Proving Grounds: A London Carter Novel (London Carter Mystery Series Book 2)

by BJ Bourg

  “I see. Well, I understand y’all move around quite a bit.” Dawn pulled out the printout from Eric’s address query. “Utah, North Dakota, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Mexico, Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana. That’ a lot of moving around. Are y’all running from something?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Who, exactly, does your husband train?”

  “High school students interested in joining the military.” Stephanie looked from Dawn to me and back to Dawn. “Why won’t you tell me why I’m here?”

  “I’ll get to that.” Dawn laid out news clippings detailing the eight sniper-style attacks that had occurred over the past ten years, beginning with the slaying of Patrick’s son and ending with the recent attacks. “I’d like you to look at the dates you lived in these areas”—she pointed to the address printouts—“and then compare them to the dates of these sniper attacks.”

  Stephanie was quiet as she compared the dates and took her time reading the details of each case. Her face seemed to lose its color as realization set in. “Do you think…are you saying Eric’s involved with these murders? That he killed innocent people?” She shook her head. “That’s preposterous. Eric’s a good man. He would never hurt anyone.”

  “He might not get his hands dirty, but he certainly trains young kids to kill innocent people.”

  “That’s hogwash. He teaches them how to be good soldiers.” She raised her chin defiantly. “Eric’s a good man—well respected. We’ll get a lawyer and sue you if you try to shame him publicly with this nonsense.”

  “Instead of making idle threats, why don’t you tell me why Eric left the military?”

  “Eric never did agree with the War in Afghanistan, but he was a good soldier and a good leader, and he followed orders without question. He was so dedicated that he refused to come home on leave. He’d spend his free time out there with his men. I didn’t like it, but I understood his dedication to his friends.”

  “Then why’d he retire?”

  Stephanie frowned. “He never told me, but I had my suspicions.”

  “And?” Dawn pressed.

  “A few of his closest friends were killed right before his last leave, and I think it took a toll on him.” Stephanie hung her head. “When he came home I could see he was a changed man. He was distant and cold. I tried everything in my power to get through to him, but he wouldn’t respond to me. When he went back off of leave, he put in his paperwork to begin the retirement process.”

  “Was he better after he retired?”

  “No, not at all. I begged him to get help, but it was no use. He was always out late at night and he’d come home smelling like booze. He wouldn’t even touch me. I was at my wits end and finally turned it over to the Lord and put it in His hands. That’s when Eric had this brilliant idea to mentor future soldiers.” She smiled warmly. “I know it was God answering my prayers.”

  Dawn changed gears. “Ma’am, where was your husband when the SWAT guys entered your house this morning?”

  “He was in the shower.”

  “Where were you?”

  “The kitchen.”

  “And Wade?”

  “He lives with us. He was sitting in the kitchen with me having our morning coffee. Why are you asking these questions?”

  “I’m curious, ma’am…why didn’t you run when the team came through the front door?”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Good answer.” Dawn nodded as she turned on her camera and flipped through her images. “What about Eric? Did he do anything wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Then why’d he escape through the tunnel?”

  “What tunnel?” Stephanie’s face twisted in confusion, then her eyes slowly widened. “That gunshot I heard—was that Eric? Did y’all shoot Eric?” She stared wildly around the room. “Where the hell’s my husband? I demand to see him now!”

  Dawn slowly turned her camera so Stephanie could see the display screen. “Why was Eric dressed like this and why did he point a gun at one of our SWAT operators?”

  Stephanie screamed in horror when she saw the photograph of Eric wearing a ghillie suit and holding a rifle in his dead hands. She clawed at her face with long fingernails, as though trying to rip the image from her mind.

  “I’m sorry to do this, ma’am,” Dawn said in a soft voice, “but I need you to tell me why he escaped through that tunnel and why he pointed a gun at our officers?”

  Stephanie sat there bawling, shaking her head, and repeating over and over that Eric was a good man and she didn’t know what was going on.

  Dawn held out her hand and asked for my phone. Without saying a word, I handed it over. Dawn accessed my voicemail and held my phone in Stephanie’s direction. “I want you to listen carefully.”

  Stephanie wiped her face on her shirt sleeve and stared at the phone. “What is this?”

  “Just listen.” Dawn played the voicemail that recorded Sally’s last words and her last minute on earth. When Eric’s voice was heard in the recording, Stephanie recoiled in horror and began bawling again. She shook uncontrollably and began banging her head on the desk, screaming, “Why, Lord? Why is this happening to me?”

  Dawn spent the next twenty minutes trying to calm her down and get her to talk, but it was no use. We finally called for a medic to tend to her and then left the interview room, entering the dark observatory where Sheriff Chiasson was standing with Patrick and Hibbitts.

  “Did you have to show her the picture and play that recording?” Sheriff Chiasson asked, wiping his brow with a white handkerchief.

  Dawn nodded. “I needed to know if she was telling the truth.”

  “She knows nothing about her husband’s extracurricular activities,” I said. “Nothing about him screwing other women and nothing about him training murderers.”

  I turned and moved to the opposite side of the observatory and peered through the other two-way mirror. Wade was sitting with his arms crossed and his feet planted firmly on the ground. He was staring intently at the door, as though he would charge as soon as it opened.

  “Hibbitts, I need you to tell me everything y’all found out there in the swamps.” I said. “I want to know as much as I can about the crime scene before Dawn and I sit down with him.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Two hours later…

  Dawn and I entered the interview room where Wade was sitting. He was mid-thirties and stocky. It was clear he’d spent a lot of time in the gym pumping iron, which was odd for a sniper. Snipers know big muscles get tired faster, so they strive to be lean and mean.

  I jerked a chair from behind the desk and placed it directly in front of Wade, held out my hand. He eyed it suspiciously, but finally shook it.

  “I’m London Carter and this is Dawn Luke,” I said. “We’re investigating the murder of—hell, a lot of people. First off, are you willing to talk to us?”

  Wade shrugged. “I’ve got nothing to hide. I don’t even know why you guys cuffed me.”

  “Then this’ll be short.” I read him his Miranda rights and then had him sign the form. When that was done, I set it aside and leaned back in my chair. “If you’ve got nothing to hide, does that mean you didn’t do anything wrong?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So, it’s not wrong to go around the country manipulating young minds and making them prove themselves by killing men, women, and children?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I leaned forward and slapped my knee, breaking out in a fit of exaggerated laughter. Wade’s eyebrows furrowed as he watched me, not sure what was so funny. After I brought my laughter under control, I said, “Man, you’re such a coward.”

  That got his hackles up. He looked like he wanted to jump from his chair and pound me with his fists, which were balled up at his side. “What’d you call me?”

  I scooted my chair closer and got in his face. “I said you’re a coward…a yellow belly…a scared little boy with no ba
ckbone. Did you hear me that time?”

  His eyes turned to slits. “Oh, I’m no coward. I’m a soldier and I’m not scared of shit.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I leaned back and folded my arms across my chest. “Then tell me how many innocent people you’ve murdered.”

  “I haven’t murdered anyone.”

  “You know, Wade, real soldiers don’t lie.” I shook my head. “Nope, they’re not afraid to tell the truth. They own their sins…take responsibility for their actions. But you”—I shoved my finger in his face—“you’re nothing but a terrified little bitch. You’re a little punk coward wannabe. You’re an insult to Sergeant Boyd.”

  “I’m…I’m a real soldier.”

  “You disgust me.” I waved him off. “Sergeant Boyd will be sorely disappointed in you. At least he had the stones to admit what he did.”

  Wade cocked his head sideways. “Wait a minute. I heard a gunshot. Didn’t y’all shoot Sergeant Boyd?”

  “Come on, Wade, don’t be so naïve.” I lifted my arms out to my side. “I’m a sniper…I can tell a bullet to go wherever I want it to go. If I want to disable Eric with a bullet but keep him alive so I can talk to him…well, I have that power.”

  Beads of sweat were starting to gather on Wade’s brow, and I knew I was getting to him.

  “You know, our team recovered three ghillie suits and three sniper rifles…two of each from Sergeant Boyd’s house and one from Roger’s house. You remember Roger, right? Anyway, our crime scene techs have fingerprinted all three rifles and sent them for DNA and ballistics comparison.” I paused for a few seconds to let him consider that information. “Which of those rifles will come back with your prints and DNA? Will it be the one that killed my FBI buddy Dave? Will it be the one that killed that poor girl, Joyce Cole? Answer me, man. Who are you responsible for killing?”

  “I didn’t kill anybody.”

  “What would you say if I told you Eric is putting this whole thing on you? That you’re the one who made Roger kill those people? That it was your idea to kill the FBI agents? That it was you who murdered Roger to shut him up?”

  “I didn’t murder Roger! He was my friend—I would never turn on one of my own. I told Sergeant Boyd—”

  Wade caught himself and clamped his mouth shut.

  “Come on, man, keep talking,” I said. “Who killed the FBI agents?”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “There you go lying like a coward again.” I leaned my elbows on my knees and stared up at him. “Our investigators were able to determine that three shooters stalked the FBI team and set up a triangulated ambush, murdering every last one of them. I only need your fingerprints or DNA on one of those rifles and I’ll be able to arrest you for first degree murder. Do you know what’ll happen next?”

  Wade stared at me without answering.

  “You’ll get convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. And then one day, about ten years from now, they’re going to drag you out of your small concrete cell and strap you to a bed. Some doctor in a white suit and mask will walk in and inject some death juice into you. After a little kicking and trembling, you’ll die like the coward you are—not on the battlefield like a real soldier.” I nodded. “That’s your future, so you’d just as soon embrace it.”

  Wade’s head fell and I saw tears spilling from his eyes and splashing on the floor.

  “If I tell you everything, will you grant me one wish?”

  “It depends. What do you want?”

  “I want to die like a real soldier—in front of a firing squad.”

  I frowned. “As much as I’d love to oblige you, we don’t have firing squads here in Louisiana.”

  “They have them in Utah.”

  “But you committed first degree murder here in Louisiana, so you’ll have to be punished according to our laws.”

  “What if I confess to a murder in Utah? Can I then go before a firing squad?”

  “What murder?”

  “Do I have a deal?”

  “Yes…yes, you have a deal.” I wasn’t sure if I could make it happen, but if he gave me something useful, I’d sure as hell try. “Now, what murder in Utah?”

  “The murder of a man, a woman, and a little boy,” Wade said quietly.

  My heart slowed to a crawl and I stole a glance at the two-way mirror, behind which I knew Patrick was standing. “This little boy…what was he doing when you murdered him?”

  “He was walking his dog in the desert.”

  CHAPTER 49

  Wade spent the next thirty minutes detailing his relationship with Sergeant Boyd and how he’d become involved in his program.

  “I was in a bad place eleven years ago,” Wade explained. “My dad caught me dealing meth out of the shed in the back yard and beat the shit out of me. He kicked me out the house. After a week of living on the streets, my cousin let me run with his crew.”

  Wade’s cousin was a sergeant in a militia group and they were hanging out in a local bar just outside of Salt Lake City one night when he met Boyd. The meeting seemed one of chance, but Wade later learned Boyd had overheard one of his anti-government rants the week before in a grocery store.

  “He told me I was the perfect candidate for a new program he was developing,” Wade said. “Everything happened so fast from there. Next thing I know, I’ve got a sniper rifle in my hands, I’m killing people to prove to him I’ve got what it takes to wage war on the United States military, and I’m headed for boot camp.”

  Boyd’s plan was for Wade to graduate from boot camp and get deployed to the War in Afghanistan. Once there, he was to covertly wage war on his fellow soldiers, taking out as many of them as he could without being detected. Eric figured if enough American soldiers died, they’d eventually accept defeat and pull out of the area.

  “It seems a bit far-fetched,” I said, “for Eric to think he could insert rogue killers into the military and then have them murder their fellow soldiers.”

  “Y’all do it all the time,” Wade said flatly. “My cousin was taken down by an undercover pig—no offense—who infiltrated his group. What makes you think y’all are the only ones who can use undercover spies?”

  “Good point.”

  “I was Sergeant Boyd’s first recruit,” Wade said, “but he was wrong about me—and I was wrong about myself. I didn’t mind killing that man and woman, but I couldn’t go on anymore after killing that little boy. I was having nightmares and seeing that kid’s face everywhere I looked. I tried to back out, but Sergeant Boyd wouldn’t let me. I got the feeling he would kill me if I walked away, so I shipped off to boot camp like we planned and waited for a chance to injure myself. I knew I had to sustain a crippling injury to get discharged, so I wrecked my knee bad during an o-course (obstacle course).” He frowned. “I did too good a job, because now I’m disabled.”

  After Wade was discharged, Eric took him in and supported him like he was his own son. “He was the father I never had,” Wade said. “We grew really close and he made me a part of the program. I’d go out, connect with local militia and other anti-American hate groups, and look for someone who had what it took to get the job done. I was the liaison between Sergeant Boyd and the recruits.”

  “You do know he was using you, right?” I asked. “He sent you out there to make the contacts to minimize his exposure.”

  “He would never do that to me.” Wade sounded confident in his assertion. “I was an integral part of the operation. Together, we had seven successful operations. Of course, none were as good as Roger would’ve been. That kid would’ve done some damage had he made it through the Air Force Academy.”

  My mood turned sour and it was all I could do to keep my composure. I wanted to rip Wade’s throat out, but I knew I couldn’t mistreat him. “How’d you come by Roger anyway?”

  “I found him on social media while we were still in Tennessee,” Wade said. “He was using some fake name and railing against the war like many people, but in an ex
tremely intelligent way. I contacted him privately and we ended up having a lot of things in common. We communicated for over a year and became really close. When I told Sergeant Boyd about him, he wanted to come to Louisiana immediately and meet Roger in person, but it took a lot of convincing on my part. Roger was a cautious one, that’s for sure, but once he met Sergeant Boyd, the rest—as they say—was history.”

  I was glad I’d put a bullet in Eric’s head. “How did Eric convince these guys—hell, you—to kill for him?”

  “A little hate goes a long way, and Sergeant Boyd knows how to exploit it. He’s a very persuasive man.”

  After questioning him for a while longer, I asked who took out the FBI’s sniper ream.

  “We all did,” Wade admitted. “When we send a soldier out to his proving grounds, Sergeant Boyd and I set up in positions to best support him in case he runs into trouble. Sergeant Boyd spotted the government’s team at this camp on the northeast sector of the proving grounds, so we knew they were coming after Roger. We simply set up our sniper hides and waited. As I’m sure you already know, it’s hard to find something that doesn’t move, but it’s easy to spot something that does.” Wade shrugged. “As soon as they got into our field of fire, we took them out. We knew the rest of the team would come looking for them—it’s what you cops do—so we stayed in our positions until they arrived.”

  I was thoughtful. “Why was Eric doing this? I mean, what was his beef with the United States military?”

  Wade frowned. “Sergeant Boyd had met an Afghan woman while serving in Afghanistan. She was friendly to him and he’d sneak over to her place every chance he got. The more they hung out, the more they liked each other, and they eventually fell in love. He’d even pass on opportunities to return state side just so he could be with her. His girlfriend eventually got pregnant for him and he promised to bring her back home to Utah, where he would divorce his wife and marry her.”