by Bobby Cole
At that moment, the cell phone on the dash of the pickup rang. R.C. reached in, grabbed it, and then tossed it to Ollie. He opened it and saw the Caller ID. Martha was calling from the phone Ollie had asked her to use. It only had one bar of service, so rather than try to have a conversation he simply let it ring until it quit. He dropped the phone in his pocket.
His radio crackled. “Chief, no answer and no voice mail.”
“Ten-four. Thank you.”
“Larson, you have Shug?” Ollie asked. Larson nodded.
“Let him smell around these vehicles. R.C. found the Tillman kid all beat up right here, and we have reason to believe that the Beasley girl was with him.”
“Yes sir!” Larson replied.
“Achtung, Shug!” The overweight brown and black police dog jumped from the cruiser and sat at attention. Larson walked Shug to the front of the Jeep and said, “Finden!” Shug appeared to go to work. First, he found what they thought was Tanner’s blood, and once that area was searched, Larson encouraged him to work elsewhere, but after only a few minutes it became clear to all that Shug had found the only thing that really interested him when he laid down in the middle of the road and began licking himself vigorously.
Crestfallen at Shug’s failure, Larson dragged him back to his car. Ollie turned away in disgust, shaking his head. R.C. stifled a chuckle.
In an attempt to take some of the heat off Larson, R.C. said, “Hey, Chief. Let’s move this Jeep. I’ll put it in neutral and we can push it out of the way. We gotta go down this road where the four-wheeler went.” R.C. pointed down the Dummy Line.
“Where does this road go anyway?” Ollie asked.
“It dead-ends into the Noxubee River Swamp…the road is twenty miles of potholes and mud with a shootin’ house about every five hundred yards. Not much else.”
“Yeah…you’re right, R.C. Let’s do it,” Ollie replied.
As they all got ready to push Tanner’s Jeep out of the way, R.C. noted, “Hey, the keys are in it!”
“Well, crank it up and move it,” Ollie told him.
“Oh God, no…I can’t take any more,” Elizabeth muttered. She was limping along as fast as possible, her ankle becoming more tender and painful with every step. She slowed, almost to a stop, and looked back. She could hear the four-wheeler, and somewhere between she could see a form lumbering toward her. She looked around. The monsters were chasing her. It appeared that miles of muddy road lay ahead and that there were miles of dense woods on either side. She headed into the woods, hoping it would cover her tracks.
It was difficult for her to walk, much less run. Limbs, vines, trees, and stumps were difficult to negotiate in the dark. After twenty yards, she was wondering if she had made the right decision. She looked down to see if she was leaving footprints. She couldn’t tell. She assumed she wasn’t. As she pushed forward, she realized that the fat guy had helped her. What did he say? “I can’t let you hurt her.” She kept running that scene over in her mind. She knew they had been fighting as she ran off. Elizabeth soon came to a small flowing creek. It was knee-deep, and the cold water felt good on her bad ankle. When she stepped out on the far side, she left her bad ankle dangling in the water for a few seconds and thought of her parents and Tanner’s folks. They’ll all be worried and nobody knows where we are. “Oh God, Tanner. Please, Lord, please let him be OK,” she prayed quietly.
She had been making so much noise going through the brush that she didn’t hear how close the four-wheeler had approached. While she was standing listening, she heard a stick pop and then another and realized the goon was on her trail and he was close. She began to run. She tried to be as quiet as possible. She was running blind. She grimaced in pain from her ankle and the briars digging in and ripping her flesh.
A few moments later, she heard a splash as he went through the creek. No! No! she thought, realizing he was gaining on her. Looking back, she could see he had a flashlight. She could make out a small opening up ahead and ran for it as hard as she could, dragging brush with her. She was numb. She was trying to run faster than her body could keep up. Run! Run! Run! She could hear limbs cracking and his footsteps as he raced through the woods toward her. Her leg caught in something, stopping her dead in her tracks. She screamed as loud as she could. The opening’s right there! Struggling to free herself, she lost her grip and dropped her improvised weapon. She didn’t have time to pick it up as she freed herself and lunged into the small opening.
“Help me! Help!” she screamed as she struggled through the dense brush.
Sweat closed in. When he was within twenty yards, he sprinted as fast as he could and tackled her. He landed on top. She took the brunt of the blow, landing hard. The ground scraped her bare stomach and chest. She struggled to catch her breath. He lay on her, breathing hard. Elizabeth was screaming for her life. He didn’t care. He had her. Sweat had his reward.
Sweat’s weight prevented her from moving. He bent over, wiped his bloody face on her back, and laughed. Holding her down, he sat up so he could breathe better.
“Please, please. Don’t hurt me, please, awwww, please!” she begged.
He pushed her face down in the dirt while he thought about what he was going to do first. I’m gonna be slow, and thorough, and enjoy all of it…right down to her last gasp of air. He placed his flashlight in his mouth while he took his knife out of his pocket and eased the sharp blade under her bra strap. He made sure she could feel the steel. He was slow, methodical.
Elizabeth could feel the knife pressing against her skin. She screamed even louder. The fear of being raped and butchered was paralyzing. She was about to pass out from fear and dread.
The black strap fell away from the cut of the razor-sharp knife, exposing her naked back. Sweat stabbed the knife in the ground just out of her reach and then leaned back to admire her body. This was it. His favorite fantasy was about to play out.
Elizabeth continued to scream for help. Jake heard her and was scrambling toward her as fast as he could. Reese also heard and was headed that way, too. Tiny’s eyes welled up when he heard it, and then he shed tears of frustration and shame standing next to the four-wheeler.
Sweat’s right hand held both Elizabeth’s arms fully extended above her head as he rolled her over. He wanted to see her face and breasts. He was careful; he wasn’t going to let her hit him again. Blood from his nose dripped on her stomach. He positioned his weight over her hips and legs so she couldn’t move. Her shoulders and chest were scratched and covered in dirt and blood. With his left hand, he began scraping it away. Elizabeth was sobbing uncontrollably and begging him not to do it. Sweat couldn’t hear anything. He wasn’t aware of anything other than this opportunity.
Jake and Katy were less than two hundred yards away when the screaming started the second time. Jake was trying desperately to get close enough to see what was going on. He had never heard screams like that before. Jake crossed a four-wheeler trail with a ground-level shooting house on the side. He thought about Katy and what he was hearing and what was surely about to occur.
“Katy, listen to me. I need you to stay right here for just a few minutes while I go help that girl; please, I gotta go right now. Here’s the flashlight. I swear, I’ll be right back,” he said with his most serious voice. He opened the door to the shooting house and shined the light around. “Just sit right here, sweetheart. I have to go.”
“No, Dad, don’t leave me,” she said with tears in her eyes. Her whole body was shaking.
“Please, Katy; trust me, honey. Please. I don’t have time to explain,” he begged.
Katy didn’t say anything, but he knew she understood. She didn’t want any part of what was making that girl scream. Katy did as she was told.
“Katy, please don’t leave this shooting house, baby. I mean it now. Stay right here.”
“Be…be careful, Dad,” she said softly as she watched him disappear into the woods toward the screams. She was shaking so badly she couldn’t hold onto the flashlig
ht and dropped it.
Jake stopped twenty feet from the shooting house and turned around for just a second, thinking about leaving Katy. Every fiber in his body told him not to. But he had to help. He turned back around and ran as fast as he could.
Reese crossed the Dummy Line. He had about another four hundred yards to go. He could clearly hear the screams and knew his crew was involved. He pulled out his radiophone while he ran and hit Send. Maybe they had caught the dude and he had a woman with him, too. He grinned.
Beep-beep. “Tiny,” he said excitedly.
There was a long pause, and just as he was about to put the phone back in his pocket, beep-beep. But there was no voice afterward.
Reese stopped and took a deep breath. He leaned his rifle against a tree.
Beep-beep. “Yo, Tiny what’s going on…who’s the girl?”
Sheriff Ollie Landrum was dumbfounded. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the phone beeped. He didn’t know what to say. Here was a chance to get additional information that he desperately needed. Caller ID had given him another suspect, Johnny Lee Grover.
Ollie hit Send again, but he didn’t verbally reply.
Beep-beep.
Reese sensed that something wasn’t right. He stood still, trying to think.
Jake crawled to within forty yards of the shocking scene. He recognized the big, muscular dude with the flashlight in his mouth. He had been with the gang at the camp; now he was holding down a nearly naked young girl. Shit! She’s covered in blood. She was begging him to leave her alone. Jake also could see a knife stuck in the ground. To make a killing shot with turkey loads, Jake knew he needed to be a little closer. This guy was taking his time, but there was no doubt he intended to rape this girl.
Sweat never noticed that Jake had slipped up to within twenty yards and was on his knees about to shoot. Jake could clearly see Sweat holding down the girl with one hand and trying to loosen his pants with the other. She was bucking like a mule but couldn’t resist much longer. Jake couldn’t let him rape her. Twice in the same night, Jake did something he had never done in his life. He placed the front bead of the shotgun on the guy’s chest and took a deep breath.
Ka-BOOM!
Sweat collapsed forward, lifeless, on top of Elizabeth. She was stunned but instantly started trying to free herself from under the heavy weight of the dead man. Screaming louder and louder, she pulled herself loose.
Jake was shocked, motionless. He hadn’t shot. He then saw the fat guy from the camp house standing in the edge of the woods, a pistol hanging at his side. What in the world? Elizabeth got up screaming, running in Jake’s direction. Half-naked and running blindly, she was screaming at the top of her lungs. She didn’t know Jake was there. Jake took one more look at the fat guy. He briefly thought about killing him, but didn’t. This is crazy. The fat guy appeared to be in a trance. He was staring at his dead buddy, whom he had just killed. He didn’t seem to care about the girl at all.
Jake got up silently and took off running after the girl.
R.C. and Larson were talking when they heard a distant gunshot. R.C. pointed and explained that the shot had come from the west; Larson pointed south. Ollie was staring intently at the radiophone and didn’t have a clue; he never offered a guess.
“It’s hard to course a direction on a single unexpected gunshot,” R.C. explained, “’specially in these thick-planted pines.”
R.C. and Larson argued for a minute about the direction and whether it was related to any of the night’s events. In the country, gunshots are heard at all hours. A single shot this late at night usually meant some stray just got dead getting into someone’s trash. Ollie returned his attention to the phone.
“Damn it…that phone call caught me off guard,” Ollie said.
“Well, at least you know it’s Johnny Lee Grover. That’s a starting point, Chief,” R.C. said.
“Johnny Lee always has Reese Turner with him. Those guys are joined at the hip. That Turner dude makes my skin crawl,” Larson added.
“Should we call him back?” Larson asked, holding Shug’s leash.
“That’s not a bad idea. But what should we say?” Ollie responded.
A minute passed in silence.
“Let’s think about this. Obviously they’re not together, but somehow Johnny knows something about the girl,” Ollie said. “Where does this Tiny character live?”
“I don’t know,” R.C. responded.
“Find out.”
“Yes sir, boss.”
“Larson, do you know where the—what the hell’s the name of that huntin’ club?” Ollie asked looking at R.C.
“Bogue Chitto. It’s Indian for—”
“Larson, do you know where that camp is? It’s maybe fifteen miles back down this road,” Ollie interrupted, rolling his eyes at R.C.
“Yes sir, sure do.”
“Go there. See if that mutt can find anything other than his own balls. We found some blood earlier tonight in front of the camp house. It may be turkey blood. I need to know if there’s anything else in the high grass. All this may be connected. Radio me when you get finished. I’ll probably have something else for you to do. In fact, I may want you to go to this Tiny character’s place and check it out.”
“Yes sir,” Larson said as he ran to his car.
“R.C., all this must be connected, but I sure hope it isn’t. I need you to stay here and keep your eyes and ears open. Don’t try and be a hero. I’m gonna ride down this road while I radio the Beasleys.”
“You got it, Chief. Be careful.”
“Stay close to your radio.”
Ollie pulled his Expedition even with the big Chevy truck, easing between it and the gateposts.
“Unit One to Base.”
“Go ahead, One,” Martha promptly responded.
“Are the Beasleys there yet?”
“I expect them any minute. Mr. Tillman just pulled into the parking lot.” That surprised Ollie. He expected him to be at the hospital.
“Call me when they all arrive. Miz Martha, get me Sheriff Marlow…no, no, I’ll get back to you on that.”
“Ten-four, Sheriff.”
Ollie didn’t want to deploy another county’s deputies until he had more facts. He laid the microphone across his leg and stared down the road. Where in the world are Elizabeth and Tiny and Johnny Lee and the four-wheeler? They could be anywhere. It’s miles and miles of woods. The shot could have been anything. Just as he started easing down the Dummy Line, the radio crackled.
“Sheriff, they’re here.”
“OK, put them by the radio so they can hear me.”
Ollie stared out the window for a second trying to decide how much to tell them. He decided to concentrate on the events around Tanner and Elizabeth. He nodded as he decided not to tell them about the mysterious phone call. It might not even be related. He grabbed the microphone.
“Mr. and Mrs. Beasley, let me tell you what we know. One of my deputies just happened to find Tanner Tillman on the old road they call the Dummy Line. As y’all know, he was beat up pretty bad. We did find your daughter’s purse in the Jeep, but we haven’t found her yet. We don’t have any serious leads right now. We just don’t have anything. I need to know who was with them, if anybody; where they were going; and establish a time-line. There could be other kids missing. This could be some type of an accident…we just don’t know. We don’t need to jump to any conclusions.”
“We’ll get you the answers, Ollie,” Steve Tillman responded.
“We also need to know if there any conflicts in Tanner’s life right now…any enemies?” Ollie said. “But let me add…finding Elizabeth is our top priority right now, so we need to know everything.”
Elizabeth’s mother started crying again. She was hanging on every word. Elizabeth’s father, Zach, had a lump in his throat and could hardly speak. Olivia remembered speaking to Elizabeth as she and Tanner left the baseball game at about nine o’clock. She was pretty sure they had been by themselves, but
they might have met some friends after the game. She didn’t know. Elizabeth usually got back home by eleven. Sometimes Tanner stayed for a while and they watched television. Tonight, the Beasleys were exhausted from the tax deadline and the drinks celebrating the end of tax season, so they had gone straight to bed after arriving home past midnight.
Tillman truthfully said he wasn’t aware of any problems in Tanner’s life. He added that he owned a hundred sixty acres that was accessible off the Dummy Line. Maybe they had gone there for some reason.
Ollie agreed that it would be worth a look since all this was just unfolding. He assured them that he was doing all he could and would keep them informed.
“How is your son, Mr. Tillman?” Ollie asked, genuinely concerned.
“It’s serious, Sheriff, but they don’t think its life-threatening. The doctor said he should be OK with some time…he was just in so much pain when he got there. I haven’t spoken with him. He’s heavily sedated. His condition is listed as stable. I’d be glad to come and show you where the property is if you need me to. There’s nothing I can do at the hospital, and I just had to come here to try to understand…maybe make sense out of…and I want to help find Elizabeth.” Tanner had recently asked his father how he would know when he met the right girl to marry, and he knew he was referring to Elizabeth.
Ollie could tell that Mr. Tillman was beginning to choke up. “That’s not a bad idea, sir. Let me call in some deputies and get one to bring you out here. Mr. and Mrs. Beasley, it might be best for you to go home and sit by the phone. She might try to call or actually come home. Call the sheriff’s office if you hear anything.”
Olivia Beasley insisted on going to the hospital in case Tanner said something that might help. She needed to be there. Ollie understood all these emotions, and he agreed, but he asked that Zach return to their house.
“Y’all give Miz Martha all the info—anything you can think of. She knows what to ask, and she’ll pass it on to me. The whole sheriff’s department is focused on this right now.”