Biloxi Sunrise (The Biloxi Series Book 1)

by Jerri Ledford

  As the ME’s assistant escorted the body toward the waiting coroner’s van, Jack turned to face the Gulf. The heat bore down on him, weighing him down so much that he felt like he might not be able to stand under the weight of it.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Kate stood beside him, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses, but he was certain she was focusing on the miniature specks on the horizon—oil wells that looked like they might be standing on the edge of the earth.

  “I’m afraid I might be. I think the same person killed Patricia Simms and this victim. I hope we don’t have a problem on our hands.”

  *~*~*

  Jack sat on his balcony, watching the sun set over the west side of the Gulf of Mexico. Late summer storm clouds feathered over the horizon, weaving the sun’s final light into a blanket of reds, oranges, and purples. If you contemplated it too long, the sunset looked eerie, as if in a way it was a song of finality. The light was sucked away with the parting sun, and all that was left was an empty blackness.

  The feeling mirrored Jack’s heart. He ran his thumb down the sweating beer bottle. The beer was getting warm, but Jack didn’t really care. He didn’t want it; it just seemed like something he should have while he was sitting on the deck. The last rays of the sun disappeared completely, and Jack thought of Susan and Lilly. They had been the light of his world. And now, like the dark sky before him, he felt as though all the light had disappeared from his life.

  Also like the night sky, he knew he wasn’t completely empty, he just had a difficult time locating what was there. He was alone. Even after all this time and he was still screwing up. Would he never learn his own lessons?

  They’d found nothing today to help them track down this killer and it looked like it was going to get worse before it got better. Every cop instinct in his brain zinged when he thought about the two bodies that had turned up. The damage done to these women wasn’t something that a one-off killer, someone who killed one person and moved on, might do. No, this was a serial killer, and unless Jack really had lost it, there would be more bodies if they didn’t track this guy down soon.

  Then there was Lisa. Jack leaned back in the wicker chair he’d turned to face the Gulf. What was he going to do about her? She had probably been sneaking out of the house at night. She was mixed up in this mess with Tim. In general, she was headed down a road that might not end well for her. And Jack felt responsible.

  He knew how Leslie was. And after what Leslie had done to Susan and Lilly, Jack should have been paying much better attention to Lisa.

  The glass-top table beside his wicker chair rattled and Jack glanced over. The face of his iPhone displayed a picture of Dana that he’d snapped when she wasn’t looking. She was really a beautiful woman, he thought as he picked up the phone and slid his thumb across the screen.

  “Hi Jack.” Road noise rumbled in the background.

  “Dana. How are you tonight?” Jack tried for chipper, but was pretty sure that was not the tone that came across.

  “Actually, I just finished up at the office and I thought it might be nice to see you. Unofficially.” No beating around the bush there. And if Jack were completely honest, he didn’t want to be sitting alone on this balcony, overlooking the Gulf, contemplating where his life had gone wrong.

  “What’d you have in mind?”

  FOURTEEN

  Jack approached a squat, brown brick building barricaded with chain link fences and Constantine wire. The precinct. He parked his car in the side lot and walked briskly into the building. The front desk officer barely acknowledged him as he walked past the desk without slowing down.

  He wasn’t interested in idle chit-chat. He had a mound of work to do, and since the second body turned up yesterday, the chief had turned crazy as a sprayed roach, twitching and scurrying from one office to another. It was just a matter of time before someone started screaming about a suspect or, more accurately, the current lack of a suspect. The chief was trying to prevent the inevitable. But that was what the chief did.

  Jack nodded as he passed other officers. He also planned to have a conversation with Tim Burris this morning, before he was released. They wouldn’t be able to hold him too long, even with the fight and everything that had happened with Lisa.

  Jack had wanted to talk to him yesterday, but then the body turned up at the marina and all of Jack’s plans turned to wishful thinking. He’d spent the whole afternoon talking to the members of the Messenger of Judas, the group that had played at the coliseum the night the victim died. Not a single one of them remembered the woman, and nothing other than the graffiti even pointed in their direction. Unless the ME’s office turned up something that pointed to one of the band members, they were all in the clear.

  Now Jack was ready to talk to Tim. Jack really didn’t have any questions for him so much as he had a warning. It had taken a lot of patience and some pleading to get the chief to even okay the notion that Jack wanted to talk to Tim in the first place.

  And that Tim was in jail because Jack had busted into Leslie’s house and apprehended him—that’s what the official report said—was a fact that made the chief even more reluctant.

  Jack stepped through the open door into the chief’s office.

  “Are you drinking enough water, Jack?” The chief stared over the rim of his thick, black glasses with a look that reminded Jack of the drill sergeant he’d had during Special Ops training. That man could cut you off at the knees with just a look. Now, standing in front of the chief’s desk, trying to gauge where he was going with his question, Jack felt the same way.

  “I only ask because I think the heat has fried your brain.” The chief’s deep Southern drawl did nothing to dull the edge of his stare. “Do you realize how far out on the line I’m going to have to stick my neck to make this happen? If you screw this up, Jack, I might as well move back to Louisiana and try to get a spot on Swamp People because I won’t ever work in law enforcement again, and the only other thing I know how to do is catch alligators.”

  Jack envisioned the chief in some Louisiana backwater, television camera in his face, and a caption running along the bottom of the screen to translate his words into common English. Jack choked back a laugh and cleared his throat.

  “Look Chief, I don’t plan on getting out of line.” Jack focused on a point just over the chief’s left shoulder. This really was serious and he couldn’t look the chief in the eye because he wasn’t completely sure he was telling his superior the truth. If provoked, he couldn’t be positive he wouldn’t hit Tim again. “I just want to make Tim understand that my family—all of my family—is off limits.”

  “I can understand that. Appreciate it even. In another time, he’d be alligator bait, Son. But we can’t have that in these modern times.” The chief pushed his lanky form out of the chair. “I’m going to let you talk to him, with supervision. I know you got some things that need to be said, but I can’t have you going all jarhead on him. Not right when we’re starting to get a lot of attention because of these murder cases we got on our hands.” He stared at Jack with a look that made him feel like an insect pinned to foam board. “Your murder cases.”

  The last two words hung over Jack like a magnifying glass, bringing the full weight of the chief’s expectations into stark focus. Jack maintained his thousand-yard stare and said the only thing he could. “Yes, sir.”

  *~*~*

  Tim Burris looked more haggard than he had last time Jack saw him. Dark rings around his eyes faded into a sick yellow color from bruises that had already peaked and begun to heal. Had the fight really only been a couple of days ago?

  Jack took a seat across from Tim at a table that had only two chairs, one on each side. Kate leaned in a corner, keeping a watchful eye on the two men.

  Burris stared hard at Jack, and Jack bit back a challenge. He itched to knock the stare right off the guy’s face, but he couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t serve any purpose except to get him into hotter water with the chief.
<
br />   Jack needed to pick his words carefully.

  “Mr. Burris, I’m Special Investigator Kate Giveans.” Kate spoke firmly and Burris shifted his stare slowly from Jack to Kate. “You already know my partner.”

  Burris mumbled something low that Jack couldn’t hear. Then, “I already know you too, or did you forget that?” Nastiness coated his words though his expression never changed from the bored, ‘I’d rather be anywhere else in the world’ stare he’d pasted on when he first looked over at Kate.

  Jack’s hands itched. He balled them into tight fists and leaned forward. “I suggest you mind your mouth, Burris.”

  Fear danced across Tim’s face as his gaze flicked down to Jack’s fists, but he recovered quickly and the mask of indifference slid back into place.

  “Now, I want to know exactly what happened with you and Lisa.”

  Burris didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

  “You don’t seem to understand what my partner said.” Kate paced back and forth behind Jack. “What happened with Lisa?”

  Jack was surprised by the strength behind Kate’s words. For the first time he realized how his family situation affected her. Her voice shook with each word she said, and even without turning around to look at her body language, it was obvious she was angry.

  Tim threw a string of curses at Kate.

  Jack slammed his fists on the table top and pushed up so fast that his chair tumbled to the floor. “What happened?” Jack was in Tim’s face, screaming. Spittle hit Tim, and the fear that had appeared earlier returned, but this time it stayed solidly in place on Tim’s features.

  “Look man, calm down, okay? I didn’t hurt her.”

  Jack’s chest heaved as he breathed hard trying to maintain control.

  “It was just…I mean.” Tim’s eyebrows edged toward his hairline and then collapsed as he struggled to find the answer that would calm Jack.

  “It was Lisa’s idea. She started it.”

  Wrong answer. Jack lunged across the table as Kate jerked Tim out of the chair by the collar of his shirt. She slammed him against the wall, putting herself between Tim and Jack.

  Behind him, Jack heard the door to the interrogation room open. He stared at Tim, ignoring the door. He knew the interview was over, but he wasn’t quite done.

  “Time’s up.” The uniformed officer that opened the door stood with his feet spread, hand resting on his utility belt just above the handle of his standard issue weapon.

  Kate took a step back, hands in the air, but she stayed between Jack and Tim, which was okay with Jack. He’d found his control.

  “No problem.” Jack’s answer was for the officer, but he never broke eye contact with Tim. “You should know,” he growled, “that if you come near my family again, including my sister, your body will never be found. I suggest you forget they exist and pray you never run into either one of them when I’m around.”

  Jack held his stare for another heartbeat, and then he turned and walked past the uniformed officer in the doorway without another word.

  *~*~*

  Jack headed straight to the locker room without looking back to see if Kate followed him. He should probably thank her. If she hadn’t stepped in when she did, he would likely have tried to beat some sense into Tim again. It didn’t work the first time. It probably wouldn’t work this time, either. And that would be a waste of effort.

  He pushed through the door to the locker room and as the door swung shut behind him a sharp increase in the noise level filtered back from the front desk area. The front desk was always busy. But this was louder and more chaotic than usual. Shouts rang with urgency. Jack charged back past Kate and ran down the slick hallway toward the noise.

  He and Kate reached the corner just as a gunshot blasted through the open space. They both dropped to the ground instinctively.

  The shouting continued and Jack crawled forward, grit digging into his elbows. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kate moving in a different direction, circling around the outside of the large room.

  Jack inched his way across the center of the room. The shortest distance between him and a man waving a gun around on the opposite side of the room. He held his gun ready to fire as he half crawled and half slid from one desk to another. He peeked around the beat up metal corner of a desk, and saw the barrel of a gun pointing right at him. He jerked back as a bullet tinged into the corner of the desk where his face had just been.

  The man who had shot at him was filthy. His hair was wild and his eyes darted from place to place. He reminded Jack of a wild animal. Wild man. That he could even get a shot off at Jack was astounding. That the wild man had nearly hit him was a testament to how focused he was on the moment.

  “I don’t know why I’m here.” Wild man paced back and forth. “I didn’t do anything.” His voice wavered. “Okay.” A note of defeat rang in wild man’s voice. “Okay. Yes, I was drinking and driving. It’s her fault. I was just trying to make things right. And you shouldn’t keep a man locked up for three days! I need to find her. I need to leave here, now! I need my car.”

  Jack waited, listening to the wild man’s voice as it faded away. He wondered where Kate was. Jack didn’t like situations like this. He’d lost track of his partner. But intellectually he knew she was okay because there had been no additional gun shots. Still, he would feel better if he could catch a glimpse of her, just to see for himself that she was out of harm’s way. It might also make it easier for them to coordinate if they had a line of sight between them.

  When it seemed the wild man’s voice was at the farthest point away, Jack pushed up from behind the desk, swinging his gun in the direction he’d last heard wild man’s voice. He caught sight of the man just as he turned to pace back across the floor. Surprise and confusion registered in wild man’s eyes as Jack fired three rounds. Wild man jerked twice then dropped to the floor, blood seeping from the holes in his chest. The well-placed shots had all found their marks. Jack didn’t need a paramedic to tell him the guy was dead.

  Breathing hard, Jack scanned the room for Kate. As his gaze swept the room, investigating the nooks and crannies in search of his partner, the room was completely silent. Then, he found her leaning against a column less than twenty feet from the wild man’s body. She looked dazed and shaken. But as Jack’s gaze connected with her it was as if a collective exhale released the commotion that followed.

  People darted back and forth blocking Jack’s view so that he lost sight of Kate again. But he knew she was okay now.

  A shout rose above the cacophony. “We gotta get an ambulance in here. Mark’s been hit.”

  A woman sobbed somewhere in the large room. Mark was a good officer. It was a shock that someone should come into their house and start shooting. A greater shock still was that someone like Mark would be hit.

  People crowded around him.

  Jack sat hard on a chair that was usually reserved for suspects waiting to be processed. He was drained. His legs were weak. He had killed a man without pause, without regret.

  He had killed a man.

  In all of his years in the military and on the police force, he’d never grown numb to this disbelief that he could kill a man. Would kill a man. Without pause, if the situation required it.

  “Roe, you okay? You hit?” Another officer was standing over him.

  “I’m fine.” Jack pushed his gun back into his holster and tried to stand up. He weaved back and forth a few times before the world balanced and stabilized. “Where’s Kate?”

  “Don’t know.” The young officer’s gaze darted from place to place, focused everywhere but on Jack. “I’m not sure, really.”

  Panic glazed the young man’s features. Even if he wasn’t one of those people who seemed unsure of Kate for some reason Jack had yet to figure out, it was unlikely the young man had even noticed her. Everyone’s attention had been focused on the wild man and how he had died. The poor kid had probably never seen another person shot before, and from the dull light in his ey
es, Jack could tell he’d certainly never seen anyone die before.

  The other man rushed away to where paramedics were dressing Mark’s wounds, trying to get him to sit still so they could get him ready to go to the hospital.

  Jack watched until the paramedics wheeled the gurney toward the ambulance waiting outside. He could see Mark talking to people as he was wheeled out.

  Good. He’d be fine.

  Jack turned to stare at the other body in the room. The one the medical examiners would lift into a black, vinyl body bag when they finished documenting the scene. What had pushed that man to snap? What had caused him to shoot a man and get himself killed? He’d sounded truly confused as he ranted. And a DUI charge, even if it was a third strike, shouldn’t cause that level of distress. There had to be something more.

  “You okay?” Kate had materialized over his shoulder. She looked as shaken as he felt. But she was okay, and Jack had to admit to himself, that had been his main concern as long as he couldn’t see her. He didn’t know how he’d handle the grief if something happened to her while she trusted him to have her back.

  Jack just nodded and walked slowly back to his office, the disorientation and adrenaline fading completely as his mind clicked and whirled with thoughts of what had happened, what could have happened. And why it had happened in the first place.

  The why was the part that he had to understand. None of this made sense.

  FIFTEEN

  Dana leaned back into her deep leather desk chair and listened to the woman on the other end of the phone. She curled and relaxed her left hand, forming first a tight fist then extending her fingers in backward arches. Her forehead itched like crazy, as it always did when anger pushed her blood pressure high. She had developed the hand exercise over time to keep from scratching her forehead raw.