by BJ Bourg
Stella took a deep and quavering breath. “He has his coffee with the paper every morning. We would then go for a run. Now that I’m hurt, he runs alone. After we run, we piddle around the house. Isaac does yard work or finds something to repair. He’s always fixing something—whether it’s needed or not.” Stella chuckled through the tears. “He can’t wait for my car or his truck’s engine light to come on so he can figure out what’s wrong with it. He has one of those little car computers and he says it gives him some codes and he gets to figure out what they mean. He loves a challenge. Always has. After lunch, we usually watch a little television and then he takes a nap while I knit. That’s about all he does.” Stella stopped and was thoughtful, as though going over his routine in her head. She lifted a finger. “Oh, there is one other thing. Once a month he goes to M & P Grill for a shrimp po’ boy or soft shell crabs, which are his favorite meals. I’m allergic to shell fish—my throat swells up if I even smell it—so a few months ago I suggested he start going out for seafood.” She paused and wiped tears from her face. “I hate that I can’t cook his favorite—”
“M & P Grill?” I fished an enlarged copy of Betty Ledet’s driver’s license photo from my folder and held it so Stella could view it. “Do you recognize this woman? She works at M & P Grill. Does Isaac know her?”
Stella shook her head. “I’ve never been in the place. I told you already—if I smell seafood it makes my throat swell, and most of what they cook is seafood. I can’t even kiss Isaac until he brushes his teeth and washes his face after he eats the stuff.”
“Ma’am,” I insisted, “are you sure you don’t know Betty Ledet? Maybe Isaac mentioned her in conversation?”
“Why are you asking me about this lady?” Stella asked. “I don’t care about her! I just want to know who killed my husband.”
“We were hoping you could help us with that.” Susan put a hand on her shoulder. “I know this is difficult and I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now, but I need you to be strong for just a moment longer.” Susan took the picture from my hand and leaned closer to Stella. “This woman was killed in the same manner as your husband, so there must be a connection between them. Are you sure you don’t know her?”
“I already told you no. I’ve never seen her before and I’ve never been to that restaurant.” Stella then turned her face back toward the wall.
Susan chewed on her lower lip. “What about enemies? Did Isaac have any enemies—anyone who would want him dead?”
Stella was silent for a while longer. Other than the low hum and occasional beeping from the machines in the room, there were no sounds. I began to think Stella had fallen asleep when she spoke softly. “Gene Rudolph.”
I barely understood what she said. “What was that, ma’am?” I asked.
“Gene Rudolph…that’s who killed Isaac.”
Susan glanced over her shoulder at me. I shrugged and she turned back toward Stella. “Who’s Gene Rudolph?”
Without looking at us, she pointed to her bandaged legs. “He’s the man who did this to me. Isaac saw his face—can identify him. That’s why he killed my husband.”
CHAPTER 19
Susan and I were walking out the hospital when my phone rang. It was Chloe. “Where are you, Clint?”
“Leaving the hospital,” I said. “I’m heading to the sheriff’s office to get a lead on a suspect.”
“The one who’s hunting people with a bow?”
I paused by the open driver’s door to my Tahoe. “Where’d you hear that?”
“It’s my job, remember?” There was hurt in her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why’d I have to hear about it off the street?”
I sighed. “We agreed to keep our jobs separate from our personal lives—you know that. I was just honoring that agreement.”
“So, if I get a tip on this murder case you’re working, should I keep that to myself in honor of our agreement?”
I sensed a trap, so I merely said, “You know the rules of your job better than I do.”
“You couldn’t even tell me there had been a murder? I’m dating the chief of police and I didn’t even know someone had been killed yesterday. And then someone else gets killed today and there might be a connection to the first murder. The whole town’s talking about it, but I still know nothing. Do you know how bad that makes me look to my editor?”
“How’d you find out?” I asked.
“So, it is true, isn’t it?”
I didn’t like the way this was going and I certainly didn’t want to fight with Chloe. “Yes, it is true, but we didn’t want to put anything out to the public until we had a handle on what was going on.” Chloe was quiet on the other end of the phone, so I asked, “Can you keep a lid on it until I’m ready to make a press release?”
Chloe gave an audible exhale. “Yes, but only because I love you.” There was another short pause, and then she asked, “Does this mean you’ll be working late tonight?”
I moved the phone away from my head to check the time. It was after one o’clock. I had been wondering why my stomach ached. “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll probably be late tonight.”
“Maybe we can hang out tomorrow night, then?”
“I’d love to.” I slipped in my Tahoe and headed back to M & P Grill.
As I drove, Susan got on her phone. “Lindsey, pull up a picture of Isaac Edwards and text it to me as soon as you can. Right. Yeah, a driver’s license will do.” Within a few minutes of hanging up, Susan’s phone beeped and she turned it so I could see. “Let’s show this to Malory when we stop to get my car. If Isaac’s the man who was talking to Betty when Peter barged in the restaurant, then he’s as good a suspect as Gene Rudolph.”
“Better, even. So far, there’s no obvious connection between Betty Ledet and this Rudolph fellow. If we can’t find a reason for Rudolph to kill Betty, Peter’s our prime guy.”
Susan and I said little until we arrived at the restaurant. We walked inside and took our usual table at the corner. There were only a handful of people in the dining area. Most of them had finished eating and were engaged in idle chatter, and they all looked up when we entered. Several waved. When a young waitress I’d never seen came by to take our order, we told her what we wanted and then I asked for Malory. The waitress—a skinny kid who looked young enough to be in middle school—cast a nervous glance over her shoulder and then back at me. I smiled. “We need her help to solve a case.”
The teen, whose unnaturally red hair almost matched her lipstick, sighed. “God, I thought I messed something up already. It’s my first day and I’ve been screwing up all morning. It’s just so much to remember, you know?”
I nodded, remembering my first day as Mechant Loup’s chief of police. “It could be worse,” I said. “Much worse.”
The girl disappeared through a swinging door and, moments later, Malory appeared. She hurried to our table, wiping her hands on a blue towel as she walked. “Did y’all find out who killed Betty?”
Susan showed her the picture of Isaac Edwards.
Malory’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, my God, that’s him! That’s the man who Betty waits on. Do you think he killed Betty?”
“No.” Susan tucked the picture away. “He was murdered this morning in front of his house—the same way Betty was killed.”
Malory wrung the towel in her hands.
“You mentioned earlier that he came in here a few more times,” I said. “Is it possible Peter saw him come into the restaurant again?”
“I…um…I guess it’s possible.” Malory’s face was pale. “You think Peter did this?”
“We’re not sure at this point.” I thanked her and explained we couldn’t say much more than we already had. When she’d walked off, Susan and I discussed the case while waiting for our food. We agreed to go after Peter first and save Gene Rudolph for later.
“Can you call Detective Bledsoe and see if she can put a car on him until we finish with Peter?”
Susan nodded
and made the call. I only heard Susan’s half of the conversation, but I heard enough to know a tail wouldn’t be necessary. Gene Rudolph was still in jail.
“He can’t make bail,” Susan explained. “He’s been locked up since the crash.”
The waitress brought our food and my thoughts turned to Peter Ledet as I ate. Jealousy was a strong motivator for murder, but what would make him jealous of a man old enough to be his wife’s grandfather? Some girls dug older men, but this seemed a bit extreme. It might make more sense if Isaac Edwards was single and a millionaire, but Betty had nothing to gain by cheating with him. Could there be another motive? Perhaps Peter thought Betty shared their secret with Isaac and killed both of them to keep them quiet. She did tell Malory, so it wasn’t impossible that she told someone else. And what’s up with the arrow? I thought. Why didn’t he just shoot them with a gun like a normal person?
When we were done eating, we walked out and a gust of warm air greeted us. I enjoyed it while I could; knowing winter was right around the corner. We went to our separate vehicles and Susan followed me to the police department, where she parked her car in the sally port and jumped in with me again. Melvin drove up as I was about to pull out, and I stopped beside his car to see what he’d found at the scene.
He wiped his shaved crown while waiting for his driver’s window to slide down. There were dark blotches of sweat on the front of his tan uniform shirt and around his armpits. “Hey, Chief, where y’all heading?”
I told him, and then asked about the track.
“The dog tracked south to the woodline and then headed east all the way to Main. It ended on the shoulder of the road.”
“Yep,” I said. “The killer drove away in an older model Thunderbird—faded green. Get with Lindsey and run a search to find every vehicle ever registered to Peter and Betty Ledet.”
Melvin nodded and parked his car while Susan and I drove off to find Peter.
CHAPTER 20
4:15 p.m.
Mechant Loup Police Department’s Interrogation Room
The scabs on Peter’s forehead had been bandaged. Other than that, he didn’t look much different from when we pulled him out of the woods. He sat slouched in a chair on one side of the table and I sat beside him, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. Susan sat on the opposite side of the table, her eyes squinting as she paid close attention to every word that was spoken between us.
“How are you, Peter?” I asked.
He shrugged and passed a hand across his salt and pepper beard. “How do you think I’m doing? My wife was just killed.” As he spoke, an invisible cloud of rancid air floated from his mouth and engulfed me. Trying not to gag, I leaned back subtly and took small breaths through my nose until I reached cleaner air.
“Sir, I know this is hard, but I need you to go over every detail of that night again. You know, just in case we missed something the first time.” I paused. “As you might have heard, there’s been another murder and we think it might be linked to Betty’s case.”
The wrinkles on Peter’s forehead deepened. “Linked to Betty? How?”
“We’re not sure at this time, but we think we’re getting closer.” I nodded. “Can you go over the details of that night again?”
Peter let out a grunt, but recounted the story exactly as he’d told it the first time. When he was done talking, I leaned forward again. “I understand this isn’t the first time you’ve had to deal with tragedy.”
Peter shook his head. “My son died when he was little.”
“I’m really sorry about that,” I said. “What happened?”
Peter sank deeper into the chair and put his head in his hands. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It might be connected somehow. I need you to tell us.”
Without looking up, he said, “Betty ran him over one day. She was late for work and didn’t look when she backed out the driveway. She didn’t see him, you know? It happened really fast. One minute he was in the house, the next he was under the car. It was an accident. I really believe she probably looked, but he was just so small she couldn’t see him.” He paused and I thought I detected some tears dripping to the floor. When he spoke again, his voice was so low I barely made out his words. “She really beat herself up over that. It changed everything. Ruined our lives.”
“That’s a nice story and all,” I said, “but I want you to try it again. This time, tell the true version.”
Peter’s face twisted in feigned confusion. “What are you talking about? I am telling the truth.”
“Come on, Peter, you didn’t think Betty would keep your secret forever, did you?”
Peter fixed me with dull eyes, trying to decide if I was bluffing. I kept quiet for at least a minute, creating an awkward silence between us. I was hoping to elicit a comment from him—anything I could use against him—but it didn’t work. He was content to stare at me. I decided to play loose with the definition of a legal term in order to get him talking. “Do you know what a dying declaration is?”
Peter’s scowl indicated he wasn’t familiar with the term, so I figured my tactic might work.
“It’s when someone makes a statement—a declaration—and then dies shortly afterward. Normally, a statement by a deceased witness can’t be used against a perpetrator because of the Hearsay Rule, but the dying declaration is an exception.” I paused to let him process the information. I’d conveniently left out a few details, such as Betty had to know she was dying when she made the statement and the information had to relate to her cause of death. When he didn’t respond, I continued. “So, Betty goes around telling this fascinating story that could get you a lot of jail time. She says she didn’t kill Landon.” I shook my head, as I studied Peter’s squinting eyes. “No, she says it wasn’t her who ran over your son—she says it was you.” I pushed my finger in Peter’s face and he recoiled against the back of his chair. His eyes were wild as he stared around the room, searching for a place to hide.
It was time to move in for the kill with another bit of deception—this one a little more sensitive. “Betty declares you were pissed off at her and you ran over Landon intentionally just to cause her pain and—”
“That’s bullshit!” Peter lunged from his chair. “It was an accident! I would never hurt Landon on purpose!”
I had leaned back and folded my arms across my chest, ready to drive the heel of my boot into Peter’s crotch if he decided to make a move. Instead, realization of what he’d said settled like lead in the pit of his stomach. He sank to his knees on the floor and cried. “It was an accident! I didn’t mean to do it.”
“Then why’d you make her take the fall for you?” I asked.
Peter was bawling now, saliva and mucus leaking down his face and spraying from his mouth as he talked. He shook his head from side to side, his wild and thinning hair flailing about. “I didn’t ask her to cover for me—she did it on her own. She decided to do it.”
“Why?”
“I was drunk, don’t you see? I would’ve gone to jail and she knew it.” Peter leaned forward and pounded his head on the floor. I didn’t try to stop him. “She loved me so much,” he said. “That’s why she covered for me. Maybe if she would’ve just let me go to jail she’d be alive today.”
“No, Peter. She’d still be alive if you wouldn’t have shot her in the chest with an arrow. You knew she couldn’t keep your secret anymore, so you killed her to shut her up. Problem is, she’d already told Isaac Edwards about Landon, so you had to go out and kill him, too.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Peter’s chin was quivering. “I…I didn’t kill Betty. I would never. I love her too much to ever kill her.”
“You wouldn’t kill her, but you’d let her risk going to jail to cover your sorry ass and you’d beat her ass.” I shook my head. “That’s not love, buddy.”
He wiped his nose and face with his dirty hands. “Look, I realize now that I made some mistakes—some bad ones—but I didn�
�t kill my wife, and I don’t even know that man you’re talking about.”
“Oh, you know him.” I fished the picture of Isaac from the file and showed it to Peter. “Recognize him now?”
“That’s the old guy from the restaurant.” Peter’s eyebrows furrowed and he cleared his throat. “Is he dead, too?”
“Yeah, he’s dead. Killed in the same manner as Betty. Didn’t you have a beef with him?”
“I saw them talking one day at the restaurant and got jealous.” He sighed. “It was stupid, I know, but I was high and was out of my mind. I didn’t realize what I was doing.”
“Maybe you were high and out of your mind when you killed Betty and Isaac.”
“Chief, I swear I didn’t kill anyone.”
I studied Peter, trying to see past his rough exterior and through to his soul. I hated to admit it to myself, but I believed him. I glanced over at Susan. She nodded to let me know she thought he was being truthful, too. Peter seemed to be the only common denominator between our two victims, so if he didn’t kill Betty and Isaac, then who did?
I told Peter to get back in his chair, and Susan and I stepped out into the hallway. “I believe him,” I said.
“I do, too.” Susan chewed on her lower lip. “Two murders in two days and no suspects yet—not good, Clint.”
I leaned against the wall. When I didn’t say anything, she asked, “What about his son’s case? Do we reopen it?”
As tempting as it was to arrest Peter for vehicular homicide based upon his confession, we needed evidence of impairment to get a conviction. I thought about calling Isabel, but she probably wouldn’t answer anyway. “Let’s send him home for now,” I said. “We’ll forward the report to the district attorney’s office and see what they think.”
Susan grunted. “They’ll never call us back.”
As we talked, I heard the phone ring and Lindsey answered it in a pleasant voice. After a few seconds, she turned toward us and mouthed the words, “Are you here?”