by BJ Bourg
The sudden change of direction and drop in tone caught him off guard. “Um, I was home. Why?”
“Can your wife verify that?”
He shook his head. “I already told you; she works nights. She leaves at five in the afternoon and gets home at six in the morning. Are you trying to say I killed Lance now? That I was trying to shut him up or something?”
“At the moment, Pauline’s a suspect and you’re her potential alibi. Either she was somewhere sleeping with you, or she was off killing Lance Beaman. Which is it?”
“How the hell would I know what she was doing? I quit following her when I turned in my report.”
“So, are you saying she wasn’t with you Sunday night?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Look, Francis, you and I both know you were sleeping with her. I know you’re married and I can promise to try and keep your personal life out of this, but Pauline’s facing—at a minimum—life in prison if you don’t help establish an alibi for her.”
“Are you serious right now?” His brow furrowed. “Are you asking me to lie to protect your boss? Are you trying to coerce me into admitting to an affair I’m not having, just to save your job?”
I stood and smiled down at him. “You have a blessed day.”
I dug my phone out of my pocket before I slammed the door behind me, and I was dialing Pauline’s number before I’d taken two steps down the driveway. I needed to get her on the phone and keep her there until I could get to the town hall. I didn’t want Francis calling her and getting their stories together.
CHAPTER 23
Mechant Loup-North
Susan thanked the K-9 deputy as he walked away and she turned to face Amy, who was still wearing the same clothes from earlier. She had refused to go home and change, saying she wanted to help catch the person who’d tried to kill Melvin. Susan had granted her request because she knew she’d want the same thing if the roles were reversed.
“Well, it looks like the killer got away.”
Amy pushed her blonde hair back and crossed her arms, pouting. “I hope Melvin hit him and he’s trapped down there at the bottom of the canal.”
“Water patrol dragged the entire length of the canal with their grappling hooks. You saw them. They pulled up tree branches, washing machines, old tires, bicycles, and even that dead goat. If he’d be down there, they would’ve found him.” Susan frowned. “Unfortunately, he must’ve slipped away.”
“But how?”
They were still standing near the canal and Susan scanned both banks, from east to west, moving slowly and methodically, trying to figure out how the killer escaped capture. She finally pointed toward the west. “The only way he could’ve gotten away was if he swam underwater right past us and somehow made it to the highway.”
Amy was thoughtful. “You think someone can hold their breath that long?”
“Not the entire distance, but if he quietly came up for air every now and then, it’s possible.” Susan sighed and turned away from the canal, began the long walk back to North Boulevard. Amy followed, and the two women made their way across the field and then stopped near their vehicles. Susan glanced at the time on her phone. It was almost one o’clock. “Want to grab some lunch before you head home?”
Amy shook her head. “I ate some pizza. The water patrol deputies had three boxes delivered out here. I’ll catch some sleep and be back for six.”
“Take your time. I’ll have Takecia stay out a few extra hours so you can get some rest.”
Amy thanked her and started to walk to her car, but stopped and pointed a finger in Susan’s direction. “You’d better call me if they spot that—”
“Chief, you out there?” Susan’s radio had scratched to life, cutting off Amy.
Susan snatched up the radio. “Go ahead with your traffic, dispatch.”
“We just got a call from 311 North Pine. A lady—Mrs. Durapau—said she saw something suspicious this morning, but didn’t think anything of it until she just heard about the incident on North Boulevard. She wants to talk to someone about what she saw. Should I dispatch Takecia?”
“Negative!” Susan waved for Amy to follow her. “I’ll be there in a minute.” Susan jumped in her marked cruiser and sped up the street, across North Main Street, and into the neighborhood on the opposite side of the highway. There was a large culvert under North Main where the drainage canal extended from the Mechant Loup-North subdivision, under North Main, and continued behind the North Pine neighborhood. If the shooter had reached the highway, he could’ve easily made his way through the culvert and into the other neighborhood.
Susan sped down the street and only slowed when she approached houses. It didn’t take her long to reach the three-hundredth-block, and she spotted house number three-eleven right away. “Dispatch, I’m ninety-seven [arrived on scene].”
Susan waited for Amy to get out of her car and they hurried to the front door together. She glanced sideways at Amy and joked, “Your boyfriend let you out the house dressed like that?”
Amy glanced down at her mucky uniform and shrugged. “He doesn’t want other men to love me, so, yeah.”
They laughed while waiting for someone to answer the doorbell. It didn’t take long for the door to swing partly open and a wide-eyed woman to stick her nose through the crack. “Please, come inside.”
Susan stepped back to allow Amy in first. When they were all in the foyer, she had to stifle a chuckle at the expression on Mrs. Durapau’s face as she took in Amy’s appearance. Amy grinned. “Yes, ma’am, I’ve had a rough day.”
“Oh, dear, my daughter is about your size. She’s off at college, but she keeps some clothes here. If you’d like, I can get you a clean pair of jeans and a shirt.”
“Thank you, but I’ll be fine.”
“So, my dispatcher tells me you saw something suspicious this morning.”
“Yes, I did.” She licked her lips and leaned closer, lowering her voice. “My husband leaves early every morning to go to work. No matter how many times I tell him, he always forgets to put out the garbage. I mean, this has been an ongoing fight for years, long before we moved here. Anyway, I was making a pot of coffee when I realized the kitchen garbage was overflowing. The garbage passes early on Tuesdays and Thursdays here, so I hurried and put on my robe and then gathered up all the garbage in the house. I went into the garage and put the bag in the large can.”
When the woman paused, Susan nodded patiently, but she wanted to scream, “Get to it, lady! What did you see?”
“Once I opened the garage door, I dragged the can to the road and I saw the newspaper sitting there in the street. The lady who delivers the paper never throws it in the driveway. It always ends up in the street, and then it gets trampled by all the cars leaving for work. By the time I get to it, it’s usually dirty and rumpled and some of the coupons are too damaged to use. Since I saw it there, I grabbed it before it could get ruined. Thank God my husband didn’t run over it as he was leaving.”
She stopped, took a breath, then continued. “As I was about to go back inside, I saw something moving in the field on the western side of my house. It was dark and low to the ground and it was coming from the canal in the back of the property. At first I thought it was a coyote, but then I realized it was too long to be a coyote. And then I thought it was an alligator, because we get a lot of those around here, but then I realized it wasn’t moving like an alligator. I started to think it might be a giant snake, because I heard people let those big cobras go and they get out in the swamps and grow big—”
“Pythons,” Susan corrected.
Mrs. Durapau stopped and cocked her head to the side. “What?”
“We’ve been having a problem with people releasing their pythons into the wild, not cobras.”
“Oh, well, anyway, I realized then that it had to be a man, because when he reached the road, he got to his feet and started walking toward the back of the street, away from my house.”
“Are you sure it was a man?” Susan asked.
“Of course I am.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I mean, alligators don’t stand up and walk, so it had to be a man.”
Susan took a breath and smiled. “Could it have been a woman?”
Mrs. Durapau’s brow furrowed. “Hmm, I guess that’s possible. It just seemed to walk like a man, though.”
“Did he see you?” she asked.
“God, I hope not. I don’t think so. I stayed in the shadows near the front door and he never looked toward the front of the street that I could tell.”
“Did you see where he went?”
She nodded. “He kept walking toward the back of the street and I thought he was heading toward the swamps, but then I saw him cross into someone’s yard.” She waved for Susan and Amy to follow her outside. She pointed toward the back of the street. “You see that house with the pile of dirt beside the road?”
Susan shaded her eyes from the sun. There was a giant mound of dirt between the street and the house Mrs. Durapau was pointing at, and a portable toilet was situated near a temporary electrical pole. “The one that’s under construction?”
Mrs. Durapau nodded. “I saw him cross into that yard. I was about to call the police department when I heard an engine start up. I couldn’t see the driveway, but I did see a red glow from the area and I could tell someone was pressing the brakes. I saw the red glow again when a truck pulled out of the yard and headed up the street toward my house. I ducked down behind my bushes right there as he drove by. The funny thing is; he didn’t turn on his headlights until he reached the highway.”
“And you think it was the same man from the canal?” Susan asked.
“It had to be.”
“Did you see him get into the truck?”
She shook her head.
Susan turned her attention to the field beside the woman’s house. The grass was short cropped and there were no discernable tracks in the yard that she could see from that distance. “Did you get a good look at him when he drove by your house?”
“Oh, no, I buried my face in the bushes when he drove by. I didn’t want him to see me. I’m not trying to get killed out here.”
Susan thanked Mrs. Durapau. She and Amy then walked to the street, headed for the field on the western side of the woman’s house. They walked along the canal at the back of the lot and located a set of muddy boot prints in the soft mud along the bank of the canal. “Damn, that’s him,” Susan said. “He made it all the way over here.”
Amy stared from the deep boot ruts in the mud to the new construction. “Do you think he called someone to meet him here?”
Susan shook her head. “He probably parked his truck here, walked down the street, then crossed North Main to get to North Boulevard. It’s the only way he could’ve made his way down the boulevard unnoticed.” Susan sighed. “Whoever it is, they’re smart and allusive.”
CHAPTER 24
Mechant Loup Town Hall
“Oh, yeah,” I was saying to Pauline on my cell phone as I hurried up the town hall steps and through the front door, “there’s a lot of damage to his truck. It might be better to replace it than try to fix it.” I smiled and waved to her secretary as I approached her desk. When she realized I wasn’t slowing, she opened her mouth and started to stand, but I pointed to my badge and then down at her chair. She clamped her mouth shut and took her seat. Pauline was talking in my ear when I opened the door to her office and stepped inside.
There was a confused expression on her face as her voice trailed off. She glanced down at her cell phone, then slowly placed it on the desk. “I didn’t know you were heading this way,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
She didn’t like the sound of that, but flashed a pleasant smile and pointed to the chair opposite her. “Please, sit.”
I did, leaned back and sank into the soft leather. I wiped my face, still trying to decide how to approach her. I’d wrestled with different approaches on the entire drive over here and hadn’t settled on one yet. If I took an adversarial tone and accused her of lying, she might shut down and ask for a lawyer. It might also damage our working relationship, and this was something I needed to consider. If she was innocent, she would continue to be my boss and things might be strained between us if I came on too strong. We sat there staring at each other when her phone began to ring.
Before she had time to glance down at the screen, I said, “Don’t answer the call. It’s Francis Allard.”
She tilted her phone so she could see the screen and it appeared that a layer of her tanned face had instantly been peeled away. “How in God’s name could you have known that?”
“And I’m sure he was also trying to call you while we were on the phone.”
She pressed some buttons on her phone, then stared up at me as though she’d seen a ghost. “How’d you know that?”
I sighed heavily, shifted in my chair. “Look, ma’am, we go way back and I owe you a tremendous debt—”
“I’ve already told you a hundred times that you owe me nothing.”
“Well, I still feel like I do.” I drummed my fingers on the desk, still unsure of my next move. If I didn’t play this right, I could blow a murder investigation or ruin a perfectly good working relationship. What the hell? I thought. Why don’t I just shoot from the hip and see what happens? “Pauline, you know things don’t look good for you.”
“How do you mean?”
I wanted to groan out loud. “I mean you’re the only one who’s got motive to want Lance dead, there’s the issue with the threat that happened out at the debate hall, and then you lied to me about where you were Sunday night.”
“Excuse me?”
I leaned closer to her, as though I didn’t want my voice to travel beyond the walls of the room, and spoke in a low tone. “Look, if you had nothing to do with Lance’s murder, then you’re going to continue being the mayor and I’m going to continue working for you, but we have to be able to trust each other. If you lie to me about where you were on Sunday evening, then how I can I trust anything else you tell me? I can’t work with someone if I can’t trust them.”
Pauline’s eyes remained fixed on mine. She didn’t say a word.
“I already know you’ve been having an affair with Francis.”
What little color she had left completely drained from her face. “How did you find out? Did he tell you?”
I shook my head. “You just did.”
She sighed deeply. “Clint, I’m sorry I lied to you, but I couldn’t tell you about us. It wasn’t my place. He’s a married man. He’s got so much to lose if his wife finds out, and I wasn’t going to be the cause of his problems.”
“He’s married,” I said, “but he’s no man.”
She cocked her head in a curios angle. “Please explain.”
“A real man wouldn’t lie to cover his own ass when doing so would jeopardize his girlfriend’s freedom. A real man would take a bullet for his girlfriend.” I frowned. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but Francis is a coward. I explained to him that if he told the truth about you being with him, it would save you from going to prison for the rest of your life.”
“What did he say to that?”
“He accused me of trying to coerce a false confession out of him.”
“Did he now?” The color was returning to Pauline’s face. “I’m a little surprised. He talked a good game, even said he was going to divorce his wife someday soon. Of course, I wondered why I always had to meet him out at this old boat shed south of town and it had to be when his wife was working. He wasn’t taking any chances; that’s for sure.”
“How long has it been going on between y’all?”
She glanced skyward, moving her lips silently. When she lowered her eyes, she said, “I guess it’s been about two months.”
“Were you aware that he was working for Lance?”
“Not
at first, but he eventually told me. I noticed he would show up everywhere I was and he would always strike up a conversation with me. I was so lonely and didn’t really have anything to do and no one with whom to do it. When he started showing an interest in me, well, it felt really good. I felt beautiful and wanted again. That’s important to a woman, you know?”
I didn’t know, but I nodded and made a mental note to always make Susan feel beautiful and wanted. If she was right and it was important, I wanted to make sure and do it, because Susan deserved only my best effort. “I thought you said y’all have been seeing each other for two months?”
“I did.”
“Well, Francis said he turned in his report to Lance a month ago.”
“Ah, yes. He began feeling guilty for taking his money and sleeping with me, and said something about it probably being unethical, so he quit the case and gave Lance back part of the money.”
“Can I ask you a question? It might sound bad.”
She hesitated, but then nodded her head.
“Did you start sleeping with him just to influence his investigation into you?”
“Now, there’s an idea I wish I could claim.” She smiled. “I would’ve been proud of that one, but the sad truth is I was lonely and I threw myself at the first man who showed a real interest in me. And like I said, I didn’t know about the investigation at first.”
“How’d you feel when he told you he was married? Did you feel used?”
“Maybe I wanted to be used.” She shrugged after a moment of reflection. “To be honest, I was probably the one using him. I don’t have time for a serious relationship and I figured a married man would be perfect, because I could do what I wanted with him and then send him home to his wife. A man like him—with so much to lose—I knew he wouldn’t say a damn thing.”
“Did you feel bad for his wife?”
