But Not Forsworn: A Clint Wolf Novel (Clint Wolf Mystery Series Book 21) Read online

  BUT NOT

  FORSWORN

  A Clint Wolf Novel

  (Book 21)

  ___________________

  BY

  BJ BOURG

  www.bjbourg.com

  BUT NOT FORSWORN

  A Clint Wolf Novel by BJ Bourg

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  Copyright © 2021 by BJ Bourg

  Cover design by Christine Savoie of Bayou Cover Designs

  PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 1

  Monday, September 27

  Mechant Loup, Louisiana

  “I did!” Gina Burke hollered into her cell phone. “I was the one who solved the case. You can ask Ralph. He said so himself.”

  “Whatever,” came her boyfriend’s tired response. “I’m not buying it.”

  “You don’t have to buy a damn thing! I was looking through the file and noticed that the time on the Miranda rights form was thirteen minutes after the supposed confession our client gave to the deputy.” Gina quit speaking and applied her brakes as she approached a school bus that had stopped in the opposite lane. Two small girls—each shouldering mesh backpacks and wearing matching uniforms—strode lazily toward the open door, chatting as they walked.

  Gina stomped her foot. “Come on, girls, I don’t have all day!”

  “Why’d you call me a girl?” Orrin demanded to know. “Just ’cause I don’t believe you doesn’t give you the right to start calling me names.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you.” Gina smashed the accelerator when the bus driver finally closed the accordion door and retracted the stop signs. Within seconds, she was cruising over the bridge into Mechant Loup and approaching the law firm where she worked. “Seriously, Orrin, why don’t you believe me? I would never lie to you.”

  “I just don’t understand why he’s letting you look through his files. You’re a secretary, not a lawyer.”

  That stung, and Gina let him know it did.

  “Oh, yeah,” he retorted defiantly, “how do you think it feels when my girl comes home with a new dress that her perverted boss bought her? Or shows up with a brand new iPad that he gave her just because? Or what about the time he sent flowers to the house with a note that said you’re the best thing that ever happened to him? Oh, yeah, and don’t think I didn’t realize that you went from calling him Mr. Plant to suddenly calling him Ralph after he started showering you with gifts.”

  Gina blushed with anger. “First off, you and I might be dating, but you don’t own me, so I’m not your girl. Secondly, I earned every one of those gifts.”

  “Yeah, well, I think it’s kinda weird that a man buys his secretary a dress. And what’s even creepier is that the damn thing fits.” Orrin spat the last word. “Hell, I don’t even know what size dress you wear.”

  “That says more about you than it does about Ralph.” Gina lifted her chin in defiance. “Maybe if you started buying me nice things you wouldn’t feel so threatened by a successful lawyer.”

  “Maybe if you wouldn’t be such a materialistic—”

  Gina didn’t let him finish. She flung the cell phone across her car and gripped the steering wheel with both hands.

  “That’s it!” she hollered, hoping he was still hanging on the call. “That’s the last straw, Orrin Cheramie! Your ass is grass! It’s over. If my boss wants to fly me to Hawaii, I’ll pack up tonight and leave your ass behind!”

  Although she hated herself for it, a few tears began to form at the corner of her eyes.

  I will not cry! I will not cry!

  The office building finally came into view. She turned left, cruised down the long drive, and then gasped when she saw Ralph’s Porsche in the parking lot. She straightened in her seat and checked the time on the dash. It was fifteen minutes to eight. He was never there that early.

  “Damn it!” She sped forward, whipped into her parking spot beside his, and quickly wiped her eyes. She had to put her game face on. She would deal with the Orrin situation later. It would be a quick and clean breakup. She had no doubt that Ralph would help her get a place of her own—if nothing more, just to get her away from Orrin.

  Once she was single, there was no telling what doors might be opened. She saw the way Ralph looked at her when he thought she couldn’t see him. She’d been around men long enough to know what it meant—and it flattered her to no end. Ralph could have any woman he wanted, but he wanted her. She began to imagine how life might be with a rich husband, but then shook her head to clear it. There would be time for that later.

  As for right now, she had to hurry inside and get Ralph his coffee. She always put a fresh cup in his hand as soon as he stepped through the door, and he loved it. He loved the way she waited on him, and she loved doing it. Had she known he would be here early, she would’ve surely beaten him to the office.

  After snatching her keys from the ignition and gathering her purse, she hurried out of her Nissan and strode toward the front door. It was locked, so she quickly inserted the key and threw it open.

  “I’m here,” she sang out as she stepped through the lobby and into the L-shaped hallway. Ralph hadn’t turned on the hall lights, but she could see a faint glow emitting from the open door to his office. “I’ll have your coffee ready in a flash.”

  Gina turned right and headed straight for the kitchen. Tossing her things on the counter, she quickly set about brewing a pot of Community Coffee. As she worked, she glanced at her purse and keys on the counter and realized she’d left her cell phone on the floor in her car.

  “Shit!” She quickly rushed
out to the parking lot, retrieved her phone, and hurried through the lobby again. She paused before making the right turn into the kitchen. She hadn’t heard a peep from Ralph’s office. He rarely beat her to work, but he always called out a greeting when she arrived.

  “Ralph?” Gina waited, but there was no response. She started slowly down the hallway toward his office. “Ralph, is everything okay?”

  Ralph’s office door was open a crack. She stopped just outside and peered in. She could see the nearest corner of his desk, but she couldn’t see him.

  “Ralph?” she asked in a louder voice. “Is everything okay?”

  When he didn’t answer, she gave the door a gentle shove, thinking he mustn’t be inside. She figured he had probably left his car at the office last night and asked someone to pick him up. He did that from time to time when he worked late and consumed alcohol. He couldn’t afford another DWI. Gina, herself, had given him a ride home on several occasions. As she stepped into his office, she reflected on how much she enjoyed those moments alone in the car with him—

  “Oh, my God!” Gina recoiled in horror when she saw her boss sitting behind his desk. Without wasting a second, she spun and sprinted down the hallway, her heels clacking as she ran. She tried to slow to a stop as she neared the entrance to the lobby, but she twisted an ankle, stumbled, and crashed into the doorway. She fell hard.

  Scrambling back to her feet, she fumbled for a moment with the knob and then hurried out into the lobby. Limping from the pain in her right ankle, she made her way to the parking lot and quickly dialed 911 on her cell phone.

  CHAPTER 2

  Clint and Susan Wolf’s Residence

  My daughter was a little more than seven months away from her fourth birthday, but she was already talking in complete sentences, albeit simple ones.

  “Daddy,” she said, talking loud enough to be heard over the television that was droning on in the background, “Coco was a bad girl.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked between bites of fried beignets and honey. “What’d she do?”

  “She pooh-poohed on the payment.”

  I cocked my head to the side, and then looked across the table at my wife, Susan, who was dressed in her police uniform.

  “On the payment?” I asked, a quizzical expression falling across my face. “Payment for what?”

  “No!” Grace said in frustration. “Not payment—payment!”

  “Yeah, Daddy,” Susan interjected, “the pavement.”

  “Oh!” I laughed. “She shat under the carport on the pavement?”

  “Shat!” Grace said with a grin. “Coco shat down and poohed!”

  “No, Gracie!” Susan shook her head for emphasis. “Don’t repeat the bad words that come out of your father’s mouth.”

  “Shat’s not a bad word,” Grace corrected. “It’s a good word.”

  “When Daddy says it,” Susan said with a smirk, “it’s a bad word.”

  Grace frowned. “I want to be big, so I can say bad words, too.”

  Susan and I laughed, but I stopped when I heard the local news anchor mention the name of the Chateau Parish DA. I turned my attention to the television and listened as Bill Hedd took center screen and began talking.

  “I know some of you have heard the rumors swirling around for the past several months,” he said, his voice somber. “Well, they’re true. Due to some unexpected health issues, I’ll be retiring from my post here at the district attorney’s office. I’ll be leaving the office in the very capable hands of First Assistant Isabel Compton.”

  Bill paused for dramatic effect, and gasps could be heard from the crowd that had gathered in front of the courthouse steps in Northern Chateau. The recording was from the previous afternoon, and most of the people in the crowd had apparently just returned from church, as they were mostly all clad in their Sunday bests.

  “Now, there’ll be a special election and Isabel will have to earn your votes,” Hedd continued. “But I’m confident that once y’all hear her platform and learn about what she’s been doing for the past decade to prepare for this moment, y’all will come to realize that she’s the best choice for this parish. You see, for the past few years I’ve been grooming her to take my place, and she is ready, willing, and able to lead this office in the right direction. So, without further adieu, here’s your next district attorney, Isabel Compton.”

  Susan appeared beside me and watched as the crowd erupted in cheers. “I can’t believe that bastard’s finally retiring,” she said of Hedd.

  “What’s a bastard, Mommy?” Grace asked from the table, talking around a mouthful of fried dough.

  Instead of fussing Grace, Susan simply pointed at the large man on the television screen and said, “It’s that man.”

  A second later, Bill was gone and Isabel had replaced him in front of the lectern. Isabel Compton had always been a friend to Susan and me, so I was glad that she had been named as Hedd’s replacement. Although she was the obvious choice, politics can be a strange animal, and I just knew Bill would find some way to screw things up and leave an imbecile in his stead.

  Isabel wore a fancy business suit and heels that made her almost as tall as Bill. She exuded confidence. During her brief speech, her voice was commanding, but not overbearing. She was sure of herself, but not cocky. She spoke of the drug problem that had been plaguing the parish and promised to tackle it head on. Her plan was to immediately initiate a zero-tolerance policy on all drug offenses, and to vigorously prosecute those who sold to minors. She also promised to revamp the pre-trial intervention program.

  “We will no longer use the PTI program for DWI and drug offenses,” she said. “That program was originally designed for citizens who committed minor infractions of the law, but it has become a pay-to-play scheme, where even felonies are being excused if the offender can come up with the right amount of cash to pay the fine. This practice excludes the poor, who oftentimes can’t participate in the program for even minor offenses, because they can’t afford the hefty fines. This will be remedied under my leadership…”

  I turned away from the television with a smile on my face and finished my breakfast. At long last, the Chateau Parish District Attorney’s Office was in good hands. Although Bill Hedd and I had had some severe differences over the years, I no longer harbored any ill feelings toward the man. However, I was very glad to see him go.

  I was just picking up my plate when my cell phone rang. I fished it out of my back pocket and glanced at the display screen. It was Amy Cooke, the other half of the Mechant Loup Detective Bureau. Although there were only two of us, my official title was chief of detectives, which didn’t make any sense to me, as I was the chief of one. It had made even less sense when I’d first rejoined the force as the chief of detectives, because I had initially been the chief of no one except me.

  “What’s up Ames?” I stood from the table to put my plate and glass in the dishwasher. “I know you’re not calling to wish me good morning.”

  “Nah, I was calling to check on the youngest twin,” she said. “Has she healed up yet?”

  I grunted. I had been shot in the back of the leg three months ago and Amy had insisted it was high enough up my leg to be considered my butt, so she called the new hole, the younger twin.

  “I’m fine, thanks for asking.” I closed the dishwasher and headed upstairs to retrieve my duty weapon, which was a Beretta 92 FS semi-automatic pistol chambered in 9 mm. “Is there something else you needed, or were you just calling to make fun of an old, crippled man?”

  “We’ve got a death investigation.” She took a breath and exhaled. “And it’s a lawyer, so this one will probably get some media attention.”

  I paused with my pistol poised above my holster. We only had a few law offices in town, but most of them were satellite offices only open on Thursdays or Fridays. Usually, those attorneys liked to get a little work done en route to their camps on the coast for the weekend, but they weren’t serious about having an office in town. Regardless
, the death of any lawyer would be big news around here, so I knew we’d have to act fast.

  “A lawyer?” I asked, going over the list in my mind. “Which one?”

  “It seems that the infamous Ralph Plant has decided to face plant right into his desktop,” she said. “He’s dead in his law office and his blood is staining good carpet, so we’d better hurry.”

  “Are you there yet?”

  “No, Regan’s there now. I talked to her on my cell.” Amy paused for a second, and then her voice turned sour. “I really don’t like that asshole.”

  I nodded. Ralph had been in town for a little less than a year now—having moved his practice from Central Chateau—but he had managed to rub quite a few women wrong, including Amy and Takecia. He had made a crude comment to Amy while standing in line at Granny’s Bakery one morning and, as the story went, Amy had threatened to plant his “narrow ass” into a shallow grave so the coyotes and raccoons could dig him up and defile his corpse.

  About two weeks later, he had made the mistake of touching Takecia’s lower back and calling her honey—it was something he’d never do to another woman again. If he hadn’t been traumatized by the incident, his left wrist certainly had been because Takecia had nearly ripped it clean off of his arm. He had threatened to sue, but when Takecia said she’d file battery charges against him to make it official, he’d changed his mind.

  When Amy didn’t say anything more, I let her know I’d be en route and ended the call. I holstered my pistol and headed downstairs. Coco, our saddleback German shepherd, was stretched out in the corner of the kitchen with her chin in her paws, while Achilles—her solid black male counterpart—was sitting proudly in the living room watching the morning weather.

  I indicated Coco and asked Susan if she’d fussed our dog.

  “Damn right I fussed her,” she said. “I won’t have her shitting all over the pavement.”

  “Oh no!” Grace’s mouth fell wide open and her expression grew stern. “Mommy said a bad word!”