by B J Bourg
“When Dr. Wong undressed him for the autopsy, she found the cell phone hidden in the crotch of his shorts. The battery was dead, so I got our—”
“We don’t have an hour,” I said, interrupting. “I need that phone dump as soon as possible. I’m looking for an image of a map—an old map. As soon as you get it, forward it to my cell. I can’t impress upon you how important this is, Mallory. It could be the key to solving the case.”
“What’re you thinking?” Susan asked after she’d ended the call.
“Someone else knows about the map and the gold, and they know Nathan and Philip are involved. They tortured Nathan into telling them where the map was located, they stole it from Philip’s house, and they’re going for the treasure now.” I took a deep breath. “Our only hope of stopping them is to find a copy of that map and get to the treasure before they do—or while they’re there. If they find it and leave, we may never identify them. With that kind of gold—if they found the right buyers—they could drop off the face of the earth and never be heard from again.”
Susan began running her thumb across her cell phone. “I’ll call my mom to let her know I’ll be late, and I’ll tell Melvin to get a boat ready.”
I nodded. “If all else fails, at least we know it’s somewhere around that island on Lake Berg.”
“Yeah, but it’s a big island.”
CHAPTER 35
The sun was going down fast, causing long shadows to cast across Washington Avenue in front of the police department. Once I parked my Tahoe, Susan and I hurried up the wide steps, through the doors, and we parted ways near the dispatcher’s office. She went to find Melvin and I headed for the jail cell. I didn’t even take Philip out of the cell.
“Nathan knew where you kept the map, didn’t he?”
Philip stared up from the bunk, half awake. “Nathan? Wait, did he steal the map?”
“Nathan can’t steal anything,” I said flatly. “He’s dead. Murdered. Someone tortured him into giving up the map, and now it’s gone.”
Philip was on his feet now, his eyes wide and his lower jaw hanging open. “Are you serious? Is…is the map really gone?”
“And Nathan’s dead,” I said heatedly, losing my patience, “which should be more important to you.”
“No, no, it is—”
“Who else did you tell about the gold and the map?”
He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head weakly. “No one, I swear it.”
“What about Nathan?”
“God, no, he was the one who insisted we keep this a secret.”
I clung to the bars and studied the man. Was he lying? I’d had to work for every bit of information I’d gotten from him so far, so there was no reason to think he was making things easier now. “What about the barroom—did anyone overhear the conversation you had with Nathan about the map at the Bayou View Pub?”
He was thoughtful, and I saw his face turn a shade whiter. “That would be the only way someone else could know. We…we never spoke about it in public except for that one time.”
“Who was in the bar at the time? Did you recognize anyone?”
“I…I mean, there were a few people in there. Um, let me see, it was during the day, so most people were at work. If I remember right, there were two guys there, but they didn’t seem to know each other. One of them was sitting at the other end of the bar, so there’s no way he heard anything. The other one was sitting closer to us.”
“Do you know their names?”
“Nah, I don’t even remember what they looked like. But that bartender seemed to know them. Maybe you can ask her the name of the guy sitting near us. We were trying to be quiet, but it’s possible he could’ve overheard us because he was sitting only a couple of stools away from Nathan.”
“What day was it?”
“I’m not…I don’t remember.” He shook his head. “I just know it was the same day we found the gold. We got off early and went to the bar to spend the bonus money. That’s all I can tell you.”
I tapped my fingers on the bars to the cell. According to Bill Welch, Carl Duval had shown up to his shop with the gold coin on a Wednesday, so my guess was he found the map and gold on the previous day, which meant Philip and Nathan were at the bar on that Tuesday.
“Don’t go anywhere,” I said, and quickly turned to leave.
“Where in the hell could I go?” Philip called after me.
I ignored him and hurried to my office, wanting to check something. I wasn’t paying attention when I walked in and didn’t notice the shadow in the corner of the room until it spoke.
“Did the man in the jail cell kill my family?”
I froze with my hand extended toward my desk, and slowly turned my head to stare at Chuck. He had moved a chair to the far corner of the room and had been sitting there in the dark. “What’re you doing here, Chuck?”
He held up Jennifer’s phone and the glow from the screen lit up his face, giving him a ghostly appearance. “This is the only thing I have left that belongs to Jennifer.” He lowered the phone and stared down at it. “I wanted to feel close to her.”
I nodded my understanding, closed the distance between us slowly. “Did you happen to look through her pictures?”
“I started to, but I got stuck on this one.” He turned it so I could see. It was a selfie of Jennifer in her unmarked police cruiser. She was smiling, but there was a hint of sadness in her eyes.
I frowned and pulled up one of the other chairs and sat beside him. “To answer your question, I’m not sure if Philip Crenshaw murdered your family. I suspect he did, but I’m not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“Fair enough.” He handed me the phone. “Were you looking for this?”
“Yeah, I need to know if Carl sent her a picture of a map.” As I searched through the images, I gave Chuck the full rundown on the case, leaving nothing out. I sighed and handed him back the phone. “It’s not here.”
“Are you heading to that barroom now?”
“I am.”
“Can I come?”
I hesitated, but something in his expression told me I’d better bring him along just so I could keep an eye on him. “Sure,” I finally said, “but I’ll need you to wait in the Tahoe while I do the interviews. I don’t need to tell you how important it is to—”
“No, you don’t. I’ll stay out of your way…for now. I want to see what you turn up.”
As I led the way to the dispatcher’s station, where Susan joined in and followed us outside, I wondered if he would become a problem. I didn’t want to have to tell him to back off, and I certainly didn’t want to have to arrest him for interfering with the investigation. I didn’t want to, but I would if he forced my hand.
I frowned as I slid behind the driver’s seat. Would I really?
CHAPTER 36
I parked my Tahoe in front of the Bayou View Pub and gave Chuck a nod before approaching the concrete steps that stood on one end of the porch. My boots echoed against the hollow wooden floor as I crossed to the front door. There were two entrances at the front of the building. One was a modern double-door made of glass and the other was an antique-looking wooden door with nine individual panes of glass. The wooden door was always open, so I approached it and pushed through to the inside.
The flickering florescent lights overhead cast a dim glow about the place, and I could plainly see that there were no customers. Over the years, the ancient building hadn’t undergone a single change. The left side of the room opened into a large dance floor, where the DJ usually set up in a corner, and a secondary bar was in the other corner. The main bar was to my right. It was constructed of rich mahogany and stretched nearly the length of the room. It was on the opposite end of the bar that Dixie Boudreaux was cleaning whiskey glasses. She was humming to herself, but stopped when she saw us approaching.
“Can I get y’all a drink?” she asked cautiously. “Or is this official police business?”
I smiled. “Sorry, but t
his is business. I need to ask you some questions about two customers who came in here on the eighteenth of December. It was a Tuesday, and they came in during the day.”
“Damn, you’d have better luck asking me what color panties I was wearing on my birthday exactly twelve years ago.” She shrugged. “Do you have anything more? Maybe names or something?”
“Yeah, their names are Philip Crenshaw and Nathan Baxter.”
She scrunched up her face and was thoughtful. “Do you have a picture?”
I pulled out my phone and showed her a picture of Philip. It would’ve been useless to show her the picture I had of Nathan, because he was unrecognizable in his current condition.
Dixie snapped her fingers. “I have seen him in the bar before. It was a while back. Yeah, it could’ve been in December. He’s only been in here once that I’ve seen.”
“Did he have someone with him?”
“Yeah, there was this younger kid with him. He was a little pushy, tried to get my number. When I told him no and that I had a boyfriend, he told me he didn’t care. Said something about what my boyfriend didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.” She indicated a bar stool to my left. “He came in here last night, too, and sat right there. He wasn’t as cocky as he was the first time though.”
I shot a glance toward the bar stool. “Nathan Baxter was here last night?”
“I don’t know his name, but he’s the same guy who was with the man in that picture you just showed me.”
I drummed my fingers on the countertop. “Do you remember who else was in the bar back in December when they were here?”
“Um, let’s see…that was a long time ago.” Her eyes turned to the ceiling and she squinted. “If I’m not mistaken, Miguel Garcia and Tristan Borel were in the bar.”
“What can you tell me about those two guys?”
“Miguel’s a welder and Tristan manages an auto parts place in Upper Chateau. Miguel is married and I know Tristan has a girlfriend who’s pregnant.” She shrugged. “That’s about all I know. They don’t talk much about their personal lives when they come in here. They’re too busy trying to impress me.”
Susan had walked to the door to check on Chuck and she had just made it back to me when I asked Dixie if she overheard the conversation between Philip and Nathan.
“No, but Tristan was sitting next to them and he came back in the bar on New Year’s Eve and said they were talking about some old map.”
Susan’s head jerked around and my ears perked up.
“What exactly did Tristan say?”
“He just said the young guy—this Nathan, I’m assuming—was talking about some treasure map.” She shrugged. “Tristan talks a lot of crap when he’s drunk, so no one really pays any attention to him.”
“Where can we find Tristan?”
She shook her head. “I’ve already told you everything I know.”
I glanced around the place, looking for surveillance cameras. There were none in view. “Are there hidden cameras in here?”
Dixie shook her head. “No, our patrons wouldn’t like it much if we recorded everything they did. Some of them like to come here with women who aren’t their wives, and they would shy away from the place if they knew we were documenting their affairs.”
I nodded and was about to ask my next question when I heard a noise. I turned. A bathroom door opened behind me and a man stepped out fastening the belt on his jeans. He looked at Susan and me and then at Dixie and raised his hands. “I didn’t do it.” He then started laughing at his own joke and walked to the bar, asking for the usual.
“Dennis,” Dixie said, “do you know where Tristan Borel lives?”
The man looked to be in his early forties, but his hands looked to be in their mid-fifties. The grease under his fingernails told me he was probably a mechanic. He rubbed a hand over his blond hair. “I know he works at the parts place on Main in Upper Chateau, but I thought I heard him say once that he lived down here somewhere.”
“How well do you know him?” I asked.
“I buy parts from him all the time, but I don’t know a whole lot about him. He seems to be a nice enough guy.” Dennis glanced over at Dixie. “Hey, wasn’t he here last night?”
I froze in place. “Tristan was here last night, along with Nathan?”
Dixie nodded her head. “He sure was. In fact, he left not long after Nathan left.”
“Who’s Nathan?” Dennis asked.
I ignored him and started questioning Dixie more about Tristan, but she seemed to know little about him other than his favorite drink and that he “didn’t tip for shit.”
I was still questioning Dixie when Dennis suddenly snapped his fingers. “Wait a minute! Tristan said he lives with his girlfriend. She’s a Billiot. I think her first name is Piper.”
Susan walked away immediately and got on the phone.
“Do you know what he drives?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s one of those old El Caminos or Rancheros. I know a lot about cars, but I can never tell the difference between those damn things unless I see the manufacture’s emblem. To be honest, I’ve got no use for them. It’s like, make up your mind—get a truck or a car, not some in-between.”
“What color is it?”
“It’s green with wood grain panels. Ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Susan walked up and nodded. “Got it. Piper Billiot lives on the east side.”
I thanked Dixie and Dennis, and then Susan and I hurried out into the mosquitoes and humidity. Chuck was sitting patiently in the back seat and I studied him in the rearview mirror. I still wasn’t sure if he had killed Nathan or not, but I was sure hoping he hadn’t. He didn’t ask where we were going, but I let him know anyway. He nodded and stared out the side window and into the darkness as we drove. I could imagine the evil thoughts that were going through his mind, because I had walked in his boots before.
CHAPTER 37
We found Piper Billiot’s residence at the end of an uneven concrete road that snaked through an old trailer park. Most of the trailers were dilapidated but still occupied, and one had burned to the ground at some point in the not-too-distant past.
“There’s his car truck,” I said, pointing. “It’s a Chevrolet, so does that make it an El Camino or a Ranchero?”
Susan only shrugged. She was staring intently at the tiny trailer, trying to penetrate the darkness in search of even the slightest hint of danger. “I’ll take the back door,” she said as I slowed to a stop two trailers from Piper’s place. “Chuck can come with me.”
I hesitated, shooting Susan an inquisitive stare.
“He’ll be okay.” Susan glanced at the older man. “Won’t you, Chuck?”
Surprised at the invitation, he nodded vigorously. “I won’t do anything to jeopardize the investigation. I know how important this is.”
I didn’t have time to argue, so I just nodded and headed for the front of the trailer. It was late, so there were no lights on. I banged on the exterior wall instead of the door so I could make the most noise, and stood to the right of the metal steps. I didn’t have to wait long. The sound of my knocking had barely carried off on the breeze when I heard footsteps stomping toward the door.
My hand dropped close to my pistol as the door swung open to the outside. A skinny fellow stood there, peering hesitantly into the night, as though he wasn’t accustomed to having company after dark.
“I’m Clint Wolf, a detective with the Mechant Loup Police Department,” I announced, stepping forward so the light from inside could illuminate me. “Are you Tristan Borel?”
He nodded, seemingly surprised to hear his own name. “What’s this about?”
Feet shuffled behind him and I glanced toward the noise. A young woman—barely out of high school—walked up wearing a thin nightgown that stretched over her swollen belly. “Tris, is something the matter?”
“Just go on back to bed,” he said, waving a hand. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
When the girl
was gone, he asked again what this was about.
“Do you know Nathan Baxter?” I asked. “From the Bayou View Pub?”
He swallowed hard. “Um, I heard about him.”
“What’d you hear about him?”
“I heard he committed suicide.”
“Really? Where’d you hear that from?”
“It was all over the store. Some customer came in and told us the sheriff’s office found him dead inside his house. They said a neighbor told them it was suicide.” He swallowed hard. “It’s, um, kind of scary, because I just saw him last night at the Pub.”
Susan and Chuck walked up from my right and I indicated the inside of his trailer. “Do you mind if we come inside and talk some more?”
He swallowed hard again and nodded nervously. “I guess that would be okay.”
I led the way up the wobbly steps after him. Susan was next, followed closely by Chuck. When we had all crowded inside the kitchen, Tristan sat in a chair and reached for a pack of cigarettes that were on the table.
Susan had run his rap sheet before we’d arrived, and I knew he was clean. From the looks of things, though, he could certainly use some extra cash. And money was always a powerful motive for murder. I dropped to a chair opposite him.
“So, tell me about the conversation you overheard at the Bayou View Pub just before Christmas.”
He gulped. “You mean the one between Nathan and that older man?”
“Precisely.” I nodded for emphasis.
“Well, it wasn’t much. I just heard him say something about finding a gold treasure. He was saying there was a map and that they should go get it.” He shifted his feet nervously as he lit the cigarette. “I don’t really know what they meant by that and really didn’t understand what was going on. I just heard bits and pieces of the conversation because they were trying to keep it quiet.”
“Did you tell anyone about the gold treasure and the map?”
“No, sir.” His hand trembled when he brought the cigarette up to his lips. I had already decided he hadn’t killed anyone. He didn’t have the nerve for it.