Not One of Us

by Debbie Herbert

  “Who is this man? A neighbor of theirs?”

  “Yes. He’s my Uncle Buddy’s business partner at Enigma Expeditions and lives in a cabin near the old Cormier home.”

  “Buddy Munford? He’s a county commissioner, right?”

  “Right.” Everyone seemed to either know Uncle Buddy or have heard of him.

  “I’ll check that out. Thank you. If you think of anything else—anything at all—you call me.”

  Still, Tegan didn’t rise to leave. She rocked in the chair, her gaze off in the distance, as though debating something in her mind. Finally, she faced me.

  “What I’m telling you needs to be kept between us. Because of the connection between the cases, I wanted you to know we’re taking the threat against you very seriously. We’ll continue to have sporadic drive-bys of your house. Be careful, Ms. Trahern.”

  I looked through the front window where Zach and Mimi sat side by side. Zach’s head rested against Mimi’s shoulder, and she absently patted his hand as they watched their movie.

  “I will,” I promised. “I can’t let anything happen to me or my family.”

  Tegan followed my gaze. “You have a lot of responsibility for someone so young.”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “You must care about them a great deal.”

  “I do.” I continued staring at the intimate tableau—my little brother who depended on me and the woman who helped raise us after the death of our mother. “Mom died of cancer when I was in high school,” I explained. “Near the end, when it was obvious she wasn’t going to make it . . .” The back of my throat burned, and I swallowed hard before continuing. “Mom asked me to always look out for them.”

  “A deathbed promise,” Tegan said softly. “The teenage years are tough even without the loss of a parent.”

  I glanced at her curiously. “I take it that high school was no picnic for you either.”

  “Nothing that a year of counseling didn’t help fix.”

  I started to grin, then realized she wasn’t joking. “I-I’m sorry.”

  She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t talk about it much. We all have our problems, and you’ve had more than your fair share. Not only with your mom’s death, but your boyfriend up and disappeared into thin air. Must have been tough.”

  “It was. At least I had Mimi. And in his own way, Zach’s a comfort. He has this calm, Zen-like quality most of the time. Unless you change his routine—then all hell breaks loose.” I smiled thinly. “They’re all I have left. The thought of them being in danger makes me crazy.”

  She nodded slowly. “I’m a single mother of two children. Twins. If anything happened to them, well . . . they’re my whole life.”

  We smiled at each other in understanding.

  Blackwell stood. “Like I told you several days ago, leave the detective work to us. We’ll get this figured out. I also want you to know I’m doing my best to discover what happened to the Cormiers. I’m no psychologist, but I believe closure on that case would be helpful for you.”

  “Thank you, Deputy.” I also rose, my legs shaky.

  “Call me Tegan,” she said softly. “You still got my card?”

  “Maybe you should give me another one.”

  Dutifully, she plucked one from her uniform shirt pocket. “We’ll stay in touch. Call me if you have any concerns, Ms. Trahern.”

  “Jori,” I corrected. “And I will.”

  She extended her hand, and I shook it. Her smile was not unkind. “Anytime at all, you hear?”

  I watched her saunter from the porch. “Wait,” I called out as she reached the bottom step. “Did you ever get closure for what happened to you in high school?”

  Tegan slowly turned to face me, an odd expression flickering across her eyes. “One hundred percent closure. Justice was served quickly. Permanently. The past can never harm me again.”

  What an odd choice of words. I could do with a little justice myself. To arrest whoever sent those threats and to punish whoever had harmed Deacon and his family.

  I waved at Tegan as she drove off. It felt good to have someone in my corner.

  Chapter 15

  TEGAN

  “We finally got clearance to hire an undercover narcotics agent,” Oliver told me by way of greeting. “No thanks to Mayor Rembert. Cheap bastard fought me every step of the way. Had to go over his head to the state guys.”

  I dropped into the chair across from his desk, fatigued from my late-night reading of the Cormier file. “Hank’s not going to be happy about that,” I observed.

  “At this point, I don’t really give a damn about Hank Rembert’s feelings.”

  “How did you justify hiring an agent with the state folks?” I asked, surprised at the news. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled we’re getting one, but it’s not like we have a clear drug connection with the Strickland murder. I mean, sure, we found drugs at the crime scene and Raymond used to be a small-time dealer in his youth, but other than that, there’s nothing concrete.”

  Oliver leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and regarded me in an odd, assessing manner. He nodded, as though reaching a decision. “Shut the door,” he ordered.

  I hurried to do his bidding and then returned to my seat. “What’s up?”

  “We’re going to be working closely together, and I’ve grown to trust you. If we’re going to crack this murder case, I need you to be aware of what’s going on behind the scenes.” He leaned forward, drumming his fingers on the battered desk.

  “You can trust me,” I assured him.

  “It’s no coincidence I came here to fill a vacancy,” he continued. “State and federal agents have been suspicious for some time about the integrity of Bayou Enigma’s police force. They wanted someone from outside the area—but not too far—to step in and observe operations.”

  This was news to me—no tiny feat in a town as small as ours. “You mean, they think our local cops are dirty?” Another shocking realization hit. “Do they think the sheriff’s office is dirty too?”

  He didn’t respond, but his silence was answer enough.

  “Damn,” I muttered. “So they’re suspicious our town has a flourishing drug trade and we’re all in on it?” An absurd outrage coursed through me. “Enigma’s not like that.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Oliver asked.

  He was right. Rural areas were no stranger to corruption. I thought of my coworkers. They were annoying, but I found it hard to believe they were involved in anything nefarious. But as for Dempsey and Granger—yeah, I could see that. Though, in all fairness, perhaps it was my own dislike of that duo that colored my perception.

  “What kind of proof do you have?” I asked.

  “Can’t reveal everything to you, except on a need-to-know basis. What I can say is that we’ve got a local informant who’s proven fairly reliable. This person has furnished names, and we’re hoping to make several major arrests over the next few weeks. With the recent murder, it became imperative to get to the bottom of the matter as quickly as possible.”

  I sat in silence several moments, absorbing this new information. “Who is this agent and when does he start?” I finally asked.

  “Name’s Carter Holt, and he’s already started.”

  “But you said—”

  He grinned. “I was pretty confident his pay would be approved. Holt started work yesterday and is already starting to make inroads.”

  “That quick?”

  “I was informed he was the best. Has a real knack for infiltrating rings. And with the goods our informant provided, I’m hopeful we’ll have answers soon.”

  “Great. I have some news too,” I began hesitantly. “I found a connection between Strickland and Louis Cormier.”

  Oliver’s face drew into a scowl.

  “I’m reading the files on my own time at home,” I assured him. I quickly filled him in.

  “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “Makes me wonder about th
e rumors you told me about, that Louis Cormier trafficked in drugs, same as Strickland.”

  “Could be he wanted Cormier to represent him in a new trial. There’s no telling. But I thought it interesting that the two had a scheduled meeting.”

  Oliver scratched his head. “Definitely. It was such a long time ago, but I’ll call George Blankenship. He was the warden at Fountain for decades and a friend of my father’s. I’ll ask if he remembers Strickland and any of his known associates in prison. If we’re lucky—extremely lucky—someone will remember why Strickland contacted Cormier.”

  Thank goodness for the good ole boys’ network. “Perfect. I’ll get back to work on my reports.”

  He waved me off, already punching out numbers on his cell phone. When I returned to the office, Sinclair grinned when I walked by.

  “Looking kinda puny today, Blackwell. Case getting to you?”

  “Shut up, jerk wad,” I replied good-naturedly, walking to my desk.

  Haywood felt the need to chime in. “Need any help yet, rookie?”

  I ignored him and raised a brow at Mullins. “You ready to pile on, too, big guy?”

  “Nah.” He laughed. “When you’re ready for my superior expertise, which should be soon, I’ll be right here. Waiting.”

  I snorted, pulling up a screen on my computer. “The day I—”

  Oliver rushed into the office, as fast as I’d ever seen him move. His features were lit with excitement.

  “Just got a call from Dempsey. A fisherman called the station, reporting a human skull found in Black Bottom Creek. Let’s go.”

  I grabbed my sunglasses and raced to the door.

  “Some people get all the luck,” Mullins complained under his breath as I went by, clearly disappointed not to be part of the breaking action. I rolled my eyes at him.

  Oliver was already starting down the stairs at the end of the hall, and I hurried to catch up. “Is the skull a child or adult?” I asked, flying down the stairs.

  “Don’t know yet. Forensics has been called. They might be there already.”

  By the time we got to the cruiser, Oliver was sweating and huffing. “Getting old and out of shape,” he complained as he backed out of the parking lot.

  As we motored through town and then headed south on a county road, I wondered if the skull belonged to one of the Cormiers.

  “By the way, I spoke to the former warden at Fountain before I got the news,” Oliver said. “No dice on finding any records that old. He told me that visitor logs weren’t kept over a year.”

  “Bummer.” I’d been expecting that news but was still disappointed.

  “Still an interesting find,” Oliver noted as we rounded a bend.

  “You’ll have to tell me exactly where this place is,” he warned. “Been a long time since I’ve been fishing this way.”

  “Another mile and a half, you’ll turn right on Turnipseed Road.”

  We soon came up on it, and Oliver turned onto the dirt road, stirring up dry red dirt that swirled around us.

  “Another fifty yards and—”

  “I see the cop cars up ahead. County coroner and forensics people already here too.”

  We pulled up next to a car and scrambled out of our vehicle. I had to fight my way through a ring of several people before I saw it.

  A human skull with empty eye socket cavities and a mouthful of teeth.

  A stark, ominous artifact dredged from the stygian waters. An older man dressed in camo and khaki stood off to the side with his fishing pole still in hand, looking unsettled. I could imagine his horror as he thought he had a bite, only to pull up his line and discover grisly human remains. Dempsey and another cop were still questioning him, writing notes in their cell phones.

  Cameras flashed as everyone stared at the ground. One of the forensics team members knelt on one knee and closely examined the skull. I recognized many of the same faces I’d seen last week at the Strickland home.

  The sight of the skull disconcerted me more than the fresh corpse of Raymond Strickland. It was so . . . final. A total absence of tissue and flesh. The home of our brain, the part of us we used to think and feel and act. That defined our very being. The bony cavity was empty now, with hollow eye sockets, no nose, and protruding teeth from a squared jawbone. A flash of something glimmered on the ground.

  “Gold cap on the left molar tooth,” one of the techs murmured. “Pronounced jawbone,” another said. “Most likely male.”

  More cars arrived at the scene. Four men emerged from a van and began donning black wet suits. Where there was one bone, more might follow.

  How many bones? How many people? Had they finally found the remains of the Cormier family?

  I glanced at Oliver. “The Cormiers?” I whispered.

  “Maybe. If not, we might have a whole new mystery to solve on top of everything else.”

  “Who has the quickest access to the dental records?”

  “Checking it out now,” he assured me. “Already sent a text.”

  The divers entered the shallow water, a small creek banked by reeds on either side. If one had to dive in the swamp, spring would be your best choice. The mosquitoes and other insects were horrid in the summer, and in the winter, though not frozen, the water would be chilly.

  “Whatever they’re paying those men, they’re earning every cent,” I said softly for Oliver’s ears only.

  “Amen,” he agreed.

  We watched in silence over the next couple of hours as the divers rounded up their grisly collection and handed it over to the forensics experts—a foot with a healed broken big toe, a long femur, a hand, a broad pelvis bone that the techs examined. “Definitely female,” they concurred after measuring the distance between the ischium bones—an opening that was large and oval in shape. Other pieces of the laid-out bones were too fragmented for me to recognize where they’d once been located in the body.

  Lastly, the divers extracted three large cement blocks and placed them upon the shore.

  “Bodies must have been weighted down with them,” Oliver stated grimly.

  Three.

  Louis, Clotille, and Deacon? I knew my boss was wondering the same. His phone pinged, and he opened a text. A moment later he stuffed the phone back in his pocket. “Dental records of Louis Cormier confirm he had a gold cap on his back left molar.”

  It was the Cormiers all right. That broad pelvis bone must have belonged to Clotille. On a whim, I texted Jori Trahern.

  Deacon ever have a foot injury that you know of?

  She answered almost immediately. Broken right big toe. Soccer injury. How did you guess???

  Later, I answered her, shutting off my phone. I’d call her as soon as I could and give her a heads-up before word of the grisly discovery spread around the bayou.

  The spread of nearly a dozen skeletal parts was laid out upon a large black plastic tarp. The forensics people tagged each one with the date, time, and a brief description of the bone. A clinical end to the decades-old mystery of whether or not they’d ever left town. I hoped the remains would soon be given a proper burial and a memorial given for the Cormiers. The town had been so quick to judge and think unkindly of this family.

  Had the killer, or killers, hoped a nest of gators would swallow up the bones? Most likely, the large reptiles had feasted on their flesh. Not all the bones had been recovered. Alligators were capable of digesting bone, muscle, and cartilage, but there was no guarantee they’d conveniently swallow up all the remains left for them by the murderer. I thanked heaven that the reptiles had left us a few scraps.

  At last, the work was completed, and the forensics crew and dive team packed up to leave.

  “How long do you think it will take for official confirmation these bones belonged to the Cormiers?” I asked Oliver.

  “I’d guess later this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning. There’ll be a priority placed on identifying them.”

  The reeds on the creek embankment nearest us had been crushed by di
vers and techs walking along the shore. But the black murky water appeared the same as always, offering no hint that beneath its surface it had contained a dark secret for over a decade. A grisly mass grave that held the key to what had happened to a missing family thirteen years earlier.

  The solemnity of the scene stayed with me long after Oliver and I had left. Even through the rest of the busy day, the tragedy weighed heavy in the back of my mind.

  As soon as I was alone, I made the phone call I dreaded. Jori picked up at once, her voice breathless—tense. “What’s happened?” she asked. Before I could answer, she rushed on with another question. “You found Deacon’s body, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. The entire family, most likely.”

  A weighted silence fell between us. I breathed in her pain, her loss. Jori didn’t care about the particulars; all that mattered was that whatever small hope she’d carried—perhaps even so small she hadn’t even realized it existed—had now been forever extinguished. A tiny match flame in the darkness smothered.

  I filled her in and then disconnected the call, hoping it would be a long, long time before I was the deliverer of bad news again.

  Chapter 16

  April 1991

  I watched as the taillights of the red Mustang disappeared into the night. From afar, I’d seen the girl get in his car and less than fifteen minutes later observed Jackson exit the back and climb into the driver’s seat. I hadn’t expected him to leave the party with the girl. Maybe tonight wouldn’t provide the right opportunity.

  But I bided my time. The evening was early, and chances were he’d reappear. After all, his connection hadn’t arrived yet. Only minutes later Raymond Strickland pulled into the cotton field that doubled as an impromptu parking lot for the dozens of partygoers crowded inside the old barn. Ray sat on the back hood of his desperately ugly Pontiac sedan, which was painted olive and covered with rust patches. The tip of his cigarette glowed in the darkness. I figured he was waiting for Jackson, same as I was. We were both rewarded when Jackson finally returned. Ray and Jackson stood outside by the Pontiac, talking.