James 516: A London Carter Novel (London Carter Mystery Series)

by BJ Bourg

A desk and bookshelves—all of them a cluttered mess—were built into a closet and a row of filing cabinets lined one wall. She moved to the desk area, and I approached the filing cabinets. I stopped short when I saw pry marks on one of the filing cabinet drawers. I tested it and it screeched open. The locking mechanism dangled. “I’ve got something here,” I called out.

  Bethany hurried up behind me. “What is it?”

  I looked over my shoulder and was surprised at how close she was to me.

  “There must be something in there that’s worth killing for, and we need to find it.” When she spoke, the smell of Big Red gum clung to the words that floated from her mouth. As I watched her mouth move, I felt an intense desire to shut her up with a kiss—to press my mouth against her moist lips.

  Blinking the thought from my mind and wondering where it had come from, I turned back to the filing cabinet. “What if the killer already found it?”

  Bethany surveyed the room, then nodded slowly. “I thought it odd that a person who keeps such a neat kitchen would have a messy desk, but it’s obvious the killer came in here and rummaged through the place. Whatever he was after, it must’ve had something to do with Wainwright’s business.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I wanted to know.

  Bethany smiled, pointing to the filing cabinet in front of me. I looked down and blushed. A small label on the damaged drawer read Wainwright’s Private Investigative Services. Bethany walked around the room, examining the ceiling, pushing on the walls, testing the floor with her boot. “London, where did you hide your porn?”

  I jerked my head up from where I was searching through the files in the cabinet. “Excuse me?”

  “When you were a kid—where’d you hide your porn?”

  “What makes you think I had porn?” I felt my face redden.

  She smiled. “Every boy has porn at one time or another…and they all hide it.”

  She was right, of course. I sighed. “I’d take some of my dad’s older magazines—the ones I figured he wouldn’t miss—fold them in half and put them in the inside pocket of my winter jacket.”

  Bethany immediately walked out of the office and continued down the hall until she found the master bedroom. I followed her and watched as she searched all of the pockets in every piece of clothing hanging in his closet. Nothing. “Either Wainwright had better hiding spots than you or he didn’t have porn.” She stood by his closet door and surveyed the bedroom. Her eyes fixed on a wall socket and she pointed to it. “What’s odd about that socket?”

  I looked where she pointed, then checked the other walls. Every wall had one electrical socket, while the wall she was pointing at had two…and they were close together. She moved closer and whistled. “This screw has been worked quite a bit. The paint’s been chipped off it.”

  I fished a knife from my pocket, flipped the blade open, and handed it to her. She used it to turn the screw until it fell to the floor. Passing the knife back to me, she used her fingernails to pry the wall plate off and put it to the side. She tugged on the socket and it fell free. The area behind it was empty and dark. “I think we’re onto something.”

  I dropped to my knees beside Lieutenant Riggs to watch as she slipped her gloved hand through the opening in the sheetrock and began feeling around in the wall. She bit her lower lip and leaned in, trying to fit more of her arm into the hole.

  “Is there anything in there?” I asked.

  “No, nothing. I can only feel the floor, the studs and the opposite wall.” She started to pull out, but stopped. “Wait a minute.”

  “What is it?”

  “It feels like some sort of a latch in here.”

  There was a sharp metallic click from inside. Bethany removed her arm and light emanated from the rectangular hole in the wall. “The wall on the other side opened up,” she said. She peered through the hole. “It’s his office.”

  We hurried to our feet and walked out the bedroom down the hall. When we reached Justin Wainwright’s office, we stopped and looked around. Bethany pointed to the desk. “It’s under there.”

  We both dropped to our knees to get a better view of the trap door. The wall under the desk was constructed of a dark wooden panel. The trap door—two feet high by two feet wide—had been cut from this wall and now stood open, suspended by a narrow hinge attached to the inside of the door. Squeezing my way under the desk, I pushed the trap door shut to inspect it. The top edge of the door coincided with the trim under the desk and the bottom edge of the door coincided with the top of the baseboards.

  “This is ingenious,” I said. “By attaching the latch and hinge to the inside and making it accessible from the adjacent room, he totally disguises this as a trap door. The splices are seamless at the top, bottom and both sides. Fine craftsmanship.”

  Bethany squeezed beside me, her left shoulder pressed firmly against my right shoulder. “But I didn’t feel anything inside, so why go through all that trouble for nothing?”

  I pulled the door open wide and it exposed two separate compartments, separated by a treated stud. The compartment to the right of the center stud was empty, and it was where the electrical socket was located. The other compartment to the left of the stud appeared empty as well, but the space extended beyond the cutout of the trap door and disappeared into the darkness between the walls. I twisted my body, extremely conscious of Bethany’s body pressed beside my own, and carefully reached into the opening with my gloved hand. I felt something.

  CHAPTER 11

  “What is it?” Bethany Riggs asked, the whisper of her breath tickling the side of my neck.

  I pulled out a large manila envelope. We scurried out from under the desk and stared at each other, then at the envelope.

  “What do you think is inside?” I asked.

  “We’re about to find out.” Bethany took the envelope and turned it over. There was a white label with a name and address typed into it. She gasped. “It’s labeled Anthony Landry.”

  “What the hell?” I was beyond curious. “Hurry…get it open.”

  She rolled to a seated position and scooted to the center of the floor of Wainwright’s office. She eased the clasps on the envelope open and separated the edges so she could look inside. She gasped. “There’re pictures in here—lots of them—and they’re large prints.” She turned the envelope over and allowed the prints to slide out and onto the floor.

  “Holy shit!” I blurted when I saw the picture on top.

  “Are those what I think they are?” she asked.

  “Yes, they are.”

  She rifled through the pictures. “What is Wainwright doing with surveillance pictures of Kenneth Lewis and Starla Landry?”

  “I guess Captain Landry hired him to spy on Starla. He must’ve suspected she was cheating on him.”

  We went through all of the pictures—about two dozen of them—and found there were about eight pictures each from three different locations. The first location was in front of Captain Landry’s house. Starla was hanging onto the side of Kenneth’s squad car and, in most of the pictures, they were only talking, but the last two shots showed them kissing. I shook my head before I flipped to the next location.

  The Gator Inn in Chateau. That series of pictures showed Kenneth getting out of his truck, Starla getting out of her yellow car, both of them entering room 118 together, then leaving the room together. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what took place inside that room.

  The third set of pictures had clearly been taken from across the practice field at Central Magnolia High School. Because of the distance between camera and subjects, these pictures were not as clear as the others, but there was no mistaking Kenneth’s truck and Starla’s car parked beside the Baptist church located at the end of Journey Drive. In that series of photos, Starla got out of her car and climbed onto Kenneth’s lap as he sat in the driver’s seat of his truck. They both disappeared beneath the level of the dashboard for a number of the shots, and when they reappeared, Starla was to
pless. Another shot showed her pulling on her shirt, and the last one had her stepping out of Kenneth’s truck.

  “This ain’t good.” I tossed the last of the pictures into the pile on the floor. “At least Captain Landry died before he had to see this shit.”

  Bethany nodded. “If these pictures would’ve made it to him, we’d be working Kenneth’s murder.”

  Having known Captain Landry for a dozen years, I knew she was correct. I watched as she collected the photos and returned them to the envelope. “Kenneth must’ve found out Wainwright was investigating him,” I mused aloud. “He couldn’t take the chance this gets to his wife, so he kills Wainwright, searches for this”—I pointed to the envelope—“but doesn’t find it, so he kills Captain Landry in case Wainwright told him what he’d found. ”

  “How’d he find out Wainwright was investigating him?” Bethany wanted to know.

  “Because—like all of us snipers—he’s an expert in counter-surveillance techniques. It’d be next to impossible for someone to follow him and take these pictures of him without him noticing.”

  Bethany chewed her lower lip, a thoughtful expression on her face. She finally stood and walked back to Justin Wainwright’s desk. She dug around for several seconds and then turned toward me holding an expensive-looking camera and four memory card cases. “There’s no memory card in the camera and these cases are empty,” she said. “I noticed it earlier, but didn’t realize what it meant. And look”—she pointed beneath the desk—“under there. The computer hard drive is missing.”

  I stared blankly at her, wondering what she was getting at.

  “Kenneth took all of the memory cards and the hard drive. He had no idea Wainwright had that envelope stashed away—how would he?—so he just did what anyone in his situation would do. He snatched up all of the potential evidence and killed the only two men who might know about him and Starla.” Bethany leaned against the desk and bit her lip again. “But why use his sniper rifle to carry out the murders? That’s like leaving a calling card with his name and number on it.”

  “It’s what he knows.” I picked up the envelope of pictures and held onto them while Bethany finished searching Justin Wainwright’s house. When nothing else of interest was found, we made our way out back and rejoined Gina and the other officers. Sheriff Burke, Captain Theriot and Chief Garcia had arrived at some point and were standing around Wainwright’s body.

  “Sheriff, take a look at these,” Bethany said, handing Sheriff Burke a pair of latex gloves and then the envelope.

  After donning the gloves, Burke shuffled through the photos. “Jesus Christ, what on Earth was Kenneth thinking?” Burke handed the pictures back to Riggs. “How’d Wainwright get his hands on these?”

  “It appears Captain Landry hired him to follow his wife,” she said.

  “So, it’s pretty clear Kenneth had motive to kill them both?” Chief Garcia asked.

  I glanced at Bethany; we both nodded.

  “When can we expect both cases to be wrapped up and your reports done?” Garcia asked.

  “Carter and I are going to interview Lewis again,” Bethany explained, “and then we’ll return here in the morning to finish working up the trajectory. After that, we’re pretty much done.”

  Sheriff Burke nodded. “Good, I want this case put to bed as soon as possible. The media is going haywire over this, speculating there’s a terrorist out there killing cops. I want to be able to make a press release as soon as y’all are done.”

  Bethany inclined her head toward Captain Theriot. “Have you heard from Lieutenant Chiasson? He was supposed to attend Captain Landry’s autopsy, but I haven’t heard back from him.”

  Captain Theriot nodded. “He got to the office just as we were leaving.”

  “Any surprises?” I asked.

  Theriot shook his head. “Cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head, and the coroner ruled it a homicide.”

  “Did the coroner say if he suffered?” Bethany asked, a look of concern on her face.

  “No, he didn’t mention it.”

  “I hate to break up this party,” Sheriff Burke said, “but we have to get going.”

  Captain Theriot and Chief Garcia nodded and both followed Sheriff Burke through the backyard and around the house to where their car was parked.

  “Captain Landry didn’t feel a thing,” I assured Bethany as we watched the trio walk away.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “A high-powered rifle round to the cranial vault instantly destroys the brain stem—kills you deader and quicker than lightning strikes. He never knew what hit him. Shit”—I spat on the ground—“poor bastard probably still thinks he’s standing out there watching that hostage situation go down.”

  “How do you know all that?” Bethany wanted to know.

  “It’s my job to know what a bullet does when it leaves my rifle barrel.”

  She considered this. “So, everything you know, Kenneth knows?”

  I nodded somberly. “I didn’t just teach him how to kill people, I taught him how to kill instantly, how to make no-reflex kill shots, and then how to deal with it emotionally.”

  Bethany placed her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “It’s not your fault. You had no way of knowing—”

  I pulled my arm away. “Look, it’s nice of you to say that, and I certainly appreciate the gesture, but don’t waste your sympathy on me. I don’t need it.”

  Bethany scowled. “Jesus, I was just trying to be nice. You don’t have to be such a prick.”

  “I’m not being a prick. I just don’t want you to feel sorry for me because I don’t feel sorry for myself.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said slowly.

  I sighed, not knowing how to put it into words. How do you tell someone you haven’t felt a thing since you were a kid? That no matter how hard you try, you can’t muster up a single tear? “Just please understand that I sincerely appreciate the gesture. I’ve learned a lot about you today, and I know you’re a great person. I just don’t like good people feeling bad for me when I can’t even feel bad for myself.”

  I could tell by the look on her face that Bethany was slipping deeper into a state of confusion. I smiled. “Why don’t we just forget about it and go finish interrogating Kenneth?”

  She nodded. Before we walked off, she turned to Gina Pellegrin. “Can you line someone up to secure the scene overnight?”

  Gina was still crouched over Justin Wainwright’s body. She was recording measurements on her diagram as another detective called them out to her. Without looking up from her notepad, she called over her shoulder, “I ain’t your secretary.”

  I thought I saw Bethany’s eyes flash. She opened her mouth to say something I was certain would only start a catfight, so I interrupted her. “Damon,” I called to one of the patrol deputies who used to work on my shift, “you working nights?”

  Damon nodded. “I got it, Sarge.”

  As we walked to Bethany’s car, she grumbled, “What’s that bitch’s problem?”

  “She’s cool,” I said. “You just have to get to know her. She’s definitely someone you want on your side in a pinch.”

  Bethany grunted, climbed in and slammed her door shut. Neither of us spoke on the ride back to CID. I stole an occasional glance at her profile.

  “What the hell?” Bethany slammed on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel to the right.

  I turned to see flashing lights in my face and knew instantly that something was drastically wrong. An ambulance had cut us off and was racing into the parking lot at CID. Before we could park, two medics jumped out of the ambulance and ran toward the front entrance. Chief Garcia shoved the door open for them and they all disappeared into the office, with us hot on their heels. We followed them to the interview room, but we got stuck in the crowded hallway.

  “What’s going on?” Bethany demanded, as Chief Garcia pushed his way through the sea of officers, making a hole for the medics. No one answered Bethany
, and she grabbed the collar of the nearest deputy and jerked him back, nearly took him off his feet. “I said, What the hell is going on?”

  The deputy turned, his face ashen. “It’s…it’s Deputy Kenneth Lewis. He…he killed himself!”

  CHAPTER 12

  Bethany Riggs stood with her back against the one-way glass in the interview room, lips pursed. I stood beside her and looked down at Deputy Lester LeBouef. His face was a waterfall of sweat and his feet twitched under his chair.

  “Start talking,” Bethany said forcefully.

  “He asked to use my cell phone,” Lester explained in a feeble voice. “I didn’t know he would do that. He just said he needed to—”

  “Why in the hell didn’t you stay in the room with him?” she asked.

  Lester hung his head, then shook it from side to side. “I don’t know. He asked for some privacy…said he needed to talk to his wife. I was just outside the room. I could hear his entire conversation.”

  “What did he say? All of it,” she demanded.

  “He told her he didn’t do the things they said he did, but it sounded like she didn’t believe him. It sounded like she was accusing him of doing something with someone named Laura, because he kept saying that Laura was a liar.”

  Bethany looked at me, then back at Lester. “You sure he wasn’t saying Starla?”

  “Oh no, because he mentioned Starla, too. He said that was also a lie.” Lester wiped the sweat from his face, but more beads sprouted from his pores. “He kept telling her he couldn’t go to prison. Said he wouldn’t survive it.”

  “Did he say anything else?” I asked.

  Lester shook his head. “He was quiet for a while, so I thought his wife was talking and he was listening. But then…then I heard some strange sounds, like gurgling. I tried to open the door, but something was blocking it. I had to fight for a few seconds to break through and that was when I found him.”

  “How’d he do it?” Bethany asked.

  “He got up on the chair and removed the hanging ceiling tile. I guess he took off his coveralls next, tied one leg over the metal beam, and made a noose with the other end because when I found him that’s how he was hanging. He used the desk to block the door.” Deputy LeBouef wiped his face with both hands, sighing. “Will I lose my job?”