Insight

by Jennis Slaughter

  “Can you believe that the Reverend is talking about the seven deadly sins on Sunday morning with everything that is going on in this town? I’m sure that the devil is rubbing his hands together with the hypocrisy of that,” a bald man said from the head of the table. “I’ll be surprised if the Angel Gabriel doesn’t strike him down with a bolt of lightning.”

  Del perked her ears at the goings on of the town. This was going to be interesting. Just like a small town, you burn your toast and the whole town knows ten minutes later. She thanked the waitress as she set down her coffee and the muffin she’d ordered.

  “He has a lot of nerve preaching on that. He’s one of the biggest suppliers that we have with all of those gospel revivals he does during the summer. All those pure young ones with the silky skin.” The man sitting next to him had black hair and a scar on his face.

  This caught Del’s attention and without moving her head, she looked over and got a view of the man who was speaking. After committing his face to memory, she once again went back to her ‘work.’ Listening hard, she knew if she continued her eavesdropping, she’d learn enough to give her a direction to look. What are the supplies they are speaking of, and what does it have to do with young things with silky skin? Sounded like trouble to Del.

  The bald one glanced over to Del and saw that she was engrossed in reading her file so he turned back to his group. “We need to find the one that got away or a replacement. We’ve got an order to fill by the end of the week and there will be hell to pay if we don’t complete it,” he was about to say more when an idea literally passed across his face and he turned to look back to the blonde.

  Nodding his head and smiling, he turned back. “Maybe we won’t have to look too far.”

  The bell over the front door rang as it opened and Jasper walked in. He smiled as he caught a glimpse of the blonde in the corner. “Hey there Missy! Where are my leftovers?” The bald man watched with interest as Jasper walked over and sat across from Del.

  Del cursed inwardly, but smiled at Jasper as he sat. She quickly closed her file, put both the legal pad, and file back in her bag. Suddenly she realized she had completely forgotten to bring his leftovers. “I’m sorry Jasper; I somehow managed to forget them.”

  Folding his hands on the top of the table, the older man shook his head. “It’s the first thing to go you know? Your memory...I’m sure that you forgot to eat dessert too?” His green eyes twinkled at the question.

  Del caught the sly tone to his voice, and her grin widened. “No, dessert was very good actually, really sweet. Why do you ask?”

  Leaning forward, he whispered, “Because I know that Rae likes to have fresh ice cream this time of year and she makes it better than ole Ben and Jerry’s.”

  Del threw her head back and laughed. “Yeah, it’s hard to beat Ben and Jerry’s but she sure managed. I haven’t had ice cream that good in a while. Whoever it was you ran off to last night, I hope it was worth it. You missed out my friend. Also, you are a sneaky old busy body. I know what you were up to last night. Don’t think I didn’t catch that little grin you threw her on your way out the door.”

  “I came home and watched Jeopardy. You young whippersnappers aren’t the only ones that like technology. I can push a button on my cell phone and it will ring exactly two minutes later like I’ve gotten a call. I caught you two checking each other out and thought that you might need a friendly push. And Rae needs all the friends that she can get.” Jasper settled back in the booth with a smile.

  Del shook her head with good humor. “What makes you think I’m into women? I could have just been watching the goings on of the town.” She cocked an eyebrow at him.

  “Missy, I’m old, but I ain’t blind to the human heart. I saw the way that you were watching Rae yesterday morning from the booth over there and that Rae knew you were lookin’. I figured her out years ago.” He leaned back forward. “Tell me I’m not wrong Delaney. Tell me you’re not interested in Raelin?”

  Del fought the flush that threatened to cover her face as memories of last night flashed through her. “I can’t do that. I am attracted to her, probably more than I’ve been attracted to anyone in years, but I’m here for a job Jasper; one that would be heavily compromised if I get involved with her,” she answered softly.

  The older man sat there for a moment before saying something else, “Come by the store later, okay?” He reached and patted her hand before he got up and left.

  She watched him, confused for a moment. Noticing that the group of men had been watching, she smiled when she caught them looking at her and resumed the work she’d put away, hoping they would start talking again at least for a few minutes. She figured if she didn’t get anything more, she’d head to Jasper’s to see what the man had wanted.

  “Hey Mack!” the cook shouted from the back. “Did you want me to take the meals out to the camp or are you and Beau gonna? Need to keep ‘em fed.”

  Glaring at the cook, the bald man got up without a second look at Del. “Shut you trap Curly, or you’ll start collectin’ flies.”

  Del smiled inwardly, jotting the names down on her pad and packing her files. She stretched her arms as if she had just finished a particularly difficult pile of paper work and headed for the door. She paid the waitress on her way out and made her way across the street to Jasper’s place. She had to find a way to thank Rae for the diner tip. It had been a great idea and yielded great results.

  So it seemed there were shipments of young things with silky skin being shipped around. Perhaps there was something larger at work here. At least she had an idea on where to start looking. A visit to the local church might be in order.

  She entered Jasper’s shop and leaned casually against the counter, waiting for him to return to the storefront.

  Sticking his head around the corner, Jasper smiled. “I figured that it wouldn’t take you long to get over here. Come on in the back.” He motioned her into his office and to a spare chair. Sitting down, he waited for her to start asking her questions.

  She sat down chuckling. “Don’t look at me old man, you called me here. Anything in particular you’d like to share?”

  “What did Regina call you to Leroy for Delaney?” He didn’t want to spend precious time beating around the bush. Something was going on and this young woman and his friend could get hurt.

  Del looked at him intently, studying his face. After a few moments, she sighed, knowing she’d need at least one ally in this town if she wanted to get anywhere. As much as she liked Rae, she wasn’t sure if she could trust her just yet. “I’ve been hired to find her granddaughter. Jenny LeBlanc. Her father is Arthur Kingsley Junior. Seems Arty boy can’t keep his fly zipped. She’s been gone about a little over a week now.”

  The older man’s eyes went wide at the news and he steepled his fingers under his chin. “Well, well...the nut didn’t fall very far from that tree. His daddy, Arthur Senior is rumored to have done the same thing to a town girl, but no one knows who it is.” Leaning forward, he asked. “How’s Amelia taking it? She and Jenny were very close.”

  Del let out a sad sigh. “She’s devastated. I think she’s blaming herself. Jenny ran out when her mother refused to tell her about her father. She’d been asking because she’d just got into Julliard.”

  The blonde frowned as she voiced her next few thoughts. “I asked Amelia if Jenny had anyone else in town she trusted or if there were any places besides the house she felt safe and spent a lot of time at. She mentioned that she trusted Raelin. Makes sense I guess, since they are both kept at arm’s length by everyone in town. She probably relates to Raelin in that sense.”

  “Don’t you go thinkin’ that Rae’s got anything to do with that girl being missing. Raelin is the one that sent Julliard the tape of Jenny’s piano playing. She loves that girl like her own.” Jasper looked at the blonde sternly. “Besides there are enough people in this town that bear looking into. Something’s been going on for a while that has a lot of people spooked an
d looking over their shoulders.”

  “I never said she had anything to do with it, but if Rae has any information at all, I need to know. Besides, I don’t think after today, she’s the one I need to worry about. Now, tell me about the goings on around here. What’s got everybody so tense? And what do a guy name Mack, and the local preacher have to do with it?” Del took off her jacket and once again pulled out her notepad. Adjusting the holster as she sat so it wouldn’t dig into her side she settled in for what she hoped would be an enlightening conversation.

  Leaning back, Jasper crossed his arms stubbornly. “What are you doing carrying a gun? You a cop?”

  Del rolled her eyes. “Hardly. I’m a Private Investigator. I’ll tell you the same thing I told Rae when she got on me about it this morning. Things in my line of work don’t always go smoothly. I carry it, because I have to. Not because I enjoy using it on people. You have nothing to fear from me Jasper. I just want to find the girl. I want to find her and get her back to her mother, preferably unharmed. The sooner you tell me what you know, the sooner I can do that.”

  He stared at the young woman for a couple of minutes without saying a word. She never turned away or blinked. Finally, after a few moments, he reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a small folding wallet. “Jasper Wilkins, F.B.I.”

  Del stared at the ID and badge wide eyed for a second. “Well fuck.”

  “Exactly what I’m thinking. Actually, I’m retired, but I was asked to come down here quite a few years ago to check out some strange goings on, but I have never been able to put my finger on anything. You may be just what this case needs, a fresh set of eyes. Let me put the closed sign up and we’ll go over everything.” He got up and made his way to the front to lock the door and turn the sign.

  Del tried to slow her mind down. The F.B.I. was here, this was way bigger than what she had initially thought. Once again those gut feelings of hers had been right. This case wasn’t going to be as cut and dry as she thought. This wasn’t just a missing girl case, but she had been hired by a client and her first priority was the girl and getting her safely back to her home.

  Coming back into the office, Jasper went over to a grandfather’s clock and opened the clock face. Putting the second hand on the four and then the hour hand on the eight, he shut the door only to open it back up and a hidden wall safe door opened. Smirking at the younger woman, he said, “One can never be too careful.”

  Reaching inside he drew out a file of folders over two inches thick. “This should be enough to get us started.”

  “Jasper, er Agent Wilkins. It will take me hours to go through all this and I don’t have the time to waste. Tell me what I need to know so I can find the girl and get out of your hair. I just want the girl. Not a whole town out for my head.” Del flipped quickly through the files, knowing it would waste valuable time going through everything.

  “Listen Delacroix, there’s more than one girl in danger here. From what we have figured out, this town is just one stopping point in human trafficking. Somehow, they are getting young girls from other counties and states, and bringing them through here without anyone noticing. Or if they do notice, they don’t give a damn.” He proceeded to open the files and show her all the circumstantial evidence that he had dragged up over the years, and some of it pointed towards her client. “From what I’ve figured out, all of this started about five years ago after Arthur Senior took off. The Kingsleys have something to do with it, but we’ve never been able to prove it.”

  Pointing his finger at Del, he grinned. “You’re our ace in the hole. I had the Bureau run your background yesterday like I do all newcomers in town, and I knew before I asked you who you were.”

  “I’m not an F.B.I. agent. What do you expect me to do?” she replied, scanning through all of the evidence. There was a lot, but he was right, it was all circumstantial at best. No wonder they’d never been able to pin anyone. “Wait, Rae mentioned last night that Regina’s husband had taken off. I’d meant to ask her about it, but I got distracted,” she paused here, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks.

  “Yeah, he left town around five years ago and I was called in about a year after the girls started going missing. It was only one or two every few months, but it was brought to our attention after a well to do family’s daughter went missing on an overnight trip to New Orleans. I don’t know if you remember the Chammings’ case. The girl was headed to her boyfriend’s school, but never made it.”

  Del did remember that case, they had never found the girl. “How come no one’s talked to the local police?”

  “Because we think that the locals are in on it. They have to be. The Chief has been re-elected for the past two terms...thanks to the backing of Regina Kingsley each time. At the beginning of the investigation they were brought in, but when it was deduced that they were involved, I was brought in. I’ve been here for the past four and a half years.” The older man opened a file to show the blonde the evidence against the Chief’s Department. “There has been very little crime in this area so that’s another reason that we think that most of the town may be in on it. They don’t want the outside world to look too close.”

  “Damn it. So what exactly do you want me to do? I’m just one person Agent Wilkins, and I’m certainly not an F.B.I. agent.” Frustrated, Del pulled a hair band off her wrist and ran her fingers through her hair, tying it into a messy ponytail. “All I can do is to try and find the girl. Regina is my client. What am I supposed to tell her?”

  “You tell her nothing. We do not want you to inform her at all. You do your investigation, but let us know what you find out. We can help each other Del.” The older man was very serious, but wanted this woman to work with him.

  “So you want me to find the girl, but if I happen to stumble across evidence you can use against Regina, the more the better?” Del smirked.

  “Yes...I’ll offer any help than I can, unofficially. You just go about your business, and keep me in the loop, and I’ll give you anything I can.” Jasper leaned back, sighing with relief. Thumbing through the files, he pulled out the ones on the Kingsleys, the local Chief Sam Brito, the missing girls, and handed them all to Del, telling her who they were on. “Is there anyone else that you want?”

  Del let out a low whistle as she scanned the files quickly. “I want Rae’s.”

  The older man’s hand had started towards the pile, but stopped at her request. Looking closely at the young woman, he tilted his head as he asked, “You can’t believe that Rae has anything to do with this...do you?”

  “I don’t think she had anything to do with this, but Jenny’s mother told me she trusts Rae more than anything. If she’d run off somewhere, it would have been to Rae’s. If Rae’s seen her, I need to know. Besides, right now, I’m more worried about a guy named Mack, and how the Reverend of this town is supplying him with virgins. I was in the middle of listening in on the table talk when you came barging in. I want Rae’s file just like I want the file of every other person in this town who’s been brought up in your investigations so far.” Del tried to shut out the voice in her head that was telling her she just wanted the file to be nosey. Telling herself it was all for the work.

  “Reverend Preston! You have to be kidding...he is one of the pillars of this community along with Regina...this would of course make perfect sense. Neither one is obvious. Now as for Mack, are you talking about the bald gentleman who was hanging out with a dark haired man that has a scar on his face?” The agent pulled out one file and handed it to her.

  “That’s them, and the cook in the diner mentioned something about delivering the food to camps to keep ‘em fed. Whoever ‘they’ are. By the looks of the way things are going I’d say there is a group of fresh young girls. I still want Rae’s file so stop trying to distract me.”

  With a heavy sigh, Jasper pulled out the files on Mack, the Reverend, and the cook and handed them to the investigator. Standing up, he went back over to the safe and pulled out Rae’s file. Coming back a
round to stand in front of the woman, he held onto the file even as he placed it in her hand. “Rae has nothing to do with what’s been going on. I’ll put my reputation...hell, I’ll put my job on the line, I’m so sure.”

  “I just want a better idea of who I’m dealing with. It’s not that I think she’s guilty Jasper. The really selfish part of me knows she has nothing to do with any of this. That’s the part of me that really wants to get to know her better and maybe even pursue something more with her. The part of me that is working, which is the bigger part of me, has to follow up on any leads I get.”

  Reluctantly he let go of the file, knowing that she was right. “There are a number of fishing and hunting camps all along the bayous, so the girls could be held in any one or more of them. There’s no way that we can monitor them all.”

  “So I’m going to go read up on these files and see if I can’t figure out where to head next. I have a feeling I might be heading out to some camps tomorrow and see if I can’t find anything there.” She gave him a sly grin. “I promise I’ll try to leave Rae out as much as possible. I want to give it a few days before I see her again anyway so I’ll follow up all the other leads first.”

  Jasper nodded his head, knowing that this woman was honorable. He had read the file that the Bureau had emailed him. Delaney Delacroix had helped law enforcement before in a kidnapping case and had handled a number of high profile cases on her own. “You do what you have to do to find Jenny. Just please keep me in the loop with whatever you find. If I can help, I will.”

  “I’ll do my best Jasper. Now, I have things to do so if you’ll excuse me.”

  j

  Delaney’s room was soon covered with the contents of the files, and notes while she and her laptop were perched in the middle of the bed. After going over everything, she had deduced that one; the Kingsleys were in on what was going on, and had been from the start. Two; that for each of the girls that were missing, if they had blonde hair and green eyes, they brought in around fifty thousand dollars. If they were blonde haired and blue eyes, that went down to forty thousand, and if they were brunette, the amount went to thirty-five thousand.