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

by BJ Bourg

  “Stay put, Bethany! Standby!”

  It was no use. She sprinted down River Road and turned right along Main, disappearing behind some buildings. My heart beat in my chest. I searched with my rifle, but I couldn’t see over the buildings and trees. She had vanished. “Bethany, where are you? I’ve lost you! Give me your location!”

  I removed the bolt from my rifle, shoved it in my pocket and stormed down the three flights of stairs. I hit the metal grating at a dead run and ran as fast as my legs could carry me, heading east on Magnolia Street. I could hear Bethany’s labored breathing and her occasional grunt in my ear mike.

  “Bethany! Give me your location!”

  “We’re heading south…on Main…approaching Sunshine Avenue. Shit!”

  Distant gunshots sounded in my ear mike and then there was a volley of much more pronounced shots—four of them—that immediately followed. As the shots were being fired, I’d reached Seventh Street, turned right and ran past Allard toward Sunshine. I turned down Sunshine as the last shot was fired.

  “Talk to me, Bethany!” My voice jumped in rhythm with the pounding of my feet against the pavement.

  “I’m good,” came Bethany’s panting voice. “We’re moving again…still heading south on Main!”

  Three blocks ahead of me, I saw a dark figure whiz by heading south on Main Court, and a few seconds later, I saw Bethany in hot pursuit. “I’m two blocks away,” I called, trying to push my legs harder. I was just reaching the end of Sunshine when Bethany’s voice came over the mike again.

  “He just turned west…on Smith.”

  I pivoted abruptly to the right and ran between two houses—thinking I might be able to cut them off—and approached a six-foot wooden fence at a full speed. I jumped high into the air, grabbed the top of the fence, and swung my right leg over it. The momentum carried me clean over the fence, and I landed in a stumbling run on the other side. I straightened into a hard sprint, burst out onto Smith Street, took a right. Bethany was twenty yards ahead of me and gaining on the shooter. Her breathing was more labored as she huffed into the mouthpiece on the mike.

  The shooter turned left onto Ninth Street, and Bethany followed. No sooner had she cut the corner than more gunshots exploded ahead of me. I heard a sharp yelp, a sickening grunt and a crashing sound in the phone mike, and then it went dead in my ear. More gunshots sounded. I rushed around the corner and raced up Ninth Street holding my pistol out in front of me. I skipped a step and my heart skipped a beat when I saw Bethany lying in the street, clutching her stomach. The shooter was about to disappear around the corner onto Robin Street.

  I skidded to a stop on my knees in front of Bethany—shielding her body with my own—and steadied my pistol with my left hand. I closed my left eye, put my front sight on the center of the shooter’s back and snapped off five quick shots. The shooter stumbled and fell forward, landing with a thud. Through the dim light from a nearby light pole, I saw him turn onto his side and lift a handgun in my direction. Without hesitation, I blasted off with four more shots…and the shooter lay still.

  I dropped my pistol and turned to Bethany, who was writhing in pain. I pulled her hands away from the front of her body and jerked her shirt open. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw she was wearing my ballistic vest. I rubbed my hand across the rough cloth and felt the backs of four hot projectiles protruding from the vest. “You’re okay. It’ll hurt like a bitch, but it—”

  Bethany groaned, unable to talk, and shook her head. She lifted her hand to my face. My mouth went instantly dry when I saw the blood leaking from her palm and down her wrist. I leaned back to allow some light in and saw the wound…it was above the vest, into the left side of her neck. I ripped a strip of my shirt off and pushed it against the hole. I guided one of Bethany’s hands to the cloth. “Hold this here.”

  I reached behind her neck and ran my fingers down toward her shoulder. I felt another hole. The bullet had gone clean through, but there was no way of knowing what kind of damage it had done. I ripped off another piece of cloth and shoved it against that hole with my left hand.

  It was only then that I heard the faint sound of sirens wailing in the distance. I grabbed my phone with my right hand and thumbed nine, one, one. When the operator answered, I rattled off our location. “Corner of Smith and Ninth…shots fired…officer down. Get an ambulance here ASAP!”

  “How bad is the officer hurt?” the operator asked.

  “Gunshot wound to the neck, four slugs to the vest. She’s alert, but in extreme pain.”

  “Who are you?” There was some frantic talking in the background, telling her to get more information. “Who did the shooting?”

  “This is Sergeant London Carter. The suspect is down.” Sirens drew rapidly nearer. “I repeat…suspect is down.”

  The operator relayed that information to the responding officers. The first to arrive was Detective Melvin Ford. He bolted out of his car with a pistol in his hand. He ran toward Bethany and me. “What happened?”

  I pointed toward the corner of Ninth and Robin Street, where the suspect was lying motionless. “Check that piece of shit and make sure he can’t get his gun back up. If he moves, finish him off!”

  “God, it burns!” Bethany groaned beneath me.

  “You’ll be fine. It looks like it went clean through and it doesn’t feel like it hit anything important.”

  “Are you…saying that I’m not…important?”

  I bent and—in the darkness that surrounded us—I planted a kiss firmly on her lips. “At the moment, you’re the most important thing in the world to me. Of course,” I joked, “that could change.”

  A strained chuckle ripped from Bethany’s throat. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

  More cars arrived and pulled in from all sides, throwing light around the entire area. An ambulance finally arrived and they backed up very near to where I sat cradling Bethany’s head in my lap.

  As the medics unpacked their gear and dragged a stretcher from the back of the ambulance, I watched Melvin and a patrol officer cautiously approach the downed suspect, who was lying on his face, his body twisted at an odd angle. Melvin kicked a gun from the suspect’s grasp and then he bent to check for a pulse. He turned to look over his shoulder at me, shook his head. “He’s ten-seven.”

  Great, I thought, now we’ll never know what he wanted.

  The two medics approached me and dropped their bags beside Bethany. “We’ve got her, Detective,” one of them said.

  I reluctantly stood and backed away to give them room to do their job. They removed Bethany’s vest and tossed it to the side. “None of the bullets went through the vest,” one of them announced.

  I picked up the vest and watched with concern as they went to work on the bullet hole near her neck.

  “Carter,” Melvin called from the body. “Come check this out.”

  I hesitated. Bethany looked up into my eyes, smiled. “I’ll be fine,” she whispered. “Thanks to you.”

  I forced myself to walk across the street. “What is it?”

  Melvin and the patrol officer were standing wide-eyed, staring down at the shooter. His face was pressed against the rough surface of the road and his right arm was extended at an odd angle. His right leg was pulled up and I could see part of his torso. “What the…”

  I leaned closer to verify what my disbelieving eyes were seeing—a badge was clipped to the right side of his belt and a paddle holster was strapped to his waistband. We all traded befuddled looks in the flashing brilliance of the blue and red strobe lights. I swallowed hard. Had I just killed a cop?

  With a hand that shook slightly, I grabbed the shooter’s shoulder and pulled him over onto his back. He wore a blue ski mask. I reached for it and tugged. It slowly stretched off the shooter’s face, and I jerked back when his face came into view.

  “Oh my God!” Detective Ford screamed.

  A group of patrol deputies and detectives rushed over to see what all the fuss was about. T
hey skidded to a stop and sounded a collective, “Holy shit!” when they saw Captain Michael Theriot’s lifeless eyes staring up at them from the dark pavement.

  CHAPTER 28

  After the initial shock wore off, I shook my head slowly. “This ain’t good. This ain’t good at all.”

  “What was he even doing here?” Melvin asked. “We were all told to stay away. What even happened? Why were y’all chasing him? And why’d you shoot him?”

  “I don’t know what the hell happened. He just approached Bethany from out of the darkness and opened fire. There was no warning.” I nodded to his body. “Stand guard over him.”

  “London!” a voice yelled through the crowd of deputies. “London!”

  It was Gina. She burst through the wall of officers and threw herself into my arms, squeezing tight. She pulled back. “Are you okay? I heard the call on the radio. They said an officer had been shot out by the park, but they didn’t say who.” Her eyes suddenly widened. “Oh, no…Bethany! Is she okay?”

  I nodded and walked across the street to where the medics were still working on Bethany. Gina followed. She dropped beside one of the medics when we reached Bethany. “Are you okay?” There was genuine concern in her voice. I even thought I saw a little streak glistening down the side of her face.

  Bethany smiled through the pain. “I’ll be fine.”

  “She’s ready for transport,” one of the medics said.

  I waved them off. “Give us a minute.”

  They walked away, and I squatted beside Gina, feeling for Bethany’s hand. “The person who shot you…”

  Bethany’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah?”

  I looked at Gina, then back to Bethany. “It was Captain Theriot.”

  Bethany gasped. “What? Wait…are you sure? It can’t be! There’s no way.”

  I pointed to the group of officers huddled around Theriot’s body. “There he is—big as hell and deader than shit. It’s him. He tried to kill you. I just need you to try and think of any reason why he would do this.”

  “How the hell would I know?” she asked. “You know as much as me. We came here to meet that caller… Hey, didn’t you say there was a subject down in the park?”

  I suddenly remembered the humanlike figure I’d seen on the sidewalk—and my sniper rifle up on the bridge. I bent and kissed Bethany on the forehead, staring directly in her eyes. “I don’t know why this is happening or who’s behind it, but every last one of those bastards will pay for the pain you felt and the blood you lost.”

  “You are a sweetheart, no matter how hard you try not to be.” Bethany lifted a hand and rubbed my face. “Thanks for being here for me. It means a lot.”

  “Now, get your pretty ass up in that ambulance so you can get better.” I stood and waved the medics over. “She’s ready.”

  They lifted the spine board onto a gurney and wheeled her toward the ambulance.

  “Melvin,” I called to the detective, “can you run up to the bridge and grab my rifle? It’s up on the catwalk.”

  “Can I shoot it?” he asked eagerly.

  I pulled the bolt from my pocket and held it up. “Be kind of hard to shoot it without this.”

  Melvin smiled sheepishly. “It was worth a try.”

  I then turned to Gina. “Can you drive me to the park? We have to check something out.”

  “The downed subject Bethany mentioned?”

  I nodded. “I can’t be sure, but I thought I saw a body lying on the sidewalk. It looked like there was a pool of blood around it.”

  We hurried through the maze of officers and cars and jumped into Gina’s car. I pulled off my earpiece and dialed the sheriff’s number. As it rang, I moved it away and leaned toward Gina. “Captain Theriot was coming from the area of the body, so he might have had something to do with—”

  “Hello? London? What the hell is going on?” Sheriff Burke barked. “I’ve been calling and calling, but I can’t get anyone to respond. Is it true that we have an officer down?”

  “Two…we have two officers down.”

  “Jesus Christ…will the shit ever end?” He let off a long sigh. “Okay, who are they and what happened?”

  “Lieutenant Riggs and Captain Theriot. We were—”

  “Theriot?” Sheriff Burke echoed loudly. “What are you talking about? Michael’s here at the main office.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  There was a long pause from the other end. Finally, the sheriff said, more to himself, “What the hell was he doing out there? He was supposed to be here.”

  “I’m not sure what he was doing here, but I think I’m about to find out.”

  Gina had just pulled into the park and I pointed her toward the area of the park where I thought I’d seen the body. She angled her unmarked car so the headlights shone across the park.

  “Was this a trap?” Burke asked. “Did that bastard call just to set y’all up?”

  “Yeah, it was a trap, but Captain Theriot’s the one who set it. He opened fire on Lieutenant Riggs. She confronted him in the park, and he just opened up on her.”

  “What did you say?” Burke asked incredulously. “Did you say he tried to kill Riggs?”

  “Yep, but he didn’t. She took some shots to the vest and one to the side of her neck, but it looks like she’ll be fine.” I pointed to where the figure was, and said to Gina, “Turn a little that way.”

  “What? Turn where?” Burke demanded.

  “Nothing, Sheriff. I was talking to Detective Pellegrin. We’ve got another body in the park—probably our contact. We need to go check on it.”

  “But what about Michael? Did he say why he did that? And how bad is he hurt?”

  “He’s dead,” I said. “I had to kill him.”

  “You killed him? Why? What the hell’s going on here? I’ve lost four captains in a week and we’re no closer to finding the killer than we were on day one. This shit is spinning out of control. If we don’t wrap this case up soon, the Feds are going to come in here and take over. We’ve got to get a handle on this shit. Damn!” There was another long pause. “What the hell is going on, London?”

  “I’m not sure what’s going on, Sheriff, but it’s bad. I think Captain Theriot came out here to kill our contact, but we interrupted him. He’s mixed up in this case, but I’m not exactly sure how.”

  “Do you think he was behind the sniper attacks?” the sheriff asked.

  “He didn’t have the opportunity to take the shots on Abbott and Landry, but it doesn’t mean he’s not involved.”

  “How’d it go down? What exactly happened out there?”

  I hurriedly explained. “Bethany got into a running gun battle with him across town. She got shot before I could catch up to them. When I got there he was fleeing and I took him out.”

  Gina’s headlights settled on the humanlike figure sprawled on the sidewalk and I gave her a thumb’s up. She threw the car in Park.

  “Sheriff, we should know more in a minute.” I stepped out of Gina’s car. “I’ll call you when I find out who this guy is.” I flipped my phone shut and stuffed it in my pocket, turned to Gina. “You ready?”

  She nodded, and we created some distance between each other and made our way toward the body, scanning the area as we went. There were no sounds except for the bayou water lapping against the fishing wharf. Step by step we moved, closer and closer. When I finally stood directly over the body, I nudged it with my foot. Nothing. I crouched beside it and felt for a pulse. Nothing. I holstered my pistol and pulled a flashlight from my back pocket. I shined it around the body. The man had been shot several times in the back from a distance and then twice in the back of the head from close range, while he lay on the ground.

  “Captain Theriot did this? Our Captain Theriot?” Gina asked. “This is some cold-blooded shit.”

  I reached into the man’s back pocket and removed his wallet. The driver’s license told me he was Wesley Guidry—white male, fifty-seven years old. I held it for Gina to see. “Know
him?”

  She shook her head. “Never seen him before. He’s definitely not my type.”

  “What is your type?” I asked as I scanned the area immediately surrounding the body.

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Gina smiled. “You’ll just have to keep wanting.”

  I looked over my shoulder, but couldn’t see her facial expression in the night. “Are you toying with me?”

  “Maybe.”

  Something golden sparkled on the ground against the light from my flashlight. I leaned closer. “I’ve got some spent shell casings.”

  Gina moved beside me. “They’re tiny.”

  “Yeah, they look like thirty-two caliber casings.” I rubbed my chin, my face twisted in confusion. “Captain Theriot pulled a forty caliber pistol on Bethany—this guy was shot with a thirty-two.”

  “That’s not unusual,” Gina said. “He probably killed this guy with a drop gun and had plans on ditching it somewhere…or planting it on someone. Y’all surprised him, so he probably just instinctively pulled his duty pistol from his holster. Also, he knows enough about guns to know you don’t get in a shootout with a thirty-two pistol. They’re okay for close-range surprise assassinations, but they’re not worth a shit in a gun battle.”

  That made sense. I bent back toward Guidry’s body and searched him thoroughly, trying to locate the documents he had mentioned on the phone. Nothing. Other than his wallet, he had a set of keys and a pack of gum. “The documents aren’t here. I knew that bastard was lying.”

  “What about Captain Theriot?” Gina asked. “What if he took the documents after he shot him? Didn’t you say you saw him coming from this direction?”

  “Yeah, he was coming from here. He could have the documents, I guess.”

  Gina jerked her portable radio from her belt and called Lieutenant Corey Chiasson, who had arrived at the scene of Captain Theriot’s shooting and taken charge of the investigation. “LT, can you search Theriot’s body to see if he’s got any documents on him?”