The Darkest Night

by Rick Reed

“My name is really Anna Whiteside. I can’t tell you any more than that. You’ll have to show a little trust. Look, I’ve got to get going. They just found Bitty’s car in the Mississippi River, where Perry said they’d dumped it. I’ll answer all your questions tomorrow. Go get some rest. I’ll need statements. Tomorrow.”

  “Can I ask a favor?” Jack said.

  “I’ll help if I can,” Whiteside said.

  “Our department is going to chew our asses up and spit us out,” Jack said. “Can you tell them we were working for you all this time? I’d like to keep my job.”

  Whiteside said, “I’ve already taken care of that. I told your Chief that you were assisting the FBI and ICE with a sensitive investigation the night you arrived to pick Liddell up. Chief Pope agreed that we could have you. We swore him to secrecy.”

  Jack had wondered why Pope or Franklin or Double Dick hadn’t been calling every five minutes. He figured he was fired. “Thank you for lying on our behalf. There’s hope for you yet.”

  “I have a question,” Liddell said. “Did Sally know Evie was her daughter?”

  Whiteside said, “According to Luke, Sally was the one that suggested Plaquemine. Doohan was familiar with it, and had Dusty and Guidry on the hook. The traffickers had already spent a fortune on the setup at the plantation when Papa found out about Evie. Sally didn’t recruit Evie. The girl found her way here on her own. He didn’t think Evie ever recognized Sally. When Papa found out about Evie, he had her locked up and was using her to keep Sally in line. Apparently, Sally was planning to get her daughter and get out of the life. This is all gospel according to Luke, you understand. The others aren’t talking.”

  She smiled and said, “Oh. Call your wives. If you need written excuses, I’ll be happy to provide them.”

  Jack had borrowed another pair of rubber boots, this time from one of the firemen. They were three sizes too big, but it beat the hell out of walking in socks all the way back to their car. He could have asked Whiteside for a ride, but he still didn’t trust her. He trusted Liddell, and that’s as far as it went.

  Jack and Liddell walked through the scorched field, and Liddell said, “I wonder if she’ll let us give our statements to the FBI in Evansville? We need to see Landry and Evie to make sure they’re okay. And get my car. And then I want to go home.”

  “Dusty took my phone,” Jack said. “We’ll have to stop at a pay phone. Whiteside said Landry and Evie are home, and the other kids are being checked out by medics and taken care of. I think we’d better get some shut-eye before we drive twelve hours. Let’s ask about the statements tomorrow.”

  Liddell said, “I haven’t been honest with you, pod’na. I got some news I’ve wanted to share for a couple of days, but there never seemed to be a right time.”

  Jack stopped and waited.

  Liddell grinned. “I’m going to be a daddy.”

  Epilogue

  Jack and Liddell sat in lawn chairs on the back deck of Jack’s house. Liddell kept an eye on the smoker with Jack riding shotgun.

  Jack upended a Guinness and let the foam run down his throat. “Two pork shoulders, four pounds of ribs, and two whole chickens. Think it’ll be enough for the four of us?” he asked.

  “The pork shoulders are for Abita Amber Pulled Pork. The chef at the Bourbon House restaurant in New Orleans gave me the recipe. The ribs and chicken are just to balance the meal. And there’s potato salad, grilled corn on the cob, green bean casserole, and for dessert I made a bourbon pie.”

  “What are the rest of us going to eat?” Jack kidded.

  “Leftovers,” Liddell said.

  Liddell was doing all the cooking, so Katie and Marcie lay in the sun on reclining lawn chairs. Liddell had been cooking for the two days they had been home. Whiteside had let them give their statements to the FBI in Evansville, and she was decent enough to have his car shipped home for him so he could ride with Jack. Liddell still had to pay the repair bills and buy two new tires. Typical.

  Liddell emptied his own beer and crushed the can in one hand. “Want another?”

  “I’d be crazy if I didn’t,” Jack said and dug in the cooler that set between their lawn chairs.

  He and Liddell had given lengthy statements, went through mug-shot books, drew maps, and thought about getting lawyers before the Bureau was finished with them. And they were still going to have to appear in Federal Court in Louisiana sometime in the future to testify to their actions and the discovery of the children. The children were all reunited with their parents or families and/or were referred to Child Protective Services to monitor the effect this had on them. Landry, Evie, and the children may have to appear as well, but Whiteside promised to make it as painless as possible for everyone. All in all, Jack didn’t hate her as much as when he’d met her. That was a lie. Bitch.

  She’d filled in all the blanks before they left Plaquemine. Dusty had driven Barbie’s car to the mansion and Guidry was with her. That was the car they thought Troup was in. If this case was a game of Clue, the solution would be, “Colonel Murphy killed Ex-Detective Doohan, Miss Dusty Parnell, and Sheriff Guidry and the Dempsey boys in the library, with the shotgun.”

  The FBI and Louisiana state troopers had found eleven bodies and counting buried in the ancient cemetery behind the mansion. Everyone had been shot. Luke Perry confessed to his part in the trafficking, murders, and kidnappings and turned state’s evidence in exchange for testifying against Sally, Lincoln, and the three Syrians caught by the Coast Guard trying to flee Grand Isle. The yacht was seized, and there were numerous other arrests expected.

  She’d cleared up the matter of Barbie killing Cotton with the gun he’d stolen from Liddell’s car. Liddell’s and no one else’s fingerprints were found on the gun. Dusty killed Barbie and made it look like suicide. Barbie was a loose end that needed taken care of.

  Dusty really had inherited the property and the house that had burned to the ground. It was heavily insured, just like Guidry had said. She had become suspicious of Bitty when she’d caught Bitty looking through missing person records at the Sheriff’s Department. Bitty had made the mistake of trusting Barbie to check missing person records from Plaquemine PD. Whiteside said Dusty would have eliminated Bitty herself, but Papa’s bodyguards did it for her.

  Sally, aka Marie, had come up with the plan to leave Bitty’s desecrated corpse in Bitty’s house. Luke Perry had taken the naked body to Bitty’s house, hacked her with a machete to hide the bullet wound, and drew the crude Voodoo symbol on the wall to make it look like a Voodoo curse. Sally had given him a drawing to copy from. Luke didn’t know anything about the Voodoo symbols at Cotton’s house, and the best guess was that Barbie or Dusty or both had been behind that.

  Sally and Lincoln were now competing to see who could make the best deal with the Feds. Sally admitted to most of what they already knew, and said she wasn’t going to let them sell Evie. She was planning on “spiriting” her away. Almost a million dollars was recovered from a safe in Lincoln’s office. Another fifty thousand was found at the church.

  Sheriff Guidry had recruited the Dempsey brothers with the promise of wealth. The brothers were aware that kids were being kidnapped and sold into slavery. Jack wanted to shoot them again.

  Ubaid was telling the truth about being sold into slavery by her family. The U.S. State Department granted her sanctuary and she was in the process of starting a new life under the Witness Protection Program.

  Like a champion liar, Liddell had acted surprised when Marcie gave him the news that she was pregnant. He’d known for days, because a new secretary at the doctor’s office had called the house before he’d gone to Louisiana and spilled the beans. He was a smart man playing dumb, but Jack was still a little pissed at him for not saying anything.

  Jack had talked to three people this morning before bringing Katie to the Blanchard backyard BBQ to celebrate Marcie’s good news. First he’d called Angelina Garcia and had her check out Anna Whiteside. Suspicion dies hard when you’ve b
een lied to consistently. Anyway, Angelina said she’d checked Anna Whiteside out days ago, and had immediately gotten a call from the Justice Department. They threatened her with arrest if she said anything about Whiteside or Troup. She made Jack promise that he and Katie were still coming to the wedding. He promised.

  Secondly, Jack had called Anna Whiteside. She told him they had rolled up the trafficking ring as far as they were able to. Interpol was now involved, and they might want to talk to Jack and Liddell. He lied and said he’d be happy to cooperate with our foreign friends. Screw them. He’d ended the call by telling her she could thank him and Liddell for making the case for the government to which she’d responded that he was pushing his luck and may be looking at half a dozen murder charges and the violation of civil rights. She’d laughed when she said that, but she was probably lying again. She was very good at lying.

  And last of all, Jack had called Sergeant Mattingly about the home invasion burglar case. Mattingly had passed on good news. The burglar had gone back to Gladys’s house for a return engagement. Gladys had gone against Jack’s advice and bought a handgun to protect herself. While Jack was in Louisiana, the burglar, named Roland Hay, surprised Gladys while she was coming out of her bathroom. She had surprised him in turn with two .38 caliber slugs in his groin. Case closed. He would live, but he’d had a “mister-ectomy.” compliments of Gladys.

  Jack finished his second Guinness—or was it his fourth?—and watched the two bikini-clad women lying in the sun, chatting away without a care in the world. He could hardly tell that Marcie was pregnant, but if she were having a boy it wouldn’t be long before she would feel his feet kicking and start craving donuts.

  He watched Katie say something to Marcie, and both women laughed. Katie put a hand on Marcie’s belly and the women laughed again. Marcie reached across and patted Katie’s belly and Jack put the beer down. Both women saw the look on Jack’s face and giggled.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Of all the writing I’ve done (this is my fifth thriller) I find the acknowledgments page to be the hardest. Not because I don’t like doing this, but because I’m afraid I’ll neglect to mention someone important to the work. If I have not mentioned you, I hope I have thanked you and you will forgive my omission.

  When I wrote the first book, The Cruelest Cut, I questioned whether I would ever be lucky enough to write another. But, here I am, and here you are. My thanks to an outstanding editor, Michaela Hamilton, and Kensington Publishing Corporation’s expert staff of marketing, public relations, designers, proofreaders, copyeditors, and—well, I could go on and on naming all the people that work the magic that make these stories available on your eReaders and bookstore shelves. I’ve visited Kensington several times and inside it resembles the Keebler Cookie factory. Honest.

  I need to thank three readers who have tirelessly slogged through my rough drafts of The Darkest Night so they could point out my many errors and make this book read-worthy. They are Greg Graham, Sarah Pugh, and Millie Hardy. My gratitude and sympathy to you all. The old saying, “It takes a village to raise an idiot” is very true in my case.

  Much of this story takes place in Iberville Parish and Plaquemine, Louisiana, and paints some of the Sheriff and Police Departments in a poor light. Just the opposite is true. The Louisiana part of the series research started in 2010 with a phone call to Sheriff Brent Allain (now retired), who opened many doors for me. It was with the help of Lieutenant Chris Couty, Sheriff Motor Patrol, and Major Johnny Blanchard, Sheriff Water Patrol that the Liddell Blanchard character was created. I also thank the current Sheriff, Brett Stassi, for the cooperation of his office in making this book.

  And my thanks to David Reyes, the master chef at the Nottoway Plantation Mansion in this book, for his numerous suggestions concerning Cajun cuisine.

  And last, but definitely not least, I want to give my sincere thanks to my friend and a great artist, Deputy Chief of Police Brad Hill.

  This novel is a work of fiction and is not intended to reflect negatively on any law enforcement agency. Any resemblance to people, businesses, or agencies is purely coincidental. Having said that, the Nottoway Plantation Mansion is real and an experience of a lifetime. I sincerely hope readers will understand my taking poetic license.

  Don’t miss the next exciting Jack Murphy thriller

  by ex-cop Rick Reed!

  THE SLOWEST DEATH

  Coming soon from Lyrical Underground,

  an imprint of

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Click here to get your copy.

  Turn the page to read an intriguing excerpt ...

  Chapter One

  Day 1, 2 A.M.

  Moonlight fell through the broken window, casting squares of light like oversized picture frames across a trash-strewn floor. Franco “Sonny” Caparelli regained consciousness. He was naked, lying on his stomach on a freezing floor. The back of his head was cut, and blood had run into his eyes. All he could remember was the driver’s-side window caving in toward him, a dark figure, a man, strong hands grabbing him by the head, yanking him through the truck window, a pinch at his neck, and then he was here.

  He blinked the blood out of his eyes, but he couldn’t seem to move. His face pressed against the floor as his arms were yanked behind his back. He heard ratcheting sounds and felt something tighten around his wrists and ankles. He heard feet shuffling close by, the sound of a zipper, something metallic, a crackling sound he couldn’t place.

  Although they were completely numb he could wiggle his fingers. He could feel his chest rising with each breath. With great effort he turned his face to the side and lifted it a few inches before something hard shoved his cheek down, grinding his head into the floor like it was a cigarette being put out. Sonny felt his skin tearing, tasted the heel of the boot that was crushing his jaw, splitting his lips.

  The grinding stopped and the foot lifted from his face. “Be still,” a voice said.

  Sonny could see legs with black boots, tightly laced, military-style. Dark pants, neatly creased, bloused into the tops of the pants. A black travel bag set on the floor. The zipper was partially open.

  “Who are you?” Sonny asked. His voice seemed to come from inside a tunnel, from inside his head, somewhere behind his eardrums. His head felt like a balloon that was ready to burst. His mouth was dry and tasted of cloth and dirt.

  “Tastes like dirty socks, doesn’t it?” the voice asked. “It should. I used your socks to gag you with. If you don’t want the gag again behave. The sooner we get this done the sooner we will talk.”

  Gloved hands snaked a rope around Sonny’s neck and threaded it under the restraints.

  “Check this out.” A boot came down on Sonny’s back. At the same time the rope drew tight, drawing Sonny’s head toward his ankles, cruelly arching his back, choking him.

  Sonny’s eyelids fluttered. A roar rose in his ears but subsided as a black curtain drew down. The rope suddenly slackened. Sonny’s face slammed into the floor, smashing his nose and driving a tooth through his upper lip. He shuddered as his tortured lungs sucked in air.

  “If you do something I don’t approve of, I rein you in.”

  Sonny didn’t move or speak.

  “Good,” the voice said. “You understand the meaning of consequences. Well, at least you do now.”

  A boot wedged under Sonny’s shoulder and shoved him onto his side. He could see a tall figure dressed all in black, standing in front of the broken windows, the bright moonlight hiding face. The voice was a man’s. The figure squatted to allow Sonny to see the face of a white man, thirties or forties, black Army fatigue jacket, black cargo pants, black balaclava rolled up like a sock hat pulled down tight over the ears. The man was standing as if he thought—hoped—Sonny would recognize him. He didn’t. He had no idea who this crazy son of a bitch was.

  “You don’t have any idea who I am,” the dark man said. “I’m hurt. Well, maybe it’s for the best. Not knowing who I am will help you fe
el what it is to be in the hands of a stranger who hurts you.”

  Sonny closed his eyes. The rope tightened a bit. “Look at me!” The voice turned menacing. “Study my face. If you close your eyes again you will be experience pain like you’ve never felt before.”

  Sonny spat blood on the floor. He looked his captor in the eyes. “Why me?” he asked in a cracking voice. “I don’t know you. You’re making a big mistake, pal.”

  A smile spread across the dark man’s face. “Shizaru,” he said, the voice playful.

  “Wha—what?” Sonny asked.

  “You’ve heard of the ancient proverb of ‘The Mystic Apes’?”

  Sonny just stared at him.

  “The three wise monkeys? No? Well, I’ll enlighten you. Mizaru sees no evil, Kikazaru hears no evil, Iwazaru speaks no evil. The Three Wise Monkeys of the Koshin belief. The monkeys are a code of conduct.”

  “Screw your monkeys, shithead,” Sonny said. “Look, you . . .”

  The man took a step back and yanked the rope taut. It dug into Sonny’s throat, winched his ankles and head across the cold floor toward his back. Sonny’s eyes bulged. A hissing sound escaped around his swelling tongue. His eyes rolled back, his chest heaved, and his face went slack.

  “Oh no you don’t! We’re not finished yet.” The man released his hold on the rope and kicked Sonny in the chest. “Breathe, damn you!”

  Sonny felt ribs break. He sucked in air and coughed uncontrollably. With each spasm droplets of blood spewed from his mouth.

  The man knelt beside Sonny, prodding his shoulder until the coughing gradually abated, and the breaths came slow and regular.

  “Boy, that was a close call. I thought you’d bought the farm. So, where was I? Oh yes, the Koshin religion.” The man shook the rope a few times as a reminder. “Koshin followers believe good behavior brings good health. Bad behavior brings bad health. The first three monkeys are the behaviors you should avoid. If you engage in any of them you will meet the fourth monkey, Shizaru. The punisher. And here I am.”