by B J Bourg
“We did. We interrogated him, checked his phone, searched the camp where he was staying, and so on, but he’s clean.”
“Clean?” Laura’s voice turned shrill. “He did it, detective! He’s the one. It all makes sense. You need to pick him up again. You need to make him talk.”
“He did talk, and we were able to verify everything he told us.” I paused and studied her eyes. She wasn’t buying it. “Look, Mrs. Murdock, I’m confident it’s not him. If it were, he’d already be locked up.”
“Have you ever heard of a woman’s intuition?”
I nodded slowly.
“Well, I got this feeling yesterday morning when I left for work that something bad would happen. And something bad did happen—it was the worst day of my life.” She stood a little taller. “And now, I’ve got that same feeling that Michael Odom took Rose. I know I’m right, detective. I just know it.”
I wanted to explain to her that I couldn’t arrest someone based on intuition, that I needed evidence, but I knew it wouldn’t help the situation one bit. I certainly didn’t want to piss her off or cause her more grief than she was already suffering through.
“Okay, ma’am, I’ll take another look at him. As soon as I follow up on this lead, I’ll pull him in again and interrogate him some more.”
That seemed to satisfy her. She turned abruptly and walked toward the house, so I figured that was my cue to leave.
When I reached my SUV, I set my plate of food on the back passenger floorboard and sped away to the police department. Although it wasn’t quite seven yet, the streets in town were bare and the restaurants and bars empty. True to their nature, most of the townspeople were assisting in the search for Rose. Those who weren’t well enough to walk the back country and swamps or cook for the volunteers were spending their time praying and lighting candles along the highway for Rose. One elderly woman had explained to me earlier in the day that the candles were being placed there to help Rose find her way home. I was sure hoping it would help.
CHAPTER 22
I carried my food inside with me and found the compact disc exactly where Melvin said he had left it. I then used Melvin’s computer to access the surveillance videos. There were only three different files from three locations, and it was easy to figure out where the homes were located based on the landmarks in the area. I picked the files from a home that was located south of Rose Murdock’s house.
I continued eating my food while I scrolled through the footage. I hadn’t realized anyone walked up until I heard the voice of Beth Gandy, one of our dispatchers, saying that something smelled good. Beth usually worked weekends, but she was filling in for Lindsey, who had worked long hours since Rose first went missing.
“I can call someone to bring you a plate of food,” I offered, slowing down the video when the second bus of the morning came into view. I suddenly sat up straight in the chair and hit the pause button. “Wait a minute!”
“What is it?” Beth asked. “What do you see?”
Without saying a word, I hurried outside to my Tahoe and retrieved the notepad I’d been using for Rose’s case. When I’d run back up the stairs and pushed through the door, I returned to Melvin’s office and tossed the pad on the desk. “I don’t recognize the number on that bus.”
Beth leaned over my shoulder and watched as I thumbed through my notes. When I found the page containing my interview with Emily, I stabbed at the page. “Emily drives bus fifty-seven,” I said, flipping to the next page. “And Mrs. Beatrice drives bus twenty-three. So who”—I pointed to the computer screen—“drives bus ninety-nine?”
Beth stared blankly at me, waiting for my answer. “Well, who?” she finally asked when I didn’t say anything. “Who is the driver?”
“That’s what I have to figure out. Can you walk with me?” She nodded and followed me into the dispatcher’s office. I stared at the wall over her work station. There were pages and pages of information taped up there. Some were laminated, some were not. Some looked recently placed, while others appeared older than either of us. “Don’t we have a list of schools in the parish and the contact information for the principals?”
Beth nodded and, without hesitation, plucked a single page from the cluttered wall. This one was laminated and was new. “This is the one you want. We had to update it after the murder and—well, never mind.” She lowered her eyes, knowing I didn’t like talking about that case. She mumbled an apology.
“It’s okay.” I took the list and ran my finger down the names of principals, stopping when I reached Stewart Finane. He was the principal for Attakapas High School. I showed the name to Beth. “Does Finane still run Attakapas High?”
Attakapas High was located in Central Chateau and it was where all the Mechant Loup kids went once they left the middle school.
She lifted a shoulder. “How should I know? I don’t have any kids that age—”
She clamped her mouth shut, and it was my turn to mumble an apology. She dabbed at a tear that had slid down her face. “It never gets any easier.”
I frowned and nodded, thinking back to my daughter, Abigail. Had she still been alive, she would’ve turned eleven in October. A tear formed in my own eye as I tried to imagine what she would look like today. Would she look more like Michele or me? Would her hair be long or would she prefer it short? Try as I might, I couldn’t imagine her face. My mind just kept flashing back to the way she was in those last moments. I began to feel desperate, panicked even. I stood abruptly. “I need to go the bathroom.”
Beth’s face was filled with concern as she watched me hurry out of the room. I dipped into the men’s room and dug for my wallet. With hands that shook, I pulled out the picture of Abigail that I kept in front of my driver’s license. Relief flooded over me as I was able to see her cheerful face again—could see what she looked like.
As I leaned against the wall staring at my daughter, my grief was slowly replaced by a deep and seething anger that usually lay dormant. Someone was trying to do to Ronnie and Laura Murdock what the Parker brothers had done to me—deprive them of their precious little girl. I pushed off of the wall. If I had my way, the evil bastards responsible for her disappearance would not succeed.
I checked the mirror to make sure my eyes weren’t red, and then returned to the radio room. Beth was on the phone trying to give directions to someone on the other end of the line. She cupped a hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s Channel 8 news from out of New Orleans. Should I tell them to ask for you or Susan?”
“Susan,” I said quickly, snatching the phone list from the desktop. “I’ll be busy.”
I hurried back to Melvin’s office and called Stewart Finane. When he answered, I apologized for calling so late.
“It’s no problem, Detective Wolf,” he said. “I don’t go to bed until eight anyways.”
I glanced at the lower right-hand corner of Melvin’s computer screen. It was seven-forty-three.
“Well, I’d better get talking so I don’t interrupt your sleep.” Although he couldn’t see me, I pointed to the bus that was displayed on the screen. “I was wondering if you know who drives bus ninety-nine.”
“Ninety-nine?” There was a pause and I could hear Stewart humming, as though in thought. “I don’t have my list in front of me, and someone’s always calling in sick or broken down, so it’s really hard for me to say. You know, it’s hard enough for me to keep track of the names of the drivers, much less what bus number they’re driving.”
“Well”—I referred to my notes from this morning—“I spoke to Emily, who picks up the middle school kids, and Mrs. Beatrice, who was picking up high school kids. She said she was filling in for Katrina Bradberry, who had called in sick.”
“That’s true, Katrina did call in sick.” Stewart grunted. “I swear, it never fails, I always have at least half a dozen employees who call in sick after the Christmas break. It’s as though they think two weeks of paid leave isn’t enough.”
I nodded idly, not really payi
ng attention to his rant as he continued to suggest enacting laws that would give school administrators the authority to view their medical records to determine whether or not they were really sick.
“They don’t realize they’re having a negative impact on the children we are trying to educate, and they’re—”
“I don’t mean to cut you off, but who would know the name of the driver?”
“Um, my secretary, Donna—she knows everything.”
“Do you have her number?”
“Of course.”
“Can I have it?”
“I would feel more comfortable giving her your number and asking her to call you back.”
“Whatever works for you,” I said. “Just please impress upon her the importance of calling me back right away. It’s very important.”
“This is about Rose Murdock, isn’t it?”
“It is—why? Do you know something that might be helpful?”
“Like I told Chief Wilson”—although Susan and I were now married, most people couldn’t stop calling her Chief Wilson—“Rose was a good kid. I don’t know that she’s ever come to the office for anything other than checking in or out. If we had more students like her, my job would be so easy that I could put the school on automatic pilot and take a nap.”
“Well, please tell Donna to call me back right away. This might help.”
I walked to the radio room and paced back and forth while waiting for Donna to call me back.
After about five minutes, Beth shot a thumb toward her computers. “If you like, I can run her name and get you the number. To hell with Stewart—”
She stopped talking when my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number. “Hello, this is Clint.”
“Hey, Detective Wolf, my principal told me to call you. He said it had something to do with bus ninety-nine.”
“Do you know who drives that bus?”
“Yeah, it belongs to Katrina Bradberry. Why?”
I grunted. “It was running yesterday morning, right around the time Rose Murdock went missing.”
“That’s impossible.” Donna sounded sure of herself. “I spoke to her on Monday morning when she called to say she couldn’t make her route, and she was sick as a dog. I told her it sounded like she needed to go to the hospital, but she told me she would try to ride it out. To be honest, I’m worried about her. I called to check on her Monday evening and again yesterday morning, but I couldn’t get through to her.”
That’s interesting, I thought. “Do you have her address?”
“She lives off of Old Blackbird Highway. Give me a minute and I’ll find the house number.”
I started pacing again as I waited for Donna, wondering what it could all mean. When Donna got back on the phone, she said Katrina Bradberry lived at 9046 Old Blackbird Highway. I don’t think I even told her goodbye as I ended the call and rushed out the door.
CHAPTER 23
I called Melvin as I drove like a man possessed, heading south along Main until it turned into Old Blackbird Highway. “Melvin, are you still in the boat?” I asked, my voice slightly elevated to be heard over the wind howling noisily outside. As the weatherwoman had predicted, the wind was blowing in from the north and the temperature was dropping drastically.
“No, I’m sitting at a table surrounded by beautiful old women eating the best jambalaya I’ve ever tasted.” I heard a woman chuckle in the background. “In fact, I’m about to kick Claire to the curb and take one of these ladies home. Claire could live to be a hundred and she’ll never cook as good—”
“I’m glad you found your second love and I hate to take you from all the action, but I’ve got a lead. I need you to meet me at 9046 Old Blackbird Highway—it’s down the road a ways from the Murdock’s place.”
I could almost feel Melvin sit up at attention. When he spoke, his voice was all business. “What do you have? What’s going on?”
“The third bus you saw—it might’ve picked up Rose Murdock.”
“But she never made it to school,” he said in protest, “so there’s no way a bus picked her up.”
“Unless that bus was being driven by the kidnapper.”
A long pause.
“You really think a bus driver kidnapped her?” Melvin asked slowly. “That sounds like a stretch.”
“Do I think it’s possible? Yes, no, maybe—hell, I don’t even know.” I tapped my brake pedal as I approached the Murdock home. Three men were walking along the right shoulder and I didn’t want to hit them. “All I know is the bus driver—a woman named Katrina Bradberry—was supposed to be home sick, but she was driving her normal bus route—the same route along which Rose was taken—and she passed it before the replacement bus got there. Either she took Rose or she saw something that might help, but I’m not taking any chances. I’ll need you, Gretchen, and Geronimo to come with me.”
“I’m already on the way.”
I saw Melvin sprinting from the open tent as I cruised by the Murdock property. He was hollering over his shoulder and pointing to let Susan know where he was going. I watched as Susan looked in my direction. She froze in place and her eyes followed my Tahoe. I thought she lifted a hand in a slight wave, but I couldn’t be sure.
“What on earth is eating at you?” I asked out loud, knowing no one could hear me. Once I’d passed the house, I put my foot back on the accelerator and sped off. I glanced in my rearview mirror and caught sight of Gretchen. She was just getting in her marked K-9 cruiser, while Melvin was already pulling onto the highway.
I gripped my steering wheel with sweaty palms, worried about what I might find at Katrina Bradberry’s house. If we did find Rose, would she be in good health? Would she be untouched? I shuddered as my mind went over all the possible scenarios, none of which were good.
“I’m right behind you,” Melvin called over the radio. “And Gretchen’s behind me.”
I double-clicked the button on my radio to acknowledge his traffic, then turned on my high beams so I could get a better view of the numbers on the mailboxes that blurred by. I cursed out loud when I came upon a string of old mailboxes with no numbers. “How on earth will an ambulance find you people if there’s an emergency at your house?”
Shaking my head, I slowed until I came upon a large brick mailbox. The number read 9021. I snatched up my radio mic. “We’re almost there. I’ll do a drive-by before we go in.”
“I’m pulling back.” Melvin’s headlights were immediately left behind as he slowed to a crawl and I continued forward. He pulled to the right shoulder of the road and Gretchen followed suit.
I buzzed my passenger window down so I could see more clearly. I shivered as the biting cold gushed into the cabin. After driving for another few hundred yards—thanks to the houses in this area being few and far between—I finally saw a flimsy mailbox with the number “9046” displayed in chipped reflector tape on the side facing me.
I slowed and tried to penetrate the darkness of the property with my eyes, but the house was set back far from the highway and it was hard to make out. There was a large shadow between the house and the highway and it appeared to be some sort of detached metal carport. In the fleeting glimpse of my drive-by, I could also see lots of shadows scattered about the front yard.
I pulled to the shoulder of the road once I’d driven out of sight around a curve. I got on my radio and told Melvin I was going on foot. “I want to scout the area before we move in,” I explained. “There’re a bunch of shadows in the yard that I want to identify.”
“Ten-four,” Melvin called. “We’ll creep up with our cars blacked out. Say the word and we’ll converge on the area.”
I turned my radio volume down and shoved it in my back pocket. Before setting off down the road, I dug in one of my gear bags and found a windbreaker to wear. The word “POLICE” was displayed in florescent yellow, so I turned the jacket inside out and pulled it on. I felt instantly better.
CHAPTER 24
I was still about a hundred ya
rds from Katrina Bradberry’s house when a large pond came into view. It was on the property south of the target home and the moon reflected off the water, causing a dull glow to light up the immediate area. I crossed to the opposite side of the highway and slipped into the deeper shadows, not wanting to be spotted from anyone inside the home. While most everyday people didn’t make it a practice to station look-outs around their property, a kidnapper certainly might. At this point, I didn’t know if Katrina Bradberry had snatched Rose or not. But if she had, she was probably feeling paranoid.
Once I’d cleared the pond, I crossed back to the western side of the highway and stopped to squat beside a utility pole. I waited there for a moment, looking and listening. Other than the cries of a nearby barred owl, everything was deathly quiet. I scanned the property one last time, trying to detect even the slightest hint of movement. I shivered when I looked over my shoulder and my eyes came to rest on the pond again—and it wasn’t from the cold, it was from an evil thought that had crept into my mind.
What if Rose is at the bottom of that water? I quickly dismissed the thought, telling myself we would find her alive and well. At least I was praying we would.
Taking a silent breath, I stepped out into the opening and slowly closed the distance between the utility pole and the nearest shadow in the yard. While I didn’t like staying in the open longer than I had to, I knew quick movements would give away my position faster than a slow, methodical pace.
Once I reached the large shadow, I dropped to my knees behind it, realizing it was an old car. I could make out some of the other shadows now, and I realized one was another old car, one was a large above-ground fuel storage tank with a pump, and one was a bulldozer. Using these items as cover, I slinked through the yard and stopped when I reached the carport. It was huge—at least a triple wide—but the only thing parked under it was a green tractor. There was no bus under the carport or anywhere in the front yard. Perhaps it was parked out back?