A black pickup and a small red car appeared rounding the corner on the highway in the distance. He trotted back to the blacktop, waved, and a guy in the Dodge pickup shut it down and pulled over. Mississippi plates, oversized front bumper, and not a scratch on the paint.
Meshach opened the door and hopped in.
“Where you headed? Going to a heliport?” the guy said. He quickly ran the pickup through the manual gears to seventy-five, ten over the limit and too fast for Meshach’s liking.
“No,” Meshach said, taking in the man’s camouflaged cap, jeans, Duck something T-shirt, and the smell of smoke from a pungent cigar of some kind. He was a bull. Hairy arms and hands like a catcher’s mitt. A Globe and Anchor tattoo on his forearm screamed jarhead. The interior of the pickup was clean. The guy liked his ride. He dipped snuff. A peppermint something, from the smell of it, filled his lip and pointed to the purpose for the cup on the seat between his legs. “You can drop me off up the road. It’s not far. Are you going to a heliport?”
“Yeah, I’m headed to Boothville, to PHI. Going out to the Deepwater Nautilus for Shell.” He raised the cup, gave it a quick, noisy squirt from between the noticeable gap in his teeth, and peeked at his watch. “I’d help with your car, but I’m running late.”
Meshach leaned forward a little to look back in the side mirror. A semi rounded the corner a mile behind them. His Altima was out of sight. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got someone who can help. Up here on the right.” He pointed. “You can let me out at the next power pole.”
Meshach hopped out and scaled the driveway up the levee. He had a problem now: no wheels and sixty miles from New Orleans. He scanned the camp houses and empty parking area behind them.
First things first.
He eyed his boat as he walked to the house and let himself in. He gathered his things again, including the cash he’d replaced in their hiding places. After a hurried count, he stuffed thirty-eight grand and change into his backpack. He looked around. He’d missed something, but what? Pistol tucked into his belt, computer, phone, he was done. Then he saw Lane’s wallet and I.D. on the table next to the couch. Those he stuffed into a pocket in the bag. He grabbed his gear and stepped to the door.
Unbelievable, Shanteel’s cop, on the porch in front of the door, like poof, the elephant in the magic show. No use in wasting time wondering where he came from. He’d missed seeing or hearing the cruiser drive up.
Meshach walked straight toward the man. That obviously stumped him. The cop stepped back. Meshach reached behind his back and palmed the Kimber. The danger appeared in front of the cop, but he didn’t move. The brain took a second to register what the eyes saw then another moment for a thought of disbelief before the body reacted. He moved quicker than Meshach would have believed, bringing a Glock to bear, centered on Meshach’s chest.
Like a slow-motion replay, Meshach saw the flash and a small hole appeared in the screen in the door between them. The action on the service piece slid back, and the spent casing sailed up and away to the cop’s right.
Meshach’s .45 bucked a blink in time after the cop’s gun chambered the second round. He felt it, hard in the palm of his hand, but too hard. Something wasn’t right.
28
Sunday morning
Wes exited Causeway Boulevard onto I-10 eastward. Tony had been occupied with his phone since they left the hotel, quiet as a titmouse, and just as well. Wes didn’t know where he was going, but he had to go. Tony’s queries about their destination would have been answered with a shrug.
Bubba said they’d hit a nerve. What nerve? Pride? Ego? He reached for Tony’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “What are we missing?”
“I don’t know.” Tony was quick to answer but slow to turn loose of what he was doing and look up. “I’m going over his posts and the names again. I’m worried, but I wonder too, why the note on the card? Bubba was right about him taking this personal. I think we’ll hear from him and soon. He’s arrogant. Like a bully who wants to fight but only on his terms.”
Wes wasn’t so sure. He knew people who reveled in the anguish of others. Meshach struck him as the type who didn’t have to see his enemy fall or suffer. A mental image sufficed. He started to voice those thoughts when his phone chirped. “This is Wes.”
“Agent Carr, here. Do you know how to get to Venice?”
~*~
A chopper parked on the top of the levee next to a couple of sheriff’s department cruisers marked the spot. Wes punched the button on the window as he braked to a stop and addressed a tall, skinny deputy. “Wes Hansen and Tony Moran to see Agent Carr.”
The man opened a metal clipboard, scanned the contents, and waved them through.
A crime scene van sat behind a row of bungalows, though that wasn’t the right word because they were huge. Wes had been to Grand Isle fishing with Bubba long ago. He knew these men took pride in their fish camps. Local companies used them to cater to their clients. These looked very nice. More like second homes.
The middle one of the five places crawled with uniformed personnel.
Wes parked well back, out of the way, and he and Tony got out. Agent Carr stood at the end of a long landing talking to a guy in yellow boat shoes, red shorts, and a green T-shirt. One bay boat was moored in the end slip.
Wes pulled Tony aside before they stepped onto the dock. “Let’s hang back until he’s finished with the guy. Not everyone likes to talk to the FBI in private—much less with others listening in.”
“This doesn’t look good, does it, Wes?”
“No, but don’t think the worst. I don’t believe Jess’s status has changed. Bubba and Trent wouldn’t have left us hanging if they had bad news to convey.”
Tony faced the house and jammed his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. “Something bad happened here.”
Agent Carr turned their direction and walked over. “Wes, Tony, thanks for coming.”
“Oh, no need to thank us, Agent Carr,” Wes said. “You couldn’t keep us away. What happened?”
“A Parrish deputy recognized the suspect from the BOLO we issued this morning and tried to make an arrest on his own. Shots were fired. The officer is critical. Evidence indicates our suspect is wounded, though how badly is in question. We’re still working the scene.”
“Are you sure it’s Meshach?” Tony asked.
“We are.” He checked his note pad. “A Miss Shanteel Dupree gave a positive description of the man. She’s been very enlightening. She spent time in a boat offshore with him. Through her, we know members of the Coast Guard have also met him. We’re tracking that contact.” He turned and pointed to the house.
“Wait, please,” Wes said. “Any sign Jess has been here?”
Trent shook his head. “I’m sorry, no. It’s the first thing we looked for. We know he has or had access to a boat and a white car, but we don’t know the make and model. According to Miss Dupree, his present ‘white car’ is a replacement for a ‘shiny black one.’ The boat is similar to the one there. Neither are present on location.”
Wes glanced offshore. He knew the shiny black one, the Chrysler. As he suspected, Meshach had changed cars, but something didn’t make sense. Meshach didn’t drive a boat to Mandeville to kidnap Jess. The man could get to Mandeville by boat, from here, but why go by water? The trip would take too long.
Tony produced his phone, swiped at it, and then held it out for them to see the time. “Hang on. Look, it’s after one. From the time Jess disappeared until the time you called us was…what? Five hours and a bit? It takes two hours to drive here from the north shore. What time did the shooting occur, nine fifteen, nine thirty? Meshach didn’t have much free time.” His voice went up an octave. “It’s broad daylight. What did he do with Jess?”
To that, Trent could only shake his head. “The man I talked to when you arrived owns this middle place where our suspect’s been staying the past week. You were right about the handler. The owner received a sizable sum in advance f
or use of both the house and a bay boat. During one of their conversations the suspect referred to another party as ‘the man who paid.’”
Wes didn’t care about the handler. He was the FBI’s problem now. “Look, Trent…” The whop-whop of helicopter blades penetrated the breeze. A yellow chopper banked left in the distance. “…no way he made the trip by boat, but if he’s in it now, where’s his car? What about the Coast Guard? Will they put a bird in the air?”
“Already there, two of them. We’ve asked for a full-scale search and rescue effort. We’ve issued an alert to shipping companies, oilfield boat companies, and local fishing guides to be on the lookout for both Miss Wahl and the suspect. Someone will spot him.”
Wes hated the word suspect, and Trent wore it out with every sentence. Law enforcement could witness a murder, arrest a man on the spot, with the weapon, get a confession, throw him in the back of a squad car, then turn to a reporter and call him the alleged suspect. Political correctness drove him nuts.
A guy who didn’t look much older than Trent bounded down the steps from the house in question. He carried a small black valise. “You wanted this? I’m done with it.”
Trent took the case by the strap with one finger. “Give me a pair of gloves, please.”
The other man complied and walked away. Trent held the rubber gloves out to Tony. “Put these on.”
Tony looked between the agent and the case.
Trent offered both again. “Tony, get into his laptop for us.”
Tony rubbed his hands together and took the gloves.
~*~
Sunday, evening, twenty miles northwest of Venice
Meshach knew he didn’t have much time. Every lawman in Louisiana would be looking for him by now. He weaved his way north through the many waterways in the marsh, toward a more populated area where he had a larger variety of options for shelter.
He glanced at the levee to his right. His car with ole blue-eyes in the back would be safe until he returned. She was the praying type. He heard her ask for His help earlier that morning. She’d be praying now, he’d venture. He’d always wondered if the words had to be spoken. With her mouthed taped, could her God hear her thoughts?
Had he known beforehand, he would have bought the old blue Caddi instead of the white Altima. The trunk of that Caddi would be an oven with the sun shining on it.
He knew without looking that blood dripped at a steady rate from the T-shirt wrapped around his right hand. Time to find a place where he could take care of his wound. He had his eye on a lone house in the near distance. Occupied or not, he would stop.
A typical clapboard-sided structure occupied the only tiny piece of muddy ground above sea level for miles. It looked like the one he grew up in except for the stilts it sat on. A rickety dock jutted out from the steps leading to the front door. Toward the back of the place, just like a driveway, a narrow waterway, not much wider than his boat, led to a small shed. He flipped the boat around, backed in, and killed the engine.
The first aid kit under the seat in the boat held means for treating minor cuts and mishaps with fishhooks, not bullet wounds. He didn’t have other options. He grabbed it and tucked it under his right arm. He carried the cop’s 9mm in his left hand to accent the Kimber tucked into his belt.
He ascended the steps and kicked in the front door. Sunlight filtered through the cracks between the boards over the windows and streaked the walls. Not much for furniture. Old newspapers littered the floor. No electronics, no fridge, and the gray, tiled countertops were bare except for one mousetrap. Black mold crept across one corner of the wooden ceiling. He wondered why they bothered to lock the door.
It was hotter and more humid inside than outside. It smelled stagnant. He crossed the room and opened the back door to get a cross flow. Wasn’t much, but soaked with sweat, he felt cooler immediately.
He pulled the only end table and metal kitchen chair to the door, into the sunlight, and placed the first aid kit and both pistols on the table.
Like the place he’d just left, the only walled rooms were in the back of the house—two bedrooms and one bath. He rummaged through the bathroom drawers and found nothing he could use. Back in the kitchen, he jerked open drawers one at a time—plastic lids, metal lids, miscellaneous junk, tidbits of cheap silverware, a rolling pin and a sieve. He slammed the last drawer, then opened it again.
Now, it looked like he would have to man-up, as his old man used to tell him. Scissors. Appropriate.
He carried them to the table at the door, sat in the chair, and carefully unwrapped the bloody rag from around his hand. His little finger fell to the side. The cop’s bullet had severed the bone leaving a mess of skin with no structure. A doctor might save it, but he wasn’t a doctor.
If he could snip it off and leave enough skin on the outside to fold over the bone…if the skin had adequate blood supply…if, if.
The laughter he heard came from his own lips. The scream that followed sounded just like his mother’s.
29
Sunday evening
Five hours had passed since Tony sat at the bar with Meshach’s computer in the end house. When he powered up the machine, Wes made his exit. There was no use pushing or asking unneeded questions. If the techie found evidence on the hard drive he thought would help locate Jess, he’d report.
Just like there was no use quizzing FBI-and-company about gaining access to the house Meshach used. Not until the crime lab finished their work. Though he wondered what the holdup was. They were taking their sweet time.
Did he want to have a look inside? In the worst way. Agent Carr knew he wanted in too.
Wes found a perch and watched the show. Now and then he looked in on Tony, more for something to do. Somewhere toward midafternoon, about the same time he considered calling his employer, another helicopter landed a stone’s throw from the first one and kicked out two more Feds. One of them a young woman Agent Carr assigned to assist Tony. The second agent entered Meshach’s house and hadn’t been seen since.
The roadblock didn’t stop the curiosity factor from drawing gawkers. Looked like anyone who owned a boat cruised by or stopped a distance away in the many water passages and buried their faces behind a pair of binoculars.
He wondered about Meshach. Wouldn’t be the first time a criminal stood in a crowd of onlookers to admire his own handiwork. It was hard to call fifteen boats scattered over four hundred acres of marsh a crowd. Meshach wasn’t that dumb.
Wes walked over to the bay boat. Three-hundred-horse Yamaha outboard, a bit over twenty feet long, center console, live-wells front and back, and absolutely spotless, pristine condition. A posh fishing vessel from what he was used to seeing. What did Meshach want with such a boat? A list of potential targets came to mind—refineries, oil storage facilities, ships, platforms, the Mississippi itself, as a conduit for commerce. Easy land access made the first two on the list unlikely prospects. Wes believed Meshach had his sights offshore.
Wes’s conscience refused to let his mind rest. Images of Jess at the hands of Meshach sucker punched him when he least expected. Stay tactical. Keep the mind on the facts. Dig, look, think about the information, find the man, and don’t let the imagination run wild. Hard to do.
He’d think about her with the maniac until the images became almost real, like fresh memories. One image his subconscious seemed particularly fond of: Meshach in the sights of his Springfield .45. He’d let that clip play until he realized he was grinding his teeth. Then he’d shake off the thought and walk.
It wasn’t like Wes to wish someone dead, but in this case, he couldn’t really care less what happened to the man.
He asked himself why he didn’t call Cole and, again, answered the question in the same thought. He didn’t know. He’d messed up and made rookie mistakes, maybe fatal ones, and he could look any man in the eye and voice it. So what was his excuse?
Then again, he didn’t have a regular job with set hours where he performed measurable tasks. The
man had hired him to find Meshach. Appears he had. Now, the authorities controlled the investigation. He’d done what he said he would.
The guy in the bright boat shoes Trent had been talking to when Wes and Tony first arrived exited a cruiser among many. Trent mentioned the man owned the house in question. The man strutted onto the dock and stopped a few feet away, staring toward his property.
“Takes time,” Wes said.
“Excuse me.” He gave Wes a quick annoyed look and planted his hands on his hips.
“Time, PR work, patience required. I want to get in there too.”
“What for?” The man’s tone turned defensive. “I’ve got a group coming tomorrow, from out of state, and lots to do. My place is trashed.”
“I won’t be long. Just need to look around for myself, get a feel for—”
“We’ll see about that.” He turned and walked away.
The fuse had been lit that morning and had slowly fizzled down until nothing was left to do but ignite the dynamite. Three quick steps cut him off. “Hey, what’s your name?”
“Scott Breaux. I’m the owner.”
His dark eyes locked onto Wes’s for an instant then darted away. He tried to turn again, but Wes moved into his airspace, close enough to smell the stench of cigarette smoke mixed with sweat and force the man to retreat a step. His gaze returned to Wes’s chin, matching the difference in their height. Wes had his attention now and whispered hard, just for Scott. “You’re worried about money when lives are at stake, one very dear to me in particular. Another man has been shot and may not survive. Your focus is blurred, so go sit in your boat and keep your mouth shut until someone asks you a question.
“For that matter,” Wes held up his right hand and wiggled his index finger to indicate the house. “I’ll be surprised if your place isn’t covered in crime scene tape and sealed up for a month.”
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