by BJ Bourg
I placed the warrants on the table in front of him so he could examine them. He didn’t even bother. His face was buried in his hands. He muttered something to himself, but I couldn’t hear what it was. I removed a typed statement from my notebook and placed it on the table.
“Okay, we’re done here.” I glanced at Amy. She nodded and we stood to leave.
“See you in court,” Amy said as we headed for the door.
“Hold on a minute,” Saul said, lifting his head from the desk. “What’s with this first degree murder charge? Like, how bad is it? How much time am I looking at?”
I shrugged. “Life or death.”
“Death?” he echoed. “Think about it, man, why would I do something like this? I’m not even from here. I don’t know these people. I’ve got nothing against any of them. What would my motive be?”
“We don’t have to prove motive,” I said. “And to be honest, I don’t care why you did it. We can link you and the victim together through DNA found on the murder gear. You also tried to kill a police officer when we confronted you, so that doesn’t help your case one bit. If you ask me, the jury will deliberate for thirty minutes before coming back with a verdict of guilty on all counts. And then they’ll take another thirty minutes to sentence you to death.”
“Come on, man…you can’t do this to me.”
“We’re done here,” I said simply, leaving the statement behind and heading for the door.
Saul’s eyes had filled with panic and he began to say something, but he then clamped his mouth shut. I rapped on the door to let the C.O. know we were done. Amy and I then walked out into the corridor and the deputy closed the door behind us, leaving Saul inside the meeting room alone.
Mallory waved us into the observatory and we began watching Saul through the two-way mirror.
“As soon as he reads that statement,” I said, “he’ll be begging to reinitiate contact with us.”
“If that works,” Amy said, “I’m buying you dinner.”
“Oh, it’ll work.”
We all watched while Saul studied each of the warrants. He picked up one and then the other, studiously reading every word on each of them. As he read the warrants, he shot an occasional glance toward the three-page statement stapled together on the opposite corner of the desk. Once, he even leaned across the desk to get a closer look, and his eyes widened when he saw the name displayed boldly on the first page. He was fidgeting now, his curiosity mounting.
Human nature being what it was and criminals being who they were, I knew it would be too much for him to resist reading the statement I’d typed and “forgotten” on the desk.
“He’s thinking about it,” Mallory said.
At that moment, Saul glanced over his shoulder and licked his lips as he stared at the door. He was obviously weighing his chances. When he thought it was safe, his left hand shot forward and snatched the written statement from the desk. He pulled it in front of him and covered it with one of the warrants. After glancing over his shoulder again, he moved the warrant and began reading the statement. His mouth fell open as he read. Once he’d flipped to the last page, he jumped to his feet and began yelling for the guard.
Mallory gave the C.O. a nod. “Go in and tell him it’s time to head back to his cell.”
The C.O. nodded and entered the room. He pointed at Saul and told him to get his ass in the chair. Saul sat abruptly and began saying something we couldn’t hear. They talked briefly and then the C.O. turned to exit the room. When he was back in the observatory, he said Saul had requested to speak with me.
“In fact, he demanded to speak with you.” The C.O. grinned. “He said he wants to waive his right to an attorney and give a full statement. He said he can help you blow this case wide open.”
“I bet he can.” I checked the time on my phone. “Let’s make him sweat for about twenty minutes. If we go in right now, he’ll know he was set up.”
CHAPTER 48
“Mr. Bankston,” I said when Amy and I were seated in the meeting room at the Chateau Parish Detention Center thirty minutes later. “I understand you wanted to speak with me.”
“This”—he waved the statement in the air—“is a lie!”
I held out my hand and took the statement from him. I glanced over it and then set it aside casually. “Well, if these are lies, then what’s the truth?”
Saul took a deep breath and rubbed his hand across his unkempt beard. “I…I want some sort of guarantees. I want immunity.”
I stood to leave.
“Wait, where’re you going?”
“We don’t make deals,” I explained. “If you want to tell the truth about what happened out on the lake, we’re willing to listen. Otherwise, we’re out of here.”
I held my breath inwardly, afraid he might change his mind.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll tell you everything, but you’ve got to arrest her.”
“If you provide enough information and evidence to help us establish probable cause, we’ll definitely apply for a warrant,” I said. “But if you lie even once, we’re out of here.”
He nodded his understanding.
I placed a digital recorder on the desk and read him his Miranda rights. He signed the waiver agreeing to give a statement.
After answering my basic questions regarding his identity for the recording, he took another breath. “Okay, I did it. I did everything you say I did.”
When he paused, I asked him to describe in detail what he had done.
“Well, I, um, I drowned those people on the lake.”
“Which people?”
“Um, Frank and that girl with the dragon tattoo on her leg.” He shifted in his seat. “I thought I drowned another girl, but according to the news, she survived. I guess maybe she was playing dead.”
“Who did you kill first?”
“Frank.”
“How’d that go down?”
“I used Gabe’s boat to get to the lake. I pulled it into a thick of trees and tied it to a branch. Then I got my scuba gear on and slipped into the water. I swam to the opposite side of the lake and waited. When Frank and Nelly floated by in their kayak, I…I, um, I grabbed Frank off the back and pulled him under.”
“Why?” I was pretty sure I already knew the answer to that, but I needed him to say it.
“Nelly—she asked me to do it.” He shifted in his seat again. “It was all her idea. I was supposed to kill Frank and make it look like an accident.”
“They were on their honeymoon,” I said, trying hard to conceal my contempt. “You killed the man on his honeymoon.”
“I couldn’t kill him before they were married, because Nelly wouldn’t get anything.”
In previously speaking with Frank’s father, I’d learned that Frank had begun investing heavily in cryptocurrency as a freshman in college. It paid off handsomely, as he had become a millionaire before he graduated. The fact that he was a wealthy young man had not been a factor early on in the case, but detectives are trained to go where the evidence leads them. It was now looking like this had been a murder for hire and the motive was greed.
“So, it was about the money?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you know he was rich?”
“Oh, yeah. I saw an article in the newspaper saying he was the youngest millionaire in his hometown.” He shook his head. “But Nelly didn’t love him. She was only with him for the money.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she loved me, and she told me everything.”
“You think so, do you?”
“I know so. We were dating behind his back. I was the one she loved. She wanted to be with me, but she was already engaged when we met. At first, she told me she would marry him, get divorced about a year after the wedding, and take half of everything. She would then be with me and we could afford to live like we wanted. But Frank was no fool. He made her sign a prenup. After that, the only way she would get anything was if he was dead
, so she talked me into doing it.” Frank frowned deeply. “Now, I’m starting to wonder if she wasn’t just using me.”
“Ya think?” Amy blurted.
“I do.”
“What were the details of the plan?” I asked.
“They had planned their honeymoon to Mechant Loup, so she gave me $10,000 and told me to come out here three months early and get hired on with a diving business in the area. She would then book a diving excursion with that company and I would take care of the rest. You know, make it look like an accident. I came to town and found this place called Spearmonger’s. That’s where I met Gabe Burke and he introduced me to his dad. I’ve been working there ever since.”
“Did Nelly know you were a diver?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah, that’s how we met. I was working at a diving center in Destin when she walked in with two girlfriends one day wanting to take lessons. I did a beginner course in a swimming pool for them. It was supposed to be a one-hour course, but she booked me for the entire day.”
“How long ago was this?”
“About a year and a half. We started talking a lot during the next few weeks. She came back to Destin the following month, but this time she was alone. She told Frank her girlfriends were going with her, but they didn’t. She came alone so she could see me. We hooked up, and that’s when we fell in love.” He shook his head ruefully. “It’s a shame we didn’t meet under different circumstances, because I would be home with her right now instead of sitting in this damn jail.”
I ignored his last comment. “You said the original plan was for the murder to look like a diving accident, isn’t that right?”
Saul nodded.
“But that’s not what happened. What changed?”
“I actually got the idea from Gabe. He told me he had been diving at night in Le Diable Lake and stealing stuff from the college students while they were partying. He said it was easy to approach their boats from under the water without being detected. He said he would sneak onboard and steal whatever he could find—drugs mostly. He said he even found a gun once. It got me thinking and that’s when I came up with the new plan. I decided I’d sneak up on Nelly and Frank while they were in a kayak and pull him overboard. He’d never know what hit him and it would be easy to drown him.”
“Why’d you need a new plan? What was wrong with the original one?”
“Well, if Frank got killed while I was his dive instructor, there would be a lot of questions to answer. It would probably make the news and then it would look suspicious once me and Nelly got together, so I figured I should do something different.” A smug smile spread across his face. “It was actually a brilliant plan—an accidental drowning with no marks and nothing suspicious about it. I would’ve gotten away with it, too, had it not been for that one girl.”
While there was hate in his eyes, there was also a hint of respect for Camille Rainey.
“But why go after the girls?” I wanted to know, trying to mask my anger at the needless loss of life. “Whose idea was that?”
“It was all Nelly. She said I should drown a few other people to divert attention away from her.” He shrugged. “It made sense at the time. I didn’t like killing the girl, but I did what had to be done. I figured two would be enough to distract the law, but just in case, I called the news reporter and told her a monster was in the lake. I figured that would really muddy up the waters.”
“Why’d you keep diving after everything was over? Why not leave and go back to Florida or Mississippi to be with your lover?”
“Nelly told me to keep working in Mechant Loup for another month or so, and then I’d be able to quit and join her in Mississippi. We were supposed to live happily ever after, but now I’m stuck in this hellhole while she’s out there doing God knows what.”
I fixed him with cold eyes and he averted my gaze. I continued to stare at him and was about to ask another question when he suddenly stabbed at the typed statement with an index finger.
“This statement is all bullshit. She said I killed Frank because I was jealous of him and wanted to pursue her. That’s not true. She pursued me. I was minding my own business when she came into my life and screwed everything up.”
“Did she know you were a felon?” I asked.
He nodded slowly, as though it was starting to dawn on him that she had been using him from the very beginning.
“Well,” I began, “we have enough probable cause based on your statement to arrest her, but no DA would ever take a case to court solely on the word of a felon. They would need evidence to corroborate your statement.”
Saul scratched his thick black hair aggressively as he stared down at the desk. Finally, he lifted his head. “I don’t trust cops.”
“I don’t trust murderers.”
“How will I know you won’t screw me over?”
“What’re you talking about?” I asked.
After a long moment, he sighed heavily and then leaned back in his chair. “The phone you guys seized at the bunkhouse—that was the phone I used to communicate with Gabe.”
“The 666 number?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, it was a burner phone.”
“The number was pretty coincidental considering you were operating in the Devil’s lake.”
“I got to pick the number,” he admitted. “I thought it would be cool that the number matched the lake.”
He grinned, but I didn’t.
“Anyway,” he said quickly, “I used a different phone to stay in contact with Nelly, and I still have that one.”
I sat a little straighter. “Is there evidence on this phone connecting you to Nelly?”
“There’s lots of evidence on that phone.”
“Where is it?”
He hesitated, glancing over at Amy and then back toward me. “This was my ace in the hole. I was going to give it to my lawyer for the trial, but I’m afraid someone will find it before that happens.”
“Where can we find it?” I pressed when he paused for a long moment.
He let out another long sigh. “It’s at the bunkhouse.”
“It’s not in your sleeping quarters,” I said. “We tore that place up.”
“No, it’s in the kitchen.” He formed a circle with his hands. “It’s buried in this big round rice container in the cabinet above the stove.”
“You hid your phone in a rice container?”
“I only put it in there when we’d leave for a dive. I didn’t want anyone finding it while I was gone.” He grunted. “If I would’ve known I’d get stabbed and arrested on that last dive, I would’ve buried it behind the bunkhouse.”
“Why didn’t you hide the phone that you used to speak with Gabe?”
“Oh, I would wipe that one clean every time I used it. I couldn’t wipe the other phone, because it was all I had to protect me if Nelly turned on me. I’ve seen a lot of Dateline shows, so I know how people turn on each other when they get pinched.”
“What will the phone reveal?” I asked.
“Everything.” He looked me directly in the eyes for the first time since I’d met him. “I’ve got hours of audio with her telling me how I was supposed to kill Frank. She never said anything in text messages, but she talked a lot on the phone.”
“Is there a pass code?”
“Yeah, it’s 0666.”
“You’re obsessed with that number, aren’t you?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. Instead, I asked, “So, why’d you record her? In doing so, you also recorded yourself.”
“This ain’t my first rodeo. I was hoping I could trust her, but I knew I needed to protect myself just in case I was wrong. After all, she was turning on her own husband, so…” He let his voice trail off and shook his head. “She made me kill those people, and I’m not taking the fall for her.
“Oh, you’re taking a fall all right,” I said, rising to my feet. “But if you’re being honest about your phone, you won’t go down alone.”
“Wait, I thought this would c
hange things!”
“It does.” I stared down into his wavering eyes. “Thanks to this new evidence, the jury will now only deliberate for about fifteen minutes before sentencing you to death.”
CHAPTER 49
Two days later…
Amy and I followed Detective Paul Combel around the outdoor swimming pool at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Biloxi. A short and stout man, he walked like a bulldog through the crowd and, although he was a plainclothes detective, everyone who saw him could guess his profession.
It was a warm night, but the breeze blowing in from the Gulf of Mexico was cool. A live band was playing soft music and the mood was relaxing. I searched the faces of the women as we walked. Some were lounging in the pool, a dozen or so were dancing under a canopy, and others were walking around holding cocktails.
Combel stopped near the large and well-lit guitar erected at one end of the pool.
“Do you see her?” I asked.
“No.” He surveyed the crowd around the pool. “It’s crowded for a Sunday night. Want to split up?”
I nodded. Amy and I headed in one direction while he went the opposite way. On Friday evening, we had located Saul’s cell phone in the rice container and transported it to the Chateau Parish Sheriff’s Office, where they conducted a mobile forensic investigation. It wasn’t until late Saturday night that the technician had completely “dumped” the phone and the external hard drive was in our possession. Once we began accessing the digital files, we were able to prove that Nelly Martinez had, indeed, ordered the hit on her new husband.
We had disturbed a judge early this morning and requested a warrant for Nelly’s arrest. After he signed it, we had coordinated with a detective from Pass Christian and later accompanied him to Nelly’s last known address. The house was empty. A neighbor said that Nelly had moved in with Frank a year earlier.
Next, I had called Mr. Jones and he provided the address to Frank’s mansion in Biloxi. I explained why I needed the address and told him what we knew so far.
