The Darkest Night

by Rick Reed

  The boys he found for Papa were brought right to the plantation. They were stuck in with the girls after a doctor checked them out. Head lice and fleas were a problem with the runaway boys. Luke had had to fumigate his van after picking up a couple of boys from the bus station in Baton Rouge. One of them had fleas so bad he could see them popping around like popcorn on the van’s floor.

  He followed at a distance and watched Ubaid and the girl disappear into a room on the second floor. Both of them made his loins feel weak. He heard the door lock click and went to report in to Papa.

  Luke thought about that woman cop that had been snooping around. Killing a cop was always a mistake. And he didn’t agree with Papa killing the guy who shot her. But he guessed it sent a strong message to the other guards.

  He’d worked for Papa a long time. He trusted Papa. But trust or not, Luke had thought about cutting out sometimes. He didn’t like what he was doing, and he was starting to feel guilty, ashamed. He hadn’t minded the killing of that woman, but kids were something else.

  * * *

  Jack listened to Liddell narrate his movements since he’d arrived in town, but he had one eye on the blackness moving in from the west, a part of him looking for signs of tornadoes, or was it hurricanes down here? In any case, he’d experienced a few of these storms in Evansville, and they were scary as hell. He’d been on an indoor firing range one time and it sounded like a locomotive was traveling across the roof. It passed after a few minutes, and when he’d gone outside debris was blown all over the street, roofs were gone, walls had collapsed, and trees had fallen on power lines. But his car and the firing-range building were untouched. The tornado had been one of the worst Evansville had ever experienced. It cut a winding path through the city and had flattened almost every tree in Garvin Park.

  He zoned back in on the conversation when Whiteside interrupted to ask a question addressed to him.

  “So you were at the impound lot when your partner discovered his gun and camera were missing?” Whiteside asked.

  “Yes,” Jack said.

  She sat, looking out the window as calm as you please, and Jack couldn’t help but admire her relaxed attitude toward impending disaster.

  “We talked to Cotton because I knew he was a friend of Bitty’s,” Liddell said. “I thought she might have talked to him. We were there about twenty or thirty minutes and told him the same thing we’ve told you so far. I take it you’ve had some experience with Cotton before now?”

  Whiteside took a deep breath. “I’ve gone out there myself. Maybe a year or so ago. He had the place locked up like he was expecting Armageddon. The Four Horsemen couldn’t get on his property without him knowing.”

  Liddell gave Chief Whiteside a serious look and asked, “If that’s the case, and we went through that today, so we know it to be true, how did someone get in his house and shoot him?”

  “So you’re saying Cotton let his killer in?” She tapped her fingers on the desktop as if debating something with herself. “There are some things I haven’t told you. I shouldn’t, but you’re going to hear it on the grapevine sooner than later.”

  Jack tried to get a read on her. He didn’t see any indication she was lying. But she was an administrator, so she had to have a master’s degree in lying.

  Lightning flashed outside and preceding the cannon rolls of thunder, the skies split open, throwing buckets of rain at the office windows. The effect added an ominous touch to what she told them.

  “Cotton was killed just like Bitty,” Whiteside said, and waited to let this sink in before continuing. “They were both shot in the face. The coroner ruled both deaths as due to massive brain trauma caused by a gunshot wound. The bullet was found at Cotton’s, and it matches your backup .45. We never found a bullet at Detective LeBoeuf’s, but the Coroner advised she was shot with a large caliber, or a rifle. We don’t think she was shot at her house because of the lack of blood, tissue, and other things you expect to find at a scene. We believe she was killed at an as-of-yet-unknown location, and her body was transported there just like you thought. I guess you’ve seen more murders than me or my guys.”

  Whiteside put a hand on the evidence bag with the gun. “Cotton was shot in the face point-blank like Detective LeBoeuf. His face wasn’t disfigured like hers, but he was eviscerated in a similar fashion. Just like her.”

  “Was he killed where he was found?” Jack asked.

  “Cotton, unlike LeBoeuf, was killed in his house. In the room where he kept most of his guns.”

  “His armory,” Jack said, looking at Liddell. “The killer must have been someone he trusted,” Jack said, remembering the reception he and Liddell had gotten.

  “I can’t imagine anyone getting the drop on him,” Liddell added.

  Whiteside absentmindedly turned the evidence bag around on the desktop. “The killer smashed LeBeouf’s face. I’m thinking it was to hide the gunshot. So why not Cotton? Symbols were drawn on the walls in blood at both scenes. You didn’t know this, but a symbol was carved into the flesh of LeBeouf’s stomach. We didn’t see it until the autopsy because she’d been gutted. They found it when they sewed her up. Nothing like that on Cotton’s body.”

  “What kind of symbol did you find on Cotton’s wall?” Liddell asked.

  Whiteside hesitated and Jack assumed she was going to tell another lie. She didn’t.

  “It was a Voodoo symbol for death,” Whiteside said. “That’s what Troup says, anyway. He thinks the scene was staged to distract us, make us think it had something to do with a cult. He thinks both of the murders were staged. I agree. Troup says the symbols come from Haitian Voodoo. I did some research. Symbols drawn in blood on the victim’s property are a warning. In New Orleans, we found a dead gang member with symbols cut into his flesh, and he was beheaded as a warning to a rival gang. But this isn’t about gangs. We don’t have that kind of trouble here.”

  Jack didn’t think any of this involved gangs. Gangs didn’t as a rule go after cops. They knew the response would be swift and harsh. The only gang he knew of that would take a chance like this was MS-13, a gang from El Salvador. They were known to behead their victims, but they didn’t carve Voodoo symbols. The heads were the warning.

  Jack said, “Do you have results on the blood evidence from Bitty’s murder?” Jack asked.

  “I was getting to that,” she said. “The bloody boot prints on the door and around the table matched Detective LeBoeuf’s blood. As did the drawing on the wall. We recovered some latent fingerprints and we’ve identified hers. There were several others we haven’t identified as of yet. We’re running them through AFIS.”

  AFIS stood for Automated Fingerprint Identification System and was maintained by the FBI. It contained millions of fingerprints taken from crime scenes, victims, applicants for gun permits, and suspects from all over the United States. It also included fingerprints of the military and law enforcement. It didn’t contain the fingerprints of ordinary civilians or politicians unless they had been arrested or murdered.

  “The latent prints on the gun at Cotton’s house were yours, Liddell, and another set was on it too. When I tell you who they belong to, you’ll understand why I had you brought in the way I did.”

  She put the gun back in her desk drawer. “The prints belong to one of my officers. Officer Barbierre.”

  “So why isn’t Barbie here?” Jack asked.

  “Officer Barbierre is missing,” she said. “He isn’t answering his radio or his phone.”

  “You still think he’s not the one that stole my backup gun?” Liddell asked.

  “I’ll ask him when I find him,” Whiteside said.

  Jack said, “Maybe he doesn’t want to be found. If you found Liddell’s gun at Cotton’s house, it means that Barbierre had it at one time. That alone makes him a suspect.”

  She said, “A suspect, yes. The killer, no. We still have to run ballistics on that gun and Liddell’s duty weapon. Maybe Officer Barbierre’s prints are on the gun from hi
s search of your car,” she said to Liddell. “You said the property sergeant told you it had been put in evidence.”

  He held a hand up and said, “I already checked with the sergeant, and he said he didn’t remember seeing that gun. I checked the property sheet myself, and it wasn’t listed.”

  “Are you thinking someone besides Barbie stole Liddell’s backup gun? The property sergeant would be the only other likely suspect since Liddell’s gun wasn’t listed on the property sheet.” Jack said, thinking Cotton’s murder seemed open and shut.

  Whiteside said, “Look. The gun might have been inadvertently left off the property inventory. Or maybe it was left in the car by Barbierre and was stolen at the impound lot. I don’t know, and as long as I have questions I’m going to wait until we locate Officer Barbierre.”

  “If he’s that incompetent, you should fire him,” Jack said, and asked, “Who’s working Cotton’s case?”

  “Don’t go there,” Whiteside said.

  “It’s Bobby Troup, isn’t it?” Liddell asked.

  “Detective Troup is assigned to Cotton’s case since he’s working a similar murder,” she said. “End of discussion.”

  “Does Barbie’s cell phone have GPS tracking?” Liddell asked. The EPD had issued cell phones to Motor Patrol officers and all were equipped with GPS tracking programs. Motor Patrol officers hated them, for obvious reasons, but they could see the benefit. The detective’s office had not been issued those phones yet, but it was coming.

  Whiteside’s jaw dropped. “What a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?” she asked sarcastically. “That’s the first thing we checked. It must be turned off completely or damaged.”

  A patrolman stuck his head in the Chief’s door. “We found Barbie’s car, Chief.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Liddell drove and they followed Chief Whiteside to where Barbie’s car had been found. Jack thought about what Liddell had told him yesterday. Liddell said Troup didn’t know that Bitty and Parnell no longer lived together. Troup wanted Liddell to believe that Parnell was on vacation in Hawaii, but when they talked to Sheriff Guidry, he hadn’t said anything about Parnell having been on vacation. In fact, he said she was on a missing person case and he was going to arrange for them to talk to her. He hadn’t thought to ask. And maybe Troup was just trying to confuse Liddell to try and trip him up. He had meant to ask the Chief if they had found Cotton’s or Bitty’s cell phones. Another thing he’d missed.

  But he came back to Barbie’s quick appearance at Bitty’s house. Liddell said he’d been at Bitty’s two or three minutes, tops. He was inside less than a minute. Troup was the reason Barbie was lying. In fact, the one thing all of these murders had in common so far was Bobby Troup.

  Troup hated Bitty. Liddell would make a perfect scapegoat, but how did Troup know that Liddell was going to be at Bitty’s? How did Barbierre arrive so quickly? Were they waiting at Bitty’s house? Had Troup or Barbie already found the body and something to indicate Liddell was coming? Did one of those two leave the note for Liddell under Landry’s door to lure Liddell to Bitty’s house?

  “Do you still have the note from Bitty that Landry found under the door?” Jack asked.

  Liddell groaned. “They emptied my pockets during the booking at lockup. I don’t think it was in the property envelope when they gave it back.”

  “You still have the property envelope?”

  “I threw it in the backseat,” Liddell said.

  Jack felt the floorboards behind them and found the big envelope under the driver’s seat. Jack held the envelope open and saw a piece of paper stuck to the inside. He pulled it loose, and it had purple sticky stuff on the edge. “You must have had jelly on your fingers, Yogi,” he said to Liddell. “Your constant eating is paying off.”

  He unfolded the note. He wasn’t worried about fingerprints because everyone that could be a suspect had already handled it. It read:

  DON’T CALL

  COME OVER

  It was written in large letters, and not signed. Liddell had told him about the note yesterday but Jack hadn’t asked to see it, because it didn’t seem important at the time.

  “Is this Bitty’s handwriting?” Jack asked, holding the note up.

  Liddell didn’t even have to look. “I don’t think so. I just assumed it was her. Very few people knew I was coming, and no one but Landry knew I was going to her house that morning.”

  “Did she have an answering machine, or voice mail, or did you message her, anything like that?”

  “Well, yeah, I called, but I didn’t leave a message. We didn’t text.”

  Jack thought about it. “When I put a contact name and number in my phone, their name comes up when they call me. If Bitty had your contact in her phone, whoever killed her might have gotten it. But I guess, they wouldn’t know you were a policeman unless they knew you.”

  “Which leads us back to Troup,” Liddell said.

  “Whiteside said Barbie’s phone was found on the east side in a Dumpster. We’re headed west.” Liddell pointed out.

  “She said his phone had been wiped. I wonder if she’s getting a subpoena for the phone carrier to get a list of calls made? We need to ask the Chief if they found Bitty’s cell phone. If they didn’t, we need to see if the Sheriff’s Department issues them, and if they have the GPS tracking.”

  “I’ll bet Whiteside didn’t think of that,” Liddell said.

  “Or the Sheriff for that matter. Or at least he didn’t say anything about it.”

  Liddell took out the phone the Sheriff gave him. “I guess we should report in.” He handed the phone to Jack.

  Jack called the number programmed into the phone. Sheriff Guidry answered it.

  The neighborhood they were heading into was poor at first and downright dilapidated the farther they went. They drove past entire blocks where houses had either been burned to the ground or were condemned. Jack could see the big red CONDEMNED notices plastered to the doors or front walls.

  “This looks like a war zone,” Liddell said.

  About a block ahead, Jack could see two black-and-white patrol cars waiting at the curb. Chief Whiteside pulled her car into a yard, and a uniformed officer approached her. She motioned for Jack and Liddell to join them.

  “This is Officer Rahm,” Chief Whiteside said.

  They shook hands, and Rahm said, “I spotted the car here but there’s no sign of Barbie, I mean Officer Barbierre.”

  “Where is he?” Whiteside asked Rahm. “Where’s Officer Barbierre?”

  Rahm looked confused. “Dispatch only said to find his car, Chief. I asked what was up and they didn’t know. Is Barbie in trouble? Did someone steal his car?”

  “Can I talk to you for a second, Chief?” Jack asked and took Whiteside aside while Liddell talked to Rahm.

  “I know you don’t want to think Barbie is behind all this. He’s your officer and you want to give him the benefit of the doubt. But he’s missing. If he didn’t kill Cotton he’s being set up. Just like Liddell. But if Barbie is the one that shot Cotton he might be dangerous. I don’t think your officers know what they’re facing. Even if he didn’t shoot Cotton, his phone was wiped and dumped in one part of town and his car abandoned here. We have a cop killer on the loose. Your people need to be prepared.”

  “I know what the hell I’m doing,” she said, and lowered her voice and octave or two. “Okay. I’ve never had one of my people go crazy before. And if he’s doing this, he’s gone crazy. If it’s someone else that’s targeting cops we better damn well be sure before we cause a panic. I don’t want innocent people shot.”

  Jack felt sorry for her. She was in a tough spot for sure. And if the public caught wind—and they would as soon as she put something out on the radio—it would make a bad situation even worse. But to do nothing wasn’t an option. He hoped she would see that for herself.

  “I’ve got to make a call,” she said, and walked away punching buttons on her cell phone.

  Jac
k could hear her talking to someone, hang up, and dial another number. The second time she got a little cranky with whoever was on the receiving end.

  She came back and said, “I’ll have dispatch call each officer individually and tell them to find Barbie and use caution. I had to call the Town Manager. That asshole was more worried about his job than the fact that we have all these murders and an officer missing who might be on a killing spree.”

  “Did dispatch tell you what his last run involved, or where he was?” Jack asked.

  “He made a missing person run early this morning, and that’s it.”

  “A missing person?”

  “Yeah. A girl. Fourteen, black female, lives about a mile from here. Why?” she asked.

  “Have you had a lot of missing persons recently? Specifically, young girls?”

  “This is Louisiana, Murphy. Kids go missing here all the time. They run off to California or Nashville to become stars or get hooked up with drug dealers. Nine times out of ten, they show up a few days later, hungry and dirty, but no worse for the wear.”

  “I’m asking because Liddell’s brother, Landry, has been trying to report his daughter missing for several days. Her name is Evelyn. Evie. She’s fifteen.”

  “Yes, yes. Look, I’m sorry for his worry, but I need to stay focused on this case right now,” Whiteside said.

  “I’m telling you this for a reason, Chief Whiteside,” Jack said. “Landry found some Voodoo things in Evie’s room after she went missing.”

  She watched him. “Are you suggesting that these killings are linked to Landry’s missing daughter?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m pointing out that there is a common element. There have been Voodoo symbols at both murder scenes, and Landry’s daughter was involved with Voodoo somehow. What about the other missing kids? Were they involved in any way with Voodoo? If they were, we may have a lead.”

  “Is this how you work at home? Jumping to conclusions? Accusing someone based on one commonality? We don’t do that here. We need evidence, and you don’t have anything to back up that cockeyed theory.” She walked away, saying over her shoulder, “Please tell me you don’t believe we have a cult killer. Or that it’s a policeman cult killer.”