Outside the Law

“So the land was connected to Robby, not Mitch.” Raleigh pulled her phone out of her pocket and made a few quick notes. “That’s one damning piece of evidence we can easily discount.”

Beth couldn’t stand it anymore. “Mrs. LeBeau, Mitch’s father owned some guns. Do you know what happened to them?”

At the mention of guns, Myra’s demeanor changed dramatically. She sat up straighter and started fidgeting with a paper napkin. “I don’t know. I’m sure I don’t know. I never touched his guns.” She looked over her shoulder at her husband, still watching TV. “Davy! Do you know what happened to Willard’s guns?”

“I have no clue,” he answered in a deadpan. “Never saw ’em.”

“Do you own any firearms yourself, Mrs. LeBeau?” Raleigh asked casually.

“No, ma’am. No guns.”

“If you don’t remember what happened to Willard’s guns, how can you be so sure you don’t still have them around somewhere?” Beth asked.

Myra’s eyes narrowed. “After Willard died, I cleaned this house top to bottom. I’m sure if there’d been any guns, I’d have noticed them. Are you here to help Mitch? ’Cause you don’t sound that helpful.”

“We’re on his side, I promise,” Beth said. “The police are going to want to know about the guns.”

Myra settled back into her chair. “I wish I could help, but I just have no idea.”

“Did Mitch know how to use a gun?”

“His daddy tried to teach him to shoot. You grow up around here, you learn how to hunt and that’s that. Every boy does. That doesn’t mean anything. Mitch never took to it and Willard gave up.”

“Okay.” Raleigh set her iced tea to the side and blotted her mouth with the paper napkin she’d been using as a coaster. “We appreciate your time, Mrs. LeBeau.”

“Thank you for telling me about Mitch,” she said a little stiffly. “Lord knows he wouldn’t go out of his way to tell me anything. Have they set his bail?”

“The hearing is tomorrow morning at nine. It would be good if you could be there. They might deny bail, given the seriousness of the crime. But if we show the judge he has a supportive family, that he’s not a flight risk, it might help.”

Myra cast a worried glance toward her husband. “I’ll try to come.”

They said their goodbyes and returned to Raleigh’s car.

“What did you think?” Beth asked. “I mean, that was weird, huh? Your wife is being questioned by a couple of strangers, one of them a lawyer, and you just sit in the living room watching TV?”

“And did you see the way she got all nervous when I brought up the guns? She knows something.”

“Maybe her husband did it. He was trying to move in on Myra, and he wanted the stepson out of the way, so he framed Mitch for murder.”

Raleigh thought about that, then shook her head. “If someone had been trying to frame Mitch, they wouldn’t have worked so hard to hide the body. Still, we’ll have to find out how long Davy’s been in the picture.”

“She’s not going to be a big help,” Beth said with a sigh.

“No. She’s not happy her son is in jail, but there’s something just a little off about her reaction.”

“She didn’t ask enough questions,” Beth pointed out. “If I had a son, and I found out he was in jail, I’d be bouncing off the walls trying to find out details and figuring out how to get him released. She didn’t even ask how Robby died.”

“She’d already heard about the body,” Raleigh reasoned. “She might have known it was a suspected gunshot. As for her reaction to Mitch’s arrest…it’s possible she doesn’t care.”

“How could she not care about her own son?”

“We know nothing about their relationship,” Raleigh said. “Maybe Mitch can shed some light on things.”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE COOT’S BAYOUcourthouse wasn’t much to look at outside—a cinder-block building covered in coat after coat of beige paint. Apparently it was a popular target for graffiti, because a fresh set of gang tags had eluded the paint roller on this muggy Wednesday morning.

The inside was even less judicial—a room reminiscent of a church basement with metal chairs and folding tables. The magistrate, a jowly man with a bright red comb-over, wore a scuffed black leather jacket instead of robes.

The prosecutor had already said his piece, arguing that bail should be denied.

“Your Honor.” Mitch’s newly hired defense lawyer, a young, earnest man named Buck Michoux, cleared his throat. Raleigh had put him in charge of speaking at the hearing because judges were sometimes more favorably inclined to a hometown boy than they were some strange woman lawyer from the big city. “My client is a law-abiding citizen with a good job and family in the area. We request that he be released on his own recognizance.”

The judge rolled his eyes. “If I had a sense of humor, I’d laugh. Mr. Delacroix was booked for murder, son. Bail is hereby set at two million dollars. An additional condition of bail is that Mr. Delacroix cannot travel outside of Bernadette Parish.” He pounded his gavel.

Mitch breathed a sigh of relief. At least they were willing to let him out. Two million dollars was an appalling bail, but Raleigh had assured him Daniel would cover it no matter how ridiculous. It was hard to feel lucky in his situation, but he sure was lucky to have a boss who had faith in him despite the evidence.

Mitch still wore yesterday’s clothes. The Coot’s Bayou Jail wasn’t exactly the Ritz. He hadn’t been allowed to shower or shave or brush his teeth, and the meals they’d served had as much appeal as warmed-over roadkill.

The bailiff handcuffed him and prepared to escort him back to his cell, across the street.

“Is that necessary?”

Mitch groaned inwardly. Beth. She’d proved herself useful during the interrogation, speaking with confidence and authority to Lieutenant Addlestein when it came to matters of evidence. But why was she still here?

He’d rather spend another week in jail than have her see him like this.

“Standard procedure with any felony suspect,” the bailiff said, unconcerned as he gave the handcuffs an extra twist. Mitch winced.

“Beth, what are you doing here?”

“Working on getting you out of jail. Permanently.”

The bailiff made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snicker.

“Don’t you have other work? Other innocent people you can save with your microscope and test tubes?”

Beth shrank back a bit. She looked hurt by his dismissive words, and he felt a pang of guilt. “Daniel says you’re a priority.” Her voice was so soft he could barely hear it, reflecting nothing of yesterday’s confidence. “If our positions were reversed, you’d be working just as hard to get me free, wouldn’t you?”

“No one would ever accuse you of murder. The whole idea is ludicrous.”

“I suppose I should take that as a compliment.” She appeared anything but flattered.

“Time to go.” The bailiff grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the exit. Physically, the guy was no match for Mitch. Mitch found himself imagining how he’d take the guy out. A simple ducking maneuver, an elbow to the gut, a knee to the face and he’d be down for the count.

“You’ll be free soon,” Beth called after him. “Try not to worry.”

Yeah. Right. Louisiana was a death penalty state, and the judicial system in Bernadette Parish was so crooked, he couldn’t count on an acquittal no matter what kind of evidence Project Justice came up with.

But Beth was good. She and Raleigh would give these good ol’ boys a run for their money. And when it was all over, if by chance he was a free man, he’d be lucky if Daniel let him keep his job after the trouble he’d caused for Project Justice. He was pretty sure Beth would never look at him the same way again.

He’d started to really enjoy their time together, to count on it, even. But after this was over, she would probably cross the street to avoid speaking to him. He was in for a long and ugly fight, one that was likely to consume him. One that he might not win. He might go to hell for a lot of reasons, but involving sweet Beth in this mess wasn’t one of them.

The bailiff put Mitch back into the same stinking holding cell in which he’d spent the night, and he sat there for another hideous three hours. What the hell was taking so long? Though coming up with two million dollars wasn’t something that happened in ten minutes, if Daniel had made the decision to bail an employee out of jail, he would make things happen quickly. So either Mitch should get out, or they should take him to Bernadette Parish lockup, where prisoners awaiting trial were kept.

At least there he would get a shower and a clean jumpsuit.

His cell mate, with the unlikely name of Canthus, had been affable last night when they’d thrown him in here because he’d been drunk. Now he was good and sober…and mean. He’d already taken a swing at Mitch, and the only thing that had prevented Mitch from flattening the guy like a roach was a reluctance to add more charges to his record.

Canthus was currently crouched in a corner, twisting a dreadlock. “You gonna make bail?” he asked, apparently having forgotten their argument of ten minutes ago over who got to sit on what bench.

“I don’t know yet. You?” He didn’t even know what Canthus was in for.

“Naw, no one’ll bail me out. A few days would be okay, if they feed me. But I’d seriously rather sleep under a bridge.”

Mitch hadn’t seen any signs of food this morning, and he was getting pretty hungry. Didn’t prisoners have rights? Then something Canthus had said sank in. “You homeless, man?”

Canthus straightened his spine and stared at Mitch with dead, obsidian eyes. “You want to make something of it? I suppose you live in a mansion on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain.”

“I didn’t mean anything,” Mitch said affably. He had no desire to duck any more punches by the increasingly sober man. “I was just wondering if you might know a guy used to be a friend of mine. Larry.”

“Just Larry?”

That’s all Mitch had ever called him. But Addlestein had mentioned Larry’s last name…Montford? No, Montague. “Larry Montague. I used to hang with him. Back then we called him Crazy Larry ’cause he’d do anything for a laugh. Scrawny guy, long blond, curly hair, real pale skin. He has a tat on his upper arm of a snake and a heart.”

Mitch remembered the night Larry had gotten the tattoo, on his twenty-first birthday. Mitch, only sixteen, had watched in fascination as the needle had puckered Larry’s skin, and marveled at how Larry hadn’t even winced.

Suddenly the light of recognition dawned in Canthus’s eyes. “That Larry! He is crazy. Saw that guy jump off a railroad trestle once when we was running from the cops.”

That sounded like Larry. “You happen to know where he is?”

Canthus shook his head. “No, man, ain’t seen him for months. He might’ve said he was going to New Orleans for the winter. Huh, kinda stupid. It’s not much warmer there than here in the winter.”

If Larry had gone away for the winter, that meant he might be returning soon. “If you see him, do you think you could let me know? I really need to talk to the dude.” Mitch pulled a card out of his pocket. He always kept a few there, though he seldom needed them since his work usually kept him at the office, behind a computer.

“You work for Project Justice? I’ve seen those dudes on TV, man. At Brewskies, they’re always watching those crime shows on the TV over the bar. You got it made, man. Hey, think they could get me off? I’m looking at sixty days.”

“I can’t make any promises, but if you find Larry for me, I’ll see what we can do.”

“That’d be cool, man.” Canthus started cleaning his nails with the corner of Mitch’s business card.

Mitch didn’t hold out much hope. How would Canthus locate Larry from jail?

Finally, the bailiff returned. “Looks like you got some friends in high places.”

“I made bail?” Praise be.

“Yeah, but there’s a small complication. Remember, the judge said you had to stay in Bernadette Parish?”

“Sure, no problem.” Once he was out of this place, he would worry about how to get around that rule. He’d get Raleigh to talk to the judge again. Maybe the judge would remand him into Raleigh’s custody. Or Beth’s.

No, not Beth’s. He gave himself a swift mental kick, but that didn’t stop a forbidden fantasy from popping to mind involving handcuffs and a riding crop. He ruthlessly squelched it. Beth wasn’t that kind of girl.

“See, the thing is, the judge won’t just take your word for it. So you have to be fitted with a monitor.” The bailiff got the cell door unlocked, but Mitch just stood there.

“You gotta be kidding me. Where am I going to stay? I don’t live here anymore.”

“You got kin here, right?”

“I’m sure as hell not staying at my brother’s house.” He’d rather be thrown into a cold dungeon and starved than endure living under the same roof as Dwayne and Linda. Dwayne was bad enough, but Linda—she had obsessive-compulsive disorder. Dwayne’s high school sweetheart freaked out if she couldn’t count her French fries before eating them. Mitch could remember her making Dwayne clean her hubcaps with a toothbrush.

The bailiff shrugged. “All I know is they got something worked out.”

Ten minutes later, Mitch was the proud wearer of a black cuff around his ankle that appeared to be made of Kryptonite—indestructible and designed to rat him out if he tried to tamper with it.

“The cuff is equipped with a GPS signal that will report your exact location to a monitoring center,” Raleigh explained. Beth, who for unknown reasons was still hanging out in Coot’s Bayou, sat nearby watching somberly. They were in a small conference room at police headquarters, where they had cuffed him to a chair while the technician from the monitoring company did his thing.

“If you set foot outside Bernadette Parish,” Raleigh continued to explain, “the police have the right to arrest you and return you to jail to await trial.”

“This completely sucks,” Mitch objected. “I have to be able to move around. I have things to do. Obligations.”

“If you’re worried about work, don’t be. Daniel is having your entire computer system moved down here so you can telecommute.”

“From where? Where exactly is it that I’m supposed to stay? Do I rent an apartment? Stay in a motel? And who’s paying for that?” He had a sinking feeling Raleigh hadn’t told him the worst news. “What?”

“You’ll stay at your mother’s house, of course. It looks good, shows you’ve got support, and it’ll save you some money.”

Horrified, Mitch shook his head. “There’s no way. We don’t get along, and anyway, she’d never agree.”

Beth picked that moment to speak up. “She already has.”

This just got worse and worse. “Aw, now, why did you have to go and get her involved?”

“Did you want her to hear about your arrest on the news?” Beth asked. “We talked to her. She’s anxious to help any way she can.”

“Yeah? I didn’t see her at the bail hearing. And what about Davy? Was he anxious?”

“He was agreeable to the arrangement,” Beth said. “They both want to help.”

The technician checked that the cuff was working, and left. Raleigh left, too, mumbling something about signing out with the bailiff. Finally it was just Mitch and Beth in the room, staring at each other.

“Beth, what are you still doing here?”

“You were the one who wanted me here,” she said coolly.

“Yeah, when I thought I was just going to answer a few questions. Don’t you have work to do?”

“This is my work. I need to be there while they’re processing the car, the gun—”

“Good luck with that.” The Bernadette Parish crime lab wouldn’t let her within five hundred feet of their precious evidence, not until they were good and done with it—which meant making anything that didn’t support their case disappear. Then, if she wanted to run her own tests, Raleigh would have to file requests with the court, a process that could take weeks.

“You don’t want me hanging around.” She studied her fingernails with great interest. “That’s obvious. But you’re not going to scare me away by acting like a jerk. This is work. It has nothing to do with…with our personal relationship. Which we don’t have anyway.”

Beth’s face flushed to a lovely shell-pink as her argument wound down.

What the hell was she talking about? “So you’re no longer my friend?” he asked, just to be sure he understood. “We’re just associates now?”

“I’m not sure we can be friends,” she said glumly. “When a line is crossed…well, I could have just left things alone, but I didn’t and I ruined everything.”

“You ruined it?” What the hell was she talking about? “Sorry, I’m confused.”

“Can we not talk about this?” she pleaded.

“Talk about what?” Why were women so confusing? Why didn’t she just spit out what was bothering her?

“I just want to make sure you understand that I’m here only because Daniel asked me to stay on top of things. I’m not trying to…change your mind.”

He gave up demanding that she clarify; his questions were getting monotonous. When faced with an unreasonable female, his strategy was to agree. Saved a lot of unproductive arguing.

“Okay,” he said, offering up a smile.

With a frustrated sigh, she turned and exited the room, and Mitch couldn’t help appreciating the way her sassy little butt twitched back and forth with each tap of her heel on the hard vinyl floor.

He racked his brain to figure out what was stuck in her craw. Maybe she was so repulsed by the things she’d learned about him recently that she really didn’t want to be friends.

That was a depressing thought.

But she said it was a line she’d crossed, not him. What had she done recently regarding… Wait a minute. The zydeco concert. She’d offered him her extra ticket, and she’d acted kind of strange when she did it, standing in the doorway whispering with Raleigh.

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