Garner Page 2

  Sabina opened the folder she’d been clutching and held it out for him to see. After she’d explained the significance of the fingerprint in the photo and how she’d come to have the photo in her possession, she raised her gaze to his face, searching his eyes for a response.

  “Very interesting.”

  “You believe me?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? In Les Baux, police corruption is about as common as crawfish étouffée. But if I were you, I wouldn’t stop there. The gumbo and jambalaya can be found in the D.A.’s office.”

  Her luscious lips quirked into a smile, despite her desperation. “Don’t tell me. You’re a chef.”

  “No. Just a public defender who likes to eat. And I know what my father was capable of.” Garner felt the old familiar tightening in his gut at the thought of his father and what he did to clear cases and win himself another term in office. The evidence he manipulated. The innocent people he hurt. Innocent people like the woman before him. And maybe even her cousin. “And let’s just say your cousin would have been an ideal scapegoat.”

  A little crease formed between her eyebrows, as if she was mulling over his admission and formulating a plan. “You said you’re a public defender? That means you defend people who can’t pay, right?”

  His breath hitched in his throat. He knew where her thoughts were leading. And he couldn’t go there. “I can’t take your cousin’s case. Although I passed the bar in Louisiana, too, I’m a public defender up in the St. Louis area. Not here. I only came back to Les Baux to clean out my father’s house and settle his affairs. I’ll be here just a couple of weeks.”

  “But isn’t this part of your father’s affairs? He convinced a jury to convict my cousin for a murder he didn’t commit. Convinced them to give him the death penalty.”

  His gut clenched. His father’s lack of ethics and habit of scapegoating people who couldn’t defend themselves was the reason Garner had become a public defender. The reason he’d devoted his life to looking out for the little guy.

  “You could work on his case just while you’re here. Help me get a start. You wouldn’t have to do any leg-work. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. We’ll work together. Please.”

  Just what he needed. To work side by side with this beautiful, exotic woman. Days going over court transcripts. Late nights drafting requests for appeal. His groin tightened.

  Damn. Garner was in trouble. And standing here—close enough to smell her fragrance, close enough to reach out and touch her—was only digging him in deeper.

  “Maybe I can help another way. My father’s files are still in the attic. It’s a mess up there. But we can take a look and see what he has on the case.”

  A small spark of hope ignited in her eyes, making them seem all the more electric.

  “And I’ll take you to see Leon tomorrow morning.” The offer escaped his lips before he could bite it back.

  She raised her eyebrows in question. “Who?”

  “Leon Thibault. He was my father’s chief deputy. Now he’s the district attorney in this parish. If anyone knows what went on ten years ago, it’s Leon. Maybe we can pry some answers out of him.”

  “Thank you.”

  He forced himself to look away from her eyes, and swinging the door wide, he ushered her inside with a wave of his hand. “Don’t thank me yet. We haven’t found anything. And we might not.”

  She stepped past him and into the foyer. “I’m thanking you for your kindness. I haven’t found much kindness lately. It’s a welcome gift.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone being unkind to you.”

  A sad smile flitted over her lips. “Unfortunately I don’t have to imagine. People are unkind to Gypsies as a matter of course, it seems.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  She crooked a slender brow in question.

  “The night we first met. At the carnival. The Breton boys were being unkind, if I remember correctly.”

  Her lips curved in another smile. But this wasn’t one of sadness. This one was intimate with shared memory. “You saved me from their bullying. That’s what I remember. You stood up for me.”

  “I couldn’t believe they backed down and didn’t just beat me to a pulp. I was so scared, I must have been shaking for an hour afterward.”

  “You didn’t seem scared. I remember thinking how incredibly brave you were.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, I was scared, all right. The only time I was more scared was once when I dove into the bayou on a dare. Thought I was going to drown before the alligators even had a chance to get hold of me.”

  Reaching out, she brushed his arm with her fingertips. “I guess I have even more reason to thank you, then.”

  The warmth of her touch lapped at his defenses. He was crazy, looking into this case. Crazier than when he’d stood up to the Breton boys or dived into the bayou. Hell, being around her was more along the lines of diving into shark-infested ocean waters, no land in sight. But he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to be around her, wanted to be around the color and life she exuded. Color and life he could never possess, but that he drank in, anyway, like a thirsty man drinks saltwater, knowing it will only make things worse.

  Much worse.

  ______

  Even with the air conditioner blasting, the courthouse was warm and sticky. Sitting next to Garner in the hallway outside the district attorney’s office, Sabina lifted her heavy hair off her neck with one hand. Damp tendrils framed her face and tickled her cheeks. At least she wasn’t wearing a business suit like the deputy district attorneys rushing back to court after lunch recesses. How a person could wear something so confining in this bayou heat, she’d never understand.

  Dressed in a polo shirt and khakis, Garner seemed very cool, very relaxed. He’d helped her a lot already, staying up with her sorting through his father’s files until the wee hours of the morning. Picking her up before noon at the carnival to drive her to lunch at the Bayou Vue Café in Houma and then to the district attorney’s office. And waiting with her now.

  Sabina knew Garner was dealing with issues of his own, issues that likely convinced him to help her with Carlo’s case, issues to do with his father that she couldn’t even begin to understand. But something inside her wanted to believe there was more to his helping her than his need to right his father’s wrongs. There was a bond between them. A bond far too strong to have been forged in the few hours they’d known each other. And she wanted to believe he felt that bond as strongly as she did.

  Shaking her head, Sabina chased the ridiculous thoughts from her mind. She wasn’t a silly romantic girl anymore. Not as she’d been when she’d first laid eyes on Garner. For better or worse, she was now a woman. A woman who’d tasted the bitter flavor of failure, of rejection. A woman who didn’t want to taste it again.

  And Garner Rousseau obviously lived with his own pain, his own agony. It was in his injured aura, raw as an open wound. Something had happened to Garner Rousseau, too. Something horrible. And she could only hope her aunt’s curse wasn’t the cause.

  “It looks like some things never change,” Garner said, bringing Sabina out of her reverie.

  She followed his gaze down the hallway. A gray-haired man in an impeccably fitted suit strode quickly away from them, as if he was making an escape out the back door. “Who is that?”

  Garner’s lips drew into a line. “State Senator Richard Granville.”

  “The husband of the woman my cousin Carlo was convicted of murdering?”

  “The same. He was always tight with my father. Apparently he still has business with Leon.”

  Sabina didn’t have time to digest what implications Richard Granville’s appearance might have on the district attorney’s willingness to listen to her before the receptionist’s lilting voice interrupted her thoughts. “Mr. Rousseau? Mr. Thibault will see you now.”

  Garner unfolded his powerful body from the chair and held out a hand to Sabina. “Ready?”

  She took his hand and stood, clut
ching a folder in one hand, the copy of the fingerprint photo tucked securely inside. This was it. Maybe her last chance of saving Carlo from the injection scheduled to take his life. She had to focus on that. Not on the way Garner’s touch made her feel. Not on silly notions of a mysterious bond they shared. This meeting was the important thing, and she couldn’t blow it.

  She released his hand and smoothed her palm over the straight black skirt she’d dug from the back of her trailer’s closet this morning. She’d bought the skirt when her former husband, Joe, had insisted they shun everything Gypsy: the clothing, their names, and even the Gypsy purity code of marime. Right before he’d decided she was also one of those Gypsy things to be shunned. Raising her chin, she pushed past humiliation from her mind and faced the long hall to the district attorney’s office. “I’m ready.”

  Garner nodded. “You’ll be great.”

  The district attorney was leaning a hip on his wide mahogany desk and flipping through a file when they entered his office. A wide nose, round, deep-brown eyes and the ruddy complexion of a Cajun who enjoyed his food and drink, Leon Thibault was younger than Sabina had expected, though he was probably one of those men whose age was hard to discern. And although the aura surrounding him was muddy and indistinct, a seemingly genuine smile lifted the corners of his lips as his gaze landed on Garner.

  “Garner, my boy. How are you holding up?”

  Garner crossed the room and took Leon’s offered hand. “I’m doing well, Leon. You know my father and I were never close.”

  “I don’t think Claude was very close to anyone, truth be told. I just worried that his death would be hard on you on top of everything else that has happened.”

  Pain registered in Garner’s aura. Drawing a deep breath, he waved Leon’s words aside hastily, as if eager to rid the room of the utterance. “That’s all in the past, Leon. All behind me. What we’ve come to talk to you about today is very much part of the present.”

  Thibault nodded and for the first time since they’d entered the room, his gaze landed on Sabina. “Though it started in the past, from the sound of your message this morning. You want to talk about the Gypsy murder, is that right?”

  A damp shiver crept over Sabina’s skin, following the path of Leon Thibault’s gaze. She nodded. “I have new evidence. Evidence that shows that someone besides Carlo Mustov murdered Theresa Granville.”

  Thibault’s bushy brows crooked toward his receding hairline. “Evidence? Of another murderer? Excuse my doubt, Miz King, isn’t it? But I worked on that case, and that Gypsy boy was guilty as sin.” He slurred the words as if to imply all Gypsies were guilty merely for being Gypsy.

  Sabina hated referring to non-Gypsies by the term gadje. Even though the term wasn’t inherently disrespectful, it seemed bitter. A reaction to the oppression and prejudice the Romany people—or Gypsies—faced over the centuries. But in some cases—bigots like Leon Thibault—she felt the term was justified.

  She raised her chin and looked him straight in the eye. “My cousin Carlo is innocent. And I have proof. Evidence the police withheld.”

  “Let me see this evidence.”

  Swallowing hard, Sabina handed him the manila folder.

  He flipped the cover open and reached for a pair of reading glasses on his desk. He perched the spectacles on his nose and studied the photo and report in front of him. Raising his gaze, he peered at her over the lenses and shook his head.

  Sabina craned her neck over the edge of the folder and pointed to the photo. “It’s a bloody fingerprint on the brooch. Theresa Granville’s ruby-and-diamond brooch. The one she was wearing right before she died.”

  “I can see that. The brooch that was found in your cousin’s trailer.”

  “Yes. But the fingerprint doesn’t belong to Carlo or Theresa. Someone else touched that brooch. Someone else had Theresa Granville’s blood on his hands. Someone else killed her.”

  Thibault shook his head. “You’re getting ahead of yourself, Miz King. This fingerprint means nothing.”

  His words hit her like a kick to the head. “Nothing? This fingerprint means Carlo is innocent. He’s going to die for something he didn’t do.”

  “Nonsense.”

  Garner stepped to Sabina’s side. “What are you saying, Leon? This seems like pretty good exculpatory evidence to me.”

  Thibault tore his hard glare from her and focused on Garner. His mouth turned up in the corners and his eyes softened as if he was addressing a favorite nephew. “Yes, under normal circumstances, it would be. But this is far from normal.”

  “Far from normal?” Sabina parroted. “What do you mean?”

  The impatient glare returned to his eyes, along with a cocky grin. “I mean that evidence like this might be enough to convince the appellate court to grant a new trial…if it was real.”

  If it was real? Anxiety gnawed in the pit of Sabina’s stomach. “The police had this photo ten years ago, but buried it. It was sent to the lab for identification last week.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the fingerprint was identified?”

  “No. They couldn’t find a match. But they determined it wasn’t Carlo’s print.”

  “Of course it wasn’t. And did the lab determine the blood type of this bloody fingerprint?”

  “No. They didn’t have a chance to. Someone had wiped the brooch clean. This photo is all that’s left.” Why was he asking all these questions? The photo said it all. “The police wanted to convict my cousin. When they couldn’t identify the print on the brooch as Carlo’s, they wiped it off the jewelry and hid all evidence that it existed.”

  “A logical assumption if you don’t know the entire story. Let me fill you in on something, Miz King. The print wasn’t identified because it wasn’t supposed to be identified. And ten years ago the police didn’t have to test the blood.”

  She shook her head in confusion. She wasn’t following him at all. “Wasn’t supposed to be identified? Didn’t have to test the blood? What are you talking about?”

  “I was at Carlo Mustov’s trailer that night, Miz King. I saw the jewelry when the police found it. And, trust me, there was no bloody fingerprint on that brooch.”

  Sabina’s heart froze. “No. That can’t be true. If it is, how do you explain this?” She held up the photo of the fingerprint.

  “The fingerprint wasn’t hidden by the police to send your cousin to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Miz King. The fingerprint was planted on the brooch in order to get him acquitted.”

  Sabina opened her mouth but couldn’t force a sound from her throat. She just stared at Thibault, his words scrolling over and over in her mind. The aura around him was still muddy. He was lying. He had to be lying.

  Garner skewered Thibault with a skeptical look. “Why would someone want to do that, Leon? Mustov didn’t exactly have a lot of friends in the police department.”

  “No. The man was a troublemaker. But there was a detective on the case who was sympathetic to the Gypsies. I believe he was trying to protect Carlo Mustov.”

  “Who? Give me his name.”

  Thibault nodded. “Certainly. Maybe you should talk to him. See for yourself.” He glanced back down at the file on his desk, paging through it until he found what he wanted. “The detective’s name is Louis Boudreaux.”

  Sabina’s heart hitched and then fell somewhere in the vicinity of her toes. Louis Boudreaux, Wyatt’s father.

  Thibault turned back to her. “Let me guess—he’s the one who gave you this picture.”

  Sabina didn’t answer. She’d be damned if she’d let Thibault wrap his lies into a neat little bundle and tie a ribbon around them. “I don’t believe you. I think you’re covering something up.”

  He shrugged, palms out in front of him, signaling he had nothing to hide. “Talk to Louis Boudreaux if you don’t believe me. Ask him.”

  “He died about a week ago.”

  Leon Thibault’s brows arched toward his ha
irline as if he hadn’t heard the news, but judging from the steady murkiness of his aura, he wasn’t surprised in the least. He handed the photo back to Sabina.

  “I’m sorry I can’t tell you what you obviously want to hear, but there was no bloody fingerprint on the jewelry or anything else we found in your cousin’s trailer. If you don’t believe me, I can get you a copy of the crime-scene report.” Casting an apologetic glance in Garner’s direction, he walked to his office door and opened it, signaling the end of their discussion. “Carlo Mustov is guilty of Theresa Granville’s murder. And as a result, he will die.”

  ______

  “He’s lying,” Sabina said.

  Garner gave her what he hoped was an understanding nod, then started his car, and pulled out of the courthouse parking lot.

  He heard the tinkling of her earrings as she shook her head and repeated, “I know he’s lying.”

  Garner focused on the asphalt road ahead, flanked by wide ditches of water, cattails and wild cane. “You saw the crime-scene report. Leon was at Carlo’s trailer when the police searched it, just like he said. And like he said, there was no fingerprint found.”

  “Maybe he was there. But he’s lying about the fingerprint.”

  “How do you know?”

  She shifted in her seat and turned her head, looking out the side window at the mixture of humble trailers, grand brick houses and stretches of forest and swamp rushing by on the outskirts of town. “I just know.”

  “Women’s intuition?”

  “It’s kind of like that.”

  “What is?”

  “I see things that tell me how someone is feeling.”

  “Things?”

  “Light. Energy. It radiates from people and changes color and intensity depending on how they feel.”

  “Auras. You see auras.”

  “Yes.”

  Garner had heard of the bands of light that supposedly surrounded every living thing. He wasn’t sure he believed in auras, but he’d seen stranger things in his life. He supposed it could be possible.

  “It’s real.”

  He snapped his gaze to hers. “What?”

  “It’s real.” She shrugged, her cheeks coloring softly. “I could see your doubt.”