He thought for minute. “Vincent Gabrielli is a short man with a short temper. He doesn’t like getting sassed. Especially doesn’t like getting sassed by a woman. You need to make him lose it. Threaten you. Insult you. Any excuse you can use to lawyer up without making it look like you’re protecting Ben.”

  “I should be a smart ass,” she stated.

  Ernst winked at her. “I always say that when your back is to the wall, you should play to your strengths.”

  When Q didn’t smile, he continued, “Don’t let him rattle you, Clementine. If he brings up Niko or Arabi, you attack.”

  “You’re seriously telling me to poke the bear?” she asked, mildly frustrated.

  “The sooner you piss him off and make him lose control, the less information he can get out of you. You’re going to be questioned, Clementine. There’s no getting around that. But now you know why you’re going to be questioned, and that could make all the difference.” He picked at an oyster before deciding to leave it where it lay.

  "When?" she asked.

  "Aaron didn't know. Could be days, could be weeks. If the police show up with a warrant to search your house, or the Cove, or Ben's car, you keep a close eye on them." Ernst drained his beer.

  "You think they'd plant evidence?" she asked in horror.

  "Like I said, Gabrielli's not above putting his thumb on the scale. He likes winning more than being right."

  ~~~

  Q left the Quarter in a panic, needing to get to Ben as quickly as possible, but debating if she should get to Lucy Hadron first and secure him a defense attorney. She finally decided to go to Ben and plan their next moves carefully, together.

  The taxi ride to the Cove was unbearable. Q nervously tapped both heels in the back seat, begging every streetlight to be green, then begging every red light to change colors.

  She walked through the front door and nearly tripped over Josh as her eyes failed to adjust to the dimness of the nightclub in time.

  "Hey there, pretty lady," Josh said from the ground. "Sorry, got a bad speaker cable that needs replacing. Fishing the damn thing through this wall is a fucking pain. You feel like giving me a hand, or are you here to make googily eyes at Ben while the man is supposed to be working?"

  Q tried to soften the panic out of her face. "As much fun as rewiring your P.A. for free sounds, I think I’m going to stick with driving my man to distraction.”

  Josh grunted. “You are the master of that. Ben’s in the office, babe. Go easy on him. He’s had a rough morning, I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it.”

  Oh, my god, I’m too late.

  When her face fell, Josh continued, “Christ, you’re high strung this afternoon. It’s nothing. Ethan up and quit on him, calm down. Nothing Ben hates more than doing payroll taxes. Go on and rescue him.”

  Q tried to slow her heart rate and smiled. “Thanks. Good luck with the cable fishing."

  "Gonna need it," he groaned, reaching back into the hole in the wall.

  Ben called from the office, "That you, Clementine? Come on back, I'm about to tear my hair out balancing these books."

  She quickly walked past the low stage and bar and into Ben's office, partially closing the door behind her.

  Ben looked up from his laptop. "Fucking Ethan up and quit on me and I have to figure out the payroll tax for the new girl. Haven't done it for years. I was his first damn client and he just decided that I am no longer worthy of his accounting skills. So, as much as I would love to get you out of those shorts right now, I'm gonna have to decline."

  Q sat down in the chair. "That's not why I came, Ben. This is serious."

  He saved his work and closed the computer. "What's going on?"

  "I had lunch with Ernst today. We have a problem. Sanger's lieutenant thinks you’re good for Beth's murder," she said, folding her arms, trying to hold herself together.

  Ben laughed out loud. "That's ridiculous. Ernst is just messing with you."

  Q inhaled slowly and said, sadly, "No, baby, he isn't. Sanger's lieutenant has a hard on for notoriety and he sees an opportunity here to get some quickly. He also has an axe to grind with me, Ernst, and Daddy....and Sanger thinks there’s almost enough circumstantial evidence to put you away for this, and definitely enough to bring you in for questioning."

  Ben pushed himself away from the desk, trying to push away her words at the same time. He angrily shook his head, "No, I'm not listening to this."

  "Please, baby, you need to hear me out. Let me start from the beginning, so you understand," Q said as calmly as she could. "There's something that happened, years ago, that I never told you about."

  "Fuck, you still don't trust me!" Ben folded his arms defensively.

  Q's frustration got the better of her. "Ben, this isn't about us, this is about what's happening to you and why, so, shut the fuck up and listen already. We need to get ahead of this," she snapped and instantly regretted it. "Baby, I trust you. I love you. I just never told you because it never came up. It's not the sort of story you just go and tell. Okay?"

  Ben was somewhat placated and nodded his ascent.

  “When I was fifteen, I had this friend, April. At the same time, Ernst had a new partner, younger guy, in his late twenties, named Vincent Gabrielli. Ernst brought him to the house a couple of times for dinner. April was spending the night, both times. So, anyway, a few weeks pass, and I see him, Gabrielli, pick April up after school. When I ask her about it, she plays it off like it was no big deal, but soon she started talking about Vincent this and Vincent that. I didn’t want to be a narc, but a fifteen-year-old has no business hanging around with a man pushing thirty. I kept bugging her about it, teasing her, thinking I could get her to stop seeing him. Saying things like ‘he’s not even hot’, ‘he’s so short’, that kind of stuff, but it just pissed her off and she started saying that I was jealous because she wasn’t a virgin anymore and I still was.”

  “What did you do?” Ben asked, leaning forward to put his elbows on the desk.

  “I told Daddy and he told Ernst. Ernst told Gabrielli to knock it the fuck off or he’d file a statutory rape charge,” she stated.

  Ben threw up his hands. “Why the fuck didn’t he? If someone middle-aged bastard had started messing with Gracie or Yvie....” he started angrily.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Danielle and Nita would have beat his ass," Q quipped.

  Ben smiled for the first time since Q had started talking.

  Q continued, "Baby, you didn't grow up with it, but you need to understand that for the most part, the NOPD and the D.A.'s office are going to protect their own. And you've got to keep in mind that this was like nineteen years ago. People didn't care as much about that sort thing as they do now. Besides, Gabrielli gave Ernst his word that it never went beyond kissing and he had ended it before it ever got any more serious, so Ernst figured it was over. And honestly, so did I, April said it was over, too, and I believed her."

  "So, that was it?" he asked, confused.

  "Pretty much, until a few months later when I went to bring April her homework one day when she missed school. She hadn’t asked me; it was just something we did for each other. I knocked on the door, but no one answered. I could hear music, so I went around the side and into the kitchen door and found them, Gabrielli and her, fucking on the couch. Gabrielli looked up and saw me. I ran out,” she recounted. “So April comes over that night, in tears, begging me not to tell anyone. Tells me that she’s pregnant and he’s going to marry her. Tells me that she loves him and doesn't want him to get into any trouble and if I'm her friend, I'd keep quiet about what I saw.”

  Ben grinned. "Your friend, April, didn't know you very well."

  “Yeah, not so much,” she concurred. “So, I tell Bubbe and Daddy and they call Ernst, who was P-I-S-T pissed about it. Ernst tells their captain, and Gabrielli is placed on administrative leave pending an investigation."

  "So you got the man fired. I don't understand how this is connected to Beth, darlin'," he said, as his patience wore thin.

  "Not quite,” she said. “Two things happened while he was on leave to make it all go away: April turned sixteen and had an abortion the next day. Problem solved. Gabrielli goes back to work with a slap on the wrist and April gets shipped off to an all-girls Catholic school in Alabama for being a slut. Her mother’s words, not mine.”

  “But you were just a kid. So, he got in a little well-deserved trouble. Again, what does this have to with Beth?” Ben pulled off the rubber band holding his long blonde hair in a ponytail at the back of his head and impatiently scratched the scar that was hidden beneath. The eleven stitches required to undo the damage done when Niko had attacked him had left a scar that periodically bothered him, Q had found, particularly when he was stressed.

  "We're getting to that, just bear with me a little longer," she said, taking a deep breath, beginning to feel the calm that had evaded her for the last hours. "When Gabrielli was cleared of all wrong-doing, Ernst refused to be his partner anymore and he used his seniority to get Gabrielli transferred off homicide and back to Property Crimes. Asshole’s got a Napoleon-sized ego and is barely as tall. Going from investigating murders to investigating stolen bikes in the Marigny didn’t exactly sit well with him. And maybe he would have gotten over it, but a few years later, Daddy gets wind of some cops in his division running girls out of the casino up in Marksville. He starts looking into it and runs right back into Gabrielli. Somehow, Gabrielli finds out Daddy's on the prowl and makes the bust himself, playing it off like he was working undercover and didn’t know who to trust.”

  “Ballsy,” Ben said.

  “Well, the bust gets him a big promotion to lieutenant and a transfer over to Special Victims because, as you can imagine, ratting out five cops who were just as dirty as he was, didn’t exactly make him the belle at the Policeman’s ball.” Q sighed in frustration, “You’d think the whole thing with April would have disqualified him, but nobody seemed to care. It was considered a youthful indiscretion at worst. Anyway, once Daddy got a bit like that between his teeth, he wasn't about to stop. He knew Gabrielli was dirty and so he kept at it, trying to build a case, and that’s about the time Gabrielli found his get-out-of-jail-free card.”

  Ben's face fell. “You. Oh, my god, he's the asshole lieutenant that said you were asking for it??”

  “One and the same. He wasn't even the original cop that pulled the case. He put himself on it, acting like he wanted to provide special treatment for the A.D.A.’s daughter. But as soon as they released me from the hospital, he started raising all kinds of hell about the way I was dressed, my sexual history, and threatens to slip my name to the paper if Daddy didn’t leave him be.”

  “So Henry left him be." Ben slicked his hair back with his hands, pulling it back into a ponytail.

  She nodded. “But Daddy didn't trust him to leave me alone, so he had Uncle Jasper to seal the records so Gabrielli couldn't get at me or Pete."

  “I still don't see what this has to do with him pinning a murder on me. How is that going to do him any good?" Ben asked.

  "It's not one murder, baby. It's two, maybe more, depending on how far he’s going to push this. He's coming after you for Beth, and at least one more that Sanger knows of." Q's voice broke. The magnitude of what was happening came crashing down on her and she felt her throat closing in on itself so she wouldn't have to continue talking about it.

  Ben's mouth fell open as he struggled to comprehend what Q had just told him. The staggering silence that followed was only broken by Josh knocking on the door and peering in through the gap between it and the door jam. "Hey brother, I’m taking off. Need to go over to Mikey's and get a Speakon connector. The one we have is corroded like a motherfucker. Horn on that speaker is blown, too. Fucking amateur-hour engineering," he muttered in frustration.

  Josh looked from Ben to Q and asked, "Everything ok? Y'all are white as ghosts."

  "Just got some bad news, nothing to worry about it. We'll get through it," Ben said, keeping his voice even.

  Josh shrugged, coming into the room. "Well, I hate to add to it, but we’re going to have to cancel the band tonight. No way that speaker will be ready today and the spare got its woofer chewed on by a squirrel or something up in the attic,” he said, eying Ben uncertainly. “I'll get one of the speakers fixed up and back in working order by tomorrow, and reschedule whoever’s playing, cool?”

  "Sounds good, man. Thanks,” Ben replied, unable to keep the strain from his face.

  Josh looked to Q and back at Ben. “Whatever’s going on, it seems like it’s more important than this place. Why don’t you take the night off? I got you.”

  Ben started to argue, but Q intervened and accepted on his behalf.

  Josh squeezed Q’s shoulders, “Y’all be good. I'll lock the front on my way out. My truck's parked out back. If I’d have known I’d be humping P.A. today, I’d have parked closer to the door.” He turned to Ben, saying, “And you, you take it easy. You look like you’re about to have a goddamn stroke.”

  They sat in silence listening to Josh turn the deadbolt on the front door and walk out the back. When the metal door slammed behind him, Ben got up from behind his desk. He walked around and held out his hand. She gratefully took it, standing up.

  "Come on,” he said. “I have a feeling I'm going to need a drink before I listen to the rest of this."

  His fingers entwined with hers, surrounding her hand in safety and comfort. Q followed him out of the office and to the bar. She sat on the middle barstool while Ben walked behind the bar. She watched him move, gracefully taking down two large rocks glasses and easily carrying both in one hand to fill them with ice. He set them on the bar in front of Q.

  "Pick your poison," he said.

  "What are you drinking?" she asked.

  He turned to the wall of bottles and reached to a high shelf pulling down a very dusty bottle of Macallan single malt that was on the tasting menu for seventy dollars an ounce. "Seeing as how I'm a condemned man, I'm going all out. You?"

  "Well, seeing as how we're splurging, I'll take the Chopin," she replied.

  He set down the bottles and walked back around to join her on the barstool to her right. Filling his glass up to the brim with scotch, he said, "Alright, now that I know who this fuckhead lieutenant is, let’s hear the rest of it."

  Q reached for the tall bottle before her and filled her glass halfway up. She stood up on the rail and pulled out the jar of olives she knew would be hiding under the bar. Dropping one into her glass, she said, "So back in 2003, the cops looked at you for Angela's death. Abusive fiancé…"

  “Ex-fiancé,” he reminded.

  “Yes, but Angela never told anyone she’d broken off the engagement, so to the world, you were the cause of the random bruises she kept showing up with,” Q corrected.

  Ben took a long sip. "Yes, but I had an alibi. I was at the hospital with my family waiting for B3 to be born."

  "Also, you didn't do it," she reminded him.

  "That too," he said, he held his glass towards her and she clinked hers against it.

  She took a long swallow, grateful for the soothing effect the alcohol had on her roiling stomach. "Alright, well Ernst always thought you did it. He couldn't prove it, but that's what he thought."

  She held up her hand, "Before you say anything, he doesn't think that now and hasn't, not for a long while."

  "What changed his mind?" Ben asked.

  "We had a huge fight after he found out I’d moved in with you. You weren’t home. You were at the doctor getting your concussion checked. I showed him the pictures at the hospital and that dropped a big dose of reality on him. Then after he got to know you, he knew you don't have the personality for it. No way you'd ever hit a woman, much less kill her,” she explained.

  He took another drink and hopped off the barstool to retrieve a jar of almonds from behind the bar. Popping a couple in his mouth as he sat back down he said, "At least your godfather doesn't think I'm a sociopath."

  "Psychopath," Q corrected. "And no."

  "Score one for little Ben." He massaged the back of his neck, trying to ease some of the tension.

  "So Ernst had a series of unsolved murders. Eleven of them to be exact. All women. All in February. All with a new man and new bruises and all very, very dead," Q drained her glass and ate an olive.

  "Jesus,” he said in disgust.

  Filling her glass back to the halfway point, she said, "Now, in seven of those eleven, they found a guy good for each one and pressed charges. Five were acquitted, probably with insufficient evidence. Two are rotting in Angola."

  "Ernst put innocent men in jail?" he asked in surprise.

  "Not intentionally. He didn't put the pattern together until he was retired and started looking into the four unsolved cases he left behind. And he had a new piece of information," she said, reaching for another olive.

  "What new information?" he asked.

  "You didn't kill Angela Galvez. And that's when he saw it," she stated, taking a bite of the olive between her fingers.

  "You lost me, darlin'," he said. "Remember, justice is your family's business, not mine."

  Q smiled, and slipped off the barstool.

  "Hey, where are you going?" he asked.

  She ducked into his office and came back with a piece of paper and a pen. "Visual aide," she said.

  She sat back down, took a drink, and wrote:

  1 Angela Galvez - October 2003

  2 Victim 1 - February 2004

  3 Victim 2 - February 2005

  4 Victim 3 - February 2006

  5 Victim 4 - February 2007

  6 Victim 5 - February 2008

  7 Victim 6 - February 2009

  8 Victim 7 - February 2010

  9 Victim 8 - February 2011

  10 Victim 9 - February 2012

  11 Victim 10 - February 2013

  12 Victim 11 - February 2014

  13 Beth Hunter - September 2015

  She handed him the list. "You see something wrong with that list?"

  Ben took a long sip and studied the page. His eyebrows knitted together. "The numbers on the left don't match the numbers you put after each victim."

 

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