Blood in the Lake Read online

  Bonnie, the early bird, had messages waiting for me. The detectives wouldn’t be able to make it in this morning to continue Buddy’s briefing, and Tom had postponed our afternoon appointment with Sarah. Good. I’d have all day to study how the investigation had unfolded. To this point, I had researched several evidence problems—most notably how Tom could explain the detectives’ presence in Birmingham, Alabama, without mentioning what happened to Mrs. Falgout. Admittedly, they had the benefit of my research into past cases, but in fifteen minutes of collaboration, the pair came up with Plan A and Plan B.

  Plan A: Have the deputy sheriff in Alabama testify he’d had a call from a hospital about a man mumbling something about knocking off an old man. He’d followed up, talked to the EMTs, and interviewed patrons of the bar where the man had collapsed. If Sarah, on cross-examination, asked why he thought the man “knocked off” might be PawPaw, she’d be opening the door for Hamilton to walk through. She, not the prosecution, would be eliciting evidence of another crime her client might have committed. Plan B: If Sarah tried a pre-emptive strike at her pre-trial Motion to Suppress by trying to have Judge Bonin exclude any mention of what happened in Alabama as a reference to another crime, Tom would put Deuce on the stand to say the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office had received an anonymous call telling them to check on a man in a hospital in Birmingham. Plan B had the extra advantage of being true—but incomplete. So Richie and Tom had come up with two strategies in fifteen minutes for what I’m sure cost me hours of sleep!

  I retrieved the red file from Bonnie’s secure closet, pulled out Deuce’s notebook, and settled in for serious reading. I needed to review the investigation to understand just what the detectives had told the DA for him to bless a warrant of arrest for a capital crime. Mr. Strait had been clear; we had no eyewitness testimony, DNA, ballistics or any other scientific evidence. I needed to know what Tom believed was circumstantial evidence strong enough to exclude any reasonable hypothesis of innocence, as the law requires.

  I had a bit of trouble getting started. I kept closing my eyes, the better to picture Tom’s face and remember the warmth of his bare chest against me. Get on with the job, girl.

  After entries about the trip to see Mrs. Falgout at Ben Taub Hospital in Houston, diagonal lines crossed the next three pages of Deuce’s notebook, with one notation—Hurricane Prep. Except for the deputies assigned to PawPaw’s house for the search, the storm had consumed the attention of the entire department. The Falgout investigation picked up again on Saturday.

  The APB—All Points Bulletin—for Remuald Richard had triggered a flurry of calls from amateurs who saw suspicious characters under every bush. The detectives ran them all down. Sarah was going to have a field day at trial ridiculing the activity. As I leafed through the twenty pages documenting mostly dead ends, several entries caught my attention.

  First, a probation mug shot of Remuald Richard taken five years ago after he’d served time in the parish jail for possession with intent to distribute cocaine. He looked a good fifteen years younger than he had at his arraignment for the murder of PawPaw. He’d given his address to the probation officers as c/o Jim Falgout, Captain Cade Road. I put a post-it note on that entry. I remembered Professor Joseph demonstrating the unreliability of eyewitness testimony, but accuracy improved substantially if the identifier previously knew the person identified. Lydia Falgout knew Remmy well. Her ID would have cred.

  But, damnit, I had to remember Lydia Falgout couldn’t be spoken about in the guilt phase of PawPaw’s trial.

  I picked up another interesting entry in Deuce’s notebook. Before the body of PawPaw had been pulled up from the Delcambre Canal, a sugarcane worker reporting for work across Lake Road from PawPaw’s house told his boss, my Uncle J. Allen, that he’d seen someone who met the description of Mrs. Falgout’s assailant driving a truck out of the driveway of Jefferson House. A white truck. Initially, J. Allen didn’t find the report worth calling in. For all he knew, the Alexandria’s caretaker, like half the people around, drove a white truck. But when J. Allen went to the grocery store in Coteau to pick up something for lunch, he stood next to an unfamiliar man who met the same description. At the sight of Uncle J, the man had tucked his chin, snatched his po-boy off the counter, and double-timed out the door. To a white truck. According to Deuce’s entry, dispatch relayed Uncle J’s message to the detectives, and Buddy and Deuce drove out to the mansion to check out the report. Patrol was already on the scene, as was neighbor Mimi Aguillard.

  My mom? I didn’t recall her telling me about that. I must have been back at school. Or perhaps Jefferson House was way down Mom’s list of concerns while PawPaw was missing.

  The deputies had found the house itself secure, but the lock on an outdoor shed had been broken. Inside the shed, the detectives found signs of occupancy: a pile of blankets, an empty tuna fish can, some burned-down candles.

  Detective Aymond called Jack Alexandria, the owner of Jefferson House, at his home in Nashville, Tennessee. They determined nothing was missing. Deuce noted their conclusion—probably a homeless man had found shelter from the storm. When the weather cleared, he’d moved on. Alexandria said he’d call a locksmith and a carpenter to make repairs.

  Deuce recorded what he thought an interesting remark Jack Alexandria had made. No one is supposed to be at the house, but I have a nephew who’s caused my sister no end of trouble. He just finished a stint in rehab and disappeared. He could’ve drifted down there. Alexandria provided a sketchy description of the nephew. Name: Mickey Brown. Stats: thirty years old, five foot ten, light eyes, about one hundred sixty pounds when Alexandria last saw him a year ago. Probably weighed more now, if he was off drugs. Alexandria told Detective Aymond he didn’t know if the nephew drove a truck. The boy had a history of wrecking whatever vehicle his mother gave him. But eating tuna fish out of a can? Probably not his nephew, Alexandria had said. Mickey had expensive tastes. Remuald Richard wouldn’t have expensive tastes. Maybe he had holed up in that shed. If I had that thought, I bet the detectives did too.

  Once again, not admissible in PawPaw’s case, but increased the detectives’, and Tom’s, confidence they had the right man.

  I could just imagine the cross-examination if Buddy or Deuce testified about this part of the investigation. Now tell me, detective, just how did you follow up on the discovery of the break-in? You didn’t follow up? You didn’t call in forensics? You didn’t even dust for prints? You just assumed a homeless man had been sleeping there? Alas, country investigations never measure up to the expectations the public has developed from watching TV crime drama.

  This job had me so damn excited—Tom and I working together for the good guys. I probably lost a few minutes as my mind again slipped into thoughts about Tom.

  A post-it note already marked the next page in Deuce’s notebook: a significant development in the investigation. The break they’d been hoping for.

  Two weeks after the beating of Mrs. Falgout, an anonymous call came in to Elnora on the sheriff’s switchboard. You guys looking for Remmy Richard? Try the County Hospital in Birmingham. The call ended.

  Buddy and Deuce made contact with a Deputy Mark Hamilton in the sheriff’s office of Jefferson County. Birmingham had no county hospital, but there were several large medical facilities in the city. The deputy conferenced Buddy with each one. They hit pay dirt at the University of Alabama Medical Center.

  The emergency room of UAMC had admitted a delirious white man in his mid-thirties who had collapsed in a local bar. He had a badly infected laceration of his left arm, was sniffing like a bloodhound, and couldn’t get enough water or beer to quench his thirst. Signs of drug use. He carried no ID, but the ER found a receipt from a gas station in Baton Rouge in his pocket. Deputy Hamilton located the patient’s truck outside the bar and traced the Louisiana license plate. Remuald Richard.

  Deuce noted Buddy’s instruction to Deputy Hamilton. Freeze the guy. Document everything he says whether you can make any sense
of it or not. Impound and seal his vehicle.

  Apparently, Deputy Hamilton did as instructed. In fever delirium, the patient mumbled: lady had some bread; needed a fix; truck got stuck in a ditch; tore up my arm on a rusty old fence. Yeah, knocked off an old guy, too. Deputy Mark Hamilton had searched Richard’s car and found a well-worn wallet on the floorboard. Empty. He sealed it in an evidence bag. A marginal note referred the reader to a later page in the notebook where the detectives reported taking the wallet back to New Iberia and showing it to my Uncle Bub for identification. Bub said it looked like PawPaw’s.

  Hallelujah! We had one item of physical evidence for our case—PawPaw’s wallet. ‘Looked like,’ anyway.

  Buddy and Deuce drove to the Birmingham hospital the next day. The patient admitted he was Remuald Richard and blurted out two dead on my watch. Buddy read him his rights and placed him under arrest for the attempted murder of Lydia Falgout. Richard refused to say anything more. Three days later, the hospital released Richard into the custody of the detectives.

  I checked the stack of witness statements the detectives had taken but couldn’t find one from Deputy Hamilton. Tom needed to get the detectives on that right away, before Hamilton forgot the whole scene.

  Then I ran into another critical piece of information. After bringing Remuald Richard back from Alabama, the detectives visited the docks. Only then? Hadn’t Uncle Ti told them they should do that earlier, when PawPaw first went missing? I found a margin entry directing the reader’s attention to the initial report by Detective Ted D’Aquin, the detective on loan from St. Martin Parish when Buddy and Deuce were over in Alabama. I found D’Aquin’s report attached to the inside cover. His trip to the docks had yielded nothing.

  Now Deuce’s notebook recorded the detectives’ revisit to the area. Armed with a name and the mug shot from Richard’s prior incarceration, they worked through every corner of Delcambre and then on down the road to Intracoastal City. They scored a hit at The Southern Wave. The manager there, who gave his name as Skipper Domingue, said he recognized the man in the mug shot. He looked like a guy who’d been around the bunkhouse at the critical time.

  Ah, ha! This was the visit Tom talked to Detective Aymond about, the visit Aymond had been reluctant to make and didn’t want to repeat.

  At The Southern Wave, Deuce had another opportunity to use his artistic talent. A careful drawing of the ground floor living area of the bunkhouse—sleeping took place upstairs—spread across two pages. A kitchen held down the mid-section of the long side of the large open room. Five picnic-type tables, benches on either side, occupied one end. Fifty feet away, on the other end of the room, two sofas and a couple of metal chairs sat in front of a TV. One of the picnic tables had been marked with an X, as had one of the chairs on the opposite end of the room. Deuce had written the name Skipper Domingue next to the chair. I searched in the file for an account to see what this witness might have had to say, and this time I found a signed statement in what seemed to be Domingue’s own words.

  September 1. Two men sat at a table at one end of the room. I didn’t know their names but I’d seen them around before. Big argument… seemed to be about getting money for drugs. They talked about a score the day before. One guy tried to persuade the other one to take his truck out to get more bread. He refused. At one point the second guy said he didn’t expect the first one to off the old guy. They kept jawing at each other until finally the second guy got up and said OK, we’ll use my truck. The first guy looked like the mug shot of Remuald Richard.

  Now the detectives had a second reference to the death of an old man, and Skipper Domingue ID’ed Richard as the one who offed the old guy. Bingo.

  I went back looking for the initial description of the two speakers. Not much detail. In fact, the descriptions of the two men were virtually interchangeable. Thirties to forties, not heavy, light hair, white shrimper’s boots. One wore jeans; the other khakis. One had a darker complexion than the other, but Domingue wasn’t sure which was which. Maybe someone could hear a conversation across that big room, but could he identify the speaker from such a distance? How sure was Domingue? Pretty shaky evidence.

  Now I had a good fix on the two key witnesses Tom had for PawPaw’s case—Deputy Mark Hamilton and bunkhouse manager Skipper Domingue. The detectives made a full report of their investigation to their boss and DA Strait. Both gave them a green light—Deuce’s word was instruction—to prepare another warrant for Richard’s arrest, this time for the first degree murder of Pierre Boudreaux—my PawPaw. They served the warrant on Richard in the parish jail.

  I turned the next page and read Deuce’s notes about checking the coroner’s report. I kept going but found no more direct, circumstantial or any other kind of evidence linking Remuald Richard to the murder of PawPaw. Damn.

  So that was to be the evidence the detectives had to give us. Without saying anything about the crime against Mrs. Falgout, Tom would have to ask the jury to convict Remuald Richard of first degree murder, death penalty recommended, based on Richard’s own feverish mumblings about knocking off an old guy, an incriminating statement about two dead on his watch, an overheard conversation at a bunkhouse down by Intracoastal City, and an empty wallet that looked like my grandfather’s found in Remmy’s car. My God. I felt slightly sick.

  No wonder Tom had thoughts of a deal for a plea of guilty in return for a sentence of life without parole. My family would gag, but maybe they’d go for life in prison rather than have Remmy walk. And maybe Sarah wouldn’t want to take the risk of going to trial. She had to face the fact that if Tom did get a conviction, and he put Mrs. Falgout on the stand in the penalty phase, she’d be dynamite. One look at her face and every juror would be totally convinced someone who could do that would be capable of anything.

  Etienne's Story

  “UNCLE ‘TIENNE HAD an appointment to talk to Tom. Did ‘Tienne tell you how that went?” Mom and I were having an after-dinner visit on the back porch.

  Mom smiled. “Honey, I think you’ve the best window into that conversation. From the outside looking in, I’d say you’re enjoying your job at the DA’s office.”

  “It’s a great experience. But no, I don’t have a special window. I’m just doing my work and trying not to get caught in the middle. Tom tells me he talked to ‘Tienne, but they didn’t really get to the meat of anything. I let it go at that.”

  “Sounds like how it would go, Etienne not saying much. But tell me, what’s Tom trying to accomplish by talking to the family members one at a time?”

  I punted. “Oh, I think Tom just wants to decide who to put on the stand to tell the jury about the loss the family suffered.”

  “Well, we know who’ll demand to be the one!”

  “Right. Uncle Ti. But I can almost guarantee Tom won’t do that. Ti doesn’t exactly have jury appeal. Maybe Bub. Do you think Bub could do it?”

  “It’d be hard for him, but he’d walk on hot coals if he thought he could help his PawPaw.”

  I decided to come clean. “And while Tom is talking to y’all, Mom, getting to know you, as he puts it, I think he’s feeling you out about the possibility of the family agreeing to let him ask the defense if Richard would take a plea to life in prison. You know, admission of guilt, no trial. All over in just a short time.”

  “Family agreeing to waive the death penalty? Everyone? No way. Ti Pierre would never go for that.”

  “If Ti were the only one in opposition, it wouldn’t be the first time you disagreed with him. What do you think about the others?”

  Mom tilted her head before answering. “J. Allen might go either way. And ‘Tienne? I don’t know. He’s the brother who doesn’t talk.”

  “By everyone, Mom, Tom means the sisters also.” The old patriarchal society dies hard with Mom’s generation.

  Mom continued. “Dora would back off the death penalty, I’m pretty sure of that. She spoke out pretty clearly against capital punishment when we were over at ‘Tilde’s after the arraig
nment. She can’t get over the reports of guys who turn out to have been wrongly convicted, even though there isn’t a chance of that here. Me and Tut? We’d have to talk. And, of course, there’s no point in us even looking for Mazie’s opinion because we couldn’t find it. A babbling goose running all around the barnyard, that’s what she is.”

  “Mom! You should be ashamed.”

  “And I am.”

  “Back to Uncle ‘Tienne, Mom? Would he consider the plea? ‘Tienne’s opinion carries a lot of weight.”

  Mom raised her eyebrows a good quarter inch. “I’m inclined to think that how ‘Tienne has learned to live with his Vietnam experience will determine his position. Could go either way.”

  “What was his experience in Vietnam, Mom? He never talks about it.”

  Mom sat quietly for a few moments. “I doubt he’s even told Berthe what he went through over there. That’s not good. A wife should know everything, but it isn’t my business to tell her. That’s between ‘Tienne and Berthe. PawPaw talked some. Now that PawPaw’s gone, I guess I should tell you.”

  “Please, Mom.” I sat back on the sofa and Mom did the same, but in a moment she jumped back up.

  “Wait, I wrote down something about this. It’s in the bottom of my desk.”

  She left the room and came back with an envelope, which she opened. She glanced through five yellowed pages that had been folded inside, but then set them on her lap and just talked.

  “The year was 1968. I was just a girl then, so what I tell you is mostly from these papers and a couple of conversations I had with PawPaw later on. It’s a story, all right.”