The gunman was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, carrying a weapon without a permit, breaking and entering, burglary, and terroristic threatening. However, he came up clean in CODIS, and DNA searches proved futile. His moniker was Mark Goodson, if you can believe that was his real name.
The cops ran a ballistics test on his gun, but it wasn’t a match for the slug, which had killed Shelby Carpenter. Without any proof he had killed Shelby Carpenter, the police couldn’t hold him on a murder charge. Because Goodson had no priors, his bail was set at a fifty thousand dollars and you know who paid it? Take a wild guess—the Landau family.
That guy was out of jail within forty-eight hours and disappeared before the ink was dry on the check Ferrina had written. Not really. That’s a metaphor. More like the time it took Ferrina to swipe her credit card.
The police were doggone sure King Landau had killed his wife, Dixie Orr Landau, but couldn’t prove it, nor could they conjure a reason for it. They suspected King had hired Mark Goodson to assassinate Shelby Carpenter, who was doing a piece on King and had stumbled upon the fact that King had a first wife whose very existence had been a closely guarded secret. Carpenter’s questions caused King to fear the blogger was getting too close to the truth and had him done in.
Chase had either figured out his father’s duplicity or had received a confession from King. He left school to help cover up his father’s crimes and protect him, but the police couldn’t prove that either.
Hunter and I protested when Drake consigned the murders of Dixie Landau and Shelby Carpenter to the cold case files.
Frustrated at how things had turned out, Drake argued, “Give me some evidence I can run with, and I’ll open these cases back up. I’m just as sick about this as you are, but the law’s the law. I have no witnesses. I have no fingerprints. I have no DNA. In other words, I have nothing. I must have hard evidence. Not supposition.”
Drake was right. Nothing could be done. King Landau had gotten away with murder—twice. I wondered what King had said when he met his maker. The conversation couldn’t have gone well, I think.
The only bright spot was that the Landaus bought VeVe a brand new car and paid her fifty thousand dollars not to speak of the incident outside a court of law again. Shaneika Mary Todd helped her with the transaction.
They offered the same to me, but I refused. Mark Goodson had shoved a gun to my head, terrorizing me. I wanted justice, not a bribe.
One thing is to be sure—if it hadn’t been for me the police would still be twiddling their thumbs.
It is great to be queen.