by BJ Bourg
I craned my neck, listened. Car doors slammed outside—two of them. I stalked to the doorway and grabbed my rifle. Boots stomped on the wooden porch. I dropped to a kneeling position in the corner, my rifle trained on the doorway. A key was inserted into the hole and the door swung open. I lowered the muzzle when Susan appeared behind the door.
“I thought I heard two doors slam,” I said. “I must be getting—”
My jaw dropped to the floor when a man walked through the doorway behind Susan. “What the hell?” My rifle clanked to the floor. I stood slowly to my feet and stared in disbelief. “What the hell is going on? I thought you were dead!”
Melvin nodded, his eyes hollow, chin set. “I…I was all set to go get the governor, but Jack—” Melvin shook his head, then lowered it. His eyes grew moist.
Susan put a hand on his shoulder. “Stop beating yourself up over it. It’s not your fault.”
I rushed over and wrapped him in a bear hug. When I let go, I pushed him back and stared at him, my own eyes misting. “It’s so good to see you, Melvin! I was so worried for your wife, and I thought your baby would have to grow up without a dad. God, it’s so good to see you!” I took a deep breath and exhaled, relief flooding me with emotion. “So, what happened?”
“Jack…you know how Jack’s always trying to order everyone around,” Susan said. “Jack ordered Melvin to go to the crime lab and took your Tahoe to pick up the governor. He said since he was the lieutenant, he should be the one to pick up the governor.”
“So, Jack’s dead?” I asked.
Melvin nodded. “I tried to tell him that you wanted me to go, but he wouldn’t listen. I even tried calling you, but your phone went straight to voicemail.”
I slapped his shoulder. “Look, like Susan said, this isn’t your fault. Some asshole planted that bomb and that’s who’s responsible—no one else.”
“I know what y’all are saying, but it’s just taking me a while to get over it. I mean, that was supposed to be me.”
“No, that was supposed to be me.” I pursed my lips. “Not Jack and not you. Y’all were completely innocent in all of this.” I turned to Susan. “Did you find out anything?”
“It’s not good.” She closed the door and walked to the kitchen. While she made a pot of coffee, she told me what she had learned at the town hall. “They ran a search warrant on your house and found a gun under your mattress.”
I scowled. “I don’t keep a gun under my mattress.”
“It wasn’t your gun—it was the gun that killed Hays Cain and Kelly Dykes.”
“What the hell?” I leaned against her counter. “How’d that get there? They must’ve planted it.”
“They didn’t have time. I was there with them.”
“What—you think I did this now?”
“No, not at all,” Susan said quickly. “While I know the gun was planted at some point, it wasn’t planted today. Reginald Hoffman is leading the investigation and he’s not dirty.”
“Reginald Hoffman?” I nodded. “I met him.”
“He’s the chief investigator for the district attorney’s office. He worked for the sheriff’s office for years. After he broke this one murder case that no one else could break, the district attorney hired him to oversee all of the major cases in the parish.”
“He’s the best investigator in Chateau,” Melvin said. “And he’s fair. He’ll figure this out and clear your name.”
“I’m not as optimistic. The evidence is damning, and people in high places have their hands in this.” Susan took out three coffee cups and started to fill them.
I waved mine off.
She handed one to Melvin and sipped on the other, then nodded toward me. “So, we need to figure out who had the chance to get into your house and plant that gun.”
“No one comes to my house,” I said.
“Well, there was one person,” she said slowly.
I shook my head. “Nope. Chloe would never do that.”
Susan raised an eyebrow. “Do you really know her? Melvin told me about last night. We all know Beaver’s dirty. Hell, she’s the one who exposed him. He must have something on her. He might be in on the whole deal and he could’ve used her to plant the gun.”
I couldn’t argue with her, so I just clamped my mouth shut.
“Is there a reason why Chloe would want you dead?” Susan asked.
I shook my head. “This is not about me. It’s about the governor. We need to figure out who’d want the governor dead.”
“You mean besides you?”
I grunted with amusement. Susan’s bluntness was a quality I appreciated.
“Tell him about the explosives,” Melvin offered.
I looked from Susan to Melvin. “What explosives?”
“They found some empty containers with the logo for Blackley and Sons Industries in your shed,” Susan said. “There were traces of ammonium nitrate in the containers. Daniel Blackley is now claiming they were stolen in the burglary out at his warehouse. I remember reading the report. He said nothing was in that building.”
I suddenly straightened. “The burglary…the one at my house! They didn’t break in to steal anything. They broke in to plant that shit!”
“That makes sense.” Susan shoved a loaf of bread in Melvin’s direction, and he began making sandwiches for their lunch. “But who did it?”
My mind raced. Something I’d seen and heard had haunted me from the moment I’d seen and heard it, but I hadn’t been able to make sense out of it until just then. “Daniel Blackley—he was an explosives technician in the military.”
Susan and Melvin both raised their eyebrows.
“So?” Susan asked. “He doesn’t have a reason to kill the governor. The governor was about to honor his dead son by dedicating the new town hall to him.”
I nodded slowly, the pieces coming together inside my head. We ate sandwiches as I told them my theory.
Susan whistled when I was done. “I think you’re onto something. Now, how do we prove it?”
“I’ll take care of that part.” I bit into the last of my sandwich and stood to throw away my trash. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Susan and Melvin exchange glances. “What’s going on, y’all?”
Susan’s eyes fell. “There’s something I need to tell you. Something I should’ve told you right when we walked through the door.”
“What?”
“Where’s your bathroom, Susan?” Melvin asked. “I don’t want to be here when you tell him.”
Susan pointed toward the hallway. “Third door on the right.”
Melvin hurried off.
“What is it?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
“One of the operators on the state police SWAT team—a guy named Cade LeBlanc—he shot Achilles.”
CHAPTER 50
My blood was still boiling six hours later, but I knew I had to concentrate on the task at hand. Susan and Melvin had long since gone back to the town hall to keep tabs on the mayor and to try to get word to Reginald Hoffman about the conspiracy, and they thought I was hanging out at Susan’s house waiting on them to return. I wasn’t.
After another hour, or so, Mark McNeal finally exited the bank and got into his car. He drove away, and I followed. We zigzagged through town for about ten minutes, until we came to what must’ve been his house. I parked two blocks away and snatched my rifle from the seat beside me. I locked Susan’s truck. I crept through the neighborhood until I reached the sidewalk to his house, watching as Mark McNeal unlocked his front door. His phone was pinned to his ear with one hand and he worked the key with the other.
I took a deep breath, as I prepared myself for what was about to follow. As soon as his door swung open, I closed the distance between us in an instant, making no sound other than my boots scraping cement. He was preoccupied with his conversation and didn’t know what hit him.
I shoved him hard and sent him reeling into the foyer, his phone flying from his hand. He crashed into the far wall a
nd collapsed to the ground in a heap. Before he could turn around, I kicked the door shut behind me and leveled my rifle at the back of his head.
He spun around with deceptive ease, but froze when he saw the muzzle of the rifle. He lifted his gaze and gasped out loud when he saw my face. “What in the world? You’re…you’re supposed to be dead!”
I smiled. I didn’t know what it looked like, but it felt like a wicked smile. “So are you if you don’t start talking.”
I approached Mark and jerked him to his feet, then spun him around. After slinging my rifle, I cuffed his hands behind his back and shoved him toward what looked like a living room. I forced him into a recliner and palmed my rifle again, sweeping the house, looking for signs of life. “Who’s here with you?”
“No one. I’m alone.”
“If you’re lying to me…” I locked the front door and made my way to the other side of the room to glance down a long hallway. All was quiet.
“My wife and girls left earlier for Gatlinburg,” Mark called from his seat. “We go every year for the Fourth.”
After I tossed my rifle to the sofa, I stood for a long moment looking down at Mark McNeal. He didn’t look the least bit intimidated. I pulled the coffee table in front of the recliner and sat on a corner, facing him. “Why’d you stay behind?”
“If you’re going to arrest me, take me down to the detention center and book me already.”
“We’re not going anywhere until you tell me who orchestrated the events that transpired today. I want the name of the mastermind, I want to know the names of everyone involved, and I want to know what the hell I did to become the fall guy.”
“I’m not telling you shit.”
“You’re going straight to the needle for killing the governor.”
“I didn’t kill the governor.”
“Right.” I crossed my arms. “Your wife—what’s her name again? Jennifer? What a pretty name.”
Mark stared at me, hate glowing from his eyes.
“And the twins…aren’t their names Maci and Traci?” I stood and strode around the living room. “I heard they were seventeen, which means they’ll be tried as adults.”
Mark scowled. “What are you talking about?”
“Not only will they be tried as adults, but they’ll be put to death like common murderers.” I nodded like I was positive. “Yep, they’ll die alongside you for sure. And it’s a shame because they had such a bright future ahead of them. And your wife, I’m betting she’ll die in jail before her—”
“Leave them out of this!” Mark’s face was red. “They had nothing to do with anything.”
“I can prove otherwise.” I stepped back in front of him and plopped down on the coffee table again. “What would you do if I told you my officers interviewed several people within the last few hours, including Pauline Cain and Julie Rupe, who say your wife and daughters knew exactly what you were up to, but did nothing to stop y’all?”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Really? Just like your wife overheard you talking to someone yesterday about killing me before the weekend.”
Mark’s eyes shifted briefly.
“Yep, your wife’s talking. She’s running around town telling all kinds of secrets.”
“She doesn’t know anything!”
“What do you think Malcolm will say when I tell him I ran into your wife yesterday and she warned me not to go pick up the governor in my Tahoe?”
I saw the hesitation in Mark’s eyes. I stood and pulled the throw-away phone from my pocket and made a show of dialing a number. I put the phone to my ear. “Hey, Susan? It’s Clint. Let the mayor know Jennifer McNeal was the one who warned me about the bomb under my Tahoe. Tell him she’s on her way to Gatlinburg and that she left…” I put the phone to my shoulder and glanced at Mark. “What time did they leave for Gatlinburg?”
“Wait! Stop!” Mark McNeal dropped to his knees in front of the coffee table, tears welling up in his eyes. He cast a nervous glance toward the corner of the room.
I followed his gaze to where his phone lay partially covered by a curtain.
“Please,” he whispered. “I’ll talk. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Just leave my family out of this. They’ll be killed, and they don’t deserve to die. They didn’t know anything. They’re innocent.”
“Susan, stand by,” I said into the dead line. “Hold off for now.”
I shoved the phone into my pocket, walked to Mark’s phone, picked it up. The timer was running and the name displayed at the top of the screen was Malcolm. I ended the call, then turned to Mark. “Were you talking to Malcolm Landry when I came up?”
Mark nodded. “You’ve got to get me out of here. He’ll kill us both.”
“Don’t worry about Malcolm. I’ll take care of him. I just need you to tell me what his involvement is in all of this. As it stands now, this is all on you, Randall, Hays, and Daniel.”
Sweat pooled on Mark’s forehead. “Look, I’ll talk, but you’ve got to get me out of here and you’ve got to get my family someplace safe.”
“Okay.”
“Say it—say you’ll take them someplace safe. If Malcolm thinks for a second they know something, he’ll have them killed.”
“I’ll take your family someplace safe, but if you try to bullshit me—even once—the deal is off and I’m turning them over to Malcolm.” I straddled the coffee table. “Now talk.”
Mark sighed. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Whose idea was it to kill the governor?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s it—no deal.” I started to pull the phone from my pocket.
“I’m not bullshitting you!” Mark looked desperate. “It was after the funeral. After our kids were murdered. We were all sitting there talking and one of us—I’m not sure who said it—one of us said the governor had to pay for what he did. There was no hesitation. We all agreed. We were so grief-stricken that I don’t think we really knew what we were saying. Besides, we’d all had a bit to drink. A few days later, I get a visit from Malcolm and Walter and they’re asking me if I was serious when I said I wanted the governor dead.”
“Wait a minute. Walter who?”
“Moore.”
“The assistant district attorney?”
Mark took a deep breath and exhaled long and slow. Shoulders drooping, he finally said, “It was Walter who killed Hays.”
I sucked wind. “Walter Moore? No way. He’s a lawyer.”
“He’s crazy…and extremely dangerous. He was a sniper in the military.” Mark shook his head. “He’s unstable, unpredictable. He scares the shit out of me. He killed Hays simply because Hays threatened to go to the cops. At one of our meetings, Hays was saying he couldn’t go through with it. He tried to walk out of the meeting…said he was turning himself in.” Mark stared off like he was seeing everything happen all over again. “Walter walked right up to him and shot him in the head. Just like that. No warning. Pulled a pistol out of his waistband and put Hays down.”
“Hays couldn’t go through with killing the governor?” I asked.
“No, he was fine with killing the governor. That wasn’t the problem.”
“Then what was it?”
Mark indicated toward me with his head. “You…you were the problem. He didn’t like that we were setting you up for it. He said you were an innocent man…that you’d been through the same thing we’d been through and the governor had to pay for what he did to you, too.”
I took a long look inside of myself, then sighed. “The governor was an innocent man, too. He wasn’t responsible for the murders of your kids, just like he wasn’t responsible—”
“Bull shit!” Mark lunged to his feet, jerking on the cuffs that bound his wrists together. “That sonofabitch worked night and day to get laws passed that limited what cops could do and then he went out and publicly drummed up hatred for the police. It was his actions and his rhetoric that caused the riots two years ago—s
o, hell yeah, it’s his fault my daughter is dead!”
“Wait a minute. I thought your daughter was in the national guard. I thought she died overseas in the war.”
Mark shook his head as he sank back to the recliner. “She did two tours in Afghanistan—they all did—and came out unscathed. After all of that, she ends up dying right here in her home state. Can you believe that shit?”
Confused, I asked what happened.
“After the riots started, the governor sent in the national guard to support law enforcement.”
“Yeah, we had some come to the city, but they only acted in a support role. They secured the precincts, while we worked to quell the unrest and stop the looting and burning. They weren’t in any real danger.”
“No real danger?” Mark scoffed. “Tell that to those of us who lost our kids.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.” I leaned close, stared into Mark’s painful eyes, felt like I was looking at my own reflection. “Tell me what happened.”
“Gina was somewhere up north with Little Randall, Allen, Bragg, and Devin.”
“Who’re Bragg and Devin?”
“Bragg was Daniel’s boy, and Devin was Walter’s kid. They were eating at a local diner when a group of protesters marched through the street, but these weren’t any regular protesters. These thugs were looking for trouble and started looting a gift shop across from the diner. Gina heard screaming and went outside to see what was going on. The old lady was trying to defend her shop, but one of the thugs hit her across the head with a bat.” Mark’s voice cracked; he squeezed his eyes shut. “The boys tried to stop Gina, but she ran to help the old lady. That’s when someone in the crowd opened fired with a fully automatic. Killed all of them, including three of the other customers in the diner.”
Tears were flowing freely down Mark’s face. I stared at the floor.
