“But your team searched the house after the Headless Horseman incident, right?” I asked. “Wasn’t the scope completely different since Gil’s death was still classified as a carjacking?”
“Yeah. We were looking for a reason that someone might have a score to settle with Gil. Nasty letters or email, diaries, notes he might have made about people, that sort of thing. But still, when you get a search warrant, you usually check everything you can. I asked the team and apparently, they only did a cursory search of the attic just to make sure there was no paperwork up there.”
“Is cursory standard in that case? Meaning, I assume they could have done more, right?”
He sighed. “Their team leader is on leave. His wife just had a baby. The guy they moved up for the duration is a good tech, but I don’t know that he has the experience to direct yet. At least, I wasn’t certain at the time, but I guess I know for sure now. I should have stayed and made sure they did things right but I was executing a search of Liam’s house and getting an order for the butcher shop at the same time.”
“You can’t be everywhere and do everything,” I said. “You have to depend on your coworkers and your team to do their job. But honestly, even though the old team leader might have pushed for more, it doesn’t sound like the new one did anything wrong given the scope of the investigation at the time.”
He grunted but didn’t say anything for several seconds. Finally, he shook his head. “Anyway, I guess it doesn’t matter at this point. Casey has it all wrapped up.”
“I assume she’s going to arrest Tiffany?”
“She headed to New Orleans right after the ballistics and fingerprint reports came back. Tiffany had reported in and gave a hotel in the city as her address.”
I slumped back in my seat, feeling somewhat let down. I mean, it made sense. Of all the people on our list, Tiffany had the most to lose if Gil had remained alive and definitely the most to gain if he was gone. But still, it was singularly unsatisfying that the solution was back to the old, boring standard of killing a spouse for money.
Then I remembered the other side of the equation.
“Does Detective Casey have a fix on her accomplice?” I asked. “Because no way Tiffany hauled Gil’s body up on that horse by herself. And honestly, while I can buy into her shooting him, I can’t see her getting the car into the bayou and definitely can’t see her cutting off his head.”
“There’s no accomplice that I’ve been informed of,” Carter said, his voice slightly bitter, “but if I had to guess, I’d say she’s going to pick up Liam after she has Tiffany in custody.”
“No!” I sat up straight. “Why Liam?”
“Because they’re the two who get the financial benefit from Gil’s death.”
“So you know about the will change.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How do you know about the will change?”
“Judith told us.”
“And you didn’t think that was something worth mentioning?”
“Since I didn’t want suspicion to fall on Liam, no.”
He shook his head. “You can’t change the facts. Liam stood to gain a lot. Enough money to buy out the owner of that butcher shop now. And if he wanted, maybe another shot with Tiffany.”
I bit my lip, trying to decide how to approach what I had to say, but also trying to figure out how to do it in a way that didn’t put me in the hot seat. Finally deciding a scorched tush wasn’t as important as making sure a man I still thought was innocent didn’t get railroaded, I blew out a breath and let it all out.
“Tiffany had another man on the side,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “How do you know that?”
“Because we saw her coming out of the shady motel up the highway the other day and since people don’t usually check in there for alone time, I figure she was meeting someone.”
“Maybe she was meeting a friend—a girl friend. Plenty of people in town for the fishing rodeo in Mudbug.”
“Yeah, we might have also seen her today, coming out of that hotel in New Orleans with a guy.”
He looked confused. “Tiffany told you where she was staying?”
“Not exactly.”
He stared at me for several seconds, then closed his eyes and blew out a breath. “You put a tracker on her car when she left her house this morning, didn’t you?”
“I’m sure I don’t know anything about that. We just happened to be in New Orleans and saw her coming out of a hotel with another guy.”
“You’ve happened to be in New Orleans a lot lately.”
“Hey, I have a receipt for a hot tub, at least two extra pounds from all the food, and Gertie has sexy undergarments to prove what we were doing.”
“So today you were…?”
“Not buying underwear or a hot tub?”
“You know what, forget it. Did you know the guy?”
“Not personally, but I recognized him from a photo. He was part of the rodeo crowd Tiffany hung out with when she was in high school.”
He stared at me for a second, then ran a hand through his hair. “Rodeo crowd?”
I nodded, knowing he was processing the pieces as they fell into place.
“You don’t think Liam was her accomplice,” he said.
“Do you? Really? What does your gut tell you?”
He blew out a breath. “That Liam is going to get the short end of the stick all over again because of his dad unless I figure out how to get that information to Casey without her asking questions.”
“May I make a suggestion?”
He held out his hands. “Why not. You seem to be full of ideas lately.”
“Only lately? Never mind. Anyway, call Detective Casey and tell her that your girlfriend and a couple friends from town were shopping in New Orleans today and saw Tiffany come out of a hotel with this guy.”
“Do you have the guy’s name?”
I nodded and gave him the information.
“She knows who you are, you know?” he said. “She insinuated as much when she reminded me how much her captain hates PIs. Probably did a background on me before she headed this way.”
“There’s no law against shopping in New Orleans. People do it every day.”
“People don’t accidentally run into murder suspects while they’re shopping. What happens if Casey decides to sweep her car?”
“For all we know, Gil could have put that tracker on there because he suspected Tiffany was about to make a break with another guy.”
He sighed. “Anything else you think I need to know?”
“Not that I could find a viable explanation for knowing myself,” I said.
“Why am I not surprised?”
I shrugged. “Detective Casey is going to have to do her job. The information isn’t that difficult to find. But where does all of this leave you with the Headless Horseman case?”
“Waiting on her. But honestly, I don’t think it matters. If she has a solid case for murder one against Tiffany—and it’s looking that way—I don’t see the point of adding the Headless Horseman ride to it. Tiffany will be lucky to avoid the death penalty as it is and I don’t have any evidence for that stunt. So unless one of them flips on the other…”