by BJ Bourg
She smiled again. “Well, let’s see if we can find his trail before you start thanking me.”
While she shrugged into her backpack, I launched my boat and then waited for her and Geronimo to board. Once they were seated in front of me, I pulled away from the launch and we set out on the water. It had cooled off a little from when Susan and I had canvassed the Dire Lane neighborhood, but it was still quite warm and the wind felt good against my face. I sped up to increase the sensation and didn’t slow down until we reached Westway Canal.
Gretchen lifted a hand as I entered the mouth of the canal. “How about you hug the left side of the canal on the way down?” she suggested. “I want to get a good look at the bank on this side, and then we can make our way down the other side on the way back.”
I nodded and did as she asked, taking us as close to the bank as I could without going aground. I also slowed to an idle. Gretchen’s face had changed. Her eyes were narrow as she focused like a laser on the foliage along the western bank of the canal. I didn’t say a word, because I didn’t want to interfere with her concentration. I figured she’d tell me to stop if she located something.
I was right, because when we reached the spot where Susan and I had recovered the body, she lifted her hand. Smiling, she said, “A blind tracker could find this spot. It looks like a herd of cattle plowed through here.”
She was correct. Even I could see what happened at this location. Although we’d cleaned up our mess and taken away the boards, the body, and all of our gear and trash, there were deep ruts in the soft mud that told a clear story. I could even see the impression of our victim’s body still pressed into the bed of the canal.
I continued idling northward, keeping to the shadows of the western bank of the canal. Moss hung eerily from the branches overhead, which forced us to duck low from time to time, and we observed an occasional alligator floating in the water nearby.
Geronimo stood at the front of the boat, testing the water and the wind with his nose, and Gretchen carefully studied the bank. After we’d traveled about five miles up the canal, she turned and motioned for me to cross to the other side. I did and began making my way back toward the south from whence we’d come.
The shadows were growing longer now and the going was a little slower. It seemed as though we had traveled three miles when Gretchen raised a hand. I pulled back on the throttle.
She pointed. “There…look at the edge of the water.”
I looked, but only saw trees and wild weeds.
“Get me as close as you can,” she said.
I scanned the bank and located a shallow gulley to the right of where she wanted to be. It spilled from the wooded area to the east and appeared to be some sort of drainage ditch. I aimed the bow straight for the mouth of the gulley and pushed the throttle to gain some momentum. I pulled back when we were almost on it and allowed the boat to coast forward until it ground to a halt in the soft mud. After killing the engine, we disembarked and I tied off to a tree.
“There’s a snapped twig on a low-hanging oak branch ten feet that way.” Gretchen pointed toward the north. “I’ll work my way to it and see if I can pick up a trail.”
I nodded and settled in to wait. I pulled out my phone and checked the time. It was a little after five. Susan should be training by now, so I didn’t bother calling. I wondered if Damian Conner had made it to town yet. He was an old friend of Susan’s dad and had moved to Tennessee not long after Susan’s dad had died. He now ran his own boxing gym. When I’d called Damian two weeks ago—without Susan’s knowledge or consent—and told him who Susan was fighting, he agreed to come down and work with her. He had heard about Antonina Ivanov and knew how dangerous she was, and he told me Susan could get hurt if she wasn’t prepared.
“The woman fights men and she beats them,” Damian had said when I’d called. “Why do you think the MMA champion doesn’t want to fight her? You need to tell Susan to back out of this one. It’s too dangerous.”
“She won’t listen to me,” I’d said.
“She’s just like her dad.” He’d sighed heavily and then said he wasn’t letting her go into the fight ill-prepared. “Those mixed martial arts trainers don’t know shit about boxing, and she needs a good boxing coach if she wants to survive this fight.”
While I’d been worrying about Susan losing, he was worried about her safety. Coming from such a highly regarded trainer, it scared the crap out of me.
I didn’t know how receptive Susan would be to Damian’s presence in her training camp, but he’d told me to leave that part to him—
“Clint!” Gretchen called from somewhere deep in the bush. “I’ve got something.”
CHAPTER 9
Once I reached Gretchen and Geronimo, Gretchen pointed to a drag mark in the mud that even I could see. “This is where your victim was put into the canal.” She shot a thumb over her shoulder toward the east into the trees. “I found two drops of blood a few feet that way, and it’s obvious the trail continues on.”
I shifted the backpack on my shoulder and lifted the camera that hung from my neck. After photographing the drag mark, I followed Gretchen into the thick of the trees, documenting the indicators she located along the way. I stopped to swab the blood spots she found because I would have to send them to the lab for comparison against the known samples from our victim. Although we were certain this was our victim’s blood, we could never assume anything during criminal investigations. Every assertion we made had to be backed up with facts and evidence.
Gretchen continued snaking her way forward and I remained about twenty feet behind her and Geronimo. I kept track of our direction of travel as best I could, and it seemed we were veering toward the northeast and heading straight for Dire Lane. My suspicions were confirmed when we broke through the tree line and found ourselves in the grassy fields behind the Dire Lane neighborhood.
The going was much easier now, because Geronimo had picked up a scent and was angling straight toward the back of Dire Lane. Every few yards, or so, Gretchen would stop to point out some blood drops, and then we’d continue on. We were about fifty yards from the end of the paved road when Geronimo stopped abruptly and took a seat, indicating it was the end of the trail.
The grass in which we stood was thick and at least a foot tall. Gretchen squatted low, her butt resting on her heels, and studied the ground. She scanned the area carefully and then stood and nodded. “This is where it happened.” She waved me over and pointed down through the weeds, where there were several thick pools of blood. Although the weeds were mostly tall in that area, she pointed to a smattering of bent blades. “This is where the body came to rest. It’s hard to see because it’s so dry out here, but a car was here a few days ago.”
I followed Gretchen as she began tracking the faint tire tracks eastward until she arrived at the paved road. She straightened and looked left and right, and then turned to me. “This is where it ends.”
I pointed toward the grassy path from which we’d just come, where the pools of blood had been located. “Someone killed him down there and then dragged his body all the way to the canal?”
Gretchen nodded. “That’s what it looks like.”
I sighed. At least I knew that much and it was now more important than ever to canvass this neighborhood. My only fear was that the murder had happened during the day when no one was home.
Gretchen and I made the long hike back to my boat and we returned to the launch. After I thanked her profusely, she left and I hitched up my boat and drove home.
It was dark when I arrived and I could hear Achilles barking as I backed the boat trailer under the carport. He always barked the same when he saw my truck or Susan’s marked police Tahoe. It wasn’t the deep, threatening bark he sounded when he saw a stranger or a cat. Instead, it was a yelping sound that seemed to suggest he was begging us to give him some attention.
I walked over and opened the gate to let him out of the back yard. He rushed through the opening and sat pa
tiently, waiting for me to rub his ears. I didn’t make him beg.
“What’s up, big man?” I asked in the goofy voice I used while addressing him in private. “Did you miss me? Huh? Did you?”
He licked my hands with his long tongue and then bounded toward the shell road that separated our house from the gym we had built for Susan. I used it on occasion, but very rarely. There were three vehicles parked in the grass in front of the gym and I recognized two of them. The first was Susan’s coach. He’d been with her from the beginning of her career and was a nice enough fellow, but Damian’s words had caused me to begin doubting the crusty old fellow.
The second car belonged to Takecia Gayle, who was one of Susan’s dayshift officers and her training partner. Takecia’s parents, both of them Jamaican nationals, had migrated legally to the United States over fifty years ago. About to turn twenty-four, this was the only country Takecia had ever called home and she was a proud American. As a teenager, she became an expert in judo and won the gold at the Pan American Games. She had been expected to be the first American in her weight class to take the gold in judo at the Summer Olympics, but a training injury crushed those dreams. She later went on to college, where she studied criminal justice, and eventually became a police officer. How she found her way down to our obscure town, I’ll never know, but I was glad Susan had her as a training partner and an officer.
I strode across the shell driveway and stopped to study the third vehicle. It was an old Ford pickup truck, single cab, four-by-four, and it was dirty. Achilles had stopped to study it, too, and decided to pee on the rear driver’s side tire. When I saw the license plate, I knew exactly to whom the truck belonged.
“Stay here, big boy,” I said to Achilles, and pushed my way through the entrance and into the bright lights of the gym. There was a twelve-by-twelve boxing ring in one corner and a cage in the opposite corner, with various types of punching bags hanging from large chains scattered about the expansive room.
Sweat poured down Susan’s face as she sat at the center of the boxing ring looking up at Damian Conner. Susan’s coach was standing in one corner with his arms folded across his chest. I couldn’t hear what Damian was saying, but Susan’s coach spun and rushed toward the ropes. As he ducked through them and slipped out the ring, he hollered over his shoulder, “You’ll be sorry you ever agreed to this!”
He brushed past me and I almost grabbed him by the throat and told him not to raise his voice at Susan, but I figured it was her fight and she was more than capable of handling her own affairs.
“The way a man reacts to constructive criticism says a lot about him,” Damian was explaining when I leaned against the raised floor of the ring. “He couldn’t even defend his method and his only answer was that I was old and washed up. Trust me, Lil’ Suzy, you’re better off without him.”
Susan sighed and wiped a stream of sweat from her face. “I know you’re right, but he got me to where I am today.”
“No, good genes is what got you here,” Damian said. “Any halfwit trainer can take you and make his program look good. But this girl you’re fighting, she’s not to be taken lightly. She’s got lightning in one hand and a wrecking ball in the other.”
“He’s right,” Takecia said in her Jamaican accent. Although she’d been raised here her whole life and her English was exceptional—even better than most Cajuns I’d encountered—she’d picked up the accent from her parents. “She is a dangerous woman. You cannot be too careful in your preparation and training.”
Susan nodded and it was only then that she noticed me leaning against the ring. “Hey, Clint, look who’s here,” she said, shoving her thumb up in Damian’s direction. “He heard about my upcoming fight and he wants to train me.”
Time to ‘fess up and take my beating, I thought. “Yeah, I can’t imagine how he found out about it.”
Susan’s eyes narrowed. “Did you call him?”
“Guilty as charged.”
Susan rolled smoothly to her feet and approached the ropes. She leaned through them and kissed me on the lips. “Thank you.”
Damian grunted. “If you two start with that touchy-feely shit, I’m outta here.”
Susan laughed and told me she had to get back to training. “Uncle D wants to work me on the mitts for a bit to evaluate where I’m at.”
I nodded and told her I was cleaning up and then heading back out. “I want to canvass the Dire Lane neighborhood while people are home and before it gets too late.”
“Okay.” She pouted playfully, and I knew she wanted to go with me. “Have fun, Chief of Detectives.”
I smiled, already feeling as though my life had real purpose again. “I will.”
CHAPTER 10
It was a little after seven o’clock when I began working my way down Dire Lane—starting on the right side as we had earlier and then working my way back up the left side—and it was nearly nine when I approached the last house. Of the fourteen houses on the right, seven were occupied by young couples with no children, three were occupied by couples with one child, and the remaining four were occupied by couples with two or more children. Of the seven houses I’d already visited on the left, three were occupied by couples with two or more children, and the remaining four were occupied by couples who didn’t have any children or whose children were grown. The couples with whom I’d already spoken ranged in age from early twenties to late forties, and the children living with them ranged in age from toddlers to high school seniors.
I parked my Tahoe in front of the first house on the left down Dire Lane—the name on the mailbox told me it was the Pellegrin residence—and stepped out into the warm night air. This was the house with the security cameras and I wanted very much to view the footage, but it was late and I wondered if they would allow me to do so.
I wondered when fall would actually fall as I strode up the driveway and smashed the doorbell on the side door. An elderly man answered and I imagined that he was the grandfather of the neighborhood. He was certainly the oldest person I’d encountered down the street.
After apologizing for bothering him so late into the evening, I introduced myself. “I’m investigating a homicide and was wondering if you might be able to help me.”
The man, who wore long-sleeved maroon pajamas, rubbed his bare head and looked over his shoulder. “My wife is in bed…” When he turned back to me, his brow furrowed. “Did you say homicide?”
“Yes, sir. A man was killed at the end of the street.”
He stepped back to allow me through. “We can talk in the den. I can’t disturb the missus. She has work in the morning.”
I followed him through his house and he pointed to a thick leather sofa. “Please, have a seat.”
He settled into a recliner and asked me what he could do to help.
After asking if he’d seen anything suspicious over the past few days and him saying he hadn’t, I asked if his cameras were active.
“They are.” He rocked back and forth in his chair. “After we had a series of break-ins down the street a few years back, I installed cameras at every corner of the house. Fortunately, we’ve never had to use them.”
“Would it be possible for me to get a copy of the footage for the past few days? Maybe going back to the beginning of last week?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I can get it to you, but it would require me to make some noise in the bedroom and—”
“Oh, no, it can wait,” I said, interrupting him. “I certainly don’t want to risk disturbing your wife’s sleep.”
“She’s a school teacher, so she gets up a little earlier than I do.”
“It seems everyone down this street works. We canvassed the neighborhood earlier, but not a soul was home. I thought the Rapture had happened and we’d been left behind.” I snickered at my own joke, but the man didn’t crack a smile. Realizing it was probably best not to joke about the Rapture, I changed the subject quickly. “What time can I come by to pick up the footage?”
“I leave for work at eight, so you can come by any time before that. I’ll have it ready for you.” He pulled some reading glasses from a dinner tray beside his recliner and plopped them on his nose. Picking up a TV Guide, he scribbled some information on an inside page. “Everything for the past week, is that right?”
“Yes, sir. Most importantly, the footage from the cameras facing the street.”
He nodded as he made his notes and then set the TV Guide back on the tray. “Okay, young man, I’ll have that ready for you.”
I thanked him and left. Before driving home, I decided to drive toward the back of the street to the location in the grass where our victim had been shot. I stepped out of my truck and stood looking around, listening. The sounds of crickets and frogs singing filled the stuffy air, but they were nearly drowned out by the buzzing of mosquito wings in my ears. Somewhere in the distance a coyote howled.
“Who are you and why would someone want to kill you?” I asked out loud. After calling the local sheriff offices and police departments earlier to find out if they were investigating a missing person case matching our victim’s description, we had sent a teletype message through the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) computer to every law enforcement agency in the country. I pulled out my cell phone and called Marsha, who was the nighttime dispatcher. “Hey, did we receive a response from anyone on the missing person teletype?”
“Not yet,” she said. “It’s been quiet tonight, so I’ve been searching online for any news articles about missing people. There’re a lot, but none matching your victim.”
I was about to hang up when she stopped me.
“Oh, and there’s a message for you from the day shift.” I heard her shuffling about. She cleared her throat when she came back on the line. “Okay, someone from the crime lab’s fingerprint department called. Who on earth wrote this message? I can’t read this handwriting! Let’s see…ah, it looks like it says the fingerprints were negative.”
