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

by Glenn Trust

  “No?”

  “Nope. Born and raised in Pickham County. Been to Savannah a few times. Boyfriend took me to Atlanta one weekend to see the Braves play.”

  “That must have been fun,” he offered, still sipping thoughtfully at his coffee while evaluating the blond and waiting for an opening.

  “Naw, not really. I’m not much into baseball. That was a while ago anyway. He’s not my boyfriend anymore anyway.” She dangled the statement there like an angler waiting for a bite. Dangerously, she did not know the fish she was baiting.

  Lylee smiled. “So, no boyfriend and you like to travel. And here I am, no girlfriend and I am traveling. Quite a pair, aren’t we?”

  The moment was close, so close.

  “I guess we are,” she said with a slightly flirtatious giggle.

  Air brakes screeched and hissed from outside. The predatory focus on his prey had distracted him momentarily. Awareness of his surroundings came crashing in upon him.

  He had been careless, an uncommon trait for him, and he realized that maybe she was just a little too cute. It was only a short ten miles from this gas station to his dumpsite. He hadn’t even left the county, not far enough for safety. Wouldn’t be good for a stranger to be remembered talking to a pretty, young girl when his dumpsite was discovered.

  Quickly taking a bill from his pocket, he reached out and threw a twenty on the counter. The girl started to make change.

  “Don’t bother. Keep it.” He said already opening the door.

  The two men who climbed down out of the truck never really noticed him drive quickly, but carefully out of the parking lot.

  The little blond was surprised at his sudden departure. She was off in an hour and thought they might have spent some time together before he had to move on. Maybe, the thought had crossed her mind, she might have gotten to see the sunrise from the spot in the United States where it rose first before anywhere else. That would have been fun, or at least different. Something different from being stuck in Pickham surrounded by truckers and farmers and horny young boys. He was different. She liked that.

  “Probably queer,” she said to herself as the door opened and the two truckers came in.

  “Hey, Beth, how you doin’?” one of the men said.

  “Doin’ good, Pete. Tommy. How y’all been. Haven’t seen you here in a few weeks.” The customer smile was back on her face.

  “Yep. Just making a run down to Fort Lauderdale. What you lookin’ at?”

  Gazing over their shoulders, she was surprised to see no car out by the pumps. The strange man was gone.

  “Oh. Nothing,” she said and smiled her best at the two truckers. They didn’t have the way about them that the stranger did. They were just customers.

  Lylee was a mile up the interstate heading north. Reaching for the sunglasses in the car’s glove box, he squinted his right eye in the bright sunlight that had just exploded above the horizon.

  31. Plenty of time.

  She ate with determination. Steadily forking it up and chewing it down without looking up. Other than the toast at the I-95 Diner, it was the first food she had had since early yesterday, long before the trouble started with her father. The Purcell boys just watched and sipped their coffee.

  Cy eyed the truckers in the cafe, looking for one that might be trusted with the young girl. Clay eyed the young girl.

  Lyn looked up at him and smiled.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was hungry, I guess.” She mopped up some egg yolk with a piece of toast.

  “What you gonna do now?” Clay asked, looking down at his coffee. “Offer still stands. Come stay with Mama and us. At least until you get things sorted out.”

  Cy heard but continued to eye the truckers in the cafe. Let Clay do what he had to. He was going to make sure he fulfilled Kathy’s instructions, while this little drama between Lyn and Clay played itself out.

  Lyn looked at the young man and knew he was trying to say something to her and wasn’t quite sure what. The fuller her stomach became the more worthy of consideration Clay’s offer became. Almost, she could see herself saying yes and going off with him to stay with his mother. Almost. But the boys were from Pritchard, not all that far from Judge’s Creek. Daddy would find her, and when he did…what? She wasn’t sure, but whatever it was, she couldn’t drag these boys into it and make them a target for her father’s anger.

  “I don’t know. It don’t seem right. I just got this picture in my head of Canada, and I can’t get it out.” She paused and took a breath as if to try to understand for herself, “Sam and me. It was our way to get away from it all; from the fighting. I guess now it’s just burned in me. I can’t seem to let it go.”

  She glanced over at Cy, noticing the way he was studying the truckers.

  “Besides, your brother is right, it’s not really a good idea.”

  Clay shot Cy a sharp look, and he quickly looked down at his coffee. “It’s not that,” he said. “It just took me by surprise. ‘Bout the same as you, I expect.” He looked over at his brother, “Clay always was quicker to decide on things. Takes me longer to figure them out. That’s all. You’d be welcome if you wanted to come back to stay with us and Mama.”

  Clay nodded and turned towards Lyn. “So, now you see we both want you to come home. No strings attached. It just ain’t right for you to be out here on your own. I don’t feel right leaving you here.”

  Cy looked up and added, “He’s right about that, you know. I been looking around here, and I wouldn’t know where to start or who to trust.” He shrugged and then looked her in the eye for the first time. “It really is chancy to just get in a truck with someone.” He looked away again and added, “Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

  She wasn’t used to people treating her this way and didn’t know what to say. They were good boys. The older one wasn’t as taken with her as Clay, but they were both good.

  She looked back at the younger brother.

  “I don’t know,” she said shaking her head slowly. “Like I said, it’s just burned in me, Canada. Crazy, I know.” She shook her head at the irrationality of the dream and her situation.

  “So, what are you gonna do then?” Clay asked. “You heard Cy. He’s right. How you gonna know who to trust?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ll just sit here and try to figure it out. I’ll find someone to trust,” her voice quavered, “or sit here until I do. I have to give it a try.”

  Damn. Clay realized that running into this girl at the diner was changing a lot of things for them. Things didn’t seem nearly as clear as they did when they had said goodbye to their mother at two in the morning. Then, there had just been the business and getting to Savannah. Work all day and a few beers, then bed in a cheap hotel outside of town. Do the same all week, and then drive home with his brother Friday night. Do the job, build the business, and get things going. Now there was something else. This distraction. He felt guilty thinking of the girl as a distraction.

  But there it was. They were caught in a situation that just didn’t seem right, and he couldn’t let it go. Maybe it was just sympathy. She was so obviously down and out. Maybe it was more. Whatever it was, leaving her there alone seemed wrong beyond all reality.

  He took a deep breath and then took a napkin from the holder. “Here,” he said scrawling on the napkin with a flat carpenter’s pencil he had taken from his pocket. “This is my cell phone number.”

  Clay saw the question in her eye.

  “Cell phone, one of these,” he pulled the battered phone from a weathered leather case on his hip. “You know about cell phones, don’t you?”

  She smiled a little, “Yeah. Seen ’em before. Never had one. Never called one before.”

  “Well, this is the number to mine. You take it and keep it. We have to go check in at the job, but we’ll be off around five this afternoon. Okay?”

  She reached out and took the napkin from him. Their hands touched briefly, and they withdrew quickly
, embarrassed.

  “We’ll be back this afternoon. You don’t have to go anywhere. We’ll pick you up after work.”

  She was stunned. Things were completely out of balance as she tried to process this new development. “I’ll try. I can’t promise. I don’t know,” was all she could say.

  “You know, you got to trust someone sometime. We’re not gonna hurt you. Your choice.”

  She nodded and looked away. Doubt was creeping in and clouding her plan.

  “Okay, we’ll pick you up. It’s settled.”

  At that, she stiffened and looked Clay firmly in the eye. “Nothing’s settled. I said I’d try, but I’m not promising anything.”

  Chastised, Clay looked away this time. More softly, he said, “Okay. Sorry, you’re right. No promise, but even if you get a ride, call this number and let us know you’re okay. Just so we won’t worry. Fair enough?”

  Lyn nodded.

  Awkwardly, Cy stood up. There wasn’t much else to say. She was old enough to be on her own if she chose. He knew his brother was worried or hurting or something else strange that he had never seen in him before, but there was nothing to be done about it right now.

  He looked down at Lyn. “You take care girl. Call us if you need something, anything.” He started to walk away and then turned and said, “See you tonight when we come by, if you’re here.” A few seconds later, he was across the room and by the door paying the bill at the cash register.

  Clay stood, slowly. “I hope you’re here this afternoon.” It was a last plea.

  Unable to commit to the end, she could only mutter, “I’ll try.” Her hand quickly flicked away a tear as Clay turned towards the door.

  The two brothers joined up at the door and clumped out of the cafe in their dusty work boots. No one paid any attention to the little drama playing out in the cafe. No one except a heavyset truck driver sitting in a booth in the far corner.

  Henry, the trucker from the I-95 Diner, had watched with keen interest. He was in Savannah waiting for a load, and the AcrossAmerica Truck Stop was a gathering place for drivers with time on their hands. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was clear that there was a lot going on at the table where the girl sat with the two boys.

  Two punks, he thought. And the girl, Kathy’s niece, my ass. That girl was just some straggler on the road, and Kathy had them two boys bring her down the road. Didn’t trust him to do it. Well, he’d see about that.

  Henry motioned the waitress over and ordered some more coffee. He didn’t have a load until tonight. Plenty of time.

  32. Runaround

  An hour north of Pickham County, a police cruiser, lights flashing and siren wailing, roared south on the interstate passing the old Chevy in the opposite direction. Animal instincts surfaced and every nerve ending and sense twitched, testing the air for danger. They controlled his every movement. His face had the alertly concerned look of an alley cat caught with its head in a garbage can when the porch light comes on.

  Somewhere in a buried place in his brain, everything was evaluated to determine what his next reflexive action should be. Remain motionless? Fight? Flee? Hide? His muscles were taught. Every sinew strained, waiting for the signal. The instinct for survival controlled him completely.

  The police car did not jump the median and turn to follow him, but continued south. Gradually, his body relaxed. The animal alertness, still active, retired to some sublevel of his brain.

  As the alert faded, he pulled into a gap between two northbound trucks in the right lane. Instinctively, he became inconspicuous, blending in and becoming a moving particle in the stream of moving particles; vehicles rolling up the interstate. Camouflaged amongst the herd, he was anonymous, and anonymity made him safe. He had no idea if anyone was looking for him or who might be hunting him, but blending in was a natural instinct.

  Predator or prey, he adapted according to his needs. It all happened with no conscious thought on his part.

  After a few miles, he relaxed. The adrenaline rush from the possible danger gave him an almost narcotic high. A sense of well-being overtook him completely. It was an almost sexual release. He lived for these moments. It was all part of the runaround. The game. The hunt. The kill. The escape. All of it. He savored it.

  The steamy miles up the Georgia coast passed as his mind slipped into a dream-like reverie. Like the drowsy sleep of the lion basking in the sun after a kill, he soaked in the sun’s rays. The others on the highway with him were herd animals, unaware of his presence, and silently unaware of the danger nearby. They moved quietly around him, the killer, the predator. After the danger passed and one of their own was torn apart by the terrible fangs, they breathed a sigh of uneasy relief. It hadn’t been them, and that was good.

  Warm air blew in from the open window. Lylee puffed a cigarette contentedly, a glow of satisfaction radiating from him.

  The smoke from the generic “no-name” cigarette that he always bought from different convenience stores whisked out the window so that the car would not smell of it. He wouldn’t want to inhibit some health conscious, young lady from joining him for a ride. Another small detail.

  The close call that morning with the young blond and the two truckers who had surprised him with their arrival was careless. Stupid, he told himself. No excuse. He would have to be more careful; get his head back in the game. The thrill of the night’s kill had still been with him. Intoxicated by it, his judgment had lagged. He knew the danger from past runarounds.

  Sometimes the bloodlust overcame all reason, not that anything he was doing was in anyway reasonable to a normal person. But for him, that lust for blood had a way of controlling his actions in the way that alcohol controls a drunkard or drugs an addict. The taste of the kill created the need for more. If there was not a sufficient cooling down period after the kill, the animal in him would go on killing, and the risk of detection from his recklessness would rise accordingly. He was aware of this and tried to guard against it by giving himself a cooling down period before seeking the next kill.

  It had been too soon with the girl at the gas station that morning. The rush from the kill had still roared drunkenly through him. Kills, he reminded himself. First the old man at the church, an unexpected but welcome appetizer, and then the girl, the main course. If the truckers had not arrived, the blond might be seated next to him in the old Chevy at this moment. He smiled at that thought.

  The I-95 traffic was mostly trucks with a few cars interspersed. He liked running with the trucks. They knew what they were doing, usually. They knew how to go fast and how to avoid the police. The old Chevy looked run-down with its faded red and primer gray paint job, but it was in good driving shape. He was careful to keep it that way. Car trouble with a load in the trunk to dispose of, or with one of his projects sitting beside him in the front seat, could be more than a bit inconvenient. It could mean survival. Never get careless. Never get caught.

  Sometimes it came down to pure luck. At times in the past when his judgment had been overpowered by the blood, his survival had depended on luck. He had always been lucky, if not in birth and family, then in deceiving others about his true persona and in his ability to escape danger. He believed himself to be a predator at the top of the food chain and knew that successful predators must be skilled in the stalk, powerful in the kill, and cunning in the escape. When cunning failed, they had to be lucky.

  Sometimes, as on this runaround, he got lucky in finding his prey. He had run across the young girl within a day after his arrival in Florida.

  He had driven straight through from Texas. He never conducted a runaround near home. They were always in another state and at least two states away from home. Staying on the wonderful interstate highway system that Dwight Eisenhower had given to the country, his Texas plates did not draw much attention and he could roam freely.

  Taking I-10 across the Florida panhandle, he had ended up at the Atlantic Ocean. A few brief hours in a cheap hotel near Jacksonville, and the runarou
nd had officially begun. Thinking back twenty-four hours, it surprised him how quickly he had found the girl. Some runarounds it took days to find the right situation, the right prey. His early success meant that there might well be another opportunity before he had to return to Texas.

  Here on the interstate, in the bright light of day, the memory of the previous night’s encounter caused a smile to twitch across his narrow face. The eyes of the girl, terrified, then hopeless, then fading into a blank nothingness, danced in his mind.

  A pleasant shiver ran through him. There would be another. He would make sure of it.

  Lighting another cigarette, his eyes followed the smoke whisping out the window. Gray eyes gazed across the landscape. The stretch of highway between the small towns dotting the Georgia coast appeared barren. The green coastal plains looked empty, but he knew better. There was prey out there. He would find it. It was his runaround. This was his time.

  33. “Son of a bitch and Goddammit”

  Tom Ridley stopped in the bare dirt of his yard and put his foot up on the bumper of his truck to tie the lace of a dusty, scuffed boot. He leaned back, hands on his hips stretching his back in a long arch then gave out a long burp. Margaret’s breakfast of ham, eggs, grits and biscuits with gravy sat heavily, but pleasantly in his gut.

  Climbing into the truck, he cranked it up to drive the two miles to the Holsen’s chicken barns for a day of cleaning up dead chickens and shoveling chicken shit. Most people complained of the chicken shit in their lives. For him, chicken shit was his life. It was a recurring joke and one he didn’t mind. He liked his life. He and Margaret had simple needs and enjoyed the quiet of life in the Georgia backcountry.

  The bare siding planks of their wood frame house were gray and weathered in the morning sun, not as pretty as in the glow of the sunrise. He didn’t mind though. The bareness now made him appreciate the sunrise even more. It was all part of the cycle of things, the rosy, early morning glow, a shadowless noon sun, and the fiery orange glow over the pines when the sunset came. It was all just fine with him.