I’ll get my case file,” he said. “Let’s meet in the living room, and we’ll start at square one.”
He returned with the expandable folder he’d been using to store the case information. He sat on the sofa beside Frankie and brought out the stack of photo, handing her the one of Carter talking with Grant.
“Garrett saw this photo of Carter at Itta Bena,” he said.
“Do you remember if there was a second Carter?”
“I don’t, but if Augie had a shot of Carter, it would definitely have gotten Pryce’s attention. The promise of more pictures like it would make him take the risk of meeting with me. So we’ll have to assume Augie stole one similar to this.” He picked up a pad and made a note. “We’ll start with Red buying the jacket and finding the photos. He would have recognized Carter right off the bat.”
“Why?”
“Red and Little Man played the clubs on Beale Street off and on for forty years. Carter had a studio on Beale. A big part of his income came from taking promo shots of musicians. The three men had to have crossed paths. The question is whether Red knew these were surveillance shots and understood what that meant.”
“I may have an answer to that,” she said. “In Garrett’s eulogy, he said Red talked about agents hanging around Beale at the time of Dr. King’s assassination. Maybe he recognized Grant.”
“So it’s reasonable to assume Red knew Carter was talking to an agent and was pretty convinced Carter was an informant. Red wouldn’t have cared until he thought about the one person who’d be devastated by that piece of news—Sid Garrett. The photo suddenly became valuable if he could collect on it.”
“Red didn’t seem to be the kind of guy who’d go for blackmail,” she said.
“Except that he was obsessed with Jones, desperate to keep her in school. Remember ‘Old Fool Love’? He was hooked. It would make sense for him to approach Garrett and offer to sell the photograph. Fifteen thousand for Theda’s tuition. Or maybe he asked for more. Garrett’s loaded. Red might even have threatened to find another buyer. If he said he had more pictures, Garrett would know he was going to be on the hook for thousands.”
“If Red was working a deal with Garrett, why borrow money from Augie?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Possibly a payment on Theda’s tuition or for living expenses. She looks like she could go through a couple of grand a month.”
Frankie stood and began pacing. “How do you think it went down?”
“Red went to Garrett and made his pitch. Garrett probably pretended to accept but stalled for time to figure out what to do. That could be the reason Red had to ask Augie for the money. In the meantime, Garrett was looking to stop Red, but in a way that wouldn’t dirty his hands. He remembered Red and Little Man were into Santería, so he lined up Dominique to put curses in their rooms. He wanted to scare them bad enough to leave Memphis and never come back. He couldn’t know the curses would kill them. But after it happened, he was okay with it. Problem solved.”
“We’ve put Red and Garrett together using the Carter photograph,” she said. “Robert House connects Garrett with Dominique, and the death curses. But what about Dominique and Augie? They didn’t know each other. You said you don’t believe she could’ve killed Augie and gotten in and out of the building. If that’s true, how did she end up with his stuff?”
Billy said nothing for a time. He’d believed the photographs were a common thread between the three murders. Now the answer was coming to him.
“Let’s go at it from another direction. Who stole Augie’s stuff in the first place? At the stadium Augie said that he had business to take care of. Pryce’s book was serious business to him, but we know Pryce isn’t the killer. However, on the afternoon before Augie was murdered, he spent several hours with Garrett, making funeral arrangements. Augie was angry with me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he talked to Garrett about his mom and brought up the manuscript. I saw Garrett’s book at Augie’s place, so Augie knew they had a common interest in the civil rights era. Maybe Augie invited Garrett over, or Garrett invited himself.”
“Lots of people have that book. It proves nothing.”
He raised a hand. “Hear me out. We know the parking lot for the DeVoy is behind the building. With Garrett’s disability, it would be hard for him to walk around to the front entrance. It’s reasonable to imagine that Augie would give him the pass code for the door and the elevator. Even if he came through the main entrance, I doubt the cop who reviewed the tapes would flag him as a person of interest.”
“Okay. That’s reasonable.”
“In the course of the conversation, Augie went into more detail about the manuscript and about Carter’s involvement with the FBI.”
“But wait,” she said. “If the manuscript set Garrett off, shouldn’t he have gone after the author instead of Augie?”
“He didn’t have a name. It’s not on the manuscript, and Augie wasn’t giving it out. When Garrett did find Pryce, he tried to burn him and his book.”
Frankie threw up her hands. “I don’t buy this. Garrett’s not the violent type. He may have indirectly caused Red’s and Little Man’s deaths, but he’s too sophisticated to resort to bludgeoning a man when he had other alternatives.”
“You’re the one who pointed out that he may be a drug addict. If it’s true, his impulse control is shot. Augie showed him a photo of Carter and Grant. The blackmail scheme was back to haunt him. Garrett thought he’d never get out from under. Everything he cared about was at risk. He snapped. He killed Augie in a rage. Then his rational side kicked in. To keep anyone from finding the manuscript, the photo, the phone, or the laptop, he tossed the place. He took the watches and the rest of the stuff to make it look like a burglary.”
“You really think Garrett is responsible for three murders?” she asked.
“I’m convinced he set in motion events that led to Red’s and Little Man’s deaths. Concerning Augie, I saw Garrett at the museum the day after the murder. First, he was in a lot of pain, which you’d expect if he swung that bat. Second, he pushed hard to persuade me that Augie had a drug habit and was involved with dealers. He did a good job putting out a phony lead, good enough to have me considering it.”
Frankie thought about that. “If your scenario is right, we’re back to the question of how Dominique got her hands on the stolen stuff.”
He shrugged. “I haven’t gotten that far. Garrett’s too smart to keep incriminating evidence at Robert House. And he wouldn’t have given Dominique the watch.”
Frankie sucked in her breath. “Oh, God. She complained about having to scrub Garrett’s toilets and iron his shirts. She was mad as hell about it. She said, ‘I show him.’”
“That makes sense. As his housekeeper, she could snoop around. She found the box and knew it was valuable stuff. Since she was ready to skip town, she went there today and took it. But she didn’t get to the phone and laptop because he has them locked up.”
“Speaking of laptop, we need to check that flash drive,” she said.
He brought the computer from the kitchen and set it on the table. The dialogue box on the screen gave them the option of showing all files. The flash drive contained a docx folder and a jpg file. He clicked the folder first. It contained a copy of the manuscript. Then he clicked the jpg file.
A photograph of Agent Leland Grant opened. He was facing the camera and talking to a teenage boy whose head was tilted up, squinting against the sun. Frankie and Billy stared at the screen.
“Where did this come from?” she asked. “Did Augie steal two photos?”
“No, just the one.” He fell silent, thinking. “The reason Augie stole the photo was to give Freeman a picture of Grant. This is the best shot of Grant in the bunch. The others are in profile. This has to be the one Augie stole and showed to Pryce. It’s on the flash drive because Pryce scanned it for him.”
“Then Augie never had a photo of Carter.” She leaned closer to the screen. “You think this kid is significant?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ve missed something. I was sold on Garrett for all three murders because I thought seeing the photo of Carter had sent him over the edge. Now I’m not sure.”
In his mind’s eye, he’d seen Augie at the refrigerator, his back turned, having offered Garrett a beer. And there was Garrett, panicked and raging, picking up the bronzed bat. Augie half turned, catching the first blow on his temple. Stunned, he stayed on his feet long enough for Garrett to deliver the second, crushing blow to the back of his head. Then he went down.
The images sickened him. He wanted Garrett to not be the guy, but he couldn’t let that sway him.
“You with me?” Frankie said.
She’d been speaking to him.
“You said, ‘If Garrett didn’t do it, who do we have?’”
He rubbed the back of his neck. They stared at the screen, trying to come up with something.
“Look,” she said. “We have some compelling evidence, but we need more. There’s a ground-breaking ceremony at Robert House tomorrow. You should take some of this stuff with you and wave it in Garrett’s face. Maybe if you shake him up in public, he’ll incriminate himself.”
“I can’t use the actual evidence. I’ll have to go to the Redbirds store tomorrow for a pillowcase and make up a dummy manuscript. Here’s the dilemma. If I don’t hand over this evidence immediately, Dunsford can charge me with obstruction of justice for withholding it. And if I do turn it over, he’ll claim I had possession all along, which for Dunsford is proof I killed Augie.”
Frankie furrowed her brow. “Actually, I’ve got that covered. In case the loot turned out to be real, I took the precaution of dropping by the station house to pick up a copy of the squad’s major offense summary with the list of stolen property. That gives me a legitimate reason for being familiar with Augie’s list. I can truthfully say I met Dominique at Robert House and noticed the watch she was wearing. She offered to sell the watch to me along with several other items. I was skeptical that it was Augie’s stolen property, but I agreed to meet her at the bus station to find out. In the course of the evening, I got my hands on the evidence, but the woman escaped. Once I verified it was stolen, I turned it into the evidence room . . . which I will do after I leave here.” She shrugged. “Nothing more than a rookie’s dumb luck.”
He let out a low whistle. “Impressive.”
“Every word is true. I only left out the bits about you. I’m usually very honest.”
The barge shifted in the water. Frankie got a funny look on her face. “We didn’t finish the conversation we were having in the car.”
And now’s not the time, he thought. But she was staring at the counter with a numb look he knew all too well. There was no getting around it.
“You did fine tonight,” he told her. “What I said about not trusting you . . . that wasn’t fair. I was angry about something else.”
Her cheeks flushed. “There’s more to it. You may not have heard what happened to Brad McDaniel.”
“I know. I read about the accident.”
“You don’t know.”
“I know enough. The woman on the elevator, the one with the box you freaked out about? She’s Brad’s widow, Coral.”
Frankie stilled.
“I saw her speak to Dave Jansen after she got off the elevator. I called him, asked who she was. I didn’t know Brad’s wife, but I sure as hell knew about his history with women. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut for bragging.”
Her eyebrows lifted, lips parted. He knew she considered herself to be a tough cookie, but the circumstances of Brad’s death would be hard to get past.
“We can discuss this, but you have to promise there’ll be no crying,” he said.
“No crying,” she said.
“You mentioned a trauma. I thought about your bruise, the way you flipped out when Coral McDaniel came off the elevator. I figured you’d been involved with Brad, got caught up in the accident. You weren’t in the car, were you?”
“He was chasing me. He lost control.”
“Sounds like Brad.”
“I’ve never done anything . . .” Her mouth spasmed. “Anything like that in my life. He told me—”
“You don’t have to explain. Like I said, I know about Brad. We can go into the details if you want, but whatever happened, you should let it go. And forget about those damned pills.”
“I screwed up,” she said.
“I’ve screwed up many times. Nobody in this world is perfect.”
She managed a strained smile. “You asked why you should trust me after I lied. I’ve been completely honest now. You know it all.”
She waited, wanting to be absolved. For some reason, he couldn’t give her that. Might have been something to do with Mercy. Might have been the pie he could see on the cutting board over her shoulder.
He nodded toward the evidence on the counter. “Let’s wind this up. We’ll sort out the rest tomorrow.”
He copied ten pages of the manuscript and put it on top of a ream of blank paper. She packed the evidence in the box and taped it in the original plastic. The CJC evidence room was open 24/7.
At the foot of the ramp, she promised to call him if she ran into a problem. Otherwise, she would be in touch early. They almost shook on it, but she had the box in her arms and the moment turned clumsy. They nodded and she was gone.
He walked around to the aft deck to get some air. Somewhere on the bluff a dog barked. Downriver another dog responded. Then there was a different sound, a growl coming off the water, as primitive as anything living in the backwoods. He’d heard about sightings of bobcats not far from the bridge near where the Wolf River flowed into the Mississippi. And there were older stories about panthers that once slipped through the shadows of the ancient swamps of the Delta.
The growl died. The gentrified dogs fell silent.
He thought about tonight, Frankie’s revelation about Brad and the confrontation with Garrett tomorrow.
Which pack did he belong to—the kept dogs or the wild ones?
He went inside to think about that. Over a piece of pie.