A Bloodhound to Die for

by Virginia Lanier

  I didn’t point any of this out to Mary. I didn’t see how these thoughts—however clarifying they were for me—could help her. Such observations would probably only make her feel worse. And of course I was eager for her to cut to the chase and tell me how she was going to help me find Bobby Lee.

  But I didn’t want to be too pushy and risk putting her off. “I’m sorry to hear that all of this has happened to you,” I said. “I’m sure it’s been a painful experience.”

  Mary nodded and stared into her glass.

  “Why have you stayed here?” I asked softly.

  She just shrugged. “I keep meaning to leave—maybe go back to Baton Rouge. I liked it there. Or start over in New Orleans or Atlanta. But I just can’t seem to find the energy, somehow. Making it from day to day is hard enough.” She sighed. “Matt’s been gone for over a year now.”

  She was depressed, I thought. That’s why she was letting herself stay stuck here instead of moving on and starting over.

  Mary looked up at me and smiled, her eyes bright with wetness. “I’m sure you want to know what this has to do with you. Well, I hadn’t spoken to Netty since Matt left. And I never thought I would. I got to thinking about what happened to you. There are some good people in the Lane family. But there are also plenty of them, like Netty, who’ll do anything to manipulate things to fit their will, no matter who it hurts. I guess I saw an opportunity to get back at Netty—and even at Mona, who’s been taunting me ever since Matt left that I wasn’t woman enough to hold him.

  “So yesterday evening, I went to call on Aunt Netty and Uncle Obediah. Told them I wanted to put bad times behind us.”

  I lifted my eyebrows at that. “And they believed you?”

  “Of course,” she said. “What I was telling them fit what they want to believe. They’ve always been like that, making up fantasies, then getting enraged when other people point out that actual reality doesn’t always match their perception of it.”

  I thought about how Jimmy Joe had just made up our “love” for one another and had created his own version of me based on a few press clippings. I could see now, from what Mary was saying, where Jimmy Joe had gotten that trait. And what she said certainly matched my experience with the Lanes insisting that I must be wrong when I said I didn’t want to marry Jimmy Joe, followed by Netty’s hostile explosion when she realized I really didn’t.

  “Anyway,” Mary went on, “I visited them and made up with them and then, when I got a chance, got into their spare bedroom.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s a virtual shrine to Jimmy Joe.”

  I shuddered at her confirmation of my earlier guess.

  “I can tell you for sure that Jimmy Joe’s been there to see them several times since his last escape—there’s no way he’d miss seeing his parents, and they’re too infirm to rendezvous with him out in the Okefenokee. And, to tell you the truth, given the area you’ll need to search, I’m not convinced I’m helping you much. But I picked up a favorite childhood toy of his that he was sure to look at and touch whenever he visited.”

  “Won’t it be missed?”

  She shook her head. “Not for a while. It’s always in a box in the bureau to keep it as preserved as possible.”

  Mary stood up, a bit unsteadily, and tottered into another room. Then she came back, bearing a brown grocery bag. She put the bag in my lap and then sat back down on her couch.

  “I carried a huge handbag filled with crumpled newspapers so the bag already looked full when I visited. Then I swapped the newspapers for the item in the box. Go ahead. Look at it. I think it’ll give you the scent object that you explained you needed when you called. And it might even provide some insight into Jimmy Joe.”

  I opened the bag, peeked in, and inhaled sharply. I had to close my eyes for a moment as waves of weakness, nausea, and dizziness came over me again.

  In the bottom of the bag was a small, stuffed toy animal—a perfectly rendered bloodhound.

  29

  “Operation Recover Bobby Lee: The Search”

  September 6, Friday, 3:15 P.M.

  “You don’t have to do this alone,” Hank said.

  He was kneeling in front of me, making sure my voice wiring—which he’d insisted on in addition to the two-way radios—was perfectly adjusted.

  “I know that,” I said flatly.

  Hank stood up. “I don’t want you to do this alone,” he said, emphasizing the word “want.”

  “I know that too,” I said. I pulled up the top to my rescue suit and began zipping it. Normally, I’d give myself a few extra minutes out of the suit, especially on such a hot, humid afternoon, but I wasn’t going to waste even a second today. Not for this search.

  As soon as I’d finished my visit with Mary—it was all I could do to keep from running from her apartment with the stuffed toy in the bag, out of a sudden panicky fear she’d snatch the precious scent article back from me—I’d rushed home and called Hank. He’d come over immediately. We were in my office now. I had the search grid for around the Lane property rolled up and ready to go, not that I really needed it. I had memorized the area where I thought we’d surely find Jimmy Joe and Bobby Lee. Whenever I closed my eyes, that map danced behind my eyelids as if it had been emblazoned there.

  Now, Hank gently took my chin in his hand and tilted my head up, causing me to look into his eyes.

  “We could get Jasmine—you know she’d break off her mama vigil to go with you.”

  “No,” I said.

  “She’ll never forgive you for not taking her with you.”

  “Yes, she will,” I said. In many ways, she, more than anyone else, would understand why I wanted to do this alone.

  “Another trainer?”

  “No.”

  A long silence, as I gathered up the map and—very carefully—the now plastic-bagged stuffed bloodhound toy.

  “I could go with you,” Hank said softly.

  “No,” I said, smiling. “Hank, I’ve already agreed to extra precautions. When I find Jimmy Joe, if I go in with someone else, there’s no telling what he might do to Bobby Lee.” I shivered involuntarily at the thought. The chill of fear over Bobby Lee might keep the search suit from being unbearably hot, not that I was going to be giving much thought to personal comfort. “This is one search I have to do on my own. Alone.”

  I went to the door, but Hank stopped me again with his next words.

  “Jo Beth, tell me that after this you’ll never again go searching alone.”

  I knew he didn’t just mean alone on a search-and-rescue mission. I said, “Hank, ask me after I’ve found Bobby Lee.”

  We drove to our designated starting point, about a half mile out from Jimmy Joe Lane’s parents’ house. I had Gulliver beside me. Hank and his deputy followed. The plan I’d agreed to was that I’d stay in contact via radio and wear the voice wire so they could pick up on my communication with Jimmy Joe, since I wouldn’t want to use the walkie-talkie in front of him.

  I’d also agreed not to subdue Jimmy Joe by myself, to keep providing coordinates based on the map and my compass, so that as soon as I did find Jimmy Joe, Hank would alert other authorities about my “unofficial” search and then the authorities would swoop in and recapture Jimmy Joe.

  I agreed, thinking it was fine if it worked out that way. But if I had to break off communications for Bobby Lee’s sake, I would. Rescuing him was my top priority.

  And I’d also agreed to something else—that if I didn’t have any success by an hour before nightfall, I’d cut off the search and return to base.

  I’d agreed to that because I wanted Hank’s cooperation in bringing the authorities down on Jimmy Joe, if possible. But I also knew something that I hadn’t told Hank.

  I wasn’t coming out of the Okefenokee without Bobby Lee.

  At base, we worked quickly, setting up the communications equipment.

  Then, I carefully removed the scent article from the large baggie to which I’d transferred it and held it out for Gulliver.
His nose wriggled as he eagerly smelled the stuffed-toy bloodhound, taking in its scents. After returning the article to the baggie, I then gave Gulliver his signal that we were working—two pieces of dried deer jerky from my gloved hand.

  “Seek, Gulliver!” I cried. “Find your man, find your man!”

  Gulliver stared at me, playing the same waiting game for an extra serving of jerky that he’d played on our first search for Beulah Burton. I was prepared. This was no time to get into a contest of wills with Gulliver. I gave him the second handful of jerky. Gulliver began the jiggling dance that indicated he was ready to start the search.

  I was ready too. Besides the scent article, I was backpacking a water bottle, a handgun and a rifle, a machete in case we had to go off trail in overgrown terrain, nutrition bars and more deer jerky, the transmission radio, flares, basic first-aid supplies, and of course the detailed map and a compass. I was starting first on a trail established by the Georgia Department of Wildlife for patrolling the area. The Okefenokee is a mix of plains and swamp, stretching thirty-eight miles north to south and twenty-five miles east to west. There was no way that I could cover every bit of it, although I was surely willing to try. But I hoped my theory was right—that Jimmy Joe used the few maintained paths that ran near his parents’ house as a starting point to go off trail to a well-hidden shelter. I was counting on Gulliver to find Jimmy Joe’s take-off point to his hiding spot—and lead me to Bobby Lee.

  “Radio back in a few minutes,” Hank hollered after me as I took off with Gulliver down the narrow trailhead.

  I didn’t reply or look back.

  I kept track of our progress on my detail map and with the compass. We stopped periodically for water, calls of nature, and sustenance.

  All the little physical frustrations of searching that had bedeviled me in the past didn’t even register with me this time. Sweat, bugs, exhaustion. I was numb to them all.

  At first, the terrain was fairly level and easy going. As we delved deeper into the swamp, the ground rose and fell gently, and the brush grew thicker.

  We worked our way around shallow, stagnant stands of water covered with green scum, keeping a fairly even pace. I kept a wary eye on the water, watching for the telltale parting of the green scum that would indicate an emerging alligator. I’d suffered an alligator attack once before on a search in the Okefenokee, and I didn’t care to repeat the experience.

  Every half hour, we found a cypress tree and took a break under its shade, for Gulliver’s sake, not for mine. I felt I could go on forever, if I had to. But I could not afford to wear out Gulliver.

  Now and then, I radioed back in to Hank, grateful that weather conditions were such that our transmissions were clear.

  The sun began to set. I remained resolute, still only resting to meet Gulliver’s needs, continuing the search. Perhaps this would be my fate, to continue searching forever. So be it.

  Hank radioed me, using the code name we’d established.

  “Odysseus, this is home base calling. Odysseus, do you read me? Over.”

  “Home base, this is Odysseus. I read you, loud and clear. Over.”

  “Odysseus, this is home base. It’s time to mark coordinates and return to base. Tomorrow’s another day. Odysseus, do you read me? Over.”

  In response, I shut off the radio.

  Before leaving home, I’d packed something in the bottom of my backpack, making sure that Hank hadn’t seen it. Two flashlights, extra batteries.

  Gulliver and I continued on, searching.

  Twilight.

  Gulliver, though growing weary, continued on.

  Based on my map and my compass, we were now on a portion of trail that cut very close to the back of the Lane homestead—not even a quarter of a mile from their back door.

  Discouragement seeped through me. This particular path would soon thin to nothing, and I’d have no choice but to backtrack and find another trailhead for another path. I found it hard to believe that Jimmy Joe would be this close to his parents’ house because authorities looking for him routinely observed the house. Yet Gulliver had shown no characteristic excitement farther back on the path, and I couldn’t believe that Gulliver had missed Jimmy Joe’s scent.

  What if the scent article was invalid? I’d trusted Mary, believed her, but it could be a cruel trick.

  Gulliver’s lead went taut. He was excited, moving faster. Soon I had to break into a trot to keep up with him. And then he stopped, suddenly, along the path, faced the tangled vines and undergrowth of the cypress trees. He breathed in raspily and erupted with his deep-throated bay.

  Gulliver was signaling that he’d found his target!

  No time to grab in the backpack for a flashlight. I plunged through the forest growth on pure faith, hanging on to Gulliver’s lead with one hand while slapping vines and branches away from my face with the other.

  Then, suddenly, we were in a clearing. Less than a hundred feet away, I saw in the last of the twilight the back of the Lanes’s house.

  The Lanes’s house? Had Jimmy Joe been there all that time? It didn’t seem possible, but there was nothing else in the clearing.

  No. Gulliver was not leading me to the house, but to some specific spot in the clearing.

  And then I saw where he was headed—and at the same time realized what had bothered me on previous visits that I hadn’t quite been able to pinpoint—a discrepancy in the terrain that was so subtle and so unexpected it was easy to overlook. A slight mound of earth, covered in kudzu vines, abutted what looked like an old abandoned henhouse. But the vine-covered rise into which the henhouse leaned wasn’t natural, and what’s more, a thin trail of smoke was coming out of the rise through a barely visible pipe.

  Gulliver wasted no time in pulling me over to the rise. He sniffed eagerly and on instinct I did something I hated to do but knew I must: I dropped to my knees and held Gulliver’s mouth shut before he could bay again. He struggled, but I held on tightly, closing my eyes and letting the pieces fall together in my mind.

  Once upon a time—and sometimes even now, because although legalized alcohol has cut into the moonshine trade, there are still “dry” counties—moonshiners built underground stills to hide their illegal art. A small tunnel, close to the surface because of the boggy land, would be built from the house to the underground still. The only exterior evidence of the underground still would be a ventilation pipe, necessary to let out smoke from the fire used to cook the mash, a mixture of sugar, yeast, water, malt, cornmeal, and sometimes other ungodly ingredients, such as lye, rubbing alcohol, paint thinner, bleach, or even embalming fluid, to give the result an extra kick. Kind of like the way Jimmy Joe’s cousin had decided to give my drink an extra—and poisonous—“kick” by adding rubbing alcohol. Of course, moonshiners just wanted to make a profit, not poison or kill their customers, although that sometimes happened.

  And this was an old underground still. The perfect hiding spot for Jimmy Joe. He could literally go to ground and still have perfect access to his mama and papa. And plumbing, home-cooked meals, and a phone to get in touch with his network of relatives—like Mona—who volunteered to keep track of me.

  I opened my eyes and half-pulled, half-led Gulliver over to a cypress tree. He resisted mightily, and I knew I was preventing him from doing what nature intended him to do—bay that he’d found what I’d sent him to find, and stay by it. But if possible, I wanted the element of surprise on my side when I went down into that underground still.

  I sharply commanded Gulliver to be silent and still. At first, he resisted, still wriggling, still trying to open his jaws. He was strong, certainly strong enough to break from me under normal circumstances, but these weren’t normal circumstances. I was about to find Bobby Lee, I knew, and that gave me more strength than I’d ever had before.

  In hissing tones, I repeated the commands to Gulliver until finally he submitted. I let go of him at last. Then I tied his lead securely to a cypress tree.

  I didn’t want t
o risk the sound of Hank on the radio, his voice possibly carrying to Jimmy Joe or his parents. So far, I’d seen no motion in the Lane house. Possibly they weren’t home. Possibly I hadn’t been spied yet. I turned my head to the left side of my chest where Hank had taped the voice wiring. Was he still listening for me?

  “Home base, this is Odysseus. I’ve found Jimmy Joe,” I said sotto voce. “He’s hidden out in an underground still behind his parents’ house. I believe the entrance to the still is through an old henhouse. Move in slowly and carefully. Gulliver is secured to a tree behind the Lane house.”

  I paused just a second before finishing with the words I knew Hank would hate to hear.

  “I’m going in to the underground still. This is Odysseus, over and out.”

  I dropped to my knees, and began crawling toward the henhouse.

  30

  “Operation Recover Bobby Lee: The Rescue”

  September 6, Friday, 8:00 P.M.

  Although the old henhouse was swept clean, the place still held a faint smell of chicken shit. Now that I was inside the structure, I felt confident that the Lanes—if they were home—wouldn’t be able to see me from their house. If only Gulliver would remain quiet, I would probably go undetected for a while, long enough to get inside the underground still and confront Jimmy Joe … and find Bobby Lee. I did not think about what I would do if I got inside and Bobby Lee was not there. The possibility was simply unbearable.

  I slipped my backpack off as quietly as possible. Probably much of the floor of this henhouse was also the roof of the underground still and I surely didn’t want to alert Jimmy Joe to an intruder’s presence.