“He’s with me,” she said.
Gabe smiled again and shook his head. Holding out his hand he said, “Name’s Gabriel Broussard.” The man looked at his hand for a long time. Gabe almost dropped it before the man’s big hand reached out and took it and asked:
“Any relationship to Raoul Broussard?”
“My paw,” Gabe said. “You knew him?”
The man nodded. “I went to school with him, and your mother...I believe? Susan?” Gabe nodded and he said, “You look like her.” He looked back at Patrice then and with a sour look on his face he said, “And you look like your father, unfortunately.”
“Then you do know who my father is?”
He chuckled, but not happily. “Yes,” he said. “Unfortunately. What do you want with me?”
“Can we go inside and talk?” Patrice asked. Gabe quickly said:
“We can talk here.”
The man looked from one to the other of them and said, “Leave that gun you’ve got your hand on out here and let me make sure neither one of you are packing anything else before we go inside.”
Gabe took the gun out of his waistband, and holding it by one finger he held it out to his side. Bernard took it and then held his hand out in Patrice’s direction. When she didn’t offer anything up at once he said, “I assume you’re here about what happened to your mother. If you expect me to talk to you, you’ll damned sure hand over your gun.”
She sighed, bent down, and unzipped her boot. She’d stuck the small .22 caliber handgun in there, and Gabe was almost as relieved as Bernie was when she gave it up. Bernie lay both guns down on a chair near the front door and then said, “Hands on the wall.” Gabe immediately assumed the position; it wasn’t his first time being patted down. Patrice looked indignant and Gabe thought she was going to refuse, but by the time Hebert had patted him down and found nothing, she’d turned and put her hands against the front door. Gabe kept a close eye on the man as he patted her down, making sure his hands didn’t linger anywhere they shouldn’t. When he finished he reached in front of her and unlocked the door and said, “Come on in.” Patrice stepped in first and Gabe quickly followed, not liking that Hebert had them walk in cold like that. They didn’t know who else was in the house...maybe the “George” that was listed as owning the house. The big guy came in behind them and switched on the light in the foyer. After dropping his keys on a small table there he said, “Come on in the living room.” They followed him through an opening and into a small, but comfortable-looking, living space. He waved an arm at a small sofa and they sat down. He took a seat in a chair opposite them and then looking at Patrice he said, “What is it you want from me?”
She opened her mouth but before she could straight up ask him if he killed her mother Gabe said, “Can you tell us how you knew Kasey Cormier?”
He could see Patrice give him a look out of the corner of his eye but he ignored it. Bernie’s focus was on him now and he said, “I didn’t really know her. I was ‘watching’ her.”
“For what?” Gabe asked.
“For whom?” Patrice added.
“I was hired by her father. I had skills I learned in the army that made me good at things like private investigation. I met Kasey’s father at a political rally and one day he called me and asked me to follow his daughter.”
“Why would he want his daughter followed?” Patrice asked.
“And you were part of the Jokers back then, right?” Gabe put in. “Why were you renting yourself out as some kind of detective?”
Bernard had a smirk on his face as he said, “I was never really a Joker. I was there doing the same thing I was doing for Congressman Cormier...gathering information.”
“Did Blackheart know that?”
He cocked an eyebrow and said, “He figured it out, ultimately.” The big guy stood up then and Gabe tensed. Oddly, however, he pulled off his shirt. His chest and abdomen were covered in scars, but none of them as shocking as the one they saw when he turned around. On his back were thick, raised bands of tissue that looked like rope. Whoever had removed his tattoo hadn’t done a clean job of it. Gabe wasn’t shocked, but one look at Patrice and he could tell that she was.
“Blackheart did that to you?” she asked, in a small, tremulous voice.
“He had it done,” he said, pulling his t-shirt back on before turning around to face them. “And then I was told to never return to New Orleans. I kept my end of that deal.”
“If you were working for the authorities, why wasn’t he arrested?” Patrice asked. Gabe knew it was a valid question, but still, hearing her say it aloud bothered him.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” he said. “I’m not a fucking idiot. Having a third-degree burn was still preferable to being cut up and fed to the gators in that swamp of his. I was freelancing for the authorities. I told them the heat was getting to be too much and I dipped out.”
Patrice looked at Gabe, as if asking if that part might be true. Gabe refused to look at her; keeping his eyes on Bernard he said, “What did Kasey’s father want to know about her...I mean, why have you follow a college student around? What did he think she was doing?”
“It wasn’t what he thought, it was what he knew. Kasey was threatening to talk to the Feds, about her father.”
22
“I don’t understand,” Patrice said.
“Her father, your grandfather, was a crook. He misused his campaign funds. He bribed high-ranking officials. He embezzled money from accounts that had been set up by his father for your mother and her sister. Kasey found out about all of that somehow and when he pressured her about her lifestyle and tried to force her to be the good little Southern belle they wanted her to be, she not only balked, but she threatened to go to the Feds with what information she had. I honestly think your grandmother would have just had her killed. Your grandfather was just hoping she’d change her mind, but had me watching her just in case. Once he was gone, though...well, Granny finally got her way.”
“What do you mean, she got her way?”
“Your mama ended up dead, didn’t she?” Gabe shot him another glare and he rolled his eyes and said, “You ever wonder where your aunt and uncle got all that money they’ve lived on all these years? What is it your uncle does for a living again?”
Gabe could see Patrice’s hand shaking and he reached for it. She let him wrap it up in his and then she said, “He’s a computer tech.”
“You didn’t wonder how they always drove the most expensive cars on the lot, and lived in that nice house, mortgage free...or could afford to pay cash for your education?”
“How would you know what they did or could afford to do?” she asked.
“It was about a year after your mother died that Blackheart ran me off. By that time I was the one in the position to blackmail your family. Your aunt and uncle have been paying me off for years. You don’t think I got this nice place off what the government paid me, do you?”
Patrice was clenching down on Gabe’s hand so hard that it actually hurt. The color had drained from her face and he was glad she was sitting down because she looked like she might pass out. “You’re saying that my mom...I mean, my aunt and uncle...”