by BJ Bourg
Her mouth slowly opened. “I get it! If the van would’ve been here a while, the grass would be dead.”
“Bingo! And I’m betting if we’d bring an air compressor out here we’d be able to fill those tires right up.”
“You think someone intentionally deflated the tires to make it look abandoned?”
I nodded and tried all the doors on the van, but they were locked. “Grab me your lock-job tool.”
“Are you just going to break in? You know that’s technically a burglary.”
“It’s like abandoned trash. I can do what I want with it.”
“Hold your horses, cowboy,” Dawn said, pulling out her cell phone. “I’ve got another idea.”
She walked toward the highway and looked up at a large billboard that stood guard near the entrance to the parking lot. I’d seen it a dozen times in the past few days, but never noticed the telephone number displayed in large red letters at the bottom of the advertisement. After speaking on her phone for a few minutes, she returned to her cruiser and snatched up the police radio.
“Dispatch, send the next wrecker on the list to Seasville Boat Launch. The owner would like an abandoned vehicle removed from his property.”
A smile spread across my face. “You’re good.”
“That’s what I hear.” Dawn smiled back and handed me her lock-job tool.
I went to work on the passenger’s front door and managed to pop the lock. I pulled the handle and eased the door open a crack, checking for wires or other hazards before pulling it completely open. Once I was inside, I opened the glove compartment and searched for a registration. There was none. I leaned into the van and unlocked the driver’s door and let Dawn in. She slid the piece of paper off the dash and copied down the VIN.
While Dawn called in a registration check, I retrieved a notebook from her cruiser and began an inventory search of the entire van. The back floor was littered with empty bags and cups from various fast food restaurants. I checked all of the bags, but found nothing useful inside. I was about to give up when I saw a crumpled up piece of paper sticking out from under the driver’s floor mat. I pulled it out and carefully unfolded it. It was a receipt from a fast food joint out of a small town in northern Mississippi, and it was dated five days ago. “That would explain the red dirt,” I said aloud. “You lied to me, Shannon. You’re not from New York after all.”
“You think this is Shannon’s van?” Dawn asked, approaching me from behind.
“If not him, then who else?”
Dawn held up her notepad and read, “Celeste Clarkston, from out of Moss Creek, Mississippi.”
“A woman?”
“Yep, that’s what it says.”
I rubbed the pickers on my chin. “I really thought this hippy mobile was for Shannon.”
Tires crunching on gravel turned our attention to the parking lot, where we saw Norm pulling the Boston Whaler. “What’s going on here?” he asked.
“Someone set this van up to look abandoned,” I explained. “Do you mind waiting for the wrecker while we head to the marina and talk with Joyce’s boss and friends?”
“Do I have a choice?” Norm asked, scratching the underside of the front of his belly.
“Of course you have a choice,” Dawn said. “You can choose to be a sweetheart and stay with the van.”
Norm blushed. “Sure, Dawn…anything for you.”
“Sure, Dawn…anything for you,” I said when we were seated in Dawn’s cruiser and heading north on Highway Three.
“You’re just jealous Norm would do anything for me and nothing for you.”
“That’s it,” I said idly, my mind turning to the killer sniper operating in my jurisdiction. Where was he? Why was he doing this? How many more people would die before I got him?
CHAPTER 26
Before walking into the marina restaurant, Dawn called Melvin to make sure he’d notified Joyce’s parents. She frowned and I knew it wasn’t good. She spoke for a few minutes and then ended the call. “They didn’t take it well,” she said.
“I didn’t expect they would.”
“The mom collapsed and Melvin had to call an ambulance for her. As for the dad, he said Joyce was loved by everyone. She’d just finished her first year of college and was excited about this new job. He said she comes home every night after work. She doesn’t go out much. Doesn’t drink, doesn’t do drugs.” Dawn shook her head. “Melvin said this came as a complete shock to them.”
I gritted my teeth, wondering what on earth would cause someone to kill an innocent girl in cold blood. It was one thing to commit a drive-by shooting and randomly hit innocent by-standers. It’s quite another thing to stare through a scope—bringing the victim up close and personal—and coldly put a bullet through an innocent young girl’s head. It took a special kind of evil to pull that off.
With nothing more to say between us, we stepped inside. The dining area was bright and bustling with customers and waitresses. The smell of fried seafood made my stomach growl like a rabid dog on steroids that hadn’t eaten in a week. It was only then that I remembered we hadn’t eaten all day.
“You hungry?” I asked Dawn.
She grabbed her flat stomach and nodded, so we took a seat at a corner table and waited for the waitress to stop by. When a young lady with a nametag that read, Ali, approached our table, we ordered shrimp Po-boys and asked to speak with a manager.
Ali’s eyes widened. “Did I do something wrong?”
Dawn smiled, shook her head. “We need to speak with a manager about one of your employees. We simply need to get some background information.”
“Thank God,” she said. “We’re shorthanded today and it’s been crazy. I know I’ve messed up at least four orders, and one more would probably be the death of me.”
“Who didn’t show?” I asked.
Ali’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You said you’re shorthanded,” I explained. “Who didn’t show up for work?”
“Oh.” Ali pushed her jet black hair out of her eyes. “Joyce missed her shift. It’s unlike her not to call in…” Her voice trailed off and she stared knowingly from me to Dawn, and then back to me. “It’s Joyce, isn’t it? Something’s wrong with Joyce!”
“Now, now,” Dawn said. “I need you to calm down and just get a manager.”
Ali threw a hand over her mouth and hurried into the kitchen. Mere seconds later, a robust woman came from the kitchen and scanned the room until she saw us. She then made a beeline for our table and stood over us, her eyes looking concerned. “Ali says there’s something wrong with Joyce.”
“We didn’t say anything to her,” I said. “We simply asked to speak with a manager.”
“Well, I’m Katrina, and I’m the manager on shift.”
Dawn looked around the crowded room. “Is there someplace we can speak in private?”
Without saying a word, Katrina turned and walked toward a long hallway that sported a bathroom sign. She led us to the last door on the right and we stepped inside a cramped office. There was just enough room for the three of us to stand without rubbing shoulders, but not much more than that.
“So, what’s going on?” Katrina asked. “Is she in trouble?”
“There’s been a terrible incident,” Dawn said, careful not to use the word accident. “We need to know from you if there was anyone who might want to harm Joyce.”
Katrina grabbed at her throat with both hands and squeezed her eyes shut. Her breathing became labored and tears slipped through, spilling down her plump and red face. Dawn rubbed her arm and told her it was going to be okay and we were going to catch the person responsible. “We just need your help in determining if there was anyone who might want to harm her.”
Katrina shook her head from side to side. She finally opened her eyes and dabbed at them with her apron. “Joyce never had trouble with anyone that I know about. She was a good kid. Maybe a little too flirtatious at times, but a good kid, nonetheless.”
>
As Dawn asked the next question, my phone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out and frowned when I saw the number. “I have to take this,” I told Dawn, and hurried outside. I took a left when I cleared the doorway and walked to the edge of a wooden wharf. “Hey, Dave, what’s up?”
“London Carter…it’s been a long time.”
“Yeah,” I said. “What’s it been…three years?”
“Closer to four. I heard you had quite a bit of action last year. They say you handled yourself like a real pro.”
“Everything ended the way it should. What about you? How’ve you been?”
“Oh, you know, counting down the days until retirement.” Dave paused for a minute, and then said, “So, I hear you’ve got a real live one down there. Two victims in three days—clean head shots.”
My eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why’s the FBI calling about a local murder case?”
Dave laughed. “Come now, London, this ain’t the bureau you’re talking to. It’s me, Taz, just calling to catch up with an old friend.”
Dave was assistant team leader of the FBI’s local sniper division and he insisted his men never used real names. He’d nicknamed everyone on the team with the exception of their leader, Mule, who carried that name from high school. Dave had given himself the name Taz—short for the Tasmanian devil—because he was a huge fan of the Looney Tunes.
I sighed. “Sorry, you know how much I trust the feds.”
“I’m no regular suit, London…you know that. We’re sniper brothers. My blood runs up-vein, same as yours.”
“I know, man, I know.”
“So, what’s going on down there in alligator country?”
I told him what we’d been dealing with. “I’m not positive we have the right guy in custody, but I sure hope so. Without knowing what he wants, no one’s safe and everyone’s in danger.”
“That’s no lie.” Dave was quiet for a second, then told me to keep my head down and stay safe.
I disconnected the call and returned to our table, where Dawn was tearing into her Po-boy. “Sorry,” she said between mouthfuls. She stopped to wipe a bit of ketchup that had spilled onto her chin. “I’m just saving my own life. I was so hungry!”
I nodded absently and sat across from her, toying with my sandwich. Dawn cocked her head to the side. “What’s wrong?” She looked toward the door from where I’d just come and then back at me. “Was it the phone call? What’s going on?”
I looked up and smiled when I saw her sitting there holding her half-eaten Po-boy in one hand—the juices dripping down her wrist—with an inquisitive and eager look on her beautiful face. I didn’t know what she wanted more at that moment—the information or the Po-boy.
“Well?” she asked. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or make me beg?”
“It’s nothing, really.”
“Bullshit. You’re starving and you haven’t even touched your food yet. What the hell’s going on?”
Am I being paranoid?
“An old friend of mine from the FBI just called to shoot the shit, and he asked about our case.”
Dawn stared blankly at me. “And? What’s wrong with that?”
“He’s an FBI agent—they don’t just call to shoot the shit.”
CHAPTER 27
Dawn and I rushed to the Seasville Substation after finishing our meal. She dropped to the large computer monitor in the evidence processing room and I paused by the door.
“Are you going to find out as much as you can about this Celeste Clarkston?”
“That’s the plan.”
“I’ll sit down with Shannon again while you do that.”
She just waved over her shoulder and began stabbing at the keyboard like a woman on a mission.
I pulled Shannon from his cell and led him to the interview room. “Tell me again what you were doing in Wellman Boudreaux’s boat.”
Shannon took an impatient breath and then recounted the same story he’d told earlier.
“And you know nothing about the young girl who was shot through the head?”
He shook his head slowly, a sad look on his face. “I would never hurt anyone, detective. Not an animal and most certainly not a human. It would be against my moral code.”
“Would it surprise you to know the dead girl was murdered in the same boat you stole?”
“Your good looking detective partner alluded to that earlier, and I’ve told you countless times I don’t know anything about a girl being raped or murdered.”
“Turns out, she wasn’t raped—just shot through the head with a high-powered rifle.”
Shannon tossed his hands up. “There you go—I don’t even have a high-powered rifle. Now may I leave?”
I leaned back and studied the man, wondering if I should believe him. My instincts were usually well calibrated, and they were telling me he had nothing to do with the murders. “How’s Celeste?” I asked.
Shannon cocked his head to the side. “Who?”
“Celeste Clarkston—how’s she doing?”
He seemed genuinely confused. “I don’t know a Celeste Clarkston.”
“Is that your van abandoned in the parking lot at the boat launch?” I asked, changing gears.
“No, but I saw it when I first got there to save the alligators. I actually thought about breaking into it and using it as a refuge from the mosquitoes.” He shook his head. “Either they don’t make tents like they used to or the mosquitoes down here can work a zipper, because I can’t keep those damn bloodsuckers out of my tent. You know animals can learn such things? Bears in Tennessee have learned to open car doors to steal food from inside. Can you believe that? They’ve learned how to commit a B and E.”
“Forget about the bears for a minute,” I said. “You’re in a hell of a pickle and I need you to recount—in detail—all of your activities from Wednesday and Thursday. Don’t leave anything out.”
After taking a deep breath, he gave a minute by minute accounting of his activities and whereabouts, and it didn’t include shooting Norris in the head.
“Why weren’t you at the boat launch this morning?” I wanted to know.
“Oh, we changed locations,” he explained. “We couldn’t do much to stop the killings of God’s giant lizards on shore, so we took to the water. One of my fellow saviors has a friend named Gary Allain—I told you about him earlier—who owns a camp on Little Bayou north of Pelican Pass. He invited us to stay with him. A warm cot certainly beats a cold tent floor.”
My outward expression remained fixed, but I’d taken note inwardly. The person who killed Norris had escaped through Little Bayou. Coincidence?
“You mentioned earlier that a friend was driving y’all around in his aluminum hull. Was that Gary?”
He nodded his head.
“Where’s he now?”
“Gary? I don’t know. When he dropped us off he said he was heading back to his camp. He said we were crazy for getting into a boat that didn’t belong to us out here in swamp country.” Shannon grunted. “He said it was akin to horse thievery in the Old West and that we’d be lucky if we didn’t get shot. He didn’t want any part of it, so he got the hell out of there. My guess is he’s still at his camp.”
“During our first conversation, you admitted to damaging property belonging to a number of hunters.” I stared across the desk at him. “Do you still stand by that confession?”
“I do. I did it in self-defense for the alligators. Plain and simple, it was a case of justifiable damage to property and not punishable by your oppressive laws.”
“Of course not,” I said in mock agreement. “But did your friends encourage you to run from us? There’s no justification for that.”
“I didn’t run from you all. I was running from the hunters. I swear on my mom’s eyes.”
“I guess you didn’t hear the siren blaring?”
“Not until you were right on us, at which time I immediately stopped, so I cannot be tried for violating the crime of runn
ing from the police.”
I smiled to myself. He was certainly creative. After thirty more minutes of getting nowhere with him, I returned him to his cell and interviewed his three companions, one at a time. They all said exactly the same thing, which meant they’d either rehearsed their stories to the finest detail before we arrested them—an unlikely scenario—or they were telling the truth.
I booked them on the damage and resisting charges and then returned to where Dawn was still hovered over the computer.
“Got anything?” I asked.
“I think so.” She handed me a stack of papers. “This is every address for Celeste Clarkston over the past thirty years.”
I scanned the listings—most of which were located in northern Mississippi, with one in Provo, Utah and one in Casper, Wyoming—while Dawn’s fingers continued to drum on the keys. The printer fired to life and she leaned over and snatched a page off of the tray. She handed that one to me, as well.
“These are all the people who resided with her at each address. Check out the third name from the top.”
I found the name and stared at it for a split second. Patrick Clarkston. “Holy shit! That’s got to be Slick Patrick—you found him!”
Dawn was beaming. “It is. I ran his name in the address database, but he only shows up once, and it’s at that Mississippi address. I also ran a nationwide vehicle registration query, but he doesn’t own any vehicles.”
“Patrick Clarkston,” I said out loud, “who the hell are you?” I was thoughtful for a moment, and then asked Dawn if she’d tried running his criminal record.
“Nothing shows up under his name.” Dawn leaned back and pointed to the monitor screen. “He’s like a ghost. Why?”
“Good question. Can you have Melvin call the Moss Creek Police Department and see if they’ve had any complaints at that address? If they’ve responded to unlock Celeste’s car, I want to know about it. If they’ve responded to a noise complaint because Patrick’s dog was barking too much, I want to know about it. If the officers there had contact with him, they might know his true name.”