Long Shadows: A Mystery Thriller (Winton Chevalier Book 1)

by John Oakes

Winton nodded. “Remus killed Maroulis. Lucas found out. That’s the simplest answer.”

  But saying the words aloud made the notion seem ridiculous. It was hard for Winton to convince himself that it could be true. Even though he’d been locked in a trunk and left for dead by Remus’ thugs, something in his mind didn’t want to believe that had been real either, didn’t want to remember that he was so powerless.

  “We might be punching above our weight,” Julius said. “We’re talking about a dirty cop who needs to protect his ass right now. Look what they did to you, and you say you’re a former chief’s son?” He shook his head. “They ain’t gonna bother with me. They’ll take the fifteen cent solution.” Julius mimed popping off a shot with a pistol.

  Winton set his chin on his fists. “My dad told me to be ready for something like this. Jesus. Even on his death bed, the old man is sharp as an eagle.” Winton lightly pounded his fist. “He knew Remus was hiding something. He knew something was wrong.”

  Winton heard the other part of what his father had said in his mind, unable to flinch away. His father’s quavering voice rang in his ears. “You have to find the rage where you left it, son, and sharpen it. And when the moment comes, don’t blink.”

  Winton considered the fries and sweet tea before him. He was eating light because of his tender constitution, because some bugs and a dead goat had exasperated him. What fool sense would make him think he could take on Remus or his men?

  “Julius, you can drop me back in New Orleans,” Winton said somberly. “And I’ll make sure, no matter what happens, this doesn’t blow back on you.”

  Julius swallowed with a severe look on his face. Eyes narrowed, he nodded. “What are you gonna do?”

  “I’ll check on my dad, then…” Winton was almost overcome, adding the stress of his family’s state onto his emotions regarding Lucas and Remus. “I don’t know.”

  An hour later, Julius dropped Winton off at the hospital. Winton insisted on paying for every mile Julius had driven, with a considerable tip.

  “You’re good people, Winton Chevalier.”

  They clasped hands.

  “You too, Julius. Good luck with those houses.”

  “God bless your brother and your father. I’ll say a prayer, even though I’m rusty.”

  With a nod, they went their ways.

  TWELVE

  Winton didn’t find any of his family in the surgery waiting area. He asked a nurse where to find his father and was told he’d been moved to the ICU.

  “The ICU? What happened?”

  The nurse didn’t know, but gave him directions. He walked as fast as his stubby legs could carry him, then asked another nurse how to track down his father’s room. He was huffing his breaths as he turned a corner and walked right into Corbin’s rear end.

  “Gah,” Winton sputtered and reared back.

  “Winton!” Corbin’s voice was as much chastising as surprised. “Where in the H-E-double-hockey-sticks were you?”

  “Sorry. I got tied up.”

  Winton’s mother walked toward him. He expected her to pounce on him next, but before she could, a nurse with dark skin and bright eyes grabbed him by the wrist. “You’re with me, mister.”

  “Huh?”

  She wasn’t asking or answering questions. The nurse pulled him along as fast as his feet could keep up. “Easy, lady!”

  “Winnie, dear.” His mother called after him. “Don’t worry. We just need your blood.”

  “My blood?”

  “There was a complication in your father’s surgery, hun.” The nurse’s tone was sweet but firm. “There was a highway pile up, and the blood bank ran low on your father’s blood type.”

  “But I don’t have—”

  “I know your father has a different blood type than you, but your momma says you’re AB negative. That makes you a universal plasma donor.”

  The words echoed from Winton’s younger years when he’d struggled financially and had to give blood to get by. Before he knew what was happening, he’d been pulled into a phlebotomy lab and helped up onto one of the six padded tables.

  As the nurse with the bright eyes prepared to hook him up to the machine, he asked, “All due respect, ma’am, how does a hospital run out of blood?”

  “Well, we stock what seems like a reasonable amount, and then the dice roll how they roll. I went to the tire place the other day ‘cause of a flat, and they didn’t have my kind of tire. Had to send for it across town. Just like that.”

  “What’s wrong with my dad?”

  “My guess is he lost some blood.”

  Winton picked up on his own brand of sarcasm. “You guys nick an artery?” he asked. “Anything I can sue for?”

  She gave a hint of a grin. “Sometimes people are on a medication that makes blood harder to clot.”

  “Sure, sure. I’ve heard the stories about people getting the wrong leg amputated, too.”

  “Little man, you know I’m about to stab you with a needle.”

  “Point taken.”

  “Sorry,” she said, lowering her voice. “Sorry I said that.”

  Winton laughed. “Nah, you’re good. Sticks and stones—ah, jeez.”

  He tensed as the needle went in, then arched his back as pain blossomed deeper in his flesh.

  “Sorry,” the nurse said. “Sorry, hun. Vein rolled on me. Come here.”

  “Gah.” Winton bared his teeth.

  “Ooh, you’ve got persnickety veins, young man.”

  Winton grunted again.

  “There we go.”

  Winton relaxed and sighed with relief, then cursed inwardly. Red flowed from his arm, down a tube and into the machine.

  “The centrifuge separates plasma from red blood cells, and eventually returns the blood cells to you with a saline solution.”

  The whirs and beeps of the machine were vaguely familiar. “It’s all starting to come back to me. I used to be a pro.”

  The nurse left him with a pat on the arm and said she’d check back in ten minutes. The whole thing should be done in half an hour.

  In the old days, he used to bring a book to read, but now his only entertainment was reliving the hellish day he’d had.

  Since he had nothing but time, he pulled out Lucas’ phone and scrolled through his texts again, looking for anything instructive. Nothing except Lucas’ trash talk to members of his fantasy basketball league and lame attempts to flirt with girls.

  Winton checked the photos again, this time scrolling through each one carefully. He stopped cold on an image of a ship docked in what looked like the Mississippi river. Grey and red and rusted all over, the big ship had Chinese lettering on it. Winton zoomed in.

  “Liberia?” he asked aloud. Plain, bold letters marked out the ships provenance as “Monrovia, Liberia.” Winton was reasonably certain that was in West Africa. “A Chinese ship from Liberia?” Winton did an internet search and found that a good number of cargo ships listed Monrovia, Liberia as their home port because of the lax regulations and taxes. It was the maritime equivalent of bankers working in the Caymans or casinos setting up in Nevada.

  Winton scrolled through more photos, looking for any other possible connection Lucas could have had with Maroulis, or shipping, religion or spirituality, or anything to do with Remus.

  A door closed in a far-off segment of the lab. It seemed a little early for the nurse to be back to check on him, but if ten minutes had already flown by, all the better.

  A low male voice carried around the corner, followed by another.

  Winton’s face grew heavy. He lowered the phone to his belly.

  “It says he’s in here,” the Cajun voice said. “Don’t get mad at me. I’m just doing what Jeffords said.”

  Winton sat straight up.

  The big Cajun stepped into the room, glancing about, dressed in civilian clothes this time, an LSU windbreaker and jeans. The dark barrel-chested sergeant, Elgin, followed right behind in a black polo and khakis.

  They
turned to look at him.

  “You,” Winton gasped.

  “You?” the two police officers said in unison.

  The three men stared at one another in complete shock for what felt to Winton like an absurdly long time before all hell broke loose. Rabelais chose to hustle around a divider, but Elgin vaulted right over it.

  Winton looked about feverishly, then ripped the needle out of his arm. Between the tape ripping away and the tug of the needle, Winton could have cried out in pain, but was too breathless. Before he could shuffle off the bed, Elgin was on him, throwing him back on the table and pinning his shoulders down.

  “Well, well.” The fat Cajun approached with a swagger, wagging his jaw, smacking at his gum. It finally hit Winton that this dope’s name was Rabelais, like the philosopher. Something about that irony engaged Winton’s rational mind through the fear, giving him a moment to think, even as he thrashed about.

  Elgin shook him, and wild anger gripped his face. “How are you here?”

  “What’s this?” Rabelais picked Lucas phone off the bed and waggled it. “Maybe that’s how he got out of the trunk.”

  Elgin growled in assent. “So that’s where Chevalier’s phone was. Who did you call? Who?”

  Winton was determined not to answer, but it didn’t matter. Rabelais searched through the texts. “Here it is. He texted someone his location.”

  “Run the number,” Elgin said. “Call Jeffords. Find out who it is.”

  “What are you gonna do?” Rabelais nodded down at Winton.

  Elgin bared his teeth. They’d found Winton, but unexpectedly, and in the middle of a rather public place. Winton remembered that the nurse would return. Maybe he could stall them.

  “You’re trying to find my brother,” Winton said. “So am I.”

  “You know where he is?” Elgin asked.

  “Not yet. But maybe we don’t have to be so at odds.”

  “At odds.” Elgin smiled. “That what we are? At odds?”

  “Listen,” Winton said. “I don’t care what Remus did, or that you two are helping him. I just want my brother safe.”

  “Shut that mouth, midget,” Rabelais said.

  “Just go call Jeffords already,” Elgin spat.

  Rabelais stepped away.

  “I’m serious,” Winton said. “You think I give a shit that something shady went down in Louisiana? We invented shady. I don’t got time for this. I have a life I need to get back to. And Lucas is a harmless guy.”

  Elgin gritted his teeth, making the muscles in his jaw stand out. He didn’t want to hear Winton’s words, but something was getting through.

  “I have an idea of where he is. We can make some sort of trade,” Winton said in desperation. “But I need more information.”

  “Just tell me what you know. We’ll find him. We’re the cops.”

  Winton struggled not to respond to that with every cutting word he could muster. “I’m not gonna let you kill me and tell you how to find my brother. You won’t get both.”

  “You ain’t in a position to make demands.” Elgin fished through Winton’s pockets and pulled out the slender golden object Winton had found in Lucas’ cruiser.

  “Well, you look at…” Elgin seemed to marvel at it. “Hey Rab. Look what I found.”

  Winton realized he had one chance.

  “This is it.” Elgin lifted off of him and held the trinket aloft. “Maybe we don’t need to find Chevalier.”

  Winton deftly clung to the stony forearm still holding him down and pulled with every muscle in his body, driving his knee into Elgin’s crotch. A satisfying pop registered from below Elgin’s belt buckle, and he heaved forward, paralyzed in the moments before the true agony washed over him. When it did, he crumpled to the ground.

  Winton jumped down on Elgin and snatched the golden object that Remus had sent his thugs for.

  Elgin, face purpling, feebly reached for him, but Winton kicked at his arms and ran off.

  “Hey!” Rabelais yelled, blocking Winton from the door. The only egress Winton had was an unmarked door to his right. He pulled it open and ran through a lab space, looking about for anything he could use as a weapon. He found a pair of scissors in a pen cup and dashed through another door.

  The sudden chill of the room confused him, until he recognized the organized bins of red pouches, dark crimson bags of collected blood awaiting processing, bags of red blood cells, light colored bags of plasma. Winton had just a few seconds to prepare to meet an angry armed cop. He looked at the scissors he held and decided there was only one way to go.

  Winton grabbed two red bags and stabbed them with the scissors, using the blades to slash them open. He threw them before the door to gush out, and grabbed two more. “Come and get it, bitch.”

  Thick red patches pooled outward on the floor, and tromping feet shuddered the door before it flung open.

  Winton looked up, bag of blood in one hand, reddened scissors in the other.

  “Come here,” Rabelais said. He started forward, but his first step landed in a mess of slimy red blood cells in their solution. His foot slid forward and he did the splits, as far as his hips could extend before he toppled over onto more blood bags on the floor, squishing their contents out.

  “Rab!” Elgin called from the lab. “Get that sumbitch, Rab!”

  As the big Cajun slipped and scrabbled to find his hands and knees, Winton backed up and slashed into big bags of whole blood hanging from hooks above his head. He spat and squinted as the red rained down, reveling in the fact that if he was going down, he wasn’t going to get taken cleanly. Winton Chevalier would make clear there’d at least been a fight. That, at least, he could show to all those he left behind.

  Elgin stopped himself short at the door all bunched over, clutching his lower abdomen and breathing spittle through his clenched teeth. Winton flipped him a blood-soaked middle finger, baiting him. The sergeant roared and came forward, but had to cling to a storage bin to keep from falling like his partner. Rabelais gripped a bin to pull himself to standing, but the big man ended up pulling the whole rack over onto himself and into Elgin who fell awkwardly, splashing into the growing lake of red.

  Winton stabbed one more bag and tore it open to cascade out onto the floor. He dropped the scissors and slipped out into the hall.

  THIRTEEN

  The slap of sticky-wet shoes on linoleum was the only sound Winton made as he stalked down the hallway. The sight of a dwarf slathered head-to-toe in blood and walking with a dead stare seemed to stun any passers-by more than alarm them. He didn’t meet their gazes, eyes boring ahead, clenching and unclenching his fists, seething with anger.

  Winton turned a corner and saw daylight streaming through a door. He bashed it open leaving two bloody handprints and stepped into the light. With his hands illuminated, shiny red and dripping, he fully registered his grotesque state.

  Mutterings and voices echoed off the walls, as the door shut behind him.

  Winton had to get clean, but first he had to escape. Out of options, he haltingly jogged across the street to the parking complex as fast as he could, one leg moving with much more ease than the other. In the relative dark of the garage he could hide and collect his thoughts. He thought about crawling beneath a car until any searchers left. First, though, he ran about surreptitiously trying door handles, wondering to himself what percentage of people left their cars unlocked and figuring it had to be slim.

  Up ahead, a Subaru Outback pulled into a space, it’s red tail lights glowing, beckoning Winton like a moth. He looked both ways, then sprinted toward it. Just as the brake lights went dim, he took a knee by the passenger side rear door and silently pulled it open, just a crack. The driver, a younger woman, shut her door and walked toward the hospital. Winton pulled the door open, slipped in and sat in the foot well, pulling his feet in and closing the door. The driver hit the lock button on her key fob, and a high whine emitted from the car, though, helpfully notifying the driver that one of the doors was ajar.
Winton immediately yanked harder on the door, and the whine stopped.

  He couldn’t see where the driver was. It was all he could do to hope she wouldn’t turn back, as he caught his breath, balled up on the floor mat of her Subaru.

  When ten seconds had gone by without screams of “THERE’S A BLOODY DWARF IN MY SUBARU!” Winton relaxed. He was safe for now.

  Luckily the woman wasn’t scrupulously tidy in her car. He found napkins on the floor and remnants of old newspapers on the back seat to wipe himself somewhat clean. For the first time in his life he bemoaned the lack of absorbency in the Times-Picayune.

  For ten minutes he wiped blood up, best he could. Winton wouldn’t pass for spotless or even clean, but at least he didn’t look like some demonic eighty-pound abortion.

  He took off his hooded sweatshirt, which was unsalvageable, and hid it under a seat. Then he scattered spare newspaper to hide any of the most obvious blood stains he’d left.

  Winton’s fear mounted again as he thought about the obvious trail of blood leading from the hospital door to the parking garage. Sure enough a police cruiser came up the ramp shining a flood light this way and that, but it passed by the Outback without pause. The search for Winton appeared feeble so far.

  When the coast was clear, Winton searched the car for anything useful to him, a phone most of all. But no. Unsurprisingly, there was no spare phone lying around.

  Winton popped the glove box open, and there in the still, shadowy air the steel of a short pistol glinted.

  “Boy howdy.” Winton took it without a thought. After looking it over, Winton recognized it as a Smith and Wesson semi-automatic with a black textured grip. He released the magazine and popped out the top round. It was loaded with eight 9mm hollow-points. A good choice for a female personal defense weapon. “This’ll do.”

  Winton thought about leaving a note, something along the lines of “Sorry for all the blood in your car and for stealing your gun.” He decided it was best to memorize the plate like his dad had taught him as a kid, and make amends at a later time.

  As he stepped out, asking himself where to go next, it dawned on him with icy cold dread that those mouth-breather cops were going to be on to Julius, tracking his whereabouts with his phone.