Chapter 6

I wrappedthings up with Emmaline and headed back home for breakfast. I knew Ida Belle and Gertie would appear when they were up and about, especially since they knew we had a case, so I didn’t bother to text them. They were as anxious as I was to get going on this one. They strolled in just as I finished putting my dishes in the dishwasher and I noticed Gertie was limping slightly.

“Did that fall down the slide get you?” I asked.

“Oh no, that was nothing,” she said. “Jeb came over last night and we had our own version of an egg hunt with these little marshmallow eggs. If you lick them, they stick right on your skin?—”

“No!” Ida Belle said.

Gertie rolled her eyes. “You’ve been up for at least four hours. Don’t give me that too-early-for-that crap.”

“I could have been up for the last hundred years and it’s still too early. In fact, put me down for the next hundred lifetimes is too early. Now I’ll never be able to eat marshmallows again.”

I laughed, but she did kinda have a point. “Guess what I found out from Emmaline, via a recommendation from Carter?”

They both gave me expectant looks.

“Ryan has a cousin right here in Sinful.”

“Who?” They both asked at the same time.

“Hot Rod.”

“No kidding?” Ida Belle asked, perking up. “That’s good news. If Hot Rod knows anything, he’ll share it, especially if it means helping his cousin.”

“You’re assuming he likes his cousin,” Gertie said. “What if Ryan is a big ole douchebag? I mean, it’s not like Kelsey really knows him.”

“That’s a valid point,” I said. “Ryan being a less-than-stellar guy is certainly a possibility, but we’ve all agreed he’s not a killer, so we’ll just tackle what we might actually be able to fix.”

“Are we headed there now?” Ida Belle asked.

“He’s definitely first on my list,” I said. “Carter also suggested I talk to Detective Casey and see if she could possibly swing case files given that my witness lives in NOLA and claims that’s where they were that night. It’s flimsy, but it might work. Assuming Casey is okay with helping us.”

“I think she will be,” Gertie said. “She strikes me as someone who would hate an innocent man sitting in prison.”

Ida Belle snorted. “She strikes me more as someone who would be even more hacked off knowing the real criminal was walking around scot-free.”

I nodded. “I’ll text her on the way and see if she has some time to meet with us after we talk to Hot Rod. What time do we have to be back for the redo of the egg hunt?”

“Two o’clock,” Ida Belle said. “We just need everything in place before the kids are let go from the arts and crafts fair at two thirty, but the ladies can start without me.”

“If you’re not there, Celia will take over,” Gertie said.

Ida Belle grinned. “I’ll send Nora to fill in for me.”

I laughed. Nora was Sinful’s resident free spirit. She had invented drug paraphernalia years ago and regularly cashed in huge royalty checks. It gave her the money and the freedom to travel the world, looking for the best high. She also spent most of her free, semi-lucid time inventing new drugs to try.

Carter pretended to know absolutely nothing about her, but Gertie was always ready to play lab rat for Nora’s latest invention. I had to admit that given some of the injuries Gertie had sustained while being Full On Gertie, Nora’s concoctions had seemed to have miraculous effects. But I didn’t care if I was missing a limb. No way was I putting something from Nora’s stash in my mouth.

“Do we need to call Hot Rod and make an appointment?” I asked.

Since he wasn’t a potential suspect—at least I didn’t think he was—I saw no benefit in the unannounced drop-ins that I was so fond of. And the man was running a business. He might have an angry customer ready to pick up this morning and he still needed to put bulletproof plates on the side mirrors or something.

“Nah,” Ida Belle said. “If he’s got an emergency going, he’ll tell us. The beautiful thing about Hot Rod is he doesn’t have much of a filter. Well, except in his engines.”

I grinned. “Then let’s go see what he knows about Ryan.”

I sent Detective Casey a text on the way to Hot Rod’s place, but I didn’t expect a quick answer. Casey was a homicide detective, so she could be surveilling, arresting, booking, questioning, or shooting someone. But hopefully, she’d have some time soon. The case files would be a good way to figure out other angles of investigation, especially since I was already expecting to see huge holes. I’d gotten the names of Kelsey’s friends, but hadn’t called them. They’d already gone home by the time Kelsey hooked up with Ryan, so all they could do was confirm the day, which I wasn’t really questioning. But they’d be needed if I got enough evidence to launch a retrial.

When we pulled up, Hot Rod was in front of his garage, climbing out of a bright green car. Ida Belle took one look at the vehicle and let out a sigh so dramatic it belonged in Gone with the Wind.

“Do you know what that is?” she asked, her voice reverent.

“An old car that’s probably so fast it gives you whiplash in neutral,” Gertie said.

Ida Belle shook her head. “How are we friends?”

“If you listen to my marshmallow story, I’ll talk about cars.”

“There is no car on the face of this earth that’s worth that exchange.”

Hot Rod had looked over and grinned when he’d seen us pull in. He waved at the car as we climbed out. “What do you think, Ida Belle? Owner’s picking her up in an hour. Eight hundred horsepower on the dyno.”

“I think you’re a genius,” she said. “But I’m not sure I would have modified a Hemi ’Cuda.”

“He’s got more money than he knows what to do with,” Hot Rod said. “Wanna see inside?”

“Why are you wasting time asking?”

He popped open the hood and the two of them leaned over as Ida Belle exclaimed over things I didn’t understand and Hot Rod explained even more things I didn’t understand. But I figured interrupting this conversation was akin to a toddler bounding into their parents’ bedroom during sexy time.

No one appreciated the toddler.

Gertie seemed resigned to the entire exchange. She sat on the front bumper of Ida Belle’s SUV and pulled a breakfast croissant out of her purse.

“I have half a doughnut too,” she said as she offered me some of the croissant.

“I’ve already had breakfast.”

“This is second breakfast,” she said. “Didn’t you watch Lord of the Rings?”

“You know I did. You made me.”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t like it.”

“There was a lot of killing of the bad guys. I liked that, but their wardrobes seemed awfully burdensome, especially for all that running, climbing, and fighting they did.”

She nodded.

“And I’m not living in a tree root or underground,” I said. “Especially underground.”

She raised one eyebrow. “You get locked in a basement at some point?”

“Buried alive, but that’s another story.”

She shook her head. “Most days, I’m amazed that you’re a walking, breathing, mostly normal person. Then I hear more snippets of your past and you kinda scare the crap out of me.”

Hot Rod closed the hood of the car and Gertie shoved the croissant wrapper into her purse. “Looks like we’re up.”

Hot Rod waved at his shop. “Ida Belle says you guys need to talk to me about something important. I have cheap coffee, bottled water, and canned sodas. Can’t offer anything else, I’m afraid.”

“Actually,” I said as we followed him into his office inside, “we’re hoping you have information.”

The office was small and only had two other chairs, so I perched on a credenza on the back wall and Gertie and Ida Belle sat across the desk from Hot Rod.

“So what are you wanting to know about?” he asked.

“Not a what,” I said. “A who. Your cousin Ryan Comeaux.”

His eyes widened. “Lord, that’s a shot into the past. Why do you want to know about Ryan?”

I told him. By the time I was done, he had popped up and was pacing the four-step space available behind his desk. Finally, he stopped, shook his head, and banged his fists on the desk.

“I knew that boy never killed anyone,” he said. “Told the cops there was no way. Told his attorney, the judge, the jury, and everyone else who would listen. No one believed me. And now ten years later, this woman is stating outright there’s no way he did it and no one is listening to her either. I don’t understand.”

“The system doesn’t like when they got it wrong, especially if the people who conducted the original investigation believe Ryan was guilty.”

Ida Belle nodded. “It’s bad for promotions and in the case of attorneys, it’s bad for political aspirations.”

Hot Rod gave us a look of dismay. “Doesn’t anyone care about the truth anymore?”

“I do,” I said. “That’s why I took the case. And for that boy.”

Hot Rod shook his head. “I’ve got a second cousin…Ryan is a father. And he doesn’t even know it. This is the biggest dang mess I’ve ever heard. Ask me for anything. You need money? I’ll sell my own car for your fees.”

“I’m already on retainer with Kelsey,” I said. “What I need from you is information about Ryan. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since I started investigating, it’s that very few things happen over a small space of time. People are a product of their genetics and their experiences. Knowing more about the people involved helps me come up with potential defenses and other suspects. Both help get cases overturned.”

He nodded. “I see what you’re saying. That makes sense and it’s smart, but then you’re probably the smartest person in Sinful. How about I start with that day and work backward. Then you can ask me for more anytime you need it.”

“That day?” I asked.

“The day the cops found Lindsay dead. I saw Ryan that morning.”

We all stared.

“You’re kidding?” I said.

“Nope. He stopped here on his way to their house. He told me they’d split up a couple weeks before and he’d been staying at the Bayou Inn. I got on to him because he’d have been welcome to stay with me, but I think he was embarrassed about them breaking up and wasn’t ready for people to poke at him about it.”

He sighed. “I wouldn’t have done that, you know. I don’t get in a man’s business concerning money, religion, or his lady.”

“Smart,” Ida Belle said. “So what prompted him to stop by and fess up that morning?”

Hot Rod slumped back into his chair, looking a bit uncomfortable. “He said he’d messed up big. That he’d spent the night with some girl he picked up in the bar during his shift. Said he knew it was a mistake—he really loved Lindsay—but he didn’t know how he was supposed to face her after what he’d done.”

I leaned forward. “Wait. He told you he was coming home from the casino where he’d spent the night with another woman?”

He nodded.

“Did you tell the police that?” I asked.

“Of course! But they wouldn’t listen. They said they had all this evidence, and he could have just as easily killed her the night before, then stopped by here and told me all that stuff to try to create an alibi.”

“But you believed he was telling the truth?” I asked.

“’Course I did. He had no reason to lie to me. I get what they’re saying about the whole alibi thing, but I don’t buy it. Look, I hate to speak bad of Ryan, but the truth is, he’s a simple sort. They were making him out to be some master criminal, and I just don’t see it. Besides, it’s not much of an alibi anyway.”

I nodded. “When the police found the murder weapon with his prints on it in the motel dumpster, I’m guessing they didn’t bother to dig any deeper.”

“They didn’t,” he agreed. “Hell, that knife came from Ryan and Lindsay’s own kitchen. Of course his fingerprints were going to be on it.”

I groaned. Good God. Could this investigation and trial be any more of a farce?

“Did he have an attorney? Why wasn’t all of this brought up?”

“He had the public defender, who was about as useful as a fart in a hurricane. I didn’t have much money back then and no credit either. And Ryan didn’t have any other family still living. I tried to scrape up some funds, but I couldn’t afford anyone good.”

I sighed. “I’m really sorry, Hot Rod. Do you still keep in touch?”

“Yeah. I’m the only person he has left. He calls me every Thursday night when he has phone privileges, and I put money in his inmate account every month.”

He frowned. “I don’t think he’s doing good, though. I went to visit every month the first few years and the last two times I was there, he had bruises on his face. Then he asked me to stop coming. Said it was too depressing and he’d rather just talk on the phone. I wasn’t happy about it, but I can’t make the man see me if he doesn’t want to. Lately, he sounds worse than he ever has. I know it ain’t Disneyland, but it sucks hard, especially when I know for a fact he didn’t do this.”

“Have you ever talked to anyone about an appeal, now that you have a bit more money?” I asked.

“Sure. First thing I did when I started putting back some money was talk to one of those bigwig attorneys in NOLA. But he said it was harder to get a conviction overturned than it was to avoid it in the first place. And without anything new to go on, he thought it would take a lot of money and time, and we’d all just end up disappointed in the end.”

“So he didn’t want to do it because he didn’t think he could win,” Gertie said. “Sometimes I dislike attorneys as much as I do politicians.”

Hot Rod nodded. “’Bout once a year, I head into NOLA and try again with someone new. But I just get the same song and dance.” He sat forward, looking a bit more animated. “But now I’ve got that evidence they wanted. The girl he was with. That should be enough, right?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But the first thing the prosecutor will point out is that Kelsey would say anything to save her son.”

Hot Rod cursed. “So what do we do?”

“You tell me everything you can about Ryan and Lindsay and the original investigation and trial. Let me handle the rest of it. And the next time you talk to Ryan, ask him to put my name on his visitation list.”

“You think I should contact another attorney?”

“I’ve already got one. He’s the best in existence and has zero desire for a political career. If he thinks I’ve got enough to make this happen, then he’ll handle it.”

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. If you could get him out of there before…I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling. I’m afraid he’s given up.”

I nodded. I did too.