But Not Fortuitous

by BJ Bourg

  CHAPTER 20

  I searched the old barn first. It was a pole barn and the hard-packed earth was surprisingly dry. The ground area was empty except for a tractor and some other farm equipment, such as a box grater and a bush hog. A row of garden tools hung from pegs on one wall, and rope and other gear hung from pegs and nails on the opposite wall. I was about to turn away when the row of garden tools caught my eye. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was at first that had gotten my attention, but something seemed off about the display of tools.

  I walked to the wall and stood directly in front of it, and that’s when it hit me—there was an empty peg. I checked the tools from left to right, counting them off in my head and trying to figure out what could be missing. There was a rake, a hoe, a posthole digger, an empty peg, an axe, a T-post driver, a chainsaw, and a pitchfork. I snapped my singers. The only thing that appeared missing was a shovel—and I was sure we had found it in the woods.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The killers had been in this barn. I slowly scanned the shadows of the room again, making sure to look up and then under the tractor. I sighed. The room was truly empty.

  There was another wooden structure behind the barn and I made my way in that direction. The door to the structure was made of weathered planks. I caught a splinter when I pulled it open. I removed it from my finger with my teeth and stepped into the small room. There were two wooden thrones—one lower than the other—and I instantly knew I was standing in an old outhouse.

  It was dark inside the outhouse, so I walked back to my truck and retrieved my flashlight. Achilles was sniffing around the outhouse and I thought I saw him make a face.

  “Yeah, it stinks in there,” I said, reentering the small enclosure. I was sure it hadn’t been used in fifty years, but the smell hadn’t faded during all of that time. Light in hand, I searched every inch of the room, but other than a large water snake stretched across one of the ceiling joists, it was empty.

  I walked out into the sunlight and made my way across the yard, heading for the front door of the house. Achilles had moved to an old abandoned chicken house and was pawing at the wire. He had never smelled a chicken before and I wondered if the odor still lingered. I hollered a warning for him to stay in the yard and stuck the key in the lock.

  The hinges squeaked when I pushed open the door. Surprisingly, it was cool inside the house. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for, but I didn’t waste much time. I went through all of the rooms, searched under the furniture, dug through the closets and drawers, checked behind the shower curtains, and even peered into the attic. Just like the barn, it was empty.

  There were dozens of pictures displayed around the house—the walls in the hallway were literally covered in frames—and I photographed as many of them as I could. We didn’t know the identity of the man we’d removed from the grave, but I wondered if it could be one of the fellows featured in a picture frame nailed to the wall.

  Once I’d photographed the pictures, I decided to leave. I’d found nothing to suggest someone had been in the house recently, so I locked up and stepped out onto the porch. A warm breeze blew across the yard and rustled my hair. I stood there scanning the property. Melvin had tracked the suspects northward and the trail had ended about a mile from the gravesite. I thought back to the map Amy had pulled up of the house and property. If I was remembering correctly, I was a mile and a half from the gravesite.

  I was pretty positive that the shovel we’d found at the scene would be the missing shovel from the barn, so the killers had to have come here. But had they walked through the woods or come by car?

  I stomped off the porch and began searching the shells for tire tracks. The rain would’ve definitely washed away any tracks in the mud, but indentions in the shells might still be visible. I worked from east to west along the shell driveway, searching one square foot at a time. When I reached my truck, I found tire tracks through the shells to mark my path, but that was it. If a vehicle had come through this driveway in recent time, the tracks were gone.

  “What do you think, Achilles?” I asked my dog as I ambled toward the woods. He fell in beside me and let out a groan. “You’re right—there’s no way they came through here, because they didn’t have a key to the gate, but I do believe they walked through the woods to borrow that shovel.”

  I stopped at the edge of the trees and searched for a trail. “Know why you never loan people your tools?” I said to my dog. “It’s because they never bring them back—and they might use them to murder people.”

  The undergrowth was thick in that area. If someone had walked through here recently, the rain would’ve covered their tracks, and it would be impossible to find any sign. Knowing I was probably wasting my time, I set off into the trees anyway.

  Achilles walked beside me for a ways, but then broke away when we came to a small clearing. I paused and checked the ground. I was no tracker like Melvin. Sure, I had learned some things from him over the years, but I couldn’t hold a candle to his skills. As I walked the perimeter of the clearing, I suddenly felt a tickle on the back of my neck and I shivered involuntarily. I glanced over my shoulder. Achilles was scratching at the soft mud, seemingly bored. If something was out there, he would’ve been on high alert. I relaxed and continued walking the perimeter.

  When I reached the eastern side of the clearing, I stopped dead in my tracks. Although most of the rain water that had been dumped on the area last night had drained away, there was still some standing water heading off to the east through an opening in the trees. While it wasn’t unusual for this to happen in the swamps, what was unusual was that the water was shaped like two tires tracks leading away from the clearing.

  I trudged forward, my hip boots sinking in the mud, and stopped when I reached the linear tracks of water. I squatted and examined them closely. Achilles hurried over to me and sat beside me. I hooked an arm over his back and hummed to myself. I was no Melvin, but I was almost positive I was looking at tire tracks and I was almost certain they were fresh. Surely, if they had been here for more than a few days, they would’ve been washed away by now.

  I grabbed my cell phone and Achilles walked away.

  “Melvin,” I said when he answered. “Want to work some overtime?”

  “On Zeke McKenzie’s case?”

  “Yep.”

  “Hell, I’d work that for free.”

  Before I could thank him, I heard a strange noise from Achilles. I turned and saw that his snout was shoved deep in a patch of thick grass and he was sniffing aggressively. Whatever the thing was, it was concealed by the grass, which was about eight inches tall, so it couldn’t be very big.

  “I have to go,” I told Melvin. To Achilles, I said, “What’re you doing, Big Man?”

  As I approached him, I noticed his hackles were up and this alarmed me. My first thought was that he’d found a snake. If it was a copperhead or a rattlesnake—the latter wasn’t too common around here—he was in big trouble.

  “Achilles…off!” I called as I walked toward him. He didn’t seem to hear me, or he was ignoring me. This was even more alarming, because he never ignored a command.

  When I reached him, I still couldn’t see what was in the grass. I grabbed his collar and gave him a tug, but he resisted. “Achilles…off!”

  The sternness in my voice must’ve broken through his concentration, because he reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged away. I told him to sit. He hesitated, but I didn’t have to repeat the command.

  Once he was on his haunches, I looked him right in the eyes and said, “Stay.”

  He licked his lips and glared at me, as though to say, “Kiss my ass.”

  “I’m not kidding, Big Man, you’d better stay right where you are—got it?”

  He smacked his jowls and then lowered himself to a lying position. Satisfied he was paying attention again, I turned and walked to the spot he had been attacking with his snout. The grass was smashed where he had been sniffing and it mark
ed the exact spot, but I couldn’t see all the way to the muddy ground because the foliage was so thick.

  Dropping to my knees—and hoping it wasn’t a cottonmouth—I began lifting the layers of broadleaf weeds. I frowned deeply when I uncovered the object he had been sniffing.

  CHAPTER 21

  “What do you think?” I asked Melvin when he was standing beside me twenty minutes later.

  “I definitely think the killers dropped it. Thankfully, the blood dried before the rains came, so it wasn’t washed off.”

  “Not that,” I said, glancing down at the bloody flashlight Achilles had found in the grass. I shot a thumb over my shoulder to where my dog was lounging in the shade of a large tree. “What do you think about Achilles being attracted to human blood?”

  Melvin knew full well to what incident I was referring. Achilles had aggressively—excessively, even—defended Susan’s life six months ago against some bad men. He had drunk deeply of human blood on that night, and I often wondered if it would change him somehow, make him dangerous to other humans. I wasn’t worried about me or my family. He was as loyal as they came and would protect us with his life. No, I was worried about strangers who might stumble upon our property. I didn’t like how he ignored me when he smelled human blood on that flashlight. It was as though he was so fixated on the blood that he didn’t even hear me.

  “He’ll be fine,” Melvin said with a dismissive wave of the hand. “If you’re worried, have Gretchen Verdin work with him.”

  Gretchen was a sergeant with the Chateau Parish Sheriff’s Office and she was their chief dog trainer. I liked the idea and planned to do just that.

  But for now, though, we had a murder to solve, and we had just found a significant piece of evidence. The blood on the flashlight would no doubt come back to Zeke, but we had a real chance of recovering the suspect’s DNA from the surface—if not from the outer surface, thanks to the rain, definitely from the batteries and battery cap. Of course, that would only help if the killer put the batteries in the flashlight. We’d also need the name of a suspect for comparison, and if I had that, I’d already be interviewing them.

  As I began photographing the flashlight for recovery, Melvin started following the tire tracks from the edge of the woodlands where I’d found them and toward the west, where they disappeared into the grassy field that was located several hundred yards north of North Project Road. What I didn’t know was if the tracks continued all the way to the highway or if they veered onto North Project Road. If the killers drove straight to the highway through that field, then that might explain why no one in the neighborhoods saw or heard anything suspicious. Since Westway canal curved to the east before reaching the Boudreaux property, it made sense that the killers would’ve accessed the highway from that area. Otherwise, they would have been forced to cut the lock on the gate to one of the wooden bridges.

  After photographing the flashlight and the surrounding area with my cell phone, I told Achilles to follow me back to my Tahoe. Once there, I retrieved a few evidence bags—just in case we found additional items of evidentiary interest—and shouldered my backpack. I was turning to hit the woods again when I heard the roaring of a truck engine approaching. Achilles and I both watched as a red pickup truck rumbled through the water and pulled into the driveway. It was shiny new, red, and an F-150 XLT just like my own truck.

  The sun glared off the windshield and I couldn’t see who was driving until Amy dropped from the driver’s seat.

  “When’d you get that?” I asked, admiring her new ride.

  “A few weeks ago.” She reached into the bed of her truck and grabbed some rubber boots. As she changed shoes, she explained, “I traded in the Lexus I got from that piece of shit, Trevor. Every time I drove that thing, I thought about the asshole and it made me sick. I had quit driving it and it was just sitting in the garage gathering dust, until I realized I could turn it into something cool.”

  I nodded, but didn’t say anything. Her ex-boyfriend was a sore topic, so I never responded when she mentioned him. When she was ready, we set off into the woods. I told her about the missing shovel, the flashlight, and the tire tracks while we walked.

  “Damn, you should commission Achilles and put him to work,” she said. “You might’ve never found that flashlight without him.”

  “No doubt. It was pretty well hidden and I had no reason to look in the grass.” We had reached the clearing that led to the tire tracks and I pulled on some gloves. Amy took the camera from my backpack and shot some pictures before I recovered the flashlight. After it was recovered and secured in my backpack, I shouldered the bag again and glanced around. “Should we follow the tracks and catch up with Melvin, or do we check out the gravesite again?”

  “I vote for the gravesite,” Amy said. “We need to gather up those tent poles and the canopy. We might be able to salvage it.”

  I nodded and we set off through the woods, Achilles trailing off behind us. I glanced sideways at him, still a little worried, but he appeared to be his normal, jolly self.

  CHAPTER 22

  A thick layer of soft mud covered the floor of the woodlands—thanks to the recent storm—and it slowed our progress a bit. Still, we were able to cover the distance from the Boudreaux home to the gravesite in about thirty minutes.

  I was happy to see that the water had receded. Other than a few puddles here and there, it had mostly drained into the surrounding lakes and bayous. I searched the ground for fresh shoe impressions, but didn’t see any.

  Achilles’ black coat was covered in mud, but he didn’t seem to care. He moved easily through the slop, leaving oversized paw prints in his wake. The tent canopy flopped in the breeze and Achilles headed in that direction, apparently curious about the movement.

  Amy followed Achilles and I went directly to the grave. There was only about three inches of water left at the bottom of the hole, and most of it was concentrated on the area where the bodies had been buried. The adjacent hole we had dug to access the skeletal remains wasn’t quite as deep, and it only had pockets of water scattered about the surface.

  The ladder we’d placed in the hole was still in place, and I decided to get down there and give the area a thorough search. Cinching tight the straps on my hip boots, I grabbed the top rung of the ladder and descended into the hole. When I first put my weight on the ladder, it sank a few inches and then held firm.

  It smelled earthy down there and it was dark. I shrugged out of my backpack and swung it around so I could reach my flashlight. I caught movement from above and looked up to see Amy standing there.

  “Want me to take your backpack?” she asked.

  I nodded and handed it up to her. “Did you find anything up there?”

  “Nope, not a thing.” She took my bag and put it on her own back. “Maybe Melvin is having better luck.”

  Achilles’ head appeared at the edge of the hole and it looked like he wanted to come down there with me. He stepped to the very edge and whined a little, as though arguing with himself about whether or not he should jump into the hole.

  “Stay,” I said, which seemed to settle his inner conflict. He plopped down and contented himself with watching me.

  I lowered myself to my knees, careful that the level of the water didn’t rise above the top edges of my hip boots, and aimed the light into the water. I had kept the gloves on from recovering the flashlight, and I began feeling around with my fingers. When the storm had hit, we hadn’t had a chance to search the ground beneath the body we’d found, and I was hoping to find something helpful.

  I could hear Amy moving around on the ground level and I knew she was searching for whatever evidence she could find up there. I glanced up at Achilles at one point. He hadn’t moved a muscle and his eyes were closed. I grinned to myself, wishing I could take a nap at work whenever I felt like it.

  I continued feeling around in the area under which the skeletal remains had been located—even scooping out handfuls of mud to sift through—but I did
n’t locate a single item. Nothing at all. After I’d covered the entire area under which the body had been found, I sighed heavily and sat back on the rubber heels of my boots. During my work, I’d felt my cell phone vibrating in my pocket about a dozen times, and there was no doubt in my mind that Red had made at least half of the calls.

  “Anything?” Amy called from above.

  “Just a lot of slop,” I said. “I’m coming up.”

  I rocked forward and placed the palms of my gloved hands in the slop to push myself to my feet. My left hand sank about two inches into the saturated earth and then brushed up against something that felt out of place. The object didn’t feel hard, but it wasn’t soft like the mud. I quickly sat back on my heels and looked at my hand. It was wet, but that was it. I tried to see into the indention I had made with my hand, but couldn’t. It had already filled with black water.

  “What is it?” Amy asked, apparently noticing my abrupt shift in movement. “Did you find something?”

  “Don’t know,” I mumbled, scanning the earth around where I was kneeling. I was kneeling on the area of earth we had dug out to access the body, and I knew there couldn’t be anything buried under here. It wasn’t the original grave—or was it? “What do you think the possibility is that there are more bodies out here? What if it’s a mass grave of murder victims?”

  Amy hesitated before answering. “I guess anything’s possible, but I should hope the hell not.”

  I nodded and reached gingerly into the hole. Not really sure what to expect, my mind wandered a bit. Could it be a bone from another human? Or what about a root? Or maybe some buried artifact from the days when the Chitimacha Tribe occupied this area?

  I probed the soft mud in the divot that my hand had created, but didn’t feel anything. I pushed through the mud to the left. Nothing. I pushed through the mud to the right and felt the object again. Running my hand over the top of the object, I realized it was about four inches long by three inches wide. I wasn’t sure how thick it was, so I began running my fingers down the side.