by Bobby Cole
As he pulled onto the paved road, he pointed his car toward Columbus and reminded himself not to get another speeding ticket. At the first stop sign, with no other vehicles in sight, he paused long enough to send Hoss and Emma a text saying he was out and that the meeting had gone well. They could call him if they needed him. After he hit “Send,” he dropped the car into first gear and pulled away, leaving the underworld of Winston Walker in his rearview mirror.
He had traveled less than two miles when his phone rang, and Emma wanted a total recap. She was driving, also, and on her way back to Jackson. She listened to every detail and encouraged him to write it all down when he got home. She was pleased with the way the meeting had gone and promised to have Winston Walker arrested tomorrow.
Before she hung up, she asked John Allen to call her that night, and he gladly said he would.
The next call was from Hoss, who explained about the strange events at the casino the night before. He was certain that the chips John Allen had been paid with were the ones stolen from the casino, and that Winston or one of his crew probably had the remaining chips. They’d been reviewing footage and would know soon whether Winston had been in the casino that night.
John Allen promised to be at the tribal headquarters first thing in the morning and bring the seed pot for everyone to see. It would be a busy day.
The bartender had watched Runt walk outside with the seed pot while he was talking on the phone, but he couldn’t see Runt shimmy under John Allen’s car and tape the iPhone to the frame.
While the bartender was helping a newly arrived customer, Winston informed Runt they were going to Columbus tonight. He didn’t know exactly where, but Runt was to bring everything they might need to dispose of someone. Runt knew the plan and had the gear.
They finished their beer and were careful not to talk where anyone could overhear them. Winston gave Runt a $1,000 chip for motivation and said there would be another when they completed the job. When he had money, Winston was generous. When the money ran out, his generosity morphed into anxiety, and eventually, if more money wasn’t handy before certain bills were due, desperation.
Runt texted his girlfriend and said he had to work tonight. She didn’t immediately respond, and that aggravated him. It seemed that every interaction with her only deepened his certainty that she was seeing another guy.
Winston drained another beer and looked at Runt. “I need an alibi for tonight. You got any ideas?”
Runt looked around the bar. It was clear he was thinking. “Give me a few minutes.”
Chapter 24
John Allen traveled back to his barn, feeling victorious. When he arrived home, there were still two hours of daylight left, and he was hungry. He carried the briefcase with the cash and casino chips into the house and left it next to the seed pot still wrapped in the pink robe. Seeing the robe wrapped tight around the pot gave him an idea of a prank he could pull on Hoss.
A quick look in the refrigerator revealed three bottles of Smartwater, four Coronas, five eggs, some cheese, and a jar of pickles. A check of the pantry revealed some Vienna sausages, a can of corned beef hash, a bag of Doritos, and a jar of roasted peanuts. As this was a hardly a supper fit for someone who had just successfully performed his first undercover operation, he decided to go to Harvey’s and have a slab of prime rib.
After he hung up his sport coat, he considered changing shirts but decided against it since there was no one he needed to impress. He briefly paused at Sadie’s picture and wished she were here to tell her the story of his day. She would have sat cross-legged on the couch and listened to every word he said. She would have asked more questions than he would have wanted to answer, but she would have been wide-eyed while listening to him. He realized again how much he still missed her. Every day got a little better, but moments like this were the worst.
After these deep thoughts, John Allen was no longer as excited as he had been earlier, but he was still hungry. He unclipped his pistol and laid it on the counter, grabbed his car keys, and punched his four-digit code into the alarm system’s keypad by the door, then headed off for dinner.
As John Allen was eating an appetizer at the bar at Harvey’s, he noticed Frank, the pain-in-the-ass accountant from his old office, walk in alone. Unsure why he was doing so, John Allen waved him over, and they ended up eating supper together.
Frank updated him with stories of the accounting world that made John Allen’s skin crawl. He didn’t miss it at all. Frank had achieved his dream of taking over John Allen’s job, and the pressure of running the office was taking its toll on him. The owners of the firm would graciously allow him to work unpaid overtime, and Frank was gung ho enough to do it. Though Frank enjoyed being the boss, he was now facing the previously unseen challenges of motivating employees while also dealing with clients. The continual flow of new deadlines and constant complaining about the numbers was more than enough to make an accountant drink, and drink heavily. Or, in John Allen’s case, get out.
John Allen enjoyed his night. He was so happy with the buzz from a top-shelf margarita, rare prime rib, and bread pudding that he didn’t even mind spending an hour with Frank, who normally made him crazy. That never would have occurred when he’d worked at the firm. Walking out with him after their meal, Frank drooled over John Allen’s Porsche. He ran his hands over the car’s hood like it was a statue of a nude woman, and John Allen made a mental note to wash her tomorrow. The two men eventually ran out of things to talk about and shook hands.
On the drive home, John Allen was happier than he had been in a long while. He’d just been reminded of how lucky he was to be out of the accounting rat race, and he was proud of the role he’d just played in taking down suspected murderer and interstate criminal Winston Walker.
He was singing along with Neil Diamond when he remembered the audio recordings he’d made of his dealings with Winston and planned to listen to them when he got home. Afterward, he would call Emma. He wanted to talk to her about more than the case, but he didn’t want to seem too interested.
This was bringing back how much he’d hated all the strategy of the early days of dating someone, and John Allen vowed to just put a stop to it. He promised himself to just do what he wanted and let things happen as they would.
Runt and Winston used an iPad to track down the cell phone they’d attached to John Allen’s car. They used a simple app called Find My iPhone. Winston was amazed by how well it worked.
By 10:00 p.m. the car had settled into a remote part of Lowndes County that was west of town and south of US Highway 82. Winston liked the fact that it was remote, as that meant fewer potential witnesses. An expert at the maps app, Runt quickly flipped to a satellite view in order to see the details about where they were going.
“Looks like it’s an old barn,” Runt said.
“Probably was when this picture was taken. I bet it’s a house now.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Let’s roll. We can be there by midnight. He should be wherever he’s gonna spend the night by then, I would think,” Winston pontificated.
“What’s the plan, boss?”
“Let’s go up there and see what the night gives us. It may be more than we expect, and it may be less.”
Emma hung up from an hour-long conversation with John Allen that seemed to last only ten minutes. It reminded her of how she’d felt in the ninth grade when a boy she was crazy about had called her. It was good to have her heart flutter again.
She’d explained that they planned to pick up Walker and Runt the next afternoon at the bar. The FBI felt they could utilize the bartender to tip them off as to when they arrived. She also fussed at John Allen for not immediately taking the pot and casino chips to the security office for safekeeping. They were evidence now, she explained, and they needed to do everything by the book to establish a clear chain of custody. Certainly he didn’t have the training she’d thought he had.
There really wasn’t much to wor
ry about, though. They now had so many ways to charge Walker—buying and receiving illegal human remains; in possession of stolen chips from the casino; in possession of the seed pot, which was probably stolen; and probably, according to the bartender, in possession of meth rocks—that something had to stick. With any luck he’d have enough meth on him to be charged with intent to distribute, and there was still the whole Rosco mess to clear up. Emma felt good that she had Winston Walker and at least one of his crime partners.
All this combined was exactly the leverage she needed to make progress on solving the murder of Jim Hudson, which was her real goal. Tomorrow she would call his widow and bring her up to speed. It would be satisfying to have good news to give her.
Also, tomorrow she and John Allen had planned a dinner at a restaurant in Philadelphia, which she was looking forward to more than anything. She craved seeing and talking to him. Emma couldn’t believe the way she was feeling. She hadn’t thought she would ever feel this way again. John Allen had restored her faith in the male gender.
What should I wear? she thought.
Winston drove slowly, and Runt nervously twitched as the Suburban passed the gated entrance to where the iPad thought John Allen lived, or at least where the Porsche was parked. The dashboard clock of Winston’s Suburban read 11:55 p.m., and the night was inky black. In the distance down the driveway they could see one security light on, and he thought they should give it one more hour to ensure John Allen was asleep. Some people were night owls, but shortly after midnight even they began to crash.
“Let’s find us a construction site while we wait,” Winston said. “I’d love to find one that’s pouring concrete in the next few days.”
“They’re building that new golf course in West Point,” Runt said. “It’s called the Mossy Oak. I been hearing about it on ESPN radio.”
“That’s perfect. They’re probably moving a lot of dirt and pouring some concrete somewhere. We have some time to kill, so let’s go.”
The two criminals drove toward the small town of West Point, Mississippi, which was only fifteen minutes from where the Porsche was parked. They saw a new Burger King under construction, but since it was on the highway, Winston was afraid someone would see them digging. They drove through Taco Bell and got some crunchy burritos off the dollar menu, then continued on toward the new golf course, which was across the street from the Old Waverly Golf Club.
Winston loved to golf and had played Old Waverly a number of times. He’d always wanted to own a condo on the property, for no other reason than to show the pricks he grew up with that he could. For a brief moment, Winston drifted into a trance. He’d grown up around the country-club set, and they’d never accepted him. Even when he had money, they blackballed him from Meridian’s Northwood Country Club. He had spent half his life trying to be one of them, to get invited into their investment clubs and parties, but he’d never been successful.
He shook his head and came out of the trance, but the sour aftertaste it left lingered with him.
There was no one around when he drove into the construction entrance. He parked the Suburban, and they sat still with the lights off for five minutes by the clock. No one challenged them. There were two buildings already framed in, and bulldozers and front-end loaders parked randomly around the lot. There was a lot of work going on here, which only made the location more attractive as a dump site. Nobody would notice any digging, and it would be easy to conceal the grave because so much of the earth was already disturbed. Off to the side sat huge mounds of white sand that would soon be used to fill bunkers. When Winston saw the sand, he knew he’d found a good place to dispose of a body, and he knew something about hiding bodies.
Over the years he’d killed four men. He’d known the first one would never raise any concerns. He’d been a drug-addicted digger who’d hid a handful of ceremonial spear points from Winston. No one had ended up missing him.
The second had been an investigator for the Choctaw Nation who’d somehow gotten close to Winston and figured out what he was up to. For irony, Winston and Runt had buried his body on a very famous Indian mound, taking care to dig out the flora and fauna, then replace it perfectly. It was an unbeatable place to hide bodies. There was a fence around it to prevent anyone from walking on it, and nobody could legally disturb the mound. If law enforcement ever decided they wanted to dig, their efforts would be slowed, if not halted altogether, by the court system.
The third had been an employee who’d threatened to expose Winston’s illegal and unethical magazine-publishing tactics to his client base. Winston had not only stopped him but also turned a profit on the deal because of the sympathy his death had created in his clients.
The fourth had been the janitor at the tribal-administration building. He was happy to make some extra cash by stealing a few artifacts that no one seemed to miss. But he’d gotten cold feet after taking a cache of treasures that Winston wanted. When he refused to sell them to Winston and said he was going to return them, it got ugly for the man who had no idea how desperate Winston Walker was at that moment.
Breathing in the night air, Winston considered himself a criminal genius, and he determined that this new golf course, still under construction and with all its piles of fresh dirt, would be another great place to hide a body.
“Let’s go,” he said to Runt as he started up the Suburban. “We can make this work. We just gotta be out of here well before daylight. They’ll probably start working at the crack of dawn to beat the heat.”
Chapter 25
Hoss had been up late into the night, trying to make sure a construction crew had secured the front lobby of the casino. The construction workers themselves made Hoss nervous. They all looked like opportunists to him. Trusting people had never been his strong suit.
The chief hadn’t said much that afternoon as he’d shown her the damage to the entrance of the beautiful structure. She’d been certain they could rebuild better and install barriers to prevent something like this from happening again. She was holding Hoss responsible for making sure none of the cashiers paid out on any suspicious $1,000 chips.
That night the female FBI agent had called him and asked for details. Upon learning the denomination of the chips, she was convinced Winston Walker was somehow involved. If they could match the casino’s chips with the stolen ones, it would further cement a case against Walker. Hoss didn’t like having extra law-enforcement agencies on his turf any more than necessary—but in this case, he knew he had to. He welcomed the FBI’s help and said that she could consider their phone call a formal request for assistance.
Hoss knew the FBI had a lot more assets than the tribal police did to help make the case against Walker. His only request was that the FBI allow Hoss’s team to participate as much as they could. It would be a good learning experience for them. Agent Haden agreed.
Chapter 26
At 1:13 a.m., Winston killed the Suburban’s headlights and turned into the gravel driveway that was blocked thirty feet or so in by an old metal gate. Weeds were grown up next to either side of the entrance, making it look like it was seldom used. The iPad said the Porsche was parked at an old barn about a half mile across a field. Winston was convinced the map wasn’t current and there was a home back there. He didn’t trust the technology.
As he slowly pulled up to the gate, they were surprised when it opened automatically. Winston saw the motion sensor, then worried it might have a bell that would alert the house.
“Dammit,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“We going in anyway, aren’t we?”
“Hell, yes.”
With his pistol in his lap and Runt holding a second one, Winston crept down the gravel road. The river gravel popped under his tires, and he kept his speed as low as possible to minimize the noise. After about a quarter mile he saw the outline of a structure. It looked like an old barn. The security light they’d seen before was out. That was good.
“You think he has a dog?” R
unt said.
“I don’t know. Probably.” Winston parked the vehicle and cut the engine. “This silencer will help with that.”
“I hate killing dogs. They’re just doing their job,” Runt said, glad he didn’t have the silencer.
“I don’t mind,” Winston said, opening the vehicle door quietly. “Get your stuff and let’s go.” He had rigged the overhead light to not turn on.
The night was dark, and stars filled the sky. Off to the east he could see the white glow of lights from Starkville, and back to the northwest, the lights of Columbus.
The building appeared to be just an ordinary old barn. No dog ran out to greet them or to alert anyone of their approach. Upon closer study, the Porsche could be seen in a side stall of the barn—new, clean German precision parked under an old, rusty barn built by people nowhere near as precise as the Germans.
A newer-model Jeep TJ sat under a large oak tree. Maybe his wife’s vehicle, Winston thought.
“Get the phone from under the car,” Winston whispered. “I’ll wait.” Runt scurried off to get it done. They couldn’t leave that behind in case they didn’t steal the car. When it came to crime, Winston was thorough and didn’t like to leave loose ends.
When Runt returned with the phone, he found himself wishing they had a flash bomb like the police used. It would stun anyone in the room and render them defenseless for a brief period. He had experienced one a few years back, and they were very disorienting. Without it, they would just have to enter as silently as possible and hope for the element of surprise.
The barn was confusing. There were no windows and only one door. But the grass was cut, and a few bushes had been planted. He must have the inside fixed up, Runt determined, after they’d made a quick circuit around the place.
They shined a small light on the door locks. Standard doorknob, but above it was a heavy brass dead bolt.