But Not Forgiven: A Clint Wolf Novel (Clint Wolf Mystery Series Book 2)

by BJ Bourg

  My heart fell to my gut and stopped ticking. Susan saw the look on my face and turned her hands up. “What is it?” she mouthed.

  Before pressing the button for line one, I told her what Marsha said. She stood with her jaw hanging as I answered the line and greeted Sheriff Turner.

  “Clint, I know you got the killer, but there’s been another attack. I think it’s a copycat, because this one’s different. It happened inside the house. Some kind of way, this slick bastard snuck by my deputy, broke into the house without making a sound, and executed Drake Alan while he slept.”

  I pushed the phone away from my mouth, turning to Susan. “Drake Alan—is he one of the jurors?”

  Susan walked to the dry erase board on my wall (where we’d taped the hit list) and ran her finger up and down the printed names. I saw her finger stop on one and she turned to nod. “It sure is.”

  My mind raced as a few things began falling into place inside my head. “Sheriff, it’s no copycat. It’s the original killer.”

  “But this one’s different, Clint. The victim wasn’t—”

  “It’s different because the killer has to complete her mission before we catch her. She knows we’re closing in on her.” I snatched the Gregg Daniels file from my desk. Before hanging up, I told Sheriff Turner to activate his SWAT team and put officers inside the homes of every remaining juror. “We’re dealing with a crafty individual and she might be one of us!”

  CHAPTER 53

  With Susan hot on my heels, I rushed into the holding area. Snatching the key out of the security drawer, I hurried to the cell door and shoved the key into the hole. Sandra stood and backed into a corner of the cell when I wrenched the door open, as though she thought I was going to attack her. I pulled the old newspaper article from the file and shoved it in her face. “The jury believed your ex-husband over you and your babysitter,” I said, quoting from the article. “You had a daughter, didn’t you? And Gregg Daniels raped her, too, when he was released from jail, didn’t he?”

  Sandra just stood there trembling, her eyes wide and her hands covering her mouth.

  “Who is she?” I asked. “What’s her name?”

  Sandra shook her head. “I…I want a lawyer.”

  “Very well,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll find her picture at your house.”

  “You can’t search my house without a warrant,” Sandra called weakly, as I slammed the cell door shut and locked it back. “Stay out of my house.”

  “The warrant is probably already signed,” I called over my shoulder as Susan and I rushed out of the holding area. “Marsha, did we get a fax from the judge yet?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet.”

  “I’m calling him.” Susan grabbed Marsha’s phone and dialed the number. The judge answered and she spoke hurriedly with him, explaining the new developments. When she hung up, she gave me a thumbs-up. “He gave verbal consent to search Sandra Voison’s house.”

  I rushed out of the office and jumped into my Tahoe, pressing the button to the automatic garage door as I did so. Susan slid into the passenger’s seat beside me and told me to slow down on the way out of the sally port. “You don’t want the media following us.”

  Knowing full well she was right, I forced myself to slowly back out of the sally port and onto the street. We smiled and waved at two reporters who stood on the sidewalk smoking cigarettes and talking. I cruised slowly down Main Street, traveling less than the speed limit, until the glow from their cigarettes couldn’t be detected in my rearview mirror, and then smashed the accelerator, racing toward Sandra’s house.

  I jumped the bridge, headed south along Cypress Highway, and didn’t slow down until we were a hundred yards away. I shut off the headlights and killed the engine, coasting into the driveway and smashing the emergency brakes. “Keep your eyes peeled,” I warned Susan. “There’s no telling where she is.”

  We rolled from the Tahoe and stalked toward the front door. Other than the sound of mosquitoes buzzing in our ears, all was quiet. Susan fished Sandra’s keys from her front pocket and unlocked the door. We slipped inside and locked the door behind us. Using only our flashlights, we moved through the kitchen—pausing only to pull the curtains closed—and into the living room, where pictures lined three walls. One of the walls was dedicated to Spencer and it looked like a shrine.

  “She really loved this man,” Susan said. She turned toward me and her eyes were ghostly in the dim light. “I saw the same pain in her eyes that I see in yours.”

  I looked down, shuffled my feet.

  Without waiting for me to respond, she continued. “You lost Michele while y’all were still very much in love. People say divorces are hard, but by the time a couple files for divorce, both parties already know things have eroded to the point of hatred. But to lose someone at the height of a relationship…” Susan shook her head. “No one should have to live through that.”

  I turned toward the opposite wall and aimed my light at the picture frames on that wall. Something familiar caught my eye and I walked closer, focusing the light on one of the faces in a picture with Sandra Voison. When the image came into full view, I nearly vomited. I know I cursed—a lot—because Susan rushed beside me asking what was going on and feeling me for injuries. I could only point at the picture…and curse some more.

  Susan’s mouth dropped open and she sank to her knees, rolled onto her butt, and leaned back against the wall. I sank to the floor beside her and my flashlight dropped from my hand. We both sat there staring into the blackness, neither of us saying a word. I could barely hear Susan breathing above the sound of my heart beating. I felt weak and tired…sick to my stomach.

  CHAPTER 54

  We must’ve sat there for twenty minutes before Susan asked, in a low and cracking voice, “What’re we going to do?”

  I’d spent the whole time wondering that exact thing. “I don’t know.”

  Another moment of silence.

  “We have to do something,” Susan said.

  I nodded, knowing she couldn’t see me in the dark. It was another ten minutes before I spoke again. “I think I know what to do, but we’ll have to play it cool…very cool.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  I told her my plan and she took a deep breath. “Are you sure about that?”

  “It’s the only way to do it without someone else getting hurt.”

  Susan sighed. “I sure hope it works.”

  “It’s got to.”

  I helped Susan to her feet—not that she needed it—and snatched the picture frame from the wall before we walked outside into the warm night air. The drive back to the office took longer than the drive to Sandra’s house, because I was dreading what we’d have to do. As I drove, I called Sheriff Turner and told him who our prime suspect was and asked that he tell only the most trusted members of his department. I shared my plan with him and he told me his people were available if I needed them.

  Once we arrived back at the office, we stopped near the dispatcher’s desk. “Call Melvin and Amy and ask them to meet us here at the station,” I said to Marsha. “Tell them I’m sorry to bother them, but Sandra Voison is refusing to cooperate and another juror was killed right under Sheriff Turner’s nose, so we need one of our people embedded with each of his SWAT members at the juror’s houses until we can figure out who’s committing the murders. Also, reach William on the radio and tell him the same thing.”

  I then went into my office to wait with Susan. Neither of us said a word, each lost in our own thoughts. I was hoping no one else would die that night, but I wasn’t optimistic.

  William arrived first. “Where’s Susan and Clint?” he asked Marsha.

  I couldn’t hear what Marsha said, but William appeared in the doorway to my office. “So, what’s this I hear about another murder?”

  I frowned. “He’s still out there, Will. Mrs. Voison won’t cooperate and we’ve got no evidence to hold her, so we’re going to have to let her go soon. Our best cha
nce is to be at the next kill site when the killer arrives.”

  William nodded and took a seat next to Susan. “How’s your wound healing?” he asked.

  “As well as can be expected,” she said. “I can’t wait to get the stitches out. They itch.”

  We heard the side door open and Susan got up and walked to the door of my office. “It’s Melvin,” she said over her shoulder.

  I stood to walk around my desk. “Let’s meet in the conference room and lay out our plan.”

  William got up and walked toward the door. “What about Amy?”

  Melvin heard him and called out, “She should be here any minute. I heard her go in service over the—what the hell?”

  Susan turned abruptly in my doorway and kicked William square in the solar plexus, sending him reeling backward toward me. I rushed forward and put my left arm around his throat and grabbed his pistol with my right hand. “Get in here, Melvin!” I hollered. “William’s the killer!”

  Susan was moving forward and reaching for William’s right arm when he punched her in the left breast, right over her wound. I saw her face twist in pain, but she kept coming forward. William clawed at my right hand, trying to pry my fingers loose from his pistol. Melvin was trying to get around Susan, but the space was cramped and he bumped into her, sending her flying into my desk. Melvin lost his balance and fell forward into William, knocking all of us off balance. I tripped on one of the chairs and fell backward with William crashing on top of me and Melvin on top of him.

  I struggled to get out from under them while maintaining my grip on William’s pistol, but William wasn’t having any of it. He grabbed my right index finger and wrenched it sideways while biting into my left forearm. I didn’t know what hurt worse—my finger or my forearm—but I tried to block out the pain and hold on while Melvin scrambled to get control of William’s left arm. We struggled for what seemed like forever, knocking furniture down and stumbling all over each other.

  Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of Susan’s foot stomping at William’s torso. The first few strikes didn’t seem to do much, but one finally connected and I heard him grunt. Melvin was able to grab William’s left arm and peel it away from his body while Susan hooked his right arm in both of her arms and jerked on it, nearly taking my finger with it. She did some kind of twisting movement that placed her legs across William’s chest—kicking Melvin in the face in the process—with his right arm between her legs. With a grunt, she gave her hips a thrust upward and I heard a sickening crunch as William’s arm bent ninety degrees in the wrong direction. William screamed in pain and his body relaxed, no longer interested in fighting.

  Susan and Melvin jerked William off of me and slammed him onto his face, cuffing his arms behind his back. William cried out in pain, begging them to release his broken arm.

  “You’re lucky we don’t kill you!” Susan said, reading him his rights as she pulled him roughly to a standing position.

  CHAPTER 55

  I rolled to my feet in time to see Amy arrive in the doorway. “What in the hell is going on?” she asked, both hands planted on her hips. “Marsha’s hiding under her desk and it looks like a tornado came through here.”

  “It feels like a tornado came through here.” Melvin said, trying to catch his breath. “I’d like to know what’s going on, too. That’s one of our own standing there in handcuffs!”

  I picked one of the chairs off the floor and sat William in it. “William is Gregg Daniels’ stepson,” I said.

  There was a collective gasp from Amy and Melvin.

  “Daniels didn’t just rape his estranged wife when that jury let him go,” I explained. “He also violated William.”

  We all stared down at William for a long moment, sitting there with his head down. Finally, Susan addressed him.

  “I understand why you killed Daniels and you might’ve even gotten away with it,” Susan said, “but why murder all those innocent jurors? They didn’t ask to serve on the—”

  “They weren’t innocent!” William spat the words. “They promised my lawyer they wouldn’t hold the word of a cop in higher regard than the word of the victim, but they all lied. My mom and I were raped twice—once by Gregg Daniels and again by the justice system!”

  “That’s bullshit.” I grabbed the file from my desk and held it in front of William. “There’s nothing in here about you being raped.”

  “You wouldn’t understand unless you’ve been through it.”

  I tossed the file back on my desk and crossed my arms. “Help me understand. You owe everyone in this room at least that much for betraying us.”

  William sighed and his voice quivered. “I was just a kid. I liked girls before he had his way with me. Afterward, I…I…it made me confused. I didn’t know who I was anymore—didn’t know what I wanted. He stole my innocence, took away my boyhood. There’s no forgiving that.” William was crying. “You can’t know how it feels growing up with that secret, with that pain. We only have one life and he robbed me of mine. There would never be any going back…no do-over, no reset. He ruined my life forever.”

  I scowled, realizing he was telling the truth. “Why didn’t your mom tell the police?”

  “She didn’t even know. He beat her unconscious and then attacked me. I think he realized he could get the death penalty for what he did to me, because he cleaned me up and told me if I told anyone he’d come back and kill me and my mom.” William wiped his leaking nose on the sleeve of his uniform, shaking his head. “He didn’t have to worry about me saying anything. Do you know how embarrassing that is for a little boy?” William shook his head. “I was never telling anyone anything.”

  “How’d you find the jurors?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  William shot his head toward my desk. “You leave your password in the bottom drawer—we all know it. I didn’t want anything traced back to me, so I got on your computer when you weren’t around.” He mumbled an apology and said something about feeling bad because I’d always been good to him. “I just figured if anyone checked they’d think you looked up the names as part of the investigation.”

  “Did your mom know about this?” Susan asked. “Is she involved?”

  “She’s not involved, but I think she suspected something was wrong when she heard the names of the victims and found out they were killed with red arrows. She remembered every one of those jurors. She hated them, too. When I was growing up, she’d point them out in public and tell me they were the ones who let Gregg out so he could hurt her again.” William sighed. “I never forgot them and never forgot about what Gregg did to me. Hell, I couldn’t forget—she wouldn’t let me. Every time she’d point them out, I’d relive that night.”

  “So, that was your target in the back yard?” I asked.

  He nodded. “My dad taught me how to shoot when I was small. We’d spend hours in that back yard, shooting until our forearms were bruised and our fingers bleeding. I still go there to practice, because it makes me feel close to him.” William stared off. “Life was great when he was alive. If he would’ve never died…”

  “She has to be involved,” I pressed. “She’s the one who told you where to find Gregg Daniels.”

  “But she didn’t know I would kill him. She just told me she’d delivered a letter to him and she told me to stay away from that side of town. She didn’t know what he did to me and she didn’t think I’d go after him.”

  I was quiet and Susan asked him why he’d waited so long to start killing jurors. He said he never planned on going after the jurors, but when Daniels’ death didn’t provide the closure he thought it would, he figured it was because the job wasn’t finished—the mission was incomplete. “I felt like the only way I could get my life back and become whole again was to kill everyone responsible.”

  “How’d you get Daniels’ DNA on the arrows?” I wanted to know.

  “That was easy.” William grinned, almost proud of himself. “I just rubbed the nock end of the arrows
against the inside of his cheeks, like we do with buccal swabs. I kept the bodies cold, knowing it would slow the rate of decomposition, making it difficult for y’all to determine the time of death—if y’all ever found him.” William’s grin faded and he shook his head. “It was the perfect plan, but y’all found him way too soon and ruined everything.”

  I looked up when I saw Melvin approaching at a slow walk with his fists clenched. “So, in your twisted little mind, you blame all those people for what happened to you and that’s great. But why did you shoot Susan? Why would you do that? You’re supposed to be our brother. We’re family! We don’t attack each other, no matter what!” I quickly moved between Melvin and William, afraid Melvin would start beating him.

  Tears were flowing freely down William’s face now and he was bawling. “That’s the one thing I feel the most guilty about,” he said through sobs. “I’m so sorry, Susan! I didn’t know what to do. They all needed to pay for what they did to me and I couldn’t let you stop me before the mission was completed. I thought you were wearing your vest, so I aimed for your trauma plate, thinking you’d be fine and it would only buy me some time to escape.” He turned his red face toward her. “I swear, if I would’ve finished making everyone pay, I would’ve let you kill me before turning my bow on you.”

  Susan frowned. “I can’t explain it, William, but I’m not even mad at you. I feel sorry for you.”

  When we were done talking to William, I moved him to the holding cell reserved for male prisoners, where he would stay until the prison van picked him up and transported him to the hospital. I then set about releasing his mom. She begged to speak with William and I let them talk for about ten minutes. When she was gone, Susan and I searched William’s Charger and found his ghillie suit, a compound bow, and six arrows wrapped in plastic. We also found the keys to the Thunderbird hidden under the spare tire wrapped in a latex glove, right where he said they were. He said he didn’t have time to hide the evidence after killing Drake Alan, because I had called him into the office.