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Molly nodded, dread descending over her like a dark cloud. “This is really, really bad.”
Bayou Gauche, Louisiana
FRIDAY, JULY 29, 8:45 A.M.
Gabe’s brain was spinning. Lamont Ducote. An assistant district attorney of New Orleans.
The man who was supposed to be putting killers away.
He’d killed Nadia Hall.
Did he kill my father, too?
There was silence around the table, expressions ranging from shock to rage to confusion.
Gabe felt all of that, all at once. He didn’t need to be a PI to know that if someone that high in the food chain was involved, it would be covered up. The alternative would be chaos in the entire New Orleans justice system.
The number of cases that might have been compromised was simply staggering to consider.
If Lamont Ducote was guilty, he’d be hard as hell to take down.
If Lamont Ducote was guilty, Gabe would do exactly that or go to his grave trying.
“An ADA?” Cicely finally asked. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure that Lucille Ducote is dead,” Molly said. “I’m sure that her husband is an ADA. As for her inheriting Madame Fluffy, I can’t see why this veterinarian would lie. We’ll check out his story, of course, but for now I’m assuming his word is good.”
Cicely turned to Willa Mae. “This isn’t the same ADA you talked to yesterday, is it?”
“No, that was ADA Cardozo,” Willa Mae said. “I have to admit, I didn’t see this coming.”
Xavier had been standing, but now sat in his chair with a loud thump. “The ADA killed his mistress and gave his wife her hand-me-down dog? What kind of person does that?”
“The kind of person who has a mistress to start with,” Willa Mae said.
“Especially the kind that kills said mistress,” Cicely murmured.
“He wasn’t an ADA back during Katrina,” Burke said. “I’m not sure what he was doing back before Katrina, but we’re sure as hell going to find out.”
Cicely still looked shell-shocked. “Poor Rocky. I wonder if he knew?”
“I don’t think so,” Antoine said. “I haven’t found anything suggesting that he did. But he knew something was off. Everything is encrypted or coded or... simply not there. He’s referenced another file, but I can’t find it on his hard drive. It’s possible it’s been written over so that I can’t get it back. I’ll keep trying.”
Gabe wasn’t sure if what his father had known even mattered anymore. “If Ducote killed Nadia...” He swallowed and squared his shoulders. “Did he also kill my father? Could he have been the man in the hoodie?”
“It’s possible,” Molly said. “But we’ll need more proof than a hand-me-down dog.”
Burke pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have to tell André. Hopefully he’ll have some ideas.”
Molly took Gabe’s hand and held it tight. “But at least now we know something. Lamont Ducote’s mistress got pregnant. He killed her and maybe killed her ob-gyn to cover the trail. At some point he may have even killed his own wife, because a whole lot of people are shooting themselves in the head.”
“Wait,” Xavier said quietly, and everyone turned to look at him. He’d borrowed Carlos’s phone and now looked up from whatever he’d been staring at, his expression troubled. “I found his photo. He looks like the man I saw that night—or what I remember, anyway—except he doesn’t have a scar. The man who killed Nadia definitely had a scar. And Ducote doesn’t.”
Gabe’s stomach clenched. They’d been so close. Back to the drawing board.
“Let me see that.” Carlos took his phone back and squinted at the photo, then pinched his screen to enlarge it. “He doesn’t have one now. This photo is from earlier this year, but look at his cheek, X. Look closely.”
Xavier leaned over, frowning as he stared. “There’s a line on his face. But it’s not the same scar. It was big and wide and... terrifying. I remember the scar.”
