I considered her question and took a long hard look inside myself. Would I do this for Perry if he hadn’t helped Susan? The facts seemed overwhelmingly stacked against Jake, and I couldn’t imagine what he could possibly say to tip the scale in his favor.

  “I think we owe it to Jake—and to Allie—to take a second look,” I finally said. “If convicted, he’ll definitely spend the rest of his life in prison, so the least we can do is take one day to look at it again.”

  Mallory crossed her arms in front of her chest and exhaled forcefully. Her foot was drumming the floor furiously and I knew she didn’t like it. I thought she was going to tell me to go screw myself, but she surprised me when she stood abruptly and said she’d do it.

  “Jake Boudreaux is guilty and his lawyer’s going to regret letting us talk to him,” she said, her jaw set. “I’m going to squeeze every bit of information out of that little piece of shit and I’ll have him confessing to what he did before his lawyer even knows what’s going on.”

  “Let’s hope so,” I said, “because that’ll help put the final nail in his coffin.”

  “If you ask me, we’ve got enough nails in his coffin. Evidence doesn’t lie, and all of the evidence proves he killed his wife.”

  Mallory was right about evidence not lying, but she and I both knew crime scenes could be staged and evidence planted. Of course, no one had planted the murder weapon in Jake’s hand—he had carried the knife from the scene himself, and Perry would have a hard time getting around that inconvenient truth.

  CHAPTER 14

  As I followed Mallory to the Chateau Parish Detention Center to meet with Jake Boudreaux and his attorney, my mind wandered to the young girl I had shot, the daughter I had lost, and the baby who was on the way. There was nothing quite as joyous or miraculous as the birth of a child, and I was hoping it would help put my demons to rest.

  While I was excited about being a father again, I was also worried about Susan. Someone once told me that giving birth was extremely dangerous. I’d heard that most women came close to death during the delivery, and some actually did die. The thought of losing Susan was terrifying, so I pushed it out of my mind.

  It was nine after eleven before Mallory and I were finally seated across from Jake Boudreaux and his attorney. Perry Goldsmith wore jeans and a button-down shirt, and Jake was dressed in an orange jump suit with the letters “CPDC” painted down the left leg of the suit.

  “Just so we’re all clear,” Mallory said to Perry as she began filling out the header on a Miranda rights form, “I don’t need a statement from your client. My case is complete and all of the evidence has been processed. We have more than enough evidence to convict him and I have a lot of cases that currently need my attention, so if I think for one second that he’s bullshitting us, I’m pulling the plug on this little interview.”

  “I understand, and I appreciate you giving us this opportunity for Mr. Boudreaux to help clear his name.” Perry nodded sincerely. “I promise you I wouldn’t be wasting your time if I didn’t believe in my client.”

  Mallory paused with her pen hovered over the form. “How many of your clients have professed their innocence to you, Mr. Goldsmith?”

  “Nearly all of them,” Perry said flatly.

  “And did you believe in all of them?”

  “Of course not. Most of them were lying through their teeth, but, in all of my years, I did have two or three clients in whom I did believe—and it turned out they were telling the truth.”

  Mallory slid her tongue against the inside of her lower lip as she studied Perry. Finally, she nodded and began reading Jake his rights. When the forms had been signed, she pushed them aside and pointed to a dark dome in the corner of the room.

  “Are you aware that this conversation is being recorded?” she asked Jake.

  Jake glanced up at the eye in the sky and nodded slowly. “Yes ma’am.”

  “Okay, begin by telling me what you did on the day you killed Allie, starting with when you first woke up that day to when you murdered her.”

  “I didn’t kill my wife.” Jake’s voice was strained, and I knew he was trying hard to remain calm. He glanced in my direction. “I already told y’all out there in the cane fields that I was being framed.”

  “Well, then start with what you did when you woke up,” Mallory repeated, “and don’t leave out a single detail.”

  Jake licked his lips and shifted in his chair. “Let’s see, I woke up around eight or nine, and Allie made breakfast like she usually did. We had sent Sammy to stay with my parents for a few days. You know, just until the trial was over. We couldn’t bring him to court, so we got them to babysit him.

  “We hung around the house for a couple of hours and then she told me she didn’t want to go forward with the trial. She said she wanted to drop the charges, so I took her to the district attorney’s office to fill out the paperwork.”

  “Hold up,” Mallory said. “Is it your statement that Allie just volunteered that information? That she was going to drop the charges? You really expect us to believe that?”

  “Yeah.” Jake shifted in his seat. “I mean, she was sitting there watching TV and I asked her what she would do while I was in jail—if she would wait for me, you know?”

  “No, I don’t know.” Mallory wasn’t going to make it easy for him. “What did you mean?”

  “Well, I wanted to know if she would save herself for me.” He shifted his eyes toward the floor. “I asked her if she would cheat on me while I was locked up.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “That’s when she started talking about dropping the charges.” Jake looked up into Mallory’s eyes. “She said she loved me and would never cheat on me. To prove it, she said she would drop the charges against me.”

  “Why’d Allie decide to get back together with you in the first place?” Mallory wanted to know. “According to the victims’ advocate at the DA’s office, Allie was determined to see this thing through to the end, but then all of a sudden she changed her mind. Why is that?”

  “She loved me and she missed me, and so did Sammy.” Jake lowered his head again and tears fell from his eyes. “I love both of them so much. I don’t know how we’re going to live without her.”

  I could almost hear Mallory groaning inwardly, but she was a professional interrogator and wouldn’t do anything to cause Jake to shut down.

  “Tell me about the night she was murdered, and start with the time you two got home from the DA’s office.”

  Jake scrubbed at the tears with his fists. “We…we got home sometime around four in the afternoon. I started working on the car and Allie went inside to take a nap. I needed some parts for the car, so I took a run to Auto Zone and picked up what I needed. When I got back, I went right to work again and it was about nine when I decided to go inside and…and that’s when I found her.”

  Jake hung his head and wept. I turned my attention to Mallory and, although it was subtle, I could see that she was annoyed.

  “Please continue,” she said, not allowing him time to grieve. “Tell me what happened when you found her.”

  “I…I saw her in the glow from the TV and I could see there was a knife sticking out of her. I didn’t know what to do. I put my fingers on her neck, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. I couldn’t feel anything. Her body made some kind of gargling noise, so I…I pulled the knife out of her chest.” He hesitated for a few seconds, then continued, his voice low. “I put my hand on the hole in her chest and that was when I realized there were a bunch of holes. There were so many of them that…that I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t cover all of them.”

  There was a distant look in Jake’s eyes—as though he was reliving the moment—and his voice sounded robotic. “I just sat there for what seemed like forever, holding the knife and wondering what I was supposed to do. I wanted to call 911, but I knew no one would believe me. I knew they would think I did this, so I just sat there. After a while—I really don’t know how long it was—I heard some cars coming down the road, so…so I started running.” He frowned deeply. “I don’t know why I did it, but I just started running. I panicked. I ran until I collapsed. I must’ve passed out, because the next thing I know, I was being handcuffed.”

  Mallory questioned him further, fishing more details out of him before turning to me. “Anything?” she asked.

  I nodded and leaned forward. “What’d y’all argue about that afternoon?”

  Jake’s eyes widened a little, and it seemed the question caught him off guard. Mallory glanced sideways at me, and I knew she was curious about the direction of my questioning. There had been no mention of an argument, but I had a hunch—based on earlier observations—that something had gone wrong between the two of them, and his reaction gave me all the verification I needed.

  “Well?” I asked when he didn’t respond. “What was the argument about?”

  Jake coughed to clear his throat and his eyes shifted toward his lawyer, then back to the table. “I…I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t play those games with me.” My voice was low and serious. “If you didn’t kill her, you’d better tell the truth about every little detail of that night. If you leave anything out, it’ll only bolster our murder case against you.”

  “But I didn’t kill her!” Jake’s voice was shrill. “I loved her and would never kill her.”

  “Right, but you would beat her ass with a Stillson wrench.” I leaned back and folded my arms across my chest. “This is your last chance to come clean. If you want our help, you’d better start by telling us what the argument was about. If you leave even one small detail out, we’ll throw your ass back in the prison cell and leave you there to rot. We have all the evidence we need to convict you, so we don’t need shit from you. If you’re innocent, you’ve got nothing to hide.”

  Perry Goldsmith leaned toward Jake and placed a hand on his arm. “It’s okay, Mr. Boudreaux, you can answer their questions. I know you didn’t kill your wife, but they don’t, so you’re going to have to help them help you. If you and Allie argued that night, it’s okay to go ahead and mention that fact. If they ask a question I think is inappropriate, I’ll tell you not to answer it.”

  Jake nodded slowly. “Okay, we did argue. She said she signed the drop paper, but she said the prosecutor said it didn’t matter. I…I…she was supposed to say she lied, because I knew that was the only way they would consider dropping the charges, but she said she didn’t say that.”

  Jake paused. After a few long seconds, I asked if he became angry when he’d learned that Allie hadn’t told the prosecutor she’d lied.

  “I…I mean, I guess so. But that’s not what started the argument. I was telling her she should’ve told them she lied and I was looking at her while I was talking.” He stopped to lick his lips. “I guess I was looking away from the road for too long, because she started yelling at me to slow down and to watch where I was going. She started crying and we began arguing more. It got kind of loud in the car.”

  “Go on,” I said when he stopped talking again.

  “When we got home I told her we had some things to discuss, and I told her to go in the house,” Jake said. “Instead of heading for the house, she ran off into the cane fields as though she thought I was going to hurt her or something. I called out to her and told her to come back, but she didn’t listen.”

  “What did you do next?”

  Jake shrugged. “I just left.”

  “Do you expect us to believe you didn’t chase after her?”

  “I don’t care what you believe—that’s what happened.”

  “Where’d you go?” I asked.

  “I went to the Watering Hole across the bayou.”

  “How long did you stay there?”

  Jake described drinking several beers over the course of three hours and then leaving the bar around seven o’clock, at which time he stopped at the local Auto Zone and bought a radiator for Allie’s car on his way home.

  “I wanted to make her happy.” Jake rubbed his face. “I knew it would cheer her up if I fixed the car, so I set about doing that when I got home.”

  “Do you have a receipt from the Auto Zone?”

  Jake shook his head. “I threw it away when I walked out the store.”

  “What about a credit card or debit card receipt?”

  “I don’t have credit cards. I paid cash.”

  I made a note of that and then checked the timeline I was keeping in my notes. “What time did you get home?”

  “Oh, it must’ve been quarter after seven, seven-thirty.”

  “Where was Allie when you got home?”

  “I don’t know. I went straight to working on the car. It wasn’t until I went inside that…that I saw her on the sofa.” Jake swallowed hard. “It was so horrible—the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “And what time was that?”

  Jake shrugged. “I guess it took about two hours to change the radiator, and then I washed my hands by the hosepipe and went inside. Nine-thirty, ten, maybe?”

  “Why’d you run, Jake?” I asked. “Why’d you hit the sugarcane?”

  “I knew y’all would blame me for her death, especially after I touched the knife.” Jake paused, and then looked over at me. “How’d you know about our argument?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You asked what we argued about, and I’m wondering how you knew about the argument. I didn’t tell anyone, and she’s gone, so how’d you know?” Jake’s tone was almost accusatory.

  “It’s not important.” The truth of the matter was that I’d taken a gamble and it paid off, but it hadn’t resulted in a confession. Instead, we’d gotten more denials. “If I’m hearing you correctly, you went inside the house for the first time at around nine-thirty or ten o’clock and that’s when you found Allie deceased on the sofa. Is that correct?”

  Jake nodded his head slowly. “Yes, sir.”

  “Can you tell me again why you pulled the knife from her chest?”

  “I…I don’t know.” He swallowed again. “I heard the gargling sound and I guess I thought it would help—that it was the right thing to do. It…it just didn’t look right sticking out of her. I mean, I knew it was too late and that she was already gone, but I had to take it out of her. It just didn’t seem right to leave it there.”

  I knew it was highly possible he was fabricating this story just to explain away his prints being on the knife. I grilled him a bit longer—for at least an hour—and then asked him a question I often asked my suspects. His response was unusual.

  “What do you think should happen to the person who did this to Allie?” I asked.

  “If you ask me,” Jake said, thoughtful, “I think they should get the death penalty—and it should be slow and cruel, just like she died.”

  CHAPTER 15

  “How’d you know Jake and Allie argued that night?” Mallory asked when we were standing alone in the shell parking lot outside the Chateau Parish Detention Center.

  “Allie was sleeping on the sofa,” I said simply. “I figured the only reason she’d sleep on the sofa was if she was pissed off at Jake.”

  “Is that what Susan does when she’s mad at you?”

  “No, she’d make me sleep on the sofa.”

  Mallory nodded vigorously. She and Susan had been friends for many years, so she knew the strength of my wife’s character.

  “You know,” I said slowly, “I’m starting to get the feeling Jake didn’t kill his wife.”

  Mallory’s head whipped around. “And on what evidence are you basing that?”

  “No evidence, just a hunch.” I shot a thumb toward the jail. “Did you hear what he said when I asked what the penalty should be for the person responsible for killing his wife?”

  “Yeah…so?”

  “Had he done it, he wouldn’t have said the penalty should be death. Usually, when suspects are guilty, they’ll suggest a lenient sentence, while innocent suspects will suggest harsh penalties. Hell, I’ve interrogated a few murder suspects who said the guilty person should get probation or community service, and that’s usually a good sign they did it.”

  “It’s hardly scientific,” Mallory countered.

  “True, but my guess is that we’ll find supporting evidence to back up his claim.”

  That didn’t seem to please Mallory and she turned to walk away.

  “Want to check out the Auto Zone?” I asked, following Mallory to our vehicles. It was a little after two o’clock and I was extremely hungry, but it had been nineteen days since the murder and we’d be lucky if the business still had surveillance footage from that night.

  “Sure, but I’m swinging through a drive-thru first.” She tugged on her belt to show it was loose. “If I don’t eat something, my pistol will pull my pants down to my ankles.”

  Glad to see that Mallory wasn’t mad, I slipped into my Tahoe and followed her to a fast food joint. I ordered a burger and fries and ate on the road. I was finished by the time we reached the Auto Zone that was located in Central Chateau. We parked against the building and strode through the doors. An employee smiled warmly and asked if he could be of assistance.

  “We need to speak with a manager,” Mallory said. “It’s about a customer who came in here on the twelfth of October.”

  The employee nodded and hurried through a door on the back wall and disappeared in the shadows between rows of supplies. When he returned, a short blonde lady was following him. The name badge on her shirt told us she was the manager and that her name was Libby.

  I stood back while Mallory took the lead. She explained what we were after and Libby listened intently. After Mallory had laid it all out, Libby frowned.

  “We might have footage from that night, but it’ll be a long shot,” Libby said, leading the way through a maze of shelving units toward a back office. “What time did you say he came into the store?”

  Mallory studied her notes. “He left the Watering Hole at around seven o’clock and came straight here—supposedly.”

 

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