But Not Fortuitous

by BJ Bourg

  “Make your best guess.”

  “If I had to bet on it, I’d say about fifty.”

  “I need you to think real hard about their names.”

  Joseph grunted. “I mean, I know they must’ve said it, but I was pretty lit, so I don’t know if I would remember.”

  “Look,” Amy said, stabbing at the desk with her index finger. “This is important. These men might’ve killed Red’s boy.”

  “I mean, do you really think so? They didn’t seem like the type to go murdering little—”

  “Oh, so you’re a detective now?” Amy’s tone was mocking. “You know about these things?”

  “No, ma’am, I just thought—”

  “I don’t want you thinking unless you’re thinking about their names.”

  “Well, one of them might’ve called the other one Jim or Jimmy.”

  “Jim or Jimmy?” Amy wrote it down. “Was that the older one or the younger one?”

  “The younger one.” He rubbed his thick face. “I don’t know for sure, but I kinda got the sense that they were related. Like, maybe the older guy was his dad?”

  Amy tapped her ink pen against the pad. “And you never heard the younger one call the older man by a name?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Did you tell them your name?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Close your eyes and think back to that morning.”

  Joseph blinked.

  “I’m not kidding—close your eyes.” Once his eyes were closed, Amy continued. “Okay, do you see the two men in your head?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Describe them.”

  “The old man’s bald. He has strings of white hair on the sides of his head and on the back. He has a short, white mustache. He has little bags under his eyes and he’s got a turkey neck. He’s a big man, though—a little bigger than me.”

  “How much do you weigh?”

  “Two-ninety. He probably weighs 300 pounds and he’s about six-foot tall.”

  “Describe the younger guy.”

  “He was smaller than the older man—probably about two-hundred and fifty pounds, five-eleven—and he had more hair, but it was receding. It was long, too, like down to his shoulder. He had a white goatee and his nose was crooked.”

  “And his name was Jim or Jimmy?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I think so.”

  “And the old man—what was his name?”

  Joseph opened his eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay. Can you remember anything else? Did they mention where they were staying or where they were going? Did they say why they were here? Did they tell you when they got into town and when they were leaving? Anything at all?”

  Joseph began shaking his head from the first question and shook it continuously throughout all of the questions.

  Amy sighed. “Well, you ain’t much help.”

  “Hey, I tried!” Joseph sat there watching Amy for a long moment. Finally, he asked if he could take Benjamin Franklin and go home.

  “Nope, he’s staying with me.” Amy stood and escorted him out of the office. “I appreciate you talking with me. I’ll call if I need anything more.”

  “Um…” Joseph hesitated in the lobby, shifting his feet nervously.

  “Um what?” Amy asked impatiently.

  “Can I have your number?” His face flushed and he averted his eyes from Amy’s glare.

  “You most definitely cannot. Now get the hell out of here before I change my mind about your PR bond.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Amy told Lindsey she would be back later and headed out the door. She drove straight to Lucille Cheramie’s compound and parked under a large oak tree. She strolled up an uneven sidewalk that was broken in places because of large roots jutting up from the ground. The entire front yard was shaded and it served as a nice reprieve from the heat.

  Once Amy reached the end of the sidewalk, she made her way up a ramp that led to a screened-in porch. Not wanting to invade the woman’s privacy, Amy stood outside of the porch and knocked on the screen door. She only had to wait a few seconds.

  “Oh, hey, Detective Cooke, come on in.” Lucille hurried to the door and held it open for Amy.

  “Please, call me Amy.”

  “Okay, Amy, come on in.” Lucille led the way into a crowded kitchen that smelled of fried seafood and fresh-cooked rice. “I didn’t have a chance to look at my records yet, but let me get my book.”

  It was almost noon and Amy’s stomach was growling. There was a huge pot of rice on the stove. A crowded tray of fried shrimp, fish, and oysters was on the table. A young girl rushed in and grabbed the tray of seafood. She smiled as she brushed by Amy and headed out the door.

  Amy moved to a vantage point where she could track the girl’s movements. She was heading for a group of picnic tables set up along the bayou side. There must’ve been a dozen tables, and nearly every space on every bench was occupied.

  “Damn,” Amy muttered, “they’ve got a lot of business out here.”

  “Yes, we do,” Lucille said, suddenly appearing from the back of the house carrying a worn notebook. “It never gets boring here during the summer.”

  “If you keep cooking food like that, they’ll keep coming—that’s for sure.” Amy took a seat at the table next to Lucille and watched as she opened her book.

  “Let’s see…” Lucille began humming as she flipped through the pages. Her crooked index finger moved from the top of the page to the bottom. She shook her head and turned to the next page. She did this for a few pages and then stopped. “Okay, the last people who stayed here from Utah were Jim and Jimmy. They actually checked out on Wednesday.”

  “Jim and Jimmy?”

  Lucille cocked her head to the side and scanned the page carefully. “Yeah, that’s what they said their names were.”

  “What were their last names?”

  “They never said, but I think they were father and son.”

  “How can they rent from you without giving their full names?”

  “As long as they pay up front and leave a damage deposit, I’d call them King James if they wanted.”

  “What about a credit card? Do you have that on file?”

  She shook her head. “No, these men paid with cash.”

  “Cash?”

  “Yeah, look here.” Lucille pointed to the notes. Sure enough, it read, Cash, paid in full.

  “Do people often pay with cash?”

  “Not often, but I get a few each year. I don’t question their reasons, I just take their money.”

  Amy leaned back in the wooden chair, the slats creaking under her weight. “Can I see the cash they gave you?”

  Lucille eyed Amy suspiciously. “And why would you want to do that?”

  Amy explained that the money might have been taken in a heist from thirty years ago. This seemed to satisfy Lucille. She left the kitchen again. When she returned, she had a money bag in tow that seemed to be busting at the seams.

  Amy groaned inwardly when she saw the stuffed bag. She didn’t have time to sift through stacks of cash. She needed to get in touch with Clint as soon as possible—if he would ever answer his damn phone.

  “I keep proof of everything,” Lucille explained when she unzipped the bag and a mountain of receipts spilled out onto the table. “You never know when something’ll break down.”

  “I know what you mean.” Amy was relieved. She watched as Lucille removed a paper envelope that was filled with cash and handed it to her.

  “This is it. Lucky for you, I haven’t made it to the bank yet.”

  Amy lifted the flap and examined the stack of bills. Most were twenties, but there were also tens and fives and a couple of hundreds. Some bills were in good shape while some were crumpled, but none of them were dated more than five years ago. “How much money is this?”

  “Twenty-five hundred.”

  “How long did they stay here?”

  “Five nights.”
<
br />   “So, from Friday night to Tuesday night?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you charge $500 per night?”

  Lucille nodded.

  “No taxes?”

  Lucille smiled and cocked her head. “Are you working for the IRS now?”

  “No.” Amy chuckled. “Not at all. I’m just wondering.”

  “When my customers choose to pay cash, I choose to have a momentary lapse of memory where the IRS is concerned.” Lucille huffed. “They take too much of my money as it is. I swear, if it wouldn’t be for federal, state, and local taxes, I would have everything paid off and I’d be living on easy bayou right now.”

  Amy nodded and placed the money back in the bag. Discouraged that she had wasted valuable time, she was just standing to leave when the young worker returned with the same tray, except it was now empty.

  “Daisy,” Lucille said, “do you remember those two men from Utah who stayed in Camp Pelican?”

  Daisy’s face lit up. “Oh, yeah, I remember them.”

  Curious, Amy asked if there was something special about them.

  “They gave me a big tip when they checked out.”

  Amy suddenly grew excited. When the suspects first rolled into town, they hadn’t accessed the gravesite yet and wouldn’t have been in possession of the thirty-year-old money. But when they left…

  “Do you still have the cash they gave you?”

  “Yes, ma’am!” The girl nodded excitedly. “Want me to get it?”

  “Sure.”

  Daisy put the tray on the counter and hurried into one of the back rooms. When she returned, she handed Amy two one-hundred-dollar bills. They looked as crisp as the Benjamin Franklin that Joseph Billiot had in his possession. When Amy checked the series date, they were identical.

  “This is it,” Amy said. “This is from the heist.”

  Daisy’s face fell and she glanced from Amy to Lucille. “What’s the matter with my money? I can’t have it?”

  Amy’s heart fell as she studied the young girl. Daisy looked like a child who’d just had her favorite Christmas present wrenched from her hands and thrown into the trash.

  “This money is part of a major case that we’re working,” Amy explained. “It’s stolen property, but it’s not your fault, so here’s what I’m going to do—I’m going to swap these bills for two clean one-hundred-dollar bills, and I’m going to throw in an extra fifty for your troubles.”

  Daisy’s face lit up again and she bounced up and down. “Thank you so much!”

  “What’re you doing with that much cash on hand?” blurted Lucille.

  “I just bought a badass truck,” Amy explained with a smile, “and I got cash back for my trade-in, which was even more badass.”

  Lucille apologized for prying, but Amy waved her off. Amy then hurried to the truck to get the girl’s money. Once she’d made good on her promise, she asked Lucille if she saw what Jim and Jimmy were driving.

  “It was a dark gray Silverado,” she said. “A four-by-four. I noticed one of the tires was different from the others and it was missing a hubcap.”

  “Do you remember which tire it was?”

  “No.”

  Amy nodded and thanked Lucille. As she hurried to the department truck parked under the oak tree, she dialed Clint’s phone again.

  CHAPTER 34

  Susan and I parked in a space next to Leah and followed her down a sidewalk that stood in the shade of the high rise buildings on either side of us. I’d never been to Salt Lake City before and was surprised to see the skyscrapers. I had figured it for a smaller city—like Gatlinburg—but I was wrong. It was a large city surrounded by beautiful snow-capped mountains, which also surprised me.

  “How can you have snow in July?” I asked Leah as we approached a row of umbrella-covered tables on the sidewalk.

  “It doesn’t happen often,” she explained, “but we sometimes get snow up in the mountains during the summer.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Susan said.

  We walked along the sidewalk and Leah pointed to one of the tables at the end of the row. A lady with dark features sat alone eating a club sandwich. She wore a business suit and had a white napkin in her lap. She looked up as we approached and frowned when she saw Leah.

  “Hello, Detective Anderson.” I detected a hint of hostility in her tone. She glanced at me and Susan and nodded a greeting.

  “Hey, Katina, these are the detectives I told you about,” Leah explained. “I’ll go ahead and leave you guys alone to talk.”

  My brows furrowed as I cast a curious glance in Leah’s direction, but she gave me a reassuring nod. As she turned to walk away, I thought I heard Katina call her a bitch under her breath.

  “May we sit?” I asked, to which Katina nodded.

  I sat to Katina’s left and Susan sat beside me. After placing my case file on the table in front of me, I told her who we were and where we were from.

  “Do you know why we’re here?” I asked.

  Katina set her sandwich down and wiped her mouth with the napkin. “I imagine it has something to do with my father.”

  “Yes, ma’am, it does.” I took a breath and exhaled slowly, trying to decide how best to break the news to her. “Do you believe your father did what they accused him of doing?”

  “I really don’t know what to think.” She shook her head and sighed heavily. “I was five when my mom divorced him and twelve when the heist happened. What I remembered of him was that he was a good and caring man. He was never mean to me or to anyone around me. I know it sounds cliché, but I never would’ve guessed that he’d do something like that.”

  “Well, I don’t think he acted alone, that’s for sure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We have some news about your father, and I’m afraid it’s not good news.”

  “Okay…” Her voice trailed off and she seemed to brace herself for the worst.

  “During an investigation for a missing teenager in Louisiana, we stumbled upon an old grave.” I paused to let that information sink in. “When we excavated the gravesite, we located the skeletal remains of a man wearing a uniform and a gun belt. There was a wallet down there with him, and in that wallet was your dad’s driver’s license.”

  Katina blinked several times and stared through me for a long moment. Finally, she settled into her chair, her shoulders drooping. “Are you sure?”

  I reached for the file and dug out the driver’s license. I slid it across the table and watched as she picked it up with trembling hands. Tears began streaming down her face.

  “Oh, wow, this is exactly how he looked when I saw him last. It’s like he hasn’t aged at all.” She scrubbed at her cheeks. As she stared down at the driver’s license, her face suddenly scrunched up. “Wait a minute—this driver’s license is old. It’s from when he went missing.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said softly. “He was apparently killed thirty years ago—shot in the head—and then buried in a deep hole in the swamps of Mechant Loup.”

  “But…but who killed him?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” I explained. “He either had an accomplice who double-crossed him, or someone found out he had the money and killed him for it.”

  “So, he didn’t steal the money and leave the country like the media was saying?” Her face softened and I thought I saw a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I knew he would never abandon me. My mom put him down and said that was just like him, but I knew he loved me and I knew if he stole a lot of money, he would make sure I had some. He used to say he would buy Disney World for me someday when he was rich. If he really stole the money, that’s exactly what he would’ve tried to do.”

  Susan and I sat there quietly as Katina spent the next ten minutes or so reminiscing about her father. Finally, she took a cleansing breath and exhaled. “I don’t understand it, but I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. My dad didn’t abandon me after all. In my hea
rt, I always knew that he would have gotten a message to me if he could have. I knew he loved me, and you’ve helped to prove that.” She smiled warmly and looked at me with glassy eyes. “Thank you for this. It means the world to me.”

  As I looked into Katina’s eyes, I thought back to the horrific crime scene photos I’d seen earlier in the day, and I wondered would she think so highly of her father had she also seen them. Instead of saying anything, I smiled back and thanked her for her time.

  “Will I get to bury him?” she asked quickly. “Will I get to claim his body and be able to give him a proper send off?”

  “In time, yes,” I said. “We still have some investigative work to do and it’ll be quite some time before we’re done, but you’ll be able to bring his body back home and give him a proper burial.”

  She thanked us again and then Susan and I walked away.

  “Poor thing,” Susan said in a low voice. “I couldn’t imagine being the daughter of such an animal.”

  “Let’s pray she never fully understands the evil that was her father,” I said. “I don’t think she’d be able to live with herself knowing she came from that kind of a monster.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Susan and I met up with Leah and we began walking back to where our vehicles were parked. I was explaining what happened with Katina when my cell phone rang.

  “Hello, this is Clint—”

  “Where in the hell have you been?” hollered Amy.

  “I’m in Utah,” I explained, confused. “I told you I was leaving.”

  “I’ve been calling you all morning.”

  I pulled my phone from my ear and checked for missed calls. There were none. I then noticed I had over a dozen voice messages. “Oh, damn,” I said after putting the phone back to my ear. “We must’ve been in a dead zone when we visited the crime scenes.”

  “You know the Benjamin Franklin that Susan recovered from Joseph Billiot—the one the tourist paid him to hit that man from New Orleans?”

  “Yeah,” I said, my curiosity mounting.

  “It’s thirty years old and it’s crisp,” Amy announced. “It’s part of the loot from that armored car heist.”