Red Circus: A Dark Collection

by John L. Campbell

  It was in the parking lot just outside the ER, where his car was parked in a space reserved for law enforcement, that he’d encountered Wisdom LaCroix. The old man was leaning against the cruiser’s fender, just as he himself was now, dressed in thrift shop clothes that hung on his bony frame like bad drapes. Unmoving, he stared at the sheriff as he crossed to his car.

  “Mistah Hamilton,” the old man said, inclining his head slightly, but never taking his eyes away. At eighty-six, Wisdom LaCroix looked like a skeleton wrapped tightly by a wrinkled, brown paper bag, with runny, nicotine yellow eyes and only a few remaining teeth, also yellow. He was stooped and his head hung low and a little off-center. But what nobody failed to notice about Wisdom were his hands, which he kept cradled together against his belly, a pair of spidery things which advanced arthritis had twisted into claws. He didn’t offer to shake hands.

  “Wisdom,” Hamilton offered, looking the man over without realizing he did it. The patriarch of the LaCroix family – which numbered in the hundreds, as Wisdom had been siring young well into his seventies - was no stranger to the law, or more precisely to breaking it, often violently, and in his youth had been a true terror. In 1956 he had earned a fourteen year stretch for a killing during a knife fight, and during his life had spent more years inside correctional facilities than out. These days, however, Cecil Hamilton suspected his criminal activity was limited indeed.

  “How are the hands?”

  “Pretty bad most times. Miz Partridge over to da bank gots to help me sign my disability checks. I’d have muh girls do it, but they’s usually busy.”

  Hamilton nodded, but he knew Wisdom LaCroix was far too smart to ever let one of his daughters anywhere near one of his checks. “You here by yourself, Wisdom?”

  “Yessir.”

  “I’m so sorry about Harriett. I know she meant a lot to you.”

  “She’s muh favoritest grandbaby, suh.”

  Hamilton knew that to be true, and often when Topaz had been in jail or out on a spree with her sisters or simply too high to look after her daughter, it had been Wisdom who had quietly collected the girl and kept her at his little house in town. He had even fixed up a room just for her, a place of stuffed animals and bright colors, a haven for a girl with a sad life, who although might have been twelve in age, was closer to six in maturity and emotions. Cecil wasn’t even sure what Harriett’s actual disability had been, whether Downs or Autism or something else, and for that he was ashamed. He’d find out now, though. The case would require it.

  “You know I had to lock up her mama. Didn’t have no choice.”

  The old man made a face. “I ain’t here for her, Sheriff. And I ain’t gonna try to see muh grandbaby. I come to see you.”

  Cecil waited.

  “I come to make sure you gonna see justice done for that little one. I come to have your word on it, suh.”

  “Wisdom, me and my people, we’re gonna do everything we can to find out who did this, and bring down all the retribution the law allows. I give you my word on that. And I know it probably don’t help much, but I want you to find some peace knowing she’s resting with the Lord now.”

  Wisdom LaCroix pulled himself slowly off the cruiser’s fender to a standing position and stepped close, close enough that Cecil could smell the cheap cigarettes the man smoked. The old felon stared at him with those rheumy eyes for a long moment, unblinking, and then in a soft voice said, “That just ain’t so, Sheriff. My grandbaby’s in another place, a darker place, an’ she ain’t gonna have no rest till justice is done.”

  Then he raised one claw and painfully extended a finger, touching it to Cecil Hamilton’s chest. “And neither will you.”

  Without another word he had cradled his hands together once more, turned, and shuffled away into the darkened parking lot, leaving the sheriff unsettled and strangely chilled for a July night. Now, here in the dark outside his house, Hamilton grimaced at his back, wished again for a cigarette, and slowly made his own way home.

  A week later, Doc Fulcrum had completed his examinations and collected all available evidence, hounded daily by Maggie Tobias, and then Harriett LaCroix’s body had been released for burial. Services were held at the First Baptist Church of Jasper, and most of the community turned up to pay their respects for a little girl most had known, if not to talk to, by seeing her frequently as she walked through town. Sheriff Hamilton was there with his wife and his seventeen-year-old son David, and although Cecil had little love for the LaCroix clan, it was the respectful thing to do. The county selectmen showed up as well, mostly because all but one were up for re-election in the fall, as was the sheriff, and it would be good for them to be seen showing such care and compassion. Cecil doubted a single one would have attended if he hadn’t felt politically obligated.

  There were only a few actual LaCroix’s at the service – many were locked up in assorted facilities across Mississippi and neighboring states, or were wanted on active warrants. Topaz was there, out on bail and sitting in the front pew wearing a glassy expression. And Wisdom was there as well, dressed in a baggy black suit, perched next to his daughter, his eyes fixed on the flower-ringed casket at the front of the church.

  Afterwards, Cecil again expressed his condolences. Topaz made a sullen noise and just looked at the floor, but Wisdom locked eyes fiercely. “Don’t you forget ‘bout muh grandbaby, Sheriff,” he said.

  The graveside service was short, and immediately followed by a rapid exodus of mourners seeking to escape the late July heat and sun. Only Wisdom remained, standing hunched and watching as the casket was lowered into the earth.

  July led to August, and four weeks after the murder there was a meeting in the conference room of the sheriff’s office. Cecil was there, along with Maggie Tobias and Don Havermeyer. The department’s other two sergeants, Lucas Worthy and Zeke Davis, were present as well, and seated near Doc Fulcrum. Johnny Lee Reed sat against a wall next to one of his state police investigators, a big ex-marine named Donovan, who drummed his fingers on a manila folder and shot evil looks at Maggie Tobias. And finally there was J.T. Thomas, the District Attorney, who had shed his suit jacket and was holding a bottle of Poland Spring.

  Tobias took the lead in the briefing. The news wasn’t good.

  “Harriett LaCroix leaves her mama’s trailer at approximately nine-forty-five a.m. on Wednesday, July nineteenth. She’s carrying her favorite book, The Cat in the Hat, and she has a ten dollar bill, recovered at the scene. She’s walking alone on Younger Creek Road, heading the half mile to Foster’s Shell station to buy her mama a pack of Newports. Three witnesses at the trailer park,” she read off the names, “saw her leave and confirmed the time.

  “Harriett never makes it to the Shell Station. She knows the way, has done this lots of times, so she didn’t get lost. Kit Foster never sees her, and the store’s surveillance cameras verify that the girl never enters the store. There’s only one exterior camera, and it’s pointed at the pumps, not the road, so we can’t see if she ever walked past, or went by as the passenger in a vehicle. It had to be an abduction, somewhere between home and the gas station.”

  “What about other customers?” asked Donovan, annoyed that he had to ask at all.

  “We identified thirteen people who came into Fosters that day before Harriett was murdered, all of them local, all who would recognize her if they saw her. The one’s we couldn’t recognize right off we tracked down through credit card receipts. No one saw her. Two of the thirteen had criminal records, minor offenses, and they were cleared through DNA.” She nodded towards Doc Fulcrum.

  “And it isn’t possible that one of the others you talked to was lying?” Donovan wasn’t even trying to hide his contempt. Johnny Lee, sitting beside him, patted the bigger man’s hand gently, but it was a warning to behave nonetheless.

  “No,” Tobias said, looking straight at the ex-marine. “I did, or sat in on each of those interviews personally. No one was lying. Harriett didn’t make it to the Shell statio
n, and none of the people in and out of there had anything to do with her murder.”

  “Let’s move on,” said the DA, checking his watch.

  “Doc Fulcrum sets time of death at approximately one p.m. It would have taken Harriett half an hour at most to reach the gas station, so we’re saying she’s picked up between nine-forty-five and ten-fifteen. The scene is five miles away, so even if the killers drove straight there, they arrive at about ten a.m. at the earliest, but most likely later. That means two to three hours at the scene on County Road 17. No one reports seeing Harriett in a vehicle, or anywhere near where she ended up.”

  “Let’s review evidence,” said the DA.

  Tobias didn’t have to open her folder, she knew it by heart. “Cause of death was definitely the rock embedded in the ground, and we’re fairly certain she fell against it instead of being intentionally pounded against it.”

  “Accidental?” Donovan sneered.

  Tobias looked over at him. “The death, yes. Still a murder due to the abduction and the rape, but we don’t think it was an intentional killing.” She looked back at the DA. “We’re calling it three male suspects, all white. Environmental conditions have eliminated fingerprints and shoe prints. We have some clothing fibers. There was drinking, beer and whiskey, cigarette smoking, and marijuana. Harriett was forced – I’m saying forced – to drink enough hard liquor to possibly make her pass out, but certainly make her unable to fight back. No DNA evidence found under her fingernails.”

  “But we do have DNA evidence,” pointed out the DA.

  “Yes, and plenty of it. Recovered from the cigarette butts and the piece of a joint we found, from inside the one condom, and of course from semen and pubic hair recovered during the Doc’s exam. Enough to put a needle in our suspect’s arms.”

  They all knew the problem, though. There were no suspects. That was the necessary part to make the match. Don Havermeyer went on to explain his work with trying to pair up the crime scene DNA with samples in the national database collected from sex offenders and incarcerated felons, without result. He was also tracking down every known establishment that sold the brands of beer and whiskey identified at the scene, spending countless hours interviewing clerks and looking at and copying what surveillance video existed in those places. It was a monumental task, and far from finished. Rewards for information had been offered, without a single valid tip. And no one had walked in to confess. Assuming the killers were from Mississippi, the job would have been simple if only they were able to collect a DNA sample from everyone in the state. Unfortunately, not only was that logistically impossible, there was a certain little wrinkle called the Constitution that got in the way.

  “Pardon me, Sergeant Tobias,” said Johnny Lee. “Just between us here in the room, what are we calling this? Serial killers? Random impulse act?”

  Tobias shook her head. “Three perps, not a serial killing. Impulse is much more likely. Three fellas drinking early in the day, they see Harriett alone on the road. We know that she was very…advanced, physically, for her age.”

  “She could have passed for seventeen, eighteen,” offered Zeke Davis. “She had a piece of trouble in the springtime, a boy at the trailer park touching her, remember, Ham?”

  The sheriff nodded.

  “The boy said he thought she was lots older,” said Zeke, “‘cause of how filled out she was.”

  “Where’s that boy now?” asked Johnny Lee.

  Don Havermeyer answered. “Work farm for youthful offenders, down Biloxi way. Been there four months on a one year bit.”

  “So like I said,” continued Tobias, “we got some fellas drinking, they see Harriett on the road, hell maybe they know her and offer her a ride. Somehow she gets in the car, and they end up at that spot out on 17. More drinking, smoking weed, they make her drink, they take turns raping her. At some point she tries to run, goes down on the rock and its over. The fellas take off.”

  The cops around the table looked at one another for disagreement. There was none, the theory played well.

  “I’m happy to hear we don’t have a serial killer or a pack of homicidal maniacs running around Terrell County,” the DA said, rising and putting on his suit jacket, “But as far as your investigation goes, essentially you’re saying we’re at a dead end.”

  “I’m not saying that at all, not in a rape-murder, and not after only four weeks,” said Tobias.

  “It’s looking like that from where I stand,” he said, heading for the door. “Sheriff, let me know if anything new comes up. In the meantime, considering the drug trafficking problem this county has, you may want to consider how much more of your limited resources you’re going to put into a nowhere case. I’m sure the selectmen would agree with me.”

  As the door closed behind him, Maggie Tobias looked at her boss, but he had no answer to give her. And as the sheriff left his offices that afternoon, there was Wisdom LaCroix on a bench across the street, watching him and smoking his foul cigarettes.

  September was busy for Cecil Hamilton. His re-election campaign was at full speed, and between the handshaking, public appearances, meetings and the time spent supporting others up for re-election, the sheriff had precious little time left. What he did have he spent on his son David, who was now a starting wide receiver on Jasper High’s varsity football team. The Jasper Spartans looked tough this year, and David, who had been playing the game since he was tiny, was not only one of their best players but had a shot at a scholarship or two, specifically Ole Miss. Hamilton worked with David as often as he could, helping the coach during practices, and showing up at the games.

  The members of the sheriff’s department understood very well what re-election meant, and there was no complaining about their boss’s frequent absences. No one wanted to be shown the door by a new sheriff, and most helped Hamilton with his campaigning in their spare time.

  Don Havermeyer was pulled away more frequently from the LaCroix case to higher profile drug investigations, and even as dedicated as Maggie Tobias was to solving Harriett’s murder, it wasn’t the only case on her board. She, too, was forced to spend less and less time on the little girl, but then as the DA had so bluntly pointed out, it was fast turning into a dead end. Without new information or a hit from the DNA database, it was growing colder every week.

  One afternoon, as Hamilton was leaving the Lunch Counter on Main Street, he saw Wisdom LaCroix waiting for him in the shade of a canopy over the Payless Shoes next door, his clawed hands held to his belly.

  “I wish I had some information for you,” Cecil told the old man. “The investigation is ongoing.” He regretted it the moment he said it. It was the kind of thing you told the press when you wanted them to fuck off and leave you alone.

  “Harriett come to see me last night, Sheriff,” Wisdom said, “in my room in the night. She just a shade now, but I knows it be her. My grandbaby’s full of pain, suh, and full of darkness.”

  Cecil couldn’t reply. What was there to say to a man dealing with advancing years and a grandfather’s grief?

  “She was tryin’ to tell me who done it to her, but she can’t make the words.”

  “We’re doing what we can, Wisdom. I’ll be in touch if we have anything. And you come see me again if Harriett tells you something I can use.” He wasn’t trying to be condescending, and Wisdom seemed to take it at face value.

  “Oh, I will, Sheriff.”

  That night, Cecil Hamilton dreamed of a dead little girl standing at the foot of his bed, watching him with black, soulless eyes.

  In October, Maggie Tobias asked to see Hamilton in his office, and closed the door behind her, taking one of the chairs in front of his desk and getting right to it. “Atlanta PD has an opening for a detective. I want to apply for it, but I wanted to tell you before I did it.”

  Cecil sat there for a long moment. He wasn’t caught completely by surprise. Maggie was talented, career-driven, and any department would be lucky to get her. She was well beyond small town law enforce
ment, and would thrive in a big city.

  “I won’t ask if you’ve thought it through,” he said. “Except to say, do you really want to move to Georgia?”

  “It’s not that I’m not happy working for you, Ham. You’ve done right by me since you hired me, and you’ve put up with my stubborn nonsense when you didn’t have to. I’ll always be grateful to you. But I need more, and I know you know that.”

  “You could have a fine career right here in Terrell County,” he offered, but it sounded hollow, even to him.

  Maggie smiled. “And I can think of a lot worse things than being your sergeant until I retire. But I want to run things one day, make the big decisions, and I can’t do that here.”

  “Maggie, that’s not really true, you could…”

  “Ham, the only way that happens is if I’m sitting where you are. First, I’d never even try to run against you. And second, no way the people in this county ever elect a woman sheriff. Especially not one with a girlfriend.”

  “You know that’s never made a bit of difference with me,” he said, and it was true. Maggie’s lady friend was a charming and funny young woman who worked as a legal secretary, and Cecil and Patricia had had the two of them over for countless dinners and get-togethers over the years.

  “And you’ll never know what that has meant to the two of us. But it’s not your vote I’d need. This county is a little too Baptist, a little too old fashioned, a little too Mississippi to ever let that happen.” She held up a hand. “And I don’t blame them for it, they are who they are. But that doesn’t change things.”

  Hamilton nodded. He couldn’t argue with anything she had said. “Maggie Lynn, I have no doubt you’ll be a chief one day if you want to be. And much as I hate to see you go, I’ll do whatever I can to help you with this. You let me know when, and I’ll talk with some folks.” It hurt like hell to say.