by BJ Bourg
She walked over to the table and stood beside me. Lifting her camera from where it hung around her neck, she began taking pictures of the clothes. There was a shirt, jeans, a pair of boots, a leather belt, boxers, and an undershirt. When she was done, I borrowed a pair of latex gloves from Doctor Fitch and examined the leather belt, hoping to find a name punched into the back side of it. We were not so lucky.
I pointed to the articles laid out on the table beside the clothes. “I’m guessing you found these in his pockets?”
“Yeah,” Fitch called from the autopsy table. “Everything on the left was found in the front, left pocket and everything on the right was found in the front, right pocket. There was nothing in his back pockets.”
The items from the left pocket consisted of a brittle pack of cigarettes and a piece of paper wrapped in plastic. I carefully lifted the paper and began unfolding the plastic, but it broke away and crumbled to the table. I continued pulling the plastic away, hoping it had done enough to preserve whatever was inside.
“It has to be important,” Dawn guessed, “considering it’s wrapped in plastic.”
I nodded and kept peeling back the layers. Finally, the paper was exposed and I set it on the table. It was thick and looked to have been folded once. My eyes widened as I eased it open. “It’s a hunting license!”
“It’ll have his name on it!” Dawn said, squeezing the back of my arm. “This is huge.”
Once the document was spread out on the table, I leaned close to it and squinted. I could make out that it was issued from the State of Louisiana, but that was about it. The handwritten portion where the hunter’s name was supposed to be was faded beyond recognition.
“Shit!” I straightened and looked at the items from his right pocket. There was a rusted knife and an old U.S. Army World War II whistle…nothing that could help us identify the remains. I frowned, looked at Doctor Fitch. “Anything over there…fingerprints, surgical scars, dental records?”
“The skin from his hands—as well as most of his body—has decayed, so that rules out scars, marks, and tattoos, and it doesn’t look like he’s ever been to the dentist.”
“If we can’t identify him, this could end up being an unsolved murder.” I glanced at Dawn. “Thoughts?”
“I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I think we should go back to the old lumberyard and search inside.” She shook her head. “In all honesty, if I never went back to that area again it would be too soon, but there’s a good chance he was killed in the building, so we need to see if there’s any evidence inside.”
“It’s boarded up well,” I said. “I didn’t see any sign of forced entry. The place looks entombed.”
“I agree, but I think we need to check it out. It might’ve been boarded up sometime after the murder.”
“Then let’s do it.” I turned to Doctor Fitch. “Anything we should know before we leave?”
“Just that he was beaten severely in the head with what appears to be a hammer. There are other injuries to his ribs and limbs that are consistent with a baseball bat. Oh, and—” She grimaced in pain and touched the small of her back with her fist as she straightened. “Don’t get old, guys—it sucks.”
Dawn and I both laughed, considering how she was younger than us.
“There was one thing I found strange.” Doctor Fitch strolled toward the table where the victim’s clothes were positioned. We followed and watched as she pointed to the crotch of the pants. “I didn’t have to unbutton or unzip the pants to get it off. I also didn’t have to unbuckle the belt.”
Dawn nodded. “I noticed that when I was photographing him at the grave site.”
“That’s how we found Wilton Michot’s body. Coincidence or connection?” I rubbed my chin, but quickly dismissed it as coincidence. After all, they were killed in entirely different ways. “I guess there are a dozen reasons for having his pants open. Maybe Father Bones here was just taking a piss and someone came up from behind and clobbered him.”
“That’s not a term I would use,” Fitch said, “but it is possible he was urinating when he was attacked.”
She waved us over to the autopsy table and turned the victim’s skull to the side. She had skinned it clean and there was a nice hole located at the center of the back of his head. “This was the hardest blow from the apparent hammer and it could’ve been the first, so it’s highly possible that’s what happened.”
“Let us know if you find out anything else,” Dawn said as we turned to leave.
“Oh, there is one other thing.” Doctor Fitch removed her gloves and walked to a corner of the room. She retrieved a red plastic bag and handed it to Dawn. “This is the jumpsuit I removed from the dead prisoner last night.”
Dawn scowled. “I thought Melvin attended the autopsies. Why didn’t he take these?”
Doctor Fitch explained how Melvin had attended Stella’s autopsy, which she performed first, and then announced he wasn’t staying for Cade’s autopsy. He told her she could forward her findings to the detective bureau. “He only stayed long enough to remove the chains and handcuffs for me. He claimed he already knew Cade died by drowning, so there was no point in hanging around.” She spread her hands out to indicate the entire room. “If he already knows how these people died, why am I wasting my time doing this? Well, I’ll tell you why…because he was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“About Cade Baryon.”
That got my attention. “Come again.”
“The prisoner didn’t drown.”
“But I was in the water with him when he died. He practically drowned in my arms.”
“That man did not drown.” Doctor Fitch shook her head. “He died of a massive heart attack. That’s why you couldn’t revive him. Hell, I wouldn’t have been able to revive him if he would’ve dropped dead in the emergency room.”
“Is that so?” Although I’d already made peace with what had happened at the bottom of that black water, I was secretly relieved he hadn’t drowned.
“I found clumps of bacterial growth on the valves of his heart that’s indicative of heroin abuse and there were other signs of severe heart disease.” She frowned. “He didn’t have long to live anyway. He was a walking heart attack just waiting to happen. If someone would’ve screamed ‘boo’ too loud it could’ve killed him.”
CHAPTER 37
After a quick records search at the Magnolia Parish Clerk of Court’s Office in Chateau, the lawyer for our department learned that the lumberyard and surrounding property had been seized by a local bank over twenty years ago. He’d made a call to their attorney and we were granted permission to search for any evidence relating to the old man’s murder.
Dawn and I grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading back to Lower Seasville. Emergency vehicles were everywhere as we drove down Highway Eighty. From fire trucks to patrol cars to ambulances, everyone was doing their part to help with the recovery effort.
The tornado, which was the worst in Magnolia Parish history, had traveled north for nearly fifteen miles, destroying parts of six subdivisions and annihilating an entire trailer park in the process. As of the sheriff’s last update, eleven people had been killed, including Cade and Stella, and two dozen more were missing.
As with most natural disasters in our parish, deputies were called out to work extra duty until the situation could be contained. With the exception of Dawn and me, who were working the only active murder in the parish, all detectives had been deployed to the affected neighborhoods to search for survivors. We both wanted to join them in the life-saving effort, but our job demanded we stay the course and follow-up on every lead we could find. For every minute that went by, the case grew increasingly colder and our chances of solving it grew ever slimmer.
When we finally turned down Ender’s Lane it was getting close to twelve o’clock. For some reason, most of the neighborhood had been spared the wrath of the tornado, but every resident had heard it rumble by as it had barreled northb
ound, destroying everything in its path.
Dawn grunted when we reached the end of the paved street and took to the bumpy dirt road. “Our last trip down here didn’t go so well.”
“Yeah, I don’t think it can get much worse.”
“I can think of something that would’ve made it worse.”
I figured she was referring to me drowning with Cade or dying under that tree, but I didn’t comment on it. Instead, I began making small talk until we arrived at the overgrown parking lot of the lumberyard. I parked in front of what looked like the main entrance and we dismounted. The tornado had missed the old lumberyard building by a hundred yards, or so, but large tree branches and other debris were strewn about the gravel parking lot. Dawn pointed to a motorcycle helmet laying in a clump of weeds. “Do you think there’s a head in it?”
I started to laugh, but stopped. “I guess it’s possible…”
Dawn strode across the parking lot and snatched it from the ground. After inspecting it, she turned it so I could see. “Nah, it’s empty.”
I turned away and grabbed a crowbar from the back of my truck, then headed for the front door. There were large planks nailed across the door to keep people out. So far, it had seemed to serve its purpose. As I began prying the boards loose, Dawn unloaded her crime scene bag and the metal detector she’d brought along, dropping them near the entrance. She then helped me pull the boards away and place them on the ground nearby.
The bank’s lawyer had been unable to locate a key to the door, so he authorized us to break in as long as we secured the building when we were done. Trying not to inflict too much damage, I slowly pried on the double doors until it popped open. The noise reverberated loudly inside the abandoned building.
Sunlight streamed over my shoulder and lit up the area immediately inside the entrance. Still holding the crowbar, I stepped inside and looked around. There was a dank feel to the air and it smelled of mold. “I doubt this place has seen the light of day in thirty years.” My words echoed across the giant warehouse.
Dawn followed me inside and shined her light around. The beam seemed small in the expansive darkness. “We might find a new species of monster lurking in this place.”
I pulled a flashlight from my back pocket. The building was mostly empty, with the exception of a few dozen piles of lumber situated in various bins throughout the warehouse area. I walked closer to some of the bins and examined the boards, which were still secured in large bundles by metal straps.
“These boards look brand new,” I said, strolling deeper into the warehouse and examining the next set of bins. When I reached the back end of the building, I found a bundle that had been busted open. It contained treated posts that were twelve feet long and six inches by six inches thick. Comparing the open bundle to other like bundles, it appeared seven posts were missing. I stabbed my light around the warehouse, searching for the missing posts. I turned to Dawn. “Do you see any of these missing posts scattered around?”
“No.” She walked off into the darkness and I went in the opposite direction. After about ten minutes of futile searching, I heard Dawn’s faint voice calling from somewhere along the back wall of the warehouse.
“Back here,” she hollered. “I found them.”
I could barely make out her light in the distance, but it grew brighter as I got closer. The entire area of the building where she stood was brighter because of a slim crack under the large rolling door that allowed sunlight to filter in. When I reached Dawn, she pointed to the ground near the door. There, in a neat stack, were the seven posts that were missing from the bundle I’d found. Beside it was a stack of treated two-by-fours—about twenty of them—just waiting to be removed from the warehouse.
In the dim glow from the surrounding light, I saw Dawn chewing on her lower lip.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked.
“It looks like someone was stacking boards to take out of here.”
I voiced my agreement, and waved my hand around the area. “Well then, let’s start searching here and expand outward.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
After grabbing some bolt cutters from my truck, I snapped the shackles on the padlocks that secured the slide bars on the door. I then began working the chain hoist. The chain rattled and the door squeaked as it lifted with each tug I made. When the door was completely open, I secured the chain to a wall anchor and turned toward the warehouse. It was cloaked in bright light and I was able to make out things that weren’t visible earlier, such as a faded wooden baseball bat resting against a nearby bin.
Dawn saw the bat, too, and reached it before I did. She pulled on some gloves and took a picture of it before lifting it to examine it. She pointed toward the thin portion near the lower end of the handle. “It’s cracked.”
She was right. There was a linear crack in the bat and she was able to bend it about thirty degrees. When she did so, the crack opened up and I whistled when I saw the exposed inner portion of the wood.
“There are black blotches on the fresh wood,” I said. “It could be blood.”
She held the bat close to her face. Squinting to get a better view, she bent it again and examined every inch of the inside portion of the crack. “No kidding!”
She returned the bat to where she had located it and hurried across the warehouse, disappearing into the far shadows. When she returned, she was carrying her crime scene bag. She dug through it and pulled out her field blood test kit. While she tested the suspected blood, I began examining the surrounding area and planned out what would be a long and painstaking search.
Within five minutes Dawn let out a triumphant yell. “It’s blood and it’s human! This is our crime scene.”
CHAPTER 38
Monday, October 8
It was nearing noon when Dawn and I reached the last square in our grid search of the old lumberyard. It was void of any obvious evidence and Dawn’s metal detector didn’t alert on anything.
I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans and sat on a nearby crate, surveying our handy work. We had begun on Friday afternoon by using stout string to divide the entire area into grids and then we set up a generator and a bank of lights to assist us with our search. Afterward, it was nearly nonstop searching, with the only breaks coming for quick meals and a few hours each night to sleep.
The rescue effort in the aftermath of the deadly tornado was still ongoing and the sheriff had no free hands to spare, so we had been on our own. It had taken us three long days to cover the expansive area, but we were finally done.
While we hadn’t located any smoking guns—or hammers—we had located a few items of interest. Instead of recovering the items immediately, we had photographed them and left them where they were found until we could complete the search. Now that we were done, it was time to document the exact locations of each item in relation to the other items and the walls of the warehouse.
Dawn pushed a tuft of wet hair from her face and sighed. “Want to grab a bite before starting the documentation?”
I agreed and we moved to the shade behind the building, which was where we’d set up a makeshift table and chairs to eat our meals. I grabbed some meat and drinks from the ice chest and she laid out some bread to make sandwiches. As we ate, we discussed our findings.
There wasn’t much to talk about…a pair of torn panties, an old Zippo lighter, a key ring with three keys, a pair of broken eyeglasses, and the baseball bat. Other than the keys, which had been located under a pile of wood near the broken bundle, the other items were found within the same five grids and located near the rolling door.
“We’ll need to get the bat swabbed for DNA and have it compared to the old man,” Dawn said. “If it matches, we’re in the money. Now, if only we can get him identified…”
“We’ll send photographs of his clothes and property to the local media outlets and see if anyone recognizes them.” I bit into my ham sandwich and chewed while I thought. Once I’d swallowed, I shot a thumb over a shoulder.
“Do you think the eyeglasses belong to him?”
“It’s quite possible.”
“And the keys?”
Dawn was thoughtful. “One looks like a house key and the other two look like boat keys.”
“We can put those on the news, too. What about the panties?”
“What about them?” Dawn asked.
“Do you think they’re his?”
She shook her head. “Not his color.”
I grinned and finished the last of my lunch. After we’d taken care of our trash (I hated litter even more than I hated mosquitoes), we then started recovering the items and bagging them one by one. When we got to the Zippo lighter, I hefted it in my gloved hand. “I wonder if this lighter goes with the old pack of cigarettes Doctor Fitch found in Father Bone’s pocket?”
“Isn’t that a special kind of lighter?”
“I know they’re collectibles and if they’re old enough they can be worth something.” I turned it over to see the bottom, but it was covered in mud. Dawn had hit on it with the metal detector and we’d had to dig it out of the mud. “My dad had one with his name engraved on it and I remember him talking about the date stamp on the bottom.”
Holding the lighter over the evidence bag it would eventually go in, I began scraping the mud off the bottom with my gloved thumb. Once I had removed most of it, I was able to see the logo on the bottom of the lighter, along with four dots, a space, and then three dots, as well as a patent number. I held it so Dawn could see and she pulled out her phone and searched on the internet for the meaning.
