Midnight on the Mississippi

by Mary Ellis

  “I suppose there’s no harm in that.” Picking up the card, Mrs. Godrey bestowed one final toothy grin. “Have a safe trip back to New Orleans, honey. And thanks for visiting St. Landry Parish. Tell all your friends to come see us in Opelousas. We love company.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  After several hours of poring over client records, Hunter filled his travel mug with black coffee and headed for the door on a gorgeous Saturday morning. Although James had a gift for picking loser stocks, Hunter found little in the last two years that could have gotten him killed, other than the Ace Linen Supply scam. His assistant, who refused to speak ill of the dead, could shed no new light on the subject. Naomi had always had a soft spot for James.

  Hunter headed toward James’s home, hoping to find something that wasn’t in the firm’s records. He wasn’t accomplishing anything at his place other than contemplating the enigmatic Nicki or mulling over his breakup with Ashley.

  He knew he’d made the right decision in that area. Ashley was a wonderful woman in many ways but not the person he yearned to spend his life with, even without the recent revelations of her postcollege cottage industry. Although he didn’t like the idea of her socializing for pay, he liked her insincerity even less. More than once he got the notion that what she said and what she felt weren’t remotely related.

  Ashley was a people-pleaser as long as they fit into her agenda, unlike Nicki, who said whatever popped into her mind without considering the consequences.

  Nicki. Honest, driven, so motivated to rise above her modest circumstances and make something of herself. So different from Ashley.

  So different from himself. He’d never had to struggle for anything in his life. His parents had paved an easy path for him and his siblings.

  Nicki’s face flitted through his mind—her silky hair, her voice, her scent of Ivory soap and raspberry shampoo. She wasn’t his type, so why did he find himself thinking about her forty times a day?

  Because the partners had keys to each other’s home in case of emergencies, Hunter let himself into James’s townhouse. A sudden death often left behind a sad, surreal world. A Grisham novel lay facedown on his coffee table, its spine cracked. Mugs sat in the sink, the coffee dried to a dark residue in the bottom. The Times sports section had been folded back to an article on the NBA draft. A forlorn ficus tree, desperate for water, had dropped half its leaves on the carpet. The air smelled stale and musty, akin to unused closets and poorly ventilated attics. James’s parents hadn’t been here yet to clean out his home, an understandably impossible task in their state of early grief.

  Hunter switched on the AC, threw out the accumulated junk mail, watered the ficus, and headed for the den. He prayed James hadn’t changed the passwords on his computer. His prayer was answered.

  Both partners downloaded office files to their laptops so they could handle exchange requests at home. Because their clients were active investors, Galen-Nowak brokers were available twenty-four seven. After several wrong turns and missteps, a spreadsheet of James’s clients bloomed across the screen, with one unsettling difference. These financial statements bore no resemblance to the spreadsheets Hunter had studied all week.

  He pulled the printouts from his briefcase and began to compare. As his focus flitted between his papers and the monitor, a bad feeling grew in the pit of his belly. None of the individual account balances matched. They didn’t even come close. As Hunter studied each client’s monthly activity, a pattern emerged—a pattern of deception, subterfuge, and outright theft. Each month James selected one or two clients whose assets exceeded a million dollars to be his personal banker. He siphoned money from their account and deposited it into his own. Then he made investments in his own name, besides using the money to augment his lavish lifestyle. If the stocks he picked gained value, he returned the original “borrowed” amount and kept the profits. If they lost value, c’est la vie. He returned whatever was left after thirty days. Either way he generated a phony statement on his laptop and printed it to mail to the client—one that didn’t match the one on file at Galen-Nowak Investments.

  James had been leading a double life that enriched himself, not his clients. If any of them had figured out his scam, they would have been furious. And that sounded like motive for murder. Hunter printed copies of the phony accounting records with growing anxiety. Last month three clients received statements indicating substantial losses due to his machinations. Among those who had lost more than a hundred thousand dollars was a familiar name: Philip Menard.

  By the way, Papa Menard, besides causing your only daughter to lose face with her catty girlfriends, I just discovered my business partner has been using your account as his own personal ATM.

  What a mess. Packing up the computer printouts from James’s laptop, Hunter scrolled through his contact list on his phone and selected Nicki’s number. Her training in forensic accounting would enable her to create an accurate record of James’s thievery. If Hunter aimed to do right by his clients, he needed to know the complete picture.

  “Nicki, where are you?” he asked when she picked up. “Can you meet me in the Quarter? I have papers to give you along with James’s computer. I need your help.” He heard her suck in a gulp of air.

  “What have you found out?”

  “I don’t want to discuss this on the phone. Meet me at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar, corner of Bourbon and St. Phillip.”

  “You want me to meet you in a bar? Why can’t I come back to your apartment?”

  “Because Jeanette is there, and no one will know me or you in Lafitte’s.” He ended the call. Despite their short acquaintance, he knew she would ask a dozen questions, and he couldn’t spare the time.

  Hunter drove back to the French Quarter, the crowds still sparse due to the time of day. What visitors were in town were either snoozing in their hotel rooms or grabbing a late lunch. As expected, Nicki wasn’t smiling when he found her in the oldest bar in the United States. “This place gives me the willies,” she whispered. “I refuse to pour my Coke into a glass. It’s so dark in here.”

  “They wash their glassware, Nicki. That’s not what we need to fear.”

  “Where have you been? What have you found out?”

  Hunter ordered a Coke and then provided a bare bones explanation to fill the gap since she’d left his apartment two days earlier. She gazed at him with an expression of disbelief and amazement as he described James’s method of personal betterment.

  “That’s unbelievable,” she said. “How much do you think he stole?”

  “That exact figure is what you’re going to find out. I’m guessing at least a mil.”

  “A million dollars!” Her voice carried across the room, drawing the attention of several patrons. Nicki covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Depends on how long he’s been doing this. It could be quite a bit more.”

  Nicki’s expression changed to disgust. “I don’t get it. Nowak robs a million from rich folks using his personal charm and a computer, and he probably would have received probation and restitution.”

  Hunter swiveled to face her, irritated yet not wholly in disagreement. “May I remind you that someone killed him, probably over his scam? So I would say he got capital punishment for his crime.”

  Her face scrunched with shame. “I’m sorry, Hunter. Really. Maybe I’m just envious because obviously my personal charm wouldn’t amass enough money for a streetcar ride.”

  “Apology accepted…and charm is highly overrated. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a long drive ahead of me—”

  “Wherever you’re going, I’m going with you. It’s safer if we stick together.”

  He smiled at her earnestness, as though they were tourists venturing into a cemetery after dark. “I need to stop at home and pack an overnight bag and then drive out to the Menards’. Not their house in the Garden District but their rustic retreat out in the country.”

  “I’m your private investigator. You’re not going there al
one.”

  Hunter pushed James’s laptop and his file folders across the scarred table. “You have work to do, Nicki. I need an accurate record of everything James did off the radar. I’m sure the reason he was killed is in there. That may also be why you were lured into the bayou.”

  “All the more reason you shouldn’t go solo.” She picked up the laptop but rose to her feet. Her determination reminded him of Chloe while losing an argument with their mother. Remain steadfast, even when all you’re holding is a pair of threes in a poker game.

  “Listen to me carefully. One of the clients he ripped off last month was Philip Menard.” Hunter watched her face pale considerably.

  “Ashley’s dad? James ripped off your fiancée’s father? Why would he do such a thing?” Nicki’s brown eyes rounded with confusion.

  “Philip may not even know, but I need to talk to him.”

  “Then for sure I’m going with you, boss!” She slapped a five-dollar bill down for her Coke and quickly gathered the file folders.

  He clamped a hand on her wrist. “No, Nicki. Mr. Menard may not know he’s been scammed, but I’m sure by now that he’s heard about his daughter’s broken engagement and—”

  “That has nothing to do with me! I work for you and this is my job.”

  Hunter waited until she looked him in the eye before replying. “Ashley may have the misguided notion you had something to do with our breakup.”

  Lafitte’s grew deathly quiet. Where are all the boisterous drunks when you need them?

  “Did I? Did your decision to end it have anything to do with me?”

  “Are you asking me if I find you attractive?” Hunter released her arm as silence continued to spin out in the room. “I do, but I broke up with Ashley for my own reasons. And I’m not prepared to discuss those reasons with you or Philip or anyone else.” He tapped his fingernail on the laptop and then wrote something down on a Post-it Note. “Here is James’s password. Work up financial profiles for each of his clients and I’ll call you later. Thanks, Nicki.”

  Hunter walked out into the sunshine on Bourbon Street with his investigator close on his heels.

  “That’s good to know, boss,” she called, hefting the computer bag onto her shoulder. “Don’t change your life with me in mind because I’m just here for the paycheck, good medical benefits, and experience to put on my résumé. I’ll get you out of the hot water you’re in and move on to the next client.”

  When Hunter stopped short at the corner, Nicki almost collided into him. “Understood, Miss Price. And we haven’t even discussed accrued vacation time or a retirement account.” He laughed as a blush spread up her cheeks.

  “Where does Mr. Menard live? Just in case you never make it back to New Orleans and I have to call the authorities.”

  Hunter considered his options. He didn’t like the idea of Nicki coming to the Menard country home, not after what happened in the swamp, but to deny her the information showed a lack of trust.

  He released a weary sigh. “Their home is out in Terrebonne on the southern end of Lake Boudreaux. But I need you in town. For all I know, Ashley might be visiting her dad and that would make things uncomfortable.” Hunter doubted Ashley would lick her wounds at her father’s rustic retreat. The bars, restaurants, and shopping malls of Baton Rouge would infinitely better suit her style, but Philip had a mean streak. Hunter didn’t want his wrath directed at Nicki if Ashley had implicated her as a home wrecker.

  “Fine, Hunter. You’re the boss.”

  He made sure she climbed into her Escort and drove away before heading to his own car. Back at home, he threw some clothes, his shaving kit, and the two versions of the Menard account statement into an overnight bag. He avoided Jeanette’s bewildering scowls along with the blinking light on his answering machine and left the city. Although the swamp would be hot, humid, and buggy, the crowded streets of New Orleans had a way of closing in around you.

  Out at the Menard family home on Lake Boudreaux, Hunter found Philip as he thought he would—not in the best of moods. A uniformed butler showed Hunter to the paneled den. No one else living in the bayou would insist that household staff wear livery but Ashley’s family. Several hunting prints decorated the walls, while a vintage muzzleloader hung over the seldom-used fireplace. An oak gun cabinet displayed an impressive collection of contemporary lethal weapons. Menard was bent over open ledgers and a stack of bills.

  When Hunter spotted Galen letterhead at the top of the pile, he swallowed down a golf-ball-sized lump. “Good afternoon, Mr. Menard. I see you’re going over your accounts. That’s why I’m here.” Hunter extended his hand in greeting.

  Menard looked up at his guest from under his reading glasses and shook with little enthusiasm. “That’s why you’re here, boy? I would think you’d have more pressing matters to discuss with me, such as whatever is going on between you and my daughter.”

  At thirty years old, Hunter didn’t appreciate being referred to as “boy” and enjoyed discussing his personal relationships even less. It wasn’t as though he and Ashley were underage teenagers in trouble, facing the music with Daddy. “I see Ashley has mentioned we’re taking a break from each other. Things have been tense since James’s murder. And you and my family didn’t help matters by orchestrating that party behind our backs.”

  “I didn’t go behind my daughter’s back. She was all for the idea. You’re the one with issues, Hunter. Isn’t that what they call cold feet these days?” His tone had softened quite a bit, apparently opting for the honey-instead-of-vinegar approach.

  Hunter inhaled a deep breath. No way would he discuss character flaws with someone’s father, but it was hard to say “stay out of my personal business” when he owed the man hundreds of thousands of dollars thanks to James’s schemes. “Ashley and I will reach a decision about our future when she returns from Baton Rouge, sir. I’m here today about the management of your investment portfolio. I’ve discovered a substantial inaccuracy in your statement, but I assure you I intend to straighten this out.”

  Substantial inaccuracy in your statement? He was starting to sound like a corporate spin-doctor. Yet a sense of misguided loyalty prevented him from calling James an outright thief.

  Surprisingly, Menard just laughed. “Substantial inaccuracy, Hunter? Yes, I’d agree with that. You should have kept your partner on a short leash. Either that guy was the stupidest stockbroker in Louisiana or he was up to something illegal. Which do you suppose it was?” Menard leaned back in his upholstered chair, interlocking his fingers across his substantial midsection and narrowing his eyes.

  “I suspect the former, but James is dead. There’s no sense getting into the legal or ethical implications. You have my word I’ll make right whatever losses were unjustified even if it takes me years.” Hunter shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Menard hadn’t asked him to sit down. He felt like a schoolboy in the headmaster’s office, but he deserved as much for not spotting this scam long ago.

  With a snort Menard pulled a crystal decanter of something amber and a glass from his desk drawer. “Care for a drink, Galen?” Suddenly he sounded downright hospitable.

  “No, thank you, sir.” Hunter watched him pour a hefty portion.

  “Did you know Nowak was a gambler? I don’t mean playing a few slots on the riverboat or penny-ante cards on somebody’s back porch. I mean high stakes poker—thousand-dollar buy-ins, five- and six-figure pots. I saw him once in a private suite on the Cajun Queen.” He paused a moment to let this sink in. “And he wasn’t winning.”

  Hunter’s heart pounded against his chest wall. James stole hundreds of thousands of dollars to gamble with? Hunter’s loyalty toward his friend slipped a few notches. “I didn’t know he was a gambler. That explains a lot, but it doesn’t change what I need to do.”

  “That’s not the mess you gotta make right, boy.” Menard sat up, his feet landing on the den’s Oriental rug with a thump. “I don’t like being duped by your partner, but my finances will rec
over. Money ain’t everything. I can survive without the money that crook stole, but I can’t stand hearing my little girl cry.” Menard squinted, his eyes bleary after years of hard drinking. “It makes my blood boil. Someday you’ll understand when you’re a father.”

  “Sir, you’ll have to trust us—”

  “No!” he shouted. He struggled to his feet, knocking a stack of bills onto the floor. “My Ashley has her heart set on marrying you. You will do the right thing by my daughter!” His threat echoed against the tin ceiling and then silence fell like a final curtain.

  “Mr. Menard, you have every right to be angry. I was lackadaisical and too trusting of my partner, who ended up scamming thousands of dollars.” Hunter enunciated each word carefully. “I take personal responsibility for James’s actions in Galen-Nowak Investments, but I will not be coerced into a marriage with a woman I apparently barely know. There isn’t enough money in all of Switzerland or bourbon in your desk drawer to make me marry Ashley now.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Perspiration dampened the back of Nicki’s shirt, but she opted against running the car’s air-conditioning. She hated to waste any gasoline at the current prices. Besides, the less attention she drew to herself during the first official stakeout of her career the better.

  She peered out the dusty car windows at the structure visible between twin oak trees. She was back in the swamp again—her least favorite place in the world—at the hottest time of day. Her legs beneath her shorts felt glued to the vinyl upholstery, but she couldn’t let Hunter drive to the Menards’ Terrebonne Parish home by himself, not with Nowak’s killer still at large. If Hunter wasn’t the killer, then the real killer could have Hunter next on his list.

  And Hunter was no killer.

  So Nicki had hurried back to Christine’s trailer, thrown a change of clothes, pepper spray, insect repellant, and a flashlight into her duffel bag, and grabbed a couple bottles of water and a bag of chips on her way out the door. She was willing to return to the bayou to keep Hunter safe, but she wouldn’t go unprepared. She ended up near his apartment just as he pulled the Corvette onto the street. Trailing him at a safe distance wasn’t easy, but at least heavy afternoon traffic kept him from getting too far ahead of her. Despite her reluctance to follow too closely, she managed to keep the Corvette within view all the way to the country home and roots of Ashley Menard. And apparently no gun-toting assassin had followed them to Terrebonne.