Murder on the Lake of Fire

by Mikel J. Wilson

  “Oh my god!” Victor screamed from behind them. He was standing in the doorway, eyeing the damage to the new door. “Again?” His gaze turned to the gaping hole in the wall. “OH MY GOD!!”

  Standing nearest to the door, the guard froze in Victor’s glare. He responded in staggered grunts before forcing his mouth shut. Clarence handed the search warrant to Victor and pointed an accusing finger at Emory and Jeff. “They served me with a search warrant.”

  Refocusing his glare onto the other two men, Victor told them, “That doesn’t give you the right to damage at will.” Mouth open and shaking his head, Victor stamped toward them, and he handed Emory a folded paper he had brought with him. “This is yours.”

  “What is it?” Emory asked.

  “The bill for the last door. Expect another one tomorrow.” Victor looked to Jeff for an explanation. “Now tell me what on Earth is going on here.”

  Emory asked, “You put Scot in charge of your recent renovation, correct?”

  “So?”

  “My guess is he took the opportunity to cut this room in half.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Let’s find out.” Emory turned on his phone’s flashlight and led them into the secret room.

  When they entered, a motion-detecting light turned on. Once his eyes adjusted, Emory did a three-sixty and estimated the original storeroom was about sixteen-hundred square feet. He whispered to Jeff, “Strange coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “What?”

  One of Emory’s eyebrows rose above the other. “I’ve encountered two hidden rooms in a week. The other was in your office.”

  Jeff threw a hand to his chest. “What, you don’t think I have something to do with this, do you?”

  “Like I said, it’s a strange coincidence.” Emory shrugged and walked away.

  Victor touched some antique equipment shoved against one wall. “I had forgotten all about this. It’s some of the original machinery and tools my father-in-law used when he started the company. I kept meaning to build a museum room off the lobby, but I never got around to it.” He passed a coffin-sized glass case, which displayed the original drill Connor Ashley, Meredith Algarotti’s father, used to bore a well into Yonder Springs. A picture of Connor by the first well leaned against it on the floor.

  Emory focused his attention on two long metal tables in the center of the room. They were littered with a wide assortment of lab supplies – beakers, test tubes, a digital scale, Bunsen burners and a centrifuge. “This place looks like a high school chemistry lab.”

  Jeff glided past a group of five propane tanks toward eight palettes of Algarotti water – cases of grape-flavored water. Someone had cut the shrink wrapping down the middle of each case and taped it back together. “This water’s been tampered with. Victor, how many palettes have been stolen?”

  “Twelve, I think.”

  “Where are the rest of them?” Jeff muttered.

  Emory strolled between the tables, giving alternating glances to the items on top of each. He saw a lab apron draped over the room’s only barstool, and on the table surface above it, he found a lab notebook, a stapled printout of step-by-step instructions for the manufacturing of MDMA and a black light. He put on his gloves to pick up the notebook and thumb through it. “Scot kept a record of his attempts to make ecstasy and then modify it.” He put the notebook down, and his hands moved to the next object. “Why does he need a black light?”

  “Maybe he has underground raves here,” Jeff joked.

  Emory scanned the room until he saw the light switch on the wall. He asked Clarence, “Would you mind hitting the manual button on that light switch?” Once the guard did, the room pitched into near-perfect darkness.

  “What are you doing?” Victor asked.

  Emory turned on the black light and flashed it around the room until he saw points of illumination near where Jeff was standing. “What’s that?”

  Jeff walked to the points of light and grabbed one, causing a squeaking sound as he did. He held it up for others to see. “It’s a bottle of water. Each one has a luminescent smiley face emoji painted on it to mark it.”

  “Turn the light back on,” Victor ordered, and a second later, it was on again. Fuming, he approached a map of the Southern states hooked onto the wall. Numerous cities had a green triangle beside them, and three of them – Knoxville, Nashville and Memphis – had been circled with a red marker. “Our distributor map.” As the other men came to him, he explained, “The triangles are cities where we deliver our water.”

  Clarence gawked at the map. “Wow, that’s a lot of cities.”

  “What are the circles?” asked Jeff.

  Victor faced them. “I have no idea.”

  Emory had seen similar maps in previous drug busts. “Those are the locations where he has a distributor for his product.”

  “What are you talking about?” Victor asked.

  Emory explained, “He’s using your trucks and water to get his product out.”

  “What product? What is all this?”

  Jeff answered, “Scot is spiking some of your water with a drug similar to ecstasy, which would make it easier to distribute to users without being detected.”

  “He put drugs in my water?!”

  “Not all of it,” Emory told him. “Just the stolen water. I think he has an accomplice at each of the circled sites who could pick up the water marked with a smiley face and sell it at local clubs.”

  Victor leeched his palm onto his forehead. “This will ruin my company.”

  Jeff waved toward the water. “There are three cities circled, but four palettes are unaccounted for.”

  Emory said, “The van the sheriff described seeing here wouldn’t have the capacity for four palettes. My guess is it picked up one of the palettes to give samples to his distributors and maybe others he’s trying to recruit. Victor, were deliveries being made to any of the circled cities this weekend?”

  Victor thought aloud, “I shut down production on Friday, so we didn’t have enough product to ship out yesterday. We just barely made enough yesterday for one truckload to ship out today. With my foreman out, I had to come in myself to open the dock for a little bit before going to the hospital.”

  Emory asked, “Where was it heading?”

  Victor’s head dropped. “All three cities.”

  Emory exclaimed, “We’ve got to stop that truck!”

  “Wait!” Victor shouted before anyone could leave. “You have to keep this confidential. If word got out that any of our water, even stolen water, had drugs in it, our customers would drop us before waiting for an explanation. Promise me this won’t get out to the media.”

  Emory assured him, “We’re not going to announce it, but arrests are public record.”

  Victor snarled at them both, “I want you to get that son-of-a-bitch. Better yet, shoot him!”

  “I’m not going to shoot—” Emory started before he was interrupted.

  Victor pointed to Jeff. “Wait a second. Didn’t you say whoever was stealing the water killed my daughter?”

  “I said it could be the same person,” Jeff clarified.

  “I’m going to shoot him myself!” Victor growled before storming from the room.

  Emory and Jeff dashed after him, followed by the security guard. As soon as they passed through the broken doorway, Emory looked to his left to see Victor turning a corner to another hallway, heading toward his office. “This way!”

  Jeff grabbed Emory’s arm to get his attention. “That way. It’s Scot!”

  Emory looked to his right. Scot Trousdale stopped in his tracks and shot a glance toward Jeff’s voice. After a frozen second, Victor’s assistant bolted.

  “You take Victor!” Emory ordered Jeff, and he pointed at Clarence. “Do not let anyone in this room!”

  CHAPTER 34

  EMORY TOOK OFF after Scot. He slammed through the double swing doors to the receiving area, where Scot was waiting for him. The shorter man f
aced him in a wrestler stance, crouched with both hands before him, one holding a stun gun.

  Emory almost ran right into the gun, but at the last second, he grabbed the device and tried to wrestle it from Scot’s hand.

  Scot pushed back hard and Emory landed on his back with Scot on top of him, struggling to force the stun gun to Emory’s neck.

  Scot squeezed the trigger. Blue bolts of electricity twisted between the electrodes at the head of the device.

  Emory clenched his free hand and sent it up to Scot’s chin, sending his glasses flying. He punched him three more times before he jarred him enough to weaken him. He pushed the gun back toward Scot’s face.

  Scot moved more of his weight to his knees, using both hands to push the stun gun back toward his opponent.

  Emory tried bucking him off, to no avail. He kicked his knee up until it slammed against Scot’s groin. As Scot fell over in pain, Emory grabbed the weapon, blasting a bolt of electricity into his face.

  Scot fell to the floor, a red goose-egg welt rising from his left cheek. Nearly immobilized, he tried grabbing at the pain.

  Emory stood and caught his breath. He kicked Scot in the balls a second time. “Asshole!” He dropped the stun gun to the ground and stomped on it, smashing it. “I hate these things!” Panting, he jerked around and kicked Scot in the balls once more. “That’s for my dad.”

  Scot groaned in agony. This time he was able to reach the pain with his hands.

  Satisfied with his handiwork, Emory reached for the handcuffs on his belt. “Oh crap.” He remembered that his cuffs were somewhere in the living room of his parents’ house – thrown there the night before.

  He walked away from Scot in search of something to tie him with. He didn’t notice Scot’s glasses before stepping on them, nor did he see their owner working his way back up to his feet.

  Jeff lost sight of Victor during his pursuit, but his threat to shoot Scot was a verbal breadcrumb to where he was heading. It reminded him that he had found a gun in Victor’s desk when he broke in a couple of days earlier. When he arrived at Victor’s office, he turned the knob and ran into the door, expecting it to open. He tried the doorknob again, leaving no doubt that it was locked. He pounded the thick wood with his fist. “Victor! Victor, open up!”

  Jeff could hear movement inside the office and the sound of a turning knob – but not the one he was holding. “The other door.” He raced to the lobby and out the front entrance. He could see Victor walking from his office’s exterior door toward the parking lot. Without calling to him, Jeff ran and intercepted him at his luxury sedan.

  “Give me the gun, Victor,” Jeff demanded, although no gun was visible.

  Victor turned to Jeff. “What would you do if a man killed someone you loved?”

  “Exactly what you’re planning to do, but Scot didn’t kill Britt.”

  “You said whoever stole the water.”

  “It was an assumption. I don’t know it for certain, and we won’t until we have a chance to talk to him. Victor, you know Britt didn’t have a choice about how her life ended, but you do. Don’t throw your life away on a hotheaded mistake.”

  Victor hesitated. “Fine. I won’t.” He opened his car door and slipped into the driver seat. “Do your job,” he said before closing the door.

  Jeff knocked on the window and waited for Victor to roll it down. “I was serious about the gun. I need it.”

  “I’ve given you my word.”

  “It’s not that. I trust you’re not going to shoot Scot,” Jeff said, although it wasn’t true.

  “Then why do you want my gun?”

  “Rick Roberts’ dog was shot to death, likely by whoever killed him.”

  Victor let out an angry laugh. “You think I did that?”

  “I’m not accusing you, but your gun is the same caliber as the bullet that was recovered, and you’re not the only one with access to your office.”

  “Scot!” His eyes rolled up to Jeff. “How did you know about my gun?”

  Jeff lied, “Agent Rome told me that you had a gun registered,” hoping he did have it registered.

  “How did you know I kept it in my office?”

  The success from his first lie emboldened Jeff to do it again. “You talked about shooting and ran to your office.”

  The answer seemed to satisfy Victor, who pulled his gun from inside his suit jacket. Jeff produced a small knit scarf from his coat pocket and used it to take possession of the weapon.

  Emory had been looking for a rope or something to bind Scot with for just over a minute when he passed a stack of full five-gallon water bottles that reached halfway to the ceiling. On the other side he spotted another forklift with arms facing him and some tools on a bench. Walking toward the tools, he noticed the rope keychain hanging from the forklift’s ignition. It’ll be close, but it might be long enough. He was reaching for the key when he was attacked from behind.

  Scot wrapped his right arm around Emory’s neck and pushed his left forearm into the back of his neck, locking him in a sleeper hold. “I’m going to fucking kill you!” Scot screamed into his ear.

  Startled, Emory grabbed at the forearm around his neck before he realized what was happening. His other hand tightened around the key, turning the ignition. As the forklift’s engine puttered on, Emory kicked at Scot’s shin. If he didn’t break free within a few seconds, he would pass out from the lack of blood flow to his brain. The kicking wasn’t working.

  With one hand on Scot’s forearm, Emory reached a frantic and aimless hand before him. Grunting, he hit the forklift’s arm control, which made the arms of the forklift start to rise. Scot tried pulling him away, so Emory held the steering wheel and turned it. The forklift’s arms turned in their direction.

  Emory was about to pass out.

  The forklift’s arms reached eight feet high when they impacted the stack of five-gallon water bottles, piercing several of them and knocking others off the palettes. The water gushed from the bottles onto Scot and Emory like a spring waterfall, drenching them both.

  As his feet slid on the floor, Scot lost his grip enough to give Emory a second wind.

  Emory used his elbow to jab Scot’s left ribcage four times. He butted the back of his head into Scot’s forehead.

  Twisting around, Emory hurled a fist at Scot’s injured cheek, knocking him back into the crumbling stack of water bottles. Emory slipped in the growing puddle, but he was back on his feet just before Scot. He grabbed the neck of one of the fallen five-gallon water bottles, still full, and swung it until it connected with Scot’s face.

  Scot fell back, landing on a broken water bottle before coming to rest on the floor. He was out cold.

  Emory noticed Scot’s running shoes. He removed the laces and tied them around the suspect’s wrists.

  CHAPTER 35

  SANS GLASSES AND sporting a bandage around his head, Scot tapped his handcuffed wrists on the white table in the sheriff’s interrogation room. “You’ve got nothing on me.”

  Sitting opposite him, Sheriff Rome asked, “Then why’d you run?”

  Scot squinted a blackened eye at Emory, who was seated next to the sheriff. “Because he was chasing me! I heard how he chased Dan Claymon through the high school and then roughed him up. I was trying not to be his next victim.”

  Wearing latex gloves, Emory pointed to the broken stun gun on the table. “Is this the one you used to immobilize the sheriff two nights ago?”

  “I’ve never done anything to your daddy.”

  Emory held up the notebook he had retrieved from the secret room. “I have your journal right here.”

  Scot turned away. “I’ve never seen that before in my life.”

  “There are fingerprints all over this, some good ones from the cover. It won’t take long for us to get the results back, and I’m betting they match yours.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. I touch all our office supplies because I’m the one who puts them in the cabinet for anyone to take.”


  “Had that answer all prepared, didn’t you?” Emory thumbed through the pages. “You took the precaution of writing in all caps, making handwriting analysis more difficult, but not impossible. You’ve written in meticulous detail how you modified ecstasy into a new drug, Kama Sutra.”

  “Kama Sutra?” asked Scot. “Good name, but they should shorten it to Sutra. Druggies can’t handle more than two or three syllables. It does sound cool, though, if I were into that sort of thing.” Scot used his hands to place his next words on an imaginary sign: “Kama Sutra, the path to carnal bliss,” hissing the last word with a grin. His eyes shifted from Emory to Jeff, who was leaning against the wall. “Hey, you two should try it.”

  Jeff pushed off the wall and got right in Scot’s face. “You nearly killed the sheriff! What I’d like to try is breaking that table in half with your snarky face.”

  Scot laughed and nodded toward Emory. “Your boyfriend got a lucky shot in, or I wouldn’t be here.”

  Emory could feel his father’s eyes on him, but he maintained his focus on the suspect.

  Scot held up his cuffed hands. “Unleash me, and we’ll see how lucky you are.”

  Emory slammed the notebook on the table. “Look, Scot, we’ve seen the map, and I’ve read all your notes. We know your entire business plan.”

  Jeff backed away. “I find it hard to believe you came up with this on your own. Who are you working with?”

  His eyes on Jeff, Scot bounced his pecs a couple of times beneath his cotton shirt. “Don’t judge me by my muscles. I don’t have an ectomorphic IQ.”

  Emory told him, “You were smart. You probably waited until you had worked at the factory long enough for Victor to trust you before you suggested renovating part of the factory so you could include a secret room for yourself. The building’s old, so I’m sure it wasn’t difficult convincing him to modernize it. Is that correct?”

  Scot shrugged. “You tell me. It's your fiction.”