by Glenn Trust
George stopped by Ronnie’s car looking at the ground for several seconds. Raising his head, he looked into Ronnie Kupman’s puzzled face.
“Something I have to tell you.”
Chief Deputy Kupman straightened up. It was unusual, but George seemed actually to have something serious and official on his mind.
“Speak up Deputy. What is it?”
“Last night…well,” George hesitated then went on, “last night I saw, well I think I saw, the perp’s car.”
“You what?” Chief Deputy Kupman’s eye narrowed.
“Well, I was parked in the old rest area out on Highway 28, backed up in the trees.”
“When?”
“After I left the Sims’ place. Before daylight but it was close to dawn, maybe couple of hours before shift change. It was still pretty dark.”
“What you mean, George, is that you were sleeping in the old rest area, right?”
“Yeah, I was,” George said, not flinching under Ronnie’s gaze.
“What did you see, George?”
“Old model, maybe mid-nineties, GM make. Probably a Chevrolet, maybe a Pontiac. Wasn’t shiny, more like it was covered with dust or dirt, or maybe primer paint. Couldn’t really make out the color in the dark. It woke me up as it went by, so I got a pretty good look.”
“You mean a good look for someone who just woke up and who didn’t bother to check it out. I don’t suppose you got a tag number did you, George?”
“No, sir. I didn’t. But I could tell that it was not a Georgia plate. It was a lighter color and reflected, even in the dark. Sorry.”
“Well, I suppose that young girl out there in the weeds might be sorry too, if she knew,” Ronnie said harshly. The look on George’s face made him immediately regret the remark.
George was taking this hard. He knew he had probably seen the killer, or at least his car, coming back from Ridley’s Road and had done nothing but close his eyes and go back to sleep, while that poor girl lay in the weeds like a bag of garbage. No one would take that harder than George.
The fact was that after twelve years with the department, Deputy George Mackey made forty-two thousand five hundred dollars a year, plus overtime, which the sheriff routinely denied to everyone. He was never going to be promoted, at least not under Sheriff Klineman. He would never have Ronnie’s job as Chief Deputy, no matter who was sheriff. And, he would spend his entire career working every part-time job he could find to make ends meet and to pay his child support to Darlene, and to maybe put something away for the girls’ college. Those were the facts.
George wouldn’t complain because he loved what he did, and he was good at it, and he knew he was good. It was a hell of a thing, to find the thing you’re good at. A lot of people never did. George was smart enough to recognize it, and he didn’t want to lose it. And yet, he was telling Ronnie something that could cost him his job.
So George Mackey was tired last night, probably like most nights, and had seen a car go by that he didn’t bother to check out. Standing morosely before Chief Deputy Kupman, guilt almost dripped from his pores into the sandy soil.
Kupman quietly considered the situation, staring hard at George and thinking it through. George waited, eyes fixed on the toes of his boots.
So sometime around four this morning, Deputy Mackey couldn’t keep his eyes open and pulled into the rest area to ‘rest his eyes’. While doing that, he caught sight of the possible perpetrator’s car. Actually, it was the probable perpetrator’s car since no one else would have been likely to be out on that stretch of highway that time of day. He had been at a murder scene a couple of hours earlier on the other side of the county, but at the time, no one knew about the second murder, the girl.
Kupman took all of this into account. He did this because if the sheriff ever found out, George would no longer be a deputy. And after taking all of the circumstances into account, he made his decision.
“Sorry, George. You didn’t deserve that,” Ronnie went on.
“Yes, I did Ronnie. You’re right. She deserved better, whoever she was.”
“No, I’m not. First of all, you shouldn’t have been sleeping. That is my official opinion, and you are officially reprimanded for it. I mean it.” Kupman paused letting the seriousness of his words sink in. “Having said that, let’s consider the circumstances. At the time, we only knew of one murder. It was on the other side of the county and no one would have expected the killer to stay around and murder an unknown young girl. We all thought he was probably long gone up the interstate. You were pumped up on adrenaline. Once you had no other duties at the crime scene, fatigue set in. Understandable that you were tired and not your fault…”
“Not my fault? I could have stopped that car. Hell, on most nights, I would have stopped it just for not recognizing it and it being out and about on that road. I just…”
Ronnie interrupted sharply, “Not your fault that he committed the murder.” He paused allowing George time to understand that he was not granting him blanket absolution. The murder may have been done but George should have stopped the car. They both knew it.
Fatigue or not, he should have followed through. It was his job. Their eyes locked and George gave a short nod to indicate that he understood.
Ronnie continued in an effort to rehabilitate one of his best deputies. “George, there was nothing you could have done anyway. She was already dead. The bastard just dumped her up Tom Ridley’s road. You couldn’t have known that. You shouldn’t have been sleeping.” He paused and looked George in the eye. “Cut back on the part-time jobs if you have to, work a different deal on the child support, but no more sleeping…ever.”
“Okay, Ronnie.”
“I mean it, George. This is a one-time pass. There will be consequences next time.”
“I understand.” He continued looking at the ground taking his medicine.
Putting it completely behind them, Kupman continued, “Good job on the vehicle description. We need to get this out and get all the jurisdictions around looking for the car,” Ronnie gave George a light thump in the shoulder, “and a male driver with a longhorn ring on his hand.”
“Ronnie, I feel sick about this. I could have stopped him. I should have.”
“The way I see it, George, we have two real clues in this case, the car and the ring, and they both came from you. Pretty damn good police work in my mind.”
The look on George’s face was doubtful.
“All right, George,” Ronnie went on, “here’s what we are going to do. You are going to go to your car, get on the radio and put out a BOLO on a mid-nineties GM make, probable Chevrolet sedan. Dirty, dusty or with primer paint. And a driver, probably male, wearing a ring with a longhorn head on it. Then you are going to go interview the Ridleys. I’ll meet you afterwards.”
George nodded quietly.
“I,” Ronnie continued with a smile, “am going to advise Sheriff Klineman and Bob Shaklee that you reviewed your note pad from last night and found the description of the vehicle along with the approximate time you saw it. When the Sheriff asks why you didn’t bring this up earlier, I will tell him that you wanted to check your notes and confirm the description and time before putting out potentially incorrect information. Just another example of excellent work by Deputy George Mackey.” Ronnie’s eyes crinkled in amusement, “He won’t believe it of course, but as the Savannah stations will be here soon to interview him, he is damn sure going to make sure they know that the key pieces of evidence uncovered so far, were discovered by one of his deputies and not the GBI. He won’t want to rock the boat with reports of any alleged sleeping in rest areas and such.”
He chuckled outright. “Actually, George, thank you. This is going to be interesting.”
“Ronnie, I can’t…you don’t have to…”
“Shut up, George. For once just do what I say. Oh, and make sure that that information about the car is duly recorded in your notepad…just in case someone wants to see it.”
Chief Deputy
Kupman walked off towards the crime scene and Sheriff Klineman. There was a wry smile on his face.
George Mackey turned to his truck, took the mike in his hand and inhaled deeply before sending the notice across the airwaves for officers to ‘Be on the Lookout’.
“All units, BOLO…”
A minute later, the description of the suspect car and the ring was traveling at the speed of radio waves, which is the speed of light, throughout Georgia and northern Florida. It would make its way eventually through the Carolinas, Tennessee and Alabama by the end of the day, and then steadily across the country.
But George knew that if there was no follow-up information or additional evidence within the next day or so, the BOLO would be filed away and forgotten, along with a thousand others, in favor of newer more relevant notices coming through the law enforcement networks.
He finished giving the information over the radio and put the microphone back on its clip on the dashboard. Taking the notepad from his breast pocket, he wrote in it for a minute or two. When he was finished, he put his truck in gear. He had work to do.
40. Lions and Jackals
About the time the Purcell brothers were pulling their pickup out of the lot to go to their jobsite, Lylee Torkman had pulled the old, faded Chevrolet to the self-service gas pump furthest away from the truck stop store and cafe. He leaned forward as he pulled in scanning for CCTV cameras watching the pump. This was an old truck stop, and he did not see any that were obvious, but there were sure to be cameras at least to record tag numbers of vehicles that drove off without paying.
Reaching in the back, he plucked an old, white painters cap off the floorboard and pulled it over his head. It had a large bill that would obscure his face and made him look harmless…just a painter filling up before heading to the job.
He couldn’t do anything about the car’s plates, but some things couldn’t be helped. He had taken the precaution of removing the tag off a similar make and model car in Texas and putting it on his own when he got to Florida. Stolen tag reports didn’t make it across state lines unless they were associated with some other crime, and right now, he was not associated with any crime, at least that anyone knew about.
Stepping from the car he continued to scan around, ever cautious and alert to danger or, if he was lucky, his next project. Truck stops were busy places which made anonymity easy.
Lylee walked to the store to prepay cash for the gas he would buy. The windows of the store were plastered with signs advertising beer. It was a great combination, eighty thousand pound trucks and beer. The irony was not lost on him, and a thin smile flashed across his thin face.
Pulling the dirty glass door open, Lylee entered. There was movement everywhere. The herd was restless He would blend in without trouble, staying on the periphery and observing without being noticed.
A fat kid at the register was sweating and waiting on customers with an indifferent manner. Lylee noticed that he was a bit more attentive to the rough looking truckers than he was to some of the other customers. The kid might have been an indifferent smartass, Lylee saw, but he was smart enough to know what line he best not cross with the truckers, roaming through the store looking for sundries or just killing time.
Avoiding contact with anyone, Lylee wandered and watched. He examined an item off a shelf now and then, but his attention was always peripherally taking in all that went on around him. In a sort of subconscious mental scan mode, he saw everything and everyone at once without really focusing on anyone specific, unless to examine and evaluate them.
The evaluation usually only took a second or two, and then Lylee was back to scan mode. But during the evaluation, Lylee’s senses would soak in all that was possible to absorb. All of the data gathered was instantly used to classify the object of the examination as Threat, No-Threat or Project. Occasionally, not often, the classification might be, Interesting and Curious, and after a short diversion examining the curiosity, Lylee would move back to scan mode.
An old couple was standing in front of the drink cooler as Lylee walked by.
“Albert, they don’t have Diet Pepsi, just Diet Coke,” the old woman said to the frail looking man next to her.
“I don’t like Diet Coke,” he replied truculently.
“Well that’s all they have.”
“Well, I don’t like it.” The conversation was going nowhere.
The old woman threw up her hands, “Fine then, pick something you like and let’s go.”
Lylee squeezed behind the pair in front of the cooler saying, “Excuse me.”
The tone was perfect, indifferent but polite, drawing no attention. Too friendly, and they would notice him, smile and possibly make eye contact. Eye contact might lead to identification. Too curt, and they might notice him for the opposite reason.
He moved by them in the narrow aisle. The couple remained unaware of the killer who had just brushed by, scanning them and taking in the old woman’s thick perfume and the dark liver spots on Albert’s hand, holding the cooler door open as he searched for the perfect soft drink.
Moving slowly from aisle to aisle, Lylee continued scanning. At the end of an aisle, he stopped in front of a rack of snack cakes. His peripheral vision caught sight of a pretty, dark-haired girl in front of the magazine rack. She was holding a magazine, but just looking down and not reading.
Instantly, his senses reacted, and he went from scan mode to detailed examination. Data was needed. Potential prey had been discovered. As he watched, a heavyset man, a trucker, took up station a couple of feet away from the girl and picked up a magazine. Lylee knew instantly that the large man was there for the girl, not for the magazine. The girl, however, was oblivious.
A short conversation started between the two. The girl was clearly uncomfortable. While Lylee couldn’t hear everything, he could pick up that the man was offering her a ride. Lylee knew that the offer of a ride was just a pretext to get the girl into his truck.
The trucker was reasonably smooth though. Not expert like Lylee, but he knew enough to let her decide he was safe by not pressing the issue. She was desperate or she wouldn’t be standing alone in the truck stop with that look of hopelessness on her face. The trucker knew, as did Lylee, that she would accept the offer.
She was frightened, alone, and intimidated by the business of the truck stop and the people around her. If he could win her trust, she would accept the ride, if only to escape the truck stop. She might not like the price she would have to pay for the ride, but that would not be collected until later, and she would have no choice at that point.
The large trucker gave her a smile and went outside. The girl stared after him.
Lylee walked down the aisle and passed behind the girl. She was unaware, still staring out the window at the trucker who was standing beside his truck. His senses drank in everything about her. Her height, the small mole on her neck, her scent, everything. That instant of close proximity to the prey aroused him profoundly. He felt the blood rise and the plan began forming in his mind.
Lylee walked up to the fat kid and put two snack cakes and a pint of milk on the counter.
“Three eighty-five,” the kid said indifferently. Clearly, the slight man at the counter was not a trucker. No need to waste any politeness on him.
Lylee took two twenties from his wallet and tossed them on the counter. He kept his head down so that the hat’s bill completely blocked his face from the camera behind the cashier.
“And twenty in gas. Pump seven,” he said not looking up.
The kid gave a deep sigh of disgust, and turned to activate the pump.
“That all you got?” he said in annoyance, pointing at the extra twenty to pay for the milk and snack cakes.
“What did you say?” Lylee’s voice was low, but the tone was hard and threatening. He raised his head just enough for the fat kid to see his eyes. The narrowed slits with only the pupils showing stared fiercely into the cashier’s own eyes, which widened perceptibly at the intensity of t
he stare.
“Uh, nothing, just a little short of change. I’ll make it work though, no problem.” The kid swallowed, suddenly nervous. There was an air of danger about the man with the narrow, piercing eyes. No sense pissing him off. It was a judicious decision.
Lylee knew that he should have just paid the clerk and moved on without drawing any attention to himself, but his blood was up. There was prey near. His body twitched with excitement. He was the king, the predator, and whether this fat kid knew it or not, he would do well to show the king some goddamned respect.
“Would you like a sack for that, sir?”
“Yes, I would,” Lylee replied. His threatening eyes staring at the cashier from under the bill of the painter’s hat.
The kid quickly looked away, put the snack cakes and milk in a sack, and slid it over.
Giving him a last look, Lylee walked outside. The kid felt himself relax as the danger moved away. Nothing was said, and no one would have noticed the exchange between the two, but he sensed that he had just come close to some force that was dangerous in a way that was far beyond the normal tough guy trucker attitude…creepy.
The old couple was next in line and they placed their goods on the counter. Todd-the-clerk was intently watching the young girl who walked out in front of the creepy man and was talking to the fat truck driver. Annoyed at the distraction from the elderly couple, he began ringing up their items with his normal surliness, giving one last glance at the girl across the lot. Yea, a little skinny, but nice ass.
Outside, Lylee walked across the lot to his car and began pumping gas, showing no outward interest in her. She walked slowly and tentatively across the lot, unaware of his presence and of the gray eyes following her.
The girl spoke briefly with the trucker. He smiled broadly and showed her how to climb into the truck.
Lylee watched intently without appearing to. The prey was his. The fat trucker was nothing more than a scavenger, a jackal. Jackals didn’t take prey from lions. This jackal just wasn’t aware that there was a lion around. He would be, soon.