by Libby Howard
“You’re an investigator? Looking into a death in Locust Point?”
“Yes.” Sort of. “I was told you had information on a case years ago—Desiree Trottenhaus. She died during a sex act and David Briscane confessed to the crime?”
“He didn’t do it, and it wasn’t a sex act gone wrong. I mean, yes, Desiree was having sex for money, and that was a part of the deal with one particular guy, but it wasn’t that David. And it wasn’t an accident. This guy knew what he was doing. He killed her on purpose.”
“Wait, how do you know it wasn’t David?”
Sheila sniffed. “Because Desiree did it for money, and kids don’t have money. And she told me this guy was old, like her dad’s age. It was kinda gross, but he paid a lot. The strangling thing started out with him just holding her neck. Then it got tighter and tighter each time until she’d almost pass out. She said it was a real rush. She liked it.”
None of this was making sense. “So why would he kill her if she liked it, if she was a willing participant?”
“Because she was sixteen, and she wasn’t very good at keeping her mouth shut. It’s one thing to do kinky stuff with a boy a year older than you; it’s another to do it with an adult man.”
It wasn’t just that this was an unsavory kink, it was with a minor. This guy had a lot to lose if this came out, and if Caryn Swanson turned over the black book and he was discovered, someone was going to connect the dots.
David Briscane was innocent. And there was only one person I could think of who he’d take the fall for, someone who had some power and influence over him, someone who could throw his weight around and get him probation for involuntary manslaughter, someone who could give him a whole lot of money as opposed to throwing him out of the house. And as a minor, he wouldn’t even carry a record if he was convicted.
“Would you testify on this? Go to the police?”
She snorted. “Of course. I went to the police before, but no one wanted to believe a teenager from the ‘hood. I’m not afraid of this guy, and I want to see Desiree’s real killer put away.”
Good, because I had every intention of seeing that, too. I thanked Sheila and told her I’d be in touch, then got in my car to drive out to the truck stop.
Trip. That was the guy’s name who played darts and drove a box truck delivering doors and windows. He grinned when he saw me, extending a set of darts.
“Wanna play? Winner buys the next round.”
“Actually, I wondered if you’d do a job for me. A little surveillance.”
Trip sat the darts down and picked up his beer. “Like camping outside some woman’s house and taking pictures of her having sex with the gardener?”
“No, hanging out where the overnight parking is, where the truckers sleep and that car was. Somebody is going to come there tonight, someone who isn’t a trucker. I want you to take pictures of him, note when he’s there, when he leaves, what he does.”
Trip gave me a thumbs-up. “How much?”
I didn’t have much and I had no idea how much this sort of thing cost, so I quickly calculated the cost of half a dozen beers and a decent rib eye and quoted that.
He nodded. “Sounds good. There’s no one to play darts with tonight anyway. Well, no one who isn’t plowed out of their mind from happy hour.”
I gave Trip my cell phone number and asked him to text me the details and the pictures tonight, no matter how late. Then I gave him half the money and promised him the other half once I’d gotten everything. He headed out to the back where four semis were parked. I got in my car and went home. And waited.
Chapter 24
I was staring at the pictures when Judge Beck came down the steps. Yoga with Daisy had been less than relaxing, and I was running on three hours of very uneasy sleep.
Mayor Briscane. I could hardly believe it. He was pleasant, good humored, happily married, with a troubled son—a son he did everything he could to help. Mayor Pete Briscane had a secret. He liked something that would ruin his career and his marriage if it got out. And now, it would more than ruin his career, it would send him to jail.
I knew what happened, but I didn’t have the sort of proof that sent a man to jail. I had the word of a woman that a girl long dead had told her that the one who most likely killed her wasn’t a teen boy but a grown man. I’d connected the dots to the only person who that could be, the only person David Briscane would take the fall for. And I had this picture of Mayor Briscane, waiting by the parked big rigs behind the truck stop.
It was all so circumstantial. Pete could just say he feared it was David and wanted to hear what I knew, so he could know for himself if his son was guilty of pre-meditated murder. Sheila could be discredited as not remembering what Desiree had said years ago, or getting the guys confused, or that Desiree had lied. The black book was full of indecipherable codes. And Sydney wouldn’t testify that Caryn was providing kinky sex to someone who paid her a whole lot of money to strangle her during the act.
“What, no muffins this morning?” Judge Beck teased. He was wearing plaid pajama pants again with a white t-shirt, his hair mussed and the shadow of whiskers on his face. I’d heard him come in after midnight last night and was surprised to see him up so early.
“No, I had a late night working. I did make coffee, though. Help yourself.”
He disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a mug and the coffee pot to top mine off.
“Is that Pete?” He looked closer at the picture that I’d transferred from my phone to the computer screen. “At the truck stop? At night?”
I nodded. “I got a note at work yesterday, stuck in the door. Here.” I handed it to him.
He read it, then looked back at the screen. “And you called the mayor rather than the police? Is he investigating this case now?”
I told him the whole thing, from Sydney to Sheila to Trip’s late-night surveillance. The judge listened, then scratched his cheek.
“None of this will hold up in court, you know?”
“I know.” I looked up at him. “Do you believe me, though? I can’t imagine Pete Briscane doing something like this, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. And he showed up at the truck stop last night.”
“It’s a valid theory, but there are a million loopholes, a million chances for the defense to plant reasonable doubt. There needs to be more. There needs to be someone who knew what he was doing, to link him to the sex act and the prostitution ring. Caryn can’t have been his only partner in the last ten years. The police will just need to turn up another witness to connect him. And possibly they’ll be able to figure out the code in the black book, or find evidence of Pete being at Caryn’s or something.”
“He has to be feeling the heat,” I mused. “Otherwise why write the note and take the risk of coming to meet me?”
“Because J.T. told him and he wanted to pay you off to keep quiet about his son?” Judge Beck shrugged.
“He’d want to pay me off to keep quiet about a murderer?” Good grief, that was just as bad as him being the murderer himself. It was one thing to try to avoid gossip on a manslaughter charge, quite another to attempt to hush up premeditated murder.
“Maybe he doesn’t think David is the killer, just that he’s a client and in the black book.”
That still didn’t make sense. “Everyone in town knows David has been trouble. If it came out that he was the murderer, there’s no one who would blame Pete for that. He’s done everything for that boy. If anything, he’d gain a ton of sympathy votes. Everything I’ve uncovered, and my intuition, is telling me that Pete is the killer, that he’s the one who killed Desiree Trottenhaus and paid his son to take the blame.”
Judge Beck sat his coffee cup on my desk. “If that’s true, Kay, then he’s dangerous. Don’t go any further with this. Take what you have to the police and wash your hands of the whole thing. If Pete has committed two first-degree murders, he won’t hesitate to commit a third.”
I chewed on my lip and thought. Pe
te had friends at the courthouse and in the police department. He was a great guy. No one would believe any of this, and while they’d investigate it, in the meantime I was willing to bet there would never be enough for an arrest, let alone a conviction. One’s girl’s “I was told” from years ago, an indecipherable black book, a prostitute that wouldn’t come forward, a few cell phone pics of the mayor by the truck stop. It wasn’t enough.
“Okay. Let me get a shower and we’ll go. I can see you’re not going to let this drop, and I’m honestly afraid for you, Kay.”
I looked up at him in surprise. “Go where?”
“To Stenburg to get some barbeque for lunch.”
Chapter 25
Briscane’s BBQ wasn’t the shack I’d assumed. The place was the size of most big chain restaurants with three pool tables off from the bar and motorcycle-themed décor covering the walls. Blues music barely drowned out the murmur of conversation. We had to wait for a table, and I nearly died of starvation hovering by the hostess station smelling smoked pork and brisket.
How much money had Pete given his son? College, and this? I’d just assumed ten or twenty grand to cover some start-up costs, but opening a place of this size had to have cost more than a mansion. Pete and his wife must have nearly bankrupted themselves to set this up—all for a troubled son who had multiple run-ins with the law, and was kicked out of college.
And David was having financial difficulties from the case search I’d done on him. This place looked successful, so either the money was going elsewhere, David was a poor manager of his finances, or he was just really lazy about paying his bills.
I ordered a pulled pork sandwich and Judge Beck got the sliced beef. It came on huge plates with fries, coleslaw, and a bowl of baked beans. The waitress plopped a basket of corn bread down and refilled our ice tea as I dug in.
Holy cow, it was good. Judge Beck asked the waitress if David was in while I shoveled down the food with unseemly haste. The pork had a vinegar bite and a mustardy sauce, all held together by a thick potato roll. The fries had been beer-battered, and the coleslaw had the perfect mix of sweet and tangy flavor. But it was the cornbread that had me thinking of recipes. Moist and dense like a cake, it had a sweet flavor and bits of corn throughout. I could make this. And then maybe do a drier batch with cheese and jalapeño to have with chili. I wondered if the kids liked chili. Did Judge Beck like chili?
We were finished with our meal and sipping tea by the time David Briscane came over to our table. He pulled over a chair and turned it around to straddle it, giving us a warm, genuine smile.
“It’s good to see folks from Locust Point here. I haven’t been back home in years. Mrs. Carrera, I know you don’t know me, but your husband coached our Little League team when I was eight. I’m so sorry to hear of his passing.”
I hadn’t been expecting this huge, popular establishment, and I hadn’t been expecting Pete’s reprobate son to be so polite and friendly. But then again, Pete didn’t seem like a murderer, either.
Judge Beck introduced himself then nodded for me to take over. David shot me a frown before I could even speak. “Is this an intervention? Because I’m in A.A. now. I can put you in touch with my sponsor. I haven’t missed a meeting in the last thirty days.”
“It’s a different kind of intervention,” I told him. “I work for J.T. Pierson doing skip tracing, and Caryn Swanson was one of our bail clients.”
David squirmed on the chair, looking down at his hands. “I heard she was killed.”
I decided to cut right to the heart of the matter rather than drag this out. “She was killed by a client who didn’t want to be exposed through the course of her trail, someone who paid her to cater to his desire to perform asphyxiation during sex.”
His jaw clamped tight. “And you’re here because in spite of juvenile records being sealed, you discovered what happened with Desiree, and automatically think I’m Caryn Swanson’s client and murderer.”
“No, I think your father is the client and the murderer.” There was that cutting to the heart of the matter again.
It was like every muscle in David’s body seized up for a moment, then he let out a long breath. “What happened with Desiree back then was an accident. We were playing around with kinky stuff we’d found on the internet and took it too far. I confessed.”
I noticed he didn’t say anything in defense of his father. “Pete came to you and asked you to confess. The jury wouldn’t have gone easy on him. They never would have believed it was an accident. He would have been convicted of second degree murder, branded a pedophile. His career and marriage would have been ruined, and he would have served jail time. You were a minor. You could throw yourself on the mercy of the court and they’d most likely give you a light sentence, which would be sealed. You didn’t want to see your dad in jail, your family ruined, and Pete offered a significant financial incentive.”
“I confessed,” David repeated. “I was given probation. It’s over. You can speculate all you want, but I was pronounced guilty of involuntary manslaughter. It’s done.”
“Is it?” Judge Beck asked. “You said you hadn’t been back to Locust Point for years, but your father said you were there last weekend, no doubt to ask for more money. Are you holding Desiree’s death over his head? Continuing to drain money from your father or you’ll let everyone know what really happened?”
I had no idea what Judge Beck was doing until I saw the spark of anger in David’s eyes.
“I haven’t asked that man for a dime for ten years. He summoned me. He’s the one who asked me to come home that weekend. I thought maybe Mom was ill. I never expected…”
“Never expected that he’d ask you to take the fall for another murder?” I asked softly. “Did he tell you that he’d been a client of Caryn Swanson’s, that his name was in that black book? Did he tell you he was worried she’d tell exactly what he liked to do as part of her plea bargain, and that his career would be over? Did he tell you if Caryn went public with what he liked to do, someone was bound to connect the dots to Desiree’s murder ten years ago?”
David shook his head and stood. “Look, it’s nice you all came out here, but you’re wrong.”
“You sure?” Judge Beck asked. “You know you’re a prime suspect, David. You’ll take the fall for this one whether you want to or not. The Briscane in that black book, the kink, your past conviction. And this time you’ll go to jail for the rest of your life. This wasn’t involuntary manslaughter; it was first degree murder. It was premeditated, and you’ll once again pay the price for your father’s mistakes.”
The man caught his breath, then slowly sat back down. “When I went home last weekend, he told me that Caryn had been killed, that he’d been a client of hers and because of how she kept her records, everyone would think it was me. He wanted me to flee the country, was going to give me money to go to Mexico. I thought…I thought maybe he was truly worried about me being falsely accused and going to jail.”
“But you didn’t go,” I prompted him.
“No. I was so angry that after what happened before he had continued to pay women to let him do that. He hadn’t learned his lesson, even after he accidently killed Desiree. But it wasn’t just that. I’ve made a life here. I have a successful business, a girlfriend. I’ve had issues, but I’m in treatment and I’m turning things around. I’d rather take my chances with the court system and have faith that I’d be proven innocent, than leave everything I’ve built behind to run away.”
It still wasn’t enough. David could testify that it was his father who killed Desiree, but there was nothing here to tie him to Caryn Swanson’s murder. All I had was proof that Pete had a kink. He had motive, but I was sure lots of her clients had motive.
“You were home last weekend?” Judge Beck asked. “When did you speak with your father?”
David frowned a minute. “Saturday afternoon. I got in late Friday after we closed here, and I didn’t see him until around noon Saturday.”
/> I hadn’t found Caryn Swanson’s body until Tuesday. This proved Pete Briscane was our killer. The judge shot me a quick warning glance.
“We might need you to testify, David.”
The man swallowed hard, then nodded. “Okay. It’s his own fault. If he’d just learned his lesson, he wouldn’t be facing this scandal. But just because my dad does this stuff doesn’t mean he’s a killer. What happened with Desiree was an accident. He’s not the kind of guy who’d kill in cold blood. Not Dad.”
We paid our bill and left, remaining silent until we were in the car and on the freeway.
“Remind me never to play poker with you,” I told Judge Beck. “You can bluff like a pro.”
“Likewise. And you do realize that the only concrete thing we have is David’s word that Pete knew of Caryn’s death before her body had been discovered?”
I nodded. “Will David be a reliable enough witness to make a murder charge stick?”
The judge shook his head. “There’s a whole lot of coincidence, then the word of a man who has been in his share of trouble. Pete will just say he’s lying, and between the pair of them, the mayor is the most believable. We’ll go talk to the detective in charge of the case, but he’s going to need to get more than this before they even think of charging Pete.”
I sighed, wondering if our mayor was going to get away with this murder just as he’d done with Desiree’s. How could I ever see him in J.T.’s office, at the regatta or other events, knowing what I knew?
“Patience, Kay,” Judge Beck said. “Leave it up to the detective, and have faith that justice will prevail. You’ve dug the fox out of his den. Now let one of the bigger dogs take him down.”
Sometimes the bigger dogs didn’t fit in the fox-hole. Sometimes you needed a terrier to finish the job. But I wasn’t that terrier. Judge Beck was right. I’d been over my head for days on this case. It was time to step aside.
