by Karine Green
"Do you think they were doing drugs?" Jason didn't look like he thought so, but it was an obvious question that an attorney would ask, and so, it was an obvious question to address during the investigation.
Kathy shook her head, "I very seriously doubt it. They were the top requested guys. If they were doing drugs there would be signs, such as going from top requested to second...and so on down the line, or shall I say, rapidly down to rock-bottom. Loads would be showing up late, or partial. The moving company wouldn't risk the bonus with sketchy drivers. If nothing else, they wouldn't have the same hallucination. They saw something, the question is who?"
He nodded in agreement.
One thing stuck out about the statements, 'Tell Mistress'. Kathy didn't look like Marissa, but they both had red hair, even if they were different shades. Was she being referred to as Mistress? Was that video talking to her, as the homicide detective? She scolded herself for such a foolish notion, No, of course they weren't addressing her. The video had been made just prior to her becoming a cadet. Ghosts don't exist. They needed to concentrate on finding the woman who scared the movers, because she obviously saw something and was trying to get help.
"Ghosts let you sleep?" he asked, with a cocky grin, laying a folder down on the little bistro table. "Mike said you had asked about real incidents on the property, ones that did not involve ghosts. I made copies from our archive library."
"Oh thank you!" OK, he was back on her menu. She had flowers in the form of her favorite coffee and the equivalent of a box of fine chocolates with the folder.
"My pleasure, Ma'am," he said smiling. He sipped at his coffee.
"Kathy, please. I feel old enough being retired without being called Ma'am. Anything new on the Lawrence case?" She smiled, but he averted his eyes.
He smiled, refocusing on her, and shook his head, "The evidence hasn't even arrived at the lab yet. We don't have our own crime lab, everything is shipped out."
"Oh yes. I suppose that was one of the benefits of working for such a large department, but of course we had a much higher case volume too. I am sure that helped justify having our own lab." Her former department had normal case volume delays, but sometimes stuff came back right away, especially if it was a case that caught the interest of the lab tech. This case certainly would have.
"Have you ever seen anything like this," Jason asked, making a face at the photo of Lawrence's body.
"Not quite, certainly not with a whip. A couple of times we had some really bad bludgeoning’s, but the weapon of choice was a bat. I personally worked two. It was a lover in one case, and a jilted lover in the other case. I have never seen a stranger do this to someone. Strangers just bonk them on the head hard enough to get away. Poor Milton probably had better odds of winning the lotto, twice, in a row, than he did of this happening to him at the hands of a stranger." She handed him the local history book, "Take a look at this story."
He took it, and immediately stared at it. "How does she do it?"
"Who?"
"It is just amazing how some succeed, and others fail." He pointed to the file folder he just laid down. "Check out the one with the pink Postie. It's a homicide report."
Kathy opened the file and pulled out the copy.
"November 15th, 1858. William Alistair Caine, murder victim. Found by a field hand in the stable. He had been chained to the whipping post, but was whipped in the stable hands' quarters. V-Shaped blood stains indicated a repeated whipping pattern. The stains adorned the ceiling and wall. His body had been chained to the whipping post after he died. There were drag marks from the stable hands' quarters to the post. Deputy Peiet, seems to believe that Mr. Caine wasn't dead yet, since there was so much blood surrounding the post, but not on the post. Mr. Caine's injuries were consistent with being whipped to death by meanings of an arrowhead cat-O-nine tails whip, otherwise known as a razor whip..."
"Jason! There are some remarkable similarities to the Lawrence murder here!"
"I know. We have a homicidal history buff on the loose. The problem is that everyone locally knows, or has access to the plantation's history. It isn't like we can pick out one paranormal ghost hunter as the suspect for the Lawrence murder. You're the only person out of the loop on the plantation's history. You know, that is how you were able to buy this house for twenty five dollars. Everyone who lives around here is afraid of it. Did you know you were the third bid person from EBay? The others barely set foot in the foyer before leaving town, and never coming back. They just signed the house back over to the bank from afar. Locally, children scare each other with dares to walk across the property, let alone go inside the house."
"Or dare their brothers to stay overnight in the attic?"
He smiled, and sipped his coffee, before offering a shrug.
Kathy frowned as she read William's report, "There is no suspect listed."
"Nope, it's one of the oldest cold cases in state history. Most people think Dark Lady did it. He had whipped her to death in the same manner. People around here are very superstitious. Don't worry, I don't think that, she had been dead eleven years. This was a personal matter, and whoever did it staged it to play to the old Voodoo superstitions. Although, I have not seen anything in Voodoo that mirror that. Most of the Voodoo people I know are afraid to use curses. They believe the price for such magic is that it comes back on you three fold."
"Meaning, the same thing as a non-Voodoo-thingy...Whoever committed this murder, and the Lawrence murder, was highly pissed off, and willing to pay any price to watch the victim suffer." Voodoo! Now there was Voodoo to go with so-call stray Alligators! This place definitely had its charm.
"Non-Voodoo-thingy?" He smiled. "You mean, the same as a standard homicide?"
She nodded, "Do you know many people who practice Voodoo?"
"There are only a few in town, but they are quiet folks. We rarely, if at all have trouble with them."
"Should we talk to them?"
"No! You own and live on a piece of property that they firmly believe is cursed. There isn't enough sage for them to cleanse even a vicarious Caine presence from their homes. Aside from that, the majority of them are Caine or Blanc slave descendants."
"Okay, no Voodoo"
He shook his head, no. "I would be absolutely stunned if any of them turned out to be Milton's killer. They just wouldn't risk it. The thing I'll say, is that if something happened to them that was bad enough to risk that kind of black magic, I would probably already know about it and wouldn't be surprised at their use of it to get revenge."
She nodded and set William's report aside. "Talk about poetic justice for William! Well, that is a comforting thought, but I still don't believe in ghosts, or Voodoo." She wondered if the killer thought to have the whip buried with him, just like he did for Dark Lady.
""Yes. And, unfortunately, even though we know William killed Dark Lady, there were no laws for or against it at the time. The Dark Lady's damage to property report is also in there. By the time William was whipped to death he was an old man. It was a decade after Dark Lady's death. Still I think whoever did this," he pointed at William's report, "meant for it to look like Dark Lady came back and took ghostly revenge. I also think that whoever wanted Milton Lawrence dead used this case, and Dark Lady's as inspiration. But the fact that William's case is buried in police archives and Dark Lady's is literally showcased is probably cosmic karma. I would guess, whoever did this would have to be a maniacal history buff, because they would have to dig for this. Mike and I knew Milton and his family. They aren't history buffs. They're accountants. Period. Milton's Uncle is the president of the local bank. He and his two sisters ran a tax return business, and dabbled in investing. They also run a program for single parents to help them take control of their financial futures. They are all busy folks, and I just don't see where they would have time to plan and carry this out. Or even have the mentality to do this to a loved one. At minimum, one of them would have to go missing during the final planning of it. It ju
st doesn't add up. It is mid-tax season, after all. If the town's tax return people stop showing up for work, trust me, someone would have complained and tried to report them missing."
Kathy nodded, and then read the report. It finally sunk in what Dark Lady's report was. "Damage to property? Her death was ruled as damage to property? Are you kidding me? Talk about insult to injury!"
"We are actually really lucky to have a report at all, and ultimately the report would have been taken as reported, and I am sure that is the way William reported it. As to any argument law enforcement had at the time," he shrugged, "I am not sure it would have been taken into consideration. All I can tell you is that, in modern times, I decide how it is written, which is in line with what state laws say. Back in the day, the plantation owners kept the records. And, each was to his own. Which brings us to the real question; why did he make a report at all?"
"Well, you are the Chief now. You can make an entry for her, and update the file. It was a homicide. At least list her as an unnatural death. Damage to property, indeed."
He nodded. "I can do that, it seems the least I can do with it. However, the original question is - who killed Marissa Caine. It could be that Dark Lady was innocent? If that is the case, I can make a correction on that record too, because despite William’s belief, she is listed on the report as a suspect."
Then something he had said struck her, "What do you mean by 'lucky', didn't they record deaths back then?"
"They did. In fact they kept very meticulous records. They just didn't report murdered slaves to law enforcement unless they didn't have a clue who did it. If a slave was murdered, the plantation owners usually took care of the suspect by making him...or her......wish they were dead, or writing it off as a loss, as opposed to having an investigation. It also depended on who committed the murder, whether or not the suspect was white or black, a stranger or the owner, a host of convoluted things. Runaways were a whole different matter. I have a ton of those reports. The Caine family has some of those too."
"I thought I read somewhere they didn't have any runaways." She pointed at the book in Jason's hands.
He laughed, "You have the sanitized version from Lauren." He held up the back of the book, with Lauren Grayson's photo on it, and flicked it with his fingers. "I have actual witness reports that He trafficked, or more appropriately kidnapped and transported the slaves across sovereign borders under the premise of traveling north. However, it is strongly suspected that he shipped them to the sugar cane, tobacco and cotton plantations in Haiti, Cuba, and Jamaica. Not to the North. He was arrested, but somehow the evidence wasn't strong enough to prosecute him, or more to the point, he was too politically strong to investigate. I can't imagine being the Parish Sheriff and trying to find a judge willing to sign a search warrant on anyone in the Caine family. Those are both elected positions, as you know. I would lay a year's pay that Percy probably 'donated' a great deal of money to the right person's coffers. Check out the blue Postie. You'll see it just sits there in the file, with no follow-up investigation…unofficially forgotten." He pointed to the folder.
She pulled out Percy's arrest report, and accompanying witness reports. The evidence here was more than enough to get a search warrant for the rest of the evidence. There was no follow up interviews, reasons for a search warrant, or any other warrant being denied were recorded. Not even a trial date set after Percy's arrest. It was simply placed in a drawer, and forgotten. "Why wouldn't Lauren include this in her book?" She also wondered if Robert Lacompte knew of this report. Probably not, she was sure he would have reported it.
He shrugged. "She has this unicorn and pony view of the Old South's heyday, with no consideration as to who really facilitated that heyday."
"He was fencing slaves under the false hope of freedom. Wow, instilling false hope has got to be a damnable sin. No wonder the house is haunted, I would beat the doors and rafters until I got justice too." She was retired; that meant she could dig and find out what happened to Marissa Caine. "Is it possible that Marissa tried to stop Percy, and he murdered her, framing Dark Lady?" She had worked and solved cold cases before. They were difficult, but not impossible. But she also had all this work to do to the house. It felt good to finally have more than one purpose. She had felt so useless since retiring.
"Who knows what Marissa knew? As you said, this place has been stripped bare, so I doubt we will find anything here." He shrugged.
"Least of all rats."
He grinned and blushed, offering a playful shrug.
She flipped through a few pages and found Marissa's certificate of death. It read; poisoned, found dead in bed. "Gee! Wasn't anyone taught how to make a proper autopsy report! What sort of poison? What did the fingernails look like? Was there an odor? How did, not only her hair look, but the roots look? Dull, or shiny? What color were her lips? Was there anything under her fingernails, or bruises on her forearms that would suggest a struggle? All of these essential questions are not be answered by this report, but should have been. It reeks of a cover up. Not that I am trying to sound racist, but Marissa Caine was a very influential white woman, in a time when that meant everything, and her death-murder was an incomplete foot note? Not only that, but William Caine was all, but forgotten."
He gave a blank, I-am-not-sure-what-to-say-look, and said, "All I can say is that I wasn't in charge then. Maybe if Percy killed her, he paid someone off to be vague, because I have some old reports, and they are very detailed, just none about the Caines."
Jason was right, only Dark Lady's death was showcased, so the fact that Milton's murder matched, not Dark Lady's, but William's would help narrow things down.
"We might be able to help Dark Lady, but we need to help Mr. Lawrence first, after all his unsolved case involves a live murderer running around."
"Yes, we need to see if there is a way to sort out the people who left comments on his YouTube video. Perhaps one of them is the killer?" She nodded, and sipped the last of her Starbucks, "Can you show me the caves. If the killer is a crazed history buff, he may have hid there as a matter of principle. We might be able to compare the users, if we can trace them, to people who might have access to William's file."
"Everyone has access; it's still a public record. But, no one has requested them." He nodded, and led her toward the caves.
She couldn't help but notice him watching her walk along, glancing often at her out the corner of his eye. Twice he seemed to reach for her, but seemed to catch himself to keep from reaching for her hand.
He wasn't as easy to be around as Mike, but she could sit and talk to him all day. Although, he seemed painfully shy.
He pointed to a wooded patch. "The so-called caves are just on the other side of that really small hill. They have been eroded over time by hurricanes. It is just a big sink hole. Hurricane Katrina really did a number on it."
"I was surprised to hear there were caves here. I don't know about caves, but this just seemed like an 'uncavey' kind of place, so a sinkhole makes more sense."
"Uncavey?" He smiled, pulling out his best southern drawl, "Is that one of them there fancy geo-logical terms used up north of the Mason Dixon where the educated folk live?" he laughed at her, and then smiled with eyes shining at her. "You say the strangest things."
"Too funny," she said, laughing at herself. "It is a very technical term used only in Union States for the express purpose of confusing the Rebels."
"Thought so," he said, still laughing. "Seriously though, I have no idea why everyone here calls them caves? I guess because they have never seen a 'real' cave?"
After a couple of minutes of walking she stopped, "You know, ten acres is a lot! Do I have to mow all this?" No wonder everything grew wild here! No one wanted to mow! But, the trees are so big and beautiful, and mowing would showcase them. She needed a good landscaper, and not just an initial one.
To the south was the subdivision, built sometime in the 1980's from the land the lawyer's wife sold. To the southwest was the beginning
of a thick wooded area, but not swampy like across the street. She wondered if there were any alligators in there. Between them was the remaining land of the plantation. Milton's house was toward the far southeast end of the property, by the older subdivision.
Perhaps she could lease some of the land to a local farmer? 8 acres would make a nice field of sugar cane or cotton, couldn't it, and bring in some income. She had no idea how big a field had to be! She would have to research it. She didn't even own house plants, let alone have grown anything on her three by six balcony.
"Come on City Dweller. The so-called cavey area is just over this little hill."
A couple of minutes later they rounded the little hill and found a small partially collapsed cave/sinkhole. It resembled no cave Kathy had ever seen. He was right, it was just a water eroded sinkhole.
Kathy looked around and put her hands on her hips. "So this is where the slaves hid waiting for Percy to screw them as only a screwer of those who know how to screw hard can screw people. There is barely cover to hide here."
He laughed again, "Something tells me that isn't exactly how that phrase goes, but yes, they waited here. And, it must have been a bit bigger back then. When I was a little boy it was bigger. Each hurricane has 'smoothed' it over, so to speak. There can't be any evidence of the slaves having had been here with all the weather erosion to the cavey-area."
She smiled and shrugged. "You were careful with your language in front of me, so I assumed you were a gentleman."
He was about to come up with a pithy response when something caught his eye. "Hey! Look here!" he said, bending down to look at three little stone arrowheads. They looked like the ones attached to the whip that was used to kill Milton Lawrence."
"They looked like they have been formed to a sharp point. Since it appears like the killer waited here, we should collect these. The lab could tell us if they were made recently, or are of the period." She looked around again, and saw something about twenty feet away. "Look, footprints and a drag mark, headed toward the Lawrence home. Looks like someone wearing work boots dragged the whipping post from here. Lord Almighty! The killer was on my property! I wonder if that was who Jack and Ramón saw. It was the killer escaping through what she thought was abandoned property." Kathy took out her phone and started snapping photographs. "Do you have any casting material?" she asked, referring to the fact that they needed to make a plaster cast of the footprints and drag mark to preserve them for later.
