Taunting (The Flint Files Book 1)

by Mark Treble

  “What’s the nature of your relationship with him?” Danny Flint had his notebook out. Lanny spilled the beans.

  Ricky Stanley brought in alligator hides maybe once every two months, sometimes more often. No, he had no tags. Lanny kept unused tags in the office to match with the hides. Ricky took part of the payment in cash and part in weed. Lanny had a side business too, you know.

  “When do you expect to see him next?” Danny was hoping it was soon.

  “Last time he was here Ricky said he’d be back day after tomorrow, Wednesday, when he went into White Castle on his monthly trip.” Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything about the weed. Well, fuck. This day was getting worse and worse.

  “OK, Lanny, here’s the deal.” How did they know his name? Oh, that’s right, it was on the business card he had given them. “You’re going to develop the stomach flu for the rest of the day and tomorrow. You’ll be back here Wednesday bright and early. Agent White will be in your back room. You’re going to buy whatever hides Ricky wants to sell you and pay him in all cash. Let’s not mention the weed again, OK?” Danny looked at Agent White who gave him a thumbs up.

  Lanny was fine with not mentioning the weed again. Ever.

  “If you call anybody, we’ll know. If you leave your house, we’ll know. If your girlfriend’s got her period, we’ll know. And if somehow Ricky Stanley doesn’t show you’re going to jail.” That was Goldberg. Who mentioned Angola again, since it had worked so well with Charley Poole. And, she threw in the bit about Lanny’s white ass, too. It was kind of, well, poetic. Lanny’s hide getting harvested in the showers.

  Lanny closed shop and walked two blocks to his house. He went straight to bed. He didn’t have any stomach flu, but he sure as shit felt sick.

  Danny and Sarah took Jim Bob up to Baton Rouge for dinner, their treat. Jim Bob felt real important, and he should. He was going to help blow this fucker wide open.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  In his room Danny retrieved the phone from his jacket and turned it on. There was a light blinking about a message. In record time (which was not real fast, it was a smart phone and Danny was not quite up to its standards) he figured out how to retrieve the text. Daryl Grzgorczyk had sent a smiley face and the words Money Order. That was all Danny needed to know.

  Danny called his commander to get the full rundown. Joel Vanderveer had bought monthly $200 money orders at various post offices in and around New Orleans for the past three years. The US Postal Service promised records going back an additional seven years shortly. “Shortly” became a promise of three days after AUSA Berkley called the Deputy Attorney General, who in turn called the Postmaster General. Things were moving quickly now.

  Portia Livingston presented evidence to a New Orleans grand jury in twenty-four minutes and had a true bill seven minutes later. Joel Vanderveer had been indicted for the murder of his parents. The indictment was sealed.

  Flint and Goldberg took separate rooms on the trip. Cheryl wouldn’t care if he got some strange, but Goldberg was married. And, they were colleagues. Plus, Danny respected the female detective. She was enough younger than he that she would never have been his partner coming up in the department, and he kind of regretted that. She would have been a real delight to work with.

  Wednesday morning they met for breakfast. They checked in with Grzgorczyk, who told them to take the day off. Well, he was the commander and it sounded like an order. They took the day off.

  Louisiana State Police provided the manpower to cover Lanny, the store, the surrounding area and the only road in and out of Ricky’s hovel. Goldberg voiced the reason they didn’t use local police. “You know why there’s no CSI show about rural Louisiana? There are no dental records, and all the DNA’s the same.” The vast majority of people in these relatively isolated areas were all related somehow. There was no reason to suspect the local police of any impropriety. There was no reason to rule it out, either.

  Thursday morning Lanny opened his shop and tried to pretend nothing was wrong. He wasn’t particularly successful, but Agent White was prepared. He poured Lanny a double shot of bourbon followed by a single. Ricky came in, leaving the hides in his truck. He had a few hundred pounds of alligator meat in the truck as well, and intended to sell it cheap to a diner he knew of a few miles north of town.

  “No weed today, Ricky, but I’ll give you extra cash to make up for it.” Lanny’s script had been practiced until he knew it by heart. Ricky was disappointed about the weed, but he still had a week’s worth back home. Maybe he could come back next week.

  Ricky brought in the hides and was promptly arrested by Agent White. Ricky knew this wasn’t anything serious, and wondered how he hadn’t been caught before this. He’d get a fine, maybe a week in jail, then switch alligator shops. All part of the price of doing business.

  White escorted Ricky to the shop’s back room where the price of doing business went up astronomically. Detectives Flint and Goldberg were accompanied by a state prosecutor and an FBI Agent. It seems there was some federal law about postal money orders and felonies. A video camera had been set up, but Ricky knew his rights. He waited for them to be recited, knowing he wasn’t really in that much trouble.

  Goldberg introduced herself. “I’m not going to read you your rights because you don’t have any. You’re under arrest for accessory to murder. All this goes away if you cooperate and tell us everything you know about Joel Vanderveer and why he’s been sending you the money orders. Tell us the entire truth and you get off on all charges. If, on the other hand, you want to talk to a lawyer, that’s your right.

  “Go ahead and incriminate yourself. We can’t use it at trial. If we find out you’re lying, we’ll just tell Vanderveer you rolled over on him and let you go. I’ll send flowers to your funeral.”

  Ricky did indeed roll over on Vanderveer. He told them about Joel disappearing for three hours and coming back with money and some munchies and a bag. They split the money, Ricky burned his clothes and the bag had wound up in the swamp.

  “Where’s the campsite?” Flint was hoping they could recover the bag. Ricky led them to a woody area in the swamp maybe a mile from the Vanderveer place. Forty three police cadets armed with shovels and rakes piled out of a bus two hours later and got to work. It took just under fifty minutes to recover the bag.

  Vanderveer had fucked up big time. He used a waterproof bag, and a really good one. Any DNA on the bag had been degraded in the water, but the fingerprints on the inside of the bag and the jewelry were a perfect match. Joel Vanderveer was going down.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Friday the shit hit the fan. Melvin Brown tracked down Mandy Forte who checked her trip ticket. She had started the route at 5:53 and estimated that she arrived at the Tulane University stop at around 6:15 to 6:20. Yes, she was certain of the start time, it was punched onto her trip ticket. It was physically impossible that Joel Vanderveer had ridden that bus the entire way home. Grzgorczyk ordered Vanderveer picked up and called ADA Livingston. They had him for his parents’ murders and probably for Franklin’s as well.

  Joel Vanderveer wasn’t in the guest house, he wasn’t at school, and he wasn’t at the soon-to-be-closed Fitch and Clemons offices. Myra Hartag asked what new evidence they had to justify the arrest. Goldberg told her to call Livingston, she was just a grunt. Hartag had to leave a message; Livingston was in a meeting.

  Carol Talbot’s car was gone and she wasn’t home. The hair on the back of Danny’s head stood up. The BOLO specified Vanderveer and his aunt, but Danny held out little hope. Carol Talbot was probably either dead or soon to be. Danny hoped Vanderveer was holding her hostage as a bargaining chip, but that was less likely than he wanted to think.

  Vanderveer was devolving. Shrewdness would be the first thing to go. Inhibitions would follow. Or maybe go before the shrewdness. It didn’t matter. Carol Talbot was in mortal danger either way.

  Police all across New Orleans were looking for Joel, but he was nowhere to be f
ound. Danny was out of ideas when Agent White called. He’d gone out to check on Ricky Stanley and found him dead. He’d been sliced open with a knife and mutilated. What was left was identifiable as human, and it was wearing Ricky’s clothes. Danny knew where Vanderveer was, and this was not going to be easy.

  Carol Talbot was met by Corporal Thibedeaux when she arrived home in a taxi. She had driven to her hairdresser’s and then turned over the car to Joel. He was supposed to pick her up more than an hour ago. She demanded to see him. Carly told her matter-of-factly that she was there to arrest Joel for the murder of his parents. They had incontrovertible evidence. Joel’s father was Carol’s brother. She sat down heavily and cried.

  A dark blue late-model Cadillac was spotted by a Plaquemine Parish sheriff’s deputy driving north. A man was driving and a woman was in the passenger seat, but the woman was too young to be Carol Talbot. The deputy promptly forgot about it.

  The car stopped briefly at a ramshackle house that was little more than a shack. Joel got out, but Veronica Meritt didn’t. She was securely buckled in, not to mention tied up and gagged. She had agreed to meet Joel for coffee and seriously regretted that decision. When Joel got back in the car there was blood on his shirt and pants. Veronica knew this was not going to get any better and her life was in danger.

  Joel and Veronica drove through bayou country on back roads before coming to a state highway. “Shoulda done that long ago. He was white trash anyway.” Joel’s tone of voice reminded her of the night when he seemed to go inside himself during sex. Is that what was happening now? She didn’t know. And she wasn’t sure it mattered.

  They came upon a hitchhiker on the side of the road. The man appeared to be in his sixties, was well-groomed and decently dressed. When Joel slowed to pull over he was grinning. “No rides for jungle bunnies in this car.” He stomped on the accelerator and ran the African-American man down.

  “Two points for the old guy.” Joel was laughing. Veronica shuddered; Joel Vanderveer was devolving much too quickly. He ripped off the tape holding her gag in place and pulled out the kerchief filling her mouth.

  “How many points do you think I can get between here and there?” Veronica realized it was a genuine question. He was interested in her opinion of his unbalanced universe in which killing white trash and African-Americans was just part of normal day.

  “You were the one beaten by the black thugs as a kid, not Steve Clemons. Right?” Veronica decided to engage him as much as possible. If something broke through and he regained sufficient sanity to recognize her, maybe she could survive. She was not holding out hope.

  “Yeah, and I’m getting my revenge. The darkies just gotta die.” Joel was speaking in a normal tone and cadence, not realizing his disconnect from cognition. “They beat me because I’m white, so I kill them in return. It balances things out.”

  “But, most of the people you killed were white.” Veronica was determined to keep the conversation going, even if it was about his horrific killing spree. She suspected that Clemons hadn’t actually killed anyone. It had all been Joel.

  “Yeah, well, white or black they stood between me and the money. Aunt Carol would get the whole thing if everybody else died first. Then, when she died, it would all come to me. You understand that, don’t you?” This last wasn’t really a question, it was an expectation. Of course she understood that he wanted the money. Didn’t everyone?

  Joel turned off the highway onto a long driveway that ended at a fairly large house with an expansive lawn. He told Veronica to stay put and went to replace the gag and tape. She resisted, so he punched her in the face with a closed fist. As she obediently opened her mouth she thought, “So this is what a broken nose feels like.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Detective Melvin Brown called his sister at State Police Troop B. She put him on hold for ninety seconds, then came back on the phone.

  “State and locals are headed to the Vanderveer place and will set up a perimeter. They’ll report to me with copies of everything to Silverstein at your office. I’ll meet you at the park in twenty minutes with a state police helicopter. Four of you can go, it’s a six to eight passenger but I’m taking a seat and we’ll want to use a couple of seats for gear. Out.” Sharla Brown had gotten authority from the commander of the State Police to use a helicopter, to dispatch law enforcement to Livingston Parish, and to be put in charge, all in a minute and a half.

  Grzgorczyk put Goldberg in charge of the squad and Silverstein in charge of information control for the operation. Brown, Flint, Grzgorczyk and Wilson all grabbed vests, pistols, magazines and batons. They jogged the four blocks to the park where Lieutenant Sharla Brown was to pick them up in the Bell 430. They could hear the distinctive sound of the Rolls Royce 250-C40B engines overhead as they entered the park. The four police officers quickly shooed civilians out of the way and the helicopter landed.

  There were no greetings exchanged as the four men joined the woman in charge and climbed aboard. The co-pilot indicated where each man was to sit based on an estimate of his weight. In a fixed-wing aircraft of comparable size an unbalanced load was a problem. In a rotary-wing aircraft it could become a catastrophe.

  Each man secured his harness and donned headphones. The co-pilot gave them the safety briefing while the pilot maneuvered the craft to head into the wind. He started forward, rapidly gaining speed. Helicopters can, of course, take off vertically, but they got better lift if there was a significant forward component to their path. The aircraft was shortly climbing at slightly more than twelve hundred feet per minute, soon reaching its cruising altitude of six thousand feet.

  “About thirty minutes to landing,” the pilot announced. Danny’s phone chirped with a text message, but he ignored it.

  The four men waited for Lieutenant Brown to speak. “I’m Lieutenant Sharla Brown and I’m in charge of the entire operation. I know Lieutenant Grzgorczyk and Sergeants Brown and Flint. Who are you?” She was pointing at Damion Wilson, who identified himself.

  “There’s a perimeter set up around the whole place. Carol Talbot’s car is parked near the home but it’s unoccupied. According to local police there’s a family of four living in the home. The man, Arthur Fox, is at work and a police officer is with him. He reports that the older son is at school, but his wife and younger son should be at home. He says there’s a rifle in the house. We’ve sent a local officer to the school to take custody of the son.

  “There’s a hostage negotiator on site as well as two sharpshooters. The car or one matching its description was seen with a young female in the passenger seat in Plaquemine Parish. Vanderveer may have a female hostage, identity unknown. I’ve told the hostage negotiator to make contact and told him you guys are on your way. You know Vanderveer well, anything the hostage negotiator should know?”

  Melvin Brown did his best imitation of Kanye West. “Yeah, Joel Vanderveer hates black people.” His sister took this in stride and forwarded the information to the hostage negotiator.

  “Anything else?”

  Flint spoke up. “He’s slick, he’s smart, he’s arrogant and he’s making a run for the U.S. record number of deaths by a serial killer. He thinks he’s smarter than the police, which might work to our advantage.” Lieutenant Brown passed that on as well. Flint’s phone chirped again. He snuck a look at it. Two messages from Cheryl.

  Veronica Meritt was missing; she had gone to meet Joel Vanderveer two hours ago and hasn’t been seen since.

  “I may know who the hostage is.” Danny told the Lieutenant about the student nurse, who notified the hostage negotiator.

  “OK, Daryl, I’m in command and I want to use my officers and the locals as the troops. You guys are the cavalry. What do you want to do?” Sharla Brown was smart enough to know when to delegate authority and to whom.

  “I’m leaving Melvin with you and the negotiator because he knows the perp pretty well. If we can get Danny into the house I want to do that. He knows Vanderveer best of all of us. Wi
lson and I will go the back and attempt a surreptitious entry. Your guys have flash-bangs and CS, right?” Grzgorczyk waited for her reply.

  “Yeah, stun grenades and tear gas are available and within shotgun range of the front windows. The Sergeant on site says infrared puts four bodies in the front room. That’s probably Vanderveer, his hostage, Mrs. Arlene Fox and the little one.” Lieutenant Brown then proceeded to give a detailed description of the forces available and their placement and roles. Daryl Grzgorczyk already knew she would be a captain one day, and advancement beyond that would be largely luck and politics.

  They met with the hostage negotiator, a white man in his mid-forties. Stan something. He had made contact with Vanderveer who had no demands. Danny Flint knew what that meant: he was planning to die. He told the negotiator to let Vanderveer know that they were aware of his hostage’s identity.

  The negotiator called back. “Why do you have Veronica Meritt with you?” He waited two full minutes. “Hello? Why do you have Veronica Meritt with you?”