But Not For Lust

by BJ Bourg

  I was documenting the worst of Ty’s injuries when Susan had asked if I would kill the suspects when I found them. The answer to her question was not as simple as a yes or a no. It depended on so many factors. Would the suspects resist arrest or would they give up peacefully? Would they make a run for it in a manner that endangered the lives of the community at large? Would they threaten one of our officers while trying to escape?

  There were simply too many factors to consider, so I was unable to give an honest answer. Since I was not in the habit of lying to my wife, I kept my mouth shut and continued doing my job.

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” Susan stood slowly and walked over to my shotgun. I didn’t look up as I heard her feed shells into it and work the pump action. As I worked, she continued talking. “From here on out, I’m gonna be with you every step of the way. I won’t let you do anything stupid that might take you away from me. Got it, Mister?”

  I didn’t answer her.

  “Cover your ears,” she said and lifted my shotgun into the air.

  I laid down my pen and pad and shoved my fingers in my ears. I looked up right before she fired a shot, and I saw that the buzzards were closing in on us. They were growing bolder by the minute and the black vultures were beginning to act aggressively. They would swoop down within several feet of us, as though daring us to do something about it. Since these birds sometimes attacked living animals, it was not out of the question to think they might attack Susan and me just to get at Ty’s body.

  As I watched, Susan fired a beanbag round into the air. She made sure not to hit any of the birds, because black vultures and turkey vultures were protected by the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which prohibits the taking of the birds without prior authorization by the Department of Interior U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Since we didn’t have the Department on speed-dial, we’d have to rely on the thunderous explosion to scare them away. It worked somewhat, because they suddenly shot farther into the sky, but they weren’t giving up that easy. They continued soaring above us—probably communicating amongst themselves and hatching a plan of attack—and I knew it was a matter of time before they began inching closer again. Sooner or later, they might realize the shotgun blasts were nothing but bluffs, and they might move in for the feast.

  “If they get too close, I’m stinging them,” Susan said. “I’m not about to get my eyes plucked out by no damn bird—federal law or not.”

  I nodded and turned back to the task at hand. I was still angry about what had happened to Ty, and I wasn’t in the mood for talking. I tried to imagine Logan doing something so sinister. While he didn’t appear to be the type of person who would do something like this, I had been doing this job long enough to know you could never really judge a book by its cover. The nicest-looking person could be the most evil of all evils, while the roughest-looking individual might give you his last meal.

  As a law enforcement officer, I was bound by the laws and Constitution I had sworn to uphold, and I knew I would not step outside of those bounds. However, as a man, there was definitely something I wanted to give these killers, and it was not my last meal.

  CHAPTER 38

  Susan got on her cell phone and called Melvin to tell him she had fired a warning shot at the buzzards.

  “I didn’t want you to come running over here thinking we’d gotten into a gunfight,” she explained. “Where are you?”

  I couldn’t hear his part of the conversation, but he must’ve asked what we’d found, because Susan began explaining all of it. She left out nothing. I was just finishing the documentation of the scene by the time she ended the call.

  “What did he say?” I asked when I had straightened and brushed off my jeans. “I can’t imagine he’s too impressed with what they did to Ty.”

  “He’s as pissed as you are,” she acknowledged, “which is why I can’t have you two going off alone to find these killers.”

  “Whatever you say, Mom.”

  “He’s almost here,” she continued. “He said he could hear us talking. He should be here within a few minutes.”

  I packed up my crime scene gear and glanced toward the sky. It was time to load Ty in a body bag, but I decided I’d wait until Melvin joined us. We needed someone watching our backs, because it was looking more and more like these birds meant business.

  “Hello the camp!” Melvin hollered a few minutes later, sounding like a character out of a Louis L’Amour novel. “Don’t shoot! I’m un—what the hell?”

  He stopped talking when he saw the giant flock of vultures above us. “I have never seen so many buzzards in one place in my life! I could hear them, but I couldn’t see them from the trees. This is amazing!”

  I nodded. “We need to move this body before we have to declare war.”

  Melvin nodded and hurried to help me unfold the body bag. Susan stood nearby with my shotgun poised, ready to fire a warning shot or one in self-defense. Like our suspects, the action she would take would depend entirely on what the birds did.

  Fortunately for us—and them—they soared overhead and watched as Melvin and I loaded Ty’s body into the bag. They made no move on us and they continued watching as we began humping the body bag out of the field. The going was slow because of the soft mud we had to traverse, but we finally made it to the pumping station and were able to secure him in the covered bed of my truck. At that point, we began waiting for the coroner’s investigator, whom Susan had called on the long walk back to my truck.

  “So, what’d you find?” I asked Melvin while we waited. “Were you able to locate their tracks?”

  “It was difficult, because it’s been so dry lately, but I definitely found marks in the hard-packed earth where they dragged Ty,” he said. “I didn’t find any weapons along the way and there were no blood drops on the trail, so I guess they waited until they got to the field to start beating him.”

  “What about cameras?” I asked. “In the neighborhood.”

  He frowned. “The spot where they dragged him into the trees is between two houses, and neither of them had surveillance cameras that I could see. So, I knocked on both doors and asked the owners, but they both said no. I checked the houses to each side of them, but they don’t have any cameras either.”

  “Shit!” I turned my back to my truck and leaned against the bumper. “We’ve been looking high and low for Ty and we finally find him, but we’re no closer to solving this case than we were yesterday at this time.”

  “At least you’ll be able to get his fingerprints now,” Susan said. “That way, you’ll know if the print on his door was his or belonged to someone else.”

  “I looked at the skin on his fingers,” I said with a scowl. “I don’t know how good they’ll come out. I might have to wear them to roll them.”

  Susan grimaced, but didn’t say anything. She was familiar with the process of removing slipped skin from the palm or fingers of a decedent’s hand and placing it over the detective’s hand in order to record the fingerprints.

  I would have to do whatever it took to recover Ty’s fingerprints. I needed them to compare against the prints on the pipe and doorknob to his camper. One of them had to belong to Ty, but what about the other? So far, fingerprints had helped me tell a tiny piece of the story, but nothing more. If one of the remaining two prints belonged to the killer—or someone who might be able to tell me who the killer was—I might be able to get somewhere, but the problem was identifying the owners of those prints. Once I did, we might very well be on our way to solving the case.

  An accomplice who was willing to testify against the killer would be golden right about now, but I was always careful when dealing with criminals who rolled over on their crime buddies. It was too easy for the actual killer to pin the crime on someone who was less culpable. Since the killer was present, he would be able to provide intimate details about the case, and it would be easy for him to convince a jury that his buddy committed the murder. It would be a simple matter of switchin
g rolls and he could tell a convincing story.

  Right now, I only had two possible suspects, but something occurred to me right about then. What if my suspects had joined forces? They came from two different walks of life, but it wasn’t impossible to think their paths might have crossed. What if Neal had been going through the neighborhood looking for Ty and he ran into Logan? It would only take a few seconds of talking to realize they shared a common enemy—if, indeed, Logan considered the man who wouldn’t let him sleep an enemy.

  I cursed silently to myself. I wished I’d considered that when I’d had them in the interrogation room. I’d already had one shot at each of them, and I wouldn’t bring them in again unless I had solid evidence that they committed the crime. I stopped to consider that new revelation. This was a crime, after all. At the time I’d interviewed them, Ty was also a suspect in his mom’s death. Now that I’d found him and discovered he was murdered, this certainly changed things. Logan’s fingerprint inside the shed took on new meaning.

  As I mulled these things over, I wondered about the mutilation to Ty’s body. Those tactics were definitely used by heartless drug lords and terrorists, but it was usually done for one of two reasons: to send a warning to anyone who would cross them, or to strike fear in the hearts of their enemies. But would some low-level drug dealer resort to that sort of behavior? If so, to what end? If it was done to send a message to his rivals or anyone who would double-cross him, then why hide the body in a field? That was like writing a letter and shoving it in a desk drawer—the message would never get out.

  I shook my head. No, this seemed different. Whoever did this to Ty was angry—and not just from lack of sleep. At that moment, I was pretty sure I was looking for someone other than Logan and Neal. My suspect hadn’t reared his ugly head yet. He was still out there moving among the innocents, which meant he was still a real threat. But how would I flush him out? How would I identify him?

  I thought back to Ty’s fingerprints. Fingerprints might very well be the key to solving this case, but not in the way I’d originally thought. I pushed off of my truck as I saw the coroner’s wagon jostling down the muddy road toward us. I took a breath and blew it out as I waited for it to get closer. I would definitely need Ty’s fingerprints, but I would also need more than that. It would take a stroke of luck to solve this case.

  CHAPTER 39

  There was a crowd of people standing along Jezebel Drive when we followed the coroner’s wagon off of the muddy pumping station road. We didn’t stop to talk to anyone or confirm anything, but that didn’t matter. Word spread quickly around town that Ty Richardson had been found dead on the west side of town. I heard it myself when I walked from the police department to Bad Loup Burgers for lunch with Susan.

  We were dirty from working in the field and it drew the attention of everyone in the place. The waitress asked me if it was true that we’d located Ty. She said she’d heard he had been killed by a pack of coyotes.

  I glanced at Susan and then back at her. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Um, a little boy came in here with his mom and said he lives back there. He said he’s always hearing coyotes at night. He said Ty probably got lost and they thought he was a cow and—” She suddenly clamped her mouth shut and blushed. “I realize how ridiculous it sounds now that I’m saying it out loud.”

  I only smiled and thanked her for bringing our drinks. I glanced at the time on my phone for the umpteenth time.

  “It’s not two o’clock yet,” Susan said. “We’ve got plenty of time to eat and make it to the autopsy.”

  “I really need to roll his prints and get them to the lab as soon as possible. I also need to bring the extension cord from Ty’s body to the lab.” I glanced up at her. “Do you mind bringing the prints and cord while I attend the autopsy?”

  She smiled wide and the dimple on her chin dove deeper into her flesh. “You’re precious.”

  “What?” I feigned confusion, but I’d realized an hour ago that she was serious about not leaving me alone with this case. “I think it would be prudent of us to split up the investigative duties. We can get more done that way.”

  “You need to stop thinking of me as a detective,” she said, the smile fading from her face. “Instead, think of me as your guardian angel. I’m here to save you from yourself. I saw that look in your eyes, Clint. It was just like when you…”

  She let her voice trail off and lowered her head, but I knew exactly what she was thinking about.

  “What I did was legal,” I said quietly. “They broke into my house to kill me. They had no business being there.”

  “No, I know, but...”

  I could see it in her eyes. She remembered me saying I didn’t care where I found the men who killed my daughter and first wife, that I would kill them when I found them.

  “Sue, if someone was to hurt you or Gracie, I would resign, hunt them down, and murder them in cold blood.” I stared right in her eyes when she looked up. “I’m pissed about what they did to Ty, but I would never break the law to solve a case.”

  “I’m not worried about you breaking the law to solve a case,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I know you would never do that. I’m worried that you’ll want to avenge Ty’s murder—well, the torture that went on.”

  “I won’t do anything that isn’t legal.” I reached over and squeezed her hand. “I promise.”

  The waitress walked up with our burgers at that moment. She leaned back and waited until Susan and I separated. Once the food was on the table between us, Susan nodded.

  “I believe you,” she said. “You would never lie to me.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But I’m still following you everywhere you go until these killers are safely behind bars.”

  I laughed and nodded in resignation. “Okay, I’m happy to have you along.”

  CHAPTER 40

  After lunch, Susan and I walked back to the police department and then drove to the morgue in Susan’s Tahoe. Dr. Wong and her assistant had already removed Ty’s body from the freezer and placed him on the autopsy table.

  Dr. Wong, whose brown hair was tucked under a hairnet, had a somber expression on her face. Her assistant, on the other hand, wore one of complete shock. I also noticed a healthy glob of Vicks Vaporub shoved into the assistant’s nostrils. The smell of decaying flesh was strong—to put it mildly—so I didn’t blame the young assistant.

  “In all my years,” Dr. Wong said, “I’ve never seen a body that had been mutilated like this before. It’s a bit disconcerting. Whoever did this is crazy—and dangerous.”

  I nodded and explained everything we’d found at the scene. “We didn’t locate a weapon and we don’t have any solid suspects, so anything you can tell us will be helpful.”

  “I’ll do what I can.” She indicated Ty’s hands. “You can print him before I start if you like.”

  I thanked her and placed the cadaver fingerprinting kit I’d brought with me on a nearby table. With Susan’s help, I rolled each of Ty’s fingers and both palms as best I could. Some of the skin had slipped so badly in places that I had to remove them and place them over my own gloved finger to get a good copy.

  Once I was done, I moved across the room and set the cards out to dry while Dr. Wong began examining Ty’s body, beginning with his head.

  As she worked, I told her that I had recovered a hammer from Logan Pitre and submitted it to the crime lab. “I’ll need a sample of Ty’s DNA for comparison,” I said. “If that hammer turns out to be the murder weapon, I’ll have what I need to put Logan behind bars.”

  “It’s not the murder weapon,” she said immediately.

  My shoulders drooped. “Really?”

  “You’re looking for a blunt object that doesn’t have sharp edges,” she explained. “Think baseball bats, metal pipes—things like that.”

  I nodded, trying to remember if I’d seen anything like that around Logan’s house. What if Logan told me about the hammer to throw
the scent off of the real weapon? That would’ve been a slick move on his part.

  “It’s difficult to see because of the state of decomposition,” Dr. Wong said, “but this was a brutal and prolonged attack. This man suffered extensively before he died.”

  I frowned and glanced at Susan, who was staring right back, a troubled expression on her face. I didn’t know what I could do or say to reassure her that I wouldn’t hurt the people who did this to Ty, so I simply looked away.

  “So, Dr. Wong,” I began suddenly, a thought starting to form in my mind, “there’s no way the killer or killers could’ve done this without getting Ty’s blood on their clothes, right?”

  “That’s correct. They would’ve been covered in blood.”

  I opened my mouth to say something more, but my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to see who was calling. It was the police department and it might be important. I quickly stepped out into the hallway and answered.

  “Hey, Clint, it’s Lindsey. I’ve got Mike Bell on the other line. He said his local police just notified him about Ty’s death.”

  Right then, I remembered had contacted the Baton Rouge Police Department earlier and asked them to make an in-person death notification to Ty’s uncle. I wasn’t sure how the man would take the news, so I figured it would be better to follow protocol and get the locals in his area to do an in-person contact. I thanked her and asked her to put him through.