Eyes of the Predator: The Pickham County Murders (The Hunters)

by Glenn Trust

  Lyn looked down and shrugged.

  “I have a friend. He is going to come pick me up. I’ll be fine until then.”

  The two truck drivers looked at each other. Leon’s face bore a look of supreme sadness; Bob’s showed frustration.

  Finally, Bob shrugged and said, “All right then. We’ll be here for a couple more hours anyway. If you need anything, come get us. We’ll be getting our rigs weighed and serviced.”

  He turned and walked away, but then stopped and looked back at Lyn and said firmly, “You take care. Okay? Call that friend and have him come get you.”

  Lyn smiled slightly and nodded before looking back down at the floor.

  Leon watched Bob’s back retreat across the truck stop. He put a large, heavy hand on Lyn’s shoulder for a moment, and they both stared at the floor. Then he withdrew his hand and walked slowly away following Bob. He didn’t want to look back at her. Not knowing what to say or what to do, he could only walk away.

  49. Evidence and Guilt

  Gunning the pickup across the road, George spotted Shaklee’s car and roared to a stop behind it, kicking up a cloud of dust. The car was parked at the end of the row of rooms away from the office. The door was open, and an older man in overalls was standing outside. The door to the room next door was open also. Bob came out of that room as George walked up.

  “Take a look, George. See anything familiar?”

  Standing in the doorway of the room, George looked around briefly. It only took a second.

  “The bedspread. It’s the same.”

  “Yep,” Shaklee affirmed. “The very same as the one the girl was wrapped in. Come next door.”

  Walking into the next room, the one at the end of the building, George saw what else had Bob Shaklee so excited.

  “The bedspread is gone.”

  “Yes, it is George.”

  “That means that this could be the scene of the murder.”

  “I’d say that’s exactly what it means. I have the crime scene techs on the way. Let’s look around and keep everyone away until they get here. Then we’re going to have a conversation with our friend here.” He motioned to the man in overalls. “He says he doesn’t remember anything from last night. Busy you know.”

  “Really?” George turned to the man. “Well, come have a seat in the back of my truck. Maybe you can think for a while and come up with something we might want to hear.” George took him by the arm and led him to the pickup’s rear, crew cab door behind the prisoner screen. Giving him a quick pat down, he opened the door, and the man climbed in. George slammed the door and turned away. Let him stew for a while. There wouldn’t be much business at the office as long as the lot was full of state and county vehicles, and there were more on the way.

  George began looking carefully around the parking lot in front of the room door. Bob worked inside carefully noting every item in the room and peering closely at objects, furnishings, and flooring looking for any small bits of evidence. Unless the killer was a magician, chances are they would find something. Despite his precautions, there would be something he had missed in his efforts to leave no evidence behind.

  It took George only a minute to spot the duct tape. It lay in the dusty gravel where a car would have been parked if someone were staying in the room. Kneeling down, he turned it over with his pen. There were three layers, about the length to go around the mouth and head of a girl. It had been cut, not pulled off or unwrapped. What appeared to be a small amount of dried blood stained the edge of the tape by the cut mark. The killer had probably cut the tape quickly and roughly without worrying about nicking the girl in the process. George had no doubt that the knife used was the same one that had plunged deep into Mr. Sims and had then inflicted the small tissue cuts on the girl’s body.

  Near the tape were two white plastic tie wraps of the type used by electricians to wrap wires and cables. They had also been cut. Squatting in the dust, staring at the tie wraps and tape, George closed his eyes and saw the scene as it would have looked the night before. The girl bound, mouth taped, still alive, and not hurt much. She would have been forced to walk into the room. Did she know she would never walk out? The thought must have been burning in her mind, desperately trying to find a way to stay alive. Hate for the animal that had done this boiled up inside. Every piece of evidence pointed to a person who caused pain willingly and with purpose. The pain was as much a reason for the murders as anything else.

  He looked up and called to the room. “Bob, you have an evidence bag?’

  “Yeah, George. What do you have?” Shaklee stopped in the doorway, looking at the spot where George knelt. “Good. Should be able to get the victim’s DNA from the tape, probably the perp’s too.”

  George didn’t move. Shaklee walked to his car to retrieve the evidence bags and a camera to photograph the items in place before placing them in the bags.

  “We’ve made some progress, George. We’re a lot closer than we were this morning.”

  George looked up. “Lot of progress, but we still don’t have a suspect. And even with his DNA, we won’t know who it is unless he’s got a record and it’s in the data base. And the DNA test could take weeks. We don’t have weeks, Bob.”

  “Yeah, but we also have a description of him, the ring, and the car. That’s a lot. We’ll find the bastard.” He tried to sound more confident than he really was.

  At the mention of the car, Bob could see George’s head drop slightly. “Want to tell me about the car, George?”

  George stood up. “You talk to Ronnie?”

  “No. I was there when he gave that bullshit story to the sheriff about you checking your notes to confirm the description. Haven’t known you long, but information like that…well, I don’t think you would have had to check any notepad about that.”

  “Well, you are correct, Agent Shaklee.” George looked up at the sky and took a deep breath. “I was asleep.”

  “Okay. So how does that tie in?”

  “The car woke me up as it passed, not too far from the Ridley’s place. I saw it, but I didn’t do anything. Didn’t stop it, didn’t get a tag number, nothing. Just pulled my jacket around me and dozed off again.”

  “Well, George, you wouldn’t have known.”

  “Stop. Now you sound like Ronnie Kupman. We had a murder in the county. That doesn’t happen often in Pickham. The car was on a road that really doesn’t get traveled much at night. It was a car that I didn’t recognize as a local. It had an out of state tag. I couldn’t tell which state, but it wasn’t a Georgia tag. You would think I would have at least followed the car to see where they went or how they were driving. I didn’t. What I did do was nothing. I slept. Ronnie said I was checking the notes to cover me. He knows the sheriff would love to get rid of me on charges like that.”

  “I see. So now you’re going to spend the rest of your career beating yourself up.”

  “What career? I’m working this case and then hanging it up. Turn myself in to the sheriff when we get this done.”

  “Really?” Shaklee said questioningly. “And give up Ronnie Kupman who covered for you. Seems a little unfair to him.”

  George had already thought about that. “I’m going to tell the sheriff that the story about checking my notes was my idea. Ronnie didn’t know any better. He just stays quiet. It will work out.”

  Shaklee shook his head slowly. “George, I get it. Any of us would feel terrible about it. I also think your contribution to the case outweighs any error in judgment you might have made. We wouldn’t be anywhere near as far along without you. Do what you want, there’s nothing I can say to talk you out of it, I know, but it seems to me that it would be a pretty big shame to lose what you bring to the table. The way I see it, if your guilt stays with you, so be it. Maybe you should feel guilty every day the rest of your life. Maybe that’s the price you pay to keep doing what you do best. I guess you could confess and cleanse your soul and be drummed out of the county. You might feel better, and the citize
ns of Pickham County might lose one of their best, maybe the best. Or, you could hold it in, take the pain and guilt, and keep doing what you are supposed to do. Maybe that’s your penance. It’s harder, that’s for sure.”

  Gravel crunched and dust swirled as the crime scene SUV pulled into the lot. Shaklee turned towards the room.

  “Let’s get to work.”

  George followed him into the room that the girl never walked from.

  50. Alone

  On the front wall outside the truck stop cafe, there were a couple of old, beat up pay phones. Lyn stood in front of one. It was dirty. In the age of cell phones, they bore the signs of neglect. A brownish substance was hardened to the mouthpiece.

  Only the poorest people used them anymore, Lyn knew. She knew that most people nowadays had cell phones, although she had never had one. She had seen many drivers walking around the truck stop with cell phones to their ears. She wondered what that would be like. Just take a phone out of your pocket and call someone on your own phone. She wondered who she would call. Clay Purcell, she thought. Today she would call Clay on one of those cell phones, if she had one. Clay had one. That was the number he had written on the napkin for her.

  Lyn was used to the frustration of seeing the modern world around you, a world filled with convenience and wonders, but never knowing what it was like to participate in that world fully. She could only see it at arm’s distance.

  Lyn studied the folded napkin with Clay’s number on it and took a deep breath. Reaching for the dirty pay phone, she shoved her hand in the pocket of her jeans searching for coins.

  “Here, you might want to use this.”

  Lyn was startled by a deep voice behind her. It was Leon, the big truck driver. He held a cell phone in his hand and raised his arm, offering it to her.

  “Oh…uh no, I couldn’t,” Lyn stammered, “I don’t even know…”

  “Here,” the big man insisted, then showing her, he opened the phone, “Just press these buttons for the numbers, and then press this green one. That makes the call go through. Hold this up to your ear to talk and hear. Just close it up when you’re done. I’ll be in the store. You can bring it in to me.”

  Leon pushed the phone into her small hand and turned abruptly heading back into the store.

  Lyn stood there with the small thing in her hand. She was surprised at how light it was. Not like a regular phone, but then it was a lot smaller.

  Tentatively, she opened the phone and then opened the napkin with Clay’s number on it. It was awkward, but she managed to read the numbers and then press each one on the phone. She was surprised to see the numbers come up on a little screen. She fumbled with holding the napkin and then pressing the numbers, but once they were all entered, she compared what was on the screen with the numbers that Clay had scrawled for her. They matched.

  Taking a deep breath, she pressed the green button. It had a picture of a regular telephone receiver on it, which was not anything at all like the little device she held in her hand. Holding it up to her ear as Leon had instructed, Lyn heard ringing, just like on a regular phone.

  The ringing went on for several seconds. Lyn thought no one was going to answer, but then she heard Clay’s voice.

  “Hi, this is Clay…”

  “Hello, uh Clay, this is Lyn…,” Lyn was cut off because Clay kept talking.

  “…can’t take your call right now, but leave a message and I’ll call you back,” Clay said and then there was a loud beep.

  Lyn stood there with the phone at her ear not knowing what to do. After a few seconds, she closed it up the way Leon had said. Voice mail was something she had never encountered in the swampy backcountry of south Georgia.

  The phone hung loosely from the end of her arm as she looked at the ground. She was frustrated. She was alone. She fought back the tears that welled up in her eyes.

  Opening the phone again, she carefully pressed the numbers and then the green button. Again, the phone rang. She counted six rings, then Clay’s voice. This time she said nothing but waited a moment. Clay continued talking as he had before, telling her to leave a message. When he finished talking, Lyn spoke.

  “Uh, hello, Clay. This is Lyn, the girl you gave a ride to. If you still want to come pick me up here, I’ll be at the truck stop. I, uh…” she didn’t know what else to say, and for a few seconds, there was just silence until she realized she should just close the phone up.

  What now, she thought. Just wait. What if Clay changed his mind? What if he didn’t get the message? What if she was just left alone here? The tears began welling in her eyes again.

  Maybe she should just go home, but then no, she thought, and then more emphatically, NO. Mama had risked everything last night, and there was no telling what Daddy would do if she came back. Actually, she knew exactly what he would do if she returned and he could get his hands on her. She felt the bruise on her arm.

  Nothing to do but wait for Clay. If he didn’t come, then Canada. The Canada running away dream that she and her brother had made up was still there.

  Dabbing her eyes on her sleeve, she turned and walked back into the store. Leon was standing quietly by the magazine rack. She walked over to him and held the phone out.

  “Get hold of your friend?” his deep rumbling voice asked.

  “Yes…yes I did,” she answered.

  “He coming for you?”

  “Yes, he said he would be here in a while.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, yes. I’ll be all right. Just gonna wait here for him,” Lyn answered not looking him in the eye.

  Leon didn’t know what else to do. He took the phone in his hand. For once, there was a soft look on his big, gruff face and he gave her a smile.

  “Okay then. Well, we gotta be going soon. Here,” Leon took a card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Lyn. “This is us, me and Bob. It’s got our phone numbers on it if you need to call. Okay?”

  Lyn took the somewhat battered, slightly dirty card. It had big letters that said B&L Trucking and then some phone numbers.

  She looked up and Leon’s smile made her feel a little better.

  “Thanks. I’m grateful.”

  Leon stood there for a few more seconds not knowing what else to do. Then he turned and walked to the end of the aisle where Bob waited for him. They walked out the front door and across the lot to their rigs, parked side by side in the gravel.

  Lyn was alone again.

  51. Vernon’s Dilemma

  By Georgia standards, Pickham County was average in size. In a state with one hundred and fifty-nine counties, you were never more than twenty or thirty miles from the next county line. In some cases, the distance was much less. Almost every county had their own sheriff and in the larger metropolitan counties, a separate police department. Throw in the various cities and state law enforcement agencies and there were a lot of cops in Georgia. Some thought too many, others too few. At this moment, there were a lot in Roydon, Georgia.

  No less than eight law enforcement vehicles were gathered in the lot of the StarLite Motel, divided between Pickham County, GBI, crime scene technicians and the State Patrol. More gravel crunched and spit from under the tires of two more vehicles, and there were now ten vehicles in the lot. George looked up and saw that it was Sheriff Klineman with Ronnie Kupman, followed by Timmy Farrin in the old radio station van. Time for Timmy’s shot at an interview, George thought.

  Sharon Price had arrived earlier and was going through the motel room with the crime scene techs while George and Bob Shaklee engaged in a heart-to-heart conversation with the StarLite’s desk clerk, Vernon Taft. Mr. Taft was reluctant, at best, to remember any details about the guest who had rented the end room, and who had removed the bedspread upon his departure.

  Cornered in the back of George’s truck, he looked frequently at the small crowd that was growing outside of Pete’s Place across the street. The larger the crowd grew, the more reluctant he became. George and Bob Shaklee stood in the open
door on one side of the vehicle making sure the other side was clear and Taft’s view of Pete’s Place unobstructed.

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know why he was nervous. Conversing with the law in Roydon was an unhealthy practice, especially in broad daylight.

  “You know, Vernon,” George interjected during a break in the questioning. “You might as well tell us what we want to know, and tell us now so we can get you out of here.” He nodded at the crowd across the street. “You think they’re gonna think you said nothing, no matter what you tell them later. Even if they believe you, they won’t be of a mind to take any chances in the future. Maybe you talked, maybe you didn’t, but why take chances? Yep, I can hear Roy Budroe saying it now, ‘Why take chances?’” George let the words sink in for effect. “And somewhere tonight a gator out in the Okeefenokee is going to have a fat supper.”

  “Bullshit. None of this has anything to do with anyone in Roydon or anyone at Pete’s. Why should they care?” Vernon Taft’s voice cracked in a plaintiff whine that did not have the bluster of his words. This was all so unfair.

  “Great point, Vernon,” George said nodding in agreement. “Go tell them that,” he added, jerking his head toward the crowd.

  Taft turned his head looking out the side window. Roy Budroe stood there chewing a cigar, staring in his direction, his big meaty fists balled at his side. Vernon raised a shaking hand to wipe the sweat from his greasy brow. The inside of the pickup reeked of the alcohol that was boiling out of his pores with the perspiration. George would air it out later and hoped that that would be the only stench he had to air out of the truck. Vernon was powerfully scared, caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. No doubt, he would be changing underwear later, provided he was wearing any.