There was no question in the statement, just a simple declaration of fact.
“I didn’t think it was a very good idea to come here alone, so I brought my friend,” she said.
The man regarded them for a moment, then nodded. “Probably smart. This joint can get a little rough when the alcohol starts pouring.” He glanced at the bar. “For some of these guys, it never stops.” He pulled out a chair and sat down. “I’m Dominic. Marcus told me about how you’re looking for the man who murdered your father. I told him everything I know about the guy I heard bragging about killing someone. It might have been your father or someone else, or maybe he just made it up. I know you probably want details, but I’m not sure what else I can tell you.”
Triana really didn’t know what kind of details she was looking for, but as a forensic analyst, she knew that sometimes the littlest clues made all the difference.
“Just tell me everything you remember from that night,” she said. “Sometimes, talking helps you remember stuff you thought you’d forgotten.”
Dominic didn’t look convinced, but he nodded. “I was barhopping that Thursday night. I remember because it was payday. It was also getting near closing time, around four o’clock in the morning maybe. Most of the tourist types were off the street.
“There were a bunch of rough guys at the bar in this one place. Can’t for the life of me remember which place it was, though.” He shook his head. “Anyway, these guys were telling stories to prove to each other they were a bunch of badasses. Most of the stories were lame, like punching some drunk guy who was already too tanked to see it coming.
“But then this big guy started telling this story about walking into an empty jazz club and killing an old man. A lot of people laughed at first, but they all stopped when the dickhead started adding details about how many times the old man was shot and where. It got really graphic, and by the time he was done, half the bar had emptied out. No one wanted to be anywhere near this guy. He smelled like ten kinds of crazy wrapped up in a bag of horse crap.”
Triana swallowed hard. “Tell me exactly what he said.”
Dominic hesitated but then did as she asked. By the time he was done, Triana was convinced the man had definitely been talking about her father. He even said the old man had growled. That was something her father did when he was mad.
“What did the man look like?” she asked Dominic. “Can you describe him?”
Dominic thought about it for a while. “Like I said, he was a big man. I mean, the guy had muscles on top of muscles. He had a tattoo on his arm too—a ship’s anchor, I think.”
Triana glanced at Kim, wondering if her friend was thinking the same thing she was, that maybe the guy had been a sailor or worked on a ship. New Orleans was a port city, so there were a lot of sailors. But how many would fit this guy’s description? He sounded like a man who’d stand out in a crowd.
“Have you ever seen him again?” Triana asked.
Dominic shook his head. “No, ma’am.”
Regardless of what he looked like, Bodine would still need a lot of luck to find him, Triana thought.
“Did you recognize anyone else who’d been at the bar that night, someone who might know who this guy is?” Kim asked.
The question seemed to catch Dominic off guard, but after a moment, he nodded. “Yeah, actually I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some of those guys around before. They’re a group of us regulars who live in the bars of this town.”
Triana tried to keep herself from getting too excited—and failed. “Do you think you could talk to some of those other guys, see if they might know the name of this big man?”
Dominic looked concerned. “I don’t know about that. I understand you wanting to find this guy if he was the one who killed your father, but I wasn’t intending to get involved like that.”
“I can pay you,” Triana said quickly.
At the mention of money, Dominic’s whole demeanor changed. “How much?”
She pulled out her purse, digging through it under the table until she came up with eighty-seven dollars. She shoved it across the table at him. “This is all I have on me, but if you find this guy, I’ll give you five hundred more.”
That must have convinced him because he nodded, quickly scooping up the money. “If you give me your number, I’ll call as soon as I find out something.”
Triana wasn’t thrilled to be handing out her number to a random stranger, but if this worked, she’d happily get a new phone number.
Five minutes later, she and Kim left the bar and were walking down the street, glad that the on-again, off-again rain had decided to stop for a while. As she turned toward her mother’s shop, Triana quickened her pace until she was practically running. This was going to work; she could just feel it. She was going to finally find the guy who murdered her father.
She was still thinking about that possibility when Kim brought her crashing back down to earth a few minutes later.
“Okay, I came with you to see that creepy guy, and I really hope something good comes of it, but right now I want to hear about you and Remy,” her friend said. “Why do you think you guys don’t have a future?”
Triana sighed. Even though she didn’t want to talk about it, the words came tumbling out on their own and she told Kim everything, starting with the night she and Remy had first slept together and finishing with what had happened last night. She hadn’t intended to get emotional about the whole thing, but all her worries and doubts came rushing back to the surface, and before she knew it, she was crying. Not just for what she might have already lost, but for what now might never be at all.
* * *
