“Well,” Sam said. “I suppose the blows, bullets and knife wounds could have triggered a reaction. But if I had to guess, and this really is speculation until we get further lab results, I’d say he was poisoned with something that caused heart failure. I found excess saliva as if he’d foamed at the mouth. I sent blood work off to the lab.”
Wow, Clareese thought. Someone really wanted this man dead.
“Thanks, Sam.”
Clareese hung up and decided to make a quick stop at the boarding house where Billy Joe had lived, which was also on the way back to Town Hall. She wanted to make sure the owner Thera Gordon didn’t move anything in the victim’s room.
Although Billy Joe had been in New Iberia for more than a year, he had never moved out of his original room. Clareese wondered why someone who made a decent salary hadn’t gotten his own place, though Thera’s renowned cooking and sweet disposition had kept more than one boarder from leaving.
When Clareese knocked on the front door of the boarding house, a sobbing Thera greeted her.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Thera said into her wad of tissues. “He was such a good boarder. He helped me around the house whenever I needed it. Never drank or smoked. Always paid his rent on time, the first of every month.”
“Did Billy Joe pay his rent by check?” Clareese asked.
“Yes, of course. He was never more than a day late and his checks never bounced.”
“Can I see his room?”
“Of course.”
When Thera took Clareese to Billy Joe’s room, she was surprised to discover how barren it was, even for a bachelor. A few of Billy Joe’s clothes hung in the closet and one dresser drawer contained his undergarments and socks. But there were no personal mementos or pictures of people.
Clareese slapped on some gloves and did a quick search. The dresser and desk revealed nothing but a few receipts for coffee at Verna’s, a dry cleaner’s receipt from the local Sun Dry and quite a few receipts for restaurants and bars from the big city. He must have been a frequent visitor to New Orleans, which was surprising given that it was over two hours away.
At the door, Clareese turned back to the heartbroken Thera. “I don’t suppose you have a copy of an old check? I didn’t find a checkbook or financial statement of any kind in his room.”
“Oh my. I guess I do. Today is the second. I haven’t yet made it to the bank.” She turned, hurried to her office and returned with a check.
“First Bank of New Orleans,” Clareese said.
Another connection to the city.
“Do you know if Billy Joe moved here from New Orleans?” she asked.
Thera shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think he said he was born and raised in California where his family lives. I guess I never really asked.”
Clareese tucked the check in her pocket promising Thera she’d return it after making a copy. Clareese needed to search his office again, call the bank and investigate a new name she saw on the check. William Joseph Randolph. No one around town had ever called him anything but Billy Joe.
She returned to Billy Joe’s office, searched his desk again and found the checkbook in his desk drawer. There was also a statement from the bank showing William Randolph had a savings account of $275,601. If these were the funds for the clinic, Clareese wondered why the man hadn’t set up a charitable account to avoid taxes. And if this truly was his own personal savings account, why did he live like a pauper?
As she rummaged through the drawers, she found something she was afraid might be the answer. It was a plane ticket confirmation email printed in William Joseph Randolph’s name dated for three days from now. The ticket was for Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. Clareese would have thought it was a planned vacation, except for the fact it was one-way.
Was the man planning to skip town with the clinic money? Had someone found out and killed him in anger?
A call to the bank threw more fuel on the fire. An executive reported that William Randolph had closed his savings account and transferred the funds to a foreign bank.
Clareese now sat at Billy Joe’s desk, wondering how she would break it to the town that they’d been duped. The saintly Billy Joe had not been the person everyone thought he was. But who had found out? And why the overkill?
The door creaked open. Tommy Lee stood on the threshold, tears streaming down his face. Clareese got up and went to the teenager, pulling him inside the office, sitting him down on a chair, and then fetching a tissue.
“I’m sorry, Tommy. I know that Billy Joe was a friend and you’re sad.”
Tommy’s head began to shake back and forth, gently at first, then more vigorously. He grabbed his middle and leaned forward in the chair.
Clareese tried to give him a comforting pat, but she wasn’t surprised when Tommy Lee shrank away from the touch. She knew he didn’t like anyone to get too close physically.
“He… he said he’d teach me. I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Tommy was hiccupping as he talked, close to hysteria.
Hurt Billy Joe? Oh lord. Had Tommy been the murderer?
Clareese didn’t say anything. Silence was a better tool at this point than anything she might say to alarm him. The boy would get out what he came to say if she gave him time.
“He promised me he’d teach me,” the boy repeated. “I was just practicing. I tried to save him.”
What on earth was the boy talking about?
“Billy Joe promised to teach you what?” Clareese said, careful to keep her tone even.
“I’m tired of being the water boy. I wanted to play. I should have waited.”
Ah. Billy Joe must have told Tommy he’d coach him. A picture of the bat formed in her head.
“Coach Randolph was going to teach you to play baseball? Well, that’s good, Tommy. I’m sure you’d be great. Waited for what, though?”
“To bat the ball… He said he’d give me lessons, but not until tomorrow. He said he was going hunting today with his friend, but he’d teach me tomorrow. I should have waited.”
Clareese pictured the bruising on Billy Joe’s head and arm.
“Did you have an accident, Tommy?”
The tears and hiccupping picked up pace.
“I had… I had the bat with me. I just wanted to show him I could do it. I didn’t mean to hit him. He fell down there.” Tommy pointed to a spot on the floor, a few feet away from where the body was found.
Clareese got a second chair and sat across from the boy, waiting for some of the hysteria to pass. After five minutes and a few more tissues, she asked: “Tell me what happened, Tommy. What happened to the coach?”
“I swung the bat real hard. He fell down and bumped his head on that table. His rifle fell down with him, and I heard a shot.”
Tommy looked directly at Clareese for the first time, his tear-filled eyes begging for understanding. “I thought I could save him. I thought I could help.”
“What did you do after he fell and the rifle went off, Tommy?”
“I done what they always do on T.V. I got out the knife my grandpa gave me, and I tried to get the bullet out to save him, but I kept dropping it. He started cussing at me something fierce, just like my papa does when he’s real mad. I didn’t like the shouting, but I didn’t talk back. I never do. I just done what I do for Daddy. I got him his brown bottle.”
Clareese looked around the office again, trying to spot a brown bottle.
“Where did you get a brown bottle, Tommy? Where is it now?”
“I left it in that bathroom,” Tommy pointed to a nearby door.
Clareese knew it led to a small washroom. She got up and walked to the room, where she saw a couple of bottles sitting next to each other on the floor. One of them had a black label and held brown liquid. It easily could have passed for Jack Daniels to someone who couldn’t read well and wasn’t thinking straight.
She walked back into the office and held it out to Tommy.
“Is this the bottle?” she asked.
&
nbsp; Tommy nodded. “I put it to his mouth and he gulped it down, but he spit it out right at me! I put the bottle back where it belonged and got some water from the bathroom instead, but when I came back to him, I got scared. His eyes looked all funny and he was breathing hard and cussin’. I jumped up and ran out of there. I tried to tell my daddy when I got home, but Daddy wouldn’t wake up, just like always. And then… and then I just went into my room and hid.”
“But you knew you needed to come back today to check on him.” Clareese kept her voice gentle and soothing. Tommy looked up at her again, and she could see the raw fear and sorrow in his tear-filled eyes.
“I wanted to make sure he’s okay. He ain’t okay, is he?”
“No, he’s not okay, Tommy,” Clareese said. “But I don’t think you meant to hurt him. You can come down to my office, and we’ll sort it all out.”
Clareese gestured toward the door, not surprised when Tommy obeyed and walked past her, shoulders slumped, eyes to the ground. There’d be no need to put this boy in handcuffs.
She picked up the bottle of drain cleaner and followed Tommy out the door.
A JOB TO DIE FOR, by Deb Rolfe