by BJ Bourg
“You’re right.” I helped her grab some of the evidence bags and we carried them out into the night. I noticed a bit of activity near the crime scene tape and I looked up to see a number of cars parked alongside the narrow street. There were about a dozen people milling about, but they were too far away to distinguish facial features in the dark. “Who the hell are those people?”
“Word travels fast in these parts.” Dawn grunted. “They’re probably all of his heartsick girlfriends who won’t have access to his money or his free booze anymore.”
We loaded all of the gear into my truck and then made our way toward the yellow tape, where Lieutenant Marshall was talking to a young woman. The people in the crowd looked to be bar patrons. Someone had probably called Twisted Long Necks to announce the emergency and everyone rushed out to the scene.
The young woman looked up from Marshall when we approached and I recognized it to be Beverly. The nearby ambient light glistened off of the tears that streaked down her face.
“What happened?” she asked in a sorrowful voice. “He was fine yesterday. There was nothing wrong with him. He was happy and healthy. What on earth happened?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Dawn grabbed my arm and ushered me away from the crime scene tape. Holding up her phone, she called over her shoulder to Beverly, “Excuse us for a second. He has to take this call.”
When we were out of earshot of the crowd, she handed me her phone. Confused, I put it to my ear and said, “Hello.” There was no one on the line.
“Stare into my eyes and pretend you’re on the phone,” she whispered. When I nodded to indicate I understood, she continued. “Don’t look now, but there’s a man standing at the back of the crowd over my left shoulder. He’s got dark, spiky hair, clear-rimmed glasses, and he’s wearing a white Polo shirt with two dark stripes across the chest. I think he’s also wearing khaki pants.”
I mouthed some words into the phone and nodded, allowing my eyes to casually drift to the spot Dawn identified. I saw the man she described. The light was dim where he stood, but he definitely looked concerned. He was watching Dawn and me closely.
I dropped my gaze and nodded again. “He looks like he’s shitting in his pants.”
“That’s because he might be the killer.”
CHAPTER 45
“You know that old saying, ‘Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead’?”
I nodded, still pretending to talk on the phone.
“I believe that’s what happened here.” Dawn wriggled her fingers. “Give me the cell now.”
I pretended to hit the button to end the call and handed it to her. She opened her image folder and scrolled through her recent pictures, stopping when she came to the one she’d taken of Wilton and his two friends in the yearbook. “Look at the guy on the opposite side of Shelton.”
I whistled. “Damn, it’s him. He still has the same hairdo.”
Dawn then scrolled to an image she’d taken of Shelton’s graduation picture. The stranger was two spots to the right of Shelton and his name was Pearce Vidrine. “Wilton, Shelton, and Pearce—these are the three guys Cade was talking about.”
“Damn, I think you’re right.”
“Keep an eye on him while I run his criminal history.”
Dawn was gone before I could say anything, so I walked back toward Lieutenant Marshall, acting casual and uninterested. Keeping Pearce in my peripheral vision, I crossed over to the outside of the crime scene tape and began speaking with Beverly. I asked her about the day-to-day operations at the bar and if there’d been any recent trouble between Shelton and anyone else.
After filling me in on the activities at the bar, she told me things had been quiet for months. “Every now and then some pissed off man will come in and cause a ruckus, usually accusing Shelton of screwing his wife or daughter.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t put up with that shit. He gets the bouncers to kick their asses and throw them to the curb. They never come back.”
“When’s the last time something like that happened?”
Beverly shrugged. “It’s been a long while…a good six months or so.”
I started to ask another question when Dawn appeared beside me. “He’s got warrants from out of New Orleans for failure to appear on charges of domestic abuse battery by strangulation,” she said.
“What’s with these assholes who insist on beating their wives?” I suddenly hoped he would resist arrest.
The warrant was good news, because we could take him in for questioning whether he wanted to come or not. The better news was that domestic abuse battery by strangulation was a felony in Louisiana, so his bond would be high, which would keep him in our custody for a longer period of time. The best news was that he wouldn’t know why we were arresting him, so we could use that to our advantage.
“Ready to bring him in?” I asked Dawn.
“Oh, yeah.” She turned abruptly and began walking toward the crowd. I hurried to catch up and my eyes locked with Pearce’s. His mouth dropped open and he took a step backward, making his way toward the back of the crowd. I started to shake my head, but he turned and broke out running.
Dawn and I shoved our way through the thin crowd and squeezed through the other side in a full sprint. We were closing in on Pearce at such a rapid pace that it wasn’t even fair. I couldn’t make out what kind of shoes he was wearing, but one of them went flying into the air as he ran. When his socked foot slammed onto the shells, he screamed out in pain and his pace was reduced to a staggering limp. I didn’t have the heart to tackle him, but Dawn wasn’t as merciful. She drove her shoulder into his back and sent him sprawling. They crashed violently onto the shells—his body broke Dawn’s fall—and he let out a heavy grunt.
I reached down and snatched up his left hand as Dawn bent his right arm behind his back. Once he was cuffed, we stood him to his feet and I shined my light in his face. Blood dripped from a large gash over his right eye.
“That’s going to leave a mark,” I said flatly.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Pearce said. “Why did you tackle me?”
“I didn’t tackle you,” I said, shooting my thumb toward Dawn. “She did.”
Dawn advised him of his Miranda rights, but he wasn’t listening. He interrupted her to say he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Then why’d you run?” she asked when she’d finished reciting his rights.
“It’s not illegal to run from the police,” he retorted. “So, if that’s why you tackled me, I’m going to sue your asses off. You’re going to pay for the injury to my face.”
“She didn’t tackle you for running,” I said. “You’re under arrest.”
“Arrest? For what? I didn’t break any laws.”
I stepped close and my eyes turned to slits. Even in the darkness I could see his color fade. “Stop playing your bullshit games. You know damn well why you’re under arrest.”
“I…no, I don’t.”
“Shelton Thomas, Wilton Michot, and you beat an old man to death thirty years ago.” I spoke rapidly, trying to get him to respond without thought. “Now, they’re both dead and here you stand at the scene of the crime…alive and well and pretending not to know why you’re going to prison. That’s bullshit if I ever heard it.”
“I didn’t do any of those things.” His voice was laced with panic. “You’ve got the wrong guy. I swear…I’m innocent.”
“Innocent? The only thing you’re innocent of is telling the truth.” I stabbed his chest with my index finger. “You beat that old man to death in the lumberyard all those years ago and you forced Wilton and Shelton to keep your secret. But they weren’t going to keep it anymore, were they? Nope, they were about to turn you in and you shut them up—for good!”
“I didn’t do any of it. Please, you’ve got to believe me!”
“The only thing I believe is you’re cold and ruthless. They were your friends, man, how could you do that to them?”
“But I di
dn’t do anything to them.” Tears of desperation were starting to form in Pearce’s eyes. “I swear to God, I didn’t do any of it.”
“Don’t drag God into this,” I said in a heated tone. “I bet that old man was begging for God’s help, too, but you ignored him. You told him God couldn’t help him and you beat him some more. You did, didn’t you?”
Pearce’s head rotated from side to side. “No…no, I didn’t.”
“I bet you went around killing a bunch of old men. You were a little rat-bastard, serial killer kid, weren’t you? Answer me…you were a little serial killer kid, weren’t you?”
“No…no, sir, I wasn’t.” Tears flowed freely down his face. His large teeth sparkled against the moonlight that had started to shine down on us. “I didn’t do any of it. I’m not a killer.”
“Bullshit! I’m thinking we’ve got a dozen old men missing. I bet you buried them all over Lower Seasville. We found at least one of your victims and we’ll find the rest of them, just you wait and see. And when we do, we’re going to try you for the serial killer bastard you are.”
“I’m not a serial killer.”
“Yes, you are,” I shouted. “Admit it!”
“I’m not!”
“You used to go around town killing old men, but your little reign of terror is over. Your past has finally caught up to you.”
“I didn’t do what you’re—”
“You killed that old man in the lumberyard and you’ve killed at least a dozen more, didn’t you?”
“No…no, I didn’t!”
“You made a habit of going around killing old men, didn’t you? Answer me…did you make a habit of killing old men?”
“No, sir! I swear.”
“After you killed the old man in the lumberyard you went on a murder spree. Come on, man, admit what you did!”
“I didn’t,” he wailed. “Please, you’ve got to believe me.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“You didn’t go on a murder spree after killing the old man in the lumberyard?”
“No, sir. I swear, I didn’t!”
“Are you telling me the truth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So, the old man in the lumberyard was the only one you killed?”
“Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER 46
Three hours later…
“That was clever,” Dawn said as we stood in the hallway at the Seasville Substation. “By accusing him of being a serial killer, you had him feeling like one murder was not so bad after all. You one-upped him.”
I nodded. “I used to do that to my grandma when I was a kid. She always wanted me to be a good student and make straight A’s, but I could care less about school. I was a strong A-B student, but every now and then I’d squeeze out a C.” I smiled, thinking back to one late afternoon in Spring when I came home with two C’s on my report card. “When I got these two C’s, I knew she’d be mad, so I called her while she was still at work and told her I got an F.”
“You did what?” Dawn asked, laughing. “She must’ve wanted to kill you.”
“Oh, she started hollering about wasted opportunities and how I was throwing my life away and telling me I’d have to repeat the fifth grade and lose a whole year of my life. After about five minutes of listening to her rant and rave, I finally told her I’d made two C’s. You could’ve sworn I’d turned water into wine. All of a sudden, she was thrilled that I got two C’s.”
Dawn was doubled over laughing. When she calmed down, she shook her head. “You’re pretty slick. I’m going to have to watch you.”
I nodded my head toward the interview room, where Pearce Vidrine had been sitting for the past half hour. “Well, it’s not over yet. You ready to see if he’ll confess to killing Wilton and Shelton?”
“Let’s do it.”
I followed Dawn into the interview room and we sat side-by-side across from Pearce. His face was pale and his skin appeared clammy.
“What’s going to happen to me?” he asked. “Am I going to jail for this?”
“We need the story and we need it straight,” I said. “Tell us what happened out there at the lumberyard.”
He adjusted his glasses and wiped sweat from his face. “It was such a long time ago. I don’t…I doubt I’ll be able to remember everything.”
“Look, no bullshit, okay?” I leaned forward and looked him in the eyes. “You have the power to give this family closure. They’ve been looking for Mr. Simoneaux for thirty years. Now that we’ve found him, they deserve to know what happened. You can’t undo what you did, so the least you can do is to help them understand.”
“That’s his name? Simoneaux?”
“Yeah, Theodore Simoneaux. He was a husband and a father. He even had grandkids. He worked hard providing for his family. When he went missing, it nearly destroyed them. They deserve to know…”
Pearce dropped his gaze and stared down at his feet. “What if they don’t like what I have to say?”
“As long as it’s the truth, it’ll be fine.”
He took a deep breath and then let out a long sigh. Still staring at the floor, he began to talk. “It was toward the end of our senior year and we wanted to do something crazy to punctuate our last days of high school. Wilton lived down in the swamps, so we decided to explore the area behind his house and search for some water moccasins. The plan was to put one in every toilet on the last day of school and—”
“Wait, stop.” Dawn lifted her hand to interrupt him. “You guys were going to let venomous snakes loose in a high school?”
“I didn’t say we were smart.” He removed his glasses and pinched his eyes with his thumb and index finger. After a brief moment, he opened his eyes and put his glasses back on. “Anyway, we were looking for snakes when we saw this girl fishing out by this wide canal. I don’t remember the name of the waterway—it was ‘something dead’—but it was behind the lumberyard building. The girl was pretty. She had on these tight jean shorts and her T-shirt was tied in a knot in the front, where it showed off her stomach. Like I said, she was real pretty and we hid in the trees watching her for a minute. We were trying to talk Wilton into going talk to her, but…”
He lowered his head again and remained silent for a few long seconds. When he looked up again, he frowned. “I wish I could go back and change the events of that day.”
I told him I understood, but I needed him to tell me what happened.
“Like I said, we were trying to get Wilton to go talk to her when this old man came out of the lumberyard. He said something to the girl and it startled her. He walked up to her and began talking to her, but we were too far away to hear what they were saying. After a few minutes, he reached out to touch her. I’m not sure what he was trying to do, but it scared her and she slapped his hand away.”
Pearce shook his head slowly. “Everything that happened after that was a bit of a blur. I know the man became really angry and he attacked her. He shoved her to the ground and got really rough with her, cursing while he did it. I don’t know why he got so angry, but then he started choking her. He wouldn’t stop. Her face turned blue and she passed out. We thought she was dead.”
“Are you trying to tell me Theodore Simoneaux attacked this girl?”
“I’m not trying to do anything—I’m straight saying he did it. And it got worse…much worse.”
CHAPTER 47
“So, while the old man’s attacking this girl, y’all just stood there watching?” I asked.
“We were kids. We’d never witnessed anything like that before. What’d you expect us to do?”
“Weren’t y’all football players? Weren’t y’all supposed to be tough?”
He clamped his mouth shut and I quickly apologized, urging him to continue.
“Well, the man unbuckled his belt and opened the front of his pants. Next, he ripped the girl’s clothes off and began raping h
er.” Pearce scowled and shook his head. “It was too much for us to watch. Wilton and I turned our heads. Wilton was crying, I know that for sure, but Shelton disappeared. When I saw him again, he was standing behind the man and he had a hammer in his hands. He…he hit the man in the head with the hammer and the man just slumped over.” He shuddered. “I’ll never forget the sound it made or the look on that old man’s face. I think he was dead from that one hit, but Shelton kept hitting him. I had brought along a baseball bat to help catch the snakes. As I watched Shelton beating the man and screaming down at him…I don’t know, it just made me feel crazy. I ran over to them and…”
His voice trailed off and he just sat there. “And what?” I finally asked.
“I was pretty disturbed by what I’d just seen, you know. I must’ve had PTSD or something. I…I joined in with Shelton and began hitting him with the bat.”
Pearce shook his head slowly. “But it wasn’t like I was doing it. It felt like I was standing over my body watching me do it. I just kept hitting him and hitting him, but I felt numb and absent from my body. I swear, I still don’t think I did it. It just seemed too unreal.”
“Okay, what happened next?” I asked.
“Shelton and I just kept beating on him until Wilton ran over screaming like a crazy person, begging us to stop.”
I realized Dawn and I were both on the edges of our seats. I wanted to stop him to ask what the hell happened to the girl, but I didn’t dare interrupt the flow of the story. I figured he’d get to it in his good time.
“Once my arms wouldn’t work anymore, I dropped the bat and looked over at Shelton. His eyes were wild. I’d never seen him like that and it scared the shit out of me. The girl had been sitting on a blanket to fish, so Shelton told me and Wilton to wrap the man up in the blanket and strap him to Wilton’s three-wheeler with some chain we found in the lumberyard. I wasn’t about to argue with him, because I thought he would kill me next—he looked that crazy—so we did what he said.”