by BJ Bourg
“But I need your input,” I said. “You’re the smartest part of me.”
She smiled and rubbed her cool hand against my face. “I love you, Clint.”
I moved in and kissed her soft lips. It was a long kiss. When we finally pulled away from each other, her eyes were only half open and she seemed to be purring.
“Does that mean you’re coming with me?” I asked.
She opened her eyes and frowned. “No. Three’s a crowd. Besides, I’ve got my own work to do. I’m sure there’s a pile of paperwork on my desk just waiting for my attention, and I’ve got to check on the shelter. The women will probably need more groceries by now.”
Susan had asked Takecia to look after the battered women’s shelter while we were on our cruise, and Takecia had placed two women and three children in the shelter earlier in the week. The first thing Susan had done when we got home from the cruise was drive to the end of Paradise Place to make contact with the women and let them know they would be safe there. Only after they’d assured her they didn’t need anything, she’d returned home and we’d spent the day lounging around until we’d gotten the call about Lance Beaman.
Feeling like a kid whose mom told him he couldn’t go play outside, I hung my shoulders and walked toward my unmarked Tahoe. Susan called out to me as I was slipping into the driver’s seat. I whipped around, hoping she’d changed her mind.
“I almost forgot to tell you,” she said, rushing to her vehicle and jerking a notebook from the back floorboard. She hurried to me, flipping through the pages. “Mrs. Beaman gave me the name of Lance’s dentist—it’s the office in town. She said he’d recently had a root canal and they took x-rays during that visit.”
I waited while Susan found the note and ripped it from her pad. She handed it to me and smiled to let me know everything was okay between us. “I might even have dinner cooked when you get home—you know, make you melt or something like that.”
I chuckled and drove out of our driveway, up Paradise Place, and then headed south on Main toward the bed and breakfast where I’d made reservations for Justin. I needed to bring him up to speed on the investigation and we needed to start pulling tape from M & P Grill.
CHAPTER 15
It was almost six o’clock when Justin and I finally left the bed and breakfast and headed up Grace Street in my unmarked Tahoe. Susan had called twenty minutes earlier to say that several news organizations had been calling the office all afternoon, but Lindsey, our daytime dispatcher, had kept them at bay. I knew it wouldn’t be long before they were crawling all over the town.
“What time do you shut down for the day?” Justin asked as I slowed to allow a family of obvious tourists—they wore matching shirts that read, I swam with Godzator: Mechant Loup, LA—to cross the street.
“I won’t shut down until the case is solved and the suspect is in jail,” I joked. “Actually, after we get the surveillance footage I was thinking we could head in for the night. I’ll make copies on two flash drives. You can view one and I’ll view the other and we can compare notes in the morning.”
“Sounds good.” He rubbed his chin, studying me carefully. “Did you get any sleep since I last saw you earlier this morning?”
I shook my head, wondering what had happened to his neck. When he’d raised his hand, it exposed a thick and nasty burn scar that disappeared around his back and under his collar. I averted my eyes in case he was self-conscious about it.
“I slept enough on my honeymoon to carry me over to next week,” I said. “Besides, Susan and I were running down every lead we could as quickly as we could. You know how this goes; the case is like a pot of gumbo, it starts growing cold from the second you take it off the fire. We’ve got to work fast before this becomes a cold case.” I shifted my eyes from the road in front of us to look at him. “And I don’t need to tell you how important it is that we solve this particular case. The man was a candidate for mayor, for Christ’s sake. We’ve been able to dodge the media so far, but that won’t last long. I’m betting there will be news vans from all major networks crawling all over town by morning—”
“Not morning…now.” Justin pointed to the right. I had stopped at the corner of Grace and Main and looked toward the Mechant Loup Bridge. There, just coming over the crest, was a white news van with a large folding satellite and cameras mounted on top.
I groaned, hoping they wouldn’t recognize my vehicle as an unmarked cruiser. The reporter was pointing at something on her phone and the driver was looking where she pointed, so they drove right on by without seeing us. If they were following the online map to the police department, it would take them to the old building about six blocks down the road. We needed to go ten blocks in the same direction and we needed to do it without being seen.
I made sure there were no other vans behind them and then shot straight across the highway, where Grace Street continued west across Main. I drove to the end of Grace, turned south on Jezebel Drive, and then zigzagged through the back streets of town until we reappeared on Main from Lacy Court. M & P Grill was just south of us and on the same side of the street. I looked both ways to make sure the news van wasn’t in the area before getting onto the highway.
“It looks clear,” Justin said. “I know I’m all turned around and lost as hell. I don’t even know which way is up with all the maneuvering you just did.”
I shot a thumb over my shoulder as I sped down the highway, pulled into the parking lot, and then drove around to the back of M & P Grill. “That way is north.”
“Where do you think the reporters went?”
I told him about the problem with the online map. “They haven’t updated it yet, so people from out of town are always driving up to the slab that used to be our building.”
“It got burned down, didn’t it?” His eyes lit up as though he remembered hearing about it.
I nodded, frowning at the memory of that fateful day.
“I heard Ox talk about it during a presentation at the fire academy. I was there presenting on cause and origin, he was giving one on hazards at a fire scene. He talked about the dangers they had faced because of an active shooter. I think he also mentioned something about live ammunition inside the building.”
“Yeah, those firemen risked their lives that day, that’s for sure. We’re lucky we didn’t lose any of them.” I shut off the engine and slipped out of my vehicle, pointed to two cameras in front of the building. “We need the footage from those angles.”
Justin stood in the parking lot and surveyed his surroundings, trying to get his bearings. He pointed toward Kate Drive, which was directly adjacent to the south of M & P Grill. “Is that the street Mayor Cain lives on?”
“Yeah.” I explained how she would’ve headed south to go to Mechant Groceries. “I didn’t watch the entire footage from the grocery store yet, so I don’t know if she drove by the store later, but she definitely didn’t pass back in front of the store in time to be home before or during the murder.”
Justin rubbed his dark face and shook his head. “That doesn’t bode well for her, especially since she lied about being home.”
“Well, we don’t know for sure if she lied,” I corrected. “It’s possible she drove the long way around town to get back home, kind of how we did to get here.”
He didn’t say anything, but he looked skeptical as he followed me into the restaurant. I nodded to the young man who was wiping down a table near the door, introduced myself and Justin. “Is the manager here?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get her.” He hurried off, carrying a pile of dishes with him.
It was slow for a Monday night, with only a few tables occupied, and Justin asked if the food was any good.
“As good as it gets. If you plan on eating here, I recommend anything with shrimp in it—I usually get a shrimp on bun—or the fried soft shell crabs on a bed of jasmine rice.”
Justin was about to say something when the manager appeared from the door that led to the kitchen. She flashed a b
right smile. “Clint, how the hell are you? It’s been a minute since I’ve seen you. I heard you and Susan finally tied the knot.”
“We did.” After making small talk for a little bit, I introduced her to Justin and explained that we were there to retrieve some surveillance footage.
“Is this about the murder from last night?”
I smiled, turned up my hand. “You know I can’t really talk about it.”
“No, no, I understand. Follow me.”
She led us to the office and showed us to the surveillance system. I reached into my front pocket and produced two flash drives. “Do you mind if I help myself? I know you’re busy out there.”
“We’re not that busy,” she said slowly, glancing down at the monitor. She was a nosy one and I didn’t want her mentioning what I was after.
“Look, I’ll owe you.”
She seemed to like the sound of that, and flashed her smile again. “Just let me know when you’re done.”
When she was gone, I accessed the Menu feature on the surveillance system and set out copying everything from the two front cameras between four yesterday afternoon and six this morning. Once I’d copied all of the footage to one flash drive, I then copied it to the other. Next, I shoved each flash drive into a USB port on the computer and checked to make sure the video clips had been copied successfully and were operable.
“Looks like we’re good to go,” Justin said when the first video began playing.
I nodded and removed the drive from the USB port and handed it to him. “Your homework, if you feel like doing it.”
Justin took the flash drive and secured it in his shirt pocket. “I think I’ll pick up a six pack and watch these movies all night. Care to join me?”
“Nah, I don’t drink anymore.” I led the way back into the restaurant and thanked the manager. It had taken about forty minutes to download all of the footage, and the sun was setting when we stepped out into the parking lot. I stopped abruptly when I saw a reporter standing near my vehicle. “Damn it, they found us.”
She saw me almost immediately and waved for her cameraman to follow her. “Chief Wolf, is it true that a mayoral candidate has been assassinated?”
I nodded grimly and walked by, ignoring the question. Justin had played this game before, too, and he remained cool as he walked around them and stepped into the passenger seat.
“Chief Wolf,” the reporter pressed, “does the murder have anything to do with the election? Is it true that Mayor Pauline Cain is a suspect?”
Where in the hell did they get that? I felt my face tighten, but I tried not to let it show. Once I was in the driver seat and the door was shut, Justin shook his head. “We’re not going to be able to keep the lid on this one. If your boss is innocent, she’d better hope we catch the killer before the election, because—right or wrong, guilty or innocent—her political career’s about to be in the toilet.”
I grunted at the prospect of Zack Pitre becoming the town’s next mayor. What a twist that would be, and damn, would his momma be proud of him.
I drove to the bed and breakfast and dropped off Justin, then headed home. The news van followed me to the front of Paradise Place and the cameraman rushed out to film me opening my gate. The reporter joined him and began firing off questions. I fixed them with a hard stare “Don’t even think about driving onto my property.”
The cameraman gulped and nodded, but the reporter kept shouting her questions. “Are you conflicted, Chief? How can you investigate your own boss? Doesn’t she have the power to fire you? And do you think she will fire you if she’s implicated?”
I drove through the gate, stopped to lock it, then headed to the house, leaving the reporter and cameraman standing with the mosquitoes. I knew it wouldn’t take the little winged devils long to find them, so they’d be forced to get back in their van. What they did next was anybody’s guess. I said a silent prayer that they didn’t know where Pauline lived, because I could easily see them camping outside her house for the night.
Achilles heard my truck before I’d gone a hundred yards. Through the bright headlights, I saw his dark figure racing down the street to meet me. I stopped and leaned over to open the front passenger’s door, laughing as he bounded into the vehicle with an excited yelp. He took his place on the seat beside me and sat upright, as proud as he could be. I knew he had to be remembering our days together on the water, back when I was a swamp tour guide. I sighed. I loved police work with every fiber in me, but those days were also fun.
When I pulled into our driveway, I noticed the lights were on in the gym. I walked over and found Susan pounding the heavy bag like it had stolen her lunch. Her bare feet moved gracefully across the canvas and the muscles in her legs rippled with each movement. Although she glided like a dancer, her strikes were violent and the bag seemed to grunt with each contact.
Achilles’ bark echoed loudly in the enclosure and Susan whipped around, her eyes narrow and her hands ready. She relaxed and moved away from the bag when she saw us standing there.
“Everything okay?” I was worried she might still be upset from earlier.
“Yeah, I thought I’d try to work off some of the desert I ate on the ship.” She snatched a towel from a weight bench and wiped sweat from her face as she approached us. She leaned up and gave me a kiss. Her lips were warm and steam rose from her shoulders and head. “I didn’t expect you home so early.”
I hefted the flash drive in my hand. “I’ve got homework—hours of it.”
She groaned. “It’s not the kind of movie night I was hoping for, but I guess it’ll do. Want me to make popcorn?”
“You know I hate popcorn.”
She winked. “I’ll eat your share.”
CHAPTER 16
Melvin Saltzman’s house
“Hurry, Deli, take your position…Mommy’s home!” Melvin quickly put the last of the silverware on the table and rushed to the living room, where Delilah had curled up on the sofa and pretended to be asleep. Melvin threw himself into the recliner and kicked his feet back just as the front door opened. Although his eyes were closed, he could hear Delilah silently giggling and he knew she was squirming under her blanket. The only other sound he heard was the jingling of keys.
“Okay, if you two are sleeping,” Claire asked from the doorway, “then who cooked that wonderful meal I smell?”
Melvin beamed on the inside as he realized Clint had been right. He opened his eyes and stared across the room at his wife. She was staring right back at him, but she wasn’t smiling. There was a deep frown on her face. He quickly jumped to his feet. “What is it?”
Claire dabbed at a tear that had slid from her eye and she hurried across the room to greet him. She threw her arms around him and whispered, “I’m so sorry about this morning. I had no idea what you’d been through. Someone at the bank came in and told us.”
Melvin swallowed a lump in his throat, tried to hold back the tears. He was relieved that the fight with Claire was over, but he wasn’t about to admit that he hadn’t slept a wink all day because he couldn’t get the image of Lance’s horrific murder out of his mind. “It’s nothing.”
Claire pushed away from him. “Nothing? It’s horrible! They said you risked your life to save him. That you could’ve—” Claire broke down crying and buried her face in his chest.
“Mommy, what’s the matter?” Delilah asked from the sofa. Melvin glanced over to see the blanket dangling from her head, revealing only one eye and a long pouting face. “Why are you crying?”
“She’s just so happy about the food you cooked,” Melvin said. “She’s crying tears of joy.” He tilted Claire’s face upward and smiled. “Aren’t you, Mommy?”
Claire pushed her lips together in an act of bravery and nodded. She turned to Delilah. “Yes, Dear, I’m so happy you cooked for me. I’ve been working hard and I’m hungry. I’m so happy you cooked.” She stepped toward the sofa and tugged the blanket off of Delilah’s head. “Now, why don’t you show me wh
at’s for dinner?”
Delilah jumped from the sofa and grabbed her mother’s hand, trying to drag her to the kitchen. “I wanted to make pizza, but Daddy said you like cow bones, so we made you some.”
Claire wiped her cheeks and shot a quizzical glance in Melvin’s direction.
“T-bones,” he explained, “with baked potatoes and salad.”
“And roses!” Claire’s mouth dropped open and she pulled away from Delilah and examined the vase at the center of the table. “A dozen red roses!”
Melvin frowned as he watched her throw her hands to her face and begin crying even more. Damn, Clint, you didn’t tell me this would happen!
Claire hugged him again, uttering another apology through her sobs. “Now I feel so horrible.”
Melvin’s eyes misted over, but no one could see. He felt Delilah’s little arms wrap around their legs and he dropped a hand to her head. After a few long moments, Claire took a shaky breath and looked around. “I need to go to the bathroom and clean up.”
“Take your time,” Melvin said. “I’ll serve the plates.”
Claire disappeared into the short hallway to the bathroom and Melvin snatched a plate off the table. He opened the oven, where he’d placed the steaks to keep them warm after taking them off the grill, and grabbed the tongs from the countertop. He was bending over and reaching for the first steak when the smell of the meat rose up to greet his nostrils. He immediately lurched forward and gagged, as bile rose to his throat.
“What was that?” Claire called from the open bathroom door.
“Daddy got sick,” Delilah sang out. “I think he needs some medicine.”
“It’s okay.” Melvin swallowed hard and forced a smile to reassure Delilah he was fine. “I’m not sick.”
His hand trembling, Melvin turned his face to take a breath, held it, and then grabbed the steak without looking. He repeated that process two more times and then plopped a baked potato on each plate. It was easier to dish out the salad, but he had to avoid looking at the meat. He’d struggled to grill it, even going so far as to shove vapor rub into his nostrils and working mostly by feel, but he thought the feeling would eventually pass.
