Chapter 16
Camille
The Alibi
Ben leans back in his chair once the video on the drive begins to play. I can just make out the screen over his right shoulder. It’s Aubrey Price, the woman currently in St. Francisville posing as me.
It’s my fault Aubrey was tipped off that Ben was watching her, and my only choices were to sit back and let Aubrey make a big stink with Ben or to promise to work with her to find out the truth of what happened that night ten years ago.
Obviously, I chose the second option, especially since the first option wouldn’t further my own goal of leaving my marriage with some financial stability.
And now I’m sitting in my attic, spying on my husband.
The video opens with Aubrey sitting at a table in a nondescript room.
“Detective Walton, thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I know how busy you are, and this isn’t considered a high priority case…
anymore.” She’s nervous. And fidgety. Keeps pushing her hair behind her ear even though it never stays where she tucks it.
I can’t see the person she’s talking to, but his voice comes across the recording loud and clear, as if he’s sitting right next to the camera’s mic.
“My apologies it took this long for me to get back to you. The detective who handled this case originally recently retired. What is it that you wanted to discuss with us?”
Aubrey takes a deep breath and sits up a bit straighter. “I wanted to see if it was possible for you to review the case against Paul Granger.”
“We are not in the habit of reviewing cases of those who were rightly found guilty by a court of law.” There’s no missing the censure in his voice. “But more importantly, why would you want that?”
“I got a letter from Paul. He told me some things that are making me question everything.”
“He’s not supposed to be contacting you. Ever. I’ll call the warden…” His voice booms so loudly that Ben and I both flinch.
“No! Wait, please. Just listen before you call and get him in trouble.” Her hands are out in front of her, and she looks on the verge of tears. “Just hear me out. Please.”
She seems desperate. Her words, her mannerisms are a far cry from the woman I met at the bar, hell-bent on getting answers.
A very different Aubrey than the one I’ve gotten to know.
“He shouldn’t be contacting you,” he says, the judgment in his voice coming over loud and clear. “And you should have contacted Angola immediately.”
She shrugs. “I didn’t come in here to talk about how I heard from him but what I learned when I did. He makes a compelling argument.”
“They always say they didn’t do it.” The frustration in his voice is clear. “He was convicted of killing your parents. It is highly inappropriate for him to contact you.”
Aubrey pushes her hair back again. “He says there is new evidence.”
“Is this what you wanted to talk to me about? Delusions from a convicted felon?”
She bristles at his response. “I may have been young when it happened and didn’t know everything back then, but I’ve been looking into it now.
There’s always been something that felt off.
Stuff that didn’t add up. Paul has always said he didn’t do it, even after all these years.
Someone connected with the case came to see him. Told him he was framed.”
“Did he say who the person ‘connected with the case’ was? Did you get a name?”
“No, he didn’t tell me that part.”
The man scoffs. “Of course he didn’t. But you believe the word of a convicted murderer over the police officers and prosecutors who worked to get justice for your parents.”
She stands up so quickly her chair nearly tips over.
It wobbles a few seconds before settling back in place.
The top of her head moves just out of the camera’s frame.
“Looking into what he says doesn’t mean I’m believing him over y’all.
I’m not asking anyone to let him out of prison.
I’m not even asking for anyone to reopen his case.
All I asked is if you would review it with fresh eyes.
If you won’t even consider the possibility that maybe there was more to what happened that night, then why did you agree to see me? ”
“You were insistent that you speak to us about your parents’ case—”
She interrupts him. “So, what, you’re humoring me.” She has a wild look about her, almost hissing at him.
Ben is glued to the screen as he takes in every word.
Everything she’s saying now she has said to me, but there’s something visceral about seeing her grief surface. She’s always so calm and in control with me.
“Look, Paul Granger was a known drug dealer. Arrested for selling and possessing more than once. He hit your parents’ car then fled the scene, but he couldn’t even do that right since he left his truck behind.
Maybe I’m not inclined to take a lying, stealing drug dealer’s word on what he says happened that night.
I’m trying to be considerate, but you’re coming in here and telling me our department got it wrong, the prosecutor got it wrong, the judge got it wrong, all because a murderer in prison said so. ”
His words knock her back into her chair. Her voice is softer when she says, “I’m coming in here asking you to follow up on every lead. You’re the one taking it personally.”
“Your mother died instantly but it took longer for your father to succumb to his injuries. It was an hour before anyone stumbled across your parents’ car, and by then it was too late to do anything for him.
If I were you, I’d take it personally that Paul was a coward who fled the scene instead of making sure your dad received timely medical attention that could have saved his life. ”
Ben and I both flinch at the brutal way he’s talking to her, and I can’t help but wonder what is going through Ben’s mind. Hearing this would certainly bring up memories of that night if Ben was somehow involved.
In the video, Aubrey wraps her arms tightly around her waist. It’s clear his words slice right through her.
When it doesn’t seem like she’s going to say anything, he adds, “There are ways for Paul Granger to introduce new evidence, but getting the victims’ kid to come down to the station isn’t one of them.”
Victims’ kid.
It’s hard to watch this asshole talk to her like that.
“You’re a dick, Walton,” Ben mutters.
Well, at least Ben and I agree on one thing.
Aubrey slumps in her chair and her tears are falling freely now, with no attempt to wipe them away. Then she gets up and disappears from view. Seconds later, the video ends.
It’s impossible not to feel sorry for her. For what she’s been through.
Ben doesn’t move for several minutes, just seems to stare at the frozen screen. Finally, he spins around in his chair, and I can see his face. His head leans against the back of the chair and his eyes are closed. There is tension in his features that wasn’t there before watching the video.
After several minutes, he straightens and focuses on the desk in front of him, shuffling the pile of papers while muttering to himself every few minutes.
“Fuck!”
He screams so loud I swear it reaches the attic. Ben stands up abruptly, his right hand sweeping across the desk, causing papers to fly off the surface before floating gently to the floor.
Oh, he’s pissed.
Deep, heaving breaths rush in and out as he stares at the mess.
It takes a few minutes for him to get himself back together, then he takes his time picking up each individual piece of paper like he didn’t just lose it.
One by one, he stacks them neatly on the corner of his desk.
Finally, he turns back to the laptop on the credenza behind him, ejects the drive, then drops it on his desk.
Once everything is back in order, he goes to the bar cabinet in the bookcase that lines the side wall.
He pours a healthy amount of whiskey in one of the cut crystal tumblers I gave him the first Christmas we were married.
The same pattern that matches the wineglasses from our registry.
He throws the drink back in one swallow, letting out a quick cough after it goes down.
I thought the drunken night at the DU banquet was odd, but it’s definitely out of the norm for him to hit the hard liquor midafternoon. Honestly, though, I’m going to need several drinks myself when I get out of this attic.
Ben refills his glass and takes his time with round two, pacing in front of his desk while he sips his drink. When his glass is empty again, he seems to contemplate a third drink but instead turns away and heads back to his chair behind his desk.
He pulls out some of the papers from the same envelope that held the drive. “Aubrey, you just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” he mutters to himself.
Okay, here we go. While the delivery of the Mustang threw me off, it seems we’re back on track.
Aubrey believes he wanted me out of the house today because Ben was finally getting his hands on the evidence Paul says will set him free.
Knowing that if that evidence implicates him in some way, Ben won’t hesitate destroying it.
It’s why I’m here, armed with cameras to try to get what we can.
While Paul would need something that would be admissible in court to change his fate, I won’t.
I just need enough evidence of his illegal activities to trigger that clause in my prenup.
After he reads through the document in front of him, Ben picks up his phone and places a call. Thankfully, it’s on speaker.
The call is answered on the second ring. “Yeah.”
Ben doesn’t bother with hello, just goes straight into the reason for the call. “When did she visit the cops in Corbeau?”
“Couple of months ago. My contact didn’t hear about it until a few days ago. The whole department is chaotic right now ever since Walton took over.”
I know Ben keeps a couple of PIs on the payroll and I’m guessing this is one of them.
“I’m not paying you for old information.
” Ben gets up from his chair and paces behind his desk.
“You assured me Aubrey didn’t know anything significant.
That Paul hadn’t told her anything specific.
She told Walton someone connected to Paul’s case went to see him!
That’s pretty fucking specific! How hard do you think it would be to get a list of Paul Granger’s visitors? ”
It takes a moment for the man to reply. “Not much slips past my guy, but this did.”
“Now we have to give Aubrey something or she’s going to become a problem. I don’t relish making that girl’s life any harder but I need her to stop questioning this.”
Whatever small part of me thought we could have gotten whatever this is all wrong just vanished.
“I hear you and I’ll take care of it. When are you going for the safe?” the PI asks.
Ben glances at his watch then gets up and heads to the kitchen, taking his phone with him to continue his conversation. He grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and twists open the top, taking a long drink. “Got a couple of meetings here first, then I’ll head over there around six.”
He’s leaving? And what safe is he talking about?
He can’t leave. I have the cameras set up here.
“Foster’s place will be empty, right?” Ben asks. “I’m going to be pissed if I drive all the way to Corbeau and someone’s there.”
What.
He’s going to Corbeau?
Foster? Does he mean Kevin Foster?
“The house will be empty. Mrs. Foster’s nephew, Nathan, has been in and out of there for the last week, helping out. He dropped her off at her sister’s house last night.”
Ben picks up a FedEx envelope that was on the corner of the kitchen counter with all the mail he brought in earlier.
The envelope is already open so he just turns it upside down, shaking the contents out.
A single sheet of paper and something long and narrow falls out.
He picks it up and examines it. “This fucking key better work.”
The PI says, “It will. What are you gonna do if it’s not in the gun safe?”
Oh shit. I slump in my chair while my mind tries to keep up with what I’m learning. No one is bringing the evidence here to Ben. He’s going to get it, and for some reason he believes it’s in a gun safe at Kevin Foster’s house.
Foster is my dad’s go-to guy and his hands are as dirty as Dad’s, but I’m still not sure how this is connected to him.
Maybe Foster helped Ben cover up his involvement in that accident in some way?
Ben paces around the kitchen while spinning that odd-shaped key in his hand. “If it’s not there it doesn’t exist, because I have looked everywhere else.”
I’m so distracted by this new information that I don’t realize anyone has pulled up to the house until I hear the doorbell. This must be one of the meetings he just mentioned. I take a quick peek at the camera I placed on the front porch, but whoever is there has already passed by it.
Ben looks out of the window. “I’ll call you back,” he says, ending the call.
He starts to move to the front door, then remembers the key in his hand.
Glancing around as if trying to decide what to do with it, he moves to my small desk next to the fridge, where I keep my calendar and pay the household bills.
He drops the key in the glass jar I use to hold pens, markers, and scissors.
The second he swings the door open, I get a clear view of who is on the other side.
My mouth drops open. “What the hell…” Standing on my front porch is my sister-in-law, Margaret.