. “I think we need to ask her, though.”

I dialed Kelsey and she answered on the first ring. I knew she hoped I’d have information that would help her and felt bad that I was calling to ensure she hadn’t been withholding critical data, but I often had to ‘vet’ my clients. Everyone had something they were hiding.

“Hi, Kelsey. I’m interviewing people today and an interesting item came up. I need to ask you some questions about Brett and his family.”

“Okay,” she said, and I could hear the disappointment in her voice.

“What is the firm’s name?”

“Spalding Financial.”

“That’s what I thought. Okay, back when you and Brett first got back together, did he ever mention an employee who was killed?”

“I think so…yes, a young woman. Brett said she was supersmart and a big loss. I remember he was working a lot of overtime until her accounts were reassigned, but I don’t know anything else about it. I’m afraid between school and my drama with Brett, I didn’t have the bandwidth to pay attention to much else. Is it important?”

“It might be. That employee was Lindsay Beech.”

Kelsey sucked in a breath. “No…there’s no way…that’s, that’s just weird.”

“So when you were trying to track down Ryan, you never came across a mention of Lindsay working for Spalding Financial?”

“No. There was very little personal information on either of them. I only found two articles total. Both of them mentioned she was from a prominent family from Magnolia Pass. Ryan never went into details about her either, just that her father was wealthy and was putting a lot of pressure on her about work. And the court documents never mentioned her place of employment. I guess I just assumed she worked for her father, if I assumed anything at all.”

She was silent for several seconds. “You don’t think… There’s no way Brett could have known, right?”

“That the man you slept with was the same one who was convicted of killing his employee? Short of him having you under surveillance that night, I can’t see how. But I also don’t like the connection. It’s messy and convoluted.”

“I don’t like it either. Do you want me to ask him about it?”

“No. But I’d like to speak with him myself. I’m going to call him again and figure out a way to get him to meet with me.”

“He knows I’ve hired you and thought it was a waste of time, of course, but if he thought speaking to you gave him a say in anything, then he’d probably talk.”

“Then I’ll give him a call and pitch it as how he can help. Also, there was an incident that happened at the investment firm right before Lindsay was killed. She made a mistake on a big account and the man moved his funds to her father’s business. Did Brett ever mention anything about losing a major account to a competitor?”

“No. But he rarely talked to me about work. He told me an employee had died, but even then, he never gave me details. Just enough to explain why he was working so many more hours. I hate to ask, but did you figure out anything else?”

“Not yet. But things are in motion. My attorney is going to put some pressure on the warden about the DNA test. And Ryan’s cousin informed him about Ben and asked him to put me on the visitation list. As soon as I’m cleared, I’ll go there. Hopefully, he’ll be able to provide me more to go on.”

“You mean suspects.”

“That’s what we need.”

“Thanks, Fortune. I know this is a real long shot, but I think I made a good decision. You’ve already turned up more in two days than the police did during the entire investigation.”

I disconnected and dialed Brett Spalding. “Head to NOLA,” I told Ida Belle. “If he doesn’t agree to talk to us, we’ll just hunt him down.”

Brett’s assistant answered and gave me the usual runaround about an appointment, but when I explained that I was the investigator his wife had hired and needed to talk to him as soon as possible so he could provide me with direction on the case, she went silent and then asked for a brief hold. I was a little surprised when she popped back on and asked if we could meet him at a café in the French Quarter in an hour.

“That was easy,” Ida Belle said.

I nodded. Almost too easy.

* * *

We arrivedat the café thirty minutes early, but the food looked great, so we decided to grab a table and order lunch. There was a large circular booth in a back corner surrounded by a half wall with plants on top. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe it actually provided any privacy, but as long as Brett felt it did, he might not be afraid to speak openly. Since he had suggested a meeting place outside of his office, I assumed he didn’t want his employees knowing about me or what I was up to.

Fried shrimp and French fries were the lunch special, so we all ordered it, figuring it would be the quickest thing to get. The fry on the shrimp was excellent and our server had just cleared our plates off the table when I spotted Brett walking in the door.

Midthirties. Six foot two. A hundred ninety pounds. Clearly devoted to the gym but not a hint of callous on his hands. Expensive suit. Slightly irritated expression. Dangerous because of his money and connections.

He spotted us in the corner, and I lifted a hand. I figured he’d already googled the heck out of me and knew what I looked like. As he stepped our direction, I realized the man who’d entered the café behind him was with him.

Midthirties. Six foot even. A hundred seventy pounds. Probably worked out at the same gym. Definitely used the same hand lotion. Wearing a suit that probably cost more than my Jeep, and I was pretty sure that was an Hermès tie around his neck because Ronald kept thrusting pictures of one in my face. No threat except to a charge card.

Brett frowned as he approached our table and gave Ida Belle and Gertie a quick glance. He was probably wondering why I brought my grandmothers to an important meeting. I rose and extended my hand.

“Fortune Redding. These are my assistants, Ida Belle and Gertie.”

He raised one eyebrow. “You use seniors to run your business?”

“Do you know anyone nosier or with more dirt on people than seniors?” I asked.

“Touché,” he said as he and the other man sat on the two ends of the booth. “This is my best friend and right-hand man, Devin Roberts. He’s been around for everything important in my life, so he might be able to fill in gaps if my memory isn’t on point. I’ve had some trouble concentrating lately.”

“I’m sure everyone understands why,” I said. “I’m so sorry about what you and Kelsey are going through. I’m going to do everything I can to help Ben.”

“By trying to set a killer loose?” he asked.

“I don’t believe he killed her,” I said. “But then, you could probably tell me more about that. She was your employee. Something you never told your wife, even after she figured out who Ben’s father was.”

A flush crept up his face. “I’m Ben’s father. Biology doesn’t trump doing the actual work, day in and day out.”

“It does when you need a kidney,” I said.

His jaw flexed, and I could tell he was beyond enraged that with all his assets and connections, he was at the mercy of another man to save his son. A man who had indulged in a one-night stand with his wife. It was also clear to me that whatever Brett might feel for Kelsey at this point, he loved his son.

“I know this has to be the most awful thing you’ve ever endured,” I said, “but this is about saving Ben. I’m going to suggest you concentrate only on that one thing for now because it’s the only thing that matters. When Ben is healthy, you can unravel everything else and make decisions about your marriage and anything else you might want to change.”

He stared at me for several seconds, then finally gave me a single nod. “What do you want from me?”

“I want to know who wanted Lindsay dead.”

He shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“No idea at all? Even though she cost your firm millions in fees and a client even more? Even though she was constantly going against her own powerful father’s wishes?”

Brett remained silent and Devin stepped in.

“Her father was a real jerk,” Devin said. “But we didn’t know him except by reputation. The only time we were around him in person was events, and trust me, we tried to avoid him as much as possible at them. It was obvious why Lindsay didn’t want to work for him.”

“And the mistake she made on the account?” I asked. “No one was mad enough to want her punished for it? What about the investor? How much did he lose due to her error?”

Brett gave me an incredulous look. “Are you really suggesting that the client, a man for whom that loss was like pocket change, would kill someone over a mistake? That’s ridiculous. He simply did what all clients do if you lose their trust—he changed firms.”

“But he wasn’t the only loser. You lost millions in revenue and likely, it was a slam to your reputation. Why didn’t you fire Lindsay?”

“Because you don’t just go firing your best employees without investigating first,” he said.

Interesting. There wasn’t anything to investigate about a mistake. But if it was intentional…

“You wondered if she did it on purpose in order to feed accounts to her father,” I said.

He broke eye contact, and I could tell he didn’t want to admit Lindsay might have swindled them, but he wasn’t convinced it didn’t happen, either. Finally, he looked back at me.

“I don’t know what really happened,” he said. “We were looking into the matter but then she was murdered. An investigation became not only pointless but tasteless as well.”

“And when all of this about Ben came up and your wife tracked down Ryan, why didn’t you tell her that you had a connection to Ryan’s presumed victim?”

“Because it wasn’t relevant. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t even know about Kelsey and her sordid night with a murderer. If I had and I was going to kill anyone, why wouldn’t it be him? Lindsay had nothing to do with that and probably would have been as upset as I was to find out.”

I shrugged. “Perhaps. But you have to admit, the way it went down solved all your problems. You got rid of a potentially problematic employee and got revenge on the man who slept with your future wife.”

His jaw flexed, and I could tell that he was seething underneath the controlled demeanor. Brett Spalding did not like reminders of things he couldn’t call the shots on.

“I suppose in hindsight, it looks like I came out the big winner,” he said finally. “But how did I know my wife had rebound sex with a guy from a bar? How did I find out who he was and that he was Lindsay’s ex, and somehow also make it over to her place to kill her and then frame him, all in the span of a couple hours? And framing him meant I also had to know that he was living in a motel and not at their home.”

He shook his head. “For me to know any of that, I would have had to have been following Kelsey and see her go into a hotel room with him. And if I’d seen any of that, then I would have known he had an alibi, and it would have been foolish to attempt to frame him. I’m a lot of things, Ms. Redding, but a fool isn’t one of them.”

I nodded. “But someone did it. And they got away with it. Unless you think Kelsey is lying and her fling with Ryan was more than a one-nighter.”

His jaw flexed again, and he rose from the table. “This discussion is over. I don’t know anything that can help you. I’m working with my own attorneys to get access to Ryan in order to save my son. If he’s really not some psychopathic murderer, then he won’t let a child suffer, right? But trying to prove him innocent as a way to save Ben is an exercise in futility. Even if you could do it, how long would it take? Time is the one thing Ben doesn’t have.”

He whirled around and strode off. Devin glanced back at him then pulled a business card out of his pocket and handed it to me. “This whole thing has him understandably upset. Not so much about Kelsey, as in my opinion, their marriage has been a question mark since the beginning. But Ben… He loves that boy more than himself, and that’s saying everything because Brett has always been his own biggest fan.”

I nodded. “Do you think Lindsay made a mistake on that client’s books?”

He shrugged. “She was scary smart. Her mind processed things so quickly that everyone around her struggled to keep up. Even me, and I’m damned good at what I do. But there’s no denying the mistake was made. And only Lindsay, Brett, and Brett’s parents had access to that account. His parents have been out of the country for years, and why would Brett sabotage his own company?”

“So you believe it was intentional? That she really was working for Spalding to push clients to her father?”

“It’s hard to see it any other way. Raymond Beech might have had three kids, but there was only one that he intended to leave in control of his empire—the one who wouldn’t lose it all. And that was Lindsay.”

“Isn’t Jared handling everything now?”

He snorted. “He’s losing clients faster than rats on a sinking ship. He was never good at the job, and he’s practically a hermit, closed up in that mausoleum they call a house in Magnolia Pass. Clients have to badger him for meetings and potential clients don’t like him when they do get an audience with him. The spoiled rich kid is too ingrained, and it rubs people wrong. That client that Lindsay lost? He was back with Spalding a month after Raymond Beech died. What does that tell you?”

He tapped his card. “If you have any more questions, call me. I can probably answer anything you need to know, and it will save Brett the stress of it all.”

He left the restaurant, and I watched as he got into the driver’s seat of a white Mercedes sedan. Brett was already staring out the passenger-side window, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else but there.

“Well, that was interesting,” I said.

Ida Belle nodded. Brett Spalding is a very angry man. I kept expecting him to flip the table over and storm out.”

“Kelsey said he wasn’t violent,” Gertie said. “I don’t think she was lying.”

“Neither do I,” I agreed. “But I think he’s definitely got it in him, especially when he’s pushed past his ‘I’m not in control’ limit. I can see why their marriage never really worked.”

Ida Belle shook her head. “But he’s not wrong about one thing—it would have taken a ridiculous amount of effort for him to have murdered Lindsay over Kelsey’s one-nighter with Ryan. Even if he’d had her under surveillance, which is always possible, I think he’d have more likely waited until sometime later and gotten his revenge when he was certain no one could connect them. Like he said—he’s not a fool.”

“He strikes me as very calculated,” I agreed then sighed. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but what if the timing of Lindsay’s murder was a legitimate coincidence? We know that neither Ryan nor Kelsey deliberately targeted each other at that bar. And they didn’t even know who the other one was, much less who they were involved with. What if their random hookup just happened to coincide with the night Brett took Lindsay out over the lost account and that’s why Brett never mentioned any details about Lindsay’s death to Kelsey?”

“That would be some monumental bad luck for Brett,” Gertie said.

“Too much?” Ida Belle asked.

I rolled it over in my mind and blew out a breath. “Probably. The clincher is setting up Ryan to take the fall. If Brett was going to frame Ryan for the murder, wouldn’t he have made sure Ryan was alone at the motel before he did it?”

“It doesn’t look very plausible,” Ida Belle agreed. “I don’t like Brett at all and wouldn’t have tolerated him for five seconds as a boyfriend, but I don’t see how he could have managed this.”

I nodded. “The murder he could have, but the setup required personal knowledge of Ryan’s living situation. And even then, I can’t see someone as meticulous and controlling as Brett not verifying Ryan was there before he tried to pin a murder on him. The fact that someone managed to do it doesn’t change what his thought process would have been back then.”

Gertie put her hands up. “So if we assume it’s not about Ryan and Kelsey being together, or Lindsay losing that client, then we’re back to the usual suspect—money.”

Ida Belle nodded. “Which points directly at Jared Beech. It sounds like Lindsay was the brains of the family. If Jared was never going to be acknowledged and would go from being under his father’s thumb to his sister’s, it’s a great motive.”

“Don’t forget Holly,” Gertie said. “I know people will say she was just a kid, but kids do heinous things all the time. What if that immaturity she still displays is part of a larger issue? What if it wasn’t a schoolgirl crush but a fixation she had for Ryan? I can see where she’d be jealous of Lindsay. Her sister was older, prettier, smarter, and she had the man that Holly wanted.”

I sighed. “I really don’t want a kid to have caused all of this, but you’re right. We can’t exclude her.”

“So what’s next?” Ida Belle asked.

I shook my head. “I really need to talk to Ryan. Someone has to fill in the blanks, and he’s probably the only one who can.”

“We can still talk to Kenny,” Ida Belle said, “and we’ll see Father Michael tonight at the Good Friday dinner.”

“Then there’s only one thing left to do at the moment,” I said and waved to get our server’s attention.

This situation called for beignets.