Games of Guilt: A Crime Thriller (Hidden Guilt Book 3 of 3)

by Terry Keys

  Once we arrived on Wilcrest’s street, I noticed a perimeter had been established. I rolled down my window and flashed my badge so I could get through. Gibbs and I got out and started walking toward the house.

  “Excuse me, sir,” said Angleton PD officer Sergeant Martinez as he approached me. “We have strict orders to keep everyone behind this tape.”

  I showed Martinez my badge. “I need to get to the people inside those houses.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to be possible, sir. Nobody in or out; those were my orders. We’ve been able to contact all the homeowners surrounding Officer Wilcrest’s house. For now, they are sheltered in place.”

  “Listen, kid. You seem like a really nice guy, and I know you’re just following orders, but I’m going to talk to those neighbors.”

  Martinez put his hand on his service weapon. “Sir, please stop.”

  “Martinez, you ever been shot?”

  He looked at me, confused.

  “Simple question, son. Have you ever been shot?”

  “Uhh . . . no, sir.”

  “Well, I have, and it hurts like hell. I really don’t want to get shot today, if it’s okay with you.” I lifted the barricade tape and stooped beneath it. Gibbs hesitated, but not for long.

  I gave Martinez a thumbs-up and was relieved when he responded with a subtle head shake instead of a gunshot. Before long, I’d canvased Wilcrest’s side of the street, talking to every neighbor within five houses of his. I turned up nothing. “Sir, you think it was a waste of time driving all the way out here?”

  I looked at Gibbs but didn’t bother to answer the question.

  We started knocking on doors, but it was more of the same. I approached the last house I intended to visit, a modern two-story house that was right across the street from Wilcrest’s. A black, late-model Ford F-250 4x4 was parked out front. A sticker that read “Born to hunt, forced to work” was mounted on the bumper. There was also a Realtree sticker in the back window.

  I rapped on the door and waited. Ten seconds later, an athletic-looking male, late-twenties to maybe thirty and wearing a camo shirt, opened the door.

  I recognized the type. I enjoyed hunting and had dreams of doing some big-game shoots in other parts of the world someday. This guy looked like he was making all the YouTube hunting videos I enjoyed watching.

  “I help you?” The man said in a deep, southern drawl, a mouthful of Skoal® firmly secured in his left cheek.

  I held up my badge. “Detective Porter HPD. I’m working on a case, and I was wondering if I could have a few minutes of your time?”

  He spit into a cup he was holding. “Not sure how I can help you, but I’ll sure as hell try.”

  “A fellow officer, friend, and neighbor of yours, Captain Wilcrest, is missing. He lives across the street. His wife is missing too, and we believe they are both in imminent danger.”

  “Oh, hell! You ain’t shittin’ me, are you? This ain’t one of those reality shows? Some FBI fellers came ’round here yesterday. Hell, I opened the door, and they told me they didn’t have any questions fer me.”

  I looked at Gibbs. Figured FBI didn’t think a man who looked like this one would be any help to them. Maybe he wouldn’t be, but Wilcrest’s life was on the line. I’d take help from anyone.

  “No, sir. I wish this was a joke, but it’s very real. I think the killers might have been here in the last few nights. I believe the Wilcrests may have been abducted right from their own home. I was wondering if you might have seen or heard something. Even if you think it’s nothing, it may help me.”

  The man rubbed his head for a bit and spat into his cup again.

  “You know, we been having some break-ins last couple of months. I took some game cams from my deer lease and put ’em in my yard—hidden, of course. Got one at ground level, facing south.”

  “South? So it’d be aimed right across the street?” I asked.

  “That’s right. I got it set to turn on ’round midnight. That’s when I usually go to sleep. Runs till ’bout 6 a.m. Not too many cars moving up and down the street ’tween those times. If you’d like, I can pull the SIM card and we can take a gander.”

  “Yes!” I said, making no effort to hide my excitement.

  He offered us a seat inside and headed back out to retrieve the SIM card. We watched through the front window as he dug around in the bushes. He returned in a flash, grabbed his laptop from a nearby sofa, and booted it up.

  “Offer either one of you a beer?” He asked as we waited.

  “No thanks. We’re kind of in a hurry. And besides, we’re on duty. Catch me another time and I’d take you up on that offer,” I said.

  “This shouldn’t take long. Like I said, not too many cars rolling through the neighborhood that time a night in these here parts.”

  “Can you go back to two. . . no, make that three nights ago?”

  “Sure as hell can.”

  Just to ease my mind, he’d gone back four nights. The first few clicks turned up nothing. Several rabbits, a couple of blank pictures, and then voilà.

  Two nights ago, a late-model sedan pulled up to the curb in front of Wilcrest’s house. The camera was aimed too low to get faces, but I had two bodies. One had the build of a man, and the other was much slimmer. I also had a license plate number and make and model. This was the break I needed. Fingers could use this to track every move the car had made after the perps left Wilcrest’s.

  Thirty minutes after they went in, the pair came back out and spent a few minutes doing something in the area of the car’s backseat.

  Since Gibbs was with me, I’d have to tell everyone about the car, but I was keeping Fingers’ software to myself.

  “Can you email all these images to me?”

  “You bet, buddy. What’s your email address?”

  I gave him two email addresses—mine and Fingers’. I thanked him, and Gibbs and I let ourselves out. I texted Fingers and gave him the heads-up on what was coming his way.

  “So, Gibbs—”

  “No, sir. Not a waste of time,” she said before I could finish.

  I smiled. “You should have learned something here today, Gibbs. Never discredit a possible witness because of how they look. At least give them a chance to talk before you dismiss them.”

  She nodded.

  I walked up to Sergeant Martinez as we headed for my truck. “Thank you for letting me question the neighbors. I’m glad you didn’t shoot me. As it turns out, I didn’t find a goddamn thing. Complete waste of time. Thanks anyway.

  Gibbs gave me a smirk and a puzzled look. The truck door had barely shut when she started in. “So what the hell was that all about?”

  “What?” I said, playing coy.

  “You told him you didn’t find anything.”

  “Ohh that. Two reasons. One, they’d have gone over and bugged the poor fellow. Tried to take his game cam. Probably would’ve run him in. Seems like a good, honest, hardworking kid. Didn’t want him to have to go through all that hassle.”

  “And the second reason?”

  “Oh, yeah. Just wanted to let him feel good. Why not? I’m pretty good about letting people feel like they were right, even if they weren’t. Been practicing on my wife for a while now.”

  We both laughed. “I’ll be sure to tell her if I ever meet her sir.”

  “Please do. I’m quite sure she’d like that.”

  Chapter 45

  I was more than a little excited to interrogate Marci Wingup. There were so many things I didn’t know. So many things that she could tell me. But I wasn’t holding my breath that she’d tell me anything.

  Before I talked to Marci, I wanted to know exactly how DeLuca and Mitchell’s stakeout had gone awry.

  Gibbs and I pulled into the station and headed to Chief Hill’s office. It was a little after six, but he and Baines were waiting for my feedback. I filled them in on about ninety-five percent of what I’d learned in Angleton. Gibbs and I exchanged cell phone numbers, a
nd I told her I’d text when I was ready to interrogate Marci.

  I headed to my office, where DeLuca was waiting for me

  “So what the hell happened with Marci?” I asked as I plopped into my desk chair.

  “Which version you want?”

  “I got about ten minutes—so that version.”

  “Okay. Well, Mitchell and I were about one hundred yards away from their apartment, sitting nice and low in the beat-up car we’d taken for the stakeout. Honestly, I didn’t even think they had a clear line of sight to us. Anyway, we’d been there about an hour when some damn teenager came knocking on my window. I rolled it down to see what the hell he wanted. Damn kid asked me if I got a light. I shooed him off, and about ten minutes later all hell broke loose. Group of kids started playing soccer. Bunch of kids came out to watch. People were standing everywhere. Four kids huddled up about fifteen feet from the car, and I got nervous. All of a sudden, the four teens charged the car and slashed every tire. Couldn’t have been more than fifteen – sixteen maybe. I looked across the parking lot and saw Marci getting into a goddamn car.”

  I put my hand up. “I did ask for the ten-minute version, right?”

  “Just listen, will ya? Mitchell jumped out, ran up to an Escalade, pulled his gun, and told the kid to get out. I was running close behind. I held up my badge to the kid whose car we jacked. By the time I reached the door, Mitchell had already thrown the truck into gear. We gave chase about two minutes before we got close enough so I could take a few shots at the back tires. Luckily for us, Marci had driven down a street that wasn’t heavily occupied. I put three shots in, at least. Her car spun out of control. We jumped out of the Escalade and grabbed her.”

  “Pretty fascinating story. Did you ever think capturing her might raise questions, like how you knew where she was?”

  “Well, after we got locked up in Hill’s office we thought about it. That count?”

  I looked at her and shook my head. “Counts for something, I suppose, but not nearly enough. The minute I got on the phone with Hill earlier, he started in on me. What else did ya’ll do to piss him off?”

  “Well, obviously he asked how we knew to look there in the first place. I told him we were headed to interview another potential informant when I got the tip about Marci. Told him we sped into action and didn’t have time to call in for backup. It was as simple as that. He didn’t buy it, but he didn’t press it either.”

  I didn’t like the perceived dishonesty we’d created with Hill, but I also understood the position they’d unexpectedly found themselves in. I shot Gibbs a text and told her to meet me in the interrogation wing.

  Pressing Marci would have to be a delicate balancing act, at least for today. I had information that I didn’t want Baines, Hill, or anyone other than my team to know I had. I took a deep breath and walked into the interrogation room. I was surprised at how pretty Marci looked. I asked myself how such a beautiful woman could be so warped and ugly inside. Stacy had been no different.

  I pulled out the chair directly across from her and sat down. Marci stared at me with a discerning look that troubled me, almost as if she’d won something.

  “Care for any water or coffee, Miss Wingup?”

  “It’s Mrs. Wingup. Never thought this is how I’d meet my father-in-law.”

  That made my stomach queasy, but no one would know it by my face; I kept it level and direct. Technically speaking, I guess I was her father-in-law. I didn’t want to give Hill any reason to pull me off this case—again.

  “You are under arrest and being charged with multiple murders. You are aware of that, correct?”

  “No. I’m under arrest because my best friend got raped by you, and we decided to do something about it. “

  “Marci, listen. I need to find Caleb before he hurts someone else.”

  “He’s going to hurt someone else. That’s been the plan for a long time, tough guy. Even if you knew where he was, you couldn’t talk him down. And wait till I die in this dump. He’s really going to be pissed off then.”

  “You aren’t going to die in here for quite some time. You’ll have a trial—”

  “I don’t need a goddamn trial. We are guilty. I will write it, type it, whatever. I’m not pleading down to a lesser charge in exchange for Caleb, either, so don’t ask. I’ll kill again if I get out of this bitch too. “

  “Marci, we found you, didn’t we? How long do you really think it’s going to take before we find him?”

  “Porter, you’re extremely intelligent, much too bright to believe I’d tell you anything. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure why you bothered to question me to begin with.”

  “Just checking off a box. Besides, stranger things have happened.”

  “You’re delusional. Nothing that strange is happening. You may have all these people fooled, but I know who you really are—what you really are.”

  “Oh, is that right?”

  “You bet your ass it’s right. More than anything, you’re a monster and a coward.”

  I could see the pain and conviction in Marci’s eyes, the passion. My parents taught me early on that the perception of a situation often outweighed the facts. As elementary as that thought was, it was true, and it couldn’t have been any more relevant than it was right now.

  “Marci, I know you won’t believe me, and that’s okay. And I’ll only say it once. I didn’t intentionally set Stacy—Lisa—up to be raped. I would never do that to anyone. At one point or another in our lives, we all have our cowardly moments. I’d like to say that I was brave enough to make the right decision every time I was presented with a challenge, but I’d be lying if I did. I was eighteen and trying to fit in with a group of men who, given the situation, I shouldn’t have wanted to be associated with at all. What happened to her was terrible. I wish I could take it back. But what you started doing was equally as wrong. None of us, not even police officers, get to take the law into our own hands. And just like the pain you’ve suffered, you’ve caused great pain and suffering that you’ve come to hate.”

  I’d made my message as heartfelt as I could, and I meant every word of it.

  Marci smiled and looked at me. “It’s our way to right wrongs. Justice isn’t locking a man up for two years and letting him out on good behavior, only for him to rape someone else. People have gotten more time for marijuana distribution. Shows us all which is valued more. Raping a woman should put a man behind bars for life. There’s no rehab that takes place during a prison stay, so they come out and continue being the same lowlifes they were before they went in. We were tired of sitting on the sidelines, so we decided to hand out our own punishment.”

  “Marci, this country and its laws may not be perfect, but it’s the best country on this planet. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

  “Thanks for the lecture, cop. We about done here?”

  I glared at her. I didn’t know who’d hurt this girl but someone had. And she’d continued the cycle of pain and hurt passing it down to Caleb. Marci had spent her entire adult life making rapists pay for what they’d done.

  In a life that could be filled with such happiness and joy it saddened me that she’d chosen this path. Regardless of what may have happened to her in the past carrying around all of that pain for so many years was no way to live.

  Chapter 46

  John Wilcrest rolled over from his back to stomach. Pain paralyzed his legs as he lay sprawled on the ground. Where the hell was he? And where was his wife? He knew who’d taken them. As he struggled to get to his knees, he heard a voice boom into the room.

  “Hello, sunshine. I see someone’s finally awake.”

  “Caleb, you don’t want to do this.”

  Caleb smiled. “You’re a pretty smart son of a bitch, aren’t you? Yes, it’s me. Caleb.”

  “Wasn’t too hard to figure out. No one else would want to hurt me. I know this isn’t personal. You’re doing it to hurt Porter. Or should I say, you’re doing this to hurt your dad?”
>
  “Don’t you freaking dare! That asshole ain’t my damn dad. I don’t have a goddamn dad. I was sent here by the creator himself to bring a reckoning.”

  What in God’s name is wrong with this kid? Wilcrest thought to himself.

  “Yeah, well, you should be out there doing God’s work, right? Not hurting an old man like me.”

  “Save the rhetoric, old-timer. Either you or that beautiful wife of yours is going to die today. God is pleased with my work.”

  “I’d like to ask for mercy on my wife, please. I’m ready to go, if that’s God’s will today, but please let my wife go unharmed.”

  Caleb scratched his head and looked off in the distance as if considering his options. “Caleb, you do realize they’re going to catch you, right? You ever thought about stopping while you were ahead? I will testify that you had me, us, and you chose to let us go.”

  Caleb laughed. “It’s bigger than me or Marci. You’ll never catch us all. And we both know you would never testify for a cop killer. Enough with all the foreplay. We’ve got a game to play, and we’re on the clock here. If you hadn’t already noticed, you’re barefoot, and the floor you’re standing on . . . well, it’s metal. The walls . . . well, look around.”

  Wilcrest surveyed the room. Every wall was the same, cinder blocked to the roof. Wilcrest surveyed the room. The cinder block walls were bare, except for a big red X and a monitor mounted in one corner. He noticed an image on the screen and shuffled over to it.

  “You let her go now!” Wilcrest yelled at the screen.

  “No can do, pal. This is your guilt game, John Wilcrest.”

  “My what? I’m not playing any goddamn game with you. Please don’t hurt my wife,” Wilcrest said, his stance softening.

  Caleb didn’t bother responding to his pleas. “So here’s how this is going to work. There are heaters lining the floor of that room you’re in. There’s a digging bar and a five-pound sledgehammer behind you. In roughly five minutes, the heaters under that floor will turn on. What do you think is going to happen to that metal floor?”