James 516: A London Carter Novel

by BJ Bourg

  “I’m just saying it goes against his training.”

  Bethany was thoughtful for a while and then said, “He could’ve changed his aiming point just to throw us off. Think about it. If you were known for shooting people between the eyes, would you go out and shoot someone between the eyes? No…you’d shoot them through the mouth—or something different—just to throw off the investigators. You wouldn’t want to leave a note saying it was you who did it.”

  “I guess you’re right.” I stared at the trees that blurred by, but didn’t see them. “I can’t believe I never picked up on it. He never seemed like the murdering type. Sure, he could take a shot to save a life, but he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.”

  “If priests can rape little boys,” Bethany explained, “no one’s safe.”

  She was right, of course. Every time there was a news story about some unsuspecting person committing a heinous crime—especially child molestation or rape—family members and friends would jump in front of the camera to express sincere shock that their loved one could do something so egregious. If there was one thing I learned after doing police work for twelve-plus years, it was that no one truly knew their neighbors or their friends—or their families. After working cases where fathers raped their daughters and mothers killed their children, nothing was sacred, and nothing surprised me anymore. I just couldn’t believe I’d been so blind.

  Bethany jerked the steering wheel and swerved into the shell driveway to the rifle range. She came to an abrupt stop near Jerry’s cruiser and flung her door open. Her quickness surprised me. I hurried after her as she walked directly up to Kenneth Lewis. He started to open his mouth, but Bethany cut him off. “Gather up your shit and come with us.”

  Kenneth looked from her to me and then back to her. I felt Jerry and the others slowly gather around. All eyes were on me. If I said the word, Kenneth wouldn’t be going anywhere and Bethany would find herself in grave danger. Snipers are a close-knit group and—with the exception of the imposter who stood before me—loyal to the death.

  “What the hell’s going on, Daddy?” Kenneth asked.

  I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. It was clear from the way Bethany handled Starla Landry that there was some method to her madness and I didn’t want to screw anything up. It was also clear that she could handle Kenneth on her own.

  “I said, get your shit and come with us.” Bethany’s voice was stern, threatening.

  Kenneth didn’t seem impressed. He sneered and turned to walk away. Bethany quickly moved forward and grabbed his arm. Kenneth turned suddenly and shot a back-fist strike toward Bethany’s face. With catlike reflexes, she slipped under it and pivoted around to his back side and wrapped her left arm around his neck, under his chin. Caught off guard, Kenneth clutched at her forearm, but she locked in a rear-naked choke and dropped to her knees, bringing Kenneth down with her.

  The other snipers looked to me, and I shook my head. They relaxed and settled back to see what would happen next.

  Kenneth’s face turned to crimson and his clutching hands began to slide slowly down the front of his chest. Bethany released her grip on his neck and quickly pulled his arms behind his back. She produced a set of handcuffs from her back pocket and applied them to Kenneth’s wrists. He was panting now, gasping for breath. Bethany slapped his back and pulled him to his feet. “You’ll be fine,” she said.

  When he could speak again, Kenneth said, in a hoarse whisper, “What the hell did you do that for?”

  “You’re under arrest for battery on a police officer,” Bethany said. “And you’re a suspect in the murder of Captain Anthony Landry.”

  There was a collective gasp from the other snipers. Kenneth shook his head in desperation. “No way,” he yelled. “I didn’t kill no one!”

  “We’ll talk about that at CID,” Bethany said, escorting him toward her car. She called over her shoulder to me, “Get some gloves out of my crime scene kit and recover his rifle.”

  I did as she asked and secured the rifle in a large evidence box I found in the trunk of her car. I then locked up Kenneth’s squad car and took the keys with me.

  “We’ll have a team come back to process his car,” Bethany said as she strapped Kenneth into the back seat.

  I walked over to the other snipers, looking from one wide-eyed person to the next. Jerry was the first to break the silence. “Is this shit for real?”

  “As real as it gets.”

  “Sergeant Carter,” Bethany called, “let’s get him back to CID ASAP.”

  I nodded to my team of snipers and turned away. I’d barely closed the door when Bethany sped off.

  “Daddy, this is bullshit,” Kenneth was saying from the backseat. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I didn’t have nothing to do with Captain Landry’s murder. He was like a father to me—to all of us. This bitch has it all wrong. I’d never do anything to hurt the captain.”

  “Right,” I blurted, before I could stop myself, “and I guess screwing his wife was okay because that surely wouldn’t have hurt him had he found out. Is that how you roll?” My eyes pierced his with a ferociousness that scared even me. Right at that moment, as I sat twisted in my seat looking into the eyes of the man who had possibly gunned down one of his own, I was sure I could murder him with a good heart.

  In my peripheral vision, I saw Bethany wince. I kept staring at Kenneth until he looked away and then I turned back around. I mumbled an apology to Bethany, who only shook her head.

  CHAPTER 9

  “You think he did it?” asked Sheriff Calvin Burke. He stood beside me in the darkness as we stared through the one-way glass that separated us from the interrogation taking place in the adjacent room.

  I watched as Lieutenant Bethany Riggs tried to work her magic on Kenneth Lewis. They had been in there for three hours and the only thing Kenneth would admit to doing was having the affair with Starla Landry.

  “To be honest,” I finally said, “I don’t know what to think. If you’d asked me a week ago if I thought Kenneth would screw his friend’s wife, I would’ve said you were crazy. I now know different, and I have no idea who he is anymore.”

  I turned my attention back to the interview. Bethany was leaning close to Kenneth and she was speaking in a low tone. I had to strain to hear what she was saying.

  “You do understand you’re going to get the death penalty if you’re convicted, don’t you?” she asked. “So you might as well explain why you did it. That might be the only chance you have to save your life.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “I know, I know. You didn’t do it,” she interrupted. “Look, personally, I don’t give a shit what happens to you. I’d rather you kept your mouth shut and we could just present our evidence and have you put to death as soon as possible. But I think you owe it to the friends and family of Captain Landry to at least say you’re sorry for what you did.”

  “I am sorry for what I did, but I didn’t kill him.”

  “Then why are you sorry?”

  Kenneth threw his hands up. “For screwing his wife! I’ve told you that a thousand times. I’m sorry I slept with her. Look, I know that makes me a piece of shit and an asshole, but it doesn’t make me a killer. I would never murder anyone.”

  “Not even for a woman?”

  “Especially not for a woman.”

  Bethany studied her notes. “Well, I think that covers everything. I just have one final question for you. You told me earlier that you were home alone during the shooting. Why, then, did you tell Sergeant Carter that you were at home with a sweetie?”

  Kenneth fidgeted in his chair, saying nothing.

  Bethany’s eyebrows rose. “Well? Which is it? Did you have a sweetie over or not?”

  “No…I was home alone.”

  I shook my head, clenched my fists. Lying bastard!

  Bethany smiled. “Perfect. This will be an easy case to present to the Grand Jury. You began having an adulterous affair with Captain Landr
y’s wife. Things got serious and you wanted her all to yourself. You begged her to leave the good captain, but she refused to do so. This infuriated you. So, you did what any love-struck and desperate psycho would do—you took out the competition.” Bethany stood and paced around the room, her arms folded. Finally, she stopped and glanced down at Kenneth Lewis. “When you woke up yesterday, did you know that would be the day?”

  “I already told you I didn’t do it!” The words spat from his mouth.

  Bethany waved her hand dismissively. “I’m beyond that point. I’m at the part where you acknowledge you did it and want to offer an explanation so you don’t get the death penalty.” She sat at the corner of the desk and crossed her arms again. “You get the message that there’s a SWAT roll. You know Captain Landry is in charge of SWAT and he responds to every callout. You’re fully aware of the chaos that surrounds an event such as this, and you know how easy it would be for a police sniper to take advantage of this situation. You see it as the perfect time and place to execute your plan—”

  “That’s bullshit!” Kenneth’s face was red, the veins in his temple protruding.

  “What’s not bullshit is that you had motive, opportunity and the means to carry out this crime,” Bethany countered. “And what’s most unfortunate for you is that there are only six people in this parish capable of making the shot that killed Captain Landry…and the other five were accounted for.”

  “I was at home!”

  “Right, you were home alone when it happened, but you have no witnesses to verify that story, and you already lied once about it to Sergeant Carter.” Bethany stood and gathered up her paperwork. She started to walk out, but stopped by the door. “Why didn’t you just shoot him in the chest with a handgun like a normal person would do? At least then it would’ve been a little more challenging to figure out who did it.”

  Sheriff Burke and I were waiting in the hallway when Bethany stepped out of the interview room. “I think he did it,” she said.

  I frowned and nodded my agreement.

  “As much as I hate to admit it, I think you’re right,” Sheriff Burke said.

  I looked from Bethany to Sheriff Burke. “What’s next?”

  Sheriff Burke took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Apply for an arrest warrant. If the judge signs it, arrest him.”

  Bethany nodded, turned to me. “Let’s go.”

  I followed her down the hallway and to one of the empty cubicles. She took the driver’s seat and fired up the computer. I pulled a chair from a neighboring cubicle and slid it beside her. I’d written my fair share of arrest warrants during my years as a cop, but I’d never drafted one for murder. “How do we apply for a warrant without evidence?”

  “We have evidence. It’s just circumstantial.”

  I suddenly remembered the autopsy that was to be performed on Captain Landry and glanced at the time on my cell phone. It was almost six o’clock. “LT, what about Captain Landry’s autopsy?”

  Bethany didn’t turn away from the computer, where words were hopping onto the screen at a record pace. “I sent Corey a text message from the interview room. He and Sally will handle it for us.”

  Lieutenant Corey Chiasson and Detective Sally Piatkowski. I’d met Sally through Gina at a party once, about six months earlier. Gina later told me Sally wanted to go out on a date. Sally was a beautiful natural blonde with sky blue eyes and a nice body, and I was extremely tempted, but, as I’d told Gina, I had a strict rule against dating cops.

  “What’s the matter…you don’t like strong women?” Sally had asked the next time she saw me.

  “No, I love strong women. I just don’t like strong women with guns,” had been my response. Truth be told, I was a bit intimidated by how beautiful she was and I didn’t—

  “Hey, you daydreaming?”

  I jerked my head up to find Bethany staring at me. “Wait…what?”

  “I asked if you have some sort of documentation showing that Kenneth Lewis can make that shot from four hundred yards.”

  “Oh, yeah. I keep detailed records showing all of our training, which includes regular shots out to a thousand yards. I even have copies of the targets he—”

  “Riggs! Carter! Shut it down,” Sheriff Burke hollered from the hallway. “Get in here right away.”

  We exchanged worried looks, jumped to our feet and hurried to the conference room, where we found Sheriff Burke, Captain Michael Theriot and Chief Deputy Matt Garcia huddled around the boomerang conference-call phone.

  “Yes, sir, I’m positive,” a female’s voice was saying. It sounded like Gina Pellegrin.

  “Okay, hang tight until Bethany and London get there.” Sheriff Burke smashed the hang-up button and turned to us, a somber look on his face. “Justin Wainwright”—the retired internal affairs captain Bethany had replaced—“was just found dead in his backyard. He was shot through the left eye.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “We were wrong,” I told Bethany as we drove to the scene. “It wasn’t Kenneth.”

  “We won’t know for sure until we get to the scene.”

  “Two cops get shot through the left eye in two days? It doesn’t take a seasoned detective to figure out they’re connected. And since Kenneth was in our custody during the second shooting, we can prove he didn’t do it.”

  Bethany shook her head. “It’s not always that simple, Sergeant. We have to go into every case with an open mind. Once we get there, we follow the evidence and let it dictate to us what happened, not the other way around.”

  Sure, I knew that, but I was certain this would be an exception. Kenneth had been with me since early this morning and he’d been in custody for hours. I said as much to Bethany, but she only said, “We’ll have to wait and see what the evidence tells us.”

  We rode the rest of the way in silence, with the only sounds being the rhythmic clicking of the strobe lights and the whistling of the police antennas as they sliced through the evening air at eighty miles per hour.

  It was almost eight o’clock when we arrived at Justin Wainwright’s house. He lived off of Highway Three in Broadmoore, his house set back off the highway about three hundred yards. There were no neighbors for a couple of miles in either direction. Acres upon acres of sugarcane fields bordered his property to the north and south.

  Six squad cars and two detective cars were parked in the front yard, their strobes flashing bright in the rapidly dimming evening light. Bethany and I found Detective Gina Pellegrin, Detective Sally Piatkowski and a crowd of patrolmen in the backyard. They stood around a red riding lawn mower. It was a crashed up against a young oak tree. The lifeless body of Justin Wainwright was positioned on his back several feet from the lawnmower. His head was turned sideways and the back of his skull was a mushy mass of broken bone and brain matter. There was a crimson hole where his left eye had once been.

  Gina looked up when we approached. “The bullet went right through his left eye, just like Captain Landry.”

  I walked closer and leaned over to see his face. He looked bloated and his skin was blistered. The warm breeze peeled a healthy dose of rancid rot from his body and rubbed it into my nostrils, singeing my nose hairs. “Jesus, he’s ripe!”

  Gina nodded. “He’s been dead at least two days.”

  “No shit.” I turned slowly to Bethany. “You were right.”

  “Only because I’ve been wrong too many times. I learned to reserve my opinion until after I see the evidence…all of it.” She turned to Gina. “Let’s get this scene processed. I want photos and detailed measurements of the position his body’s in now. We need to figure out his exact location when he was shot, so Sergeant Carter can determine the sniper’s position when he fired the shot.”

  Bethany turned to me. “After we’re done here tonight, we’ll station a deputy to guard the house until daybreak. We’ll come back then and you can get a fix on the sniper’s shooting position. Maybe we’ll get lucky this time and find a shell casing we can match to Kenneth’s
rifle.”

  I nodded. There were no streetlights out here in the country, and it would be next to impossible to conduct a thorough search at nighttime, even with ambient light.

  Bethany handed me a pair of latex gloves and turned toward the house. She waved at me to follow. “While they process the scene, we’ll search the house to see if we can figure out what he’s been doing since he retired. It might shed some light on why Kenneth wanted him dead.”

  We walked up the steps to the back door and Bethany tried the knob. It opened. “I guess it would be unlocked,” she mused. “He was in the backyard cutting grass. It would’ve been daytime.”

  I thought back to what Gina had said. “If he’s been dead two days, then that would put him cutting his grass on Monday. Kenneth’s wife left on Saturday to go to her mom’s house, so, unless he has some other alibi, he’s got opportunity and the means to kill Wainwright, too.”

  “We just have to figure out what his motive would be for killing a retired captain.” When Bethany walked through the door, I followed. We found ourselves in a dated, but clean, kitchen. “How well did you know Captain Wainwright?”

  “He was on SWAT when I first started with the department. He was pretty squared away. I got called into his office once for an excessive force complaint, and he was cool about it.”

  “Was it a valid complaint?” Bethany had stopped walking and pierced me with her blue eyes.

  “No, it was a complete lie. This punk said I broke his nose for no reason, but I never even hit him.”

  “Did you have physical contact with him?”

  “Oh, yeah, I arrested him for pulling an armed robbery. I had to chase him down and tackle him to the ground, but that was the end of it. He complained to a jailer that his nose hurt, so they brought him to the hospital. Several x-rays and hundreds of taxpayer dollars later, they concluded there was nothing wrong with his nose.”

  “But he filed an IA complaint anyway?”

  “Yeah…he claimed I punched him in the face, but Wainwright knew immediately that he was lying.”