But Not Forspent, page 18
I hadn’t run into them on the water, so they must’ve headed to Lake Berg, which was a hotspot for locals and tourists alike. Not many people ventured out past Lake Berg, and if they did, most of them continued through to the Gulf of Mexico or the Intracoastal Waterway. Very few people ventured into Le Diable Lake.
The timestamp on the footage read six-forty-eight and a few seconds when I saw Paul’s truck pull up. I didn’t know it was him until he had backed his boat trailer into the slip and stepped out of his truck. A sense of sadness fell over me as I watched Cindy exit the passenger’s side and walk around to hold onto the bowline as Paul pushed the boat free of the trailer. She tugged on the rope and guided the boat to the side of the pier.
Paul beckoned toward the truck, and a small figure emerged from the passenger side and ran around to stand near Cindy on the pier. Paul parked the truck and empty trailer near a tree on the eastern end of the shell parking lot, and they headed west along Bayou Tail.
They had left the boat launch a young, happy family of three, but only two had returned, with one fighting for his life at that very moment.
Letting out a long sigh, I pulled a flash drive from my pocket and copied the footage of their arrival to the boat launch. I then allowed the video to continue playing.
Two more boats launched before my arrival. Each of them carried a lone occupant, and neither man appeared young enough to be the wiry man that had pursued me through the swamps. While it had been difficult to properly gauge his age in the split second of light from the gunshot during which Achilles had ripped off the night vision goggles, he was definitely south of eighty, which was the apparent age of these two men. I realized I hadn’t run across these elderly men either, so they must’ve headed to Lake Berg or taken one of the dozens of other waterways that cut through the swamplands and woodlands south and west of town.
I stopped playing the footage once it showed me reaching the launch, because the men had already been out on Le Diable Lake by the time I’d arrived. I leaned back in the chair and stared at the screen for a long moment.
There could be many explanations for why I hadn’t seen the suspects launch their boats here. They could’ve launched from a private dock along any of the surrounding bayous that offered access to our highways, or they could’ve accessed Le Diable Lake from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, which began at San Carlos Bay near Punta Rassa, Florida and stretched all the way to Brownsville, Texas. With such broad access to the lake, it would be impossible to pinpoint their exact approach.
Dejected, I hit the escape icon to exit the dashboard of the surveillance system. I retrieved my flash drive from the port and shoved it in my pocket. I then walked quickly through the house, locked the door, put the key where Sam told me to put it, and headed for the coroner’s office in Central Chateau.
While I drove, I called Susan and asked for an update. She said Melvin had easily located the spot where I’d been shot—thanks to the blood I’d deposited on the ground—and he’d begun tracking from there.
“He was able to back-track the man who shot you all the way to Bayou Tail, where he disappeared in the water,” she explained. “He found the spot where you originally went onshore, and there were four men chasing you at that point. Three of the men stopped and turned around after a short distance, and only the one man continued. He said the three men who turned around were heavier than the fourth man. He said the fourth man was good in the woods—one of the best he’s encountered in a long time.”
I cursed under my breath. It was no wonder the man had almost succeeded in killing me. I was being hunted by a real hunter. Susan went on to say that, based on the shoe patterns he’d seen yesterday and today, Melvin was able to determine that the three heavy men were the same who had ambushed me, and two of them were involved in hiding Cindy’s body.
“This fourth man was the one who actually murdered Cindy with two arrows,” Susan said. “Melvin found his bare footprints near where the murder happened. He also found the bare footprints near the boy’s hiding place.”
“He knew where Ollie was hiding the whole time?” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah, and it seems he spared the kid’s life.”
Melvin also discovered that the wiry man swam the bayou during the night and escaped through the woods heading westward from the mouth of Le Diable Lake.
“Melvin said he made use of every dry root and windthrown tree he could find, so he’s hard to track.” Susan sighed. “He said it would take hours and hours to follow the track, which means he would never catch up to the man.”
“So, what’re his options?”
“At the moment, he’s in the cabin cruiser trying to find a way around the patch of land west of the lake, and he also called to have the helicopter and Perry’s plane return to scout that area of the lake.”
“What about those big boys?” I asked. “Does he know how they left the area?”
“He figures they left in a boat, because we’ve been searching the shoreline all morning and can’t find where they would’ve come on land, but he doesn’t know how they could’ve made such a clean getaway.”
I sighed and thanked her. I ended the call as I tried to visualize the area west of the lake. Takecia and I had recovered a missing girl in that area once, but it had been closer to the southern end, while the mouth was located at the northern end.
While I knew there were fishing and hunting camps scattered throughout the swamps, I couldn’t think of a specific one in that area. Perhaps it was time to sit down with one of more of the old timers and find out what lay out there.
CHAPTER 48
Amy’s Dodge Charger was already parked in the lot at the coroner’s office when I arrived. I called and asked her to open the back door and let me in. When she pushed the metal door open, I found her standing there in her full uniform.
“This had better not be some subtle hint shit you’re pulling on me,” she warned, “where you pretend to want me to wear a uniform to connect with a little kid, but you’re actually telling me you’re sending me back to patrol.”
“I wouldn’t do that to myself.”
“Yourself?” she asked, confused.
“Yep.” I nodded for her to lead the way down the hall. “If I got rid of you, I’d be hurting myself, and I’m hurting enough with this damn hole in my leg. Just promise you’ll never quit.”
“That’s a promise,” she said with a smile and a wink, but the smile slowly faded as we approached the door to the autopsy room. I knew instantly it had nothing to do with the autopsy.
“Wait, what’s wrong?” I asked.
She hesitated with her hand on the doorknob. “There’s nothing wrong.”
“But why’d you have that look on your face?”
She stared down, shifted her feet. “Um, well, Baylor kinda proposed to me, and we were talking about getting married and having a little swamp rat or three—except, it would be half mountain rat and half swamp rat. You know, half mountain boy and half swamp girl, because he’s from the mountains and I’m…”
She was rambling and she knew it. She stopped and allowed her voice to trail off. She took a cautious glance up at me. I was beaming.
“Oh, wow, Ames,” I said. “That would be so awesome!”
“You wouldn’t mind it if I had to go on maternity leave?”
“Hell, no!” I said, but quickly interjected. “As long as you get back as soon as you’re able. I don’t want you to start thinking about staying home fulltime. I need you out here. I could never do this alone and you’re irreplaceable.”
“Oh, I’d definitely be back,” she said with a nod. “If I learned anything from being shot, it’s that I can’t handle being home for more than a few days at a time.”
“Does Susan know about the proposal?” I asked.
“No. Baylor just proposed to me Friday night and I haven’t had a chance to tell her yet.”
“Weren’t you with her all day yesterday?” I asked.
She frowned. “Clint, you were missing. We didn’t know if you were alive or dead. The last thing on my mind yesterday was getting married.”
I smiled to lighten the mood. “Now I’m really glad I made it out of the swamps. It would’ve sucked to miss your wedding.”
She slugged my arm and we entered the autopsy room, where Dr. Louise Wong was completing the autopsy. Amy explained that she had been there for most of it, and there had been no surprises.
“Do you have any suspects?” Dr. Wong asked me as she removed her gloves and washed her hands.
I leaned against the wall—wincing a little when I inadvertently put more weight than I liked on my right leg—and was about to answer when her eyes drifted to my cargo shorts. The pant legs were almost down to my knees, so they concealed the bandage, but she instantly recognized that one side was slightly tighter than the other.
“Wait a minute!” She pointed toward my leg, her mouth wide. “You’re the officer who was shot with the arrow!”
“Well, Susan was shot with an arrow.”
“That was a long time ago.” She shot me a dismissive glance. “I was listening to the news on the way to work and I heard about the attack. They mentioned one lady was killed and two off-duty officers shot, one with an arrow. They didn’t name the officers, but I figured Paul was one of them, because I knew he was Cindy’s husband. I had no clue who the other officer could be. Are you okay?”
“This is just a scratch.” It was my turn to be dismissive. “I got lucky, and so did my dogs. It’s Paul who’s in trouble.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “What did your dogs have to do with this?”
“They were with me during the initial ambush when the suspects shot at us with AK-47s,” I explained. “I knocked Achilles and Coco into the water and they somehow escaped without being injured. As to your original question, no, we have no idea who the suspects are.”
“Well, had they shot your dogs, I would’ve hit the swamps myself with the biggest gun I have,” she said with a grunt. “I hate people who hurt dogs as much as I hate people who hurt other people.”
I nodded and listened while Dr. Wong brought the subject back to Cindy. She detailed the track of each of Cindy’s wounds, which was front to rear, and nearly ninety degrees. The torso wound had more of a downward angle than the head wound, but that was to be expected, considering the wound was lower and the shooter would’ve been standing when he fired it.
“Amy tells me Cindy was also shot with arrows, and my findings are consistent with that,” Dr. Wong explained. “The flap of skin around the exit wound in her back was inverted, which is consistent with the arrow having been removed. The scalp around the head wound was similarly positioned.”
I nodded. It was my first time viewing the body. Seeing Cindy’s red hair pulled over her lifeless face made my chest ache. When I’d first met her, she was a teenager. As I looked at her now, I saw that same young girl. I thought about her brother and how upset he must be. He had been a protective young brother, and I knew that kind of thing didn’t change with age—it only intensified.
“Well, if that’s all?” I asked.
Dr. Wong nodded.
Amy and I thanked her and then saw ourselves out into the warm summer day. I called Julie Rupe and she told us we could meet her at the dealership. She said Ollie loved playing there, so she thought it might help ease his mind.
“We’re closed on Sundays,” she said, “so there won’t be any interruptions or distractions.”
I got in my Tahoe and led the way, my thoughts going over every detail of the last two days, trying to find something that might suggest a motive for the attacks. I’d often said, “Find the motive, find the killer.” While it was a simple phrase, it wasn’t always simple to unearth the motive—and this one seemed impossible.
CHAPTER 49
When Amy and I parked in back of the dealership, Julie hurried outside to meet us. She smiled nervously, searching our eyes as we exited our respective vehicles.
“Have y’all found out anything about the people who shot them?” she asked when we were within earshot.
“I’m sorry.” I frowned and shook my head. “We’re still working on it, but so far we’ve got nothing.”
I went on to explain some of the efforts that had been made. She listened intently while nodding her head.
“Well, the family appreciates everything y’all are doing.” She indicated the back door of the dealership. “Ollie’s in my office. He still hasn’t spoken a single word.” She glanced at Amy. “He loves uniforms, so let’s hope it helps him open up.”
I fell back as Julie and Amy led the way down the hall. When Julie’s husband was alive, he had occupied the last office down the hall—it would’ve been the first coming from our direction—but Julie had elected to use a different office. Considering her husband had walked straight from his office to the back and killed himself, I didn’t blame her.
Julie’s office was softer than Randall’s had been. Thick carpet covered the floor. A printed fabric sofa sat across the large oak desk from her matching chair. There were a number of art pieces and framed portraits on the wall. While her office didn’t look anything like Randall’s, she had taken one thing from her deceased husband’s office—the portrait of their deceased son, Randall, Jr., who was an American hero.
Movement from the far corner caught my eye and I saw Ollie lying on his belly, a large sketching pad on the ground beneath him. He wore blue jean shorts, a white shirt with blue sleeves, and a pair of sunglasses that was shoved up on his head.
After drawing for a minute, Ollie tossed a blue marker aside and claimed the red one. From where I was standing, I could see that he was putting the finishing touches on a human figure. While he was definitely no future Pablo Picasso, it was painfully obvious he was drawing his mother, thanks to the long red hair he was adding to the figure. Once the hair was colored in, he paused to study the drawing, and then reached over to select a black marker. To my astonishment, he drew bullet holes to the front of her body.
I frowned and glanced at Amy, who was also frowning. She glanced at me and mouthed, “Poor little boy.”
I nodded and turned my attention back to Ollie. He dropped his marker, studied the picture, and then placed it to the side over a stack of other drawings he had completed. Without looking up or even acknowledging that anyone had entered the room, he grabbed the blue marker and began working on a new picture.
“That’s all he’s been doing,” Julie whispered. “He makes one drawing after another. He drew a big boat with three people in it, four small boats with one person in each one, and some kind of round thing in the water. He only stops to use the bathroom. He won’t ask for food or anything to drink. I bought him a plain cheeseburger and a milkshake for lunch and put it next to him on the floor. He stopped drawing, ate it, and then went right back to drawing.”
I couldn’t imagine what was going on in that little head of his, and I wasn’t about to try and figure it out. I moved to the sofa and took a seat, waiting to see how he responded to Amy in her uniform.
Julie sat beside me on the sofa and watched as Amy slowly approached Ollie. Instead of pulling up one of the nearby chairs, she stretched out on the floor opposite him—arms folded on the ground beneath her, chin resting on her forearms.
Ollie didn’t look up. He was focused intently on his new drawing. This one appeared to be of a dog. I scowled. As far as I knew, they didn’t own a dog. I leaned over and pressed my lips to Julie’s ear and asked the question. She shook her head.
I shifted forward slightly, wondering if he was drawing one of my dogs. Had he seen the dogs in the boat when we were approaching their location? Or had one of my dogs encountered him after the shooting?
I didn’t know, and wasn’t about to ask.
“Hey, there, little fellow,” Amy finally said in a soothing voice. “What’re you drawing?”
The boy didn’t miss a stroke of the marker and he didn’t avert his gaze from his work. He continued working on the picture of the dog as though Amy wasn’t there. Once he was done, he glanced at the selection of markers on the floor beside his pad. His tiny brow furrowed for a moment, as though trying to decide which color he wanted to use. Finally, he took the purple marker and began coloring in the dog’s eyes. At first, I thought the eyes were supposed to be purple, but then I realized he was drawing purple sunglasses.
I grinned. I’d never heard of a dog wearing purple sunglasses, but it looked cool enough that I considered buying a pair for Coco. Achilles wouldn’t be caught dead wearing sunglasses or any other form of human clothes or accessories.
When Ollie was finished the drawing, he suddenly scrambled to his feet, bringing the drawing with him. He studied it for a long moment and then looked directly at me. I cocked my head to the side, studying the boy. There was recognition in his eyes, and I wondered if he remembered me from the awards banquet.
Without saying a word or altering his bland expression, he strode across the room and extended the drawing in my direction.
I smiled. “Is that for me?”
He didn’t nod, blink, or utter a sound. He simply stood there holding the drawing out. I took it and thanked him. He turned, walked back to his drawing pad, and plopped to his belly. Taking up his marker, he began working on another drawing.
As we all watched, a rough-looking boat emerged from the white canvas. Once the boat was done, he colored the area under the boat blue, and then he added three stick figures with frowning faces. One was small, one medium, and one large. The medium one had red hair.
He removed that drawing from the pad, put it atop the stack, and then began another one. In this one, there was a bundle of some sort in the middle of the water and four smaller boats that were occupied by one stick figure each. Three of the stick figures were thicker than the fourth, and I guessed that meant the three thicker figures were larger than the fourth. Next, Ollie drew a straight line in one of each of the figures’ hands.
