by BJ Bourg
“Melvin and Regan took the boat out and checked every camp in the area,” Susan said. “Takecia and Baylor checked every abandoned building in Mechant Loup, but they didn’t find a thing. They even identified and interviewed half a dozen homeless men who were living in an abandoned warehouse off of Old Blackbird Highway, but they turned up nothing solid.”
“I guess our homeless population has doubled,” Amy muttered.
Sheriff Turner glanced at Mallory and shot a thumb toward the sky. “Anything from upstairs?”
“No,” Mallory said. “We’ve had four helicopters roaming the skies in the south area all day long, but they’ve turned up nothing.”
“Can we at least put out a BOLO for something?” asked Turner. “Is there anything at all that we can broadcast to other agencies?”
“We don’t have a description of the suspect or a vehicle,” I said with a sigh, “so a BOLO is pointless.”
“I did have Lindsey send out a state-wide teletype alerting other agencies that Deputy Billiot was murdered by an unknown suspect,” Susan said. “I also urged them to take precautions when approaching stranded vehicles. Someone’s ambushing cops, so I thought we should at least get that word out.”
I nodded and we began game-planning for the next day. Sheriff Turner had stationed deputies on every highway leading into and out of the parish, and they had been instructed to stop every car that seemed suspicious.
“I’ll keep the check-points up indefinitely,” Turner said. “And I’ve still got roving patrol teams covering the southern parts of the parish. We’ll also keep the birds in the air as long as necessary. Other than that, I don’t know what else we can do that hasn’t already been done.”
“We’re chasing a ghost,” I said, “and there’s no protocol for that.”
After a few more minutes, we all agreed to be back out in the morning, and everyone began to scatter. I gave Amy the keys to my Tahoe.
“Can you park it at the police department and hang on to my keys?” I asked. “I’ll ride home with Susan.”
“Sure.” Amy smiled coyly. “I might do some hot-riding, but I promise to park it in one piece.”
I thanked her and slid into the passenger’s seat of Susan’s SUV. I leaned back and allowed my eyes to slide shut while Susan drove home. While my eyes were closed, I was far from sleeping. Even if I wanted to, my mind wouldn’t let me. I was mulling over every detail of the case, beginning when Susan and I first stumbled upon the crime scene until when we left Danny Kiger’s house. Had I missed something?
“Honey, we’re home,” Susan said softly when she pulled under our carport.
“I’m up.” I opened my eyes and stepped out of the Tahoe. I waited for Susan to come around to my side and I hooked an arm around her waist. “Where’s Gracie?”
“Your mom took her to her house,” she explained. “Maybe we can have a conversation before going to bed.”
I grinned and headed straight for the kitchen to heat up some food. Susan turned on the television—it was set to a national news channel that my mom always watched—and joined me. While we removed leftovers from the refrigerator and began heating them up, the news show droned on in the background. I was talking to Susan, barely giving the television any mind, but then a name caught my attention.
I put down the bowl I was holding and ambled into the living room, where I saw a familiar face on the split screen. Laura Cavanaugh, a reporter with a local Fox News affiliate from out of La Mort, was framed to the left and a commentator was framed to the right. It appeared Laura was standing in front of the Chateau Parish Sheriff’s Office.
“Has any of the other news outlets shown interest in this story?” asked the serious-looking commentator with salt and pepper hair.
“No, none at all,” Laura responded. I’d had a number of dealings with Laura in the past, and I knew her to be honest and fair. “I’ve reached out to all of the major news outlets with the story, but your producer was the only one who responded.”
The man shook his head in frustration. “You know, I’ve noticed a frightening trend where some news organizations will lustfully cover officer-involved shootings where a citizen dies, but won’t even mention it when a police officer is murdered in the line of duty. There seems to be a reluctance on the part of some in the media to cover these tragic events. It’s like they’re afraid to offend a select few who hate the rule of law and want to see this country dissolve into chaos.”
“Well, that’s exactly right,” Laura said. “When I first got into this business, the murder of a police officer automatically made national news. The entire country mourned. Everyone understood the concept of the thin blue line—that our brothers and sisters in law enforcement are the only barrier standing between good and evil, between peace and anarchy. An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all of us.”
“Well put,” said the anchor. “Do you have any updates on the murder of Deputy Jenny Billiot—who, if I’m not mistaken, leaves behind a young daughter?”
“That’s correct. Deputy Jenny Billiot leaves behind a four-year-old daughter. And no, so far, there are no updates.”
“Okay, if you’re just joining us,” said the commentator as the split screen disappeared and a picture of Deputy Billiot filled the space, “Deputy Jenny Billiot was mercilessly gunned down in Chateau Parish, Louisiana while investigating a stalled vehicle on the side of the road. Details are sketchy at this time and officials don’t know the motive behind the attack, but they do know this crime was connected to another murder that took place in a nearby campground, where a man was gunned down while he slept in a hammock. In both cases, it appears a fully-automatic rifle was used to facilitate the murders. No suspects have been named yet. Please, if you have any information about this case, call the number at the bottom of the screen. The investigation is being led by Chief of Detectives Clint Wolf…”
I turned from the television and eyed Susan, a thought suddenly occurring to me. “What if Chad was killed for simply seeing something?”
Susan had just removed a hot dish from the microwave. She glanced over her shoulder. “Huh?”
“What if he saw something he shouldn’t have seen, and that’s why he was murdered?”
“Like what—two alligators having a conversation? What could he possibly see out in the swamps that could get him killed?”
I shrugged. “Maybe he caught someone burying a body back there and that’s why he was killed.”
“What if he was simply killed for his ride?”
“I mean, that’s possible, too—”
My phone suddenly rang and my heart leapt in my chest. Had there been another murder? I quickly snatched my cell from my pocket and glanced at the screen, frowning.
“What is it?” Susan asked when she saw the expression on my face.
“It’s a call from Buckheed County, Georgia,” I said. “I only know one person from Buckheed County.”
CHAPTER 30
“Clint Wolf, it’s been a minute, hasn’t it?” came the familiar country accent.
Although Abel Adams couldn’t see me, I smiled broadly. “Abel, how the hell are you?”
Abel was the chief of detectives for the Buckheed County Sheriff’s Office and he had helped me solve a major case three years ago.
“Ah, we’re doing okay, I guess.”
“You should be retired by now, right?” I said, taking my seat at the table across from Susan, who had already started eating.
“Nah, I went and did something stupid.” Although he chuckled, his voice sounded heavy. “I ran for sheriff and messed up and won. I thought I was busy before. Now, it never stops. Don’t ever become a politician, Clint.”
I laughed and was about to comment when I realized it was around ten o’clock at night here, which meant it was eleven o’clock there. This was no social call.
“Abel, is something wrong?”
There was a long sigh on the other end. “I just saw the news about Deputy Jenny Billiot. I’m
real sorry to hear about it.”
He butchered Jenny’s last name, pronouncing the last part as though it rhymed with riot. I didn’t correct him.
“Yeah, it’s rough.” I rubbed my face. “We’ve got no leads right now. It looks like someone killed a camper, stole his car, ran out of gas, and then gunned down Jenny when she stopped to offer assistance.”
“I lost a deputy recently, too.” Abel’s voice took on a more somber tone. “Daryl Winston was more than just a deputy—he was a good friend of mine. Anyway, he called out on the radio Halloween night to say he would be out with a vehicle that had a Tag Applied For note on the back, but his traffic was cut off before he could give his location. The dispatcher wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard gunfire right before he stopped talking. She tried to raise him on the radio, but he wouldn’t respond. We all went out looking for him and found him an hour later near a campground.”
Abel paused and took a haggard breath. When he continued, I could tell he was trying hard to remain strong. “They gunned him down like a rabid dog, Clint. He never had a chance. He was still sitting in the driver’s seat when we found him. Apparently, he had pulled the vehicle over and was just calling in the stop when they opened fire on him. He died with the radio in his hand and his gun in his holster. He never saw it coming.”
I scowled and leaned back in my chair. “Did you say it happened outside of a camping ground?”
“Yeah, and that’s what got my attention about your story—the campground angle and the fully-auto weapon being used. It’s the same as our case. Other than that, we’ve got nothing.”
“It’s funny I didn’t hear about this.”
Abel grunted. “Like that Laura Cavanaugh reporter said, no one would carry the story. We sent press releases everywhere, but it only appeared in the local paper and briefly on the nightly news. We’ve had an outpouring of support from the public, but the media won’t touch it. At least a thousand volunteers have helped to comb the mountainside near where the traffic stop happened, but, so far, we’ve turned up nothing.” He paused and took a deep breath and exhaled. “I helped you solve that one case three years ago, and I was hoping you would be able to return the favor.”
“Damn, Abel, we’ve got nothing at this point, but there definitely seems to be some similarities. We can check the spent shell casings to make sure the murders are connected, but we’re grasping at straws here.”
“I was afraid of that.”
I was thoughtful, an idea slowly growing in my mind. “Were there any other people at the campground? Either day visitors or campers?”
“No, it’s an old abandoned campground,” Abel said. “We don’t get any campers out there anymore. It was a part of Daryl’s sector, so he patrolled it at least once every night just to make sure no one was setting the forest on fire. The most he’d ever found were local teenagers getting drunk, smoking weed, or screwing, but that was rare. They have better hangouts now.”
“Did you check the other campgrounds in your county?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “We checked everything, but no one saw anything.”
“You know, I think these people are running from something.” I was standing now, pacing back and forth in the kitchen. Susan’s eyes were following me like a spectator at a tennis match. “They committed a crime somewhere else and they’re on the run. They’re hunkering down at abandoned campsites and they’re killing anyone who can identify them or any law enforcement officer who tries to stop them.”
“That makes sense.” There was a new sense of urgency in Abel’s voice. “We can check all the jurisdictions between Buckheed and Mechant Loup to see if there are any other victims in abandoned camping areas.”
“Yeah, that’ll be a good start,” I agreed. “And we need to check the Officer Down Memorial Page for similar attacks on law enforcement. Even if the media won’t share the information, we can find it there.”
Susan reached for her laptop and indicated with a nod that she was already on it.
“Is there anything else about the crime scene that might offer some clues?” I asked. “Do you have any description at all about the car?”
“Only the information about the tag having been applied for,” Abel said. “Daryl didn’t have a chance to relay anything else. The coroner said he would’ve died almost immediately. Thirty-two bullets were fired toward the front of the car. As though that wasn’t enough, the shooter then walked to the driver’s door and fired twenty-eight more times. Out of the sixty bullets fired, Daryl was hit thirty-seven times.”
“Damn.” I stopped pacing and shook my head as I tried to visualize the crime scene. “And you say he died with the radio in his hand?”
“Yeah, they killed him in mid-sentence.”
“Did you check the ground where the car would’ve been parked?” I asked, suddenly remembering the tiny pool of oil on the leaf in the Waxtuygi Wildlife Nature Park.
“Um, hold on while I look at the evidence log. Why?”
“I’m looking for a vehicle with an oil leak.”
I could hear Abel breathing heavily as he shuffled through what sounded like a pile of papers. Finally, he grunted. “Yep, they found a small puddle of oil in the middle of the road. According to the picture and the ruler, it’s about one or two inches in diameter.”
“Bingo!” I snapped my fingers. “We found a pool of oil in the campground. I bet Chad Pierce saw the car and he saw the killer. That’s why he was murdered.”
“That makes sense,” Abel said. “But does that get us any closer to catching this bastard?”
“No.” I dropped to my chair and watched as Susan’s fingers danced across the keyboard on the laptop. “Did you enter the casings into IBIS?”
“We did, but we didn’t get any hits on them,” Abel said. “The only thing the firearms examiner was able to tell us was that they were all fired from the same rifle chambered in .223 or 5.56. Other than that, the paper note for a license plate, and the oil, we’ve got nothing—just like you.”
“What about DNA?” I asked.
“The lab scrubbed the casings, but they came up with nothing.” Abel explained how they had also pulled surveillance cameras on every house within fifty miles of the murder, but they’d come up empty. “It’s mountain country out there and most of the houses are built away from the road, so we didn’t get shit that we could use.”
I frowned, feeling like I had just walked a complete circle in the woods and run into a rock wall. I glanced at Susan, yearning for a break in the case, but hoping no other law enforcement officers had been killed by this criminal.
“Anything?” I asked.
She shook her head and frowned. “Like every year, there’ve been too many law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, but none of the recent murders match our case.”
I took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. “Well, Abel, I guess I’ll get a little sleep and then start hitting the other campgrounds in Chateau Parish tomorrow morning. I’m sure it’s a long shot, but we’ll check it out anyway.”
“Why don’t we go tonight?” Susan asked.
“They like to kill at night,” I said, “so I’d like to meet them during the daytime.”
“I’ve got my deputies riding two to a car now and the SWAT team is on standby,” Abel said, “but that might not be necessary anymore since it seems like the killer’s in your neck of the woods.”
“We don’t know where he is at the moment,” I cautioned, “so he might show up in Buckheed again.”
“I guess that’s possible,” he said.
“I appreciate the call and the tip.” I leaned back in my chair and grabbed an ink pen from the counter. “Give me the contact info for your firearms examiner. I’ll have our Tracy Dinger get with your people so they can compare notes. I’m sure these crimes are connected, but we need to confirm it.”
Abel provided the information and then paused for a brief moment. When he spoke again, his voice sounded grave. “Clint,
I have a feeling this guy won’t be taken alive. It’ll be you or him, so when you see him, don’t ask any questions—just start shooting. If you hesitate, you might not be the one standing when the smoke clears.”
“Well, there’s only one problem with that plan,” I said slowly. “The killer’s a ghost at this point, and I can’t shoot what I can’t see.”
CHAPTER 31
I was awake and out the door before six o’clock the next morning, and I thought I’d wake up Tracy Dinger. The only problem was that she was already up and working.
“I hope you slept well.” Her voice sounded tired but cheerful. “Me, I’ve been up all night finishing my work so that I could start on your casings first thing this morning.”
“I didn’t mean for you to work through the night.” I suddenly felt bad for having gotten some rest, but the feeling didn’t last long. I knew I needed to be sharp if I were to encounter the killer. I didn’t know when that might be or if it would even be me, but whoever it was, they needed to be ready. I had spread the word to our officers and to Mallory Tuttle last night to make sure everyone took turns sleeping. They all agreed we had to be at our best, and that meant we had to stay hydrated, fed, and rested. My hope was that our suspect was lying in a ditch somewhere unable to sleep because he was being eaten by ants and mosquitoes. Although it was November, our unofficial state birds were out in full force.
“It’s not the first time I’ve spent all night at the lab and it won’t be the last,” Tracy said with a laugh, breaking through my thoughts. “I just put your first casing under the microscope. I’ll know something soon. Amy said you wanted to make sure the shooting at the campground was connected to Deputy Billiot’s murder, right?”
“Yeah, and there’s something else.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
I told her about my conversation with Abel Adams and I gave her the contact information for the firearms examiner who serviced Buckheed County.
“We need to know if these two murders are connected,” I explained, turning onto Washington Avenue as I talked. “The M.O. seems to fit, but I want to know for sure what we’re dealing with. Abel said all of his casings were fired from the same rifle. They ran a casing through IBIS, but didn’t get a hit back.”