Page 185 of Buried Too Deep

“And tell him what?” Cora demanded. “Arrest Alan Beauchamp because a couple we aren’t supposed to know about, who basically bought a baby, said that his grandson told them that someone was coming to kill them?”

“We can tell him to arrest Patrick for murder,” Val said. “Old paint, guys. Old freaking paint.”

Cora’s headache was coming back. “Look, Detective Goddard in Houma knows about the paint. He’s shared the lab results with Clancy. Clancy knows he’s looking for an art restorer who has some connection to me. If he comes up with Patrick’s name on his own, fine. But if we tell him now, we’re going to have to tell him about the partnership and the eraser stuff. Which leads them to Alice VanPatten and the others who legitimately needed help.”

Val huffed out a frustrated breath. “Goddammit. I hate that you’re right. Let’s find the mother of that baby, then.”

“We might have some leads,” Phin said, showing his phone. There, on his screen, was a photo of Reverend Alan Beauchamp. He was smiling and congenial, his arm around a much younger woman. The caption said that she was his wife, Lexy.

“Unlike you, Cora,” he said, “Alan Beauchamp has a lot of personal information on the internet. First of all, he has no siblings. He’s an only child. So Ashley’s biological mother was not his sister. He has three children, though, from his first marriage. Wife number one—Anna—died in a car accident. Their oldest son, Alan Jr., is deceased. He also died in a car accident. He was Sage’s father. Alan’s middle child is Walton Beauchamp, a decorated colonel in the army. He’s served several tours and is currently stationed in Colorado. Alan’s youngest child is a daughter, Jennifer. She’s most likely Ashley’s mother. She would have been fifteen at the time of Ashley’s birth.” He swiped on his phone. “Here’s an article about her from—surprise, surprise—twenty-three years ago, a few weeks after Ashley was born. There’s no mention of a pregnancy or birth. The article says that Jennifer took an overdose of drugs. They found her in time to save her life, but she didn’t fully recover. She was hospitalized for schizophrenia shortly after the overdose. Her father blamed the schizophrenia on the overdose.”

Cora frowned. “But a drug overdose doesn’t cause schizophrenia. It can make schizophrenia worse if it already exists, but there’s no causal relationship.”

Phin shrugged. “Facts apparently didn’t matter to Alan. He used the overdose to bring attention to the issue of teenagers and drugs. He raised money off the cautionary tale of his daughter’s ‘sin’ and funded a new drug rehab ministry. His church still runs it to this day.”

“What happened to Jennifer?” Val asked.

“Stone’s checking it out,” Phin said. “He’s got contacts.”

Cora raised her brows. “What kinds of contacts?”

“Probably the kind we don’t ask about,” Val said. “Like Antoine’s computer searches. Just say please and thank you, and don’t ask the details. It’s like not asking what goes into sausage.”

“Exactly,” Phin said. “He’s checking the psychiatric hospitals now to see where she might have been admitted. It’ll take him some time, but he’ll figure out where she is.”

“He should pair up with Antoine,” Val said.

“He already has.” Phin shook his head. “They’ve worked together in the past.”

“I keep forgetting they were friends first,” Val said, “before you came into the picture, Phin. I think we should be afraid if those two have joined forces.”

“Very afraid,” Phin agreed.

“We need to call Joy,” Cora said unexpectedly.

“She’s good,” Val said. “I visited her this morning. They’re going to keep her another few days, but she’s mending well.”

“No. I mean, good that she’s better, but that’s not what I wanted to ask her. She heard the voice of the man who shot her, remember? Phin found Sage Beauchamp on the church’s website and I’ve seen him on TV commercials for the church. He’s about the same size as the man who chased me—and the man who shot Joy.”

“Cora,” Val breathed. “Burke really does need to hire you.”

“He really does,” Phin agreed.

“We should get a clip of him speaking,” Cora said, pleased at the praise, but she’d be happy when she could go back to the library. This PI life was not for her. “Maybe Joy can ID his voice.”

“Find one and send it to Joy’s kids,” Val directed. “One of them will get her to listen to it. If Sage was the intruder who shot Joy, he is an important connection to Alan Beauchamp. Alan knew Medford Hughes. He lied about him to get us to investigate Medford for a crime he likely didn’t do, if what André told Antoine is correct. And André is usually right about these things.”

“Reverend Beauchamp specifically asked if Sara Morton had her brother-in-law’s laptop.” Cora thought about that moment the night before. “Why would he lie about something that the police might be able to challenge—if they had the laptop, of course.”

“But they don’t have the laptop,” Val said. “Clancy said they didn’t collect Hughes’s computers, only the laptops that were stolen from us, which struck him as odd. That a guy who did network stuff for a living didn’t have a single computer in his house.”

Cora forced her brain to focus on Medford Hughes’s laptop. “Is it too huge a leap to assume that Beauchamp had the computer himself or he knew where it was?”

“I don’t know,” Val said. “Keep going.”

“Well, if he was so confident to make a claim that could be disproven if the police had Medford’s computer, I think it makes sense that he knows that the police don’t have it. He’d be certain of this if he had it himself. If he does have Medford’s computer, he had to have taken it from Medford Hughes or from his house. Is it possible that he killed Medford Hughes and took whatever was in the trunk of Hughes’s car?”

“I think that’s very possible,” Val said. “That would mean that our computers that were found in the back of Hughes’s car were put there by Beauchamp. Maybe he asked Hughes to break into them. And, if Beauchamp had our laptops, he might have gotten them from Sage, which means he’s the one who shot Joy and chased you. We really need a video clip for Joy.”

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