by BJ Bourg
I allowed my voice to trail off as I watched the blank expression on Ashley’s face.
“There are no conferences, are there?” I asked.
“Joey’s lying. We don’t have any partners in Dark Sands—or anywhere else for that matter.” Ashley said it with confidence, but I got the sense she was starting to wonder if her friend kept some secrets from her. “Kathleen and I take a four-day weekend each month, and this past weekend was her turn. As far as I know, she stayed home and did some yard work. Joey probably lied about the conference to cover his ass for not reporting her missing.”
I nodded, thoughtful. “So, there’s nothing in Dark Sands for us to see?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
After asking a few more questions, I turned to Dawn. “Anything?”
“Ashley, if Kathleen was having an affair, do you think she would’ve told you?”
“I doubt it. She knows the best way to get caught doing something wrong is to run your mouth, so she probably would’ve kept it to herself.” She grunted. “I wouldn’t tell her if I was having an affair—I wouldn’t tell anyone and I’d deny it to my grave.”
Dawn thanked her and we stood to leave. Ashley walked us to the door and watched us walk down the short hallway. As we passed by Lily’s work station, she jumped up and hurried around her desk. She reached me first and threw her arms around my neck.
“It was so good to see you again, Mr. London,” she said, sliding her hand down the back of my forearm as she backed away. Before releasing me, she pressed something into the palm of my hand. She turned to Dawn and hugged her, too.
I slipped my hand into my pocket and waited until we were out on the sidewalk before pulling it out.
“What’s that?” Dawn asked when I began unfolding the small piece of paper.
“It’s a note—Lily gave it to me as we were leaving.”
CHAPTER 22
9:00 a.m., Mathport, Louisiana
Abraham Wilson sat on the back porch of the tiny apartment he shared with Joy Vincent and stared out at the calm waters of Bayou Magnolia. His apartment was within a mile of the top of the lane where he used to live with his mom and dad, but sometimes it felt much closer than it was.
He’d been watching an alligator stalk an egret for at least twenty minutes while waiting for Joy to get dressed for school. She was attending the state university in Chateau and was heading to the college to sign out her books and get a parking pass for the year.
“What did your mom want?” Joy asked when she joined him on the porch and kissed the top of his head.
“Oh, the usual: You and Joy shouldn’t be living together, that’s a sin,” he said in his best mom impression. “Have you found a better job yet? I just never imagined you’d want to do what your dad did. It’s just so dangerous and I worry so much about you. I wish you’d get a normal job like Brett…yada, yada.”
Joy laughed, tucking a strand of long black hair behind her ear. “What’d you tell her?”
“I told her I loved her, too, and I had to go to work.”
Joy’s mouth dropped open. “You lied to your mom?”
“Of course not.”
“But you don’t go back on shift again until Wednesday.”
“I want to check something out in Plymouth East.”
Joy plopped in his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. “That case has got you upset, hasn’t it?”
Abraham nodded his head, swallowing hard. “I’m having nightmares about that lady. I keep seeing her stretched out on that cross and I feel like I need to do something to help out. I mean, the person who did this is still walking around our parish, maybe even looking for another victim. I can’t just sit around waiting for my next shift to do something.”
“Why don’t you ask if you can be assigned to the case with the detectives?”
“I asked my shift lieutenant if I could be temporarily reassigned to the detective bureau to help out, but he turned me down. My buddy overheard him telling one of the sergeants I thought that just because my dad was a former detective here that I would be shown favoritism.” He frowned. “I don’t know why he would say something like that. I’ve never even mention my dad’s name to anyone. I want to earn my way like everyone else.”
Joy leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “I know you do. They’ll soon realize what I already know—that you’re the bomb dot com.”
Abraham thanked her and then kissed her on the mouth. “Be careful on the way to school.”
“Yes, father,” Joy joked. “I’ll drive the speed limit and won’t touch my phone.”
“For the first time, that’s not what I meant.”
Joy sobered up in a flash. “Do you really think this person’s a threat?”
“They don’t know who did it or why, so until they catch the person, I want you keeping your head on a swivel.” He took a breath and exhaled forcefully. “I thought I lost you once…”
Joy pushed an index finger to his lips. “It’s okay. I’ll be careful. I promise.”
Once Joy had left for school, Abraham shoved his pistol in his waistband, snatched up his police radio, and jumped into his Ford F-150. Since he wasn’t on official police business, he didn’t take his patrol cruiser. His lieutenant might be able to deny a request for a transfer, but he couldn’t stop Abraham from driving around town in his personal vehicle. And if he stumbled upon some evidence that might prove useful, he’d simply be a private citizen doing a good deed by reporting it.
As he turned off of Highway Eighty and onto the Plymouth East shortcut road, Abraham wondered if the alligator had snatched up the egret. He also wondered if the killer was out there right now, sneaking around like the alligator and trying to catch his or her next victim. While they had never determined if the killer was male or female, he couldn’t imagine a woman doing something like that to another woman.
Abraham pulled his truck to the soft shoulder of the road near where Kathleen Bertrand’s car had been found. It had been nighttime then and things looked a little different now. After shutting off his truck, he stepped out into the warm morning sunlight and walked toward the ruts that had been made by the wrecker pulling the vehicle from its resting place. He stopped at the edge of each row of cane and peered deep into the shadows, trying to see if the killer had discarded anything on the way out of the area, but he didn’t find anything.
He walked over every inch of the surrounding area, hoping to find something they might’ve missed in the dark. He had no such luck and returned to his truck hot, sweaty, and disappointed. His police academy instructor, Captain Brandon Berger, had taught him a criminal always leaves something behind—they just needed to keep searching until they found it. So, he kept looking.
Driving back to Highway Eighty, Abraham turned onto Plymouth Highway and followed the same route he’d traveled Saturday morning, except he was driving much slower and on the wrong side of the highway so he could get a better view of the ground. There wasn’t much traffic on the highway, so he figured it wouldn’t be a problem.
There were a few houses at the very beginning of Plymouth Highway and the grass was short-cropped and visibility was excellent, but he quickly passed them by and was soon traveling along the desolate stretch of highway, where weeds grew thick on the shoulders and large drainage ditches bordered both sides of the road.
He buzzed his window down and slowed to a crawl, carefully scanning the ground on the northern shoulder of the highway. He was searching for anything that might be even remotely related to the Kathleen Bertrand case. While he was hoping to find her clothes, because that might provide a direct link to the suspect, he would settle for anything at that point.
He hadn’t travelled far when the shoulder widened into a gravel pull-off that was free of weeds. He sped up a little, but then lurched to a stop when he saw a small object resting in a crevice right at the edge of the asphalt. He pulled onto the widened shoulder and stepped out of his truck, taking his cell phone with him in case the
object turned out to be something important.
Squatting low when he reached the object, he recognized it to be a cheap flip-top cell phone. “I didn’t know they made these anymore,” he said aloud, shooting a photo of it with the camera feature on his phone. Hurrying back to his truck, he grabbed a latex glove from the first aid kit he kept under the seat, and then gently lifted the phone from the crack. At first glance, there was no way to tell how long it had been there, but when he flipped the top open and the screen lit up, he knew it was fresh.
Abraham sighed. If it was Kathleen Bertrand’s phone, the battery would’ve been dead by now and the phone would’ve been in poor shape due to the rain from Saturday night. He worked his thumb across the keypad, searching for a list of contacts, but there was only one: Kim.
He checked the call log, but it was empty. He then checked the text messages and located one message that was sent at twelve thirty-eight in the morning. It read, quite simply: On my way.
Abraham pressed every button on the phone and scrolled through every option, but—other than the one contact—he couldn’t find any information that might reveal the owner’s name. With nothing else to try, he dialed Kim’s number.
“Hey, Honey,” said a man who answered on the first ring. “Where the hell are you?”
“I’m sorry,” Abraham began. “This is Abraham Wilson and I’m a deputy with the Magnolia Parish Sheriff’s Office. I was calling because—”
Click!
“Hello?” Abraham pulled the phone from his ear and looked at it. “The little prick hung up on me!”
Abraham called a second time, but it went straight to voicemail. Shrugging, he contacted Headquarters and pulled a complaint number for a found item.
“I didn’t know you were working today,” the dispatcher said cheerfully. “The schedule says you come in Wednesday night.”
He grunted, still not accustomed to the attention he received from some of the female dispatchers. “I was riding around Plymouth East and located this phone,” he explained. “I just want to make a note of it in case someone reports it stolen.”
“Do you know who this is?” she asked.
“Um…” He did recognize the voice, but he was afraid he’d say the wrong name. “Give me a hint.”
“It’s Martha.” She grunted. “I can’t believe you didn’t remember my name. I’m like you’re biggest fan. But, just because it’s you, I’ll forgive you.”
Abraham only half listened while she continued talking, chattering excitedly about her weekend. He wanted to tell her he didn’t care, but he also didn’t want to be rude. Ever since news broke about the incident that took place in the Blue Summit Mountains of Tennessee two years ago, a few of the single dispatchers had shown an interest in him. While Joy was good-natured about it, she was starting to grow annoyed by the way a couple of them acted when they’d meet in public. They were overtly flirtatious toward Abraham and wouldn’t even acknowledge Joy’s existence. Although they had met Joy before, Abraham would re-introduce her as his girlfriend, but they’d pretend they didn’t even hear him.
“Do they act that way when I’m not around?” Joy had asked upon leaving the grocery store after one such encounter.
“No,” he had said. “They act worse.”
That had almost sent Joy over the edge until he laughingly told her he was joking. He never took the dispatchers serious and knew they were only acting under some misguided impression that he was a celebrity. In a small town, being on national television was a big deal to some people, and news that he had been offered a book deal only made these dispatchers more intrigued.
When Martha finally stopped talking long enough to give Abraham the case number, he jotted it down and told her he had to run. He then continued down the road, determined to cover every inch of Plymouth Highway.
CHAPTER 23
Chateau, Louisiana
“What does it say?” Dawn asked as I unfolded the pink piece of paper Lily had handed me upon walking out of the Ash and Kat Law Firm. My mind was on the information we’d just learned from Ashley and I began to wonder if Joey was lying about Kathleen going to a conference. It was possible Kathleen had lied to Joey, but, at this point, I didn’t know for sure who to believe.
I glanced at the note, turned it over, and then handed it to Dawn. “It’s a phone message for Kathleen, and it’s dated this morning.”
“Vaughn Toussaint,” Dawn said, reading the name at the top of the message. She tilted it toward me and pointed to the telephone number written at the top of the note. “That’s a Mississippi area code. Do you think it’s got something to do with this conference Joey was talking about?”
“I don’t know about the conference, but Lily thought it was significant enough to sneak to us.” I dug out my cell phone as we walked to my truck. “We need to find out if Kathleen ever communicated with that number—”
My phone rang in my hand and I quickly answered it. “This is London.”
“Mr. London, this is Lily. Mrs. Ashley left for court and my manager is smoking, so I’ve got a quick minute.” She was speaking in hushed tones. “That man calls for Mrs. Kathleen often. He’s never left a message before, but today he sounded different…like something was wrong. He told me to have her call him as soon as she got the message. He said it was urgent.”
“Did he say what it was about?”
“No, but when I first answered and he asked for her, he sounded angry. His voice was real rough. We already knew about Mrs. Kathleen, but I didn’t tell him anything. I just told him she wasn’t in, and that’s when he told me to have her call him.”
“Thank you, Lily. I really appreciate you sticking your neck out for us. No one will ever know.”
When I hung up, I immediately called Melvin. When he answered, I asked about the status of the search warrants.
“The search warrants for her bank and credit card accounts have been faxed out, but I haven’t heard anything back yet. The cell phone was a bust…whoever wiped it knew what they were doing. As for Ring-Tele, their technicians have been working since late last night and they’ll be faxing the report within the hour.” He paused and I heard him take a breath and hold it. Finally, he said, “That must be it. I hear something coming through the fax machine now.”
“We’ll be there in twenty,” I said and ended the call. We had reached my truck and jumped inside. While I drove, Dawn got on her phone and called dispatch to request a criminal history check on this Vaughn Toussaint character. She jotted some information down and then asked for a driver’s license inquiry and a registration check. After waiting and then talking for about ten minutes, she hung up and turned toward me.
“What a hell of a coincidence…Vaughn Toussaint lives in Dark Sands, Mississippi.”
I grunted. “I guess Joey was telling the truth and Ashley was kept in the dark.”
“Yep, it seems Kathleen was having a private conference with Mr. Toussaint.”
“If we believe Ashley, then Joey might have a motive to kill Kathleen—even if he didn’t know about the affair.”
“And if he did know, that’ll be damning for him.”
“Do you have Vaughn’s address?” I asked.
“I have more than that,” Dawn said when her cell phone dinged. She opened a text message and held it so I could see. “I’ve got his DL picture.”
“Does he have a record?”
“I’m glad you asked.” Reading from her notes, Dawn said she would start with the small stuff. “He’s got a few convictions for minor traffic offenses dating back ten years and two recent wildlife offenses relating to shrimp season violations. There’s also a shrimp boat registered in his name, so he might be a fisherman.” She tapped her notebook. “Now for the good stuff…he’s got three convictions for domestic abuse battery that date back five years. They were all in a span of a few months, so it was probably the same woman. It seems he straightened up for a few years and didn’t get another felony charge until last year, when he was arre
sted for sexual battery.”
In Mississippi, sexual battery involved sexual penetration and was a serious offense. I mulled over this new information and tried to figure out how Vaughn Toussaint might relate to the case. Was it possible he came to Louisiana and killed Kathleen? If so, what would be his motivation? Sexual battery is one thing—mutilation and murder is something altogether different. Besides, Doctor Fitch concluded there had been no sexual assault.
If Vaughn was calling for Kathleen and he sounded angry, it was quite possible he had no clue she was dead. Joey did say Kathleen was on her way to Dark Sands, and her vehicle was found heading out of Plymouth East, so one could safely assume she was heading to meet Vaughn. If she never showed up, that might anger Vaughn, but it didn’t seem reason enough for him to drive to Louisiana and nail her to a cross.
I ran my thoughts by Dawn. She listened intently and nodded her head slowly after I’d finished. She began chewing on her lower lip and staring off into space. Finally, she turned to me and said, “If Joey thought Kathleen was going to a conference and Vaughn thought she was heading to Dark Sands to meet him, neither man would have a reason to kill her. If neither of them did it, then someone else decided to interrupt her trip and hang her to a cross…and that someone must’ve been really mad at her.”
“Joey might still be involved,” I said. “If his wife was lying about attending conference once a month and was actually seeing this Vaughn fellow, Joey could have easily found out something was up and could’ve taken matters into his own hands. It would’ve been nothing for him to follow her and flag her down on the highway. She would’ve stopped, not thinking anything of it.”
“He didn’t even have to flag her down,” Dawn said. “We might be looking at this all wrong. Other than her car being found in the cane fields, there’s no evidence to suggest she was taken from the highway. Think about it—Joey could’ve nailed her to the cross in the comfort of his woodshop, loaded the cross in the back of his boat, and then launched the boat in a place that had access to the back of that field. He could’ve later ditched her car in the cane and then gone home to wait for her body to be found. He could’ve come up with the story about Dark Sands just to throw us off.”