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Things were looking really bad for their case.
“No further questions, Your Honor.”
* * * *
Staring at her laptop’s screen, Ashley felt every tick of the clock. They were running out of time.
“Anything?” Jena was also typing away on her own laptop.
“No. Damn. What are we missing?”
“I wish I knew, Ashley. The only thing we’ve got is Anna said he had a Cajun accent. But you’ve seen the recorded deposition. He doesn’t have one now.”
Cajun accent. That’s the key.
Ashley typed in “Cajun accent” in her browser. The pages brought up were a Wikipedia article and some YouTube videos. Nothing helpful. She clicked on the Wikipedia article. There was a map of Louisiana on the right side of the page with the counties highlighted where the dialect was spoken the most. But she and Jena had checked those counties and all the other counties in the state.
What are we missing?
She looked at the map again.
A text came in from Nic. Walter Steele is taking the stand now.
“Damn it.” She told Jena Nic’s message.
“I’m sorry, Ashley. I wish we could have found something.”
“Wait.” She looked at the map of Louisiana on her screen. “That’s got to be it.” She typed a new search into her browser. Where can the Cajun accent be heard?
The page that appeared was an article by a professor of linguistics at Tulane titled “The Geography of the Cajun Accent.”
She scanned the man’s research and nearly jumped for joy when she read, “many Creoles and Cajuns migrated to Southeast Texas, and in especially large numbers in the Beaumont and Port Arthur area.”
“We’ve been looking in the wrong state, Jena.” She showed her the article.
Jena nodded and went to work. Most states required a fee to get a copy of a birth certificate, whether electronic or in print. Texas was no exception. But Jena had skills to get around that. Two minutes later they were looking at the birth certificate of the man they’d been trying to find for weeks.
“Text Nic.” Ashley jumped out of her chair. What they’d found wasn’t enough to win the case, but with the right cross-examination of the imposter, it could be. “Tell him I’m coming.”
“I will. Go.”
She nodded and ran out the door. Her mind was racing as fast as her feet.
Walter David Steele, not Walter Leon Steele.
She passed the Black Dragon statue and continued running through the park.
Born February 9th in Beaumont, not August 11th in Destiny.
The man suing Jennifer for the ranch was an imposter. It all fit now. Trollinger had found the man in Florida. Only three years older than Bill Steele’s brother, so the age wouldn’t be hard to disprove. He also had very few records on file. The only difference was their initials, and that wouldn’t have been found out had she not printed a copy of the property tax record with the man’s real initial. Trollinger must have realized the mistake and corrected it. How she was able to get official records changed still baffled Ashley, but Jena assured her it could be done.
But even with this new birth certificate, we won’t win unless we can trip the man up during the cross.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Green Dragon statue, which was said to bring luck. Ashley whispered a prayer for Jennifer as she ran out of the park, crossed East Street, and hurried up the courthouse steps.
* * * *
Nic saw Ashley, a little disheveled, enter the courtroom. He’d shown Jena’s text to Sylas and Phoebe a moment ago. Ashley and Jena had found a birth certificate that gave them a reason to hope.
