by Kara Lennox
Was it possible she had asked him out on a date? And he’d just blown her off like it was no big deal. He’d even suggested Billy Cantu could take the extra ticket. As if he was trying to fix her up or something.
Beth had made it pretty clear she wasn’t interested in dating at this point in her life. She’d even told him outright that she liked having male companionship without the drama of romance and sex.
Had she changed her mind?
For a few moments, he let himself fantasize about what it would be like to not just sleep with Beth, but to date her, to have the new dimension of romance and sex added to their budding friendship.
He’d never had a girlfriend like her. The girls he dated tended to be rough around the edges and interested more in “hooking up” than having a real relationship. They weren’t easily offended or shocked, and they didn’t expect to be wooed with flowers and sweet words. Not that Beth hadn’t seen and heard her share of harsh things, given that she’d worked CSI at the Houston P.D. But she had an air of vulnerability about her, especially since her problem with Vince.
Beth was someone who needed to be treated gently. Could he do that?
Then he snapped back to reality. It wasn’t a possibility. Maybe she had taken that first step of asking him out, but that was before the manure hit the fan. Now, she wouldn’t touch him wearing plastic gloves and a gas mask. She was just getting over that macho jerk who’d beat her up. A computer geek probably sounded like a nice, safe companion. But a car thief/murder suspect whom she witnessed beating the crap out of his punching bag to the point of injuring himself?
Not likely.
He’d seen the look on her face when Dwayne had all but accused him of murder. She wouldn’t date someone she thought was a violent criminal. He’d lost any chance with Beth, and maybe that was for the best. For her, anyway. She deserved better than a former hell-raiser-turned-computer-geek with a pedigree as refined as that of a mongrel dog.
Depressing as that reality was, he had another problem to deal with. How was he going to get to his cage fight in Houston Friday night without getting himself thrown back in jail?
CHAPTER FIVE
“YOU’RE PROBABLY USED to something a little nicer, but you spent a lot of years sleeping in this room.” Mitch’s mom stood aside to allow Mitch into his childhood bedroom.
Memories flooded back as he took in the music posters, everything from Bon Jovi to Eminem to—yes, that was Britney Spears. At sixteen, he’d thought she was pretty hot.
His gaze bounced from the faded rag rug to the blue corduroy bedspread adorning his old twin bed. Memories surged, making his skin prickle. He’d been sixteen and desperate to be free of this place where his father had treated him with less consideration than he’d given his hunting dogs. Mitch’s gut churned, and he struggled a moment to control his feelings.
Beth and Raleigh had given him a ride from the police station to his mother’s house and were sipping iced tea in the living room. He had to hold on to his civilized facade at least a while longer.
He opened a dresser drawer and saw that some of his old clothes were still there. “Mom, why didn’t you get rid of all this stuff?”
She shrugged. “I guess I always figured you’d come to visit. If I threw all your stuff out…you might have thought I didn’t care about you.”
His stomach clenched again. He felt lower than a crawdad’s toe. His mom had a knack for making him feel guilty. He hadn’t felt he owed her anything after he moved out. She’d never once taken his side against his dad. But apparently his lengthy absences from her life had caused her pain.
“I guess I should have come back to see you more, especially after Dad died.”
“I don’t blame you, Mitchell,” she said softly, then suddenly became brisk. “I can clear out all this old stuff. I imagine you have your own new clothes you’d like to wear. Did you bring them with you? What about your toothbrush and such?”
“My boss is having my car driven down here, and a suitcase full of clothes.” Daniel’s new assistant, Elena, was packing up a few things for him. “Then if I need anything I can go out and buy it. Don’t worry about the room,” he added. “I’ll sort through all this stuff while I’m here.”
He would probably have plenty of time. It might be weeks before the district attorney filed formal charges against him, then more weeks, maybe months, before a trial, if it came to that.
“I’ll get you towels and a fresh bar of soap, at least.” His mom turned and bustled down the hall, seeming happy for an excuse to do something for him.
Mitch sat on the bed and, taking advantage of some rare solitude, took stock of his situation.
He hadn’t felt this helpless since he was a kid. From the first time he left home, he’d arranged his life with freedom in mind. He’d never had a serious girlfriend because that meant obligations, and having to take someone else’s wants and needs into consideration. His house, his job and his fighting were the only real commitments he had. He could walk away from any of those, if he wanted to. Even the fighting, he could quit once he’d honored the short-term contracts he’d signed.
Now, here he was living at home again, and he couldn’t set foot outside the parish. He couldn’t even call Robby and go joyriding to burn off his energy. Robby was dead.
That fact was one of the hardest to escape. He’d always pictured Robby down in Mexico, maybe working on a boat or selling souvenirs on the beach and flirting with tourists, when all this time he’d been dead.
Mitch might end up that way, too—a lot sooner than expected—if he didn’t figure a way out of this murder charge. Raleigh and Beth wanted to have a strategy session before they headed back home.
He supposed he better get to it.
He found the two women downstairs in the living room making small talk with Davy. Davy was an okay guy, Mitch supposed. He treated Mitch’s mother a lot better than Willard had. Willard hadn’t even bothered to marry Myra. But Davy didn’t take to strangers very quickly and preferred his own company to anyone else’s. When they’d arrived a few minutes ago he’d been in the backyard nailing up some new siding, and he probably was ready to get back to it.
Mitch was surprised that Davy was making the effort, but maybe he was doing it for Myra.
When Beth caught sight of Mitch, she hopped to her feet. “All set?” She didn’t seem angry anymore, just a little nervous.
“I’m good. Let’s sit outside at the picnic table,” he suggested, both for privacy’s sake, and because the air would be fresher. His mom didn’t have air-conditioning, and the temperature was climbing outside.
A few minutes later the three of them—Beth, Raleigh and Mitch—were seated at the worn redwood picnic table shaded by an ancient pecan tree. Myra had brought them a plate of store-bought sandwich cookies, which Mitch thought was kind of funny. His mom had never been much of a hostess, but he supposed every good Southern woman felt obligated to feed and water visitors, even if this wasn’t a social occasion.
“So, here’s the deal, Mitch,” Raleigh said, getting down to business. “Right now, we don’t know where to focus this investigation. We can try to find Larry Montague—he seems our best lead. But the chances of finding him seem slim.”
“Soon as I have my computer, I’m all over that,” Mitch said. “I’ll find him. A guy I talked to in the jail knows him and thinks he might be in New Orleans.” There was an online message board dedicated to homeless people, where they could check in so their friends and loved ones wouldn’t worry. He could post a message there, and someone who’d seen Larry might reply or pass word to him.
“Meanwhile,” Raleigh continued, “we should pursue other leads. We need to come up with a theory as to what really happened to Robby. Mitch, you knew him better than anyone. Who might have wanted him dead?”
Mitch blew out a breath. “I’ve been thinking about that. Robby tended to piss off a lot of people.”
“I need names,” Raleigh said.
“He h
ad a girlfriend, Amanda Ludlow. She was always jealous, thinking he was flirting with other girls—and he was. Maybe she shot him in a jealous rage.”
Raleigh wrote furiously. “Age?”
“She’d be late twenties by now. Then there was a guy who used to fence stuff for Robby. He got himself arrested, and the cops questioned Robby. Maybe the fence thought Robby was going to testify against him.”
“Name?” Raleigh asked.
“We called him Studs. But I can locate him, don’t worry. I’ll find all these people, and you can talk to them.”
“Did Robby know the owner of the stolen car?” Beth asked suddenly.
Interesting question. No one had thought about that before. Mitch tried to remember what had led him and Robby to boost that particular car. “I think he did know who it belonged to.” A vague memory stirred. “A neighbor, or a friend of his mother’s. Robby knew somehow they kept the spare key under the mat. If you’ll get me the car’s license plate, I’ll add that to my list of stuff to check out.”
An angry crime victim could have taken matters into his own hands. It was a long shot, but worth at least checking in to.
“We’re looking not just for a murder motive,” Beth said, “but a motive for framing you, Mitch. So who, twelve years ago, had a grudge against you? And who could have gotten hold of your father’s gun and planted it?”
“It doesn’t make sense, someone trying to frame me,” Mitch said. “Why would they have hidden the evidence so thoroughly that it wouldn’t be found for twelve years?”
“Maybe the murderer thought the crime would come to light long before it did,” Beth said. “Humor me, just in case. Who didn’t like you?”
Did he even want to go there? He shrugged one shoulder. “Half the people in town.”
“Think you could narrow it down to the top ten or twenty?” Beth sounded more than exasperated, but he was only telling the truth.
“I was a punk kid, angry at the world. I treated everyone like hell—kids at school, girlfriends, people at work. But I think we’re on the wrong track here. My dad could have given that gun to anyone. He had a lot of gun-totin’ buddies. Or it could have been stolen. Or someone could have been trying to frame him, for all we know.”
“Don’t forget,” Beth said, lowering her voice, “that Myra acted a little strange when we asked her about Willard’s guns.”
He lifted his knee and placed his foot on the picnic bench so he could examine the monitoring cuff. It was made of what looked like black, waterproof Gore-Tex. It housed a GPS locator chip and a radio transmitter, which communicated Mitch’s location every five minutes or so to a monitoring center. If he strayed beyond the limits of Bernadette Parish, it would set off an alarm at the monitoring center, someone would call the cops, and he would be in deeper trouble than he already was.
The bracelet also had a body-mass indicator, so that if it were removed, the monitoring center would be notified.
But this wasn’t the latest, greatest model. It was worn and frayed, as if many a prisoner or parolee had worn it. The bracelet was connected to his leg via two industrial-strength rivets.
If Mitch could get those rivets detached and remove the bracelet without disconnecting any wires… But he would have to get another person about his size to wear it while he was gone. And he somehow doubted his mom or Davy would line up to try it. Hell, even if they would, he wasn’t enough of a jerk to ask them to commit a crime and go to jail for him.
“But there must be some standouts,” Raleigh insisted, pulling Mitch back into the conversation. “I hate to bring this up, but what about your half brother? He certainly would have had access to your father’s guns.”
“Mr. Law-and-Order?” Mitch laughed at the very idea. “He’s not a rule breaker. True, we aren’t all warm and fuzzy. But I can’t see him launching some elaborate plot to frame me for murder. He doesn’t have the brains or the guts. Or the patience to wait twelve years for the payoff.”
“Was there a falling-out between you two?” Beth asked.
Mitch didn’t want to talk about this. It wasn’t pertinent.
“It might be important,” Beth said, obviously sensing his reluctance. “Raleigh and I can be objective where you can’t.”
He sighed. “No, there wasn’t a falling-out. Dwayne and I just never got along. Our dad left Dwayne and his mother to be with me and my mom when I was born, and Dwayne always resented me for it. Like it was my fault. Hell, I’d have been happy to give him back.”
“So Dwayne never had much of a relationship with your father?”
“He had a better relationship than I did, for sure,” Mitch said. “Dad spent more time with Dwayne. Every weekend, practically, they would go hunting or camping, or Dad would go teach him how to throw a ball or fix a car.”
“And he didn’t teach you those things?”
“What I learned of fixing stuff, I picked up on my own. And I never could throw a ball or shoot worth a damn. I was into computers, which my dad thought was sissy crap.”
“Could your dad have killed Robby?” Raleigh asked suddenly.
Wouldn’t that be ironic, one last way the old man could get to Mitch. Kill his best friend, then let him take the fall. Was that why his mom had been so nervous? Did she know something?
“I wouldn’t put it past him. He was a mean son of a bitch.” When Willard died suddenly a few years ago, Mitch hadn’t even attended the funeral. He couldn’t force himself to grieve for the man. His mom had said it would “look bad” if he didn’t show up, but Mitch was long past caring about appearances.
“Mitch, stop fussing with that ankle cuff,” Raleigh said. “They’re impossible to cheat.”
Hah. Impossible for most people. But how hard could it be to hack into the monitoring center’s computers and set up some kind of false signal?
He lowered his foot back to the ground, then stood and stretched. “All this talk is getting us nowhere. We need to be out doing something.”
“Like what?” Beth asked. “To investigate, we have to follow leads. We need to locate these people you’ve given us first.”
“Why don’t we try to find the murder scene?” Mitch asked. “I know something the cops don’t. I know where Robby might have headed that night, if he’d chickened out about going to Mexico.”
“Where?” Raleigh asked, pen poised to take notes.
“I can’t tell you. I’ll have to show you. The place doesn’t exactly have a street address.”
“Let’s go, then.” Beth was on her feet, apparently as anxious to do something proactive as he was. But all three of them froze in their tracks as a Coot’s Bayou squad car pulled into the driveway. What now? Had the cops found even more trumped-up evidence? Were they going to change their minds and drag him to jail after all?
BETH HELD HER BREATH as the squad car came to a stop. Why couldn’t the police leave Mitch alone? How was he supposed to prove his innocence if they harassed him like this?
When the car’s engine stilled and the door opened, it turned out to be Dwayne Bell, Mitch’s half brother, and every muscle in Beth’s body tensed.
Dwayne and Mitch didn’t look much alike. They were both tall, around six feet or so, but where Mitch was lean and mean, Dwayne could only be described as beefy. He had a good thirty pounds on his brother.
His hair was darker than Mitch’s, too, and cut military short. His hairline receded slightly, but he was still the sort of guy some women swooned over—G.I. Joe-handsome, straight backed, dark, penetrating eyes, serious expression.
“Oh, shit,” Mitch muttered. “What the hell is he doing here?”
“Sergeant Bell,” Raleigh said in her reserved, lawyer voice. “If you want to speak to my client, we’d be happy to come to the police station for another formal interview.”
“This isn’t an official visit,” Dwayne said, his gaze flickering toward Mitch, then back to Raleigh as he approached. “I’m off duty, and I’m here as a family member, not a cop.”
> “Family, my ass,” Mitch said, still speaking under his breath. Only Beth could hear.
She shot him a warning look. If he was going to fight with his brother, he could damn well do it some other time.
Louder, Mitch asked, “Why are you really here, Dwayne?”
“Look, Mitch, I know we’ve had our quarrels. We’ll never be best friends. But Daddy would be real disappointed if I stood by and let my associates railroad you into jail.”
“You didn’t seem to mind when your friends were interrogating me. You were practically crowing.”
“I admit it, I thought it was funny that you were being questioned about Robby’s death. I wanted you to get hassled a bit. You always had a way of squirming out of trouble when you were a kid, and I figured this was payback for all the times you should have been arrested and you weren’t.
“But, Mitch, I swear, I did not think they would arrest you. When that car and the gun turned up I ’bout fell out of my chair. I know you didn’t kill Robby. You might have been a pain in the ass, and you might have punched in a face or two, but you never would have messed with Daddy’s guns.”
“Fine,” Mitch said. “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“I’m not just offering moral support. My colleagues rushed to arrest you pretty damn fast. We haven’t even considered other suspects. I gather that’s what your Project Justice buddies are here to do—investigate the crime as it should be investigated, turning over every rock, interviewing every potential witness or suspect, all things a small city police force can’t do on its tiny budget.”
“So you’re offering…”
“I can at least verify that no evidence is mishandled and no witnesses are unduly influenced.”
“Mighty friendly of you.” Mitch’s eyes glittered dangerously. “But we don’t need a cop looking over our shoulder, trying to trip us up.”
Dwayne shook his head. “You are one bullheaded idiot, you know that?”
“Now if we’re gonna get into name-calling—”
“Wait a minute, Mitch,” Raleigh interrupted. “Dwayne has a point. One of the hurdles Project Justice often faces is the accusation of evidence tampering.”