The Trees Beyond the Grass (A Cole Mouzon Thriller)

by Reeves, Robert

  Sunday was God’s day in Granny’s book, and you were not allowed to drop in your pole into the green-dyed water until twelve noon on the dot. Until then, you were on ‘the Big Man’s time,’ whether you went to church or not.

  With God’s approval to clock-in after twelve noon, Jackie and Granny would use bread balls on their cane poles, created by spitting on a small piece of bread and molding it around the hook into a ball. Then, with a glorified, overly-long stick with fishing line tied at the top end, they would swing the hook and attached bobber out. Their bobbers would dip, dip, dip, and then go under before Cole had a chance to dig a fat worm out of the rusty tin can his Granny had placed them in while gardening the day before. The score was never in Cole’s favor. Whether by numbers, size or kind, Granny always won. Even when the kids challenged her and she agreed to sling an empty hook against their bait, she was the victor within ten seconds. By three Cole and his sister would usually be tired and starved, the Lance cheese toast and peanut butter nabs Granny gave them having worn off some time earlier.

  Like today, Cole would long for dinner and all the food his Ava would have prepared during the cool morning hours. And like then, the remainder of today would consist of lounging around the house, with occasional small bites to eat. Little was done on Sundays back then. Cole’s Sundays in Denver were drastically different: cross-fit at Red Rocks Amphitheater promptly at seven a.m., followed by errands, then a brunch or some other social event with friends, and closing the day with a long run after sobering up from too many bottomless mimosas or beers at brunch.

  In this moment, surrounded by his family, Cole missed the simplicity of his youth. His mind fought, trying to linger on the FBI agent coming to town, but he pushed it out, telling himself there would be ample time to deal with that issue later. But, for now… Let the warm salty air flow over you and relax, Cole.

  CHAPTER 39

  AVA WALKED BACK in the house to refill the sweaty pitcher of iced tea, when someone knocked on the front door. From the back deck, Cole could hear Ava greeting someone. “Well hey there Blueberry! What brings you here?”

  “I just saw the car in the drive and recalled you saying Cole was going to be in town, so I figured I’d stop bye and say hi.”

  “Well, of course, come on in. He’s just in the kitchen.” The entire exchange had been overheard by Cole and his sister, who along with the rest of the family had followed Ava and were now standing in the kitchen. As soon as the invite had been issued, Jackie mouthed a ‘shit.’ They had history.

  Cole had walked into the house through its glass doors and joined his mother in the foyer. “Hey there, Blueberry. How’s life?” The six-foot, three-hundred-pound man clogged into the kitchen with Cole and Ava while Jackie tried to hid behind her brother. “Jackie, is that you back there?”

  She peeked her head out from behind Cole. “Oh hey. Sorry, I dropped a fork. How you doing, Blueberry?” Her tone suggested Blueberry Mildred’s visit was no big deal. Cole looked humorously perplexed at his sister and then back at their guest. His faded jeans and yellowed t-shirt were a bit too loose, and but for a giant belt wrapped around his waist his pants would likely fall to the floor.

  “Doin’ good, Jackie, doin’ rear good.” His Moncks Corner lazy-jawed accent sounded thick like sorghum served on biscuits. Cole could swear he had a wad of dip in the pocket of his jaw.

  “I heard you was in town. How’s the fancy life in Hotlanta?” Cole had no clue how Blueberry got his name, but he’d had it when he landed at Wando High School his sophomore year.

  “Have a seat, Blueberry. Make yourself comfortable.” Ava was playing host as Jackie tried to pretend like she was washing tea glasses in the sink.

  The large man shook his head. “Oh, Mrs. Mouzon, I can only stay for a bit. The wife’s in the car.” Cole and Jackie simultaneously looked out the kitchen window and its slatted plantation shutters to view a large silver pick-up with someone in the passenger side. Double shit. Jackie wasn’t happy to see the company but her mother didn’t pick up the clue. “Well, invite her in, by all means.”

  Cole attempted to steer the conversation back to their guest, hoping Blueberry didn’t take Ava up on her invitation. “Awh, man, I moved to Denver two years ago. It’s beautiful out there. Ever been?”

  “Me? Nosiree, farthest I’ve been is Stuttgart, Arkansas for some duck hunt’n. But I’ve heard it’s real nice out there. Real nice. What took you there?”

  “Man, just needed a change, that’s all. Atlanta is nice and all, but I like being outside year-round and the Atlanta summers are just too damn hot and the winters just too cold for me.”

  Blueberry chuckled, “Colder than Denver? You’re crazy.”

  Cole heard someone walking in the foyer as he spoke. “No sir. With no humidity, it’s amazing how comfortable thirty degrees is. Plus, we rarely get snow that lasts.”

  “Barbra-Ann, get you ol’ass in this house and say hi.” Granny decided to stir the pot. Cole looked over to see Ava’s head down in embarrassment, clearly appalled at the means of invitation. From what Cole could gather, Granny was at the front door yelling across the lawn. “Hell girl, you doing that Paleo diet or something? You’re looking real good.” Granny was holding the door as she walked in.

  “Thank you Mrs. Mouzon, I was burning up in the truck. Some people have no manners.” A stern look firecrackered across the room to Blueberry. Resting somewhere around five and a half feet, Barbra-Ann was almost as wide as she was tall. Her attempt at style made Granny’s outfit of pink sweatpants and a Christmas t-shirt look in vogue. A torn t-shirt that said “got pork,” a clear pun on the milk commercial overhung Barbra-Ann’s tattered, stringy daisy dukes, suggesting to the casual viewer that she had no shorts on at all. Lumps of cellulite could be seen fighting for air at the shorts’ lacking hem.

  “Jackie.” Barbra-Ann nodded her head at Cole’s sister like two enemies playing nice. In high school Jackie had momentarily swooped in on Blueberry and snatched him from his then and now lover. Not appreciating the action, Barbra-Ann sliced the tires of Blueberry’s gold El Camino. Two days later, they were back together. That was twenty-five years and several pounds ago, and Jackie never looked back. She started dating Billy’s father a year later and inherited a whole ‘nother bag of earth worms.

  Cole was no fan of Barbra-Ann’s either; she had been his childhood bully. Around the same time in school, all four of them plus Barbara-Ann’s sister Wanda and her boyfriend Poon were playing spin the bottle out at the Moon, an old sand quarry at the edge of town that got its name from its moon-like landscape. After losing horribly to the girls, the two older boys went skinny-dipping and the girls joined. While watching from the edge, Barbara-Ann got out of the pit, snuck up behind Cole and pushed him in. When he attempted to swim, she jumped in, pinning him with her large buttocks to the sandy floor. Half-drowned and crying, his only savior was Jackie, who pulled him from his otherwise impending death by lard.

  Cole cut his eyes to Jackie, scrubbing the same glass she had picked up when the conversation started fifteen minutes earlier. She wrinkled her nose back and turned to focus on Billy playing in the front yard. Several minutes of conversation passed before the tension in the room was too much and the Mildreds decided to leave.

  With the guests gone, Cole said, “I think I better go, too. I’m supposed to meet a friend later and want to get this shrimp smell off me.” Cole lied. He wanted to head back to his hotel and prepare for the FBI meeting. Throughout the day he hadn’t forgotten about Agent Leas, which he and Jackie had agreed not to mention to the family. Worrying them was not something he entered into lightly.

  CHAPTER 40

  BACK AT THE HOTEL, Cole jumped sideways on the bed and closed his eyes for a second. What does the FBI want? Finally he reached into his pocket and pulled out the small slip of paper his sister had given him, flicked it open and read the number. He dialed it slowly, pausing before he hit the last number. The phone rang several times without an answer. Fi
nally, a recording came on. “You have reached Agent David Leas of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group. Please leave your name and number and I will return your call promptly.” The ‘beep’ came quickly and Cole had to clear his throat before talking. It hung up on him. Shit. Now he felt stupid, like a boy who calls a girl but is too nervous to speak. Worse yet, he felt it made him look guilty. Guilty of what, was the question. Perhaps the movie execs had discovered that bootleg movie he downloaded last week. I didn’t watch it, promise! He punched in Leas’ number again and caught the beep with a clear throat, leaving his name and number, inviting him to call when he finally landed in Charleston. Well, the waiting is sure going to suck.

  Cole turned back into the bed. He didn’t have to wait long. Fifteen minutes after Cole’s message, Agent Leas returned his call. He was finally in town. When questioned, he refused to speak over the phone about the reason for his calls, wanting to meet in person. They arranged to meet at six p.m. across the street at City Lights Coffee, the hipster coffee place Cole had passed by earlier. That gave Cole thirty minutes to prepare himself for the likely interrogation.

  CHAPTER 41

  COLE WALKED INTO City Lights and admired the retro décor of old jars and 50s mugs. It reminded him of hipster spots in Denver and Portland. He had no clue who he was looking for. Agent Leas said he would find Cole, as he knew what he looked like. Great, the FBI has my pic, ran through Cole’s head when that was said. Not a surprise, but still… The recent news of the NSA tapping phones and internet was no big surprise to him. He had long figured that anything typed, mailed, or spoken over the air was fair game whether they wanted to admit it or not. It didn’t mean it didn’t still make him uncomfortable.

  “A cappuccino, please.” The tattooed cashier turned to the machine behind her to make his order when he heard his name spoken. He turned and was greeted by a man, maybe six feet tall, average build with creamed-coffee skin. He was older, perhaps early forties. “Agent Leas?” Cole twisted his head up at a slight angle as he spoke.

  “Yes, David Leas. Thank you for your time, Mr. Mouzon.”

  “Of course. Would you like anything before we sit down?” Cole turned back as the tattooed girl was returning with his coffee.

  “Coffee, black for me.” Cole placed and paid for the order. He never minded picking up the tab, especially for servicemen and officers. After collecting Leas’ coffee, they found a small couch and chair in the corner with a retro coffee table between them. Taking opposite sides, they sat.

  As Cole was getting settled on the old red velvet couch, Leas inquired, “Mouzon? Is that French?” He was ‘creating rapport,’ a 101 trick for cross-examination that Cole himself used in his cases. Small talk typically permits a witness to relax and spill their guts, good and bad, or at least make conflicting statements.

  Cole nodded his head after taking a sip. “It is. French Huguenot to be exact. My family came from Ville de Mouzon during the persecution in France, back in the late 1600s, and settled in Charleston. Ultimately, they possessed large parts of South Carolina, with a great-grandfather or uncle mapping the state so well, the map was used until just last century.”

  “Oh, wow, so your family had been here some time?”

  “Indeed, Agent. They fought with the Swamp Fox, as in the movie The Patriot, in the Revolutionary war, and to some extent in the Civil War. Though, much like my French pedigree, that property was lost some time ago. My dad was a poor farmer’s kid. To listen to him tell of seeing chickens through the living room floor is something to hear.” Cole’s words were crisp as he spoke very formally. He wasn’t willing to get casual with Leas.

  “Huh, but you came out okay. I mean, you’re a lawyer right? And a good one, from what I hear.”

  Cole gave a short laugh. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but I like poor rumors like that. But, yes, I did come out okay. I have a great family. Now, Agent, are you going to tell me why you’ve flown to Charleston to interrupt my vacation, or what?” He’d had enough idle chatter. It was time to discover the agent’s interests.

  “Mr. Mouzon, I’m here to talk to you about Tony Patrick. How do you know him?”

  “Who?” Cole’s faced squinted into an obvious question mark.

  “Tony Patrick, in Dallas, Texas.” Leas patted a short stack of files laying beside him to emphasis his statement.

  “Agent, I have no clue who you’re talking about.”

  “Are you Facebook friends with him?” Agent Leas played dumb, knowing that the status on Patrick’s account in Dallas said they weren’t.

  Cole reflected, mining his head for any reference to a Patrick. Images of his account flickered across his eyes. “I’m not seeing it, but I can’t say for sure. I mean, it’s possible. I have several ‘Facebook friends’ that I have never met, have never talked to. Hold on a second…” Cole took out his phone and opened the Facebook app. As he typed in P-A-T, it auto-filled to Leslie Patmeric, nothing else. “It looks like I’m not.” Cole looked up at Agent Leas. “Let me pull up this guy’s profile picture and see if I recognize him…” Several ‘Tony Patrick’ listings appeared. Scrolling through them, Cole said, “Nope. Not anyone I’ve met.”

  “Hmm, you have never met any of those guys?”

  Cole shook his head. “Sorry, Agent. If I have, I certainly don’t recall, and it wouldn’t have been anytime soon. I haven’t been to Dallas in a couple of years. Why do you ask? Did he say he knew me?”

  “No, no he didn’t say that, but he isn’t saying very much anymore. He’s dead.”

  Until that point Cole had been coasting. He was an interrogator himself, and little shook him. But, dead? That got his attention. Shit, shit, shit… who are my alibis? Ann will suck at this.

  Cole choked out a few more words. “Excuse me? And how am I involved in that?” His eyes tightened again as he waited for the answer.

  Leas leaned in some. “Well, it seems your profile was open on his computer at or immediately after the time he was killed.” The term killed stuck in Cole’s head.

  “You mean to tell me that Mr. Patrick was Facebook-stalking me when he was killed?”

  “No. Not exactly. We actually think the killer accessed your profile after killing Mr. Patrick.”

  Cole’s mouth dropped. “What! Who the hell would want to look at my profile? I mean, I’m not a Facebook whore. It’s pretty rare that I post.” Cole was getting anxious and confused. The idea of some killer checking out his profile was unacceptable. “Do I need to call my credit card company or something? I mean, are they trying to steal my identity?” A much darker possibility had crossed his mind but he was hoping it wasn’t true.

  “Mr. Mouzon, there was also a travel site pulled up and…”

  Cole’s mind raced. Shit, shit, shit…

  “Whoever it was checked flights to Denver the same night Mr. Patrick was murdered.”

  …SHIT. Cole covered his eyes in disbelief of what he was hearing. “Officer… Sorry, Agent, are you telling me that a murderer is in Denver looking for me?” He had no clue why he whispered the last few words.

  Agent Leas leaned across the coffee table, his coffee still in both hands. “Mr. Mouzon, we can’t rule that out. And… we can’t rule out that they found out you are here in Charleston. We’ve pulled the last-minute bookings between Dallas and Denver, Dallas and here, from the day of the murder till today; and we will keep monitoring those until we figure out where the person is. That should help us narrow suspects in that murder.”

  Cole took a big swallow of his cappuccino and quickly realized it was still a bit too hot. The roof of his mouth blistered. Great! But the distraction helped him calm down. The mental wall went tightly up. A cold, unemotional state passed over his body. His brain went into silent overdrive, thoughtless but humming, ready to process the next piece of information it was given.

  It was a coping mechanism he had always possessed; from what, he had no clue. He once again envisioned all his personal feelings, emotions, and
thoughts being crammed into the crevice from which they had seeped and it ‘cleared the room’ for his cold, analytical side to work highly efficiently. As a lawyer it worked perfectly for Cole to ‘zone in’ on a case and its facts, which he then could release when he got home. But at times it had become hard to release, leaving him isolated from everything around him…trapped by his own protector.

  “Agent, you being here tells me there is more than one body. I did criminal defense and represented a few alleged murderers, including a serial murderer or two, in my day. The FBI thinks there is a serial murderer out here, doesn’t it?” Cole’s words were parsed like some newscaster…too formal for the setting.

  He knew, contrary to popular belief, serial murderers rarely kill across state lines. They have a territory or ‘comfort zone’ defined by an anchor point, usually their home, place of work, or another similar place. When they do kill in multiple states, it is usually a product of confidence through past success or from fear of being caught. And when they do, the FBI steps in. Otherwise, the local police handle it all with maybe some advice from the FBI.

  Agent Leas looked down and then into Cole’s eyes. “I am here to make sure that there are no more bodies. Do you get that? And that means I need your help.”

  “What can I do? Until just now I had never really heard of this Patrick guy. Who are the others? Can you connect them to me in some way?” Cole waved his arms in frustration as he asked.

  Agent Leas shook his head. “Directly, no. But, well…let me ask you this. Do you have a scar on your right lower back?”

  CHAPTER 42

  HOW DID HE know about my scar? Cole was still staring at Agent Leas, running this question through his mind. He put his large mug down on the coffee table and moved his right hand around his back to touch it.