by Terry Keys
“First round’s on me,” Stacy said before the door could even close. “Have a seat on the couch, boys. Mama’s gonna take real good care of y’all.”
The boys did as they were told and grinned at one another.
Stacy turned on some music from her iPhone.
“You think you can dance to this, Brittany?”
“Just watch,” Brittany said.
Brittany had spent several months working at Heartbreakers in order to get close to John Blake before murdering him. She’d learned a thing or two and was anxious to show Claude.
Brittany moved right in front of Claude and dropped to the floor seductively. She toyed with her finger in her mouth as she rubbed Claude’s leg. Claude’s eyes bulged.
Stacy chuckled. It was funny to watch her baby sister being seductive. She had to admit she was doing an amazing job. Stacy sauntered over and sat on Bubba’s lap to watch.
“You like what you see?” Stacy whispered in his ear.
Bubba looked like a kid in a candy store.
“Hell, yeah! You and your sister are goddesses, I swear! Where the hell’d you come from?”
“Well, if you play your cards right, maybe you can have her, too.”
Chapter 38
Paul and I were sharing a motel room, and De Luca’s room was next to ours. We decided to crash after we’d been released from the medical team’s care. We still needed to go through the stack of papers I’d retrieved from the vault and discuss the findings from the Carl Blake murder.
I texted Miranda to tell her I was okay and that I loved her. I also wanted to see how she and Karen were doing.
“It’s too early to be stirring around over there,” Lafitte said.
“What do you mean? It’s six a.m.”
“Why don’t you be a dear and go get us some breakfast from the lobby?”
What were we, an old married couple now? Lafitte rolled over and hid under his pillow. I got up, put on some clothes, and did as I’d been told. When I got back to the room, De Luca was sitting on my bed.
“I tried to wake Sleeping Beauty over there, but no luck,” De Luca said.
“He’s never been an early riser.”
“Hey, I can hear you two,” Lafitte said.
“That was kind of the point,” De Luca said with a smile on her face.
“Let’s see . . . I got eggs here, sausage, some bacon, and coffee,” David said.
Paul rolled out of bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
“So, food can get you up but not a woman?” De Luca said.
Paul stared at De Luca and smiled but said nothing.
“Wow! I’ve know this man for over two decades, and I’ve never seen him at a loss for words.”
“I told you the first time I met you, Porter; you’ve never seen anyone like me,” De Luca said.
We scarfed down our food so we could dig into the day’s work and then hit the road. I wasn’t sure exactly where we’d be driving to, but if my hunch was correct, it’d be somewhere east on I-10.
Chapter 39
Lafitte and De Luca debriefed me on the Carl Blake murder. The details were gruesome. What had these men done to deserve dying this way? And at the hands of Brittany Foy? I’d asked Lafitte and De Luca that very question, but they had no answers. We decided to give Rodney Clemens a call. He was the personal assistant for both of the Blakes. I had only seen him in passing, but he seemed like the type who would know every move his clients made.
I got Fingers to find a cell phone number for the man and punched it in. I put the phone on speaker so Lafitte and De Luca could listen in on the call.
“Mr. Clemens? Hello. My name is Detective David Porter HPD.”
“I know why you’re calling, but there’s nothing I can tell you about what happened to them.”
“Slow down, Mr. Clemens. You aren’t in any trouble here. I believe the person who killed your former bosses is also the person responsible for a string of murders I’m trying to solve. I need to catch her, and if I can find out why she killed the Blakes, it will help me complete her profile.”
“Neither of the Blakes had any enemies. I mean, no one who would want to kill them, anyway. No more than your typical politician.”
“Well, considering they’re both dead, Mr. Clemens, I’m going to have to disagree with you on that. How long have you been working for them?”
“Over ten years, sir. John had only one assistant prior to me, and he only lasted a few months. I’m the only assistant Carl ever had.”
“Which tells me you know everything there is to know about these two, both good and bad. Correct?”
“I’m not sure what bad you’re alluding to, but I knew every move they made every day I worked for them, yes.”
“Either of them having an affair?”
There was a long silence.
“Carl Blake may have been. I can’t be certain.”
I didn’t prod any further. I really wanted to know about their character, what these men were like behind closed doors. There was my answer. I already knew big brother was a strip club fiend.
“Listen, Mr. Clemens. I have reason to believe a woman—the same woman—killed the Blake brothers. I also have reason to believe she might have been a dancer at Heartbreakers, which was also the last place anyone saw him alive.”
“What would make you think either of the Blakes was there?”
“Don’t you want me to find this girl and bring her to justice? Don’t play games with me here. I’ve already confirmed that John Blake was at the club that night, which I’m sure you knew. If I had to guess, you dropped him off. Don’t see a guy like that driving or using Uber.”
“Okay, he was there. He had a regular. I’ve been back a few times looking for her to ask her a few questions myself, but she hasn’t been back since that night.”
“Don’t you find that rather strange? Have you gone to the authorities with that?”
“No. And this is off the record or I quit talking.”
“Fine. I’m just trying to catch this girl. It feels like I’m working by myself here.”
“You swear this is off the record?”
“Scout’s honor.”
He had my attention. What in the hell was he about to tell me?
“Carl had a bachelor party, a pretty wild one, before he got married. John was drunk; hell, all of them were drunk. My job is to control everything, and I failed miserably that night. They’d hired a few strippers and . . .”
“And what, goddamn it?”
“And John took a girl up to a room. About twenty minutes later, he came and got Carl. I saw the girl about an hour later when she came downstairs. I could tell she’d been yanked around pretty badly. All the guys, including Carl and John, were passed out, of course. I tried to help her out and asked if she was okay, but she was so frightened that she wouldn’t let me get close to her. I offered her some money, but she wouldn’t take it. Her clothes were a mess. I could tell she was pretty shaken up. I just couldn’t let myself believe that they’d done that to her. Neither of them ever talked about it again, and I sure as hell didn’t bring it up.”
“After hearing this, I’m almost one hundred percent sure the girl I’m hunting is the same girl that killed your bosses. She kills rapists, Mr. Clemens. Only rapists. I might not have figured it out without your help, so thank you. And like I promised, this remains confidential. There anything else you might’ve left out?”
“Well, yeah, come to think of it. About six months after that night, John and Carl both started getting death threats in the mail.”
“What did the police do about it? Did they do an investigation?”
“I didn’t go to the police. In fact, neither of the Blakes ever knew; I never told them. I sorted through their mail every day. It was part of my job.”
“Did you not think it was worth sharing with them that someone was threatening their lives?”
“I just figured it was the girl making idle threats. I mean, she
was only a tiny thing. I didn’t really believe she’d go through with it. People get mad and say they’re gonna do shit all the time, and it’s nothing more than lip service. And when the letters stopped, it only made me believe that even more.”
“Can you tell me what the letters said?”
“They weren’t long letters, just one- or two-liners. Threats like ‘you fucked me so I’ll fuck you,’ or ‘you’re going to die soon, rapist scum.’”
“Sounds like my girl. You’ve done a great thing here. I’ll call you if I think of any more questions.”
I had everything I needed, and De Luca was right—both of the Blake brothers had raped Brittany Foy; their murders weren’t some random crime.
Chapter 40
“We need to get ahead of them and set a trap,” I said.
“What do we know about the cities they’re killing in?” De Luca said.
“They travel all day and kill at night. So far, the crime scenes are about a day’s drive apart,” Lafitte said.
“That’s good. Let’s pull out a map and see where that’d put them tonight if they keep up the same schedule,” I said.
According to our calculations, their travel would put them somewhere near Gulfport, Mississippi.
“Let’s go through the remainder of the files I was able to get from that vault. We need to see if there’s more info that might be helpful to us.”
De Luca and Lafitte each took a handful of papers and started reading. Just as I had suspected, many of them were medical records, appliance manuals, and the like. And then I found a gem.
“Guys, you aren’t going to believe what I have in my hands,” I said.
“What now? Another sister?” De Luca asked.
“No,” I said. “Maybe worse.”
Somehow, they’d wiped this from any initial searches we’d made on the family. Even Fingers hadn’t found it. The girls had a brother—Michael Crease. He was two years older than Stacy. The way things had been going, I had to assume Michael was just as sinister as the rest of the family. Hell, even their grandmother was a part of the madness. Reminded me of Jax Teller and his parents from Sons of Anarchy, one of the few television shows that actually peaked my interest.
“Could this guy be watching us, too?” Lafitte said.
“Maybe. Or maybe he’s dead. Says here he’s a diabetic. Where or what he is only God knows at this point. Hell, maybe he’s a Sunday school teacher and youth pastor at a church somewhere.”
“Wouldn’t that be something? Hell, that family needs some church,” Lafitte said.
“We all need some church,” I said.
The honest truth was, if Michael Crease was a bad guy, his opinion of me wasn’t too good. If he was watching, I’d need more than church. More like divine intervention. The last thing any of us needed was another goddamn enemy, but it appeared we could have one nonetheless.
“One last thing I found here. Looks like Stacy was pregnant once before. If my math is correct, it was after the incident, around the same time she left Tech. Some records here from Planned Parenthood. Looks like she had an abortion.”
“God! With half the damn football team joining in, there’s no telling who fathered that kid,” De Luca said.
“Yeah, if she hadn’t had an abortion, the kid would be about eighteen or nineteen. I’m not pro-abortion, but if a woman is raped, she should have the right to do what Stacy did,” I said.
“Don’t get me started,” De Luca said.
“No, let’s not. David, have we made it through everything?” Lafitte said.
I stood up and stretched my legs. “I believe so. Let’s get out of here.”
We packed up, loaded the truck, and headed out on I-10 east, destination Gulfport, Mississippi.
Chapter 41
Brittany’s dance ended, she stopped and stared at the brothers. Both men lay sprawled on the couch, covered in lust and saturated with Stacy’s drug concoction. Both were fading further and further away.
“I didn’t drink any more tonight than I usually do,” Bubba said, struggling to keep his eyes open. “I don’t know what’s come over me. I feel so weak.”
“Aww, honey. You weak in the knees over me?” Stacy said.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s it exactly.” Bubba grinned, barely getting the words out.
Claude was in even worse condition. He was lying there, speechless, with a stupid grin on his face and his limp penis in his hand.
“So, what now?” Brittany whispered to Stacy.
“Now we have some fun. Put your clothes back on. You didn’t actually need to have sex with him, ya know.”
Brittany knew, but she’d wanted to . . . so she did.
“You’d better hope the piece of shit doesn’t have AIDS or something.”
Brittany rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t have AIDS, Stacy.”
Stacy decided their routine had become too predictable; time to mix it up a bit. First, they’d remove all of the guys’ teeth. Neither of them had tattoos or any other distinguishing marks they had to worry about, so they’d only need to burn off their fingertips. “Are you sure they can’t feel any of this?” Brittany asked.
“I’m sure. And fuck them if they can.”
“We didn’t even tell them what we were going to do to them.”
“You think they bothered telling the girls they raped what they were going to do to them? Just hurry up and keep working. We still have to load up both of the bodies and dump them.”
Brittany didn’t understand how this was supposed to buy them some time.
“Why are we doing this again?”
“Well, there are several things about this scene that will be different than our other work: two guys at the same time; bodies not found at home. Add to it all this extra work we’re doing. Hell, it’ll take ’em a day or two just to identify them when they’re finally found. It means more travel time for us.”
“You are so smart, Stacy.”
The drug mix Stacy had made this time was much stronger. She needed to make certain they’d both be knocked out cold for a long time.
“We still have to kill them, don’t we?” Brittany said.
“The drugs I gave them will take care of that. These boys won’t see another sunrise.”
“Wait, you put it in their drinks?”
“Yes, why?”
“I finished off Claude’s drink! Am I going to die?” Brittany said in a panic.
“Why the fuck would you do that?”
“Gotcha!”
“You bitch,” Stacy said, smiling.
After they’d finished, Stacy turned off all the lights and went outside to make sure no one was out and about. The coast was clear. Stacy knew this would be the hard part. Neither of these guys was small; and together the girls probably weighed a little over two hundred pounds. They started with Bubba. It took nearly ten minutes to drag his body from the house and get it loaded in the trunk.
“That was hard,” Brittany said.
“Yeah, moving dead weight isn’t easy. I’m kind of used to it from hauling your ass around!”
“Ha! I pull my own weight around here,” Brittany said.
“I was just joking. I owed you that one.”
They went back to get Claude’s body. Bubba was the larger of the two, and moving him had already worn them both out. It made dragging Claude to the car even more difficult.
After they finished loading the bodies, they put the bloody teeth in a Ziploc bag to take with them. Now they needed a good place to dump the bodies. Stacy wanted to find someplace remote but public enough that they’d be found in a day or so. She just wanted to space the bread crumbs out a little farther this time.
They drove around for thirty minutes and finally agreed on a location. They pulled off the road and dumped the bodies out.
Stacy took out her pistol, screwed on the silencer, and fired four rounds. Cause of death? Apparent gunshot wound to the head. It would definitely buy them more time to move across the country.
Chapter 42
We traveled down I-10 toward Gulfport. I wanted to brainstorm ideas for setting up and catching these two maniacs. I was tired of just heading to the next murder scene and following Thelma and Louise down the highway.
We’d been driving an hour or so when my cell phone rang.
“Hi, Dad, it’s me!”
“Hey there! It’s good to hear your voice. Everything okay?”
“Yes, everything’s okay. Can’t a girl just call her dad to say hello?”
“Yes, I suppose a girl can. You happy to have your sister back home, or is she driving you crazy already?”
“She’s okay for now. I’m sure she’ll be back to her old annoying self soon. I’m sorry about all the mean things I said to you before about Stacy and what happened back in college. I’m just sad and I really miss Rodney.”
“It’s okay, Hil. We all say things that are out of line from time to time. We just have to learn, try to grow from our mistakes. Getting over Rodney is going to take some time.”
“Yes, Father I know. Don’t get all soft and make me regret calling you.”
We shared a laugh. We needed to do more of that. I knew it wouldn’t be long before she’d be on to the next phase of her life. She’d hinted about joining the ranks of law enforcement, which scared the hell out of me. Actually it terrified me. Hilary was bright and intelligent when she applied herself, but it wasn’t her that made me nervous. It was the psychopaths that doing this job required you to deal with day in and day out.
“I’ll give you a call in a few days. We need to do a lunch date when I return. I’m going to catch this girl, Hilary. Stop worrying. I can hear it in your voice.”
“I know you will, Dad. That’s the scary part. What happens when you do? I love you. I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me. I love you, Hilary.”
Hilary was right to be worried. Wounded and cornered animals always posed a much greater threat. Chickens aren’t that big, but trap one in a corner, and you’ll find out exactly what I mean. And sooner or later, I’d have Stacy and her sister trapped in a corner, too.