by BJ Bourg
“Sheriff,” Susan said when she’d shoved her phone in her pocket. “I’m real sorry about this.”
“No,” he said, “I’m the one who’s real sorry. I’m sorry about calling in the state police. The victim was blaming Clint, so—although I didn’t believe it for one second—I knew I couldn’t lawfully ask y’all to handle the case. I figured the state would conduct a thorough investigation, exonerate Clint, and then y’all could figure out if this had anything to do with the murder of her husband. I never dreamed it would take this turn. I warned that little shit-ass detective—excuse my language—not to swear out a warrant without talking to Clint first, but he’s a little know-it-all hothead.”
“It’s okay, Sheriff.” Susan put a reassuring hand on his slumped shoulder. “You had no idea things would turn out like they did. I’m just glad we resolved it as quickly as we did. Now, let me get with Amy real quick.”
The sheriff nodded and remained standing on the porch as Susan entered the house. She found Amy and Melvin bent over Doug’s body taking close-up photos of his wounds.
“Amy, can you upload some of those pictures to our evidence database and send them electronically to Isabel?”
“Right away,” Amy said.
Susan glanced around the room to see if an iPad was in plain view, but there was none. She was about to ask Melvin and Amy if they’d seen one when loud voices could be heard from the front yard. She hurried to the porch and saw Detective David Monier standing nose-to-nose with Mallory demanding entry into the crime scene.
“This is my case and this is my scene,” he shouted, the veins in his neck bulging. “I’m ordering you and everyone in there to exit that scene or I’m filing charges for interfering with a state police investigation.”
Susan leaned toward Buck Turner and whispered, “Are you gonna intervene, Sheriff?”
“Nope,” he said with a shake of the head. “Mallory’s got this one.”
Mallory took a step closer to David, who backed up slightly. “Your services are no longer needed in Chateau Parish,” she said coolly, but coldly. “Now, give me everything you’ve got in that Suburban pertaining to this investigation. We’re relieving you of your investigative duties in this matter.”
“You can’t do this!” he shouted, and then spun on his heel. “I’m calling my captain!”
Mallory glanced over her shoulder toward Susan and the sheriff. She lifted her left thumb. “We’re good to go on the warrant,” she said. “As soon as this idiot talks to his captain, I’ll take everything he has on the case and meet y’all inside.”
“And tell him if I see him in my parish again,” Sheriff Turner said, “it had better be on personal business and not in his capacity as a detective.”
CHAPTER 48
Near Empyrean Parish Detention Center
Shade Rankin was two blocks from the detention center when he heard the call over his police radio. It was a little after five-thirty and he had already been heading to the jail to check on the detective who had been arrested yesterday, so he pushed the accelerator to the floor and continued forward, but at a much higher rate of speed.
“I repeat; I need all available units to proceed to the detention center ASAP,” the dispatcher called again over the radio. “329 in progress!”
Code 329 meant that a riot was in progress, and Shade knew it was no coincidence—the inmates had found out that Clint Wolf was a cop.
Just as Shade whisked through the gate that led to the large jail parking lot, he heard Captain Ruben Hayes—the leader of the SWAT team—come over the radio to say he was en route.
“To all responding units,” said Hayes in his gruff voice, “be advised that all COs are safe and the dorm is secure. Stand down until I arrive.”
Without a second thought, Shade snatched up his radio. “Negative EP-10,” he said firmly, calling the captain by his radio handle. “We have a Code Red in progress.”
Code Red meant that an officer needed assistance, and Shade figured it would prompt the first responding officers to immediately make entry and rescue the officer in trouble. However, Hayes came back on the radio and again told everyone to stand down.
“All COs are safe and the dorm is secure.” This time when Hayes spoke, there was a threatening ring to his voice. “No one is to make entry until I go ninety-seven.”
Shade shook his head as he jumped from his truck and sprinted toward the employee entrance near the sally port. If they waited for Hayes to arrive before they entered the dorm, it would be too late for Detective Wolf. Hell, it might already be too late for him, but entry had to be made as soon as possible.
Shade stabbed at the call button with his index finger. “Come on, open up! It’s Shade!”
The gate buzzed and Shade jerked it open. He made sure to slow down enough to pull it shut, and then he pushed his way through the next four prison doors until he was standing in the control room. There were eight COs staring up at the bank of monitors mounted to the wall. Shade followed their gaze and his heart sank when he found the corner of the room where Clint had taken up a bunk. There were four prisoners on the ground, and two prisoners on their feet. The two on their feet were kicking and punching one of the inmates lying on the ground, and that inmate appeared to be Clint Wolf.
“Open the door to the dorm,” Shade shouted, heading for the exit to the control room. “I’m going in.”
“We can’t,” said the shift lieutenant. “Captain Hayes said we’re not supposed to go in until he gets—”
“There’s a cop in there and he needs our help,” Shade yelled. “Now open the damn door so I can go help him!”
Three of the COs stepped forward, and one of them handed Shade an expandable baton. “We’re going in with you.”
“No, y’all are not going in!” bellowed the lieutenant. “And that’s a direct order! Anyone who enters that dorm before Captain Hayes arrives is fired!”
The three deputies hesitated, and Shade knew he was on his own. They were all married with children and they needed their jobs, so he didn’t really blame them. He licked his lips and glanced at the override key hanging from one of the CO’s belt. He knew he would be in trouble if he snatched the keys and made entry into the dorm, but he did it anyway.
“Wait!” called the CO whose key he’d stolen. “Don’t do it! They’ll fire you!”
Shade broke from the control room and raced down the corridor. He stopped at the first door he encountered, turned the key in the lock, and pushed through to the next door. The doors were heavy and the hinges were stiff, so it slowed him down considerably, but he finally reached the door to the dorm. Once that one was open, he slipped inside, tossed the keys into the corridor, and then pushed the door shut behind him. He swallowed hard when he heard the locking mechanism fall into place. This was it—it was him against the entire dorm full of inmates. He had no clue how this was going to turn out, and there was no turning back, because he was locked inside with them.
The first few prisoners he encountered backed off when they saw the look in his eyes and the way he held the straight baton in his right hand. The next man wasn’t so lucky. He sneered and raised a broom handle in both hands when he saw Shade. He was just starting to bring the handle down when Shade sidestepped and swung the baton in a short and wicked arc. It connected with the man’s jaw and he dropped to a heap, blood oozing from his face long before he hit the ground.
Shade knew he was one man against a few dozen, but they apparently didn’t know he was alone. When the prisoner hit the ground with a broken jaw, the others inmates nearest him scattered like roaches when the lights come on. This gave Shade a direct line of sight to Clint and the men beating him. His heart fell when he realized Clint’s eyes were closed and he wasn’t reacting to the kicks and punches that were raining down on him. Three other prisoners had joined in on the attack and they were all chanting, “Kill the pig! Kill the pig!”
Without issuing a warning or saying a word, Shade waded into the fray, swin
ging the baton like he was batting wasps out of the air. He hit the nearest prisoner across his outstretched arm and heard the elbow snap. The man screamed in pain. Before he could react, Shade punched him in the throat with his left fist. Shade swiftly turned his attention to a prisoner who had pulled back his right foot to kick Clint in the head. He shot a roundhouse kick to the prisoner’s left knee, and the leg folded in half in the wrong direction, spilling that prisoner sideways into another inmate.
Shade stepped over an unconscious prisoner and recognized it to be Ethan Bruce. He smiled to himself as he realized that Clint had gotten three of them before they had gotten him, and that was impressive.
Shade kicked the next prisoner in the groin. When the man bent forward, Shade dropped the baton across his collarbone and he collapsed with a muffled grunt.
“Get him!” someone shouted from somewhere behind Shade. “Get that son of a bitch with the stick!”
Shade spun around just in time to see a dozen inmates rushing toward him, all wielding some kind of weapon that they’d fashioned from items scattered around the jail. Shade shot a side kick to the groin of a prisoner who moved in from his right. The prisoner folded over and Shade roughly pushed him aside, after which he quickly took up a position between Clint and the wave of oncoming prisoners. The angry men slowed when Shade dropped into a fighting stance, the baton poised against his right bicep and his left fist up and ready to strike out like a cobra. They began forming a cautious half circle around him and Clint. They stared at each other, wondering who would move in first.
Shade shot a quick glance behind him when he heard a groan from the floor. Clint was coming around, and he looked pissed. Leaning backward slightly, but keeping his eyes on the approaching prisoners, Shade offered his hand. Clint shook his head and stood groggily to his feet. There was a weighted sock in one hand and his other fist was balled up and bloody.
“Let’s do this!” Clint said as he moved beside Shade to face their attackers. Without hesitating, Shade swung his baton at the nearest prisoner, and Clint smashed another one upside the head with the weighted sock. Seeing two of their comrades instantly drop to the ground, a few of the other prisoners broke rank and fled. Out of the corner of his eye, Shade could see Clint punching, kicking, and swinging the sock with a fury. Between the two of them, they were able to beat back the undisciplined and cowardly group of prisoners in front of them.
While it might have seemed like minutes to an untrained person, Shade knew the furious fighting had only gone on for several seconds when the doors to the dorm suddenly burst open and a wave of dark blue shirts flooded the room. There were at least twenty officers in riot gear and they easily took control of the unruly prisoners.
Shade turned to look at Clint, who swayed on his feet. The detective’s left eye was swollen shut, his lips were busted, his nose appeared broken, and his uniform was covered in blood from at least half a dozen stab wounds in his left arm and torso. Shade moved in to steady Clint and he quickly scanned the stab wounds. They appeared to be superficial, but Shade knew one or more of the makeshift knives could’ve hit an internal organ. Clint needed medical attention, and he needed it now.
“Can you walk?” Shade asked. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
“I’m okay.” Clint wiped some blood from his face with the front of his prison jumpsuit and nodded. “I’ve been through worse.”
One of the riot deputies rushed forward, his sights set on Clint, but Shade stepped between them.
“Stand down,” Shade said forcefully. “He’s one of us. This is Detective Clint Wolf from Mechant Loup. He needs a medic right away.”
CHAPTER 49
Doug Cagle’s house
With search warrant in hand, Susan and Mallory tore Doug Cagle’s house apart, while Amy and Melvin processed the crime scene. They searched for more than an hour, but they didn’t find any iPads at all. They did, however, find the Remember the Fallen wristband in the kitchen garbage can. It was near the top of the bag, which indicated it had been discarded recently. Susan thought that was odd, because—according to Mallory—there was no way for Doug to know that Kim had identified such a wristband, so why would he throw his away? Did he maybe think Kim’s DNA had gotten on it when she had tugged at his wrist? Or had someone warned him about it? She wished she knew the answer.
They had also found Doug’s work cell phone, but his personal phone was missing. On the work phone, he had received three missed calls from the brother of the victim in the Boudreaux murder case. One was at eight in the morning, another was at nine-thirty, and the last was at noon. At a quarter after one, he’d texted his wife to say he’d worked all night and was just getting up. When there was no response within fifteen minutes, he’d texted again to say he was getting a promotion at work and that it would come with a big raise. Five minutes after that, he asked if she was ready to come home, but—as of the moment they found the phone—he still hadn’t received a response to any of the messages.
Susan had asked Mallory about the promotion, but she said she knew nothing about it.
“We had a round of recent promotions at the office, but Doug wasn’t included.” She paused and scoffed. “Even if he did get promoted, it wouldn’t come with a big raise. The most he could expect is two grand per year, which is nice, but not big by any stretch.”
That one text message had given Susan serious pause. Why would a man kill himself if he was on the cusp of receiving a promotion and a big raise? Did it have something to do with his wife ignoring his messages? Susan didn’t know the answer, but she was sure Clint would have some thoughts on the subject.
Now, as they neared the end of the search, Susan left Mallory in the master bedroom and moved toward the master bath. She was about to start searching the towel closet when she heard Amy call her name from the kitchen.
“I’ll toss it,” Mallory offered, trading places with Susan in the bathroom. “I doubt we’ll find anything anyway.”
Susan nodded and made her way through the modest house until she reached the kitchen. Amy’s blonde hair was twisted up into a knot over her head and there was a curious expression on her face. She indicated Doug’s body with a nod of her head.
“Does anything look odd to you?” she asked.
Susan studied Doug’s body. Something had been bothering her since she’d first entered the room, but she hadn’t been able to put her finger on it. Now, though, she furrowed her brow and moved closer to the dead detective.
“Are you done processing the body?” she asked, taking a pair of gloves from Amy’s evidence kit.
Amy nodded. “We’re all done.”
Susan reached for Doug’s arm and gave it a push. It moved, so rigor mortis wasn’t fixed yet, which meant he had died well within the last eight hours. This was consistent with his one o’clock text message stating he had just awakened. It was apparent he had eaten a late breakfast, because if he had eaten at eight or nine this morning and had been killed at that time, his arms would be stiff by now and the milk in his bowl would be sour.
Susan squatted beside Doug and tugged gently on his clenched right fist. She frowned when his fingers didn’t budge. She tugged harder, but she couldn’t unfold his fingers. She moved to his left hand, tugged on those fingers, and met with the same results.
“Cadaveric spasm,” she said, standing slowly to her feet. She shook her head in wonderment. While the sudden stiffening of the hands during a violent death didn’t occur in all cases, she had seen it before and she had heard Clint talk about it. If Doug shot himself and his hands stiffened at the time of death, he would still be holding that pistol. She looked up at Amy. “Doug didn’t kill himself.”
Amy stabbed an index finger in Susan’s direction. “Bingo! As soon as he was shot, his body suffered a cadaveric spasm. If he would’ve shot himself, his hand would still be clenching the pistol and we’d have to pry it out of his hand. There’s no way he shot himself in the—”
“The bathroom’s clean,”
Mallory said, wading into the middle of the conversation. She paused and glanced from Amy to Susan to Melvin, and then back to Susan. “What’d I miss?”
“Doug didn’t kill himself,” Susan said. “He was murdered.”
Mallory looked confused. “But…how? Who? He was shot pointblank in the head with his own gun. There’s no way he’d let someone do that to him.”
“We’ll find out for sure if he was shot with his own gun when we get ballistics done,” Susan explained, “but he definitely didn’t kill himself.”
Susan handed Mallory some latex gloves and told her to check his arms and fingers for rigidity. Mallory did so and then shook her head, seemingly more confused than earlier.
“This doesn’t make sense.” She slowly removed the latex gloves from her hands and dropped them in a bag that Amy had set out for their trash. “If Doug attacked Kim—which he obviously did—then he must’ve killed Ralph, but what would his motive be? And if he did commit those crimes but didn’t commit suicide, then who on earth killed him? Did he have an accomplice who turned on him?”
“Whoever it was, he trusted them,” Susan said, indicating the contact wound to Doug’s forehead. “They were able to put a gun right to his head and pull the trigger before he could even stand up. He dropped his spoon, so he noticed something wasn’t right, but it was too late. He didn’t even leave his chair.”
“Yeah, and I knew he wouldn’t kill himself without finishing that cereal,” Melvin said with a knowing nod. “No one would.”
CHAPTER 50
Susan was wondering how this new wrinkle would factor into Bill Hedd’s decision to release Clint. Would it help, would it hurt, or would it have no influence at all on the outgoing DA?