Silent Trigger: A London Carter Novel (London Carter Mystery Series Book 3)

by BJ Bourg

  I was hoping he’d get to the point, but I wasn’t about to interrupt him. He was staring down at his bare feet shoved into cheap flip-flops, as though reliving the moment in his mind’s eye. I knew he was heading somewhere significant with this story, so I sat there and waited.

  “And then my luck changed one day.” He shook his head. “I never dreamed I’d have the chance to drive a three-wheeler, much less own one, but that’s exactly what Wilton proposed. I was playing in the woods behind the street and I heard the motor from his dirt bike coming up the trail from deep in the woods. I stopped what I was doing to watch him drive by—like he always did—but this time he stopped.” Cade looked up at me. “He was scared to death. I remember his face was white and he was sweating a lot. His shirt was wet at the armpits and…and I remember seeing blood on his hands.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Blood?”

  “Yeah, lots of blood. He was on the verge of panic when he stopped and he looked at me for a long while before saying anything. The first thing he asked me was if I wanted his three-wheeler.” Cade grunted. “What did he think I would say? No kid in his right mind would turn down that Big Red. It had a rifle mount on the front, big tires, shiny rims, and a large rack on the back. So, of course I said yeah. He then said I’d have to earn it by helping him with a problem, but that I would have to keep it a secret. He said if I told anyone he’d report the three-wheeler stolen and I’d go to jail.

  “I almost kicked his ass for threatening me, but I wanted the three-wheeler really bad. When I promised I’d keep his secret, he told me to jump on the back of his dirt bike. He then turned around and we headed back into the woods.”

  “Where were you living back then?” I asked, making notes as he talked. “Was it in Payneville?”

  “No, we lived in Lower Seasville when I was a kid, across the bayou. You know where Highway Eighty ends down there?”

  I nodded.

  “We lived in the last subdivision on Highway Eighty—right before Dead Man’s Canal—on Ender’s Lane, second to last house on the left. If you keep going where the blacktop ends and enter the woods, there was a trail that led to an old abandoned lumberyard. It used to operate in the sixties and seventies, but it had been closed for quite a while when we moved back there.”

  Cade took a breath and then continued. “Well, Wilton took me to that old lumberyard. At first, I thought it was a trap. Like I said, we never really got along and I thought maybe some of his buddies from the private school were waiting to jump me, but then I saw the three-wheeler parked next to the old building.”

  “Is the building still there?” I asked.

  Cade shrugged. “How the hell should I know? That was the last time I ever went back there.”

  “To the old lumberyard?”

  Cade nodded. “When we rode up to the three-wheeler, there was a big object wrapped in a thick blanket on the back rack. It was strapped down real good with some chain.” Cade glanced over his shoulder, as though checking to make sure no one else could here, and then said, “Blood was dripping from the bottom of the blanket.”

  “Blood? Are you sure?”

  “I know what blood looks like, man.” He wiped sweat from his brow and then rubbed his trembling hands on his jumpsuit. “Well, Wilton, he handed me the key to the three-wheeler and said it was mine to keep, but that I had to bury the blanket first. I looked at him like he was crazy and told him I didn’t want no part of what he was into. He told me it was no big deal, and then he reminded me I could keep the Big Red.”

  “And that was enough to convince you to do it?”

  “Have you ever owned a Big Red?”

  I shook my head.

  “Exactly!” Cade put a hand to his throat. “Can I get some water? My throat is killing me.”

  Wanting to keep him happy, I tossed my notebook on the desk and hurried out into the hallway. Dawn and the warden were standing near the tinted windows. Captain Boutin indicated down the hall with his head. “I already sent one of the jailors to get a glass of water.”

  I nodded my thanks.

  “He sounds sincere,” Dawn said. “It looks like something definitely happened, and it looks like it scared the shit out of him.”

  “It sure does.” I stared at Cade through the glass. He was rocking back and forth in his chair, rubbing his arms as he did so. When the jailor returned with a tall plastic cup of water, I rejoined Cade and handed it to him. “So, you were saying you agreed to bury the blanket…”

  “I did, but that was before I knew what was in it.”

  “Didn’t you ask Wilton what was in it when you saw the blood?”

  “Of course I did. Wouldn’t you?” Cade nodded. “Yeah, I asked him what was inside and he said it was a deer that he accidentally killed out of season. He told me he would lose his scholarship and not be able to go to college if he got caught with a deer out of season, so he asked me to bury it behind the building.”

  I rubbed my chin. “Why didn’t he bury the deer on his own? I mean, why risk telling someone else about it?”

  “I didn’t know anything back then, but it all makes sense now.” He lowered his voice. “He told me he had to hurry home and get cleaned up for Sunday evening Mass, so he couldn’t help me bury it. The last thing he told me before driving away on that dirt bike was not to look in the blanket.”

  “And, of course—”

  “I looked in the blanket. What’d he think I was going to do? The first thing you do when someone tells you not to look is to look.” Cade’s expression fell. “I wish I wouldn’t have. If I could go back to that day, I would’ve…”

  His voice trailed off and he stared into empty space for a long minute. When he still didn’t say a word, I cut through his thoughts. “Well, what was it?”

  “Huh?” he asked, looking up as though surprised to see me there.

  “What was in the blanket?”

  “Oh…it was an old man.”

  CHAPTER 26

  “Wait a minute…did you say there was an old man wrapped in the blanket?”

  He nodded. “He was all bloody and beat to shit, but I could tell he was an old man.”

  “And you’re sure it wasn’t a deer?”

  “I know the difference between a deer and a human.”

  I sat in silence for a few seconds, surprised at the revelation. Did this mean Wilton was a murderer? If so, was it possible the murdered man had a family? And did this family somehow found out what he had done? That would be incentive to kill him, but how would they have connected the dots if only Wilton and Cade knew about it?

  “So, are you saying Wilton killed this old man?”

  “You see, that’s the thing. Back then, I thought he did, but after a while I realized it couldn’t have been him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Wilton doesn’t have the stones to kill anyone. I figured that out once I got to know him better. He’s a salesman, so he talks his way out of shit. He’s not a fighter. And he was scared to death when I first saw him that day. Usually, when people do something bad like that, they’re all jacked up and wired. Not him—he was scared shitless.” He lifted a finger. “Another thing…he was deadly afraid that I would say something and I got the feeling he wasn’t worried about the cops finding out as much as he was worried about someone else.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “I don’t have a clue. I didn’t see anyone else.” He leaned close and whispered. “But if you find out who killed Wilton, you’ll find the one who killed the old man—if it was just one.”

  “Oh, so now it’s more than one killer?”

  “Could be. The old man was beaten really bad…like more than one person did it. My guess is the people who killed the old man ended up killing Wilton to keep him quiet.” Cade glanced over his shoulder again. “And if Wilton told them about our arrangement, I’m next on the list.”

  I studied Cade, remembering what Rachael had said about his lies. “What if it’s all bullshit? What if t
here’s no old man and you just killed Wilton because y’all got into a lover’s spat?”

  He laughed out loud. “I haven’t had sex with anyone, man or woman, in years. Not my thing anymore.”

  “What is your thing?”

  He scowled. “You already know.”

  I nodded, knowing full well what he was talking about. The only thing that got him off anymore was drugs. I could’ve thrown out the names of any number of popular street drugs and he would’ve probably been addicted to it.

  “What if you killed the old man?” I asked. “What if you just made up this story about Wilton to cover up what you did? He’s not around to deny it, so why not pin it on the dead guy?”

  “Think about it…why would Wilton pay me if I did the killing?”

  He did have a point. “What did the old man look like?”

  “Well, his face was too messed up to see who he was, but I saw patches of white hair on his head.” He grimaced. “The blood was bright red against his white hair. It was spooky. I’d never seen a dead body before and it looked really weird. It looked like he was just sleeping, but with a lot of blood all over him.”

  “Did you notice any other injuries on him?”

  Cade shook his head. “There was blood everywhere, so it was hard to see where it was coming from. I definitely know his face and head were messed up bad, but that’s about all I know for sure.”

  “What about his clothes?”

  “If I remember right, he had on a red and black checkered shirt and some old blue jeans. He was wearing some faded leather boots, too.”

  I jotted down the clothing descriptions. “What’d you do when you noticed it was a body?”

  “At first, I thought about running away and just leaving him there with the three-wheeler, but I had already touched the blanket and knew my fingerprints were on it.”

  I grunted silently to myself, appreciating the fact that he didn’t know we were unable to identify fingerprints on fabric. While there had been major breakthroughs in recent studies and we were hopeful to someday be able to recover fingerprints from fabric, that wasn’t even close to possible thirty years ago.

  “If someone was to ever find the body someday,” Cade continued, “I knew no one would believe me over Wilton, so I realized I had to go through with burying him, but I had to put the body where no one could find him—not even Wilton.”

  “That way, you’d be able to bribe him endlessly, because he’d never be able to regain control over the body again.”

  “Correct, you are.”

  “That’s pretty clever of you, especially as a young kid.”

  “I had watched my share of mob movies.” His chest seemed to expand with pride. “I was smart enough to figure out that the one who knows where the bodies are buried holds all the cards.”

  “Weren’t you worried Wilton would tell his cohorts about you and they would do to you what they did to the old man?”

  “Like I said, he was terrified I’d say anything, so he was willing to give me whatever I wanted just to keep me quiet.”

  I glanced over my notes, returning to where he’d left off in his story. “So, what’d you do once Wilton was gone?”

  He took a deep breath. “I unchained the old man and dragged him behind the lumberyard. I rode the Big Red home to get a shovel and a flashlight, because I knew it would be dark soon. When I got back, I put the old man on the rack and drove him deep in the woods until I came to a spot where the trail disappeared. I went even farther and didn’t stop until I came to this big oak tree that I’d found when I was little. I used to climb it with my middle school friends. It was our secret hangout and we’d even built a tree house high up in the branches. When I got older, I started taking girls out there because my friends had moved away and no one else knew about it.” He shook his head. “But I quit going back there after I…I…you know, buried that man.”

  “So, you buried him near a big oak tree?”

  Cade nodded. “Not right near it, but in that area. I can show you the exact spot.”

  “Why don’t you just draw us a map? I’d rather not take you out of here.”

  “I can’t draw a map from memory. I’d have to see the area to remember where to go. You know how it is—once I get there it’ll all come back to me.”

  I didn’t know if I believed him. Some prisoners would say anything to get out of jail, even for a few hours. “I don’t know. Do you really think you’d remember the exact spot after all these years? Thirty years is a long time and things change.”

  “I’ll never forget it.” He shoved an index finger to his temple. “It’s burned into here like a brand on a steer.”

  As I wondered if I should take Cade with us, I asked if he had suddenly become good friends with Wilton after their deal.

  “Nah. I didn’t see him around anymore. He stopped riding his dirt bike to the back after that day, so I didn’t really run into him much until we got older. I did see him about a week later. My dad caught me riding the Big Red and he wanted to know where I’d gotten it. When I told him Wilton had given it to me, he made me return it. He said nobody just gives someone else a brand new three-wheeler. He accused me of stealing it and grounded me for a month.”

  “What did Wilton say when you returned it?”

  “He offered to give me some money instead, so I took it.”

  “How much?”

  “I don’t remember. Maybe like five hundred dollars that first time. I know it was more money than I’d ever held in my hand at that point.”

  A picture was starting to form in my mind. “So, you began extorting money from him?”

  Cade leaned back. “You make it sound like a bad thing.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “I call it being paid to provide a service.”

  “And that service was…?”

  “Keeping his secret.”

  “You said you didn’t really run into him until y’all got older. How’d that come about?”

  “He moved out of the neighborhood and I moved on with my life. I started working offshore and everything was good until the oilfield took a bad turn. And that was when I saw his face on a big sign. He was a big shot car salesman and he was doing pretty good for himself.”

  “And you decided you wanted a piece of that action?”

  “I just wanted my fair share.” He grinned. “He almost had a heart attack when I walked in the dealership that first time. He was mad initially, but he quickly came around and began to see things my way.”

  “And which way was that?”

  “Look, I wasn’t asking for a lot. Just a few greenbacks each month to help me get by.” He raised his hands. “It’s not like I robbed the man. I mean, you’ve seen my house. I don’t need much to keep me happy and he could certainly afford it.”

  I cocked my head sideways. “So, you haven’t worked a day since then? He’s been supporting you all this time?”

  Cade nodded. “Yeah, it’s a shame he’s dead. I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Captain Boutin agreed to have a transport team meet us at the end of Ender’s Lane with Cade. “They’ll have him there within the hour,” he promised.

  Dawn and I quickly left the detention center and drove to the detective bureau, where Dawn jumped in her car and headed for the substation in Seasville. I stopped at home to grab three shovels and an axe from my garage and then I raced to the substation to meet her.

  I found her in Becky’s office wolfing down a hamburger. Becky had been the secretary at the substation for as long as anyone could remember—and much longer than I’d been with the sheriff’s office. Without her, the place wouldn’t run.

  Dawn’s mouth was full, so she pointed toward a burger wrapped in foil and motioned for me to eat it.

  “Thanks. I’m starving.” I plopped in a chair across from her and tore into the packaging.

  “Dawn says y’all are going look for a missing man behind Ender’
s Lane,” Becky said.

  I nodded, chewing a mouthful of juicy burger. Once I swallowed, I said, “Cade Baryon is supposed to take us to this dead guy. He claims Wilton Michot asked him to bury the old man.”

  Becky’s brow furrowed. “And how long ago did this happen?”

  “Thirty or thirty-one years ago.”

  “I’d just started working here,” she said. “It’s strange that I didn’t hear anything about it.”

  “You don’t remember some old man going missing?”

  She shook her head. “We’ve had a few old men go missing over the years, but they’ve all been found. Most were alive—stranded in their boats, mostly—but one was found dead in a car crash somewhere between here and Alabama. For some reason, he just decided to get in a car and drive out that way. They had no idea where he was heading or why.”

  Dawn finished her burger and balled up the wrapper. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed it across the room and it landed perfectly in the garbage can.

  “Impressive,” I said, and took the last bite of my food.

  “You should see me throw a knife.” Dawn winked at me and gathered up the rest of her trash. “I’ll use the bathroom and then meet you outside.”

  I nodded and gathered up my garbage. I walked close to the can before dropping it in.

  “Why didn’t you throw yours like Dawn?” Becky asked.

  “Because I’d miss.” I made my way to my truck and was just closing the door when Dawn walked out into the bright parking lot. She saddled up and strapped on her seatbelt.

  “Did you bring a shovel for me?” Dawn asked.