Silent Trigger: A London Carter Novel (London Carter Mystery Series Book 3)

by BJ Bourg

  “I know they’re too damn close to just be friends.”

  “Meaning...?”

  “Meaning…I think they’re boyfriends.”

  “Do you have any proof of this?” Dawn asked.

  Katina shook her head. “I’ve never caught them together naked, if that’s what you’re asking, but there have been many times when Cade would come banging on the door in the middle of the night. Wilton would head to the cabana with him and stay back there for a long time.”

  “Did you ever follow them?” Dawn asked.

  “Only once. I almost got caught, so I never did it again.” Katina scratched her neck and stared at the ceiling. “It was probably a year ago. When I approached the front of the cabana, I saw Wilton handing him a wad of cash. It made me angry, because he never gave me any amount of cash—not even twenty bucks to go to the casino.”

  I grunted…yet another motive for Katina to kill her husband.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Do you think she’s telling the truth?” I asked Dawn once we were back in my truck. We had decided to go home for the afternoon and meet again later in the evening to visit Twisted Long Neck. That way, we’d have a better chance of encountering the same crowd Wilton encountered when he showed up there Sunday evening. It certainly didn’t pay to visit a bar when it was closed.

  “She seems sincere,” Dawn said, “but you never really know.” She scanned her notes as I drove, mumbling softly to herself. When she flipped the notepad shut, she rattled off a list of things she wanted to do, which included obtaining search warrants for Wilton’s bank records. “If he was doling out money to Cade, maybe we can establish a pattern and determine a motive.”

  “If you want, I’ll check with the dealership to see if Wilton was really buying cars from him.”

  “Good idea, because I don’t believe that story for a second.”

  I was thoughtful as I drove, then told Dawn we needed to find that long haired woman. “Maybe she’ll be at the bar.”

  “If she exists at all. Remember, no one has seen her but Cade, so it’s very possible she’s a red herring. If we’re out looking for a woman, we’ll never suspect a man.”

  That made sense. “You really believe Cade’s a male prostitute?”

  She grunted. “I can’t believe anyone would pay to have sex with him, but, as they say, one woman’s trash is another man’s lover.”

  I stared sideways at her. “I don’t think that’s how it goes.”

  She just shrugged and changed the subject, making small talk until we arrived at the detective bureau in Payneville. She jumped out of my truck and shot a thumb toward the entrance to the building.

  “I’ll get the electronic warrants done and send them off to the judge,” she said. “Afterward, I’m going to put on my dancing shoes, because we’ve got a big date at the Long Neck tonight.” She said the last part of her comment in the thickest Cajun accent she could muster, and then abruptly turned to walk away.

  I stared after her, wondering if she’d meant anything about the date. It was the second time she’d referred to our time together as a date—once in the woods when we were tracking the Trinity Sniper and just now. Sure, she’d said it in jest, but what if it was a hint? Was I supposed to ask her out? She seemed to enjoy hanging out with me, but what if I was totally misreading the situation?

  I shook my head and drove off, wishing I could read women as well as I could read range and windage before taking a sniper shot.

  As I headed to the dealership, my thoughts turned back to Dawn’s interview with Katina Michot. I wanted another crack at Cade. I needed to know more about his relationship with Wilton. Why would he show up at Wilton’s house in the middle of the night to make a deal on old cars? Hopefully, I’ll soon have the answers to those questions, I thought, pulling into the parking lot at Olivier’s Car Dealership.

  I jumped out of my truck just as they were shutting down, but one of the secretaries let me in and showed me to Eugene Olivier’s office. He looked up in surprise when he saw me at the door.

  “Detective…what can I do for you?”

  I told him what Cade had said about his arrangement with Wilton and asked if there was any record of the transactions between the two men.

  Eugene’s brows puckered as he started tapping away at the keyboard with his pudgy fingers. “I’d be very surprised if such an arrangement existed with anyone. We don’t typically buy used cars—we only take them in trade—but Wilton might have been doing something on the side that I wasn’t aware of.”

  I took a seat and waited patiently. He squinted at one point and traced his finger across the monitor. He mumbled something to himself and then went back to typing. After doing this a number of times, he leaned back and shook his head. “No one here has had any transactions with this Cade Baryon. Could it be that Wilton had personal dealings with the man?”

  I nodded absently. “It’s very possible.” To myself, I said, “Intimate dealings.”

  I thanked him and left. Before driving out of the parking lot, I texted Dawn and let her know what Eugene had said.

  On my way home, I called our personnel director, Karen, and asked how many people had applied for the open sniper spots. I was down to three team members, and I needed eight. The last time I’d opened it to the department I hadn’t been pleased with any of the five candidates who applied, so I hadn’t chosen a single one. I’d received some criticism for being too picky, but I didn’t care. When it came to being a police sniper, there was no such thing as being too selective. Not everyone was cut out to do this job, and I wasn’t about to risk the lives of innocent people, fellow snipers, or other law enforcement officers just to bring my team up to full capacity. They either met my requirements or they weren’t going to serve on my team…period.

  After placing me on hold for a few minutes, Karen returned to the phone. I could hear her rustling papers in the background. “Okay…it looks like you have a dozen candidates.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “How do I know who you know?” she asked, laughing. “Seriously, though, Detective Rachael Bowler applied, and I know you work with her.”

  “Really?” As a detective, Rachael was meticulous, driven, and patient, as well as being loyal to the job. She definitely had the temperament of a sniper. If she passed each phase of the process, she would become the first female sniper in the history of Magnolia Parish. “She didn’t mention she was interested.”

  “I can send you the rest of the names if you like.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll meet them when we do the tryouts.”

  Once we confirmed the date of the tryouts and interviews, which was in two weeks, on the fifteenth, we hung up.

  During the remainder of the drive home, I thought about Dawn and struggled to decipher the hidden messages in her statements. Maybe there were no hidden messages after all. Maybe I was reading too much into the situation. I sighed and tried to empty my mind, clear my thoughts.

  CHAPTER 19

  It was a little after knockoff time when Dawn finished faxing the electronic search warrants to the duty judge. The detective bureau looked like a ghost town when she stood from her desk. She suddenly realized she hadn’t heard any radio traffic in about an hour, so she checked the volume on her radio. It was turned up. She shrugged. I guess it’s a slow afternoon.

  She gathered up her keys and phone, and it was only then that she noticed an alert on her phone. After unlocking the screen, she found a message from London. Her heartbeat quickened ever so slightly when she saw his name, but it slowed to a normal pace when she read the message. It seemed Eugene Olivier had no record of any transactions between Cade Baryon and anyone in his company. She chewed her bottom lip and then gagged as realization set in. I guess Wilton was paying Cade for sex after all. Wilton appeared fairly wealthy, so she wondered why he couldn’t afford someone a bit cleaner than Cade—like someone who bathed at least once a week.

  When Dawn had taken Cade to the ground in th
e woods, she’d almost vomited because of his stench. “One thing that sucks about this job,” she said aloud, “is that you don’t get to pick who you’ll fight.”

  Turning off the desk light, she made her way out into the evening air. Clouds were gathering overhead and she hoped it wouldn’t rain. They’d been lucky so far this hurricane season and hadn’t been hit by any named storms. While the season wasn’t quite over yet, Louisiana rarely had hurricanes make landfall in October, so she wasn’t worried.

  She was hungry, so she figured she’d get takeout before driving the thirty minutes to her house in Seasville. Betty Jo’s Fried Chicken was located off of Highway Three in Gracetown. They served up the best fried chicken anywhere, and fried chicken was one of her favorite meals.

  The sun was going down when she drove out of the detective bureau parking lot and headed north. By the time she was passing the dealership and approaching Jaguar Lane, the street lights along Highway Three were coming on. She suddenly remembered Cynthia Alvey and wondered how she was doing. Is she okay? What if Hank found out about my visit to his house? What if he beat her even worse?

  Without hesitating, Dawn turned the steering wheel and cruised down Jaguar Lane. She knew it was a bad idea to stop and visit, but she could at least drive by and see if things looked on the up-and-up.

  She was two houses away when she noticed Hank’s truck in the driveway. In a lot of ways, Hank had reminded her of her own father. He could turn his anger on and off…he could be beating the shit out of his wife in one second, and then smooth-talking the police in the very next moment.

  Sliding her passenger’s side window down, she slowed to a crawl and rolled past the house, trying to see through the front windows. There was a light on in the kitchen and the curtains were spread apart, but she couldn’t see movement from inside. She sped up and turned around at the next cross street. When she drove by the house a second time, she stopped briefly in the street, listening for any sign of a struggle from inside. All was quiet.

  Dawn let out a long sigh and drove off. She ordered a chicken combination dinner at the drive-thru at Betty Jo’s and then proceeded to River Road in Payneville, stopping at the park to eat. Lost in thought, she got out of the car and walked to the bayou side, leaving her food in the car. She took a seat on one of the concrete benches and stared out over the water. It was twilight and the stars were starting to flicker in the sky above her.

  Her heart was heavy as she sat there thinking about Hank and Cynthia. While Hank reminded her of her father, Cynthia reminded her of her mother…loyal to a fault. She’d take her beatings like a good soldier and would never betray her husband. Dawn could never understand how a woman would allow a man to do that to her, but she began to wonder if she’d been too hard on her mom—too judgmental, perhaps.

  Guilt started to slowly tug at her heartstrings. It had been over a year since she’d last spoken with her mom, and that last conversation hadn’t gone well. Her mom had hung up on her in anger and she vowed never to call again until her mom apologized.

  “To hell with it.” Dawn jerked her phone out and quickly dialed her mom’s number before she changed her mind. It only rang twice before her mom picked up.

  “Dawn?” Priscilla Luke’s voice was shaky. “Is it really you?”

  “It’s me, Mom. How are you?”

  Her mom immediately broke down in sobs. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry for the way things ended last time we talked. I thought I’d lost you forever. I thought you’d never call home again. Is everything okay? Is something wrong? Is that why you’re calling?”

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Dawn said in a soothing voice. “Everything’s fine. I’m just calling to check on you.”

  “Oh, God, it’s so good to hear your voice.” Priscilla sniffled loudly. “So much has happened around here. You…you’re an aunt.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, Darby and his wife had a baby. It’s a little girl. They named it Dawny…after you.

  Dawn gasped and her chest swelled with emotion. “He named his baby after me?”

  “Yeah, he told me he did.”

  “I thought he hated me for…for what I did.”

  “No, Honey, no one hates you. We love you. We’re proud of who you’ve become. We miss you and wish you’d come home.” Priscilla was quiet for a few seconds. When she spoke again, she picked her words carefully. “Your father loves you, too, Dawn. He misses you so much.”

  “Mom, you know how I feel about him.”

  “But he’s better now, Honey. He doesn’t drink anymore and he’s a totally different man when he’s sober.”

  “Right…how long will that last?”

  “It’s been over eight months. He’s got a sobriety coach and all. Darby and I go to meetings with him sometimes. Really, Honey, things are a lot better now.”

  Dawn shook her head as the thoughts swirled around in her mind. “No, Mom, people like that don’t change.”

  “They do, Dawn…they really do. You just have to have faith in them and trust in God that He will touch their lives.”

  “You’ve got to stop lying to yourself. He’s going to get angry one day and snap again, and it’s going to be worse than before. I’ve seen this too many times. It gets worse and worse until they finally step over the edge and kill the woman they claim to love.”

  Priscilla started sobbing again. “You’ve got to believe me when I tell you he’s a changed man. It was the alcohol that made him mean, and he’s off of it. He can think clearly now. He remembers all the good times, and he also remembers the bad ones.”

  “I’m not buying this.” Dawn gritted her teeth and thought about hanging up the phone. Her dad had apologized too many damn times for it to finally be real. “It won’t last forever.”

  “Why can’t you just be happy for me? For once, why can’t you just be happy?”

  “Happy? I’m worried about you.”

  “You don’t have to worry anymore. All of the bad stuff is over. He’s working six days a week and he’s going to church every Sunday with us like a family should. You really need to come here and see it for yourself.”

  “No, I’m not coming back there.” Dawn stared off into the night. “I almost destroyed my life the last time I was there.”

  “Your dad feels horrible about that night,” Priscilla said. “I was there when he talked about it in group. It was the first time I’ve ever seen him cry.”

  “I bet they were fake tears,” Dawn said, but her cold interior began to soften. What if it was true? Was it possible that her mom could finally live in peace, without fear of getting her ass whipped for spilling his coffee or burning the stew?

  “No, they were real. He was bawling like you did that time you stepped on the bumblebee when you were little. Remember that?”

  Dawn mumbled that she did.

  “Well, the counselor asked everyone to share their worst experience while intoxicated, and he said the worst day of his life was when he almost turned his little innocent princess into a murderer.”

  Dawn’s chest burned and she bit down hard to keep her jaw from trembling.

  “He began telling stories of how he used to help you catch lizards…how he taught you to tell everyone your phone number was one, eight-hundred, ass-whip when you were only three…how you and he would stay up late at night watching horror movies while the rest of us were sleeping…”

  Tears were flowing freely down Dawn’s cheeks as she remembered the man she used to lovingly call, Poppa. How had things gotten so terrible for her family? How had he turned into such a monster? There was a time when she thought he hung the moon. He could do no wrong. He was funny and strong and such a hard worker.

  “I tell you, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room as he recounted all the good times you guys shared.” Priscilla stopped to blow her nose. She was struggling to get the words out, but she continued. “He said only the devil himself could take such a sweet and innocent little angel and make her pick up a shotgun and attempt to k
ill another human being. He said he knew he deserved to die, but he would’ve hated it to be at the hand of his baby girl, because that’s not the life he wanted for her.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Dawn said through the tears. “If he really meant it, he would’ve changed back then. Why’d it take so long for him to open his eyes and realize what he was doing to us? What finally made him hit rock bottom and stop this madness? Am I supposed to believe he just woke up one day and decided he didn’t want to be an asshole anymore? Is that what you expect me to believe?”

  “No, he didn’t just wake up one day and decide to change. God forced it on him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Sweetie, I was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year.”

  Dawn gasped. “What? How…how bad?”

  Priscilla was silent for a long moment.

  Dawn felt a wave of panic rise to her throat. “Mom, how bad is it?”

  “It’s not good, but I’m at peace with it.”

  “Mom!” Dawn’s voice got away from her and sounded shriller than she meant. “How bad?”

  “It’s…they say it’s terminal.”

  CHAPTER 20

  The clock on the dash in my truck read eight-thirty when I pulled into the detective bureau parking lot. I’d decided to wear denim jeans and a dress T-shirt—if there was such a thing—to the bar, because we didn’t want to be readily identified as cops. We would let them know who we were when we were ready for them to know, not before.

  Dawn’s car was parked in front of the detective entrance and it was the only vehicle in the lot. I glanced through the front window. The building was dark except for the light in the lobby, which was always on, and I found that odd. I entered my security code and pushed through the door.

  “Dawn, are you here?” I called, flipping the switch for the bank of lights over the detectives’ offices. I strode through the lobby area and made my way toward our cubicles. Just as I rounded the corner, I heard a noise and saw Dawn lift her head from her desk.