by BJ Bourg
“Don’t start knocking what you don’t understand.”
“I’m not.” I grinned, then frowned. “I’m sorry to just drop in like this, but I had to meet you and Garvan. I wanted to see what y’all were like and hopefully get to do some catching up.”
Crystal fingered the picture in her hand. “How, um…how is she?”
“She’s doing well. She’s house-sitting as we speak.”
“Is she still mean?”
I frowned. “Was she that bad?”
“She was horrible. She’d fly off the handle in the blink of an eye. My grandmother thought she was possessed by demons, but Dad figured she was just mean.”
“Is that why he took you and left?”
“It only took once for Dad to see her hit me. He called the cops and they hauled her off to jail. While she was locked up, he packed our things and we went to live with my grandmother in La Mort until the court hearing. Once he was granted custody, we moved here and he got a job in the oilfield. He eventually filed for divorce, but he was never able to get her served. He’s never been able to move on with his life, thanks to her, and I hate the bitch for it.”
I shifted my feet. “Well, I can help you get her served. I mean, if it’ll help Garvan—our dad—move on with his life, I’ll be happy to do it. She’s certainly moved on with her life. She’s been with the same man since before I was born.”
Crystal studied my face for a long moment. “We might have the same mother, but there’s no way my dad is your dad.”
“I’m afraid he is. You see, my mom was pregnant when y’all left, but she never told our dad because she was afraid he’d take me away from her—just like he took you away from her.”
“That’s not possible,” said a smooth voice from behind me.
I whirled and locked eyes with the tall wiry man who stood in board shorts and a tank-top. He was dark from too many hours in the sun and his light brown hair appeared bleached. While we looked very different, our eyes were identical. He noticed, too, and his face lost a shade of bronze.
“There’s one way to find out for sure,” I offered slowly.
“DNA?”
I nodded. “I’ve got connections at the lab. We could have the results in a few days.”
Garvan Montana’s face softened. “We can go through the motions, but I can’t deny you. You look too damn much like me not to be my son, and it’s just like Nancy to pull some shit like this.” His eyes softened and he moved closer to me. “I overheard you say you could help me get her served with divorce papers.”
“Yeah, she’s staying at my house at the moment.”
“If you do that for me, I’ll claim you as my son even if the DNA results are negative. I’ve never been able to move on with my life because of her, and that would be a huge help.”
I was about to respond when Susan suddenly appeared beside me, her phone pressed to her ear. “We’ve got to go,” she said. “The lab results are in—Desmond Lemon can’t be our killer.”
CHAPTER 49
After trading contact information and a promise to keep in touch, I bid Garvan and Crystal goodbye and rushed outside with Susan. She tossed me her phone as I fired up the engine in my old truck and backed out of the driveway.
“What’s the verdict?” I asked Melvin, taking a quick glance over my shoulder before merging onto the highway. “Susan says Desmond Lemon took the fall for someone.”
“Yeah, that’s the gist of it.” Melvin paused and I could hear him take a breath before continuing. “The gun’s registered to Desmond and his fingerprints are on the frame, but the lab found an unidentified print on the magazine and two partial prints on the bullets that definitely don’t belong to him. He might’ve fired the pistol and accidentally shot Matthew, but he didn’t load the magazine.”
I pondered this as I drove, the needle on my speedometer pushing closer to the one hundred mark. I needed to get back to town, and quick!
“Is Matthew still in the hospital?” I asked. “It’s got to be him. Once they release him from the hospital, he’s hauling ass back to New York.”
“According to the hospital, he’ll be in for at least another week.”
“Great! Get a search warrant for his body and recover his fingerprints, then have them compared to the print you lifted on the magazine.”
“Will do.” Before hanging up, Melvin asked if I wanted him to have a guard stationed outside of Matthew’s hospital room.
“Yeah, and put a car outside of Foster’s house,” I said. “While there’s a good chance Matthew’s our killer, we still need to be prepared in case we’ve overlooked someone.”
I glanced at the dash clock when I hung up the phone. It was a little after one o’clock. Even if we drove straight through, we wouldn’t make it back to Mechant Loup until at least seven. But we’d have to stop for gas and—since neither of us had eaten since early morning—lunch, so it would be a bit closer to eight.
Lunch traffic on the island was still heavy and it took longer than I’d expected to tank up, grab burgers to go, and reach the interstate. Susan unpeeled the wrapper on my burger and fed me while I drove. It was a clumsy effort and some of the condiments ended up on my shirt, but it was fun. We had traveled about twenty miles in the bright sunshine by the time I’d finished, and I decided to call Foster and tell him the news. He didn’t take it well.
After a profanity-laden tirade, there was a long pause on the other end of the phone. Foster’s breathing was heavy and I could almost feel his jaw trembling. “Are you saying…um…is my life in danger?”
“We think Matthew’s the real suspect and he’s still hospitalized, so you should be okay.”
“I should be okay? Is that the best you can do?”
“We’ll put a car outside your house until we make it back to town. Who’s in the house with you?”
“It’s me and, um, Pearly, and Kimberly.”
“What about Jill?”
“She’s been staying at the hospital. She hasn’t been back since that bastard father-in-law of hers tried to assassinate me.”
My phone buzzed in my ear and I pulled it away to see who was calling. It was Melvin.
“Foster, I have to take this call. Stay inside, lock your doors, and don’t let anyone inside.”
Before he could answer, I took the call from Melvin. “Did you get the prints?”
“The judge won’t sign a warrant.” He sounded discouraged. “He said every newspaper in the parish has already named Desmond Lemon as the killer. He said we’ll need more evidence before we can force Matthew to surrender his prints.”
“What more does he want? We’ve got unidentified prints on the gun that Desmond fired at Foster, and Matthew has every reason to want Foster dead.”
“The judge said Desmond also shot Matthew with that same pistol, so…”
Melvin allowed his voice to trail off and I sat there pondering everything we knew to that point. A car slowed in front of me and I switched lanes to zip by, leaving the waters of West Bay in my rearview mirror. The road up ahead was wide open, so I smashed the accelerator. I needed to make up for lost time and I needed to get back to Mechant Loup before someone else got shot. I was about to tell Melvin I’d talk to him later when it occurred to me.
“Force!”
“What’s that?” Melvin asked.
“The judge said we don’t have enough evidence to force Matthew to give up his prints, but there’s no law saying we can’t ask him for his prints.”
Melvin clucked loudly. “Then I’ll ask him very nicely for his prints.”
“Let me know what he says.”
After hanging up, Susan and I made small talk for what seemed like a couple of hours. She kept turning the conversation back to the wedding. While I looked forward to marrying her, the planning was turning out to be as painful as watching her shop for clothes. She asked about the color of my tuxedo, the type of filling in the wedding cake, the number of guests, and who I wanted as my best man.
/> “It doesn’t really matter,” I said patiently. “Whatever you choose is fine with me.”
My response brought a stern look from her. “I feel like you’re not participating in the process,” she said. “It’s as though you don’t want to do this.”
“I do want to marry you,” I insisted. “I just don’t care about the small details. Whatever you decide is fine with me.”
“I can’t make every decision.” She twisted in her seat and folded her arms across her chest. “I need you to dial in. I need answers and I need them now.”
“Fine…red, chocolate, five, Melvin.”
“You’re not wearing a red tuxedo, I already told you we’re not going to have anything chocolate on our cake, and the guest list is already over eighty.”
“Then why’d you ask what I wanted?” I shook my head in exasperation. “Why don’t you just tell me what I’m wearing and what we’re eating?”
She settled back into her seat. “Melvin’s a good choice.”
I began laughing and she glanced sideways at me before cracking a smile of her own. “I’ll meet you halfway—if you wear a white tuxedo, we can have chocolate filling.”
“Done!” I turned up the radio and whispered, “Now, that’s how you negotiate.”
“What’d you say?” she asked suspiciously.
I ignored the question and began singing along with an old country song that talked about a lady leaving her teardrops on the jukebox.
CHAPTER 50
Foster Blake’s Residence
Mechant Loup, Louisiana
I killed the headlights and nodded as I pulled up to the Magnolia Parish Sheriff’s Office patrol car stationed outside of Foster Blake’s house. It was a young deputy I didn’t recognize.
“Any movement from inside?” I asked.
The deputy shook his head. “The living room lights went out at nine, right about the same time the back bedroom lights came on. Those lights went dark a half hour ago.”
I heard the quiet hum of an engine behind me and glanced in my side mirror. Melvin was cruising up behind us with his truck blacked out.
Melvin had called us two hours ago to say Matthew had eventually allowed him to roll his prints, but none were a match to the prints found on the murder weapon. Befuddled, I began to wonder if Foster had murdered Mitch after all, and decided it was time to bring him in once again. I hadn’t wanted to take any chances, so I had called Melvin thirty minutes ago and asked him to meet us at the Blake residence.
When Melvin reached the back of my Tahoe, he shut off the engine, stepped out, and squeezed between my truck and the patrol car. He said hello to the deputy, whom he addressed as Juan, then turned to me.
“Want me and Juan to take the back door?”
I nodded and slipped out of my truck. Susan left her crutches behind and limped toward the driver’s side. I started to suggest that she stay with the truck, but realized it would be futile.
All was still except for a cool breeze that was blowing in from the north. Stars sparkled in the clear sky above us and lit our way as Susan and I approached the front door. Melvin signaled on the radio when he and Juan had reached the back. I glanced at Susan. She had placed most of her weight on her left leg and wrapped her fingers around her pistol.
Putting my own hand on my pistol, I stood to the left side of the door and was about to rap loudly on the frame when I thought I heard a scream from inside.
“Was that—?” I began to ask when Susan reached forward and jerked the storm door open, sending the locking mechanism flying across the porch. A second scream sounded from inside and I immediately stepped back and shot a kick toward the wooden door. It wasn’t as pretty or as technically perfect as one of Susan’s push kicks, but it got the job done and the door went crashing inward.
Palming my pistol, I rushed through the doorway before the last slivers of splintered doorframe could hit the ground. A quick glance around the dimly lit living room revealed nothing of interest. Susan had just caught up to me when a bloodcurdling scream sounded to my right from somewhere deep in the house. I headed in that direction. A faint glow of light emitting from an open door toward the end of a narrow hallway guided my steps. As I drew closer, I could hear a gurgling noise and it also sounded as though someone or something were thrashing about on a plastic surface.
Taking a breath and lifting my pistol higher, I rounded the corner and stepped into the room. I gasped out loud at the scene before me. In the corner of the room directly to my left, Pearly Blake was crouched on the floor. Her eyes were wide with terror and she was fixated on the bed, where a woman stood over the bloodied body of Foster Blake.
I turned in that direction and saw a familiar woman holding a large kitchen knife high in the air. My jaw dropped and I had to blink to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. The woman was about to bring the knife down into Foster’s chest, so I quickly recovered and hollered for her to stop what she was doing.
She paused and turned her eyes toward me. They were hollow and evil. Her face split into a wicked grin. My finger tightened on the trigger.
“I mean it—drop the knife or I’m going to shoot you.”
The woman hesitated for a moment as she glanced down at Foster, who was struggling for air. His hands clutched wildly at the mattress as he stared wildly about. He twisted in pain and desperation, fighting to stay alive, but I knew it was no use. He had already lost too much blood.
Satisfied that Foster was taking his last few breaths, Kimberly Bernard sighed and dropped the knife. She turned toward me—her face speckled with blood—and smiled. “Now, after all these years, I’m finally safe.”
Susan stumbled to a halt behind me and cursed out loud when she saw Kimberly standing over Foster, covered in blood. “What the hell is she doing out of her wheel chair?”
CHAPTER 51
Two hours later…
I stepped into the interview room at the police department and glanced down at Kimberly. She wore a red prison jumpsuit and her head was resting on the hard desktop. She didn’t move when I closed the door and walked around the desk. I kept a wary eye on her, knowing she’d played the part of a helpless woman quite well. After I was seated, I knocked sharply on the desk.
Kimberly stirred and pushed to an upward position. Her eyes opened slowly and she squinted up at me. “What’s going on? Why am I here? Foster tried to kill me, so what I did was justified.”
“Nice try, but that won’t work.” I leaned back in my chair and studied the woman before me. “You killed an innocent man, Kimberly.”
“Foster wasn’t innocent!” The words spat from her mouth. “He was an evil man. Didn’t you hear what he did to Matthew?”
“I did, but he still didn’t deserve to die—and neither did Mitch Taylor, who’s the innocent man I’m talking about.”
She frowned and brushed at her hair with a left hand that was folded forward. “I didn’t mean to kill that poor man. I thought he was Foster.”
I had noticed she walked with a bit of a limp when I was leading her to my car, so she hadn’t been completely faking. I pointed to her hand. “Is that a result of Foster pushing you?”
She nodded and raised her right hand. “It took me five years to be able to use this hand again, and over seven to walk without assistance. Foster stole my life from me. We each only get one life to live, and he robbed me of mine. I had dreams when I was a little girl. There were things I wanted to do with my life, but he stole it all from me.”
“If you could walk again, why’d you pretend not to have the ability?”
“We were afraid of what he’d do to me if he knew I’d recovered.”
“Who’s we?” I asked.
“My grandpa and me.” A tear slid down her face. “When we found out my mother was sick and wanted us to come visit, my grandpa told me it would be best if I let on like I did when I first got injured. He said Foster would try to finish the job if he knew I could tell people what really happened.”
�
�So, he knew all along?”
Kimberly nodded and brushed at the tears that rolled steadily down her cheeks. “I saw him pack his pistol and bullets and I knew he was going to try to harm Foster. I didn’t want him getting in trouble and I…well, I wanted to get my own revenge, so I stole his pistol and tried to shoot Foster myself. I figured my grandpa would have a solid alibi and no one would suspect a girl who was wheelchair-bound.” She frowned. “It sounded like the perfect plan, but then Foster had to switch shifts with that man.”
“Desmond knew you could walk,” I said. “Didn’t you think he would suspect you if Foster turned up dead?”
“He didn’t think I had it in me. No one did.” She shrugged. “I just wanted to stop Foster from ever hurting anyone else, and I wanted him to pay for what he’d done to me.”
“Well, now he has, but your grandpa’s dead, your brother’s in the hospital, and an innocent man is also dead.”
Kimberly began sobbing. “I’m so sorry for all the pain I’ve caused. I just wanted to make everything right. Foster was such a mean man, and I just knew he was still hitting my mom. I thought if he disappeared then we could all become a family again. I just wanted us all to be together without having to worry about him hurting one of us.”
“Did Matthew know you could walk?”
She shook her head. “Grandpa didn’t want anyone to know. And I didn’t even know Matthew saw everything.” She paused and frowned. “Well, if I did know it at one time, I forgot. My memory has played tricks on me from time to time, and I still have tingling and numbness in my left arm and leg.”
I glanced down at the notebook in front of me. I needed to know she was telling me the truth. “How’d you get to the bar on the night you shot Mitch Taylor?”
“I took Matthew’s car. Everyone had gone to bed early and they were all exhausted from the long drive, and my mom was stressed out because of the fight with Matthew and Foster.”
“Where were you when you shot him?”
