by BJ Bourg
Guilt, perhaps? “Where was Chrissy when you last saw her?”
The girl pointed toward the water. “She was walking with Otis to the jet ski. She said she would be right back, but I never saw her again. I think she started walking along the shore to see if Camille swam back to land.”
“What time was that?”
“It was almost dark.” She glanced upward, thoughtful. “Yeah, it was right before dark.”
“What’s Chrissy’s last name?”
“Graves.”
Hoping it wasn’t an omen, I thanked her and walked off. I grabbed the arm of a young man who walked by. “Hey, did you see what happened to Camille Rainey?”
“Who?” His breath reeked of an alcoholic beverage.
“The girl who went missing while swimming in the lake—did you see it happen?”
“Someone drowned?”
I let go of his arm and waved him off. I then moved through the crowd, asking random people if they’d witnessed anything. Some said they’d seen it happen, but most of them didn’t know Camille. When I asked why no one went for help, the most frequent answer was that they were waiting for daylight.
As I made my way through the crowd, I spotted Melvin along the shore. He was about a hundred feet from the Boston Whaler and he was studying the ground. I approached him.
“Drunk kids are useless.” I hooked my thumb in my waistband and indicated the ground. “Did you find something?”
He shined his flashlight away from where he stood, following the shoreline with the beam. “These bare footprints head in that direction. They’re small, probably a woman. I’m going to see where it leads.”
“I’m coming,” I said. “If I get one more whiff of alcohol, I’ll blow a .08 myself.”
Melvin and I followed the footprints in the mud along the shore for about five minutes, with Melvin leading the way. Melvin estimated the trail was about an hour old. The tracks didn’t go in a straight line, like someone with a destination in mind. Rather, they seemed to amble aimlessly, stopping by the water’s edge, continuing along the shore, going into the trees, and then returning to the shore. It was consistent with someone looking for something—or someone. We had travelled a few hundred yards from the party when Melvin stopped abruptly.
“What is it?” I asked, craning my neck to see around him. “What’d you find.”
“Oh, shit, Clint, this ain’t good.”
I moved beside him and stared toward where he pointed. I caught my breath. There were drag marks on the ground that disappeared into the dark and muddy waters of Le Diable Lake.
“Something dragged this girl into the water.”
CHAPTER 7
Melvin squatted near the drag marks and touched them gingerly with his fingers. He shined the light into the water and then in the opposite direction.
“She was close to the water when she was pulled in.” He stood, cocked his head to the side. “If she was squatting here, it’s possible an alligator could’ve viewed her as prey. She clawed at the mud with at least one hand, but there’s nothing to grab onto in this area, so she went in easy.”
I pointed to the ground. “There’s no blood.”
“She must’ve been taken real quick.”
“This doesn’t make sense.” I walked in a short circle, rubbing my face with both hands as I did so. “Why would an alligator be targeting humans? This is a target-rich environment. There’s no end to varmints in these waters. It’s like an animal buffet out there.”
Melvin was thoughtful. “This lake is home to some of the biggest alligators in southeast Louisiana, and there’re more alligators per square mile here than anywhere else. Only three alligator hunters have permits to harvest from this area, so the population will only continue to grow. It’s possible they’re getting low on grub.”
“But that doesn’t explain why they’re targeting humans.” I paused for a long moment, studying Melvin’s expression in the glow from his flashlight. “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
“Not at all.” He shook his shaved head, snapping out of his dreamlike stare. “I wasn’t thinking this is the work of Godzator.”
I shivered at the mention of the name. Godzator was the only alligator I could think of that had actually attacked a human since I’d been in this area, but even that attack hadn’t resulted in a fatality. Still, it had been a violent encounter and one that I would never forget.
Melvin pulled out his phone and took several pictures of the drag marks. If it were to rain—and that was almost a given during summertime in Louisiana—they would surely disappear. When he was done, he spoke again.
“I recorded the numbers on the boats and jet skis tied up near the party. I had to get in the shallow water a few times, and each time I did, two nice-size gators would start moving toward me.” He scowled. “People are definitely feeding the gators out here. In fact, I received a complaint just last month about some tourists doing just that in this lake. It was on the opposite bank, but it was here. She might’ve washed her hands in the water and the gators heard the splash. They might’ve approached her thinking she was food.”
Melvin had spent more time on the water than everyone at the police department combined. He had even taken my dogs on boat patrol recently while Susan and I were out of town working a case. If anyone knew these waters, it was him.
“Do people come to this spot often?” I asked.
“All of the time.” Melvin turned to head back to the party. “It’s become a real hotspot since the whole Big Foot incident. The locals don’t like it. These party goers are loud and dirty. You saw the trash back there.”
I nodded and shook my head. It was almost a losing battle. In order to write citations for littering, we would need evidence that a particular person committed the infraction. We couldn’t simply write everyone a ticket just because they were in the area. We needed to actually find the ones responsible for throwing the trash.
When we got back to the party, I walked to the Boston Whaler and climbed aboard. I called Amy on the radio and asked her to send Brennan Boudreaux’s airboats over so we could get the kids out of here. I then retrieved the mic and switched on the bullhorn.
“Attention, everyone, I’m Clint Wolf. I’m a detective with the Mechant Loup Police Department.” I paused to give them a chance to quiet down. The music had remained off—probably because they were too drunk to remember where they had placed the iPhone—but they were all still talking loudly. I decided to be more direct, and turned up the volume. “Shut up and listen!”
It was like a scratched record and full stop. Everyone turned and faced me.
“The party’s over,” I announced. Several people booed, but I shut them down quickly. “We’ve got a dead body in this boat. We also have one person presumed dead and another one who’s missing. Who wants to be next?”
They all exchanged dumbfounded looks. The gravity of the situation finally seemed to be taking hold.
“Most of you are drunk, so no one’s driving out of here. Gather up your personal belongings and get ready to leave. We’ve got two airboats coming to transport y’all to the boat launch. From there, we’ll make sleeping arrangements for y’all at a local motel. Any questions?”
Someone at the back of the crowd raised a hand, as though he was in a classroom. I pointed to him.
“Who died?”
“I can’t give out that information right now.”
He nodded, thinking it over. He then raised his hand again.
“Go ahead,” I said patiently.
“Who’s missing?”
“Camille Rainey and Chrissy Graves.”
“Hey, I know Chrissy,” shouted a boy from somewhere in the middle of the crowd. “She’s that dragon girl.”
“What?” I asked.
“She’s got a dragon tattoo on her leg and it’s holding an American flag. It’s cool—and different.”
Several more people in the crowd—mostly guys—acknowledged knowing her.
“Has anyone seen her since darkness fell?” I asked.
Silence from the crowd.
Behind me, I could hear the approaching roar of jet engines and knew the airboats were closing in. I again told the kids to gather up their personal belongings and prepare to board the airboats. This time, they began scrambling to follow that order. I had counted twenty-seven people, so we would have plenty of room to transport them back to land.
While still near the Boston Whaler, I called Susan again from the SAT phone and told her what was happening. I also asked if she could make arrangements for a coroner’s investigator to meet us at the boat landing.
“We need to get this body on ice,” I said. “It’s not getting any fresher.”
“What happened to him?”
“I can’t be sure. There are bite marks on his body but they appear post mortem.” I shook my head slowly as I watched the young adults who huddled a few feet away, looking to me and Melvin for guidance. “I just pray we find Camille and Chrissy in one piece.”
CHAPTER 8
Once the college kids were all gone, our search team made preparations to scour the banks and the water near where the party took place and where Melvin had found the drag marks. As for me, I traded places with Takecia. She remained with Melvin to search while Amy and I transported the body of the young man to the boat landing.
The airboat was loud, so we didn’t talk on the ride back to town. We were still a few hundred yards from the boat launch when I saw a series of tents strewn out across the park east of the boat launch. As Amy was positioning the airboat against the dock, a strong wind blew in from town and carried on it a strong whiff of fried bacon. My stomach growled.
I jumped to the dock and attached the line from the boat to one of the cleats on the dock. Amy shut off the engine and joined me, where we met the coroner’s investigator. He had already backed his van up to the dock, so we set about loading the body.
“We might not be able to attend the autopsy,” I told the investigator. “I have a feeling we’ll be on the water for a while—maybe even a few days.”
He said he would let Dr. Louise Wong know, and Amy and I watched him drive off. We savored the brief moment of inactivity. Once we got back on the water, there was no telling when we would be back. I glanced toward the tents. The college students had already made it on land and most of them were hanging out where the cooking was taking place. I didn’t blame them. I could see them sitting around with plates of food in their laps and bottles of water on the ground next to them.
“Camille Rainey is from Bay City, Texas,” I said. “I need to make arrangements for Bay City P.D. to notify her family. Why don’t you grab some food while I do that? Lord knows when you’ll get to eat again.”
“What about you?” she asked. “Want some food?”
I shook my head. “I’ll get some later.”
It was a little after two in the morning and the dispatcher from Bay City Police Department said she’d have to wake up the on-call detective.
“Give me your number and I’ll have him call you right back,” she promised.
I gave it to her and then headed for the tents, where I wolfed down a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon. I washed it down with a bottle of ice cold water. It had only taken a few minutes to curb my hunger. When I looked up, Amy was approaching with two large bags of food that she had gathered up. She must’ve seen the expression on my face, because she grunted and shook her head.
“These are for the volunteers,” she explained, holding up the bags. “I’m not pregnant.”
I didn’t even want to touch her comment, and I was saved by the ringing of my cell phone. It was the dispatcher from Bay City saying she would put me through to the on-call detective. Once we were connected, I let him know what was going on. He assured me he would notify Camille’s parents personally.
“I know the family,” he said. “Please take down my cell number and call me as soon as you know anything.”
I agreed to keep him in the loop and we ended the call.
“Ready to go find that girl?” Amy asked.
I pointed toward Otis Williams, who sat alone with his back against a young oak tree. “I want to have a word with him first.”
“I’ll wait in the boat.”
Otis looked up wearily when I approached him.
“Did you find her?” he asked.
I shook my head and dropped to the ground beside him. “What happened between you and Camille?”
“Sir?”
“You left some things out when we spoke earlier,” I said evenly. “I’m giving you the opportunity to modify your statement. You wouldn’t want me looking at you suspiciously, now would you?”
Otis gulped audibly. “I…I told you everything that I remembered.”
“What about Chrissy?” I snapped my fingers. “What was that last name again…?”
“Chrissy Graves?” he asked, as though he was surprised at her mention. “Oh, yeah, what about her?”
“You tell me. I hear you were pretty cozy with her.” I didn’t offer any more of an explanation. I let the comment hang in the air.
He shifted on the ground and stammered a bit before saying he didn’t know her very well. “Sure, we’ve spoken before, but nothing major. We graduated together—me, her, and Camille. That’s how I know her.”
“Was she the reason for your argument with Camille?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I raised a hand to silence him.
“Before you answer that question, I want to warn you that whatever you say next might change the course of the investigation.” I pointed a finger at him. “It might send me in a new direction.”
He gulped again. His face had taken on a yellowish hue thanks to the glow from the streetlight above us, but it seemed to lose all color when I suggested he might become a suspect.
“Sir, I swear to God I didn’t do anything to her!”
“Leave God out of this.” I studied him with a judgmental expression. “Was Chrissy the reason you and Camille were fighting?”
He let out a long sigh. “I mean, I guess. I might’ve made a comment about Chrissy’s dragon tattoo that pissed her off. I thought it was harmless, but Camille seemed to get mad about it. That…and I offered to help Chrissy start the jet ski. Camille was being unreasonable, if you ask me. It’s not like I was offering to go screw her on the jet ski.”
“So, Camille was the one who was being unreasonable?”
“Yeah.” He nodded for emphasis. “She was acting like my wife or my mom. I just didn’t want to be tied down on this trip, you know?”
“Is that why you ran her over with the jet ski?”
Otis recoiled in horror. “I didn’t do that! I would never hurt Camille. I love her. I want her back. Please, go find her!”
I studied the young man carefully. He appeared sincere, but I wasn’t about to rule out foul play just yet. I decided to switch gears.
“What about Chrissy? Where is she?”
“I don’t know.” There was a blank expression on his face as he glanced over his shoulder toward the tents. “I guess she’s with everybody else.”
“It turns out she’s missing.” I watched his facial expression carefully. He seemed genuinely shocked.
“What?” His eyes were wide and they shifted from me to his feet. “This trip has been a nightmare. I wish we wouldn’t have come to this horrible place!”
I wanted to tell him I also wished they hadn’t come here and thrown a party in the middle of the swamps and left such a mess out there on the water, but I didn’t want to kick him while he was down. Thus, I simply walked away and returned to the airboat.
CHAPTER 9
When Amy and I reunited with Melvin, Takecia, and the volunteers at the party location, Amy began handing out smaller bags of food that she had pulled out of the larger bags. I approached Melvin. He was standing over several lengths of rope attaching grappling hooks to one end of each of them. He was worki
ng by the lights from the Boston Whaler.
“We’re gonna start dragging?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He straightened. “I want to focus on the area where Chrissy was dragged in and also where Camille went under. Their bodies aren’t floating yet, so they’ve got to be around here somewhere.”
I agreed with his plan and said as much. “What can I do?”
He pointed to several grappling hooks on the ground. “You can tie those on, if you want. I need three more for a total of eight.”
I had counted the boats when we rode up and, counting the two police department vessels, there were eight boats out here helping. We could cover a lot of territory with that number of boats.
“How’s Claire and Deli?” I asked as I worked.
“Claire’s fine,” Melvin said, “but Deli’s as bad as ever. She’s getting to be just like her mom.”
We both laughed. Claire and Melvin had been married for sixteen years and Delilah, who had just turned six, was their only child. While they had married young, Melvin and Claire had waited ten years to have a child. They had celebrated her birthday earlier this month and Susan, Grace, and I had been a part of it.
I finished tying one of the grappling hooks to the rope and reached for another one. “You haven’t mentioned anything recently about Claire trying to get you to quit law enforcement,” I said. “Does that mean she’s given up on you?”
“She’s been chill ever since the robbery at the bank.” He chuckled and shook his head in amusement. “And when she saw how much I’m getting for lieutenant’s pay, she threatened to join the force herself.”
I laid down my rope and watched Melvin work. The town could never pay him what he was worth—lieutenant’s pay wasn’t impressive compared to the pay of supervisors in other occupations—but he didn’t care. He appreciated every red cent he made and he was as happy as he could be working as a police officer. Hell, if you gave him a place to live and fed him and his family, I was convinced he’d do the job for free.