But Not Forsworn: A Clint Wolf Novel (Clint Wolf Mystery Series Book 21)

by BJ Bourg

  Amy had also told me she would head to the crime lab as soon as we were finished with the interviews, and she would attend the autopsy afterward.

  Dr. Louise Wong, who worked for the Chateau Parish Coroner’s Office, had scheduled the autopsy for three o’clock. Amy loved attending autopsies. While I didn’t mind attending interesting ones, the outcome of this one was all but guaranteed, and I had more pressing things to do. I was hoping our interviews with Kim and Gina would generate promising leads, and I wasn’t about to waste any time getting down to it.

  Kim was crying softly when Amy and I entered the interview room. I apologized for the time it took to finish the scene and finally meet with her. She waved a dismissive hand.

  “It’s quite alright,” she said, trying to breathe through her sobs. She was pulling at the sleeve of the button-down shirt she was wearing—just as she had pulled at my silicone wristband—and I realized it must be a nervous habit of hers.

  “It’s not like I have anything better to do,” she continued. “Ralph’s gone, and he’s all I had. There’s nothing at home for me. We never had kids. I wanted them—I really did—but he was against it. He said he was too busy to be a good dad. I…I guess he somehow knew he wouldn’t be around for long.”

  I frowned as she choked on her tears. Amy was on the opposite side of the desk from me and seated beside Kim. She put a reassuring hand on the distraught woman’s shoulder, but didn’t say anything. Neither of us spoke while Kim cried.

  CHAPTER 9

  Five minutes later, Kim Plant sucked in her breath and nodded. “You can go ahead and ask your questions. I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Can you tell me about your husband’s activities over the last few days?” I began. “Not just in his private life, but anything you can tell me about his work life would be helpful, too.”

  “Well, he worked Friday as usual. He got home early—I think it was four o’clock.” She paused and pulled at the sleeve of her shirt. “He played in a golf tournament on Saturday. We went to a seafood restaurant in New Orleans yesterday for lunch, and then he went to the office to get some work done last night. I know he was preparing for a trial. I think it starts in two weeks.”

  “Was it a criminal or civil trial?” I asked.

  “Criminal. His client was accused of attacking his girlfriend, but Ralph said they obtained messages from the girl’s social media accounts proving that the whole thing was fabricated.” Kim paused to blow her nose. “He was also working on a couple of other cases, but I don’t know much about them. He doesn’t really talk about his cases. The only reason I know about the trial was because I overheard him talking to the client on the phone while we were in New Orleans yesterday. He told him what to wear for the trial and said that they would meet later so Ralph could prepare him for any questions the prosecutor might have if he decided to take the stand.”

  “What time did he head to the office yesterday?”

  “Um, I guess it was around seven or seven-thirty.”

  I nodded, studying the woman in front of me. “And you didn’t think it strange that he never came home last night?”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “To be honest, I didn’t even notice. I went to bed around midnight and woke up an hour or so before Gina called. When I woke up, I figured he either fell asleep at his desk again or he came home and then left while I was still asleep. It’s happened more than once over the years. You just learn to stop worrying.”

  I asked more questions about his work, but she didn’t reveal anything that gave me pause.

  “Has he ever had problems with clients or other lawyers?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “He’s always talked about his clients like they were satisfied with him, and he never had any problems with other lawyers—at least, not that I know about.”

  “Did he have any friends?”

  “Oh, yeah, he’s got lots of friends.” Kim nodded her head for emphasis. “He still keeps in touch with a lot of his friends from law school, and he knows a lot of people from Chateau Parish.”

  “Has he ever had problems with anyone?” I asked. “Does he have enemies?”

  “I…well, not really.”

  “Not really what?” I wanted to know. “Does he not really have enemies, or has he not really had problems with anyone?”

  “Both,” Kim said. “He doesn’t have any enemies that I know about, and he hasn’t really had problems with anyone.”

  I glanced at Amy, and hesitated. I didn’t want to upset Kim by asking about her husband’s habits of harassing women, but this was a possible murder investigation.

  “What about women?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

  “What about them?” Her expression was blank.

  “Well, firstly, has he ever had an affair while y’all were together?” I hated asking the question, but it needed to be asked.

  Kim hesitated for a long moment—too long, actually.

  “Well?” I pressed. “Has he ever cheated on you?”

  “Not that I can prove.”

  “But you suspected him of having an affair?”

  Kim frowned, and let her head hang. “I did.”

  “With who?”

  “Look, I just want you to know I’m not stupid.” Kim shifted in her chair. “I know what kind of man I married. Even before our wedding I had friends telling me how he’d look them up and down like he wanted to jump their bones on the spot. A few of them even said he made passes at them. I never believed any of it at first, but as I got new friends, I heard the same story again and again, so I finally confronted him. He claimed it was all innocent, that he was an impossible flirt—whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. I couldn’t control what he did at work or when he was alone, but I quit having my friends over. I was tired of being embarrassed. I figured what I didn’t know couldn’t make me look stupid.”

  “You quit having friends over his flirting?” I asked.

  “No, I just quit having them over when he was around,” she explained. “We’d either meet somewhere else or they’d come over when I knew he was tied up for a while.”

  Kim hadn’t mentioned the names of the woman or women with whom she suspected Ralph of having an affair, so I asked the question again.

  “I…I don’t want to accuse anyone without proof.” Kim shook her head. “I just don’t know for sure, so I won’t say any names.”

  “Were any of them your friends?”

  “No, or they wouldn’t be my friends anymore. To my knowledge, all of my friends have been loyal to me.”

  I gently pressed Kim for a name, but she refused to give any up, so I asked about the only name I knew.

  “What about Gina?” I asked. “Do you think Ralph was having an affair with her?”

  “Gina? Are you kidding?” Kim chuckled. “No way. She wasn’t his type.”

  “What was his type?” I wanted to know.

  “He liked powerful women.” Kim shifted the oversized shirt on her shoulder. “He liked women in high places. He looked down on secretaries and others in what he called the service industry. He might’ve flirted with every woman he saw, but he didn’t waste his time with them unless they wielded some kind of power.”

  Although I was positive a man like Ralph probably thought he was better than police officers, I asked Kim if he was attracted to female officers of the law.

  I caught movement from Amy out of the corner of my eye when I asked the question, but I stayed focused on Kim.

  “I guess you heard about that.” Kim sighed. “A friend of mine called one day to say she saw him grab a female cop on the ass. She said the cop slapped the shit out of him and threatened to arrest him.”

  I gawked at Kim because I hadn’t heard of that story. Apparently, Ralph had done that sort of thing to more than two police officers.

  Kim hadn’t noticed my startled expression, so I went on to my next question.

&n
bsp; “Where’d this happen?”

  “At a high school volleyball game,” Kim said. “It was two years ago. The deputy was working the detail and, from what my friend told me, she was very friendly to everyone. I guess Ralph thought her friendliness meant she wanted him. I mean, seriously, if a woman so much as looked in his direction he thought they wanted to sleep with him.”

  The quizzical expression on my face must’ve given me away, because Kim’s brow furrowed and she glanced from me to Amy, and then back to me.

  “What is it?” Kim asked. “You didn’t know about that?”

  “There were a couple of incidents here in town where he came on to two of our female officers,” I said slowly. “He made a crude comment to one of our officers and he touched the other one. I didn’t know about the incident you described—”

  “I was one of the officers,” Amy interrupted. “Takecia Gayle was the other. Woman to woman, I want to apologize to you for having to live with such a man. No woman should have to endure crap like that in her marriage.”

  I winced inwardly, not sure how Kim would take Amy’s comment, but I suddenly grew curious when Kim’s expression changed. I didn’t know what it meant, but it looked like she appreciated the support from Amy.

  “It was difficult,” Kim admitted. “Everywhere we went I felt like people were staring at me, thinking I was a fool. That’s why I stopped going places with him.”

  I wanted to ask if that was why she killed Ralph, but resisted the urge. It was clear to me that Ralph probably trusted the person who shot him, because he let them get close enough to shove a gun to his temple without offering up even the slightest bit of resistance, so that made Kim a possible suspect. And now, it was starting to look like she had a motive to want him dead.

  Of course, there was the other possibility. There was a chance that Ralph didn’t offer any resistance because he was being threatened with a gun. Either way he had allowed the killer to get way too close to him, and it was now up to me and Amy to figure out why.

  “Would it be safe to say y’all had a rocky marriage?” I asked carefully, trying not to sound accusatory in any way.

  “I mean, there were some trying times, but all in all, we had a good life, you know?” Kim stabbed at a tear. “Had it not been for Ralph, I’d still be working as a receptionist for that asshole dentist in St. Claiborne. Everyone hated him, and the entire staff turned over at least twice while I was there, but I needed my job. I couldn’t afford to quit. Ralph came in one day to get a chipped tooth fixed. He had been standing across from a pool table at a bar when someone tried to muscle the break. The cue ball jumped the rails and hit him right in the mouth.”

  “You’re from St. Claiborne?” I asked, not paying much attention to her walk down memory lane. I’d been to St. Claiborne a number of times. It was an outlying town in Central Chateau, and it was tiny—much smaller than Mechant Loup.

  Kim nodded. “We used to say if you’re born in St. Claiborne, you’re never getting out, not even in a pine box, because it’s got its own cemetery. I was one of the lucky ones. Ralph took me away from there.”

  “Why didn’t you leave Ralph?” I asked. “If he was flirting with everyone around you and cheating on you, why didn’t you just walk away?”

  Kim was silent.

  “Did you feel like you would be admitting defeat if you left?” Amy offered. “That you would have to head back to your roots with your head hung low and face all the people from St. Claiborne? The ones who expected you to come running back?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  We were all quiet for a few moments, and then I continued with my questions. As far as she knew, Ralph had no enemies and she couldn’t think of a reason anyone would have for wanting him dead. She provided the names and contact information of his closest friends and family. I was running out of things to ask when I suddenly remembered his cell phone.

  “Does Ralph have a cell phone?”

  “Oh, yeah, of course.” Kim suddenly scowled, realizing I was asking for a reason. “Didn’t you find it in his office? He never goes anywhere without that thing and he goes crazy if he forgets where he puts it. I used to tell him he should get it implanted like a pacemaker so he wouldn’t freak out every time it left his sight.”

  “We couldn’t find it,” I said. “I checked the entire office and even his car, but it was nowhere to be found.”

  “Do you suppose…” Kim stopped and let her voice trail off.

  “The killer must’ve taken it,” I said, finishing her thought. “Do you know if there was anything on his phone that might make him a target?”

  “No.” Kim shook her head slowly, seemingly lost in thought. “I have no idea why anyone would want his phone.”

  It appeared that she knew something about the cell phone, but try as I might, I couldn’t get her to confirm my suspicions. Finally, I turned to Amy and asked if she had any questions for Kim. She shook her head, but leaned close to the woman.

  “If you need anything at all,” Amy said softly, “I’m here for you. I’ve already given you my cell number, and you can use it anytime—day or night.”

  Kim pursed her lips and nodded her thanks as tears slid down her cheeks.

  CHAPTER 10

  It was almost noon when Amy and I finished the interview with Kimberly Plant, and Amy said she would have to head to the crime lab after bringing Kim back to her car.

  “I need to get this evidence to the lab so I can be back in time for the autopsy,” she told me. “I’ll catch up with you when it’s done.”

  I nodded and told her that I’d start following up with Ralph’s friends and family after Susan and I interviewed Gina Burke.

  “If anyone would know who had a motive to kill him,” I said, “it’ll be his friends.”

  We were standing in the dispatcher’s station, and Amy shot a thumb toward the bathrooms—where Kim had gone to relieve herself—and lowered her voice. “Hell, she might have the best reason to want him dead.”

  I couldn’t argue, so I didn’t. I simply nodded and proceeded with Susan to Interview Room One, where Gina was waiting patiently for us. While I had decided much earlier not to chide her for making a death notification to Kim over the telephone, I couldn’t help but mention that Kim had found out.

  “I’m sorry you’ve been waiting so long,” I said as I took my seat across from her. Susan sat beside her. “I was talking to Mrs. Plant in the other interview room. It seems she got a call earlier saying that Ralph had been found dead, and she rushed to the office in a panic.”

  Gina’s round face turned to shock. “I…I’m the one who called her,” she said, clutching at her neck. “Was I not supposed to? Did I do something wrong?”

  I suddenly felt bad for bringing it up, so I just waved a hand in the air. “It’s not a problem. Everything worked out.”

  She took a breath and exhaled. “I thought I was in trouble.”

  I shook my head and began asking basic questions. I started by going over her work history at the Law Office of Ralph Plant, and then delved into her professional relationship with her boss. As she was answering my questions, I got the sense that she was a little too upset over his passing. Sure, anyone might be sad over the death of a boss, but she seemed destroyed over it.

  “Am I correct in assuming Ralph meant a lot to you?” I asked after about fifteen minutes of questioning.

  She scrubbed away some tears and nodded. “He was a good boss.”

  “Officer Steed told me your boyfriend came by to check on you earlier,” I said. “What’s his name?”

  “Orrin Cheramie.”

  “How long have y’all been dating?”

  “Um, it’ll be four years in October. We’ve been living together for three of those years.”

  “It seems you’re pretty upset about Ralph’s passing.” I said it as a statement, not as a question, but she answered it anyway and it was clear she took it as an accusation.

  “I mean, wouldn’t anyone be
upset if they found their boss dead?” She set her jaw. “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a dead person, so it really freaked me out.”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Had nothing been going on between her and her boss, I wouldn’t have expected her to be defensive. Now, though, I knew there was something between the two of them. I remained silent for a moment to see if it would evoke more of an explanation from Gina, and it did.

  “It’s just that he was a nice boss,” she continued. “I would be upset over anyone close to me dying.”

  “So, the two of you were close?” I asked.

  She hesitated.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “The closer you two were, the better, because I need some information that only someone close to him might possess.”

  Her expression turned to one of confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “Gina, there’s something you need to know, and it’s not pretty.” I leaned forward, resting my forearms on the desk. “I need you to brace yourself, okay?”

  She gulped and reached for the seat of the chair with both hands. “Is it bad?”

  “Well, it isn’t good.” I took a breath. “Ralph didn’t die of natural causes and it doesn’t look like he killed himself.”

  Gina blinked, not understanding.

  “It looks like he was murdered.”

  Her complexion blanched and she let out a gasp. “Somebody killed him?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “But who?”

  “I was hoping you might help me answer that question.”

  “Me?” she asked. “I don’t know who killed him. I didn’t even know he was murdered. I thought he just overdosed or something.”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, it appeared she instantly regretted uttering them.