by BJ Bourg
“You never get used to seeing a downed officer,” I said, a lump forming in my own throat. Not really wanting to do so, but feeling like I should, I glanced at the lifeless body on the ground in front of me. I winced when I took it in. I’d seen a lot of death and destruction in my time in law enforcement, and had even seen dead cops before, but I’d never seen something quite like this.
Deputy Jenny Billiot was lying on her back on the shoulder of the road. Her left leg extended straight out toward the bayou and her right leg was folded at an odd angle under her body. Her eyes were wide open and her teeth clenched. Like Susan had said, she had reached her pistol with her right hand, but it was still in the holster. Her left hand was folded across her chest and it looked like she had been reaching for the PTT button on her radio to call dispatch.
“It’s a damn shame,” Buck said, working hard to stifle his grief. “Tonight was her last night working for us. She was leaving us to become a nurse at the hospital.”
I barely heard what he said. I was transfixed by the wounds on Jenny’s body. I’d never seen such violence directed at a police officer. She had been riddled with bullets in a similar fashion as Chad Pierce, except worse. It looked like the killer had emptied two magazines into her small frame. At least six bullets had entered her face. Her ballistic vest had been pierced at least a dozen times, but it was hard to count exactly how many wounds were in her torso because of the blood that was covering her uniform shirt. Her pants had small jagged bullet holes extending from her pelvis to her knees, along with several in her lower left leg.
I scowled and shook my head. “Sheriff, we’re dealing with someone who’s pure evil. They don’t get any worse than this.”
Sheriff Turner took my shoulder in his beefy hand and spun me to face him. The flashing lights glistened off of the tears that streaked down his face. “Clint, I want you handling this case.” He swallowed hard, trying to keep his voice strong. “My people are too close to the situation—too emotionally involved. I want you to track down this piece of shit and I want you to kill him. I want you to put him down in the same manner he put Jenny down. Do you hear me?”
I stared up into his eyes for a long moment. While I was employed by the Town of Mechant Loup, I also held a commission with the Chateau Parish Sheriff’s Office and was authorized by the sheriff himself to investigate overlapping crimes in his parish. Asking me to handle a case for him was not an unusual request. However, asking me for a particular outcome was different.
“I hear you,” I finally said, “but I can’t promise that you’ll get the outcome you want.”
He squeezed my shoulder until I thought the ball joint would pop. “I want you to find him and put him down like a rabid dog! Don’t you announce yourself or give him a chance to surrender, do you understand?”
We had been friends for a long time and I knew he was in a dark place at the moment. I pretended I hadn’t heard what he said and turned to walk away.
“Clint, it’s the only way,” he said, grabbing my arm to stop me. “If you give him the slightest chance, he’ll kill you like he killed Jenny. You need to get the drop on him and cut him in half. It’s the only way to handle a ruthless animal like this. You give him no quarter, you hear?”
“I’ll leave that up to him,” I said firmly and walked off. The helicopter was circling overhead. It was so close now that I could feel the wind from the rotors.
As I walked toward Mallory to find out all she knew about the case, the images of Deputy Jenny Billiot’s savage wounds played over and over in my mind, haunting me.
CHAPTER 18
It was dark in the shadows near the bayou side and I couldn’t see Mallory’s face clearly, but I saw enough to know she scrunched up her nose. “What the hell is that smell?”
I gave her the abbreviated version of our investigation. “I don’t know what would’ve happened if Amy hadn’t used the outhouse,” I said grimly. “That poor girl might’ve died down there.”
“You’re probably right.”
The helicopter made a swooping pass overhead, traveling the length of the bayou, and it was too loud to hear anything, so I waited until it was gone.
“Have you found any clues?” I asked when we could hear each other again.
“The shots were fired from under the trees along the bayou side about fifteen feet in that direction.” She pointed toward the north. “There’s a trail through the dew that leads from the shoulder of the road eastward to where we found forty-eight spent shell casings. They were all 5.56 caliber casings, same as your murder.”
I could see a number of track marks through the dew, obviously made by responding officers, but one set of tracks stood alone and there were evidence flags marking each footstep in the wet grass.
Mallory indicated another set of labeled tracks that led to where we were now standing, and then removed a small, clear plastic evidence bag from her pocket. She handed it to me. “Gretchen’s dog gave an alert on these keys near the edge of the water. My best guess is the killer dropped them on his way into the water, because if he wanted to get rid of them, he would’ve simply chunked them into the middle of the bayou. Had he done that, we would’ve never found them.”
I nodded in agreement and accessed the light on my phone so I could examine the keys. There were two gold keys and a silver one on the ring—they appeared to be house keys—and a key fob for the Grand Cherokee.
“The Grand Cherokee has a push to start button,” Mallory said, pointing to the fob. “Let’s get close to the vehicle and try to start it to see if this was a set-up or an actual breakdown.”
I followed her across the short grass that stretched from the bayou to the shoulder of the highway. Once at the SUV, Mallory pulled on a latex glove and leaned into the open driver’s door. She pushed the button and the engine turned over, but didn’t start. She tried several more times and then studied the gauges.
“It’s out of gas,” she said, straightening. “They really were stranded.”
I glanced at the flashing hazard lights and open hood. An outlaw on the run wouldn’t usually bring attention to himself in such a manner. I backed into the middle of the northbound lane and glanced up and down the road, lost in thought.
“Why do you think they turned on the flashers and opened the hood?” Mallory asked, as though sensing what I was thinking. “If you just killed someone, would you want to attract attention?”
“First off, he didn’t kill someone just now,” I explained. “The murder happened last night, so he has either been driving this car around town all day, or he had it stashed until nightfall so he could leave under the cover of darkness.”
“He didn’t make it very far.”
“No, and I think he was using the stalled vehicle as a trap.” I pointed up and down the road. “Had anyone along this highway stopped to help him, I bet he would’ve murdered them and stolen their vehicle. If Jenny hadn’t driven up and ruined his plans, he’d be long gone by now and we might never catch him.”
“We haven’t caught him yet,” Mallory said.
“That is true.” I walked toward the back of the SUV where Jenny’s body had been covered up with a yellow tarp. “I think the killer was already hiding in the trees when Jenny pulled up. Otherwise, she would’ve seen him when she approached and the gunfight would’ve happened differently. I also don’t think he intended to kill her.”
“Now wait a minute,” Mallory said in protest. “Did you see how many bullets hit her? There’s no way he didn’t want her dead.”
“Oh, he definitely wanted her dead when he decided to kill her, but I don’t think that was the original plan. If the plan had been to kill her from the onset, he would’ve opened fire immediately—before she stepped out of the car. He wouldn’t have taken a chance on her calling it out on the radio.”
“But she didn’t call it out on the radio.”
“He didn’t know that,” I explained, squatting beside Deputy Billiot’s body and lifting a corner of the
tarp. “She’s facing the exact spot in the trees where the bullet casings were located. She either saw him or heard him and that’s what prompted her to go for her gun. There’s no doubt in my mind he was ready to slaughter her, but I think he was hoping he wouldn’t have to. He was hoping she would check the car and then leave. With her gone, he could keep waiting for a passerby to stop and offer assistance. His goal was to steal another car and get out of town.”
“Why would he think she’d check it and leave?” There was a befuddled expression on Mallory’s face. “There was a BOLO for that vehicle, so he must’ve realized she would investigate further.”
“He didn’t know that either.” I nodded my head, sure of it. “He killed Chad Pierce in the primitive camping area of the park, where no one ever visits anymore. If you wanted to kill someone, it would be the perfect spot, really. He didn’t think his crime had been discovered yet. By the time he got to this point, I think he simply wanted to steal another car to get out of town, but Jenny foiled his plan. She also saved some poor civilian in the process.”
Mallory was thoughtful. “Yeah, she sacrificed her life to save someone else, but she didn’t even know it.”
I carefully placed the tarp back over her face and rose slowly to my feet. I was about to turn away when I remembered the oil leak we’d found in the parking area of the Waxtuygi Wildlife Nature Park.
I stretched out a hand to Mallory. “Can I borrow a flashlight?”
She handed me her light. I walked to the SUV and dropped to my face. My clothes were already dirty, so I didn’t care about a little grit from the asphalt. Sliding as far under the vehicle as I could, I illuminated the undercarriage and carefully inspected the oil pan and transmission. Everything was clean. Next, I checked the pavement, but found nothing—not a single drop of oil.
I slid out from under the car and scratched my head, handing the light back to Mallory. Amy had walked up to us, her thumbs shoved into her front pockets.
“Does it have an oil leak?” she asked.
I frowned and shook my head. I glanced in Susan’s direction. “Where’s Melvin?”
“He left to get the Boston Whaler. He should be out on the water any minute now.”
“Is he alone?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “Three deputies from the SWAT team went with him. They’ll be working the eastern bank of the bayou while the sheriff’s office water patrol deputies work the western bank.”
I was relieved to know he had backup, but I couldn’t help but feel concerned. If they stumbled unexpectedly upon the killer and he opened fire on them, ten SWAT officers wouldn’t be enough to prevent at least a few of them from dying or being seriously injured. There was no safe way to track down such a violent killer, but it was part of the job and we accepted the risk. Jenny Billiot had lost her life out here tonight, and we couldn’t stop until we found her killer.
“Can you drive me to the boat launch?” I asked. “I want to meet up with Melvin.”
“Why?”
“I’m going with him.”
“Where you go, I go,” she said with a finality that told me not to argue.
CHAPTER 19
It was almost noon on Monday when we called off the search. We had scoured every inch of the bayou, beginning where it intersected with Bayou Tail in Mechant Loup and ending about ten miles north of town, but we hadn’t found any sign of the killer. We had placed a dozen teams in the water and on the land, but after all of that work, the consensus of most of the officers involved with the search was that the killer had drowned in the murky waters. A fresh team of water patrol officers from the sheriff’s office had come out to start dragging the bottom.
Now, the officers who had worked all night and throughout the morning were milling about the Mechant Loup Boat Launch, eating and talking. The mood was a somber one. There was no laughter, no joking, and no horsing around. An officer had been brutally murdered and they all knew it could’ve been any of them.
As was customary when there was a large police action in town, the townsfolk had come together and cooked a meal for the first responders. I could smell food cooking while we were still on the water and it made my stomach growl.
After helping Melvin load the Boston Whaler onto its trailer, I slung my AR-10 across my neck and then shouldered my rucksack. Tired, hungry, and feeling dingy, I began trudging across the shell parking lot to offload my gear in Susan’s Tahoe. I was still a dozen yards away when Amy hollered from across the shell parking lot and headed in my direction. She and Mallory Tuttle had left the search party earlier in the day—Mallory to attend the autopsies of Chad Pierce and Jenny Billiot, and Amy to deliver the spent shell casings to the crime lab in La Mort.
“Did you give the shell casings to Tracy?” I asked.
Tracy Dinger was an old friend of mine from when I worked for the La Mort Police Department, and she was currently working as a firearms examiner. She was always willing to expedite my ballistics requests.
“No.” Amy tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear as she stopped in front of me. “She was processing a crime scene. The intake officer told me they’d had a gang-related shooting in broad daylight in front of a school this morning, and Tracy and her team are trying to make sense out of the scene.”
I frowned. “Did this intake officer say when they’d be able to get to our casings?”
“Nope, but he said it would take a small piece of forever to process 109 casings, even if Tracy didn’t have other cases in front of ours and a fresh gang shooting to work.” She paused for a breath. “He said Tracy will want to examine all of the casings individually to make sure they were all fired from the same rifle.”
“Shit.” I was pretty certain the same person had murdered both Jenny and Chad, but I wanted definitive proof. “Can you get with Tracy and ask her to compare at least one casing from each scene to make sure they’re connected?”
“Already did that.” She smiled smugly. “I think of everything.”
“You certainly do.” I changed gears. “Have you spoken with Mallory?”
“Yeah, I called her when I was driving back from La Mort.”
“Any surprises from the autopsies?” I asked.
“No, Dr. Wong just confirmed what we already knew—that these were gross overkills,” Amy explained. “She said quite a few bullets entered both bodies after they were dead, but there were more in Jenny’s body than Chad’s. It struck her as pretty excessive, and she wondered if the attacks were motivated by anger.”
“Don’t we all?”
While Amy headed for the tents to get a bite to eat, I continued to Susan’s Tahoe. I had just finished stowing my gear inside when Sheriff Turner called out to me. I closed the door and waited for him. His shoulders were hunched as he lumbered toward me. He was tired. I could see that in his eyes and in his gait. He removed his Stetson when he was within spitting distance of me and rubbed his damp forehead.
“What do you think, Clint?” he asked. “Do you think this piece of shit drowned?”
Although I’d already drawn my own conclusion about two hours earlier, I considered his question for a long moment.
“No, I don’t think he drowned,” I finally said. “I don’t even think he jumped in the bayou.”
Sheriff Turner cocked his head to the side. “But we found tracks leading to the bayou and we even found where he dropped the car keys at the edge of the water.”
“He didn’t drop them.” I scowled. “He planted them there. He wanted us to think he jumped in the bayou so we would concentrate our efforts on the water. He knew that would buy him precious time to escape on foot.”
There was a second there when I thought Sheriff Turner would teeter over and crash to the ground, but somehow, he remained standing. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “He’s a slick one, that’s for sure.”
“But wouldn’t there be some kind of evidence that he walked back to the road?” he asked, strugg
ling with this revelation. “Wouldn’t there be more than one set of shoe prints in the dew?”
“A print in the dew presents itself as an oblong smudge,” I explained, having already repeatedly cursed myself for not thinking of this earlier. “There are no well-defined edges or patterns. If he wanted to retrace his steps out from the water, back to his shooting position and then back to the shoulder of the road where he had begun, all he would’ve had to do was step in the same smudges he made on the way in. They would not have to be exact.”
He shoved his hat angrily onto the crown of his head. “What in the hell are we supposed to do now?”
“In any normal case, I would suggest putting a description out to the public and sending a BOLO to every agency in the state, but we don’t even know what he looks like.” I kicked idly at the shells. “We’re chasing a ghost, Sheriff.”
He pondered what I’d said. He finally asked if I thought the suspect was still on foot or if I thought he had left the area in a vehicle.
“I think he’s still around here and I think he’s desperate,” I said. “If he would’ve stolen a vehicle or carjacked someone, we would know about it by now. He’s trapped in this area and he’s dangerous. If we don’t figure out who he is—and do it quickly and quietly—there’s no telling who he’ll kill next.”
There was a long silence between us and I could tell he was in deep thought, trying to figure out his next move. Finally, he pursed his lips and nodded. He had figured out the next course of action.
“Okay, I’ll double-up all of my patrol units and put out a directive to have four officers respond to every complaint, no matter how trivial. I’ll also keep two roving teams of SWAT officers in the south area around the clock. They can overlap Susan’s efforts in town, and if y’all need more people, just say the word. I’ll also keep the bird in the air and the boats on the water until we catch this bastard.” He took a deep breath and blew it out forcefully. “And now I have to start planning a funeral for Jenny.”
