Clint Wolf Boxed Set: Books 4 - 6

by BJ Bourg

  “I was standing out in the rain. I had stepped in this puddle of water and my shoes got all wet. I remembered worrying that everyone would see my wet clothes and know I had done something wrong.”

  “What’d you do about the clothes?”

  “I tossed them in the dryer when I got back to the house, and then I slid back onto the sofa bed in the living room. When everyone woke up in the morning they didn’t notice anything was wrong.”

  “You said you thought the man was Foster,” I said slowly, trying to trick her. “But he must’ve turned around when you entered the bar, so you had to know you had the wrong guy.”

  “No, I didn’t go inside. I shot him through the screen. He never turned around. He just ran deeper into the place.”

  I smiled inwardly. She was telling the truth. “What’d you do when he ran off?”

  “I started to follow him so I could make sure he was dead, but then a man sat up in one of the booths. I didn’t think anyone was inside and it scared me. I left in a hurry—before he or that man could call nine-one-one. I found out later on the news that I’d shot the wrong man.” She lowered her head. “I feel terrible about what happened. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone else.”

  “What about the shooting behind the bar? Did you do that, too?”

  She shook her head. “Grandpa noticed his gun was missing and sixteen bullets had been removed from his box of ammunition. When he started looking for it, the first place he checked was in my bags. He then checked under me in my wheelchair and found it. He demanded to know what I’d done. I didn’t want to tell him, but he was so mad and I got really scared. When I told him what had happened, he said he’d have to make it look like someone else had done it.”

  “Is that when he went out and took some shots at Foster Blake and Joyce Reynolds?”

  “I don’t know. He told me the less I knew the better.”

  I pondered this information. Finally, I asked if she had loaded all sixteen cartridges in the magazine.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I asked a few more questions and then stood to leave.

  “Wait,” she said, reaching out with her hand, “what will happen to me?”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to jail.”

  “But he would’ve killed me as soon as he found out that I could talk—that I could tell everyone what he did. Now that my grandpa is gone I was going to have to stay with him and my mom, and there’s no way I could fake it for long. I did what I had to do to save my life. It was self-defense.”

  “While I think he got what he deserved, there’s no possible way you could know for sure that he would kill you, and we can’t go around preemptively murdering people.”

  “But what will happen to me? I mean, what’s next?”

  “You’ll be booked into the parish jail and a bond will be set. If you can’t post bond, you’ll sit in jail until your trial date.”

  “And then?” Kimberly’s face had turned to ash. “What’ll happen at the trial?”

  “You can hope the jury will feel sorry for you and go for a lesser charge.” I shrugged. “Considering the circumstances, you might have a shot.”

  After gathering up my notebook and file, I stepped out into the hallway and made my way to the dispatcher’s station, where Susan was sitting in a chair typing the arrest warrant. She looked up when I walked in. “Well? Did she confess?”

  I nodded. “I feel bad for her.”

  “Yeah, I do, too.” Susan shot her thumb toward the waiting area, where Pearly was waiting to be interviewed. “But I feel worse for Pearly. She just watched her daughter—who she thought was bound to a wheelchair—stab her abusive husband to death. The poor woman doesn’t know whether to be excited or depressed.”

  “Well, I’m excited that this case is solved.” I gently squeezed Susan’s shoulder as I walked toward the waiting area to finish up. “Once all the paperwork is done, I’ve got to plan myself a wedding.”

  Book Six:

  BUT NOT FORBIDDEN

  CHAPTER 1

  Saturday, April 8

  Mechant Loup, Louisiana

  Chester Raymond pulled the dirty hat low over his eyes, glanced at his worn wristwatch. The glass on the timepiece was cloudy and scratched, but he could still see that it was almost noon. He was well aware that he had already run the Battle Swing over a hundred times. With two large swings propelling their riders high into the air in opposite directions and then passing inches from each other on the return swing, it was the most popular ride at the Mechant Loup Spring Festival.

  While Chester was always the busiest carnival operator, he didn’t mind much because it helped the long days pass faster. Besides, the money was good. He made more cash in one weekend than he did from a week of trapping, so it was a no-brainer to make the long journey to town and put up with the raucous crowd to operate this mechanical beast every time the carnival came to town. Plus, he got to enjoy seeing tons of women. They were rare in the swamps where he lived, so it was a nice change of scenery.

  When the swings came to rest at the end of the current ride, he stepped forward and released the security bars. People started piling out of their seats—exiting on the right—while others waited impatiently in line for their turn, many of them repeat riders. After the current riders had dismounted, he nodded for the new riders to take their seats. They entered from the left. One lady, a tall blonde with long dark legs wearing Daisy dukes and a skin-tight tanktop, strode up with a kid and took her seat. Chester hurried over and put a hand on her waist to help guide her to her seat.

  “Excuse me,” she said, twisting around to see who had touched her.

  “It’s okay,” Chester said, smiling wide. “I work here.”

  The other people were piling onto the ride and the woman relaxed a bit. Chester seized the opportunity to pull her security bar in place and he allowed his forearm to push firmly against her breasts in the process.

  “Hey!” she objected. “Watch yourself, you old creep!”

  “Oops, sorry,” Chester mumbled, pleased with himself as he hurried to the operator’s station. He glanced back once and saw the lady glaring at him, but he didn’t care. Passively feeling up on riders was one of the perks of the job, and most of the women acknowledged his clumsy apology and forgave him anyway. He was always careful not to get too close to women who had dates, because he didn’t need any extra ass-whippings.

  He settled back onto the wobbly stool as the ride creaked to life and the swings began to sway. “Where’s my relief?” he asked, glancing around the crowded festival. His work station was off to one end of the fair, far away from the food booths and near the parking lot, just as it was every year. Of course, the “parking lot” was nothing but a large grassy field sectored off with orange cones. Luckily, the weather was nice. Some years, when it rained, the lot was reduced to a sloppy mud pit that smelled worse than a pig farm.

  Chester shook his head as he watched an old truck park sideways behind two cars. Folks around here don’t know how to park. More than a few people would try to leave later this evening and find themselves boxed in. “Not my problem,” he said out loud. “But I do need to hit the head and then get some lunch.”

  Once the ride was finished and the passengers had dismounted, he took a moment to ogle the tall blonde as she walked away. His mind wandered to his girlfriend, Shelly, and their impending marriage. He suddenly felt sad. His first wife had died ten years ago and, after the grieving period was over, he had begun messing around at the fairs. It was his only real human interaction outside of his family, and he had come to look forward to the occasional romp in the tall grass behind the parking lot. Now that he was getting married again, there would be no more messing around. That made him even sadder…until he remembered the nude pictures Shelly had sent him the other day. He pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through the images—

  “Come on, old man,” said a teenage boy who was waiting in line. “We ain’t got all day.”

  Chester qu
ickly put the phone down and looked in the rude kid’s direction. He was thrilled to see the boy wore a wristband from Friday night. Sauntering over, he tapped the kid’s wrist. “Unless you have a red one, you ain’t getting on this ride.”

  “What? Everyone else let me go on the other rides.”

  Chester knew that most of his fellow carnies weren’t strict with the wristband policy—and neither was he—but this smartass needed to be taught a lesson. “Then go ride with them. Now, please get out of the line. These good people ain’t got all day.”

  Grumbling, the boy stomped away, stopping once to flip Chester off. Chester flipped him off in return and then set the next ride in motion. It was just coming to an end when he saw Bart, his replacement, pushing through the thick crowd. “Thank God you’re finally here,” he said when Bart reached him. “I was about to abandon the ride and head to the food tent.”

  Bart rubbed his protruding belly. “I highly recommend the crawfish etouffee, or the shrimp jambalaya, or the catfish and white beans. Hell,”—a large grin split his face in half—“everything’s good. You really can’t go—”

  “Where in the hell is that little prick?” boomed a man’s voice from the opposite side of the ride. “I’m going to kill him!”

  Bart turned from Chester and squinted against the afternoon sun. “Somebody’s about to get their ass kicked.”

  Chester looked in the direction of the booming voice and nearly choked on his tongue. The tall blonde woman from earlier was walking briskly beside a hulk of a man and she was pointing in their direction. He couldn’t be sure if the man saw him, but he wasn’t taking any chances. It was time for his daily bathroom break anyway, so he hurried off, hollering over his shoulder that he would be back in an hour.

  Confused, Bart waved after him, then shrugged and turned toward the swings. Chester looked back once and saw the beefy man poking Bart in the chest, probably demanding to know where Chester had run off to. Thinking quickly, Chester melded into the crowd and raced toward the opposite end of the fairgrounds, where the portable restrooms were waiting for him. Anyone who knew him well knew that he relieved himself at the same time every day, and then he had lunch, and then he relieved himself once more. After that, he was ready to finish the day strong.

  Chester slipped into the porta-potty located at the center of a row of bathroom units and allowed the plastic door to slam shut behind him. After sliding the flat bar in the locked position, he peeled off his shirt, kicked off his shoes, and dropped his jeans. Without hesitating, he plopped to the toilet seat and grunted when he felt the moisture against his butt cheeks. Why can’t these bastards learn to aim?

  Reaching down between his legs, he pulled a Bible from the back pocket of his jeans. He paused when he heard the door slam on the unit next to him. At first he was worried it might be a cop, but then he heard a woman talking out loud. It sounded like she was speaking with someone, but no one was speaking back. She even laughed a bit, which made him think she was drunk. He shrugged and went back to his business.

  After tearing a page from deep into the Book of Genesis, he dug a plastic bag of home-grown marijuana from one of his shoes and carefully rolled a joint. He was about to light up and “relieve” himself when he began to panic. What if Bart tells that giant muscle-head where to find me?

  Fear filled his heart as he stared up at the vents located along the top of the enclosure. He could hear people talking all around him—including the woman in the unit next to him—and he strained in an attempt to hear the voice of the angry man. He thought he heard it once, but he couldn’t be sure. As he sat there sweating—the joint poised in one hand, the lighter in the other—he suddenly realized everything was growing quiet around him. Off in the distance, someone started playing an electric guitar and he could hear the beat of a bass drum.

  The band’s already starting! They were a little early this year, but he’d heard that might be because they expected rain this afternoon. That meant most of the people would abandon the rides and go dancing, or they would sit around listening to the music and eating. Maybe the blonde and her man would forget about him and go—

  “Chester Raymond!”

  Shit! Bart gave me up! Not knowing why he did so, Chester tossed the joint onto the platform next to the tank and held his breath. He could almost feel the man’s presence outside of the porta-potty as he walked around and called Chester’s name. The walls felt invisible and it seemed the hulking man could see him sitting there naked.

  “The longer it takes for me to find you, the worse off you’ll be,” the man bellowed. “Nobody molests my wife and gets away with it. Do you hear me, you little prick?”

  Without thinking, Chester nodded and mouthed the words, I’m so sorry.

  “Come out and take your medicine like a man!”

  “Wait,” said the blonde. It sounded like they were ten feet to his right. “Is that him on the dance floor?”

  “How the hell would I know?” asked the man. “I never saw him.”

  “Yeah, I think that’s him.”

  Shoes scrunched against the solid ground and grew fainter as the coupled walked away. Chester sighed heavily, unaware that he had been holding his breath. Beads of sweat poured down his face and dripped into his lap. You’ve got to stop doing that, his better self warned. You’re going to get yourself killed someday.

  Now that the threat was gone, he could concentrate on the task at hand. Still trembling, he reached for the joint—

  “What the hell?” Chester squinted in confusion as a tiny hole appeared in the plastic wall of the porta-potty in front of him and just above the height of his head, allowing a straight beam of sunlight to shoot inside. Before his mind could register what was happening, a second beam of light appeared in the wall directly in front of him, but this beam of light hurt like hell. Then there was a third, and fourth, and…

  CHAPTER 2

  1:35 PM

  Mechant Loup Spring Festival

  I leaned up against the metal frame and stared out at the crowd of festival-goers. The area under the pavilion was crowded. Some people—a very few—sat in fold-out camp chairs enjoying the music and festivities, while the vast majority of the group was on the wooden platform line-dancing The Freeze to a well-done rendition of If You Don’t Want Me To by Ronnie Milsap. Although I’d only been in Mechant Loup for about three years, I knew this song was a big hit with the locals at the fair each year. The only ones not dancing were those too old or young to walk without assistance, and a few drunks who could barely stand straight.

  The music blared from the large speakers stationed on each end of the raised stage and I found myself moving along to the beat. It was then that I realized I was smiling. I was happier than I’d been in a long time, and why not? The sun was shining, there was great music playing, the cool breeze was carrying the smell of fried seafood to my nostrils, and I was about to marry the kindest and most beautiful woman—both inside and out—I could ever hope to find. What’s more, she could take care of herself and I wouldn’t have to worry so much about her. Sure, I’d worry about some of the dangers she faced as a police officer, such as car crashes and ambushes—things she couldn’t control so much—but if she had a little bit of warning she was about to be in a fight, I knew she would come out on top.

  “Mrs. Clint Wolf,” I said out loud, nodding at the way my wife’s new name would roll off my tongue. “I like the sound of that.”

  As the song came to an end and the band announced they were taking a short break, the pavilion erupted in cheers and people drifted away from the dance floor. Once the crowd had thinned out somewhat, I was able to see Susan Wilson, my beautiful bride-to-be, approaching from the opposite side of the dance floor. She fit her tan polyester uniform like a glove, the muscles in her legs testing the strength of the fabric with each step she took. Her brown hair was braided into cornrows and tied off in twin pigtails behind her head. The dark sunglasses she wore hid her beautiful brown eyes, but nothing could hide the
deep dimple on her left cheek as she smiled, and I knew she saw me standing there gawking at her.

  Some old lady had grabbed Susan’s hand and dragged her onto the dance floor to do the Freeze, and she hadn’t resisted. Not only was Susan the Chief of Police for Mechant Loup, but she was easily the most popular chief we’d ever had. While she was firm, she was also fair and compassionate, and the townspeople loved and respected her like family.

  “If you ever decide to give up police work,” I said as Susan drew within earshot, “you’ll have a hell of a career as a dancer.”

  Her face turned red and she slugged my arm gently. “I hope you’re not talking about pole dancing.”

  “Of course not,” I lied. When she was leaning against the post beside me, I whispered out the side of my mouth, “Just eight more days left.”

  “Until what?” Susan asked, putting on her best poker face.

  Not to be outdone, I blurted, “Until we get to have sex again.”

  Her mouth dropped open in feigned disbelief and she pushed off of the post, crossing her arms in front of her chest. After fixing me with stern eyes for about a minute, she relaxed and smiled. As though suddenly remembering something, her face lit up and she grabbed my forearm in her steel-trap grip. “Do you know what you did to me last night in your sleep?”

  I groaned inwardly, wondering how bad it had gotten. This abstinence thing was so torturous I was starting to have dreams about us doing it, and those dreams began turning into sleep-action. Last week she mentioned how she wished I would start sleep-walking to the bathroom to take a cold shower. “When you start touching me like that it makes it so much harder on me,” she had complained.

  I had argued that I was not responsible for what I did in my sleep, but, in her eyes, that argument didn’t relieve me from culpability.

  I glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention to us, and then asked her what I’d done.