by BJ Bourg
Before Gina could say another word, Regan pulled up to the curb. I shook Gina’s hand and told her to call the police department if she reconsidered my offer to stay in the women’s shelter. I then waved my thanks to Regan and headed for my Tahoe.
I’d just reached for the door knob when my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but answered anyway.
“Detective Wolf, this is Vanessa Comeaux from the sheriff’s office.”
I froze in place. I remembered meeting a Deputy Vanessa Comeaux last year. She had been a new patrol officer who had responded to a shooting in town that had involved Susan. I was curious as to why she would be calling me.
“Call me Clint,” I said. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to let you know we were done at the crime scene,” she explained. “Did you want us to put crime scene tape across the door before we leave?”
“You’re with the crime lab now?” I was surprised that she could’ve gone from the patrol division to the crime lab in such a short amount of time. It usually took years for a new deputy to go from patrol to detective and then to the crime lab.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I’ve been here since February.”
“Wow, congratulations! I’ve never heard of someone moving so quickly from patrol to the lab. You must be a natural.”
“I’ve got a Bachelors in biochemistry,” she explained. “They hired me specifically for the lab, but told me I’d have to attend the police academy and complete six months of patrol work before they’d let me through the doors. To be honest, I kind of liked being a patrol cop. I even thought about staying put, but the sheriff wouldn’t allow it. He said he needed me in the lab.”
I nodded to myself. “So, did y’all find anything?”
“We swabbed a ton of surfaces and searched for prints, but we only found smudges. Some of the surfaces were too clean, which made it seem like someone wiped them down.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“It looked like you covered most of it,” she continued. “We didn’t find anything new.”
I thanked her and jumped into my Tahoe. Susan’s Tahoe was already gone, so I gave her a call.
“Where are you?” I asked when she answered.
“I’m at the town hall,” she said. “I’ve got to meet with the mayor right quick. We’re ironing out some details for the Fall Festival.”
“I need someone to come with me to Kim Plant’s house,” I said. “I need to interview her about the iPad.”
“Amy’s not back yet?”
I glanced at the dash clock. It was almost two o’clock. “She’s probably heading back from the crime lab in La Mort, but then she’ll have to attend the autopsy at three. I’ll only need you for a few minutes.”
“Where’s Kim live?”
“Attakapas.”
Attakapas was an unincorporated town in Central Chateau. I had run the address I’d gotten from Kim and found that she lived in the richest part of the settlement.
Susan paused for a long moment and I waited. Her job as chief of police was a demanding one, and I hated to bother her again. I’d conducted interviews alone with women many times before, but I preferred having a witness. Besides, there was something about Kim that told me I’d better have a witness. It was nothing she’d said or done—just a gut feeling. I’d thought about asking Regan to come along, but we only had one patrol officer on duty at any given time and taking her away would leave the town vulnerable.
“I can call Takecia and see if she’s available,” I offered. “Or ask Mallory.”
Mallory Tuttle was a detective lieutenant with the Chateau Parish Sheriff’s Office. She had always been a friend to Susan and me and was as helpful as anyone I’d ever worked with.
“Nah, I should be able to go with you,” Susan finally said. “I’ve got a four o’clock meeting at the sheriff’s main office with the details coordinator. I need to line up some deputies to work the festival. As long as we’re done by three thirty, I’ll be fine.”
“Perfect!” I gave her the address and told her I’d meet her at the front of the street. “I have a bad feeling about this woman, and I don’t want to be alone with her.”
“Are you afraid of her?”
“What?” It wasn’t the question, but her tone of voice that threw me off guard. “No. Why would I be afraid of her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because she was giving you a deep muscle massage when you were interviewing her the first time,” Susan said coyly. “Maybe the next one will have a happy ending. Is that what you’re afraid of?”
“She wasn’t massaging my arm!” I could feel my face burning red. “She was pulling at my wristband. It’s some kind of reflexive stress response that she has. She does it involuntarily. I don’t even think she realized she was doing it. And look, she was doing the same thing to the sleeve of her shirt.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Mr. Man. I think Mrs. Plant is looking for her husband’s replacement.”
“No, it’s not like that at all.” I explained how she had been plucking at my wristband and letting it snap against my arm repeatedly, as though she had been in a trance. The more I tried to explain it, the more defensive I felt, and the long silence on the other end didn’t help any. “Look, if you don’t believe me, ask Amy.”
“How do you think I found out about it?” Susan suddenly began laughing. “Amy said it looked like you wanted to burrow into the concrete foundation. She said she almost burst out laughing a few times. She’s hoping the surveillance cameras in the room caught the expression on your face. She wants to put it on Rumble. She thinks she can get it to go viral.”
I stifled my own laughter and pretended to be unimpressed. “In any event, I appreciate you sitting in with Gina and I appreciate you meeting me at Kim’s house. I love it when we can work together.”
“Me, too.”
“Why don’t we also stop and grab a burger on the way?”
“Sounds good,” Susan said through her continued laughter.
“Also,” I said flatly, “I’ll have to remember to congratulate Amy on her transfer back to patrol.”
CHAPTER 13
Susan and I met at a burger joint, wolfed down our food, and then she followed me to the Plant residence. Thankfully, the house number was on the mailbox, because there was no way to see the house from the highway. It was situated at the end of a long cobblestone driveway that probably cost more than Susan’s and my entire house and property combined.
Susan followed me as we drove for a quarter of a mile until finally reaching a two-story stately home surrounded by giant oak trees. It was constructed of red brick and white stucco. A black wooden door was centered between two white columns and there were matching shutters along the front of the house.
“I guess Ralph was doing well with his practice,” Susan muttered, walking beside me as I approached the brick steps that led to the entrance. There was a surveillance camera centered above the door, and I gave it a nod as I ascended the steps and pressed the doorbell.
We didn’t have to wait long for the door to open. On the other side of it was Kim, and she looked much different than she had earlier. She had changed into jeans and a red blouse. She had even put on makeup and fixed her hair, which gave me pause for a split second. Most people who lost loved ones usually fell apart and didn’t care about their appearances or upkeep. Of course, I had been doing the job long enough to know folks handled grief in different ways, so I wasn’t going to read too much into it.
Kim smiled when she saw me.
“Detective Wolf, I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.” She gave Susan a once over. “And you must be Susan Wolf.”
Susan smiled and fingered her gold name badge. “That would be me. It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”
The women shook hands, and then Kim turned. She waved for us to follow her inside. “Would y’all like some coffee?”
I glanced at Susan, who shook her head, so I said, “No, th
ank you.”
Kim led the way into a foyer and down a passage between a large wooden spiral staircase and an old wooden entry table. Atop the entry table were several large and expensive-looking decorative vases. One of them looked antique, so I steered clear of the table. The last thing I needed to do was knock one of them over.
“What can I do for you?” Kim asked when we reached the kitchen. “I was just about to head to the funeral home and give them the rough draft of the obituary.” She paused and stared off for a moment. “You know, I never knew how difficult it was to write one of those. I mean, how do you sum up a person’s entire life in just a few short paragraphs?”
Susan and I nodded and waited patiently while Kim stood transfixed, lost in her own thoughts. Finally she took a breath and continued speaking.
“Anyway, Ralph and I were friends with the original owners of the funeral home. They died years ago. Their son called me personally and said he would help walk me through the process, considering how close we were with his parents. It was so nice of him.” She stopped talking again and leaned her back against the marble countertop. I could see moisture building in her eyes again. “It seems like I’m trapped in this horrible nightmare. If only I could wake up, everything would be fine again.”
I frowned. There would be no waking up from her nightmare, but I didn’t tell her that. It was something she would have to figure out on her own.
“If we’re interrupting you, we can come back later,” I offered. “I just wanted to talk about Ralph’s iPad.”
Kim had turned and was placing a thick mug under the fancy coffee maker on the counter, but her hand froze in mid air and her back stiffened for a split second.
It was all the answer I needed. I glanced over at Susan. Her dark brown eyes sparkled and she gave me a short nod. She had noticed it, too. I was about to address Kim again when she turned to face me. The machine was making a humming noise now, and coffee soon started spilling from the spout. The smell enveloped the room. While I wasn’t a coffee drinker, I had to admit it smelled good.
“What are you talking about?” Kim finally asked in an even tone. “Ralph didn’t have an iPad. He used his iPhone for everything. I’ve got an iPad, but he never did like them.” She frowned and stared down at the coffee maker, her eyes turning sad. “I tried getting him to use an iPad and I even showed him mine, but he said it looked like an iPhone that was too big to fit in your pocket. He said it was impractical. I told him it could do everything his iPhone could do, so he said there was no point in getting one.”
There was a dreamy look in her eye, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she loved her husband despite the problems she’d had with him. It appeared she did, and I couldn’t understand it. If I loved someone who treated me the way she had been treated, I’d fall out of love in a hurry.
“I imagine you and Ralph were on the same cell phone plan, right?” I asked.
Kim nodded.
“Is there a way you can use your phone to track his?”
She scoffed. “Do you really think a man like him would ever let his wife track him?”
“I, um, I never really thought about it.”
“He tried one of those tracking apps once so he could see where I was at all times, but when he realized I could also see where he was, he shut that shit down in a hurry.” She laughed, and then quickly apologized for cursing. “So, the answer is no—I can’t track his phone.”
I hooked my thumbs in my belt, trying to figure out a way to attack the issue with the iPad without putting her on the defensive. Meanwhile, I figured I’d try something else.
“Would you mind calling your service provider and asking them to track down his cell phone?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah, that’s a good idea.” Kim reached for her own phone and made the call. She was placed on hold for about fifteen minutes, transferred twice, and was finally able to speak with a live person. After explaining the situation and reciting her security code, she provided Ralph’s cell phone number.”
I leaned close to Susan and whispered that I thought Kim was lying about the iPad. Keeping her dark eyes on Kim, she nodded to let me know she agreed with me.
Finally, Kim ended the call and shook her head. “They said his cell phone is out of range, which could mean his battery’s dead, the phone’s off, or it’s in a dead zone.”
I glanced around the kitchen. There were three areas of countertop, and all were topped in matching marble. The gas range was located on a sizable island located at the center of the large room, and there wasn’t so much as a speck of sugar on the island. White wooden cabinets occupied two walls, and the sink was located along that set of countertop. Other than a potted plant, three decorative canisters labeled Flour, Sugar, Coffee respectively, and a bottle of hand soap, that countertop was also clean. The other section of countertop was behind us, and it contained a large-screen Apple computer.
I shot a thumb toward the computer. “Was Ralph’s phone synched to that computer?”
“No, that’s the surveillance monitor.” Gina turned and retrieved her mug of coffee from the machine.
I nodded thoughtfully, and decided to make my play for the iPad.
“Ma’am,” I began slowly, “the reason I asked about Ralph’s iPad was because we received credible information that Ralph kept one locked in his gun safe. Along with that information, we also learned that his iPhone was synched to the device. Since the killer took the cell phone, we believe there’s something on that iPad that might help us identify the killer. If we could look in his gun safe, we might be able to solve his murder.”
“Look, I don’t know anything about Ralph having an iPad.” She shook her head. “He hated them. He didn’t even know how to use them.”
“Would it surprise you to learn that Gina showed him how to use it?” I asked, studying her face for a reaction. It came, and in a big way. Although I didn’t think it was humanly possible, her ears actually moved back a little and her face turned red.
“That little whore!”
CHAPTER 14
I knew Kimberly Plant would be angry when she learned that Ralph had allowed Gina to teach him how to use an iPad, while ignoring his wife’s attempts to do the same, but I hadn’t expected her to explode the way she did. Letting out a string of curses, she flung her mug across the room. It bounced off the stainless steel surface of her French door style refrigerator and then bounced across the floor. Surprisingly, the heavy mug didn’t break, but it did leave a mess of coffee all over the kitchen.
Neither Susan nor I so much as blinked.
“That conniving bitch is always meddling in our affairs,” Kim said through gritted teeth. “I knew she had a crush on Ralph. I could see it in the way she looked at him and hear it in the way she said his name. I told Ralph to fire her, but he flat out refused to do so. He did come home with an iPad one day, and I thought he had finally listened to me. But then it was gone a few days later. I asked him what happened to it, and do you know what he said?”
Kim glanced from Susan to me, as though expecting us to guess. I figured I knew the answer, but I only shrugged.
“He said he gave it to that little whore!” She let out a gasp. “Can you believe it? Do you know how much one of those things costs? And he just gave it to his secretary. He acted like there was nothing wrong with it.”
Kim continued complaining about Gina and called her all sorts of vile names. It took about five minutes for her tirade to finally be over, and she was left breathless and seemingly exhausted.
Susan helped herself to one of the top cabinets, fetched another coffee mug, and worked the fancy coffee machine like she knew what she was doing. It looked like a futuristic robot to me, and I found myself missing the days when my grandma would make coffee over the stove like a normal person.
Once Kim had a new mug of coffee in her hands and had taken a sip, I asked if I could look inside the gun safe.
“Ralph never gave me the combination,” she said, glancing around a
t the mess she’d made. “I’m really sorry about the way I acted. I’ve never done anything like this before. I guess it’s just the stress of the moment.”
“It’s quite alright,” I said soothingly, considering very carefully the words she’d just spoken. She hadn’t said she didn’t know the combination—she’d simply said that Ralph hadn’t given it to her. There was a big difference between the two statements.
“What kind of safe is it?” I asked, a plan beginning to hatch in my mind.
Her face scrunched up. “I think it’s a Liberty something or other? I know he often called it Lady Liberty, but I think it’s something else—like USA or something.”
“Liberty does make a USA model,” I said. “Look, if we called Liberty and told them you needed your deceased husband’s safe opened so we could access his iPad and possibly solve his murder, I think they would do it.”
“I…I don’t know about that.” Kim frowned. “It just seems wrong to invade Ralph’s privacy like that.”
“Well, if I was able to get the safe open somehow, would you give me permission to search it?” I lifted a hand. “And keep in mind I only want to look at his iPad to see if he communicated with anyone just prior to his murder, and also to check and see if he has anything on there for which someone might want to murder him.”
“I mean, do you have a warrant?” Kim seemed hesitant. “I’ve always heard Ralph telling his clients not to talk to the police and to never consent to a search. I feel like I would be going against his wishes if I allowed it.”
“Fair enough.” I nodded, and made a mental note to contact Mallory Tuttle and ask her to obtain a search warrant for the safe. While Susan and I held active commissions from the Chateau Parish Sheriff’s Office, I didn’t like stepping on anyone’s toes, so I usually tried to coordinate with their agency before taking any police action in their jurisdiction. Any private person or law enforcement officer could conduct an interview anywhere in the country, but conducting searches and arrests were different matters that required police powers.
