by Alec Peche
“How did the shooter know you were going to be at the cemetery? I think we assumed that with the monster truck incident, that someone either heard your drone, or they have a camera on the field or the road. In this cemetery, they either had to have overheard you say you were going there or followed you from your hotel. How did you get there?”
“I took the St. Charles streetcar, then walked the final two to three blocks. I can't say I noticed anyone carrying a bag that would have held a rifle and wouldn't you need a rifle to hit at a distance of two hundred yards?”
“Heyer just finished her conversation, let me ask her.”
There was a pause as Briggs put his phone on speaker and then she heard Heyer say, “Actually, CSI picked up three 9mm bullets at the cemetery, and three shell casings on the roof and they're matching their striations to firearms as we speak, but the initial review points to a pistol.”
“So if it was a pistol, the shooter could have hid it in their clothing if they were on the streetcar with me, right?”
“Yes. It also means that the shooter is an excellent marksman and likely if he or she wanted to hit you, they could have done it,” Heyer noted. “The CSI techs tested the DNA on the bullet, but there is both male and female DNA on it which you would expect from the manufacture and sales process. They're searching the home security systems in that neighborhood to see if anyone caught something on camera.”
“Did you find out who owns the property that the field is on?” Jill asked completely changing the subject.
“Before we move on, I think we need to determine how someone located you at the cemetery. I can think of three ways; one - someone overheard you ask for directions to the cemetery, two – you are being followed, or three a GPS locator has been placed on you,” Heyer said.
“Maybe there's a fourth method; I think hackers can follow my phone's movement through its power use.”
Briggs and Heyer simultaneously said, “What?”
“Well I live close to Silicon Valley and there is always a new app to do something nefarious with. Just saying. Let me think back to my routine this morning to see if I told anyone other than Nathan that I was going to the cemetery.”
Jill closed her eyes and recounted her routine that morning that took her to the cemetery. She remembered discussing it with Nathan before leaving the room. Once she left the hotel, she'd walked to the street and stood at the stop. She got on the streetcar and checked in with the conductor that she wanted off at the Lafayette Cemetery stop. The conductor told her the name of the stop and said she would announce it. So she thought about who had waited beside her at the streetcar stop and who could have heard the conversation on the street. Then she thought about who got off the streetcar at the same time and no one clicked in her mind.
The detectives waited patiently on the other end of the phone during the ensuing silence on the phone line, then Jill said, “No one sticks out in my head, but I'll admit that it could have easily happened. I'd love for my hotel room and personal stuff to be surveyed for bugs. Though if there are any in my room, they're listening to this conversation now.”
“We don't have such equipment, but you can probably buy such devices online relatively cheaply.”
“I might do that since I seem to run into trouble on a lot of cases. When I return to California, I'll look into equipment to detect bugs as well as ways to block my cell phone from being tracked. Meanwhile I'll check my purse to make sure no foreign objects have been placed in it and I'll begin paying attention to my surroundings to see if someone is following me. So back to my other question – who owns the land that marijuana field is planted on?”
“Interestingly, I guess you could say the State of Louisiana,” replied Detective Briggs.
“Oh, is it leased to someone by the government or is the government not aware that a crop is being grown on their land?” Jill asked, the puzzlement obvious in her voice.
“Neither of those explanations and call us paranoid but this is starting to look like a big conspiracy.”
“Okay now I'm really intrigued. Explain please!”
“The government owns the oceans around the United States out to twelve nautical miles. The state owns the first three miles and the federal government owns the remainder. This plot of land according to the county tax assessor is underwater; it's part of the Gulf of Mexico.”
“What? How could they be so wrong about it? Was it underwater at some point in the last fifty years or so?” Jill asked trying to comprehend how the tax assessor could be so wrong.
“I read somewhere that every forty-five minutes, a football size piece of coastal Louisiana land becomes underwater,” Heyer said. “Makes you wonder if New Orleans will be here in another one-hundred years, or will it be covered by water.”
“Was it just the marijuana field that was declared underwater or does it include the crops on nearby lands?” Jill asked.
“Good question, let me do some research and get back to you on that question,” Heyer said.
“Regarding reclaiming land that has gone underwater, yes you can do that by taking the silt and sludge of the Mississippi and fill those wetlands in. It needs to be from the river so that it doesn't have the salt content from the gulf which prevents trees from taking root,” Jill said reading from a website.
“So what does this tell us?” Briggs asked.
“It's possible that the land was underwater at some point when the original owner remanded it back to the state and then later used silt for the Mississippi River to make the land usable again. I doubt the state drives around and verifies every square mile that it owns. So this listing by the county could be a mistake or a lack of updating to their survey maps. Maybe I'll try and pull up a survey map and see what it says as far as the water line, though really it doesn't matter how it got mislabeled and we don't know whose farming on it now.”
“I guess at this point we should notify our colleagues in that county of the location of that marijuana field and see what they do with it. If they go out and destroy it that will tell us one thing and if it's there a month from now, then that tells us something else about this case,” Heyer suggested.
Another thought came to Jill and she told the detectives. “Last night Nathan and I were in a jazz club and we saw two people observing us a little more than normal. Nathan approached the one and had a conversation with him at the bar and we ended by thinking it was a mistake on our part. There was another man in the crowd who seemed to be intently observing us and so I started watching him and when he caught me watching him he took off and I didn't see him again at the club. I don't recall seeing either of those faces on the streetcar this morning. I'll start paying more attention, but Nathan and I will only be in New Orleans for another day and a half. How much trouble can we get into in that short timeline?
She heard the two detectives chuckle and Heyer said in a thick Southern voice, “Dr. Quint, I would suggest that you've experienced enough trouble for a thousand tourists and our crime statistics will decline the moment you board the plane for California.”
Jill just laughed and hung up as the hotel room door opened and Nathan walked in.
Chapter 20
She approached him to give him a welcoming kiss and a hug and asked, “How did your meeting go?”
“Good. I'm in sync with the distillery owner that's always helpful in a business relationship, and it really helped walking around the French Quarter last night. I understand what he wants to do as far as bridging the gap of typical New Orleans but having a logo that's cutting edge but includes the roots of his city. It's going to be fun to design. How was your morning? I thought you would still be out touring the Garden District.”
“Jo was bored with her seminar, so she took a taxi and joined me at the Lafayette Cemetery. It was an interesting place to look at the mausoleums and then we were shot at.”
Nathan's head whipped around at Jill's words, “What? Are you hurt?” He asked looking for injuries and seeing none.
“Jo and I are both fine,” Jill said as she explained the situation to Nathan.
He just shook his head and pondered, “Why do these seemingly innocuous cases turn into such disasters? Seriously, you joined this case because the family said a young man died from evil spirits and that was inconsistent with your training. Now you've been chased by a monster truck and fired on with a gun while you were in a cemetery. There's just something really weird about that you being a forensic pathologist at all.”
“I know what you mean. When I told Jo I could imagine that after the cemetery gates closed at night, all the dead people would come out their mausoleums to talk to each other and party, she thought I was nuts from being around dead people too much.”
Nathan smiled at that thought and then he got serious and asked, “So what's your plan for the remainder of this case?”
“We got some interesting information today, but I told the detectives we were leaving in a day and a half. I can't imagine the monster truck following us home to California especially since it's not a street legal vehicle.”
“So the case stays unresolved?”
“No, but I think all the evidence I could collect in this state has already been collected. Now I need to do some computer research to understand these disparate points. What does a murder by nutmeg have to do with the monster truck, a marijuana field, and the shooting in a cemetery? I'm missing something, but I don't necessarily think that identifying that something can only be done while I'm in New Orleans. What are your plans for our remaining time here?"
"I have no further meetings scheduled with my clients but there are two other distilleries I'd like to visit here just to compare what their branding principles are. Other than that I'm free to play tourist and of course I'd like to visit jazz clubs tonight and tomorrow.”
“Okay, we can do all of that and more. What else would you like to see here? I didn't get my tour of the Garden District and there are a couple of museums I visited that you might enjoy, or we could leave the city completely and visit one of the plantations.”
“We could go fishing.”
“Really?” said Jill curiously. “I've never heard you say you like to fish.”
“Fishing would not be one of my top ten activities. It just seems that we're so surrounded by water here that we should do some kind of unique water activity.”
“We could rent an airboat and travel the bayous,” Jill suggested.
“That sounds unique. I'm game. Do you have bug repellent with you?”
“No but there's a drug store across the street and I'll run in there and get us some stuff while you rent us an airboat.”
An hour later, they approached the location of the boat rental. Jill thought she'd been brilliant for her suggestion to try the airboat. The airboat looked fun to drive, and they would see an ecosystem not found in California. The proprietor gave them a paper map as cell phone coverage inside the bayous was weak and warned them not to get lost. If they didn't come back at the appointed time, there would be a three-hundred dollar charge for their search and rescue. They were also told that a client in the past hadn't been found until the next morning. That client was sleepless and exhausted from the scare of listening to the bayou's sounds overnight. His final pitch was that if she heard sounds of snoring, it was an alligator nearby.
“I think if that man had told us one more story, I would've been too scared to take this airboat out. I'm going to be meticulous documenting where we go on this map, so we don't get lost overnight.”
“Oh come on babe, it wouldn't be so bad cuddling up on this boat overnight,” Nathan said with a laugh.
“Trust me, I would be eaten alive by insects and the constant scratching would keep you awake. This landscape sure is pretty out here. I love the intense greens of the trees and grasses. Some of these tree mosses look like spiderwebs. Oh look there's an alligator over there by the entrance to the swamp. I guess they're everywhere out here.”
They rented an airboat that seated about six people, but it had two seats side-by-side for the driver and a passenger just how Nathan and Jill wanted to experience their trip through the bayous. The airboat was relatively quiet, as the owner had added mufflers to reduce the sound of normally loud airboats. Jill and Nathan were appreciative of the added muffler as they could carry out a conversation while driving the boat.
They had studied the map before they set out and decided to go to the furthest location first and then work their way back by exploring little avenues of each water body. It was a fun and unique adventure for the couple and they liked the lack of other airboats in the area they were exploring. So far they had passed one airboat going in the opposite direction. It appeared that the people aboard had been fishing looking at the collection of rods and fishing equipment on the boat's deck. They waved as they passed.
It was such a relaxing afternoon that Jill felt a long way from the troubles of someone shooting at her in the cemetery that morning. They had reached the farthest location of their bayou and turned the boat to begin the return trip but planned to explore the little offshoots along the way. Jill was convinced that she knew where they were as she was following the map. They were returning to the major waterway when they noticed that a boat had passed them seeming to follow their direction and touch the farthest point. But then Jill noticed something.
“I don't like the look of that boat. I see a lot of guns on that boat deck, and I don't see how you can use that quantity inside this bayou and they seem to be looking left and right in a purposeful manner.”
Nathan watched for a few seconds and agreed with Jill's conclusion.
“What do you say we hightail it out of here and head back to the marina?”
“I think that's an excellent plan. Let's let that boat keep going a little farther and then we'll pull out and head back. If they don't seem to be watching, we'll stay at a slow and quiet speed. If they say something and point at us, I guess we'll find out how much horsepower is on this boat.”
Jill looked around the boat for cover but there wasn't much. They could lie down in the interior of the boat, but they couldn't steer it if they did that and so they would be dead ducks.
They quietly eased out into the main waterway. Jill was looking back every few seconds, and it seemed that they were going to get away without notice. Then one of the observers on the other boat noticed them in the distance, and suddenly there was noise and action coming from the other boat as it turned headed in their direction.
“I don't suppose that's the search and rescue crew looking for us?” Jill said looking at her watch.
“I don't think so, we still have ninety minutes left on our contract. Besides why would they need guns?”
Jill nodded, glad for the boat's muffler as they took off, gaining some distance from the other boat.
“Maybe they didn't notice that we're going at a higher speed,” Nathan said.
“I spoke too soon, they seem to have turned up the speed of their boat and we're no longer gaining distance on them.”
“I think I'm going to have to duck into one of the small bayous after a curve in this main waterway. Can you look at the map and see if there's anything that will work for us?”
Jill studied the map and saw a body of water that might suit their needs. It wasn't a dead end, and with any luck, they might find some of that swamp moss to hide behind. She discussed the plan with Nathan and he agreed. They both knew they had no protection in the small boat.
There were a series of S-shaped curves coming up and Jill and Nathan planned to exit last in the middle of the curves. They did so and saw to their delight, a tree full of swampy moss ahead. As soon as they were on a path to the hiding place, Nathan shut off the motor, and they glided the boat into a hiding area of cypress trees and Spanish moss. She looked at the two of them clothing wise and realized they were both dressed in dark colors. Thankfully she hadn't decided to wear a red top that morning. Their boat was painted in military camouflage colors so they could si
t quietly behind the moss in their seats.
Jill whispered to Nathan, “How long should we wait in here?”
“I say forty-five minutes then we start the engine at a low speed and go out the back way,” he whispered in reply.
They silenced both of their cell phones and set a timer for the time span. Jill checked her cell phone coverage but showed no bars of reception. Regardless she typed a text message to the detectives and hit send with her geocoordinates in case there were a few seconds of cell tower coverage. Jill also pantomimed to Nathan that her bug repellent was the only weapon aboard their boat.
Some ten minutes later they heard the sound of a boat coming. She and Nathan tensed holding hands. They each had about a two-inch window to see through the moss. They both noted that the boat was the one that had chased them earlier. Jill thought of taking a picture, but she didn't want to move for fear of causing the smallest of waves. There were four men on the boat seated with guns of some sort strung across their chests. They could hear that the men were talking to each other, but not what they were saying over the noise of their airboat engine and fan. They continued down the waterway and about fifteen minutes later came back.
Jill and Nathan again tensed saying nothing, not moving. Still they couldn't decipher their words over the noise of the men's boat. The men didn't seem alert like they saw them and they continued on down the bayou. Once they passed again and seemed to be approaching the major waterway, Nathan looked at his watch and whispered, “We've got another twenty minutes before our arbitrary time to depart. Do you agree we should sit here for that length of time?”
“Yes, let me study this map some more. I wouldn't want to run into them in another bayou. Looks like the next two are dead-ends, although I think you can take this airboat right over a small island.”
Holding up the map they agreed on the waterway that they would take to get back to the marina. They heard no further airboat traffic on the waterway in which they were hidden, and so at the appointed time moved out of their mossy hiding place and made slow progress back to the marina. Jill was keeping her fingers crossed that she'd read the map correctly and they would find their marina. Forty-five minutes later, she heaved a sigh of relief as she recognized their rental car in the parking lot of the marina. They won! They arrived safely back at the marina and had no damage to themselves or their boat.
