But Not Forlorn: A Clint Wolf Novel (Clint Wolf Mystery Series Book 7)

by BJ Bourg

  Delvin was thoughtful, then let the door swing open wider. I saw the pistol in his left hand and nodded toward it. “What’s that for?”

  “No one ever knocks on my door.” He waved the barrel to invite me to follow him. “I was about to turn in for the night, but I’ll give you a few minutes.”

  When we were seated at the table, he placed the pistol on the counter behind him and reached for a pack of cigarettes that protruded from his shirt pocket. “I saw you at the funeral,” he said. “You didn’t look happy to be there.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  He lit the cigarette with a disposable lighter and took a long drag. He blew out the smoke and stared at me through squinty eyes. “You followed me here?”

  I nodded. Without being obvious, I’d given the pistol a good once-over and knew it was a 9 mm. I wanted to ask him for permission to bring it to the lab and have it examined, but resisted the urge. He might say yes, but he might also say no and get rid of it before I could develop enough evidence to recover it legally.

  “I saw you leave the church and I was curious to know why someone would walk into a church and spit on a dead man’s casket.” I turned up my hands. “That takes some courage.”

  “It doesn’t take courage to spit on the coffin of a piece of shit like Lance Beaman.” His eyes flashed. “He’s lucky he got to live as long as he did. My daughters didn’t get that chance.”

  CHAPTER 35

  I waited until Delvin’s breathing returned to normal and the red faded from his eyes before indicating toward the front of the trailer where the crosses were located. “Lacie and Macie…they were your daughters?”

  He nodded solemnly. “Twins. The most beautiful pair you could ever imagine. They were inseparable.”

  “Do you mind telling me what happened?”

  Although Delvin lowered his eyes, I could see them moisten. “They were seventeen, had graduated a few weeks earlier. I didn’t want them going out that night, but their mom insisted on letting them spread their wings and fly.” He shook his head. “They were too young to be going out at night, even if there were two of them. No dad in his right mind would’ve allowed it. But they were begging and their mom joined in. It was three against one, don’t you see? I finally gave in and let them go.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and I could tell he was fighting back the tears.

  My mind raced. What on earth had Lance done to bring about their deaths? I wanted to know what had happened and I wanted to know right now, but I didn’t want to rush him. After several long minutes, he slowly opened his eyes.

  “It was a concert in Baton Rouge,” he said. “They drove out there and met some friends who were attending LSU. I was worried sick until they called from a payphone to say they’d made it. Three and a half hours later they called from the same payphone to say they were heading back home.”

  I sat patiently, my hands folded in front of me on the table. The pale light from the ceiling above cast eerie shadows across his face and traced bright lines down his cheeks where the tears were sliding freely.

  “It only takes about two hours to get here from Baton Rouge, and we knew they should’ve been home by now. The wife and I decided to set out and look for them. She went along one route and I went along the other.” He shook his head slowly. “I knew it was them when I was a mile away. I could see flames in the sky and I heard sirens in the distance. When I reached the scene, their car was engulfed in flames. A police officer and several firemen were trying to get them out—”

  His voice broke up, he clutched his throat.

  I scowled, waiting for him to continue. It sounded like the twins had been involved in a car crash. Was Lance the driver of the other vehicle? Had he been drunk?

  “They were so close to the house.” Saliva and tears sprayed from his mouth as he spoke. “They had made it all that way only to have a group of drunken assholes hit them head-on. They never had a chance.” He wiped his face, but it did no good. More tears just rained down and flooded his flesh again. “Their car veered off the road, slammed into a guard rail, and burst into flames. The coroner, he said they died instantly and they didn’t feel a thing. I wish I could believe him.”

  I shifted my feet, wanting to console the man, but not knowing how. I was also curious. He had said “group” of drunken assholes, so I found myself wondering who had been with Lance. I figured if I waited long enough, he would answer my questions, but he didn’t. He just bent over, plopped his head in his hands, and wept.

  My phone suddenly rang and he jumped in his skin. I quickly shut it off, took the opportunity to ask a question. “So,” I asked tentatively, “who were the drunken assholes?”

  “Huh?” He lifted his head and I almost gasped out loud. His face was rosy red and swollen and veins protruded like spider webs across his temple. I thought he was going to have a stroke.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I haven’t been okay since that night,” he said weakly. “There were three men in the car that hit them. Lance Beaman, Carl Wainwright, and Jack Billiot—”

  “Wait…Jack Billiot?” I asked, interrupting him. “Jack Billiot from Mechant Loup?”

  “They were all from Mechant Loup, and they were all drunk. Carl was driving and he died on the scene, but any one of them could’ve been driving. In my mind, they were all guilty.” He rubbed his face. “Since then, I’ve spent every minute of my life wishing Lance and Jack would die, too, thinking it would somehow bring me peace. Now that they’re gone, I realize it hasn’t.”

  I nodded absently, then stopped when I realized what he’d said. “Are you saying Jack Billiot is dead?”

  “I sure hope so, because I attended his funeral and spat on his coffin just like I spat on Lance’s coffin.”

  “When was his funeral?”

  “The week before Lance died. Alcohol poisoning or something is what I heard someone say at the funeral.” Delvin’s face twisted into an evil scowl. “I only wish he and Carl would have burned up like Lance.”

  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard about Jack. “How’d you find out about Jack’s death?”

  “The obituaries…I read them every day.” Delvin looked at me like I was an alien. “Don’t you read them?”

  I shook my head, stared deep into his eyes. He certainly had motive to kill Lance. Hell, if he did kill Lance, a jury would probably find him not guilty after hearing all he’d been through.

  “Can you tell me anything else about that night? The night of the crash?”

  He stared absently at his hands. “I remember seeing Lance and Jack sitting together on the guard rail. I tried to run at them, but a cop stopped me.”

  “Did they say anything to you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Can you remember anything else? Anything that might help me find a report?”

  He was thoughtful, then recounted the date of the crash and the location. “That’s about all I know.”

  I was thoughtful myself, wondering why now. If he had killed Lance, why would he wait twenty years to exact revenge? What had changed in all of that time? And why would he only go after Lance? What about Jack?

  “Did you ever say anything to anyone about the crash?”

  “I did. I spoke to Mayor Cain when Lance first announced his candidacy for mayor. I told her he and his friends had killed my daughters and he didn’t deserve to be mayor. I wanted her to expose him for what he was, but she refused to turn to dirty politics. I guess I respect her for that now, but I was angry at the time. I just wanted justice for my babies.” Delvin was crying again. “If you’re waiting for me to say I’m sorry for spitting on those coffins, it’s not going to happen. I’m glad they’re both dead. I only wish I would’ve had the courage to kill them myself.”

  I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. Pauline had also lost a child, so she knew firsthand the everlasting pain that came with such a loss. Had she been so overcome with pity for poor Delvin Miller that she made Lance pay for what he had done? She
already hated Lance, and this could have been the proverbial “final straw”.

  CHAPTER 36

  It was a little after ten o’clock when I finally left Delvin Miller’s house. He had done a lot of talking, telling me how he’d blamed his wife for their daughters’ deaths and it ultimately led to her committing suicide. He lost his job, had two nervous breakdowns, and ended up on disability. His religion was the only reason he was still alive. He said he was Catholic and suicide was a mortal sin, so all he could do was pray to die. He said he knelt in front of the twin crosses in his yard every morning, begging God to let that day be the one when he would finally get to see his daughters again.

  “I believe God kept me alive long enough to see Jack and Lance pay for their sins,” he’d said wistfully as I’d walked out of his house. “Now that they’re gone, it won’t be long before He takes me home to be with my girls.”

  I hadn’t known what to say in response, so I’d only waved and crossed the street. I was on the phone with Susan before I reached my Tahoe. “Did you know Jack Billiot died?” I jerked the door open and jumped into the driver seat.

  “Oh, yeah, he passed away two days after we left for our honeymoon,” she said. “I saw it on the calls for service log and asked Takecia about it. She said she received a call about a medical emergency, a man having chest pain and difficulty breathing. The ambulance arrived and transported him to the hospital, where he died later that night.”

  I sat slumped over in my seat, pondering what I’d learned tonight. When Susan asked me what was going on, I told her everything Delvin had revealed. “It can’t be a coincidence that Lance gets murdered five days after Jack dies,” I said. “It has to mean something.”

  “And it can’t be a coincidence that Pauline knew about Lance and the crash. Do you think we need to question her some more?”

  I didn’t know, so I said goodbye and drove away. It was then that I remembered the missed call from earlier. I pulled to the shoulder of the road and checked the call log. It was Mallory. Without thinking, I immediately hit redial. She answered on the first ring.

  “Clint, thank God you’re up. I found something. Can you meet me at the detective bureau?”

  The detective bureau was along my route back to Mechant Loup, but even if it hadn’t been, I still would’ve made the trip. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

  My mind went over every possible scenario as I drove to the detective bureau, but nothing made sense. I needed to know more about Jack’s death, so I called Susan and asked her to print up a copy of Takecia’s report for me. She told me she’d bring a copy home and put it on the table for me. “I’ll probably be in bed by the time you get home,” she said, “but you’d better kiss me goodnight before you go to sleep.”

  I promised to do so and parked beside Mallory’s car in the bureau parking lot. I was certain Mallory had located the crash report detailing the deaths of Macie and Lacie. While I already knew about it, the least I could do was go over the information she found. After all, she’d stayed up half the night digging for it.

  “Follow me to my cubicle,” she said when she’d let me in. “I thought I’d have to call you with some bad news, but I hit pay dirt when I checked our storage archives. We keep major cases—mostly murder and rape files—back there, but I found a fatality crash investigation with Lance Beaman’s name on the box. I thought it was odd that we’d keep such a file, but one of our deputies had gotten burned pretty bad trying to save the victims, so our department was heavily involved in the investigation.”

  “I just got through interviewing Mr. Delvin Miller. Is it the same crash?”

  Mallory stopped walking and spun abruptly. “How’d you know about him?”

  I told her what he’d done at the church.

  “Well, my money’s definitely on him. According to the file, he threatened to kill Lance Beaman and Jack Billiot the night of the crash, and he also said he was glad the driver was dead. They had to restrain him because he tried to attack Beaman and Billiot. In his mind, they were all guilty of murder.”

  I nodded and we continued to her cubicle, where she had broken the file apart. Reports and envelopes were scattered across her desktop. Sticky notes littered her desktop and she had marked up a copy of the report.

  “Was Miller right about Carl Wainwright being the driver?” I picked up the crash report and began thumbing through it.

  “Yeah, he died at the scene.” Mallory handed me several worn envelopes that contained pictures from the crash. Some were labeled “CPSO” (Chateau Parish Sheriff’s Office) and others were labeled “LSP” (Louisiana State Police). The first photo in the first envelope depicted a young man—bloodied and broken—slumped in the driver seat of an old sedan.

  I studied the man behind the steering wheel. His features were indiscernible thanks to the mess of blood and mangled flesh. I flipped through the pictures. Most were of the driver, some overall views, a few mid-range, and lots of close-ups. I scowled as I reached a photo of his lower extremities. I stabbed it with an index finger. “Mallory, did you notice he’s missing a shoe?”

  Mallory turned from a lab report she was reading, studied the photo. “No, I hadn’t noticed.”

  “How’d he lose his shoe?”

  She shrugged. “He was involved in a car crash. Clothes and shoes are regularly ripped from bodies during car crashes.”

  She was right, of course, but I wanted to know where his shoe had ended up. I flipped through the stack in my hand, then reached for another envelope. Considering it had been a fatal crash, I wasn’t surprised by the large number of photos in the envelopes.

  Mallory and I made small talk as I sifted through the photographs and she studied the autopsy reports on everyone involved. I caught sight of Lance Beaman in the background of several of the pictures and was surprised by how different he looked. He was much thinner and his hair was much thicker. He looked disheveled and—even from a distance—I could see that his eyes were wide in one of the shots.

  “Oh, damn, this is eerie.” Mallory lifted the report detailing the injuries to the deputy who had been burned. “I remember him from my police academy. He gave a talk about the hazards of the job. He took off his shirt and showed us his back.” She shuddered. “It was horrendous.”

  I nodded absently, still studying the photographs. “How’d he get burned?”

  “Something exploded in the car—they think it was an aerosol can.” She grunted. “Considering when this crash happened, it was probably hairspray.”

  I nodded and studied the picture in my hand. I was about to flip it to the back of the pile when I caught sight of something red on the side of the road near the back passenger door. It was at the corner of the photograph, barely visible in the shot, but I was pretty sure I knew what it was. I checked the next photograph and there it was, plain as day—a red shoe.

  I shoved the photos back in the envelope and picked up the next one, which the first labeled “LSP”. I thumbed quickly through them, as there were many repetitive shots, but froze when I reached a photo depicting the area near the back passenger door of the sedan. Aside from a shift in angle, it looked identical to the photo from the sheriff’s office, with the huge exception of the red shoe being gone. I flipped through the other shots of the same area and it had definitely been moved. I tapped the desk, thinking. I knew it could’ve easily been inadvertently kicked by a first responder. Considering how chaotic and active the scene would’ve been, that was more likely than not.

  I shrugged, thumbed through the next envelope of LSP photographs. I located more photographs of the driver’s area, sucked in my breath when I caught sight of something. I then quickly flipped back through the photos, searching for one I’d seen of Lance. I stopped when I found it. He was bloodied and disheveled, but he was on his feet. I pulled the photo close to my face and studied his expression. He looked disturbed, which was to be expected, but he also looked guilty about something. I then searched until I located one of Jack Billiot, who
was also injured, but his injuries didn’t appear life-threatening. Having had a number of dealings with Jack in town, I was a little familiar with his mannerisms, and he looked like he was hiding something.

  I shuffled back through the sheriff’s office photos until I found the one depicting the red shoe, tilted it so the light from Mallory’s desk would splash across it. “Mallory, here’s Carl’s shoe.”

  “Where?” Mallory twisted around and craned her neck to see where I pointed. “There’s a glare—I can’t see it.”

  I handed it to her and her eyes widened when she saw it. “What on earth is his shoe doing outside on the passenger side of the vehicle?”

  “That’s what I was wondering, until I found this.” I handed her the photo from one of the state police envelopes showing the red shoe on the driver floorboard.

  “What the hell?”

  “Carl Wainwright wasn’t driving,” I declared. “Lance and Jack dragged him from the back seat to the driver seat, and he lost his shoe in the process. They must’ve noticed their mistake and, during the chaos, one of them tossed the shoe into the front seat.”

  “So, they framed Carl for the crash?”

  I nodded. “Since he was dead, he couldn’t argue the point.”

  Mallory studied the photographs. “But how’d the officers miss this? It’s obvious the shoe was moved.”

  I held the envelope from the sheriff’s office in one hand and the one from the state police in the other. “The sheriff’s office was investigating this as an injury incident and the state police was investigating a fatal crash. Apparently, the sheriff’s office never sent their stack of photos to the state police.”

  “Or, if they did, no one bothered to look through them.” She nodded thoughtfully. “After all, the offender was dead, so there would be no trial.”

  I held the stack of photos loosely, allowed my hand to rest at my side. “If Lance and Jack moved Carl to the driver’s seat, then that means one of them had to be driving.”