by BJ Bourg
When she got home that day, her dad demanded to know why her lip was busted. She dared not tell him the truth, because he was in poor health and she knew he would go after Hank. If he did, Hank would kill him. So she lied…and she’d been lying ever since to cover for Hank.
“Sweetie, you’ve got to believe me,” she pleaded, bracing herself for what she knew was coming. “I would’ve never suggested coming back here if we didn’t need the money.”
“That’s bullshit!” Hank threw his bottle against the wall and it exploded into thousands of pieces. He approached her with fire in his eyes. “What the hell’s his name?”
“There is no one,” Cynthia said. “I love only you.”
“You must think I’m a fool, don’t you?”
“No, Hank, I don’t…”
Her voice trailed off just as Hank reached her and raised his hand high in the air.
She covered her face and closed her eyes, drifting to a far and dark corner of her mind, where she usually remained until the beatings were over. She could feel her body jerking with the force of his blows…could taste the blood in her mouth…could feel the pain…could hear his muffled cursing. Throughout it all, she remained secreted in the darkness of her mind’s eye, waiting for the storm to pass.
Hank finally stopped hitting her, but it was only so he could wrap his large hands around her throat. He squeezed so hard she thought the top of her head would pop off. She felt her eyes bulging, felt herself slipping away.
CHAPTER 3
Detective Sergeant Dawn Luke was heading north on Highway Eighty (a two-lane road that paralleled Highway Three on the east side of Bayou Magnolia) and was five minutes from the dealership when she heard the call over the radio. A woman in Mathport had called to say she heard banging and screaming from her neighbor’s house on Jaguar Lane. The woman couldn’t offer any details about the neighbors—she told dispatch the couple had recently moved into the neighborhood from another state—but she said it sounded like someone was being killed.
“I’m en route,” Dawn called over the radio, smashing her accelerator. While she’d have to drive by the dealership to get to the address, it was less than five miles from her current location and she was the closest unit, so she couldn’t ignore the call.
She flipped on her wig-wags to clear a path along the highway, but kept her siren off so she wouldn’t alert the suspect of her arrival. When she made it to the Mathport Lift Bridge, she glanced toward the dealership but couldn’t see much from the road. She crossed over and swerved onto Highway Three, continuing north.
Within a few minutes, her tires were screeching and she was making the turn onto Jaguar Lane. She cut off her lights and coasted toward the address. Her cruiser was an unmarked Charger, but everyone knew it was a law enforcement vehicle, so she stopped two houses down and pulled into someone’s driveway. Keying up her radio, she asked for the responding deputy’s twenty (location).
“Two minutes out,” he called in a strained voice.
Realizing it was dangerous, but knowing she probably stood a better chance against an abusive husband than the victim did, she eased out of her car and slinked toward the address. Using the corner of the neighbor’s house as cover, she crouched low and surveyed the target house. All was quiet…too quiet.
A small red truck with corny bumper stickers littering the back glass was parked in the driveway. Keeping the truck between her and the doorway, she drew her pistol and approached the house at a low run. She dropped down beside the truck and listened. She could hear movement from inside, but it didn’t sound violent.
She radioed to say she was going to attempt contact, and then slipped around the back of the truck and took up a position beside the concrete steps. Keeping her pistol pointed toward the door with her right hand, she knocked with her left hand. The rustling from inside suddenly stopped.
“Sheriff’s Office,” she called, cocking her head to better hear what was going on in the house. “Open the door right now!”
She braced herself when heavy footsteps quickly approached from inside, but they stopped before reaching the door. She then heard what sounded like someone dragging a large object…
“Holy shit!” She jumped up onto the top step and smashed into the wooden door with her shoulder, sending it flying inward. As soon as she cleared the opening, she saw a man in a gray shirt dragging a woman’s body toward the back of the house. The woman wore blue jean cut-off shorts that made Daisy Dukes look like capri pants. Blood was smeared on her long, tanned legs and covered her damaged face. Her short blonde hair was a mess and also bloody.
“What the hell are you doing in my house?” the man bellowed, dropping the woman’s arms and advancing toward Dawn in a menacing way.
Dawn did a quick scan of the room and didn’t see any weapons, so she holstered her gun and stepped forward to meet the man. That bold move seemed to confuse the man and he hesitated, looking beyond Dawn and through the busted door.
“You here alone?” he asked.
“That’s not important,” Dawn said in a calm voice. “What’s important is getting her some help.”
“She’s fine,” said the man.
The woman began moaning and tried to sit up.
“What’s her name?” Dawn asked.
“Um…it’s Cynthia,” the man said. “I came home from work and found her like this. I think she fell and hit her head.”
“What’s your name?”
“Hank. Hank Alvey.”
“Well, Hank Alvey, help me get her up.” Keeping a wary eye on Hank, Dawn grabbed Cynthia under the right arm while Hank grabbed her under the left arm. Together, they lifted her gently to the sofa, where she seemed to drift in and out of consciousness. Now that the victim was off the floor and out of the way, Dawn turned to face Hank, dropping her right foot back a little to improve her balance.
Hank’s fists were covered in blood—some of it Cynthia’s and some of it his. There were gashes in his knuckles, and Dawn knew they were from making contact with Cynthia’s teeth.
In a measured tone, she said, “Okay, Hank Alvey, now you’re going to turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
“And why would I do that?” Hank’s eyes were slits and his jaw was set as he clenched and unclenched his fists.
“Because,” Dawn said simply, “you don’t want to end up in the hospital with Cynthia.”
“Are you threatening me?” A smiled played at the corners of Hank’s mouth. “Are you for real?”
“As real as the pain you’re about to endure if you don’t do what I say.”
“You can’t be more than five-five.” Hank looked her up and down. “And what do you weigh…one-twenty?”
“Close enough,” Dawn said, noticing how he scrunched his right foot in the ground.
Hank nodded and glanced idly at the floor. Suddenly, he reared back his right hand and stepped forward, but Dawn was too fast for him. She lifted both hands to block her face while simultaneously shooting a right kick to his groin. The kick landed long before Hank’s punch came close to her face, and he buckled over. As his head came down, Dawn drove her knee up into his face, snapping his head back. She then executed an elbow strike to his exposed throat. He crumbled in a heap to the floor, uttering guttural noises like an animal choking on its own blood.
Footsteps pounded through the door behind Dawn and she turned to see two patrol deputies making entry, guns drawn, and eyes wild. They looked from her to Hank, and then one of them asked, “What the hell happened here?”
Dawn shrugged. “He fell and hit his head.”
They laughed. After holstering their pistols, they jerked a dazed Hank to his feet and cuffed his hands behind his back. As one of them led him to their patrol cruiser, the other tended to Cynthia.
“By the way,” the deputy said, “the sheriff has been trying to call you over the radio.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “My guess is it has something to do with the hostage situat
ion.”
Dawn pulled out her cell phone and saw that she had three missed calls—all from the sheriff. She quickly called him back. When he answered, she apologized for not answering. “I was assisting with a domestic violence complaint.”
“Well, let patrol handle it and get to the dealership as soon as you can,” Sheriff Chiasson said. “Sheriff Tyler”—he was the sheriff of Interior Parish, which neighbored Magnolia to the north—“has agreed to have his detectives work the officer-involved shooting angle, but I want you to take lead on the murder investigation. We need to find out why Gaylord LeDoux came in here and killed his wife and two other people.”
“I heard a sniper had to take him out,” Dawn said slowly. “Was it London?”
“Yeah, he stopped LeDoux from executing more hostages.”
“How is he?”
The sheriff grunted. “You know London. Nothing fazes him. Now, get down here and start digging into this for me.”
“What’s wrong with the central detectives?” Dawn mostly worked the southern part of the parish and she knew the central detectives would most likely be offended that she was being asked to work a high-profile case in their assigned area. “Why aren’t they working it?”
“Just get down here.”
CHAPTER 4
Jerry and I were standing under the overhang near the front door of Olivier’s Car Dealership when Dawn’s car pulled into the parking lot. She’d had to drive down a dirt road north of the business, because a wall of news vans blocked the main entrance. The sheriff nearly had a heart attack when the manager of the dealership, a fellow named Wilton Michot, had given an interview to one of the reporters earlier in the day and named the hostage taker. The sheriff promptly sent eight members of our riot team to the highway to keep the reporters at bay.
“I’m heading out,” Jerry said when Dawn parked her unmarked Charger and opened the driver’s door. “You need anything more from me?”
I told him no and stepped into the sunlight, waiting for Dawn to gather up her crime scene kit and walk toward where I stood. When she was close enough that I didn’t have to yell, I asked, “Hey, how are you?”
Without saying a word, she walked past me and glanced at the bullet hole in the glass, then turned her attention to Gaylord LeDoux, who was still lying on the ground inside the dealership. His eyes were half closed and his head rested in a pool of blood and brain matter.
Dropping her crime box on the ground, Dawn shoved a length of brown hair behind her ear and adjusted the Glock in the pancake holster strapped to her dress slacks. She then removed her camera from the box and fixed me with her dark eyes. “If you wanted to hang out, you could’ve simply called…you didn’t have to go shooting somebody.”
I shot my thumb at LeDoux. “He didn’t give me a choice.”
“Have you been inside the crime scene?”
“No. I didn’t think it would be a good idea.” I nodded toward the deputy who was stationed just inside the doorway. “He hasn’t let anyone inside since our team cleared the building, so everything’s intact.”
“What about the Interior Parish detectives…have they arrived yet?”
“No.” I pointed toward a building south of the dealership that served as their used car operation. “Sheriff Chiasson set up a command center in that building, and the detectives are supposed to report to him first.”
She was thoughtful for a minute, searching my eyes. “Why’d the sheriff ask for me to work the murder case? Why not just let one of the central detectives handle it? It’s their assigned area.”
“He trusts your work,” I explained. “You’re thorough...you don’t miss anything.”
“Rachael is thorough and so is Melvin.”
Detectives Rachael Bowler and Melvin Ford worked the central part of the parish and they were both good at their jobs, but no one was as thorough as Dawn. I said as much, but she dismissed the compliment.
“Besides,” I said, “they’ve got their hands full babysitting the hostages until Tyler’s team gets here.”
As she tugged on her latex gloves, Dawn asked if I’d recovered my spent shell casing.
I pulled a white envelope from the top pocket of my coveralls and handed it to her. “I put the recovery date and time on the outside. The exact time I took the shot will be in the radio logs.”
She nodded her thanks. “And your rifle?”
“It’s still in the bridge cabin where I took the shot. After they secured everything down here, I got an entry team member to stand guard over my rifle.”
“As you know, we’ll need to take it for ballistics.”
I frowned, but nodded. “I hate when my rifle gets confiscated. It makes me feel naked, you know?”
“Stop shooting people and they’ll stop taking it away from you,” she joked. “Do you have a backup?”
“Yeah, I’ll grab Dean’s rifle from my equipment room.”
Dawn’s eyes fell and it was her turn to frown. “Lily’s having a hard time.”
Dean’s daughter had not taken the news well when she’d learned of the murders of her dad and her brother, and it nearly killed the seventeen-year-old when she found out the circumstances surrounding their deaths. The last time I’d seen Lily was at Dean’s funeral, and she was not in a good place.
“Have you spoken to her?” I asked.
“I drove by her aunt’s house two days ago and took her for a burger.” She shook her head. “It breaks my heart to be around her, but I hate to leave her. I feel like I’m abandoning her when I drive off.”
“I know what you mean.” I kicked at the concrete curb. “I wish I could do something to ease her pain.”
“Don’t we all?” Dawn bent to lift her crime scene box. “I’ll get with Sheriff Chiasson and let him know I’m here. Where will you be?”
“I’ll hang out by my truck.”
“Sounds great.” She turned to walk across the lot, but stopped for a second. “Oh, and London…”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re okay.”
CHAPTER 5
Three hours later…
After giving my statement to the Interior Parish detectives, I left the dealership and headed to the range to zero Dean’s rifle. Dean had maintained a proper zero on his rifle right up to the day he died, but his body type and mine were different, which could cause our points of impact to be slightly different. In my line of work, a fraction of an inch could mean the difference between life and death, so nothing could be taken for granted.
It was dark by the time I arrived at the firing range. I parked my truck so that the headlights were directed downrange toward the target stands. Mosquitoes swarmed like a heavy storm cloud, so I grabbed a can of repellent from the console and sprayed myself down before stepping out into the warm night. Even a hundred percent deet wasn’t always enough to keep these winged vampires away, but this was shaping up to be the deadliest year for the West Nile virus in our area, so I made the effort. If I died, I wanted it to be how I lived—by the sword—and not by some insect too small to even lift a 168-grain boat tail, hollow point bullet.
I walked to the target stands and stapled a life-size, colored photo of an evil-looking man, then returned to the firing line. Beads of sweat had already started to form on my forehead. Summer had ended two days earlier, but someone had forgotten to tell Mother Nature. The temperature had reached ninety-three earlier in the day and, although night had fallen, it seemed to be standing still.
I settled in behind Dean’s rifle and bolted a round into the chamber. After pulling the butt firmly into my shoulder, I rested my cheek against the stock and peered through the scope. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, allowing every muscle to relax and pushing every thought from my head. When I reached my normal respiratory pause, my crosshairs fell on the tip of the target’s nose. It’s what snipers call their natural point of aim. Had the crosshairs been off target, I would’ve had to make slight adjustments to my body position until the crosshai
rs fell exactly where I wanted them to fall.
At that moment—under the stars, in the heat, with mosquitoes buzzing all around me—I was one with the rifle. There was no other place I felt more comfortable. There was no other place I’d rather be.
I took another breath. When I reached my natural respiratory pause again, I squeezed off the shot. After allowing for a brief follow-through, I smoothly bolted another round and fired a second shot. As soon as the shot broke, I heard noise behind me and saw light splash the area around me, but I ignored it and fired the third shot. I bolted another round into the chamber and spun around to see who had driven up.
“Hey, London, I figured it was you,” Dawn said, stepping out of her Charger.
I stood quickly. “What are you doing here?”
“I tried calling earlier, but you didn’t answer. When I drove by and saw the headlights, I knew it had to be you.”
“What’s up?”
“I tried calling to let you know Sheriff’s Tyler’s team wrapped up their investigation. They’re waiting for the ballistics to come back before finalizing their report, but—as I’m sure you already know—their preliminary findings are that the use of deadly force was justified.”
“You can never be too sure these days.”
She nodded in agreement.
“Want to walk with me?” I pointed toward the target stand. “I have to check my target.”
“Sure.”
After I helped spray her down with bug repellant, she fell in beside me and we strode toward the target. The grass was covered in dew and it dampened the edges of our pant legs as we walked. Neither of us said much until we’d gone about fifty yards, at which time Dawn asked, “You come here often?”
I grinned, although I didn’t think she could see in the dark, and said, “Every chance I get.”