Eyes of the Predator: The Pickham County Murders (The Hunters)

by Glenn Trust

  The troopers were pretty good boys. They backed the various counties’ deputies in their patrol areas and the deputies reciprocated. The relationship was cordial, and with some of the troopers, it was downright friendly, as many of them had gotten their start in small county or municipal departments before moving to the State Patrol.

  Before his divorce, George had thought about taking the exam and moving to the Patrol. Thinking was all he had done though. Darlene had wanted him to make the change. The pay was better. After a while, Darlene had tired of waiting for her husband to move his career ahead, although she had never considered policing much of a career anywhere, including the Patrol. Still, it was a step up from Pickham County, and she expected her husband to be as upwardly mobile as he could be given his limitations.

  George told her he was waiting for the right time to make the change, and told himself that he preferred doing something besides traffic enforcement and drug interdiction stops on the interstate. In reality, it boiled down to the fact the he was home, and he really did not want to be anywhere else. It wasn’t until Darlene left with the girls that he realized he had waited too long. He told her he would apply for the Patrol if she would stay. She told him he was too late. He was always too late.

  “Dispatch, 301, I’ll be enroute to back 302.” George put the microphone back in its cradle.

  “Ten-four, 301,” the dispatcher responded pleasantly. George could hear the chatter of other operators talking in the background at the centralized dispatch center that was funded by various counties and public safety units in this part of Georgia. Apparently, there was not much going on, but it was still early. The shift was barely half over.

  George guided his pickup to an intersection and turned right, heading towards the missing person call. It was a ten mile ride to Power Line Road. Missing persons did not constitute emergency calls, so there was no hurry.

  The hum of the car’s tires increased in volume as he increased speed. The buzzing of the night creatures a few feet away in the brush along the road diminished as the noise of the pickup increased.

  An old car moved smoothly through the night in the opposite direction. No police officer would find any reason to stop him, especially not the one that passed him moving southbound well above the speed limit. The driver with the girl bound beside him, made his way to the interstate and turned onto the northbound entrance ramp. Disappearing into the stream of red taillights, he was more than anonymous. He was unseen and unknown, once again.

  16. Goddammit

  ‘Goddammit.’ The grizzled, old farmer waved a bony hand at her as the girl climbed down out of the bed of the aging Ford pickup. There was a deep look of concern in his eyes. ‘Goddammit,’ he thought again.

  “Girl, you be careful now,” he said out the window. The old man had girls too, and he could see that this one was mistreated. Someone had done bad things to her. It happened some around here, at least more than it should, especially if times were hard at home. The farmer was a simple man and wanted to help, but all he could think of to do was to give her a ride away from the trouble. Damn, he had trouble enough of his own. Still, he wanted nothing worse to happen to her, and he knew that plenty worse could happen. He didn’t want to think too much about that.

  “I mean it, girl. You be careful…especially about men and such.”

  “Yes, sir, I will,” she said softly, and smiled back at him. Her words sounded tired as if there wasn’t anything this old farmer could tell her about men or trouble or how they could combine together to create misery.

  “Thanks for the ride.”

  She walked slowly away from the truck into the I-95 Diner, located coincidentally, at the entrance ramp to I-95. The old farmer watched her in the mirror. ‘Damn,’ he thought, reaching the limits of his ability to articulate the concern he felt for the girl and the guilt at leaving her at the diner in the middle of the night. Just damn. He wished there was something to do for her. There wasn’t. He knew it and she knew it. He had his own troubles.

  Besides, who was he to tell her to stop and go home? Or maybe get the sheriff involved who would just end up making her go home. Anyway, she looked like she could be old enough to go off on her own if she wanted. Maybe.

  He knew it could be a far sight worse at home than it was on the road, and maybe she’d end up somewhere happier. Maybe. That was as far as his thinking would take him. He was a simple man with no solutions to complicated problems.

  ‘Goddammit,’ he thought a final time. Then, shaking his head and not knowing what else to do, he moved slowly out of the parking lot. The load of tomatoes in the truck bed had to be to market in the morning. The truck engine was missing on two cylinders, and the transmission missed a gear as he tried to accelerate onto the interstate. The girl faded in the mirror as his mind moved back to his own problems, coaxing the old truck down the highway.

  Lyn turned towards the diner. The ride from Judges Creek, Georgia, her home up to this night, had only taken a couple of hours once she had found the ride with the old man. It seemed like much longer, and her body was bone tired.

  A large moth flopped loudly against the lighted I-95 Diner window. It beat itself over and over against the window causing a shiver to crawl up her back. She wasn’t afraid of bugs, and it wasn’t the insect that caused this reaction. The moth was helpless and hopeless. It would never reach the light. It was the futility of its efforts that made her shudder. Endlessly, flopping and beating its powdery wings against the glass until it died.

  Walking through the glass door, she was assaulted by the odors of coffee and steak and eggs, thick in the close air. For a moment, she touched the two hundred and fifty-two dollars in her pocket. Her mother had shoved two hundred of it into her hand as she shoved Lyn out of the door. It had taken Lyn six months to save the balance. She considered spending some of it on a meal, but then thought better of it. Hungry as she was, she had just left and the money had to get her a long way. She would eat when she absolutely had to. She could go a long time without food. Been doing it most of her life as her slight frame and somewhat hollow cheeks bore testimony. She had always been thought of by the local boys as a pretty girl, but they had nothing to compare her with except the other local girls, all from families that struggled to get by. She had taken their advances as nothing more than boys on the rut, aching to plant their thing somewhere. After a few beers on a Friday night, they weren’t all that particular.

  There were times when feeling the heat herself, she would go with one of them. But she saved it mostly. Making those few times as special as they could be in the bed of some beat up truck. She didn’t blame the boys for being on the prowl for tail all the time.

  What else was there to do? It did pass the time, and for a few moments, it could even make you feel that there was more. It could make you feel that you and this young, hard-bodied boy could make a life far away from the pain.

  But then she knew that it could never be that way with any of the local boys. They were all like their daddies. They had all been born in Pickham County, and they would all die in Pickham County. They couldn’t see beyond it, or didn’t want to. Maybe they didn’t need to. Maybe they were happy. She guessed they were. Why not? Poor as they were, they did not live in homes with parents who hated them.

  Still she knew she was pretty, and she knew how to be sweet. She was going to let that take her as far as it could. She didn’t intend to let any man have his way with her, but she would let it go to the point that he would be willing to get her down the road a piece.

  She thought of the running away dream she and Sam had shared. He had made his escape only to return to the sandy dirt in a churchyard in Judges Creek. Lyn pushed that thought away. She was not coming back. The old house and its pain were behind her. She would have to figure out what was ahead. She would get word to Mama and send for her when she could.

  A plump woman in an apron behind the counter smiled at her. Her long, graying hair was pulled up, and there were little beads
of sweat along her hairline attesting to the closeness of the night, even inside the air-conditioned building.

  “How ya doin’. Why don’t you set right here at the counter.”

  “Thanks,” Lyn sighed slightly as she sat on the swivel stool dropping the small canvas bag she carried on the floor.

  “What can I get you?” The smiling waitress looked closely at her, making Lyn uncomfortable.

  “Just some water, ma’am, thanks.”

  While the waitress moved off, she looked around trying to be discreet, but wanting to see who there might be to give her the next ride up the road. It was two in the morning, but a twenty-four hour diner on the interstate like this would always have someone moving in her general direction. North.

  She avoided eye contact with the few patrons. A couple of young men, rough looking, were huddled at a table next to the window. They looked at her occasionally, and their glances made her uncomfortable.

  A lone man, probably a trucker, sat at a booth under the window. He was large and heavy, wearing a tee shirt, but his face didn’t look unkind. It was even a little grandfatherly. She had never known either of her grandfathers, but this could have been one of them. He had the look of a family man.

  Loud talking at the other end of the counter caught her attention. A middle-aged couple was arguing. It wasn’t clear what about. It seemed plain that they were both drinking. Lyn gave them another glance. If she got a ride with them, having another woman there could be a help. The arguing got louder, and the man raised his fist as if to strike the woman who raised her hand in threatened retaliation.

  “Just do it, you piece of shit. Just do it. I’ll have you in jail!” The drunk woman’s voice shrieked at the man, who lowered his fist.

  The waitress walked over to them, two cups of coffee in her plump hands and a stern look on her face.

  “That’ll be enough of that, or you can get out. Y’all just sit here and drink your coffee and let things settle. You hear?” Her voice was firm, and there was no doubt that she had run more than a few drunks, male and female, out of the diner.

  Lyn was startled at the touch of a hairy arm brushing up against her bare arm.

  The large truck driver man was sitting on the stool beside her. He leaned over close and smiled.

  “How ya doin’ tonight, sweet thing?” The man’s voice was thick and deep, like the black oil that leaked up through the ground under Daddy’s tractor in the shed. On a hot day, you could smell the oil, pungent and thick, wafting out of the shed. This man’s voice reminded her of the black oil and thick smell.

  Her mouth opened but she couldn’t think what to say. It was clear that he was not the grandfatherly type she had thought him to be at first glance. Her confidence sagged, and she knew that she must have looked like a scared little girl. The look in the man’s eye told her that that was what he wanted, and it scared her even more.

  “Hey, hon! Sorry I got distracted by them two drunks; had to take care of business ya know.” The plump waitress was back in front of her with a coffeepot and cup. “I sure am glad you stopped by to see your ‘Auntie Kathy’.”

  The waitress looked at the big man and said curtly, “Henry, I’m gonna visit with my niece here so you go on back over to your booth and eat your eggs and leave us be.” She just looked at him with no expression on her face at all, and that said it all. The man stood up, shrugged, and ambled over to the booth and sat down. He didn’t look in their direction again.

  When he was gone, the waitress looked at her and said simply, “I’m Kathy. Guess you heard that. You need a ride, right?”

  Lyn just looked at her and nodded. She was close to tears and trying hard not to show it. The journey, her escape, had just started. She wasn’t even out of Pickham County. How could she be in trouble already? It was too much. She felt her lip start to tremble and her shoulders start to shake.

  Kathy put her plump hand out and settled it gently and solidly on her arm. It felt cool and reassuring.

  “There now,” Kathy said softly. “You’re alright now. You don’t want to let all them see you cry. You’ll be needing them tears later maybe, but not now.

  “Trust me, you don’t want no ride with that Henry,” she continued. “He comes by here few times a month, and he gives me the creeps. He’s not good.”

  Lyn managed to squeak out through her tight throat, “You didn’t seem too worried by him.”

  “Me?” Kathy smiled. “I ain’t never met the man yet that I’m gonna let have the satisfaction of knowin’ he scared me. Just look ‘em in the eye, and they usually back down. Them big tubs like Henry don’t know what to do when you stand up to them. They ain’t used to it.”

  She chuckled in a superior way at her own knowledge about men and their ways.

  “Of course, the good ones ain’t trying to scare you. Most of them are just tryin’ to get over bein’ scared before they talk to you. Just have to learn the difference.” Kathy chuckled again.

  She continued, “Now, you’re gonna set here a bit, and I’m gonna get you a ride. Which way you headed?”

  “North, Savannah I guess. Then further. Canada if I can get there,” she replied a little embarrassed at how silly it must have sounded.

  “Canada, huh? Long ways from here.” Kathy shook her head and put her hand on Lyn’s.

  “I know,” Lyn looked her steadily in the eye. “That’s why I’m going.”

  “Okay. Good. You see them two boys over there?” Kathy nodded towards the two rough looking young men seated at the window table. They saw her nod in their direction and stared down at their plates, shoveling food into their mouths as fast as they could. Clearly, they were as intimidated by the plump waitress as was Henry.

  “Those boys are headed to just outside of Savannah,” she continued. “They can get you that far. Then you can take I-16 over to Atlanta and go north from there, or head north up the coast on I-95. Me, I’d take the Atlanta road. Goin’ up 95 takes you through all them big cities. Philadelphia, Washington, New York, Boston. Different people up there. I’d stick to the smaller places. Go up through Tennessee and Kentucky, that-a-way. ”

  “But,” Lyn started “they kind of scare me, they looked at me…”

  Kathy laughed outright this time, “Them boys? That’s Cy and Clay Purcell. They work construction in Savannah and come home for the weekends. They’re headed back to the city this morning, back to work.

  “If they looked at you it was ‘cause they ain’t seen a girl pretty as you. Trust me, they come from Pritchard, down on the Florida line. Prettiest girl there gets milked every morning before sunup.” Kathy paused to give a deep-throated laugh at her own coarse joke. “No, they’re good boys. They’ll get you that far safe and sound.”

  Before Lyn could say anything else, Kathy called out, “Cy! Clay! Come over here for a minute.”

  The two stood up and walked over to the counter. They were clearly flustered to be summoned by Kathy in the presence of a girl. Lyn didn’t know why she had felt threatened by them a few minutes ago. Maybe she wasn’t so smart and in control as she thought. Her understanding of people, at least men, seemed to be lacking.

  “Yes, ma’am,” one of the young men said as they walked up.

  Lyn could see that they were both dressed in jeans, blue work shirts, and brown work boots. Though they were a little threadbare and ragged, and their hair was a bit long and shaggy, they were clean.

  Kathy took immediate control, “Boys, this is…” She looked at Lyn.

  “I’m…uh, my name is Lyn”. She thought of telling them she was from Judges Creek, but then thought better of it. No need to let out too much. Never knew what Daddy would do when he found her gone, and there was no sense in leaving a trail if she could avoid it.

  Kathy continued, “This is Lyn. She needs a ride up I-95 to Savannah, and I want you to take her. When you get her there, you take her to the big truck stop on the west side of the city, and you help her find another good, safe ride in the direction of
wherever she’s going. North she says. Okay?”

  The ‘okay’ wasn’t really a question about whether they were going to take her. It was more a confirmation that they understood her instructions and would follow them to the letter.

  The two young men muttered simultaneously, “Yes, ma’am.” They were waiting, somewhat anxiously, to be dismissed back to their table.

  “Thanks, boys. Say hey to your uncle for me when you see him,” she said smiling flirtatiously and touching her pulled up hair a bit. “Now go back to your table and finish your coffee. Me and Lyn are gonna talk for a spell and then you go. Right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  They turned away, bumping into each other as they tried to escape as quickly as possible to their table. The younger one caught Lyn’s eye and smiled. She couldn’t help a small smile back, but took it off her face as soon as she realized she had smiled.

  Kathy gave a short laugh, “That’s Clay, the younger one. Good lookin’ boy. Lot like his daddy was.” She laughed again and walked away calling over her shoulder, “Set right there, hon. I’m gonna bring you some breakfast.”

  “Thank you, ma’am… ‘Aunt Kathy’… but I’ll just have some coffee,” Lyn said timidly.

  “You sure? It’s on the house.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I couldn’t eat right now.”

  ‘Aunt Kathy’ nodded with understanding. “Ok, hon. Coffee it is.”

  Henry watched the exchange from the booth. He couldn’t quite hear what was going on, but he knew he would get no further chance to get close to the pretty, little thing sitting at the counter. He snorted and walked to the door. As he pushed it open, he saw Kathy walking back towards the counter.

  “Bitch,” he muttered aiming it at Kathy, but being very careful not to say it loud enough for her to hear.

  Kathy brought coffee and some toast for Lyn. When Lyn had finished it, Kathy nodded to the two young men, Cy and Clay. They stood up and waited while Lyn gathered up her few things. Then all three went outside to an old pickup in the parking lot. The younger brother, Clay, opened the door for Lyn. She climbed onto the bench seat in the old truck. The brothers sat on either side of her. Cy, the older, drove. The lights of the I-95 Diner faded as they pulled onto the empty interstate. The truck steadily picked up speed, and the painful past faded behind. An uncertain future loomed ahead.