by BJ Bourg
“Did it make waves like a boat?” I asked.
“No, not that much. It felt like it could’ve been an animal swimming away.”
I nodded, an idea starting to brew inside my mind. She continued talking, and I continued mulling over this idea.
“When everything got still again and I couldn’t take it anymore,” Camille said, “I began swimming as fast as I could to the surface. I opened my eyes again—they burned really bad—and I could see that the black water was getting brighter. I could see the sun. I tried so hard to keep holding my breath, but I couldn’t make it to the top. I had blown the water out of my lungs and I needed to take a breath. It felt like my lungs were burning and I thought I was gonna pass out. My body wouldn’t listen to me anymore, so I gave in and took a small breath. The water rushed down my throat. I tried to swallow it so it wouldn’t choke me, but it was no use.”
“Oh, wow,” I said breathlessly, hanging on her every word. It was right then that I realized how very close we had come to recovering another drowning victim. “Did it work? When you swallowed the water, did it help?”
“Not at all.” She actually started laughing. “I don’t recommend it.”
Amy and I laughed, too.
“I was so afraid that my movements would attract this thing that had grabbed me and that it would come back and pull me under again. I knew I couldn’t survive a second round of dunking and that I needed to be quiet, but I couldn’t help it. I came up coughing. There was water in my eyes and I couldn’t see. I went under again and sucked in more water. I was flailing with my hands and legs, trying to stay afloat. I finally just took a deep breath and held it and rolled onto my back. I stopped moving and just floated there, taking short breaths while I cleared my throat.”
“Did you see anything on the lake when you first made it to the surface?” I asked. “Anything at all?”
“Not the first time. Like I said, water was in my eyes. But when I was floating on my back and had stopped choking, I was able to blink my eyes until they were clear and I started treading water again. I couldn’t hear or see the party anymore. I didn’t know where I was, so I just headed for the closest shore.” She frowned. “I think I got turned around, because when I got to land I started walking in the direction of the party—or where I thought it was supposed to be—and never found it.”
“Could you see the opposite bank from where you were?” I asked. “Otis said he took a jet ski and began searching for you by riding up and down the lake near where you went under.”
“I didn’t hear the jet ski. I just kept walking in the same direction until I couldn’t walk anymore. I was hot and thirsty. I had a headache from drinking so much alcohol and I was tired of walking. I was so thirty that I drank water from the lake. I knew it was dangerous, but I needed water really bad. I was starting to get lightheaded.”
“What’d you do when you couldn’t walk anymore?”
“I went into the woods a little ways and fell asleep. I felt really uncomfortable being topless, so I slept on my stomach. When I woke up, it was dark and mosquitoes were eating me alive.” She shivered again. “That’s when I got really scared. I started walking toward the water, but it turns out I was going in the wrong direction—again! I didn’t realize it until I’d walked for what felt like an hour and I didn’t find the lake. I turned around again and started heading in the opposite direction, but when I still didn’t find the lake, I knew I had really messed up.”
Amy and I hung on her every word.
“Since I didn’t know which way was up, I decided to sleep until morning. I thought I might be able to figure out where I was at that point.” She grunted. “When I woke up, I knew it was daytime because it was brighter, but it was so dark in the swamps that I really didn’t know where to go. I don’t know how to follow the sun, but I would’ve tried if I could’ve seen the damn thing.”
She threw a hand to her mouth and apologized for cursing.
“Don’t worry,” Amy reassured her, “Clint has heard worse language from his dogs.”
“Have you really?” Camille asked jokingly.
“My dogs love me,” was all I said.
We talked about my dogs for about a minute, and then Camille went back to telling her story.
“I walked all day. It was getting dark again and I was really hungry and thirsty. I ended up finding this little canal—it was where you guys found me—and I drank some of the water. It definitely quenched my thirst. I also found a frog and I ate it. I gagged once or twice, but I managed to keep it down.”
“Wait—you ate a frog?” Amy asked, gagging a little.
“Yeah. It was crazy.”
“Juices and all?”
“Juices and all.” Camille actually seemed proud of herself. I—for one—was very impressed.
“During the night, I started getting sick. I vomited several times and then I had diarrhea. I couldn’t sleep because every time I’d get settled and start to doze off, I’d have to get up to use the bathroom—well, the tree—again.”
“Could you hear any sounds?” I asked. “We were patrolling the lake all night looking for you.”
“I did hear some roaring sounds, but they were far off and I wasn’t about to start walking through the woods at night. I decided I would head toward the noise in the morning.” She frowned, staring off toward the far wall of the hospital room. “I didn’t realize how bad off I’d be by morning.”
“You must’ve lost a lot of fluids during the night,” I said. “Could you tell you were getting dehydrated?”
“I couldn’t tell at first, but I figured it was happening. When I was little, my mom would make me drink a lot of water when I’d throw up or have diarrhea. Since I didn’t want to drink the water again just in case, I knew things were getting bad.” She scowled. “I didn’t realize how bad it was until I woke up the next morning and noticed I was passing blood. I thought I was gonna die. I didn’t know if I was sick from the water or if I’d eaten a poisonous frog.”
I tried to imagine the horror she must’ve experienced. It wasn’t hard to imagine, because it was painted across her face as she was telling about it.
“The very things that were supposed to help keep me alive were trying to kill me.” She chuckled dryly. “Anyway, I didn’t move from that spot. In fact, I couldn’t. I was too weak. Every time I tried to stand up I’d get dizzy. I kept falling asleep and passing blood. It was around the middle of the day and although I knew it was hot, I was freezing cold and began shivering violently. It was horrible. I just thank God you found me.”
“It wasn’t me,” I admitted. “Takecia Gayle, one of our officers, she spotted the vultures circling over your location. That’s what led us to you.”
Camille recoiled in horror. “Vultures were going to eat me?”
I silently cursed myself for including that little detail. Instead of answering her question, I decided to switch gears.
“You were under water the entire time this thing was dragging you around, right?”
She nodded.
“So, you never got a chance to see it?”
“That’s right.”
“Other than trying to drown you, did it hurt you in any way?”
“No, and that’s got me worried. Like, what did it want from me?” She stared from me to Amy and then back to me. “If we don’t know what it wanted from me, how do we know it won’t come back for me?”
“You’re safe here,” I assured her. “We’ll put a guard outside your door if it makes you feel better.”
“I’m fine with my dad here, but what if it follows me home?”
“We’ll catch it long before that happens,” I said with more confidence than I felt at this point. “Can you tell me what it felt like?”
“What do you mean?”
“When it grabbed you—what did it feel like? I know you said you hadn’t felt pain at first, but did you feel pain at any point afterward?”
“No.”
“When
it grabbed you, did it feel like something biting you? Or like a trap snapping around your leg?”
She was thoughtful. “No,” she finally said. “It actually felt like a hand.”
“A hand?” Amy and I asked in unison.
“Yeah, it felt like someone had grabbed me, but I knew that wasn’t possible, because no one was in the water in that area except me.”
“The Letiche,” Amy said, her jaw set and her eyes boring holes into mine.
“The what?” Camille asked, watching the visual showdown between Amy and me.
“It’s nothing,” I said dismissively.
“Oh, it’s something,” Amy told me when we walked out into the parking lot a few minutes later. “It’s supposed to be part human and part alligator, which means it can survive under water.”
I stopped on the driver’s side of my Tahoe and stared across the hood at her. “You know what else can survive under water?”
“What?”
“A human in scuba gear.”
“Huh…” Amy’s face scrunched up. “No shit! But why would someone do that?”
“That’s what we need to find out.”
CHAPTER 20
Mayor Cain was in Susan’s office when Amy and I arrived at the police department. I could hear them talking from down the hall where Amy and I stood in front of my office. I asked Amy if she could do some research on diving shops in the area and see what she could learn.
“If we can get a list of the local divers, we might get lucky when we run their names.”
“Lucky how?” she wanted to know. “Do you think there’s a database of divers who routinely drown people?”
I chuckled. “You might be that lucky, but I’m not.”
“Well, I actually have a better idea.”
I raised an eyebrow, eager for any suggestions that might help bring this case to closure. However, I grew immediately suspicious when I realized she was trying to stifle a smirk.
“I could just get some sonar equipment and go find Letiche.”
I was about to respond when Mayor Cain stuck her head into the hallway.
“Clint, can you come here when you get a second?” she asked.
I shook my head at Amy and turned away.
“You’ll really thank me when I have the body of Letiche strapped to the front bumper of my pickup truck,” Amy called from behind me. “And when that happens, I expect a pay raise.”
“What was that about?” Pauline asked when I stepped into Susan’s office. “Please tell me she’s not quitting.”
“No,” I said, laughing. “It was nothing.”
Pauline Cain was a wealthy woman. Instead of standing here in the police department, she could be off leading an easy and uncomplicated life. However, after Mayor Dexter Boudreaux had been violently killed in town, she had abandoned the lap of luxury to lead a life of public service. Not only did she give up her former life for the town, but she also put her money where her mouth was by donating much of her wealth to noble causes within the town. She was never absent from community events and was known to bid on auction items only to return the item to the organization so they could make more money on it.
“I really appreciate all you’ve done,” Pauline said. “Your good work saved at least two lives.”
“It was a team effort,” I said simply.
“Do we have any idea what’s going on out there on the lake?” she asked.
Susan was seated behind her desk and Pauline was standing near the door, so I walked past Pauline and dropped wearily in a chair opposite Susan. I looked up at the mayor. Her long brown hair flowed like a silk mane over her shoulders and her makeup had been applied with precision, but it didn’t mask the concern on her face.
I recapped the incidents of the past few days and provided brief summations of the statements of Otis Williams, Nelly Martinez, and Camille Rainey. I then stood and approached the dry erase board on the wall across from Susan’s desk. I began writing on it before turning to face Susan and the mayor.
“Our first victim was Frank Jones,” I explained. “He was jerked off the back of his kayak on Friday evening in Lake Berg. Next came Camille. She was pulled under at around three o’clock on Monday afternoon in Le Diable Lake. Later on Monday night, also in le Diable Lake, Chrissy Graves was dragged into the water. Of the three attacks, only Camille survived, and she was able to give us enough information to conclude that these were homicides.”
“Homicides?” Pauline echoed. “Are you sure? The media is quoting a source close to the investigation as saying this is the work of some evil spirit or something. They claim a monster is lurking in the waters of Le Diable, and they’re citing an official source from Mechant Loup.”
“It’s no one from the police department,” I said with confidence. “I can guarantee you that.”
“I don’t think it is, but I’d like to know who’s feeding this bullshit to the media.” She shook her head and dragged a chair around to the side of the desk from where she could see Susan and me. She plopped down in it. “This thing is spreading like wildfire. People are calling to cancel their rentals. Brennan Boudreaux said forty percent of his swamp tours for the next three weeks have also been cancelled. He said people are citing the multiple drowning incidents in the area as the reason. It’s causing a panic and hurting tourism in town. Just go walk down Washington Avenue. It seems the only people milling around are townsfolk and the media.”
“Yeah,” Susan agreed, “I’ve been turning down calls and visits from reporters all morning long.”
Pauline leaned back in her chair and studied the dry erase board. “How sure are you that these drowning incidents are connected and are actually homicides? Is it possible an animal is doing this?”
“Not likely,” I said. “There would be some sort of evidence left behind on the bodies—claw marks or teeth marks. We’ve got none of that. The thing that makes the most sense is that a human being is lurking underwater in scuba gear and pulling our victims to their deaths. You can grab someone with your hands and pull them under without leaving a mark.”
“Has this ever happened before?” Pauline asked. “Drowning people in this manner?”
“Perhaps.” I shrugged. “I’ve never heard of it, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.”
“But what would be the motive for such killings?” Pauline seemed to be having a hard time wrapping her brain around the idea.
“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?” I returned to my chair and rested my feet on Susan’s desk. “Unless this is the work of some psychopath who kills for the pleasure of it, someone stands to gain from these murders.”
“What could be gained from drowning a few tourists?” Pauline pressed.
I dropped my boots to the ground and stood to my feet. “That, I don’t know, but I plan to find out.”
Pauline and Susan also stood.
“Go work your magic, Clint Wolf,” Pauline said as she turned to leave the office. “Let me know if you need anything—anything at all.”
CHAPTER 21
When I made my way to Amy’s office, I learned that she had located two dive shops in the area. One was in a neighboring parish and the other was located south of Mechant Loup on the coast.
“My bet is on the one near the Port of Lower Chateau,” she said. “It’s much closer to Le Diable Lake. You could actually access the lake from the Port through the Intracoastal Waterway.”
I hadn’t even sat down, and I didn’t bother doing so now. “What’s the name of the place?”
“Spearmonger’s Diving. It’s owned by a woman named Natalie Conway.”
Amy gathered up her notes and followed me outside. We had stopped briefly to let Lindsey Savoie—our daytime dispatcher—know where we were going, and then Amy jumped in with me and we headed up Washington Avenue in my black Tahoe.
The coast was roughly twenty miles south of town along Old Blackbird Highway. We settled in for the drive. I would’ve been fine being lef
t alone to my thoughts about the case, but Amy was in a talkative mood. She talked a lot about Letiche and she had my stomach in stitches for most of the drive. It felt good to laugh so much. For most of the drive, I forgot about the case.
“I swear, if Letiche looks a little more alligator than human,” she said, “I’ll marry the bastard. He can’t be any worse than Trevor was.”
After I stopped laughing, I posed a serious question. “Is his name Letiche, or is he a Letiche?”
“Huh, I’m not sure!” She scowled. “That’s a good question. I’ll just call him Lettie—and when I’m not in the mood, I’ll call him Let-me-be.”
I laughed some more. At least her commentary helped to make the drive seem short. Once we’d passed the last of the neighborhoods, there wasn’t much to see. It was just a two-lane road with a bayou on one side and the marsh on the other side. We drove by a dozen or so cars parked on the shoulder of the road. These were mostly people fishing for food. They had families to feed and couldn’t afford a boat to go out on the water. Luckily for them, they lived where bayous and marshlands could be accessed by any number of public roads.
“Look, that guy’s got a giant redfish!” Amy said, pointing and twisting around in her seat as we drove by. She quit talking about her imagined husband-to-be, but only for a second. The fisherman had barely disappeared from my side mirror when she was back to talking about Letiche.
“You know,” I said when the sign for Spearmonger’s came into view, “you’d better not talk like that in front of the mayor.”
“Oh, no—why not?”
“She said someone leaked information to the media.”
“What kind of information?”
“They claimed a monster was pulling people into the water and drowning them.”
“Well, that’s the word.”
“They cited a source close to the investigation.”
Amy was thoughtful. “Does she think it’s me?”
“She’s not aware of your fascination with Letiche, so no.”
