Alligator Moon. Joanna Wayne

Pierson would surely notice his ex’s article and he’d play the suspicion of murder to the hilt.

      I’ll make Guilliot pay, Dennis. I’ll make the sonofabitch pay. And if it’s not him that killed you, I’ll find the man who did.

      He’d see that justice was done. But that wouldn’t bring Dennis back. The pain of that hit again, the force of it almost doubling him over.

      “MURDER.” The word rolled off of Olson’s tongue at their Monday morning meeting, and his lips settled into the kind of thoroughly satisfied smile some men might link to sliding their tongue over a dip of Häagen-Dazs ice cream.

      Cassie stared at him, amazed once again at the way he transformed from a dull, robotlike creature into a canty, euphoric dynamo the second the possibility of a juicy story made an appearance. Patterson Olson was nearing forty but possessed that nondescript agelessness that let him pass for any age between thirty and fifty.

      His muscles were no more defined than Cassie’s, though he was lean with thick, brown hair and a classic nose. None of his features set him aside as particularly handsome or unattractive, his most noticeable flaw being a chin that seemed to collapse into his neck.

      He picked up a pen, drew a page-size question mark on the top of a yellow legal pad, then pushed the pad across his desk and toward her. “There’s your story!”

      “A question mark?”

      “The question. Suicide or murder?”

      “There are no facts to back up a murder claim.”

      “We’re not trying the case, Cassie. We’re giving our readers information to arouse their curiosity and titillate their minds. They can make their own judgements.”

      “Based on unfounded rumors.”

      “Based on facts you’re going to gather for us and on information provided by the brother of the victim—a man with his own fascinating story and shaded past.”

      “Are you sure we’re talking about the same John Robicheaux?”

      “Don’t tell me you don’t know who he is?”

      “Would I be asking if I did?”

      “He was a brilliant trial lawyer. He almost convinced me once a guy was innocent, and I knew for a fact he was guilty.”

      “Then you know John Robicheaux personally?”

      “Professionally. I was working for the Times Picayune when he was practicing. I interviewed him a few times.”

      “What was he like then?”

      “Abrupt when it suited him. Persuasive when he needed to be.”

      “Manipulative?”

      “Do you know a trial lawyer worth his fee who isn’t?”

      “Why did he quit practicing?” she asked, still finding it hard to imagine the guy had practiced criminal law.

      “Ever heard of Gregory Benson?”

      She tossed the name around in her mind. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”

      “It was eight years ago.”

      “I was twenty-four and finishing up my master’s in journalism at the University of Texas back then.”

      “Benson kidnapped a ten-year-old girl in south Mississippi and killed her. Only he kept her alive for a few days, raped and tortured her repeatedly before he finally drowned her in the Pearl River.”

      “Don’t tell me John Robicheaux got that guy off.”

      “Not that time, but he had just six months earlier—won an innocent verdict on rape and murder charges against Benson in the death of a young teenager in Slidell.”

      “Sonofabitch.”

      “Yeah. That’s what a lot of people said. John didn’t say anything in his own defense, just gave up his practice and left town.”

      “I don’t blame him for taking down his shingle and moving back to the swamp. I don’t see how he can live with himself.”

      “He was a lawyer, Cassie. He did his job.”

      “Yeah, sure.”

      “Don’t go all rigid and righteous on me. This is a big story, the kind that can get Crescent Connection the type of clout we’re looking for. And that will require your being friendly to the guy. Keep him talking to you.”

      “In other words, you want me to suck up to him.”

      “That’s one way of putting it. And that’s just the beginning. I want you to dig into every aspect of the situation. Find out who Dennis was dating, who he might have talked to about Ginny Flanders’s death, if he had a drinking or a drug problem. Snoop into every niche and corner of his life, or at least the life he had until the wee hours of Saturday morning.”

      “That won’t be easy. The population of Beau Pierre is primarily Cajun. They’ll bond together against an outsider.”

      “Then don’t be an outsider. Become a fixture in Beau Pierre. Get a room down there. Hang out with the locals. Make yourself available. There’s always someone who will talk.”

      “You’re not serious about my renting a room down there, are you?”

      “Serious as a street flooding in May. Keep me posted on everything. I’d like a couple of stories before Saturday’s print deadline. Hell, if this is as big as it sounds, we might even do a special issue on the ‘Beau Pierre Mystery.’ Sales numbers could swell by a hundred thousand. Dr. Guilliot. The Reverend Flanders’s dead wife. John Robicheaux’s past. And a possible murder. We’ve got it all.”

      And Olson was going to start salivating any minute—which was reason enough to clear out of his office. She’d go home, pack a few things, then drive down to Beau Pierre and try to find a decent motel with a vacancy somewhere in the area.

      But first she had a phone call to make.

      Back in her office, Cassie called information and requested the phone number for Minden High School. She’d given up on the idea of joining her mother in Greece, but all the talk of scandals and murderous secrets was upping her apprehension level, probably unnecessarily so.

      Her mother was perfectly fine, off with an old high school friend on the adventure of a lifetime. And at fifty-nine, it was about damn time.

      Once she had the number, Cassie called the school and made her request.

      “Could I ask why you need that information?”

      “I have a lost mother,” she said, teasing, but was immediately sorry she’d put it that way. The words had an ominous ring to them and they seemed to hang in the air after she’d blurted them out.

      She explained about the trip in as few words as possible, focusing on the fact that she couldn’t locate an itinerary. Then she gave them both her mother’s maiden name and Patsy David. “I’ll feel better if I can talk to my mother and be assured that the trip is going well. So if I can get a contact number for Patsy David, I’d really appreciate it.”

      “I understand. I’d be worried half to death if it was my mother, but then she’s never gone farther than Shreveport without Dad. Did you check the Minden phone directory for a phone number for Patsy David?”

      “I did. There was no such listing. That’s why I thought I’d see if you had some kind of alumnae records that include a current contact number.”

      “We don’t that I know of, but I’m new here. Give me a few minutes and I’ll see what I can find out. Would you like for me to call you back?”

      “No, that’s okay. I’ll hold.”

      Cassie scribbled a few notes as she waited, her mind shifting back to John Robicheaux. She tried to picture him