This conversation needs to end. Immediately.
I nod, then get up from my chair. “Let me know if we can help out.We’ve been going through his active cases to make sure nothing is slipping through. We want nothing more than Ben’s murderer caught.”
Sullivan nods and I take my leave.
Slamming my hand against the steering wheel several times does nothing to ease my frustration. I’m unsettled. Antsy.
Instead of heading home for the night, I decide to make a detour.
Two guys are playing pool at one of the tables and there’s a booth with a couple toward the back of the room as well as a guy sitting on a stool about halfway down the bar. There’s no sign of Aubrey Price, even though the file Ben had on her says she works every night except Sunday and Monday.
I choose the stool that gives me as much distance from everyone else as possible since it will be hard enough getting her to talk to me if she shows up. I don’t want her worried about who could be overhearing our conversation.
Aubrey comes out of a door against the far wall carrying a tray of glasses.
Thanks to Scott, who gave me a summary on Aubrey and the other people who live in that house with her, I memorized the bullet points about each of them using the same techniques that helped me easily recall different football plays.
Aubrey Price, white, twenty-six. Employed as a bartender at Doug’s for thelast five years and longest resident in the house. Clean record, no arrests. Orphaned at sixteen when parents were killed by a drunk driver. Lived with her aunt and uncle on her mother’s side until she was a legal adult. Never married, no sign of being in a relationship.
She sets the glasses down on the counter then wipes her hands on a bar towel as she walks toward me.
“What can I get you?”
“Ultra on draft.”
She steps away to pour my beer then sets it down in front of me. “Anything else?”
“About five minutes of your time, if possible.”
“For what?” she asks.
“My name is Hank Landry, Ben Bayliss’s law partner.”
This makes her take a step back. She scans the room, hoping, I’m sure, for some task needing her immediate attention, but there’s nothing. Aubrey seems to resign herself to talking to me because I see her square her shoulders just before she turns to face me head-on.
“I’m also the executor of his estate, and I’m just trying to get a handle on Ben’s things, which is an extremely difficult task while also mourning the loss of my friend and partner. There are some things I’ve learned that left me a little confused.”
She raises just one eyebrow. “Was there a question in there somewhere?”
My laugh catches us both off guard but at least it cuts the tension a bit. “I have about a million questions but almost all of them are for Ben, and, well, I’m outta luck there. But yes, I do have a question. Why did you come to the Rosary for Ben on Tuesday?”
Her jaw goes slack, her eyes blinking rapidly. But she recovers from her shock quickly. “His wife took yoga from my housemate Serenity. Shewanted to go but not alone, so I agreed to meet her there. But Serenity being Serenity, she flaked off and didn’t show.”
I’ve underestimated her. I expected her to mention Shane and Eddie, which would lead me to asking about the Mustang.
“That it?” she asks.
“One more, if you’ll allow it. Were you, by chance, in St. Francisville last Saturday?”
There’s a split second of pure shock that crosses her features before she hides it away. Then she tilts her head to the side while she studies me. “That’s a pretty random thing to ask me.”
I shrug. “As I said earlier, Ben isn’t here to answer my questions. It feels like I’m missing something. I’m just trying to make this make sense.”
“Well, welcome to my world. I’ve been trying to get things to make sense for a really long time.” She glances at the wall clock behind the bar. “And that’s your five minutes.”
I tip my head toward her. “That’s fair. I appreciate your time.”
She walks away while I sip on my beer, deciding it was a terrible idea to come in here and tip her off that I may know things that I really don’t know. But if there’s one thing I’m sure of, the woman in that picture on Ben’s phone was Aubrey Price. And her name has been swirling around Ben’s since Camille found his body on Sunday morning. There’s a lot Camille isn’t telling me.
