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

by Glenn Trust

“Sounds like a plan. If you don’t mind, George and I are going to go down the road here and talk to Tom Ridley and his wife.”

  “That’s fine. See you at six.”

  Ronnie and George started away.

  “One other thing,” Bob said.

  The two stopped and turned.

  “The person who did this may be looking for more victims. These cases go in different ways. Sometimes there are no more victims for years. Sometimes there are a lot in spurts. Don’t know which this is gonna be, but we should hurry and see if we can catch up with him while there is some trail. If you have any ideas, don’t sit on them waiting for us to give the okay. We need to move quickly. If you need to interview someone, just do it.”

  George’s eyes narrowed, “He tortured and killed this little girl and dumped her body like a bag of trash on a dirt road in my county. We’ll be hurrying, Bob.”

  George spun and worked his way quickly back out to the dirt road.

  Bob said nothing in reply as George and Ronnie moved away. He wasn’t offended by George’s terseness. He understood.

  That was the second time that day that Shaklee had heard someone call Pickham ‘their county’, and he noted the look of displeasure on Sheriff Klineman’s face who had overheard the remark. Shaklee chuckled to himself as he turned to the crime scene tech. Poor George, there’d be hell to pay for that later. Right now, Klineman needed George. So did he, for that matter. So did she, he thought, looking at the girl sprawled before him, but whatever they did for her now would be too late.

  The girl on the ground stared open-eyed into the dusty weeds in agreement.

  38. Ride This

  She wandered around the truck stop store with no idea where to begin. Drivers, mostly men, were coming and going. A chubby clerk at the cash register was busily ringing up roller-heated hot dogs and sodas for customers, while pointing out the restrooms for others. The few non-truckers seemed to be families on vacation or older couples driving RVs who found it easier to gas up at the truck stop instead of a gas station. The non-truckers all stood out, like her, she thought. It was a busy place.

  It occurred to her to try speaking to one of the families or older couples. They were probably safer. But would they understand her need to get away, or just try to talk her into going home or even call the police to take her home? They were regular people, family people, people with normal lives, whatever that was. She had no clue. In a way, their normalness made it harder for her to try to speak to them. She was not part of their world. Trying to step into their world seemed as alien and impossible as stepping onto the surface of the moon. Her life, to them, was irregular and ‘un-normal’ and would be incomprehensibly different to them, she knew.

  Lyn moved over to the magazine rack in the store. She picked one up and stared blindly at the cover. Staring into the magazine, not seeing the page, she felt completely alone. The brothers who had given her the ride to the truck stop, or rather, who had been told by “Auntie Kathy” to take her to the truck stop, had been told to find her a safe ride. That was easier said than done, she now understood. They hadn’t been able to find someone they felt comfortable leaving her with and had said they would check back on her after work. That was probably their conscience, guilty at leaving a girl alone here, but she was beginning to think that maybe she would just wait for them to come back.

  She considered the offer Clay had made for her to go home with them. How could she do that? He seemed nice and very normal, like the families wandering around her. That was an attraction for her. Different from the other boys she had known, he and his brother had a plan, a goal. They were working towards something. She had never been exposed to people like that.

  A young boy from one of the family groups came running down the aisle, chased by his older sister. The girl grabbed his arm as they brushed past Lyn.

  “Mama said get over there, so get,” she hissed at her brother through clenched teeth, dragging the struggling child to his mother.

  She was lonely, surrounded by these strangers, the normal people doing normal things, taking normal trips. How could she go up to one of them and ask for a ride north to Canada. Impossible. More than that, it was ridiculous. Canada. They would laugh at it. The brothers had started to laugh at the idea earlier, until they realized she was completely serious. Her seriousness had surprised them and amused them, she knew. But Clay had made his offer anyway, and now, looking around at the others with normal lives, her running away dream, the one she and Sam had sheltered under all those hard years, was beginning to seem less achievable than it had earlier. Worse, it seemed childish. Now, in the cold light of day, she was frightened and unsure.

  The deep voice beside her was startling.

  “Well, hello again young lady,” Henry said in his most grandfatherly tone. His deep voice and drawl made the words soft.

  Lyn started and turned her head towards the voice. The large truck driver from the diner the night before, Kathy had called him Henry, was thumbing through a magazine a few feet away.

  He smiled at her and put the magazine down.

  “I thought I saw you in the cafe earlier. Did you eat?”

  She nodded. Her throat was tight.

  “Well good. I was a little worried about you last night when you went off with them two boys. They treat you all right?”

  She nodded again, “Yes, they were fine. We had breakfast.”

  “Good, good. That’s real fine.” Henry looked out the window. “Looks like they got my rig gassed up and ready. Just wanted to make sure you was ok.” He smiled and put the magazine back on the rack.

  “Thanks, I’m fine,” she said softly.

  “Ok then. I’ll be heading out,” Henry said turning away, and then stopped and asked over his shoulder, “You looking for a ride? I’m headed north if you want to come along for a spell. I’m going as far north as Richmond, then headed back west.”

  “Oh, well…I, well I just…” Lyn was intimidated by the large man, but he seemed harmless now, just friendly. It was confusing.

  Henry smiled again and in his deep syrupy voice said, “It’s all right. I understand. Look, I’m going to go pay for my fuel and check out the rig. Take about ten minutes. Then I’m gonna crank her up and head out up I-95. If you’re going that way, you’re welcome. Just come on out to the truck.” Henry pointed out the window and added, “It’s that big red Freightliner there at the pumps.”

  Henry turned around and walked away.

  Lyn stood there, her head spinning. Two minutes ago, she was ready to take Clay Purcell up on his offer to go home with him and his brother. She had almost given up on Canada. Now, out of the blue, she had a ride to Richmond. It was a sign, maybe. A sign that she shouldn’t give up so quickly, maybe.

  Richmond was north, she knew that. It was Virginia, and Virginia was closer to Canada than Georgia, although how much closer, she wasn’t precisely sure. But from there another ride north would get her closer, maybe all the way. So why not go all the way, or at least try? The uncertainty began to subside and her innate sense of determination began to take over again. She was poor, not well educated, but she was determined and that counted for something, usually.

  Lyn stood there for a few minutes looking out the store window and across the large lot. She could see Henry standing by the red truck. He was talking to the fuel attendant and seemed totally unaware of her. He had made no threatening statement. Yes, he was a little sleazy, even creepy, but he had not tried to hurt her or take her and he could have. He was big. No, he just walked away and said she could come if she wanted. It was a sign…maybe. Blessing seemed too big a word, but maybe a sign, a chance. Maybe she should take it. Maybe she had to take it or never know.

  Lyn stood for a minute more. Her final thought on the sign from Henry was that she couldn’t really be picky. She was not going to get offers from church ladies. Leaving the store, she walked across the parking lot to the red truck and Henry.

  The busy clerk at the cash register was
not too busy to have noticed the pretty girl and the fat man at the magazine rack. He saw her walk to the truck and shook his head. Runaways, you saw them all the time at truck stops; usually young girls, alone and scared. They would fall for any line from these truckers. The clerk didn’t get it. Why, he would be happy to give the pretty little brunette a ride. Watching her slim form cross the lot, he felt the twitch in his balls and the start of a boner. Of course, no one would notice under his three hundred and twenty pounds.

  “That’ll be seven ninety-five,” Todd the clerk said to the old couple with two hot dogs and two sodas at the counter.

  Outside, Henry showed Lyn how to climb up into the tall Freightliner. The clerk watched over the heads of the old couple. He pushed his groin against the counter as he rang up the next customer. Little girl if you want a ride, he thought, ride this.

  39. Confession

  George Mackey and Chief Deputy Kupman walked away from the body of the girl, carefully retracing their steps through the grass and back to the dirt road. George was quiet. Ronnie assumed he was thinking about the ring mark he had found on the girl’s head where her murderer had apparently struck her. It was a good observation; the kind of thing that George was good at seeing, things that might be invisible to others.

  Looking back, Ronnie saw that Sheriff Klineman was talking with Bob Shaklee, moving his hands animatedly. No doubt, he would be trying to put some spin on George’s theory that the same person had committed both murders that had taken place in the county within the last twelve hours. Bad enough to have two murders, but to have a serial killer going around killing old black men and young girls just weeks before his reelection campaign was scheduled to start was potentially devastating, at least for the sheriff. His reelection chances would be a toss-up at best. Of course, Klineman’s concern for the devastation to the old black man and young girl and their families was a matter of conjecture.

  Knowing Klineman, Kupman realized he might just as easily be trying to find a way to spin it so that he could take credit for the potentially case breaking piece of evidence, the ring mark on the girl’s head. Something like, ‘Yeah, I taught George everything he knows about law enforcement,’ or ‘Yeah, George is like a son to me. He discusses every case in detail with me to verify his theories’ or at the very least, ‘I always make sure my deputies have the very latest training in investigative procedures…so on and so on…’

  A smirk born of distaste for the man plastered itself across Kupman’s face. The sheriff was all politician.

  They walked past the still waiting hearse drivers from the funeral home. Timmy Farrin from the local radio station had a portable tape recorder out and appeared to be interviewing the taller undertaker, for want of anyone better to question. The Savannah stations must be getting close. Timmy was taking whoever and whatever he could get to fill the airwaves emanating from Everett. Not often a local story here got noticed by the big stations. Timmy had to make the most of it. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have the weight, meaning a sufficiently large audience, for the sheriff to grant him any special access to the scene or to interview the GBI or the sheriff himself.

  Thanks to cable and satellite dishes, most people in the county got their news straight from the Savannah or Jacksonville stations. The AM station that Timmy worked for was mostly daytime religious programming for the folks out at the Pine Grove Retirement Home, with interludes of country music. Nighttime programming was mostly Braves baseball during the season, or local high school football and basketball call-in shows other times. The sheriff would make damn sure that the Savannah stations got the story first, and they in turn would make sure that he was prominently interviewed, in full uniform, stars on his collar and all, explaining how all the resources of his department were being allocated to finding the killers of the girl and Harold Sims.

  It was going to be quite a spin job to make sure that it was clear that they were unrelated cases, oh yes, and that there was absolutely no Klan connection with Mr. Sims’ death, oh yes, and that the killer, who was almost certainly not from Pickham County, would be caught and brought to justice swiftly. Oh, and did he mention that his vast resources were being completely dedicated to the two separate and distinct cases. Quite the spin job, but Chief Deputy Ronnie Kupman had faith in his sheriff. Of course, Timmy would get his interview, after the sheriff had been seen by all the voters in the county on the evening news broadcasts from the major metropolitan areas.

  George stopped by Ronnie’s car looking at the ground for several seconds. Raising his head, he looked into Ronnie Kupman’s puzzled face.

  “Something I have to tell you.”

  Chief Deputy Kupman straightened up. It was unusual, but George seemed actually to have something serious and official on his mind.

  “Speak up Deputy. What is it?”

  “Last night…well,” George hesitated then went on, “last night I saw, well I think I saw, the perp’s car.”

  “You what?” Chief Deputy Kupman’s eye narrowed.

  “Well, I was parked in the old rest area out on Highway 28, backed up in the trees.”

  “When?”

  “After I left the Sims’ place. Before daylight but it was close to dawn, maybe couple of hours before shift change. It was still pretty dark.”

  “What you mean, George, is that you were sleeping in the old rest area, right?”

  “Yeah, I was,” George said, not flinching under Ronnie’s gaze.

  “What did you see, George?”

  “Old model, maybe mid-nineties, GM make. Probably a Chevrolet, maybe a Pontiac. Wasn’t shiny, more like it was covered with dust or dirt, or maybe primer paint. Couldn’t really make out the color in the dark. It woke me up as it went by, so I got a pretty good look.”

  “You mean a good look for someone who just woke up and who didn’t bother to check it out. I don’t suppose you got a tag number did you, George?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t. But I could tell that it was not a Georgia plate. It was a lighter color and reflected, even in the dark. Sorry.”

  “Well, I suppose that young girl out there in the weeds might be sorry too, if she knew,” Ronnie said harshly. The look on George’s face made him immediately regret the remark.

  George was taking this hard. He knew he had probably seen the killer, or at least his car, coming back from Ridley’s Road and had done nothing but close his eyes and go back to sleep, while that poor girl lay in the weeds like a bag of garbage. No one would take that harder than George.

  The fact was that after twelve years with the department, Deputy George Mackey made forty-two thousand five hundred dollars a year, plus overtime, which the sheriff routinely denied to everyone. He was never going to be promoted, at least not under Sheriff Klineman. He would never have Ronnie’s job as Chief Deputy, no matter who was sheriff. And, he would spend his entire career working every part-time job he could find to make ends meet and to pay his child support to Darlene, and to maybe put something away for the girls’ college. Those were the facts.

  George wouldn’t complain because he loved what he did, and he was good at it, and he knew he was good. It was a hell of a thing, to find the thing you’re good at. A lot of people never did. George was smart enough to know that he had found what he was good at, and he didn’t want to lose it. And yet, he was telling Ronnie something that could cost him his job.

  So George Mackey was tired last night, probably like most nights, and had seen a car go by that he didn’t bother to check out. Standing morosely before Chief Deputy Kupman, guilt dripped from his pores into the sandy soil.

  Kupman quietly considered the situation for a moment while George waited, gazing at the ground. So sometime around four this morning, Deputy Mackey couldn’t keep his eyes open and pulled into the rest area to ‘rest his eyes’. While doing that, he caught sight of the possible perpetrator’s car. Actually, it was the probable perpetrator’s car since no one else would have been likely to be out on that stretch of highway that time of
day. He had been at a murder scene a couple of hours earlier on the other side of the county, but at the time, no one knew about the second murder, the girl.

  Kupman took all of this into account. He did this because if the sheriff ever found out, George would no longer be a deputy. He took all of the circumstances into account and made his decision.

  “Sorry, George. You didn’t deserve that,” Ronnie went on.

  “Yes, I did Ronnie. You’re right. She deserved better, whoever she was.”

  “No, I’m not. First of all, you shouldn’t have been sleeping. That is my official opinion, and you are officially reprimanded for it. I mean it.” Kupman paused letting the seriousness of his words sink in. “Having said that, let’s consider the circumstances. At the time, we only knew of one murder. It was on the other side of the county and no one would have expected the killer to stay around and murder an unknown young girl. We all thought he was probably long gone up the interstate. You were pumped up on adrenaline. Once you had no other duties at the crime scene, fatigue set in. Understandable that you were tired and not your fault…”

  “Not my fault? I could have stopped that car. Hell, on most nights, I would have stopped it just for not recognizing it and it being out and about on that road. I just…”

  Ronnie interrupted sharply, “Not your fault that he committed the murder.” He paused allowing George time to understand that he was not granting him blanket absolution. The murder may have been done but George should have stopped the car. They both knew it. Fatigue or not, he should have followed through. It was his job. Their eyes locked and George gave a short nod to indicate that he understood. Ronnie continued in an effort to rehabilitate one of his best deputies. “George, there was nothing you could have done anyway. She was already dead. The bastard just dumped her up Tom Ridley’s road. You couldn’t have known that. You shouldn’t have been sleeping.” He paused and looked George in the eye. “Cut back on the part-time jobs if you have to, work a different deal on the child support, but no more sleeping…ever.”