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“Listen, I don’t know where the leak came from, but I’ve got your warrant. There’s some interesting stuff on Marie Trichel’s whereabouts. You were right to keep Judge Keller out of it. Can you come over here to my office? I don’t trust anybody at this point.”
I’d put him on speaker so Carly could hear. She raised her eyebrows. “We’ll be there in a few minutes. Carly, my associate, will be with me. I know for certain she’s to be trusted.”
“Tanner, don’t say a word toanyoneabout where you’re going, and tell Carly the same.”
Basically, Alan was telling them totrust no one.
So, after he’d hung up with Alan Litrell, Tanner spoke, “Let’s take his advice and not tell Lisa and Imogene where we’re headed. Only because he said to keep it quiet.”
Carly nodded. “Okay. We can fill them in later.”
The fewer people who knew what was happening here, the easier to keep a lid on the information that was spread. “Let’s tell them we’ve got an errand and leave it at that.”
Imogene wanted to know where they were headed.
“Just checking on something.” Tanner didn’t cave on telling them.
*
Carly
I hated sneakingaround and keeping secrets, but our situation clearly required that we make sure nothing got out until we found out who or where the leak came from. It might even be a phone tap, so saying nothing was best. As we headed over to the district attorney’s office, I couldn’t help but wonder how Judge Keller was involved in all this. He was my newly discovered sister, Allison’s father, we’d found out. The man who’d gotten Momma pregnant when she was sixteen.
Alan’s office was in the courthouse building—as were Judge Keller’s and Judge Watkins’s—so security was as tight here as anywhere. Now, it appeared there was a clash within the city’s governmental forces. And judges always outranked other officers of the court. Fortunately, we had Judge Watkins on our side in this since he issued the warrant.
Once inside, we made our way toward the DA’s office quickly. My heart pounded as if I were racing against the clock for something. Once again I reflected that this felt like something out of a suspense movie. A door opened down the corridor and someone waved to us. “Come here. Quickly.” It was the DA’s assistant.
We entered the outer office, where the DA’s assistant, Jeff locked the door behind us, flipped the sign to “closed”, and then turned off the lights and lowered the blinds, before ushering us into the inner office of Alan Littrell.
He was waiting to shut the door behind us. “Thanks for coming right over. If this wasn’t shaping up to be such a strange situation, I wouldn’t have seen the need for such cloak-and-dagger behavior.”
“This is Carly Bertrand, my associate.” Tanner introduced us.
Alan nodded. “No one knew you were coming here?”
We both shook our heads.
He flipped the lights off and turned on his computer for presentation on a pulldown screen against the far wall of the office. “Okay, here’s what we’ve found from the sharing of the computer files released from the Rapides Parish courthouse just an hour ago.”
There was a document signed off on by Judge Keller that allowed someone permission to become Marie’s legal guardian. But the name had been redacted—as in, there was a solid black line marked through the name. “What the hell—?” Tanner growled.
“You see why such expedience was necessary. It appears there’s collusion to commit Ms. Trichel to an institution between the judge and someone else. This seems especially important because somebody is trying to cover it up.”
“Where did they put Marie?” Not to mention, why? I was barely keeping up.
“It appears she’s a patient at the Central Hospital in Pine Hill.”
“But that place has been pretty much shut down for years. It’s mostly used for the criminally insane now.” I was aghast at the idea they’d put Marie there. “Is she mentally incompetent?”
“There’s nothing to lead us to believe that’s the case except a doctor’s signature. A Dr. H. R. Miller. But until then, nothing. We’re working on pulling her medical records with the warrant.”
“As far as Pine Hill is concerned, there’s a small area on the hospital campus dedicated to research for elderly patients with different types of dementia. It was endowed by a family many years ago specifically for that purpose, so it continues to operate as such. This is apparently where Marie has been a patient since her husband passed.”
“Is there a way to go and see her? Try and get some idea of her condition?” This was screaming conspiracy…more by the minute. But I didn’t understand why the judge and whomever he colluded with would do such a thing.
“What’s the connection between Marie and Judge Keller?” Tanner said it out loud.
“Clearly the judge and the mystery guardian have gotten wind that you’re asking questions about Marie. The threat must have come from one of them. The safest thing to do would be to take custody of Marie Trichel if she’s in a condition to travel. But legally, someone is her guardian, so he or she must authorize any visitors or transfers.”
