“Oh, they’ve said plenty,” Big said. “But most of it was begging, so it doesn’t count. We were waiting on you for the questioning. We are merely hosting your party.”
“Look,” one of the brothers said. “I think there’s been a big mistake. We were supposed to be picking up an SUV for a friend of ours. I don’t know what you think we’ve done, but you’ve got the wrong people.”
Ida Belle narrowed her eyes. “So someone gave you keys to my house and my SUV? Who might that be, that you think had permission to give away my personal property and allow you to trespass into my home?”
“Willie LeDoux,” the brother said.
“Oh,” I said, “you mean that dead guy. Funny how dead people can talk and produce keys these days.” I looked over at Mannie. “You find any keys in the SUV?”
“Hot-wired,” Mannie said.
“Shocking,” I said, and leaned forward to look at them. “Here’s how it’s going to go. We’re going to ask you some questions and you’re going to tell us everything we want to know. And if I’m satisfied with your answers, I’ll ask the Heberts to go easy on you. Do you understand?”
They glanced at each other and I’m sure they were wondering who the hell I was, but since Big and Little were letting me run the show, they weren’t about to do anything but nod.
“And don’t bother lying,” I said. “I can spot a liar a mile away. Are you ready to talk?”
They nodded again.
“Good,” I said. “We know you’re the Seal brothers, so let’s start with first names.”
The one who’d spoken earlier said, “I’m John. He’s Bart.”
I smiled. “See how easy that was? Now, tell me why you stole the SUV.”
“We’re looking for something hidden in it,” John said. “A key.”
Ida Belle, who’d been standing quietly by, apparently reached her breaking point. She stepped forward and pointed her finger in their faces. “I always thought the two of you were useless, but a good man is in the ER because of you, and if he doesn’t make it, I’m going to personally see that you pay for it. Without benefit of a judge or jury.”
Their eyes widened, and they both started shaking their heads.
“No!” John said. “We didn’t do that to Hot Rod. I swear.”
“Then who did?” Ida Belle asked. “Your friend Willie? I guess you killed him once you found out where the SUV was.”
“We didn’t kill Willie,” John said. “He was our friend. Jesus. This is all wrong. You have it all wrong.”
“Then you better get to straightening us out,” I said. “Before we decide we’ve waited long enough.”
“Okay, okay,” John said, “but I have to go back some for it all to make sense.”
“Go back to Genesis for all I care,” I said. “Just spill it.”
“We were running drugs through a club in New Orleans,” John said. “And we were doing good. Everyone was making some money. But then this kid died. A cop’s kid. And people said it was our drugs that did it, but I swear we ain’t never seen that kid in the club before. Neither had Gary.”
“Gary Thibodeaux?” I asked. “The club owner?”
John nodded. “Next thing you know, the cops are looking to bust us for drug trafficking and for killing this kid, but Gary said we was set up. That we was going down for murder. But we ain’t killed nobody. We don’t even know the kid. I swear it.”
The ten-year sentence suddenly made sense. The DA might not have been able to directly tie the brothers to the death of the cop’s kid, but with that theory floating around, the judge handed out the longest sentence he could manage.
“This cop have a name?” I asked.
“Patrick Marion,” John said.
“Okay. So who set you up?” I asked.
John shrugged. “We don’t know. But Gary found out somehow. He couldn’t find us because we was laying low, but he found Willie at his job at a mechanic’s shop. Gary told Willie he had proof but he wasn’t taking his chances with the law getting things right. He had a way out of the country and he was taking it. He said he’d hid the proof and some money in a family crypt and he gave Willie the key to give to us.”
“Then why didn’t Willie do that?” I asked, still confused.
“Willie was freaking, you know?” John said. “Gary told him to hide the key until he could give it to us, so he hid it in one of the SUVs that was in for repair, figuring we’d boost it later and get the key.”
“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Ida Belle said. “You expect us to believe that Willie hid the key in a stranger’s SUV instead of just putting it under a rock somewhere at his house?”
John shrugged. “He was high. It was past quitting time and he’d already had a hit.”
“Willie was dipping into your product?” I asked.
“No,” John said. “Willie wasn’t dealing. Just me and Bart was. Willie was our friend from way back. We boosted cars together. That’s all.”
“If Willie was only a car boost,” I asked, “then why did he go to prison for dealing?”
“He was in the club with us every night, and yeah, he might have handed someone a bag when we were really busy, but he didn’t get paid for it. We sold him product at cost and took it out of our cut.”
“So when the cops caught you boosting cars together,” I said, “they assumed you were trying to leave town and took Willie down along with you.”
John nodded and stared at the ground. “He was a good guy. I mean, yeah, he did too much drugs and all, but he didn’t deserve to go to prison for it, and he damned sure didn’t deserve to die.”
“Okay, so if Willie hid the key in the Blazer, then why were you arrested boosting Escalades?”
“Willie forgot what vehicle he put the key in,” John said.
“Jesus Christ,” Big said, finally speaking. “My IQ has dropped just listening to this. Could someone be any more stupid?”
I shook my head. This was even more of a mess than I could have imagined. “This is your brain on drugs, gentlemen. So you three went up ten years for dealing. Why look for the evidence now? You’ve served your time.”
“We needed money,” John said. “We didn’t know how much Gary left, but anything was more than we had.”
“And we wanted to know,” Bart said, breaking his silence. “We wanted to know who set us up.”
“You wanted revenge,” I said.
Bart shrugged. “So?”
He might not be bright, and he didn’t fall into the decent guy category and probably never would, but I didn’t blame him. I would have wanted to know too, and I was honest enough to admit that revenge would have been one of my top goals.
“Willie knew Hot Rod had bought the SUV,” I said. “How did he find out?”
“He saw an auction paper with the SUV on it,” John said.
I raised my eyebrows. “So the SUV that he couldn’t remember ten years before suddenly stood out on a sheet of paper with a bunch of other vehicles on it?”
John nodded. “There was something about the grille. He said when he saw it, he knew immediately that was the right one. He still had some contacts in the business and found out Hot Rod bought the SUV.”
“So Willie broke into Hot Rod’s place,” I said.
“Yeah, but not Sunday night,” John said. “It must have been before then.”