by BJ Bourg
“I understand and I’m very sorry.”
Tiffany looked up at me, raising her eyebrows. “You understand?”
“Yeah, I lost my wife and daughter a couple years ago.” I shook my head. “The bad news is…the pain never goes away.”
We talked for a few more minutes and then I asked her and Stella Edwards if Isaac had ever served on jury duty.
“Why, yes,” Stella said. “He had to serve for over a week. He even worked the weekends. I remember him being really mad about that.”
My pulse quickened. “Do you remember when? Or what the case was about? Or who was involved?”
“I think it was a murder, or something,” Stella said.
Tiffany shook her head. “I remember Dad talking about it—a rape case, I believe.”
I pulled out my notebook and pen, looked up at Tiffany. “Would you remember any names?”
“Oh, no, that was like twenty years ago—at least.”
Chloe would’ve been in third or fourth grade twenty years ago. This was it! We might’ve found our connection. I asked them to try and remember as much as they could about the case and then excused myself to call Susan. Once I’d found a lonely corner in the hallway, I got her on the phone.
She began talking before I could even say hello. “Clint, this is the connection! Peter remembers Betty being on a jury and her having a hard time with the case, because it involved a man who’d raped his wife.”
“Did he remember the defendant’s name?”
“No, but he did say the trial was during the winter—he remembers Betty complaining about having to go out and spend a bunch of money on warm dress clothes—and she was eighteen at the time.”
“Winter…twenty-two years ago.” I jotted the information in my notes. “Thanks, Sue—you did some great work!” I hung up and called Reginald Hoffman on his cell phone. When he answered, I apologized for calling him so late and, while I had him on the phone, asked if they’d heard anything more on the hearing. He told me the grand jury was still set to meet in two weeks.
“I was hoping your boss had changed his mind,” I said.
“We’ve been working on him, but it’s no use. His mind is set on this one.”
“Do you have any idea why he’s gunning for Susan?”
“None at all, I’m afraid.”
Grunting, I changed the subject and filled him in on what we’d learned so far. I asked if he could get someone to go through their files from twenty-two years ago and dig up every rape case that was tried in the winter. I offered to go through the files myself looking for the names of the jurors, but he told me that would be the easy part.
“The hard part is getting my hands on the files in the first place,” Reginald said. “We keep all of our old major cases stored in a secure location off campus, but I don’t know if we’d have any rape cases—unless it was an aggravated rape.”
“It could be,” I said. “I’m not sure. I just know a husband raped his wife.”
“Okay, I’ll see what I can find out.”
I reentered the hospital room and asked Stella and Tiffany if they were able to remember anything specific about the case that might’ve stuck out, but they said they’d already told me everything they could remember. I thanked them and drove to the office, where Susan’s Charger was parked in the sally port alongside William’s and Amy’s.
Marsha, my night shift dispatcher, looked up from her log book when I walked through the door. She pushed a tuft of snow white hair out of her eyes and pointed to my office. “The kids are in there looking at the GoPro video.”
“Did Melvin turn in yet?”
Marsha shook her head. “He’s out on the water. Something about someone spotted the monster ‘gator that nearly killed Dexter.”
My heart fluttered at the mention of the giant beast and my knees got weak. When word had spread about the attack, people began calling the mysterious alligator Godzator and everyone seemed to have a theory about what had happened to it. Some thought it had died from the bullet wounds and transformed into a ghost, forever haunting the swamps of Mechant Loup, while others swore it was still out there, waiting for a chance to get revenge on any human that crossed its path. While no one knew for sure what had become of the monster, there was no denying the benefit to the tourist industry around town. There had been a sizable uptick in swamp tours since the Legend of Godzator had crossed the Mechant Loup Bridge, spreading far and wide by word of mouth. While most of the townspeople were sorry for Dexter’s arm, they were happy to see the healthy influx of tourists.
“How sure are they that it was the same alligator?” I asked.
“Melvin said they were tourists and they sounded scared to death, so it probably looked bigger than it actually was.” Marsha’s brows furrowed when she noticed the look on my face. “Chief, I’m sure that alligator is somewhere at the bottom of Lake Berg. Probably nothing left of it but a few bones and some bullet holes.”
“God, I hope you’re right.”
I stepped into my office and found Susan behind my desk with Amy and William huddled behind her looking at the computer monitor. They all looked up. “Your monitor’s bigger than any of ours and we can see the video better,” Susan explained with a smile. “I guess that’s one of the perks of the job.”
“You know my door’s always open.” I walked around to stand beside Amy, who tossed her long blonde hair back and moved over to make room. They were viewing the video from Isaac Edwards’ GoPro and they were at the spot where he’d just ended his run and was cooling down by walking short laps in front of his house. As he reached one end of the lap, he turn and the camera panned the area across the street from his house. Susan paused the recording at that point and we all leaned closer to study the scene, searching for anything that might indicate a person was there. I’d cross-trained as a sniper when I worked SWAT in the city and I was taught to see the little things; a round or square shape where there shouldn’t be one, a spot of foliage that didn’t quite match its surrounding, a color different from what you’d expect to find in the forest, movement that wasn’t consistent with the wind—generally, anything out of the ordinary. As I studied the tree line and the surrounding area, I saw nothing that would indicate an attack was imminent. The grass in the field was short-cropped and evenly colored and the ditch was well maintained. Other than the lone tree situated near the center of the lot and a short, stout bush off to its left, there were no possible hiding spots or signs of human presence.
I studied the tree first and then the bush, but didn’t see anything around either that resembled a human.
“I don’t see anything,” Amy said, straightening to shift her gun belt around on her hip. Marsha had once said Amy wore her pants too tight and her collar too loose, but all I cared about was her productivity. No one else seemed to care about how she dressed, except for some of the more conservative women in town whose husbands gawked every time Amy was around. I’d fielded at least a dozen complaints from these women. When I told them she wasn’t violating the department’s dress code and there was nothing I could do about it, they were less than impressed. At least three of them took their complaints to the mayor, who was less diplomatic than I had been.
I scowled. “I don’t see anything either.”
Susan hit the play button and the GoPro went back into motion when I suddenly caught my breath. “Stop the video—that’s him!”
CHAPTER 29
“Where?” William asked. “What do you see? There’s nothing but grass and trees.”
I hurried around my desk and grabbed the stack of crime scene photographs Susan had printed earlier. I returned to my spot beside Amy and spread several of the photos on the desktop. I pointed to one of the photographs we’d taken of the field across the street from Isaac’s house. “The bush in the video—it’s not in the picture.”
“No shit!” William whistled when Susan backed up the video and hit the pause button. “How’d you even catch that?”
“It just hit me—there was only one tree in the middle of the field when Susan and I worked the scene.” I leaned closer to the monitor, strained to pick apart the details of the bush. The quality of the film was surprisingly crisp for such a small recording device and I thought I could make out some linear shapes that could’ve been parts of the bow or arrows. The face was concealed behind a mask of burlap and natural vegetation—the job of a real pro. “He’s wearing a ghillie suit,” I said.
“A what?” Amy asked.
“It’s a big leafy suit that snipers wear to conceal themselves in wooded areas,” I explained.
“Hunters sometimes use them, too,” Susan offered, “but I’ve never seen one that blends so well and looks so durable. Most of the ones I’ve encountered looked like camouflage papier-mâché and they got ripped up after one trek in the woods.”
“This one is handmade for sure,” I said. “This guy either knows what he’s doing or he knows where to find instructional videos on the internet.”
“You think the internet taught him to shoot a bow?” Susan asked. “Because I think he’s pretty good—too good to learn that shit on his own.”
I couldn’t argue with her. I drummed my fingers on the desk and remembered Ty Richardson. “William, I bet—”
“I know what you’re going to say,” he interrupted. “Ty Richardson saw the killer.”
“What’re you talking about?” Susan asked.
“I’ll tell you in the car.” I turned to Amy and William before we walked out. “I want y’all doubling up tonight. Keep your eyes peeled and be on the lookout for that green Thunderbird.”
They nodded their heads in unison.
“Don’t let your guard down,” I warned, before turning to hurry off with Susan. It was getting dark as we jumped into my Tahoe, so I turned on the headlights and pulled onto Main Street. Several reporters started scurrying about, gathering up their gear and rushing to their vans, but I stopped to tell them there had been no new developments and they could relax. They misinterpreted my gesture as a willingness to talk, and they began firing off questions. I smiled and, closing my window, drove away.
My cruiser sliced through mosquitoes and other flying insects on the drive to Orange Way—just a street north of Lacy Court—and I had to spray my windshield and turn on the wipers to keep it clear of smudge. As I drove, I told Susan how Ty had reported seeing a bush walking through a neighbor’s yard. “At first, I just figured his mind was playing tricks on him, but I think he really saw our killer.”
I made a sharp right off of Main onto Orange Way and cruised to the back of the street. I pulled to a stop in front of Ty’s house and we stepped out. I paused to stare toward the houses across the street. Lacy Court—Isaac Edwards’ street—was just beyond the trees that bordered the back yards of those houses. It was very plausible Ty saw the killer lurking in the area. He’d provided the first real clue as to how the killer was getting close enough to the victims to kill them without being seen, and I had brushed him off. Shaking my head, I walked around the Tahoe and followed Susan to the front door.
I swatted at a mosquito while we waited for someone to answer the door. It didn’t take long for us to hear heavy footsteps pounding to the door. When it opened, Ty’s mom stood there in jeans and an oversized T-shirt. Her smile was pleasant. “Hey, Chief, Ty told me you bought him the car. That was very sweet of you.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, shuffling my feet. I didn’t like being called out for doing good deeds. “Is Ty around? We need to talk to him about something he might’ve seen a couple of days ago.”
The lady turned her head and hollered, “Ty! You’ve got visitors.”
I thanked her and she walked back into the house, leaving the main door ajar and letting the screen door slam shut. Susan and I stood there in silence until Ty finally appeared in the doorway, casting a cautious glance from me to Susan and then back to me.
“Sheriff…is that you?”
“It is, Ty. How are you?”
He relaxed and stepped through the screen door and into the full light of the porch. “Good to see you.” He looked at Susan. “I remember you. I think you came here before. You were nice.”
“I try to be,” Susan said, flashing a smile that accentuated the dimple on her cheek.
“Yeah, you might be able to help us, Ty,” I said.
“I’d like that.”
I pointed toward the back of the street. “Remember that bush you saw back at the neighbor’s house?”
His eyes lit up. “Yeah, it was something else. I’ve never seen a bush move before. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, you know? So, I closed my eyes and opened them again like you’re supposed to do if you’re not sure about what you’re seeing, and it was still there.”
“Can you show us exactly where he was standing?”
“Oh, no, Sheriff.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It wasn’t a he—it was a bush.”
“I’m sorry. I stand corrected.” I started over. “Can you show us exactly where the bush was when you saw it?”
“Sure, it was over there.” Ty pointed to an opening between the houses across the street. “It was walking in the trees behind the houses and it was heading toward the back of the street.”
“Did it have anything in its hands?” I asked.
“Bushes don’t have hands,” Ty answered flatly.
But it has legs? I wanted to ask, but decided against it. “Gotcha…did you see anything hanging off of its limbs?”
“I did. There were a lot of leaves.”
I thanked Ty for his time and grabbed a couple of flashlights from the back of my Tahoe, tossed one to Susan. We crossed the street and dipped between the houses. When we made it to the tree line, we began scanning the ground with the flashlights, searching for any hint that a person had been through there.
“I’m no tracker,” Susan said, “but there seems to be a faint path through here.” She shined her light along a break in the thick underbrush. She was right. There seemed to be some smashed leaves and grass, as well as some broken twigs, along a stretch of woods. We followed to either side of it, both of us concentrating our light to the center of the trail, hoping to find anything that might lead us to the killer. The going was slow, because we lost the trail a half dozen times, but twenty minutes later we finally ended up at the edge of a clearing. We shined our lights across an empty field that boasted one lone tree, and saw Isaac Edwards’ house.
“Wow,” I said. “Ty saw our killer.”
“You think the guy in the ghillie suit is also the guy in the orange hat?”
I was thoughtful. “It has to be. The Thunderbird was seen at two of the scenes. It can’t be a coincidence.”
Susan and I squatted and surveyed the ground at our feet. The grass and leaves were smashed in a small circle, as though the killer had waited here for some time. I was about to step out into the field when Susan called out to me.
“Clint, look here!”
I looked where she pointed and whistled when I saw a cigarette butt on the ground. My first thought was DNA evidence and I said as much.
“I’ll stay with the evidence,” Susan offered. “Why don’t you go back and get your crime scene box?”
CHAPTER 30
Tuesday, October 13
Mechant Loup Police Department
It was half past midnight when Susan and I finally finished securing the evidence in the lockers. I bid her goodnight and walked out into the sally port. There were at least seven news vans still parked along Main Street when I backed my Tahoe out of the sally port. Most of the vans were cloaked in darkness, but light glowed from the tinted windows of two of them, and a head popped up when they heard the automatic garage door.
A stopped backing up when I saw a marked Charger drive up and park on the street. Amy stepped out and ambled to my door. I shot a thumb toward the news vans. “I think they’re working in shifts, taking turns watching us.
”
“They jump up every time I drive up or leave.” Amy smiled mischievously. “I sped off earlier and they started chasing me. I pulled up at Cig’s and got some gas, a cup of coffee, and two donuts. They weren’t happy.”
I laughed and told her goodnight, but she stopped me. “I’m actually glad you’re still here.” She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. “Um, I just wanted to let you know I stopped your girlfriend for speeding and I gave her a warning. She was heading—”
“Shit!”
Amy raised her eyebrows. “Did I do something wrong? Should I have written her a ticket?”
I laughed, waved my hand dismissively. “No, I was supposed to meet her at my house this afternoon and I totally forgot.” I cursed myself inwardly. “I just got so busy with the case and everything was moving so fast.”
“I’m sure she’ll understand,” Amy said. “She’s really nice—and pretty.”
I nodded and thanked her. I’d never known Chloe to speed through town and I couldn’t help but wonder why she was in a hurry. Had there been another attack somewhere else in the parish? Surely Sheriff Turner would’ve called me and the other vans wouldn’t still be here. I waved to Amy and drove off, calling Chloe’s cell.
“Clint! I was just about to call you. My dad spent all night digging through my grandpa’s things because he remembered him having a newspaper clipping from the trial. Well, he found it and I’m heading there now to get it.”
A surge of energy pushed the tired right out of me, but then a thought struck me. “Wait—are you going to share the information with me, or is it for your story?”
