Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I had my laptop open before Ida Belle had even backed out of the driveway. I hit social media first and started with Brittany, figuring she’d be the most likely to keep a continuous account of her life online. She was easy to find and sure enough, made multiple posts a day, often with selfies and verbiage that sounded as if she was trying to cheerlead her followers into living their best life. I could see why Amanda had gone the opposite route. Brittany seemed nice enough, but I couldn’t be friends with her for a day without wanting to tape her mouth shut.

Her last post was after their arrival on Voodoo Island, but only contained a picture of her and Daniel standing in front of the house and a short post about how excited they were to stay in this famous historical property. She’d posted nothing at all after Justin had died, but then, that probably stood to reason.

The post before was about their upcoming high school reunion and featured a photo of the group from back then. I clicked on it and scanned the faces, easily recognizing the younger versions of all of them. Except two, and I had to enlarge the photo and take a second look. Daniel and Justin didn’t look exactly alike, but Morgan had been right when he’d said they could have been brothers.

“Look at this,” I said to Gertie and pointed to the two men.

“Wow,” she said. “They really do look alike.”

“Driving here,” Ida Belle reminded us. “Who looks alike?”

“Daniel and Justin,” I said. “It’s easy to tell the difference when you’re actually looking, but I can see why people might have thought they were related.”

“Back then people might have,” Ida Belle said. “But after years of Justin drinking, I bet that’s not the case anymore.”

She pulled up to a stop sign and I showed her the picture.

“There’s something else,” she said, and pointed to a young, lanky Tyler. “He’s wearing an earring.”

“Good eye,” I said.

“He wasn’t wearing an earring on the island,” Gertie said.

“Maybe because he lost it in Justin’s room,” Ida Belle said. “It wasn’t a girlie sort of earring. A guy could easily wear it and get away with it, especially being from Louisiana.”

I nodded. “Brittany didn’t post anything after the arrival at Voodoo Island, so let me see if I can find a profile for Justin.”

I searched his name and Miami and his profile popped up at the top of the list. I clicked and whistled. “You weren’t wrong, Ida Belle. He looks a good ten years older than the others.”

“More like fifteen or twenty,” Gertie said. “He could have passed for Daniel’s father.”

“That’s what alcohol and living hard will get you,” Ida Belle said. “Anything interesting?”

I scrolled down the page. “No. Just selfies of Justin with women—always different women—Justin in bars, Justin in boats, Justin in a Ferrari. I wonder if it’s his. ”

“Is his job listed?” Ida Belle asked. “I don’t think anyone ever said what it was.”

I checked the profile. “Construction sales. I guess he works with builders?”

Ida Belle nodded. “If he was any good, he might have made a lot of money.”

“There’s a lot of money,” I said, “and there’s driving a Ferrari and living in Miami. Let me see if I can run down an address.”

I did a quick check and got a pretty long list. “Looks like he moved living quarters every six months for the past couple years.”

I pulled up the last known address and frowned. Surely this couldn’t be right. The place in the picture was a building with bars on the windows, tall weeds for a lawn, and looked as though it hadn’t seen a lick of paint in decades.

Gertie whistled. “Apparently the mighty have fallen. I wouldn’t even go in that building without a SWAT team for backup.”

“He’s definitely not parking a Ferrari there,” I said. “But this shows him moving in four months ago and the picture with the Ferrari was just two weeks ago.”

“Probably rented for a day or two,” Gertie said. “I see videos all the time about it. Guys rent exotic cars down there to pick up hot girls. But the girls are getting wise to the rentals. At least the locals are. I suppose the tourists are practically a buffet for men like Justin though. They wouldn’t know any better.”

“I wonder if the others knew about this,” I said.

“Doubt it,” Ida Belle said. “Why would he let anyone know? He was the big man on campus. People like Justin never stop living that high school glory because they fail to attain any as adults. But being the big man in Houma, Louisiana, in no way qualifies you to matter at all in a place like Miami. Especially if you’re broke.”

I nodded. “Let’s do Tyler next. Here’s his page—pictures of him on a boat, at a football game, at a concert. Never with a woman. Looks like the bro squad. Oh! He’s wearing an earring in this one, though, and that was only a couple weeks ago. But it’s not the one we found. No mention at all of the class reunion. Okay, let’s move on to his teen crush Nicole.”

“I’d say that one has progressed long beyond teen,” Gertie said.

“You think she knows?” I asked.

“Of course she knows,” Ida Belle said. “Women always know when a man’s interested. Heck, even I know and you’re aware of how many girl genes I’m lacking. But she’s not about to let on that she knows.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because if he knew that she knew, then he would push for a response,” Gertie said. “And then she’d have to tell him she doesn’t share the same feelings. Nicole strikes me as the type of person who’s always putting other people’s feelings ahead of her own. Look how she follows after Brittany to make sure she’s all right every time she has a meltdown.”

“True,” I said. “But I’d rather just confront the guy, even if it hurt his feelings, so that he’d move on.”

“She probably thought he had,” Ida Belle said. “Remember, most of them have only interacted rarely since high school, if at all. Tyler’s in Baton Rouge and Nicole is in NOLA. I suppose she might run into him occasionally in Houma if she’s home for a visit, but there would be no reason for her to think he’d continued to hold a torch.”

“Until she got locked in a house with him for days,” I said. “He brought her favorite chocolates.”

“What?” Ida Belle asked .

“Nicole is type 1 and told me she only breaks out the insulin for her favorite chocolates and the occasional glass of wine. The chocolatier is in Baton Rouge and she said Tyler brought her a box of the chocolates.”

“Then she most definitely knows he’s still hung up on her,” Gertie said. “Men don’t remember things like a woman’s favorite chocolate unless they’re into them. But no way she would have addressed it with all of them closed up together. It would have made the whole situation uncomfortable.”

“Pretty sure Justin’s dying did that,” Ida Belle said. “What’s on Nicole’s socials?”

“Mostly just shots of homes she’s been the designer for, and posts from homeowners, smiling in new kitchens and bathrooms, thanking her for all her help. The only personal posts I see are pics of her and Brittany in the French Quarter. But nothing remotely scandalous. Just dinner, beignets, Jackson Square looking at the art… If this is an indication of her real life, she’s as insulated as Rose is supposed to be.”

Ida Belle nodded. “I figured as much when she didn’t put in her two cents on Amanda’s girls’ night. She’s in the same city, but apparently doesn’t go.”

“Look at Morgan next,” Gertie said. “I have a feeling that one might be as lacking in personal touch as Nicole’s.”

I put in his name and scanned the list but didn’t see a profile that fit. I tried a couple other social media sites with the same result.

“Looks like no social media at all,” I said.

Ida Belle shrugged. “That’s not really surprising.”

“He’s watching it, though,” Gertie said. “Or he wouldn’t have known what fantasy books were trending. Probably private accounts, and he might not be using his real name.”

I frowned. “True. Let me try to run down an address.”

I did a search for his name and Baton Rouge and found a listing for a previous address. “Looks like he moved from that place six months ago. Nothing else since.”

“He said he wrote code for a defense contractor,” Ida Belle said. “Maybe his new place is in their name. Some of that work requires a high-level security clearance. Might also be why he’s clearly looking at social media but not on it himself.”

“That’s true,” I said. “My condo in DC was buried in corporate filings which eventually led back to the government but never to me. But I was an assassin. You have to be in pretty deep to be covered up that well.”

“Could also be an inheritance thing,” Ida Belle said. “He might have had an old aunt who passed and left him her house and he’s never changed the deed. A lot of people don’t bother if they’re going to live there. And even if they do, it sometimes takes a while to process, much less make the internet rounds.”

“Oh well, off to Daniel then,” I said. “Looks like what I’d expect to see. Daniel and Brittany in what I assume is their backyard pool. Daniel and Brittany at dinner. The last one was him and Brittany on the boat with Corndog. No mention of the class reunion though, but then, he doesn’t post much. Maybe once every couple months or so.”

“So last but not least is Amanda,” Gertie said.

I located her easily and scanned her feed. “It’s mostly just pics of her and her girlfriends doing things around New Orleans. Nothing remotely scandalous, not even their outfits.”

Gertie snorted. “They’re all dressed like you. Except at night. Apparently, they upgrade to jeans and heels.”

“Amanda can’t afford any questions in her public-facing image,” Ida Belle said. “Not if she wants to make partner.”

“She’s finance, not criminal, and I don’t see her for political aspirations,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Ida Belle said. “The rules are still different for women. Impropriety on her part, broadcast online, could cost her the promotion. It’s sexist and unfair, but a lot of professions are still like that, especially those that work with the public and on referrals. All it takes is one partner at that firm interested in politics and the whole ship has to toe the line.”

I closed my laptop and stared out the window. “That didn’t yield much.”

“What did you expect?” Ida Belle asked. “That someone had posted a rant about hating Justin and wanting him dead?”

“It might have been nice.”

“You wouldn’t have believed it. You hate it when it’s easy.”

“True. But I’d like more to go on than we have. We don’t even know that it was murder. In fact, everything points to it being an accident, but that puts Corndog squarely on the hook unless we can prove Justin ate something besides the fish.”

“We have your intuition,” Gertie said. “That’s all I need.”

Ida Belle nodded.

“I appreciate the vote of confidence, but we’re going to need more than my opinion on the matter to protect Corndog and Petunia.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Gertie said. “You always do. You’re the one who should be wearing a superhero costume.”

“Ha. I can be the Fantastic Frustrated, since that’s the way I seem to feel most when we’re investigating.”

Ida Belle turned off the highway onto a shell road. “You’re going to need to be Man of Steel for this road.”

We bumped along for a bit and finally pulled into a clearing that served as a parking lot. The bar was located on pilings right on a bayou, and the whole setup reminded me of the Swamp Bar. A weathered sign on the front of the building read Namaste Bar and I had to laugh. You really couldn’t make this stuff up. I said a quick prayer that our bar track record was different here than in Sinful and climbed out of the SUV .

Despite it being the middle of the day, the bar was half full. We headed for the counter, figuring barstools would give us an elevated view of the place, and were about five steps inside when Ida Belle grabbed my arm.

“Far end of the bar,” she whispered.

I glanced over and was surprised to see Morgan and Amanda sitting at the bar. They looked relaxed and had po’boys and mugs of beer in front of them.

Gertie clued in on them as well and smiled. “Looks like our opportunity for questioning starts now.”