The Killing King of Gratis

by Jay Jackson

  Delroy arrived at the hospital within minutes of leaving Amy and was glad to see Kero’s truck already in the parking lot. He knew it would be there before he ever saw it.

  The Gratis Hospital had only one lobby and there he found Kero holding Cozette. She was sobbing and broke away from Kero when Delroy walked in. She flew up and punched him in the face. A slap would have been more lady-like, but the punch was more appropriate.

  “You son of a bitch! You messing around looking after that sorry ass Newt, driving all around town with that lady attorney who’s all of the sudden your damn girlfriend, and you let this happen.”

  Delroy, still a bit dazed from the punch, tried to break in. Cozette wasn’t done with him.

  “You have kids Delroy. They are your responsibility and you should have been there, but no, you let my little brother stand in front of the shotgun shell that you should have caught. If he doesn’t bleed to death he’ll lose his leg, at least. He might be a big dumb guy to you, but he’s my baby brother! To hell with me for ever listening to your shit, and it’s all shit from you Delroy, it’s all shit, every last bit of it.”

  Cozette started sobbing again. Delroy wanted to hug her but didn’t know what she would do if he tried. Kero stepped in and took Cozette in his arms. The trio stood there for a moment, the air stirred only by Cozette’s tears. Kero spoke.

  “Cozette, baby, Delroy’s had a hard summer too. I know he never meant for Matthew to get hurt in any way. If he could, he would stay with you all night, even if you punched him every few minutes, but the children are missing. You know we have to find them, and find the man that shot your brother. We’ve got something to give back to that man, I promise you.” He let go of her and now only held her hands.

  Cozette spoke, almost in a whisper, without looking up.

  “Then go give Skipper what he’s got coming.” She looked at Delroy and continued. “And don’t overthink it when you go looking, try to be a man. Don’t worry about nothing but those kids when you find Skipper. Leave out what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s legal and what ain’t. Do what you need to do for your family and mine, and don’t worry about anything, or anyone, else.”

  Delroy met Cozette’s gaze and nodded. He had no words for her, and so turned and left. Kero, after squeezing Cozette’s hands one last time, followed him out the door. They got into Kero’s truck and headed towards Daddy Jack’s. The old shotgun houses and burned out yarn mill drifted by as they rode, silently watching. Kero finally broke the silence.

  “What do you want to do, old buddy? Just say it and we’ll do it.”

  Delroy answered in a calm monotone.

  “The sheriff has all of his men staking out the usual places, going everywhere, to all of the Motte family properties, and all the roads going in and out of Gratis. He’s got an eye in the sky, and I imagine the Glynn County Sheriff is heading to Skipper’s place on East Beach right about now. Amy and Johnnie Lee are getting ready to call everybody they know in the media, if it comes to that. There’s got to be a good chance Skipper knows he’s been found out if he has a police scanner with him. Shit, the news pukes are gonna to be all over this story when it hits, even worse than now. He won’t be going back to where anyone expects him to be, but he’s been pretty good at doing the unexpected. Other than that, I’m not sure what to do. I could go say something to Anna, but that’ll get us nowhere. There’s got to be something we can do that the others aren’t. I just don’t know what that is.”

  Something really happening to Meg and Peck, the thing he prepared for all summer, was still the last thing he thought would actually happen. Delroy needed to think fast, but he was having a hard time thinking at all.

  Kero drove another two hundred feet before he braked hard and turned the wheel. Cars behind him and in front had to brake and swerve to make sure they didn’t hit him. The truck did a one eighty just before they got into downtown. A man yelled “crazy bastard” when he crept around them but neither of them heard. The friends looked at each other as they sat in the idling truck. Delroy wasn’t sure what his friend was doing, but he was glad it was something. Anything was better than the nothing he had right now.

  “Well shit Delroy, we have to have a plan right now. I have an idea so you better hang on.”

  With that Kero shot the truck forward, running the mouthy “bastard” yeller into the ditch as they flew by. Delroy didn’t know where they were going but hoped his friend’s plan would take him to the children. At this point that hope and his friend were all he had.

  52.

  Plan B

  Skipper was not very happy about the snatch. He was mad at himself for not planning better and angry that he had to shoot Matthew. He wasn’t morally opposed to shooting him, only that it had to awaken Cozette if she was at the house.

  He was waiting in his boat, hidden behind honeysuckles about seventy yards down from her dock, when the children pushed their boat into the channel. He smiled at his luck as they floated in almost a straight line toward his boat. Well, luck and strategy, he thought.

  The looks on their faces when he grabbed their boat with his grappling hook was almost worth the wait. He looked forward to the other looks he would get from them, especially from Meg. She looked lovely under the darkening sky of the Neck, an orchid ready to be plucked.

  When he ordered them into the boat, the boy actually lay down and appeared in shock. Meg, however, struggled with him, and he had to slap her and tell her to shut up. Evidently he didn’t slap hard enough because she let out a scream that would have startled his rotting father. Almost immediately, the huge lumbering mass that was Matthew came charging out into the back yard, yelling at the boat to stop.

  Skipper pointed the boat back toward the dock. Matthew must have been surprised by this maneuver because he didn’t seem to notice when Skipper lifted his shotgun and fired. All Skipper saw was a mass of humanity hit the ground. He turned his boat and sped down the channel toward the Bird.

  The whole thing was rather inelegant. It also changed his timeline. He would have to dispose of the children sooner than he planned to, and do so somewhere between Cozette’s house and his cruiser. The clearing he had picked out down river was not going to work because it was too far away. Damn, I should have already moored the cruiser down river, he thought, wondering what his father would say about his lack of precision.

  If Cozette wasn’t home yet, and he didn’t know whether she was or not, he still had time to do things right. If she was at home, though, he needed to get rid of the children quickly and get out of there as soon as possible. He decided to go ahead and shoot the two and throw them overboard. He was reaching for his gun when Meg moaned.

  She was sitting in the bottom of the boat by this time, covering Peck with her body. Meg understood that the man who took them had a gun and was not afraid to use it. She wouldn’t scream again, but couldn’t stop herself from moaning with the pain and fear.

  God that’s hot, was all Skipper could think. Maybe he should go ahead and get rid of the two but he couldn’t, not after that moan.

  “She’s got a few more in her,” he barely whispered to nobody.

  It was then he decided to go ahead with plan B. He was smart enough to know that one always needed a contingency if things went wrong. Good attorneys did that. If the jury didn’t bite on one argument they might bite on another. You had to be ready to argue either.

  Skipper’s plan B was the old four-wheeler he kept near town in an old textile warehouse his father had leased, on a hand shake, from a former client for the last twenty years. He cranked it up not two weeks before and filled it with gas. Earlier in the week he stuffed a change of clothes and fifteen thousand dollars into the utility chest on the back, just in case. All he had to do was take the boat down the river, put in at one of the caves going into the tunnels running under Gratis, and take that tunnel underground to the warehouse. When he was a child he explored the tunnels under that warehouse many times, never knowing that he was prepar
ing himself for today.

  He would then drive out of town, looking like any other hunter or tree farmer going to check his land. Taking back roads and trails, he would go to an old hunting cabin his family owned under his mother’s maiden name in the next county. They kept an old jeep there, and, with a little luck, he would make it to Savannah or Jacksonville. From there he knew lots of ways to get out of the country. With a little time and distance he was smart enough to make himself invisible. He just had to get out of Gratis.

  First he had to make it to the tunnels. He had planned to go to a cave opening on the riverbank not too far from the warehouse, about three more miles upriver. That would be the most efficient way. Watching the children squirm at his feet, however, it became obvious to him that he would have to change that part of the plan. There was a far more suitable place for his session with Meg. The girl and her brother would be found in the place where the whole summer began. Elegance would be achieved after all. He smiled at the thought.

  The three of them whipped down river, the boat flying now they were in deeper water. The children huddled in the bottom, Skipper’s prized catch, were in for a surprise. They would be visiting the turtle palace one more time. This time would be their last, and this time they wouldn’t leave, not a chance.

  53.

  Down By the River

  Kero and Delroy were speeding down River Road and now on the edge of town. As they did so they neared the old grounded shrimper, grinning at them from its watery nest.

  “Delroy, it seems to me that Skipper probably ain’t gonna be on the roads or water if he’s heard all the sirens. He’s going to ground. We won’t hear from him if he has anything to do with it. You know he’s not going to show up at his daddy’s door to sit down with the Sheriff.”

  Delroy nodded. It was good to hear his friend make sense and sound sane. Right now he needed that.

  Kero continued. “Here’s what I think. I think he’s going to the tunnels. He knows them. He grew up here like we did, and his daddy must own a few properties connecting to them. Shit, he knew them well enough to take Millie there when he started this whole killing thing. He doesn’t just know them, he feels at home when he’s there.”

  Delroy kept nodding. His friend was right. Without asking he knew where they were going.

  “So, I think I’ll take you down to where Skipper did his first killing, down to where they found Millie’s body.”

  Delroy mouthed the words “turtle palace” to himself.

  “I’m going to leave you there and then I’m getting into the tunnels at Daddy Jack’s and coming back to you. Maybe we can corner him, who knows. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Hell buddy, I don’t really know what else to do, but that sounds like a plan that makes a little bit of sense to me.”

  It made a lot of sense to Delroy. Skipper’s murders were a quilt of actions and reactions. Millie’s death hurt Gratis, Althea’s hurt the investigation, Merry’s hurt everything. Even the booze party Skipper threw with his father’s corpse must have dealt with something in his twisted mind.

  Hurting (he couldn’t even think the word ‘killing’) Meg and Peck where he started it all would wrap it up nicely. Better yet, it would show Skipper’s contempt for his pursuers. How inept could they be? He would laugh at them.

  How much did he laugh at me when I told him he was doing a good job? When I told him I would help him if he stopped working for his daddy and hung his own shingle? Delroy winced at his own stupidity.

  When they got near, Kero turned off the truck’s engine as well as the lights. They coasted another fifty feet and pulled off the road. They were just above the cave where Peck saw the turtles that awful day. It seemed like years ago to both of them.

  Kero parked the truck, handed a flashlight to Delroy, and got his pistol out of the glove box. They crept down to the water’s edge, not wanting to spook anyone. The two weren’t adept at sneaking, however, and small rocks poured down the bank in front of them and plopped into the water as they crept. If Skipper was down there it wouldn’t be much of a surprise party. Fortunately, at the bottom, all they found was a small boat tied to a tree, shoved into the mud on the bank.

  Kero grabbed Delroy’s arm.

  “Looks like we might’ve guessed right. I can’t imagine who else would be here in a boat right now, at this time of night,” Kero whispered.

  “Yep, you’re right. Look, go back to Daddy Jack’s and come back at me like you said you would,” Delroy replied. “We’ll trap him one way or another. Call Tommy and let him know what we’re doing. We could use more men in case he gets by us.” He didn’t say “kills one of us.” It was pretty much implied.

  “I’ll go and I’ll call Tommy. If you get there before I do, Delroy, and things go bad, hang on, because I’ll be there soon enough.” With that, Kero went back to the truck and went burning down River Road. For a moment the night was totally quiet. Delroy reached back to check his gun. He wanted to make sure it was loaded and the safety was off.

  He found nothing.

  The gun wasn’t in his waist band, and he immediately remembered leaving it Amy’s car. He didn’t want to bring it into the hospital so he left it under her seat, not thinking to get it before he got into Kero’s truck.

  Typical dumbass move, he thought. Every instance of forgetting his briefcase for court or locking himself out of his house bombarded him. He sat there not sure what to do.

  Yep, I’m hunting for a psychopath with a shotgun and all I brought was nothing. Delroy grimaced and looked around. The tunnel entrance was waiting to swallow him whole, and the waves banged on the old shrimper, mocking him. He was scared.

  A slight sound echoed from the tunnel. It could have been any number of sounds. Barely discernible, it may even have been nothing at all, just his mind having fun with him. To Delroy, however, it was the sound of children dying. Any fear he had for himself turned into fear for the children. He walked into the tunnel, clasping his flashlight, ready to eat that shotgun shell Cozette told him he had coming.

  Meg and Peck needed him, plain and simple. He had to go, whether it was the smart thing to do or not. Being smart didn’t apply, not here, not now.

  54.

  Skipper Gets Ready

  Skipper was surprised at how pliable the boy was. He didn’t put up a fight or say anything at all. All Skipper had to do was point and the boy went. He was starting to wonder whether the boy was slow, whether anything that was happening was even registering with him.

  What a little sissy-boy. Skipper was disgusted with him. He would have killed him already but was curious to see his reaction to what his sister would go through. Little turd will probably just cry. Skipper considered whether the boy would close his eyes, and whether he would need to cut off his eyelids to make sure he didn’t. He wished he had brought a straight razor. Next time be more careful packing, he thought.

  Meg at least struggled with him as they went into the tunnels. She didn’t fight so much as become dead weight and pull against him when they first entered. That stopped after he aimed the shotgun at the back of Peck’s head. You just have to know how to lead a little heifer. It’s not hard after you figure it out.

  Skipper smiled. This was getting easy.

  The trio moved back into the tunnels, further than the children had ever been. The darkness was overwhelming, and the children tripped on every root and rock in their path. Skipper just kept moving them along. The air hung heavy and stale, no breeze penetrating this far back from the opening.

  The children were exhausted when they finally stopped. Skipper instructed them to get on their knees. They did so, and Meg wrapped herself around her little brother. Skipper hung the lantern on a small hook in the wall, and then took out a flashlight and rummaged in his bag. Out came two more lanterns, each bigger than the first one. He lit them.

  The children could see that they were in a room about thirty feet long and twenty feet wide, with a ceiling that was at least ten feet high. The sides were hollowed out, pro
bably to store illegal liquor long ago. The lanterns flickered against the damp walls and Skipper spoke.

  “This is as far as you two will go with me. Boy, you need to come here.”

  Meg refused to unwrap from her brother and they stayed there, their knees and elbows grinding into the mud and rocks.

  Skipper’s tone didn’t change a bit. He leveled his gun at the children.

  “You can move or I’ll shoot you and then shoot him. You don’t want your little brother to die, do you Meggy?”

  Meg was mustering all the bravado she could. She didn’t know how to answer Skipper’s question in a way that would save her little brother, so she finally let go of him. As Peck crawled toward Skipper, all Meg could do was scream at the man holding the gun.

  “I hate you. I HATE you!” With that she crumpled and sobbed.

  Skipper’s eyes were starting to glisten, but he answered her in the same even voice.

  “Little Meggy, you don’t have any idea what it is to hate, but you will.”

  He took plastic ties from his bag and bound Peck’s hands. He marveled that the boy still hadn’t said a word or even whimpered. What a little turdstain. He would have to get creative with Meg to get anything out of the boy. He would have to let his imagination run wild.

  Forget Millie and Merry. This is going to be a work of art.

  The boy lay back on the ground after Skipper tied his hands. He considered tying them behind his body, but decided not to with Peck. The boy didn’t merit the extra effort. Anyway, Skipper was curious to see when the boy covered his eyes for the first time.

  He knew it would be soon. And even if you don’t see it all, Skipper thought, you’re sure as hell gonna hear it. And it’s gonna be something to hear, boy, something you won’t forget.

  55.

  Turtle Palace Redux