by BJ Bourg
“I’m going to do a final interview with each of them—this one will be one-on-one, though—and that’ll determine the final picks. I’m going to get real with them, let them know what sniper life is really about.”
“How’d Rachael do?”
“She’s top of the class.” I looked up as the waitress approached with our drinks. Once she was gone, I took a sip and continued. “I was thoroughly impressed by her. I think she’ll ace the interview and she’ll be on the team.”
“I’m happy for her.” Dawn played with her straw for a moment. When she looked up her eyes were hard. “I’m really glad the district attorney accepted the charges against Pearce Vidrine for raping Cynthia.”
I nodded my agreement.
“You did a masterful job getting him to confess.”
I shrugged. “You would’ve done the same thing if you would’ve interviewed him.”
Dawn set her glass aside and leaned forward, studying me.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“What makes you tick, London?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve been working together a lot lately and all I know about you is that you’re a good detective, an excellent sniper, and you lost your family when you were young.” She cocked her head sideways. “There might be a few other tidbits of information, but that about sums it up. What else is there?”
“I don’t know.”
“There’s got to be something. You’re so sure of yourself in your job that you sometimes come across as robotic, but that kiss…”
I couldn’t see my face, but I knew I was blushing.
Dawn nodded and bit her lower lip. “There was passion—lots of feeling—in that kiss.”
I smiled. “I loved it, too.”
Dawn seemed lost in thought for a while. She finally asked me to tell her more about myself.
“There’s not much to tell. I’m actually kind of boring.” I leaned back and folded my hands behind my head. “For instance, I know how much to lead a man who is two hundred yards away, walking at a normal pace from left to right, and in a twenty-mile cross wind blowing the opposite direction.”
Dawn laughed. “I don’t even know what you just said.”
“I dry-fire my rifle a few hundred times each day,” I continued. “I’ve memorized the bullet drop data for the round I shoot in twenty-five-yard increments out to nearly half a mile—just in case. I once belly-crawled in an ant pile and stayed there just to prove to myself that I could do it and not be distracted—”
Dawn nearly jumped out of her chair when her phone rang. We both laughed and she pulled it from her purse. “Damn that phone! This conversation was just getting good.” Her smile quickly faded when she looked at the screen. “Shit. It’s the office.”
By the expression on her face, the conversation wasn’t good. When she ended the call, she hung her head for a few long seconds before telling me that the lab had been able to lift the serial number from the revolver, and the phone records and lab reports had come back.
“Well?” I asked.
She recited what the phone records and gun registration showed and then said two DNA profiles were developed on the tip of the ice pick. “One matched Wilton and the other matched Shelton.”
“That’s a good thing!”
“Yeah, but the lab was able to identify a single female DNA profile on the swabs from both sex crime kits.” Dawn sighed. “Either they were screwing the same woman or—”
“Oh, shit!” I said when it hit me. “I know who killed them!”
CHAPTER 54
Later that afternoon…
Interview Room 1, Detective Bureau, Payneville, LA
Cynthia Alvey’s arms were folded across her chest and her lips were pressed together in anger. “How’d you figure it out?”
“It wasn’t so hard, thanks to a little thing called modern technology.” I spread my hands on the desk in front of us. “So, do you want to tell us what really happened out there at your house? Now that we know Hank didn’t actually kill those men.”
Cynthia glared at me for a long moment.
“Look, you can sit there and not say a word,” I said, “or you can offer a moral explanation for what you did.”
“What good will that do?”
“It might help you sleep at night and could help the case against—”
“Okay, okay…I get it.” After a long moment, Cynthia sighed. “What do you want to know?”
“For starters, how’d you stage the attack?”
“I didn’t. Hank attacked me and I shot him in self-defense.”
I studied her face. It was unwavering. I suddenly understood. “So, when did you get the gun?”
“Two days before…before what happened.”
“Before you killed him. Right.” I removed the registration for the gun. “You bought it from a pawnshop in Mathport and you paid for it with cash and you didn’t know the serial number had been rubbed off.”
Cynthia nodded.
“How’d you trigger Hank?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said he really attacked you.” I drummed my finger on the desk. “That means you did or said something to piss him off—and it must’ve been bad, because he tried to break the door down with an axe.”
Cynthia began chewing on her fingernails, staring at me over her hand.
I shot a thumb toward Dawn, who was sitting beside me. “Your phone call to Dawn was a setup. A neighbor recalled hearing gunshots at least ten minutes before seeing my blue lights coming down the street, so you killed him before making that call. At first, we thought it was just an error on the witness’ part, but we now know better, don’t we?”
She continued staring at me, not saying a word.
Now that I’d gotten the confrontational issues out of the way, I pretended to be done with her and leaned back. Dawn stood and moved around the desk, pulled a chair directly beside Cynthia.
“Cindy, look, all we want is the truth this time…nothing more, nothing less,” Dawn explained. “We’re not here to judge you. Had I been in your shoes, I would’ve killed the bastard a long time ago.”
“I’ve thought about it many times over the years,” Cynthia mumbled around one of her fingers.
“I totally understand. Now, can you just tell us how you set him off?”
After blowing a piece of nail out of her mouth, she wiped her finger on her jeans and turned to face Dawn. “He was passed out drunk on the sofa, like he does most nights. I started shaking him and screaming that I’d had an affair. When he woke up, he was disoriented. He didn’t understand what I was saying, so I had to repeat it several times. Hell, I almost had to draw a picture. He finally understood and, as I knew he would, he went to hitting me, demanding to know his name.”
She paused to take a breath. When she continued, she explained how she had stashed her phone and revolver in the bathroom earlier in the night. “Before he beat me too bad, I told him I felt sick and had to go to the bathroom. I gagged and he jumped back—he can’t handle vomit—and told me I’d better not throw up on him. He let me go to the bathroom, but said if I didn’t tell him who I screwed when I got back, he was going to kill me.”
“How’d you know he wouldn’t just kill you outright?”
“He wouldn’t even let me pass out before giving him a name, so he wasn’t about to kill me until he found out who I was sleeping with. But I had my backup standing by just in case.”
Dawn nodded, thoughtful. “I’m guessing that’s when you locked the bathroom door and refused to come out?”
“I used to do that when we lived in Kentucky. I quit after the first few times, because he would only break the door down and beat me worse.” She paused and smiled. It was a wicked grin. “I knew that’s all it would take to really set him off. Like clockwork, he started trying to break in, so I shot him through the door.”
“And the axe?”
“We got it out the garage and hit the sid
e of the door with it after I shot him. We dropped it next to his body. That’s when I called you.” She lowered her eyes. “I’m really sorry about deceiving you. You’ve been good to me.”
Dawn only shrugged. “When did y’all plant the wig and the ice pick?”
“Earlier…while Hank was still sleeping. We knew we wouldn’t have time to do it after I woke him up.” She frowned. “I didn’t know anything about the murders until after the fact. I shouldn’t have gone along with murdering and framing Hank, but I was just so tired of the beatings and I figured he deserved it for all he’s done to me. Besides, I thought it was the only way to keep her out of trouble.”
Dawn looked over at me. “Anything?”
I shook my head.
“Okay,” Dawn began, “it’s time—”
“Wait,” Cynthia said. “Can you just tell me how you knew?”
“When we first spoke with your mom, she said she didn’t know you were back in town.” Dawn tapped the file folder with her finger. “According to the records on your throw phone, you two have been in contact almost daily. Oh, and the crime lab was able to lift the serial number on the gun—you look surprised.”
“I didn’t…they can do that?”
Dawn nodded. “We ran the registration on the gun and it came back to your mom.”
“We also knew if you told anyone about the attack,” I said, “it would be your mom, and not Hank. And we all know what happens when a bad guy comes between a momma bear and her cubs.”
“I can’t believe she confessed to it all.”
I nodded, remembering how defiant Cynthia had been when we told her it was over and her mom had confessed to seducing Wilton and Shelton into bed and then murdering them for what they did to her.
Linda said it made her sick to her stomach to seduce the men and have sex with them, but it was the only way she could get close enough to kill them without being detected. Cynthia had described the third kid and mentioned a weird birthmark on his neck, so she figured she would be able to find him at the funerals for his friends.
It was a brilliant plan, I thought, and one that might’ve worked…somewhere else.
Cynthia had refused to believe her mom was the murderer and it wasn’t until we put them in the same room and Linda acknowledged the confession that Cynthia finally broke down.
“We would’ve nabbed your mom sooner or later, thanks to the DNA left on the bodies,” Dawn explained. “Of course, had she not slept with them, it’s anybody’s guess where this case would’ve gone.”
“She was right to think they’d never turn down a good looking woman.” I said.
Cynthia’s shoulders drooped. “What’ll happen to her? Will she spend the rest of her life in jail?”
“With luck and a good jury, she might end up with a manslaughter charge or even walk free.” Dawn grunted. “I think it’ll be next to impossible to find twelve people who’ll feel sorry for two killer rapists.”
“What…um, what about me?” Cynthia asked.
“You’ll be called to testify at your mom’s trial,” I said. “If you want her to have a chance of going free some day, you’d better damn well show up.”
“Um, am I under arrest?”
“For what?” Dawn asked pointedly. “You said you killed Hank in self-defense. Now, get out of here before we change our minds.”
I had mixed feelings as Dawn and I watched Cynthia walk down the hallway toward the exit. She had triggered Hank for the specific purpose of killing him, and then helped frame him for two murders her mom committed. That seemed wrong on so many levels, but I didn’t feel a bit sorry for Hank.
“What’s a bullet drop?” Dawn asked when Cynthia was gone.
I grinned, surprised she even remembered that part of our earlier conversation. “I’ll finish telling you over supper, but only under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“If Lily can join us.” I didn’t know how Dean’s daughter would feel about having dinner with us, but I remembered wanting to hang out with my dad’s friends after he passed away. It made me feel close to him even though he was gone.
Dawn’s eyes misted over. “I’d love that.”
Read the next book in this series now…
(Author’s note: To find out what happened with the Magnolia Life Church investigation involving Dawn Luke and Detective Brandon Berger, check out HOLLOW CRIB by BJ Bourg.)
NOVELS BY BJ BOURG
Clint Wolf Mystery Trilogy
But Not Forgotten
But Not Forgiven
But Not Forsaken
Magnolia Parish Mysteries
Hollow Crib
Hollow Bond
London Carter Mysteries
James 516
Proving Grounds
Silent Trigger
Bullet Drop
Elevation
Blood Rise (Nov/Dec 2017)
Bullet Drop Spin-Off:
Stand-Alone Mystery
The Seventh Taking
About the Author
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BJ Bourg is an award-winning mystery writer and former professional boxer who hails from the swamps of Louisiana. Dubbed the "real deal" by other mystery writers, he has spent his entire adult life solving crimes as a patrol cop, detective sergeant, and chief investigator for a district attorney's office. Not only does he know his way around crime scenes, interrogations, and courtrooms, but he also served as a police sniper commander (earning the title of "Top Shooter" at an FBI sniper school) and a police academy instructor.
BJ is a four-time traditionally-published novelist and his debut novel, JAMES 516, won the 2016 EPIC eBook Award for Best Mystery. Dozens of his articles and stories have been published in national magazines such as Woman's World, Boys' Life, and Writer's Digest. He is a regular contributor to two of the nation's leading law enforcement magazines, Law and Order and Tactical Response, and he has taught at conferences for law enforcement officers, tactical police officers, and writers. Above all else, he is a father and husband, and the highlight of his life is spending time with his beautiful wife and wonderful children.
http://www.bjbourg.com
