While he waited, he took a walk around the Quarter, had a couple of beignets with a strong cup of chicory coffee and people-watched. Bourbon Street was booming that Saturday morning, but he suspected this city was a lot like New York in that it never shut down.

He was contemplating a tour when his phone rang with a call from the 504 area code.

“Jake Malone.”

“It’s Amanda Rosa. Tom will see you at two. Let me give you our address.” She recited the address as he scrambled to type it into his phone.

“Thank you both so much.”

“See you then.”

Again, the line went dead. Mrs. Rosa didn’t screw around. She probably had no time for anything other than caring for her husband.

He put the Belle Chasse address into his phone to find out how far it was from the Quarter. About thirty minutes. He could grab an Uber. With time to spare, he returned to his hotel room to make a list of the most pressing questions he had for Rosa, such as:

Did you help Stahl archive reports of investigations he didn’t actually conduct?

Did Stahl have something on you? Because why else would you do such a thing?

What else do you know about Stahl and his activities around that time?

Anything else you shouldn’t take to the grave with you?

As Jake reviewed the list of questions, he hoped the wife wasn’t planning to be in the room, because she’d probably shut it down as soon as she figured out that this was much more than a friendly deathbed visit.

After Vernon dropped Sam at the morgue entrance, she stopped to see Lindsey. “Anything new on Mary Alice Albright?”

“Same as Spencer. Morphine in her brain. I’m ruling her death as suspicion of opioid toxicity.”

Sam let out a low swear. “Did you do recent exams on Morgan Newell and Angelo Diaz?” As a matter of course, autopsies were performed on any potentially suspicious deaths that occurred in their jurisdiction.

“Let me check.”

What did it say about the number of suspicious deaths in their jurisdiction that Lindsey did so many autopsies, she didn’t immediately recall all the names?

“Byron did Morgan’s.” She clicked around on her computer, calling up the reports. “She had morphine in her brain, too, and was ruled as accidental overdose. Angelo’s family declined the autopsy. I’ll send you the full report on Morgan.”

“How much you want to bet they’re related to Spencer and Mary Alice?”

“I don’t take bets I can’t win.”

“We have to find these people.”

“You will. Work the case. Follow the leads. Do what you do. You’ll get him.”

Sam nodded. “That’s what I needed to hear. Thank you.”

“It never happens as fast as we’d like it to.”

“No, it doesn’t. We’re issuing an alert to the public today that we suspect someone is selling laced Oxy, which will send our suspect deep under.”

“But it’ll save lives.”

“Yeah, it will. I just hope it doesn’t ruin any chance we have of catching them.”