Chapter 4

Gertie suckedin a breath and Ida Belle’s eyes widened. I felt a rush of the same despair that must be coursing through every square inch of the poor woman in front of me.

“For what?” I asked.

“Murder.”

My heart sank. It couldn’t have been any worse.

“Who did he kill?”

“His girlfriend.”

I was wrong. It was worse.

“Tell me everything you know.”

She nodded. “It’s not a whole lot. He was from Mudbug, and she was from Magnolia Pass, which is where they lived, so I guess that’s why it wasn’t really covered in the NOLA papers. The Magnolia Pass cops won’t give out any information, but I found a couple of brief statements online given by other residents and matched what they said with what little I got from the court records. Basically, Ryan and his girlfriend had broken up a couple weeks before and he’d moved out of the house they shared. He’d been living in a motel up the highway just outside of Sinful…one of those sketchy places.”

“I know it.”

“Anyway, he said he’d been calling her, but she wasn’t answering, and he knew she wasn’t working that day, so he went over to the house. He claimed he wanted to talk—to patch things up. But he found her stabbed to death in the kitchen.”

“He still had a key to the house?”

She nodded. “And the cops found the murder weapon in the dumpster at the motel. It had his fingerprints on it.”

“No forced entry?”

“No.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what you want me to do. This sounds like an open-and-shut case. Short of having video of the actual crime, the prosecutor could have phoned this one in.”

She leaned forward in her chair. “But that’s just it. The medical examiner gave a specific window for her time of death—between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m.—the night he was with me in the casino hotel in New Orleans.”

“Holy crap!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Ida Belle and Gertie both spoke at once. I just sat back and whistled.

“You’re positive it was the same night?” I asked.

“Absolutely, 100 percent certain of it, and my friends will confirm it as well,” she said. “When you do something so out of character, you tend to remember it in excruciating detail. Plus, it was the day before my birthday, and the night before I got back with Brett. I have plenty of reasons to be absolutely certain that I’ve got the date right, and Ryan Comeaux did not murder his girlfriend.”

“Is it possible he left the hotel after you fell asleep?” I asked. I knew it was a really long shot, but I had to think like a prosecutor, and that’s the first place they’d go.

“I suppose it’s possible, but the thing is, we didn’t go to sleep until after 5:00 a.m. We had sex a couple times, ordered champagne and food from room service, then had another round of ‘dessert.’ I know for certain it was after five when we finally went to sleep because I checked my phone for messages and sent a follow-up text to my roommate so she wouldn’t freak out the next morning when she woke up and realized I’d never come home.”

“But surely Ryan told the cops the same thing,” I said. “Why didn’t they come see you then for an alibi?”

Her shoulders slumped and she sighed. “Because I didn’t give him my real name. I used my middle name and never told him my last name. I didn’t tell him anything about me that could allow him to identify me after the fact. He knew all the sordid details of my relationship, but nothing that would have allowed him to track me down. It was a one-night stand. You don’t plan on keeping in touch.”

“What about your friends?” I asked. “Somebody had to settle up the tab. The cops didn’t try to track you by credit card receipt?”

She smiled. “Four hot young women in tight clothes—we never reached for our wallets all night.”

I nodded. “Did you go to the police with this information?”

She threw her hands in the air. “Of course! When I read the date and time in the court documents, I went straight to the police station in Magnolia Pass and asked to talk to someone in charge. They gave me some dude who looked like he hadn’t done any work besides eat doughnuts for ten years—and I’m not stereotyping. There was a half-eaten box of doughnuts next to his keyboard and he was covered in chocolate drippings and powdered sugar.”

“And he did nothing?”

“He took my statement and my information and said he’d give it to the ADA. I called back after a week, and he said he’d sent it over and if the ADA hadn’t contacted me then it was obviously because he felt there was nothing to pursue.”

I shook my head. “An innocent man doing life for a crime he didn’t commit isn’t worth pursuing? Good Lord!”

“I know. So I marched down to the ADA’s office and refused to leave unless he spoke to me or they called the police and had me hauled out of there. They left me waiting for hours, but he finally gave me five minutes of his time. He surfed his phone while I talked.”

“Wow. Just wow,” Gertie said. “One would think he’d be working to redeem his reputation given how sketchy it is at the moment, but he’s just doubling down.”

“I’m beginning to think he’s not capable of being a decent human being,” Ida Belle said. “Or of actually doing his job.”

“I don’t have any other experience with him, but I agree,” Kelsey said. “When I was done, he asked if I had proof that Ryan was with me that night. Since it was just the two of us in the room, sans a film crew or Peeping Toms, the answer was no. So then he asked if anyone could verify that I left the bar with Ryan and checked into the hotel, but I don’t have proof of that either. We shut the bar down, and Ryan got the room with his discount. I didn’t even go to the desk with him. I waited by the elevators, and good Lord, even if I had, who the hell’s going to remember that after ten years?”

“Hotel records?” I asked.

“Don’t go back that far.”

I blew out a breath. I didn’t doubt that Kelsey was telling the truth, but given her reason for needing access to Ryan, I could see where a prosecutor could make a mockery of her story.

“What about the prison?” Ida Belle asked. “Have you tried talking to them—explaining the situation? I’ve heard of inmates being able to donate bone marrow and organs to relatives when they were the only match.”

“I tried but got nowhere. Ryan isn’t listed as the father on the birth certificate, so without a DNA test to prove he’s Ben’s father, the warden won’t even talk to me.”

“And unless the warden allows it, you can’t get a DNA test,” I said. “The very definition of the runaround. So what do you want me to do? I know some people who are usually owed favors from a certain element. And I have a killer attorney. One of them might be able to get you audience with the warden.”

She shook her head. “It would all take time. His assistant told me that the warden is booked for the next three months, if you can believe that. So unless your friends have dirt on him that would put him on the other side of those bars he manages, waiting on him to budge might be too late.”

“Then I don’t know what you want from me.”

“I want you to find out who murdered Lindsay. Jenny said you had a way of finding out every secret that was never supposed to be revealed. I thought she was exaggerating, but then she told me about those women you found out in the swamp and how that organization had been hidden there trafficking women and drugs for decades before you blew it all wide open in a matter of days.”

Kelsey frowned. “And she told me about everything that happened with her husband and his brother. She said if you hadn’t put it all together, they might never have known about the body buried under her deck, and she might have ended up like Ryan…in prison for a murder she didn’t commit.”

I shook my head. I wanted to help her. A man was in prison for a crime that I was 99.99 percent certain he didn’t commit, and the worst part was, that wasn’t even the most pressing issue. A young boy’s life depended on the father who didn’t even know he had a son. I’d taken on cases that seemed impossible, but this one was dire on so many levels. Failure would literally ruin multiple lives and end at least one.

“I want to help you,” I said. “You can’t even imagine how much, but there is so little to go on. And even if I could prove Ryan’s innocence, it would take time to get his conviction overturned, even with my attorney working on it, and trust me, there exists none better.”

“I get it,” she agreed. “But if you can get enough for your attorney to pressure the ADA, then that would give me leverage with the press, right? And that might be enough to push the warden into giving us medical access until the whole thing can be sorted.”

“You already have leverage with the press by virtue of having a terminally ill child whose only hope is his biological father,” I said. “Why not try that route first? It would be faster.”

“I spoke with top reporters for the newspaper and local television, but they all said the same thing—it’s my word against a ten-year-old conviction. And this is still the Bible Belt, and this bunch of hypocrites will see my one-night stand as proof that I’m a floozy and an unreliable witness. They all wanted to help, but they can’t stick their necks out over a story that I can’t corroborate in any way. Add to it that I was drunk, I never told Ryan he was the father, I’m married to another man who never knew Ben wasn’t his and, well…”

I sighed. “They’ll be saying if you were that drunk, then it might not have been Ryan.”

She nodded. “Or worse. It might not only be Ryan. Anyway, I have to live and work in this city. My kid, if he ever gets better, has to live here. With my marriage on the rocks, I can’t afford to lose my job over bad publicity.”

“Surely Brett would support you and Ben,” Gertie said.

“Ben, sure. He still sees Ben as his son, but I’d be cut out completely. Brett has access to plenty of money, but it’s all protected in trusts. I can’t touch it in a divorce.”

“But Brett could use it to get full custody,” Ida Belle said.

“That’s my biggest fear. I don’t care about the money for myself. I know people say that all the time, but I swear, in my case it’s true. I didn’t even know who Brett was when we met, and I went out with him thinking he was an average college student off for the summer and working for the company who owned the hotel.”

“And attending Harvard?” Ida Belle asked.

She smiled. “He didn’t tell me the school until we’d been going out for weeks, which was when I realized the hotel staff treated him with a lot of deference for someone who was supposed to be doing a summer internship in accounting. I’m not saying that having money is a bad thing. I’m just saying it’s not everything.”

I nodded. “This is what I don’t understand. If Brett still considers Ben his son, and wants to save him, why isn’t he using his family money and connections to get access to Ryan?”

Kelsey huffed. “He says he’s tried. That he can’t even get the warden to take his phone calls and he got the same runaround on appointments that I did. And I hate to say it, but at this point, I don’t know that he believes me either. He certainly doesn’t trust me. I never told him about that night until all this came out with Ben’s tests.”

“Why would you?” Gertie asked. “You didn’t owe him a minute-by-minute itinerary of the time you were apart. Did he go out with other women while you were broken up?”

“Most definitely. A couple of them relished shoving it in my face for months after we got back together. Until I started showing. Then they finally gave up.”

“Well, there you go,” Gertie said.

“I don’t need Ryan’s case overturned right away,” Kelsey said. “Although in the long run, that’s exactly what I want to see happen. But right now, I just need enough evidence to create a public outcry. One so big it forces the people who can make this happen to do their jobs.”

“Evidence on a crime that happened ten years ago,” I said. “Where no one but you can alibi the convicted, and where the only likely witness to the actual crime is the killer. Do you know how much of a reach that is?”

“No more than the things Jenny told me you’ve done. You did figure out that body was under her deck, and it had been there for decades.”

Gertie nodded. “Did you know that Fortune found a body in her own backyard the day she arrived in town?”

Ida Belle snorted. “Like that’s some big feat. Do you have any idea how many bodies are dumped in the swamp? Instead of sportsman’s paradise, the state motto should be ‘we can disappear you.’”

Kelsey managed a small smile, but I could see how much effort it was. “I have money to pay you. I’m not asking you to work for free. In fact, I insist on paying you. This is your job. I don’t cook for free. Please. I think you might be my last hope.”

I blew out a breath and nodded, and Kelsey’s shoulders slumped with relief.

“But,” I said, “I’ll do a contract and take a retainer of two thousand. Then I’ll spend four or five hours pushing this. If I don’t come up with anything worth pursuing after that, we’ll revisit everything. But you have to understand that I can’t find evidence if it doesn’t exist.”

“I’m just asking that you try. If you can’t find anything, then I’ll attempt the press again. Or start my own online campaign.”

“It’s not the worst idea,” Ida Belle said. “Social media cuts through a lot of the BS systems in place.”

“Let me go get that contract,” I said and headed out, feeling uneasy about the entire thing.

I didn’t have a problem taking the case, per se. Quite frankly, even if she hadn’t agreed to my terms and we’d parted ways with no agreement, I still would have poked around. It was just the way I was wired, and with a young boy’s life on the line, the stakes were particularly high. But I was worried that this might be the first time I couldn’t come up with anything. Finding witnesses that could even place Ryan at the hotel in NOLA with Kelsey was going to be a needle in a haystack under the best of circumstances, but in a transient tourist city at a busy casino, it would take a miracle.

After Kelsey left, contract in hand, I headed back to the kitchen and slumped into my chair. Ida Belle and Gertie glanced at each other, then both looked at me, clearly concerned.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Ida Belle said. “That if you can’t solve this, that boy’s going to die, and an innocent man is going to waste away in prison. And you’re not wrong, but neither of those is on you because you didn’t cause this. Trying to fix it and failing still doesn’t make any of it your fault.”

Gertie nodded. “You’re Ryan and Ben’s best chance. If you can’t figure it out, then I can’t imagine anyone else could either.”

“I know that should make me feel better,” I said.

“But it doesn’t,” Gertie said. “I get it. But all we can do is try, right?”

Ida Belle nodded. “So where do we start?”

“I’d like to run the whole thing by Alexander, of course. He might have some ideas on budging the immovable warden. It wouldn’t kill the man to allow a DNA test, and if positive to allow the tests to see if Ryan’s a match for the organ donation. If he’s not, the entire thing might be an exercise in futility.”

Gertie shook her head. “That’s not true. Even if Ryan can’t save Ben, he’ll die in Angola. He’s already spent a third of his life behind bars, but he’s got a long, long time to go.”

“So I take it you two believe her story? And that she’s certain on her dates?”

They both nodded.

I drew in a deep breath and slowly blew it out. “So do I.”

“Then I guess we approach it like every other case,” I continued. “From the beginning. Let’s start with, do either of you know Ryan Comeaux or his family?”

They both shook their heads.

“There’s plenty of Comeaux in Louisiana,” Ida Belle said, “but his name’s not coming to mind as someone’s grandson or anything. If he’s still got family in Mudbug, it must not be a big one.”

Gertie nodded. “If we knew any of his family, we’d have heard about all of this.”

“What about this Magnolia Pass?” I asked. “Where is it?”

“A little off the highway between Sinful and NOLA,” Ida Belle said.

I frowned. I’d never heard of the place, which meant it was far enough off the highway that it didn’t have signs directing people that way.

“Why does a town that small have their own police department?” I asked. “Why wouldn’t it fall under the sheriff department’s jurisdiction, like Sinful and Mudbug?”

“Magnolia Pass is small,” Gertie said, “but it’s got old-money families who fund it and run it like their own little country.”

“I’ve never even heard of it, and it’s right up the road,” I said, still amazed.

“The reigning families in Magnolia Pass prefer to keep it hidden,” Ida Belle said. “That’s why there’s no signs on the highway, no advertisements for tourists, no hotels, no encouraging people to visit. They’re insular and want to remain that way. People who want growth and change leave.”

Gertie nodded. “The richest and oldest family there are the Beeches.”

I groaned. “Ryan’s girlfriend was Lindsay Beech. What are the odds that she isn’t related to them?”

“Less than zero,” Ida Belle said. “But it gives you another angle on motive. Where there’s money, there’s always the potential for problems.”

“True,” I agreed. “But if this place is as insular as you’re describing, and Lindsay’s family basically owns and runs it, then we’re never going to get people to talk to us. Including the cops.”

Ida Belle nodded. “Especially the cops.”