shouldn’t surprise me. I knew Gil and Tiffany never had a real marriage. I don’t think he ever really cared about her as a person. More as a collectible, you know? Someone that made him look successful and hip and made the other guys jealous. Mind you, that’s what I think he thought, not what I think other people thought.”
“Good,” Gertie said. “Because other people thought he was a fool. At best.”
Judith pushed herself up from the chair and gave me a forlorn nod. “I appreciate you talking with me. I’m going to call my lawyer and set up an appointment with Liam. I’ve got to do something to protect him. He doesn’t deserve this. Any of this.”
“Let us know if there’s anything else we can do,” Ida Belle said. “And if Liam needs anything that we can help with. “
Judith gave us a nod and headed out. I waited until I heard the door close behind her, then asked, “Do we believe she didn’t know about Gwyn?”
Ida Belle and Gertie both shook their heads.
I sighed. Exactly what I’d thought.
We weren’t sure.
I checked the tracker I’d put in Tiffany’s car before we left my house and it showed her location in New Orleans, so we headed out. When we got to the city limits, I pulled it up again so that we could home in on her exact location. Ida Belle snaked around the city streets until we arrived at a boutique hotel just outside the French Quarter. There was a lot across the street and I spotted Tiffany’s car in an end slot.
“This is definitely the place,” I said, and pointed.
Ida Belle entered the parking lot and backed into a space on the row farthest from Tiffany’s car and next to a van. I hopped out and ran to shove some bills in the collection box and then hurried back to the SUV.
“Only one hotel here, so that has to be the place, right?” Gertie said.
“Unless she’s staying somewhere farther down and this is the closest lot,” Ida Belle said. “Or the closest one with available parking. And that’s assuming she got a room right away and isn’t just meeting her mystery friend from the motel.”
Gertie sighed. “Why do you have to make everything so difficult?”
Ida Belle shrugged. “Just pointing out all the options. We can’t assume anything until we lay eyes on her.”
“Well, start assuming,” Gertie said and pointed.
I looked up and saw Tiffany exiting the hotel with a young man.
“Does he look familiar to you guys?” I asked.
Ida Belle lifted binoculars and nodded. “I think it’s one of the boys from that photo. One of the rodeo kids Tiffany used to hang out with.”
Gertie grabbed the binoculars. “Kip Ranger.”
We both looked at her.
“What?” she said. “I read the names. His stood out. How many Kips do you know around these parts, and last name Ranger, like the Lone Ranger. It stuck with me.”
“So it wasn’t Liam that Tiffany had reconnected with,” I said. “It was this guy.”
“Who knows how to handle horses,” Gertie said.
“Still doesn’t mean she killed Gil,” Ida Belle said. “But it sure looks suspicious.”
“Looks better for Liam, though,” Gertie said.
“But also brings up the question of what did she want from Liam that day at the butcher shop,” Ida Belle said.
I took a couple pictures with my phone and then we waited while the two of them got into Tiffany’s car and pulled away.
“Do you want to follow them?” Ida Belle asked.
“No. The tracker will let us know where they’re going, but I’m guessing it’s just for something to eat,” I said. “Let’s go tackle the Emilia situation.”
The theater wasn’t open, but a young woman wearing a college insignia T-shirt and a bored expression answered the door when we knocked. I explained that we needed to speak to Lil and she waved us inside without so much as a raised eyebrow and pointed to a set of double doors.
“She was in the theater working on some prop or something last time I was out of the office,” she said. “You don’t mind finding her yourself, do you? I’ve got a chemistry test tomorrow that I’m cramming for. I keep telling my dad I can’t sit in his building all day because I have things to do but he doesn’t listen.”
“No problem at all,” I said and we headed off.
“Good thing we’re not serial killers,” Gertie said. “since she lets anyone have the run of the place.”