by BJ Bourg
I blushed, pretending not to hear her. “Ready to check out the trajectory on the shot that killed Justin Wainwright?”
“Yeah, I’m getting cross-eyed here. It’s time for a break.” She shut down the computer, and we walked outside. I caught a glimpse of Gina Pellegrin watching us from across the room near the secretary’s desk. When our eyes met, she quickly turned away. Strange, I thought, but then dismissed it.
When we arrived at Wainwright’s house, a patrolman I’d never met was sitting in the driveway. We flashed him our badges, and he nodded. As they often do, things looked much different in daylight. We walked to the tree where Justin Wainwright had sucked his last bit of air, and I stood where they had marked his position. The lawnmower was still where we’d found it, crashed up against the tree.
“Look at the cut pattern,” Bethany said. “He was cutting a circle around the tree and it looks like the wheel jerked to the left when he fell off the mower, driving the lawnmower into the tree.”
I moved to the spot just before the abrupt turn to the left and surveyed the entire area. I dropped to my hands and knees and studied the grass carefully. It didn’t take me long to locate minute specks of blood and brain matter. “LT,” I called, “this is where he was shot.”
Bethany walked over and crouched beside me. “No shit. You’re really getting the hang of this detective stuff.”
“I know guns and ammo, but detective work is something that’ll take me a while to master,” I admitted. I stood and looked in the direction opposite the blood evidence. I was staring directly at the tree branches. An oddity on one of the leaves caught my attention and I moved closer. “Here we go!”
Bethany Riggs sidled beside me and looked where I pointed. “The bullet went through that leaf before it hit him?”
“Yep,” I said triumphantly, closing one eye and looking through the trees to the land beyond. Off in the distance across a desolate cow pasture and nestling against a row of trees sat an old wooden shed. “That’s the spot.”
We set off across the barren field, and it wasn’t long before my shirt started sticking to my back. I lifted my arms and checked the armpits of my shirt. Wet…and growing. A bead of sweat had gathered above Bethany’s upper lip.
“I can’t wait until winter,” she complained.
“No matter how hot it gets, I’ll always prefer summer to the cold.”
“Not me! I love cuddling up in front of a fireplace with a good book while the world outside turns to ice.”
We reached the shed and I calculated my paces. “Four hundred yards,” I said, looking back toward Justin Wainwright’s backyard. The lawnmower was visible from where we stood. “I think this is the location.”
Bethany Riggs was walking around the area, scouring the ground for clues. I heard her gasp. “This is it!”
I walked to where she stood staring down at the dusty ground. There, cut deep into the dry earth, was a simple message…James 516. I stared at it for a long moment and realization struck me. The graffiti on the guardrail of the Highway Twelve high-rise bridge! “This message…it was on the guardrail!”
Bethany’s mouth dropped open. “That’s right!”
I studied it carefully, trying to figure out what it could mean. I asked Bethany what she thought.
“I have no clue,” she said. “Do you know any cops named James?”
I searched the folders of my mind, but could think of none. “No.”
She swung her camera off her shoulder and took a picture of the message. “Could five-sixteen be the distance from here to the target?”
I shook my head. “It’s four hundred and nine yards.”
Bethany bit her lower lip and mumbled, “James five-sixteen.”
CHAPTER 15
An hour later, Bethany and I were standing at the front of the dark conference room with the photograph of the James 516 message plastered on the seventy-inch flat screen. All members of the detective division, absent Captain Theriot, were seated around the table.
Bethany pointed to Detective Melvin Ford. “Did you get anything on the hotels?”
Melvin stood, shook his head. “I checked every hotel in the tri-parish area. There are none with a fifth floor. But”—he pulled out his notebook—“I reversed the number and name and did an internet map search for five-sixteen James Street. There’re a couple of them within a hundred and fifty miles of here, so I contacted the agencies in those jurisdictions and asked them to make contact with the homeowners, just to see what they’re all about.”
“Rachael, did you get anything?” Bethany asked Detective Rachael Bowler.
“We don’t have a single James—first or last name—in our system that was born on May sixteenth of any year. I checked jail records, our complaint database and I called the DA’s office to have them check their records…nothing.”
Lieutenant Bethany Riggs bit her lower lip—I found it to be very distracting—and drummed her fingers on the lectern.
“No shit,” Gina Pellegrin said, breaking the silence. “We’re looking at this all wrong.”
I thought I saw Bethany bristle. “How’s that?”
Without saying a word, Gina stood and left the room. She returned moments later carrying a small book.
Using the light from her phone, she flipped through the pages. She looked up at the picture, looked back down and stabbed the book with an index finger. “James five-sixteen is a Bible verse that talks about confessing your sins and praying for each other. He was sending a message for—”
Bethany scoffed. “I hardly think Kenneth Lewis was a religious person.”
“No, he wasn’t,” I said. “The only time I heard him say God’s name was when he was cursing.”
“Maybe someone else left the message,” Rachael said. “It’s quite possible—”
“What the hell are y’all doing with the light off…having an orgy?” boomed Captain Theriot’s voice from the doorway. He flicked the light switch on, and everyone squinted.
“We were trying to figure out what that message meant,” Bethany explained.
Captain Theriot frowned, apparently confused.
“The one I told you about that we found at Justin Wainwright’s house,” Bethany said. “The same message painted on the guardrail of the Highway Twelve high-rise.”
“Oh that,” Theriot said, remembering. “Forget about that message. This case is closed. Wrap up your report and label it ‘Closed, Offender Killed.’”
“But, sir,” Rachael interjected, “we think it was a biblical message, like a warning. There might be—”
“I don’t give a shit if it was a message from God Himself…shut it down. We know who did it and we know why he did it. Enough said. Case closed.” Captain Theriot waved his big paw. “Now get out of here and stop hogging up the room. The sheriff’s on his way here to plan the funerals.”
We all stood, gathered up our stuff and began filing through the door.
“Wait up a second,” Captain Theriot barked. “While all of y’all are in one place, the funerals for Captain Landry and Captain Wainwright are scheduled for eight o’clock Saturday morning at St. Margaret’s in Payneville. They’ll both be buried with full honors and there’s gonna be a pretty lengthy graveside ceremony. I need all of y’all in dress blues and I need y’all there early. There’s gonna be about a hundred cops from other agencies there, so I need y’all to stand out. I want spit-shined boots, sparkling brass and pressed uniforms that’ll stand up on their own if y’all step out of them. Got it?”
“We got it,” we said in awful unison.
“What about Kenneth?” Lieutenant Chiasson asked.
This turned Captain Theriot’s face a deep purple. “I don’t give a shit if they burn his corpse and dump the ashes in a sewer. My only regret is that I didn’t get to watch him die.”
Everyone scattered, leaving Theriot there to seethe. I followed Bethany to the desk she had claimed as her own and we each dropped into a chair. “There’s more to this story
,” she said.
“I agree, but what’s the use in going forward? Kenneth’s dead. No one’s in danger anymore and there’ll never be a trial, so why bother?”
“I just don’t like loose ends.”
CHAPTER 16
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Even though I was in an overly crowded church, I stood completely alone. Everywhere I looked there were men and women in full uniform sobbing. Not a dry eye in the house. Gina Pellegrin stood bawling on one side of me, her face buried in her hands. Jerry Allemand was on my other side, staring straight ahead, tears racing down his flushed face. I looked from Gina to Jerry, and then back to Gina. Jerry was on his own.
I wrapped my arm around Gina’s shoulders and squeezed tight. She turned and collapsed against my chest, pressing her face against my neck. I felt the moisture as her tears leaked onto my flesh. “It’s okay,” I whispered, not knowing what else to say. After she had settled down and pulled away from me, I stepped out of the row I was in and made my way to the back of the church. Once I’d made it to the quiet security of the vestibule, I relaxed. I loosened my tie and released the top button on my shirt, then shifted my gun belt. I couldn’t wait for this shit to be—
“Why’d you leave?”
The voice startled me, and I turned quickly. Lieutenant Bethany Riggs. Her eyes were red and moist.
“I…I don’t do well at funerals,” I admitted.
“You look like you’re doing quite well. Yours are the only dry eyes in the building…shit, probably in the parish. I saw people crying in the store this morning when I stopped to get some coffee.” Bethany studied my face. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you weren’t bothered at all by the deaths of Captains Landry and Wainwright.”
“It just takes a lot to get me worked up.”
I got to the graveyard early, so I decided to pay my family a visit. I was there an hour before the first sirens greeted my ears. Not wanting to fight the crowd for a sideline spot, I quickly made my way through the maze of tombstones until I found the two open graves positioned side by side. Both officers’ families had agreed to bury the men beside each other.
I took up a spot where I could see and hear everything that would be taking place and waited while carloads of officers and family members began arriving. There were two columns of folding chairs, each positioned in front of one of the open graves, for the families of Captain Landry and retired Captain Justin Wainwright, and these filled up first and fast.
A wooden platform had been constructed on the side of the graves opposite the columns of chairs, and it was there that Sheriff Burke and Chief Garcia would make their speeches and presentations of the American flags. A row of chairs sat along the backside of the platform and the various speakers began taking their seats.
The dress rehearsal had taken place on Friday and, although everything had gone off according to plan, the practice ceremony took every bit of three hours. I glanced down at the time on my phone. There was no way we’d be done before noon.
Familiar officers from the Magnolia Parish Sheriff’s Office and strangers from law enforcement agencies across the state began crowding in. Within an hour, the entire graveyard was saturated with blue uniforms. There was standing room only. A man I’d never seen got up on the platform and stood in front of the microphone. I’d heard someone say he was the master of ceremonies—whatever that meant—and it looked like he was going to be introducing the other speakers.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the badge, citizens of this great parish, and everyone who has traveled from afar to be here on this difficult day of mourning…greetings.” The master of ceremonies’ voice echoed authoritatively through the aisles of tombs and mausoleums. “We are here today to mourn the loss of our two law enforcement brothers, Captain Anthony Landry and retired Captain Justin Wainwright, to celebrate their short—but rewarding—lives and to honor their sacrifices to the people of the community they served.”
I scanned the officers nearest me in the crowd and tried to locate a familiar face. Other than some of the commanders on stage—Captain Trevor Abbott was one of them, and I desperately hoped he wouldn’t speak—I didn’t recognize any of them. I thought I caught a fleeting glimpse of Gina Pellegrin walking through the crowd to the right of where I stood, but I couldn’t be sure.
One by one, the speakers took their turns at the microphone, including Captain Abbott, and one by one, they broke down during their mostly self-absorbed speeches, many of which were too long. Sheriff Burke was the last to take to the microphone. Sniffles and sobs reverberated through the crowd as he spoke in a strained and shaky voice. I shuffled my feet often, trying to find a comfortable standing position. Sweat dripped from my pores. My polyester uniform felt like wet sandpaper as it rubbed against my clammy body. My gun belt tugged at my right hip, putting a strain on my lower back. I shifted my stance for the umpteenth time, praying for the ceremony to be over soon.
Finally, Sheriff Burke turned and handed the microphone to the master of ceremonies. The man walked to the edge of the platform and faced east, where seven well-dressed officers stood side-by-side in a grassy clearing about fifty yards away. They all held old wooden rifles at port arms, and they waited for the command to fire the three-volley salute. A bugler moved into position at the center of the platform and a deathly hush fell over the crowd.
The master of ceremonies suddenly belted out a command, and the seven members of the honor guard threw the rifles to their shoulders and aimed at an upward angle over the gravesite.
I sure hope they’re firing blanks, I thought, as I calculated the distance to the neighborhood west of the cemetery.
On the next command, the rifles exploded into the air, resulting in gasps and startled outbursts from people throughout the crowd. Several people cried hysterically. The second volley brought about the same reaction from the crowd, but my attention was not on them. It was on the seven riflemen. I stood admiring their smooth handling of the rifles. They moved as one unit—firing, pulling the rifles down, working the bolt-action with fluid smoothness, shouldering the rifles again. As a sniper who understood the amount of dedicated time and effort that went into attaining that level of proficiency, I was impressed by the expert synchronization of their shots. All seven sounded like one shot, with not even a hint of a misstep. I suddenly became suspicious—what if only one of the riflemen had bullets?
When the master of ceremonies belted out the third command, the riflemen fired, and I thought I detected a slight glitch in the harmony of their last shot—
“Oh my God!” someone screamed from the crowd.
CHAPTER 17
Rapid movement caught my eye. I turned just in time to see a uniformed officer crash to the floor of the wooden platform. The head bounced once and lay still, staring at me through one lifeless, open eye. The other eye—the left one—had been reduced to a gaping hole of torn flesh and blood. In the split second before the area exploded in stampeding officers and civilians, I recognized the face of Captain Trevor Abbott. Abbott had been facing me several seconds before the shot, and I realized that the shot had come from my six o’clock position—behind me.
I did a fast survey of the area and spotted most of the command personnel running for their lives through the graveyard, along with hundreds of other officers and civilians. People jostled by me, and I had to shove a few of them away as I searched frantically for Sheriff Burke. Amidst the confusion of screaming and fleeing officers—many of them not knowing where to go—I located the sheriff. He was still on the platform. As people hurried by him, Sheriff Burke stood dumfounded and motionless, staring down at the lifeless body of his longtime friend and employee, Captain Trevor Abbott.
I rushed to the platform, taking the wooden steps two at a time, and tackled Sheriff Burke to the ground. Scooting across the floor of the platform, I pushed him ahead of me and over the edge. He fell the five feet to the ground and I dropped down beside him.
“Stay down!” I yelled above the s
warming chaos.
“What happened?” Sheriff Burke asked, his face ash gray.
Without answering, I dug my phone out of my pocket and flipped it open. I lifted my left hand above the level of the platform and took a quick picture of the area south of our location. I pulled my hand down and studied the picture I’d taken. It was blurry, but it would do. Off in the distance, the peak of a white building stood above the rows of mausoleums in the graveyard. There were two windows facing our position—and both looked to be open. I quickly glanced around. Dozens of officers were huddled behind tombs and mausoleums while others were still fleeing for the security of their cruisers. I shoved my phone in my shirt pocket, then jerked my pistol out of its holster.
“What are you going to do?” Sheriff Burke asked, a horrified expression on his face.
“The shots must’ve come from that building, and I need to get to it.”
“You’ll get killed before you get to the building.”
“There’s a lot of cover between here and there. I should be fine.” I took a deep breath, exhaled. “Stay down,” I called and bolted from behind the platform and raced to the nearest tomb. I dropped down behind it and fished my phone out again. I took another picture and checked it out. It was impossible to penetrate the darkness of the rooms. Ten snipers could be crouched at the back of the room with rifles trained on my position and I’d never know it.
I was about to move to the next tomb when a movement to the left of my position caught my eye. I craned my head to survey the area where I’d seen the movement, while trying not to expose my head to the sniper, and was surprised to see Jerry Allemand crouched between two tombs, holding a semi-automatic rifle.
“Jerry,” I hissed.
He turned and nodded when he saw me. “You ready to get this bastard?”
I nodded. “Did you get a fix on his location?”
