Chapter Sixteen
Cold stale air greets me inside the small front room of the Broken Bayou police station.
It’s still brown. Still outdated. The same woman still sits behind the big brown desk, her bouffant a little messier than the first time I saw her.
She looks exhausted. Holding up one short finger, she motions for me to have a seat.
The options for having a seat are a row of brown plastic chairs.
And in the last one sits Charles LaSalle II.
He rises when he sees me, straightens his pale suit. It’s time to get this errand over with.
“Ms. . . . Dr. Watters,” Charles says, holding out his hands.
I hope calling him was a good idea. He’s not a criminal lawyer, but at least he can be a presence if I need him.
I told him everything. About the car, the supposed insurance money, about who helped me dump it.
The license plate and who I believed left it.
I did not tell him about my mother’s boss.
Or about the videotape. Not yet. He explained how my coming into a police station with a lawyer will not look good.
I’ll look guilty. I told him I still wanted him there.
So he asked for one dollar to retain his services and told me to let him talk first so he can neutralize that from the start.
I watch Charles wringing his hands and hope to God he can actually do that.
“Willa?” I look up and see Travis standing by the front desk. His eyes dart to Charles. “What’s going on?”
“I came to talk to Chief Wilson.”
“And you brought a lawyer?”
“Just to be safe.”
Travis shoots Charles a look of utter bafflement, then refocuses on me. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“I don’t think that’s—” Charles starts, but I cut him off.
“It’s fine.”
Charles looks wounded, like he was denied a moment to shine.
Travis leads me to the far side of the room. Margie has finished her call, and she watches us with hawk eyes.
His voice is low in my ear. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I need to talk to the chief.”
He shakes his head. His voice is steady and smooth. “I want to help you, Willa. But you showing up with him”—he points to Charles—“doesn’t look good. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No, I just thought it would be best to have someone with me. I’ve never done this before.”
“All right. I get it.” Travis’s eyes are accented by dark circles. His skin looks sallow and more wrinkled than I remember. But mostly, it’s his voice that’s different. I hear the stress in it. “But help me here. We cleaned out that trunk. Right? Remember?”
“Yes, we did,” I say, glancing at Margie, who seems to be engaged in stacking papers. “That car was empty when I put it in the bayou.”
“Well, the trunk wasn’t empty when it came out.” He releases a long breath.
“Travis, what if that car didn’t sink all the way? What if someone else had been there? Seen an opportunity and took it. I don’t remember seeing anyone when I left, but that doesn’t mean I was alone.”
Travis studies me. “The only person that would have been there is Walter Delaroux, but something’s not adding up for me.”
I glance at the brown paper bag I brought in with me. “There’s something else that doesn’t add up.”
“What?”
I point to the bag on the chair next to Charles. “Someone left that teacher’s license plate in a bag on my front porch.”
What little color he had in his face drains away. “What the fuck? When?”
Margie darts a look in our direction.
“Yesterday.”
“And you didn’t call me?”
“I thought it was my mother’s plate.”
“Either way, you should have called me.”
I realize now I probably should have. But so much has happened since yesterday, the plate got lost in the shuffle. “I’m telling you now.”
Travis looks up. “Walter Delaroux has been in custody since Tuesday. We pulled him in on some outstanding warrants to get him off the streets, then charged him this morning.”
“Then someone else had that license plate,” I say.
“Shit.”
“Also, I saw an old truck yesterday morning, before finding the bag.”
He rolls his neck. “You didn’t happen to get the license number on that truck, did you?” I hear the dejection in his voice. He already knows the answer.
I shake my head. “But . . . it sort of looked like Doyle’s truck.”
“Christ.” He closes his eyes a moment, opens them. “Are you sure? I mean, really sure? Did you see him actually set a bag on your porch step?”
I shake my head. “No. But it sounded like Doyle’s truck. You know, missing a muffler.”
“Hell, Willa, half the trucks in this parish are missing mufflers.” He frowns. “No way. No fucking way.”
“Travis.” I tread lightly. “Maybe you could just talk to him.”
“Fine.”
“And,” I add carefully, “maybe I could be there when you do. I’d like to talk with Eddie too.”
He tilts his head. “I get it, Dr. Willa. You think you can analyze those two? Good luck. Many have come before you and failed. Do yourself a favor and save your energy for people you can actually help.”
I understand his cynicism. The trickle-down of mental illness is toxic to families.
I see he’s getting uncomfortable, but if uncomfortable bothered me I wouldn’t have a job.
A thought is shaping itself in my head. It could have been Doyle’s truck in the driveway yesterday morning, but Doyle may not have been driving it.
Eddie seems the more likely person to leave something for me.
Eddie likes giving me gifts. But why would he give me that one?
And I’m not even sure Eddie can drive. “I’d still like the opportunity to visit with them. Especially Eddie.”
Travis glances at his lap and sighs. “Oh, Willa, you and I are not so different. We both come from fucked-up families where our job was to protect our siblings. But don’t bother with my brothers. I can handle them. Okay?”
I nod. He’s still protecting them. But my instinct says he shouldn’t be protecting Doyle.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I sense it.
It’s triggering a skill I learned as a child, watching my mother.
I could sense her mood shifting, feel the energy coming off her body like a radio frequency.
I could time it almost to the second when she would snap.
Doyle is like that. Close to breaking. I see it in his body language. His eyes. Something bad is coming.
“Dr. Watters.” Chief Wilson waddles into the room, holding a cup of coffee and a stack of papers. “Ready?”
Travis sighs. I can see he’s worried. He should be. Because of me, he may lose his job today. But I have to do this and do it without protecting Travis. I’m already protecting too many people as it is.
Charles jumps from his seat and walks to the chief’s side.
I grab the bag from my chair and follow them down the hallway, feeling Travis’s stare on the back of my neck like a hot poker.
I say a silent apology to him, but if I’m going to talk about the night I dumped that car, his name has to come up.
Raymond walks up the hallway toward us. He grins at me, then gives me an odd look as Chief Wilson escorts me into a side room.
I expect an interrogation room like the ones I’ve seen in cop shows.
Gray metal chairs, one-way glass, a swinging light overhead.
Instead, Chief Wilson leads us into a neat, organized office.
The papers on the desk are stacked in precise piles next to a laptop computer.
The room almost seems sterile. Travis follows us in and drops into the chair behind the desk.
I see the nameplate on the desk. Shit. We’re in his office.
My guess is the chief knows Travis and I have history and thinks this would be a more comfortable setting for me to open up.
What he doesn’t know is this will make it even harder.
I sit in the one chair opposite Travis while the chief stands and sips his coffee.
Charles lingers behind me since there are no more chairs in the room.
Chief Wilson says, “Can I get anyone some coffee or water? It’s going to take a few minutes to get the state investigator here. Thought it’d be better if we wait for him to get started. Margie called him when you came in.”
Charles and I say yes to coffee, and the chief returns with two cups.
The four of us stare at each other in the quiet room.
Even though no words are spoken, an electric current courses through the air, and my skin tingles.
The longer we sit, the more I want to say forget it.
I made a mistake. I sense Chief Wilson knows what I’m thinking, and he starts up a conversation about Shadow Bluff and the Aunts and how the old house could be refurbished into something grand again.
I nod and play along, but my mind is racing.
Finally, the door swings open, and the man I saw at the news conference steps in, wearing a button-down shirt, khakis, and dusty cowboy boots.
He extends his hand to me. “Tom Bordelon. I’m the chief investigator for the state on this case.
I’ll be visiting with you today.” He looks around the room.
“Chief, Travis.” He stops at Charles and nods.
Charles nods back. Tom Bordelon pulls in a chair from outside the room and settles next to Travis beside his desk.
“Gentlemen,” Charles says, “I have instructed my client to tell you everything she knows. She’s here to provide information only. And I’m only here to make sure she gets immunity if needed.”
The chief sets his coffee down. Travis gives me a slight nod. He knows what’s coming.
The investigator puts a recorder on the table. “I’ll be recording this and taking notes.” He says the date, August 19, all our names, and then asks me to start at the beginning.
“Before I start, I want to make sure my mother and I . . .” I glance at Charles. He nods. “Get immunity.”
“Well, I can’t guarantee that until I know what you’re going to tell me,” Tom says. “You just have to trust me. I’ll do what I can.”