London Carter Boxed Set: Books 4 - 6

by BJ Bourg

  What in the hell is going on? I wondered to myself, wishing we’d stopped long enough to get me a new phone. I looked up when the door at the back of the conference room opened. It was Rachael and she was waving for us to go now.

  Sheriff Chiasson turned first to Dawn and then to me and nodded. “Get going.”

  “What’s happening, Sheriff?” one of the reporters asked as we hurried toward the door.

  “It’s nothing, really.” I glanced over my shoulder and saw him smile in a feeble attempt to reassure them. “They’ve got work to do. So, who has another question?”

  “What’s going on?” I asked Rachael when Dawn and I met her out in the parking lot.

  “They found Debbie’s car in an old cane shed off of Highway Eighty between here and Seasville.” She jogged toward her cruiser. “Follow me!”

  Dawn and I jumped in my truck and we raced out of the parking lot and onto Highway Three, heading south.

  Dawn glanced over her shoulder and cursed. “The news vans are following us.”

  I checked my rearview mirror and, sure enough, there were three of them hot on our trail. I could’ve radioed some patrol deputies to pick them off and issue them citations for speeding, but we didn’t have time for that. We’d just have to keep them back if we found Debbie’s body.

  I turned onto the first bridge we came to, crossed Bayou Magnolia, and then headed south on Highway Eighty. Although there wasn’t much traffic on that stretch of highway, Rachael was running lights and siren. We traveled for about ten minutes before I saw flashing blue lights on the shoulder of the road about a mile ahead.

  “That’s the building,” Dawn said, pointing to a wide tractor shed that was nestled under some ancient oak trees. “We passed it this morning and I didn’t notice a car inside.”

  I stopped about a hundred yards from the tractor shed and turned my truck sideways in the road, blocking the news vans behind me. Once I’d shut off my engine, I grabbed some crime scene tape and Dawn and I quickly strung it across the highway, tying one end to a tree on the bayou side and the other end to a telephone pole. The news vans screeched up and reporters piled out, but Rachael lifted her hand to stop them.

  “The tape is as far as y’all go,” she said firmly. “This area’s a crime scene and anyone who violates the integrity of the scene will be arrested.”

  While the cameramen began setting up, the reporters fired several questions in our direction, but we ignored them and hurried to the tractor shed, where Deputy Arlene Eiland was standing near the car. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she was talking on her cell phone. She looked up when we approached and ended the call.

  I’d first met Deputy Eiland three years earlier when she’d responded to a body found under a bridge. Since then, she had been averaging the highest number of DWI arrests per year in all of Magnolia. Having lost my family to a drunk driver, I was an instant fan of her work.

  “Hey, detectives, I only walked up to make sure no one was inside, but, other than that, I haven’t touched anything.”

  “Good job,” I said, examining the car from where I stood while Dawn and Rachael approached it. It was a gray Nissan Sentra and it was backed into a dark corner of the shed, deep in the shadows. “How’d you find it?”

  “Just driving by,” she said simply. “They stuck me working south while everyone else was searching Plymouth East, and I got bored working the day shift. I started making the rounds of the bridges, patrolling every neighborhood I came across, when I drove by this tractor shed. At first, I drove right on by, but then I remembered they told us at this morning’s briefing that Captain Berger’s ex-wife was still missing, so I decided to check it out. I thought it would be a good place to hide a body.”

  Dawn and Rachael had gotten the trunk open and turned to where I was standing. “It’s empty,” Dawn said. “Let’s check around back.”

  “Should I stay here and keep the reporters at bay?” Arlene asked.

  I glanced in their direction. They were behaving, so I shook my head and told her she could come along if she wanted. She and I caught up to Dawn and Rachael, who were making their way around the side of the shed, and the four of us squeezed between the metal shed and the tall cane until we reached the back of the shed.

  “What’s that?” Dawn pointed north along the back of the structure.

  I squinted, but it was hard to see because the sun above was bright and the shadows of the large oak trees below were dark. I waved to them. “Let’s go look.”

  I shielded my eyes as I walked along the narrow pathway between the sugarcane and the shed, but it wasn’t until we were immersed in the shadows of the giant oaks that the image came into view. It was only a silhouette in the shadows, but there was no mistaking what it was—a naked woman nailed to another cross.

  CHAPTER 49

  “Oh, no!” Rachael said when she realized what we were seeing.

  Dawn cupped a hand over her forehead to shield her eyes. “Please tell me that’s not Debbie…”

  I ran the last hundred feet to the cross, which was attached to the back of the shed. A ladder was propped up against the structure and I wondered if Arlene had interrupted the killer. My head was on a swivel as I ran. I didn’t see any hostiles, but I didn’t want to take a chance. I pointed toward the fields beyond the oak trees. “Arlene, keep an eye out there! The killer might be close by.”

  As I rushed to the ladder, I heard Arlene calling it in over the radio. She requested an ambulance for the victim and a K-9 officer to track a possible killer. While I knew we would need the K-9, I wasn’t so sure about the ambulance.

  Debbie had been nailed to the cross in the same manner as Kathleen, but she was in the shade, so her lips weren’t as parched. I felt a surge of hope as I climbed the ladder. It was much cooler here and she could survive much longer. I called her name as I climbed.

  “Debbie, can you hear me?” I pulled on some latex gloves when I reached the top of the cross and shook her arm gently. Her flesh was still warm. “What the hell?”

  Her head was slumped forward and her eyes closed. I shoved my fingers up under her jaw, searching for a pulse, but there was none. When I pulled my hand back, the glove was wet with blood. I slowly tilted her head back and sighed when I saw the hole in her throat. She had suffered greatly, but the killer had eventually ended her suffering—either through pity or because he heard Arlene drive up and he didn’t want her to be found alive. Either reason could mean she knew her killer. Someone familiar with her might not want her to suffer for an extended period of time, or it could simply mean she was able to identify the killer.

  I called down to Rachael, who was on the phone with the sheriff, and let her know Debbie was gone and we could cancel the paramedics. I then climbed wearily down the ladder and walked over to where Dawn was sitting on the ground. She was leaning against the shed and her face was pale.

  “Debbie’s fingers and jaw are loose and she’s still warm. She hasn’t been dead long.”

  “What am I going to tell Samantha?” Dawn asked weakly. “The last time they talked it ended in an argument. The poor kid will never have a chance to make up with her mom. She’ll be plagued by guilt for the rest of her life.”

  I sat beside her and put my arm around her shoulders. “I’ll take care of the scene if you want to go make the notification. Arlene can drive you.”

  “You sure?” she asked.

  “Positive. If anyone can console Samantha, it’s you.” I shot my thumb toward the cross. “I’ll call for some help to get the cross down, but it’ll be easier than last time because of the way it’s attached to the shed.”

  Dawn stared at her hands for a long moment. When she looked up, her brow was furrowed. “Why here?”

  I looked around and shrugged. “I have no clue.”

  “I know there were cops crawling all over Plymouth East, but there are so many other locations up and down the bayou that would be better than here.” She nodded slowl
y. “I feel like the locations are a message in and of themselves. If we figure out what that message is, then we find the killer.”

  “Hey, get back!”

  I jumped to my feet and looked toward the northern end of the shed where the voice had originated. It was Arlene and she was hollering at a cameraman who had snuck through the fields to get a shot of the back of the shed. Before the cameraman could get away, Arlene had reached him and tackled him to the ground.

  “You can’t do this,” the cameraman said. “I’m with the media.”

  “You’re under arrest for crossing a police cordon,” Arlene said calmly, cuffing his hands behind his back. “And I’m confiscating your camera, because you’ve obtained unlawful footage.”

  “I’ll sue all of your asses, just you wait and see!”

  I’d walked up and retrieved the camera from the ground. While Rachael stayed with Debbie’s body, Dawn, Arlene, and I walked the cameraman to Arlene’s marked cruiser. We allowed the cameraman to lead the way north through the thick cane that rubbed up against the shed and it helped to clear a path for us. I didn’t want to take him to the south—the direction from which we’d approached the cross—because I didn’t want him seeing Debbie that way.

  When we reached the back corner of the shed, we made better time along the side and then Arlene took him to her car. He began yelling at the other reporters to let them know the Crucifix Killer had struck again and that there was a nude woman hanging from a cross in the back of the shed. He also encouraged his fellow cameramen to film his illegal arrest.

  “I’ll go ahead and leave with her,” Dawn said to me once the cameraman was locked in the backseat. I nodded and she hugged me tight. “I love you so much.”

  “I love you, too,” I said slowly, squeezing her back. There was something in her voice that troubled me. “Are you okay?”

  “For the first time in my life, I’m really terrified. I don’t know who the killer is or where he’ll strike next—and that scares the shit out of me. Not for me, but for all the women we can’t protect. What if we never catch him and he keeps torturing women? I’ll feel responsible for every murder that happens from here on out.”

  “I don’t need to tell you it’s not your fault, because you already know it.” I kissed the top of her head. “I’ll come find you as soon as I’m done here.”

  She nodded and hurried off, wiping a tear from her eye as she walked away. As I watched her walk, I hoped she wasn’t right. We were going to find the bastard—we had to find him, and hopefully sooner rather than later.

  One thing was certain—no one who worked this case would be the same afterward.

  CHAPTER 50

  Five hours later…

  Detective Bureau, Payneville, Louisiana

  Along with Rachael and Melvin, a team of us had processed the scene of Debbie’s murder. I’d located the same snail tracks of saliva across her face as we’d found on Kathleen’s, and I’d collected a sample. Melvin had volunteered to take it straight to the crime lab and Rachael had volunteered to attend the autopsy. I’d readily agreed with both of them.

  A K-9 officer had worked his dog around the area and he’d picked up a scent, which tracked from the car to the cross and into the cane fields north of the shed. They had tracked it for six miles through the cane rows and then it veered sharply to the west until it reached Highway Eighty.

  “It looks like the suspect got into a vehicle,” the K-9 officer told me later. “Either that or the son of a bitch grew wings and flew away.”

  I had gotten with the sheriff and he immediately put out a press release asking for information from anyone who might have picked up a hitchhiker along that stretch of Highway Eighty.

  On the way back to the bureau, I had stopped at the cell phone shop and swapped my dead phone and six hundred dollars for a new phone. It was bigger and fancier, with more gadgets, and I hated it.

  Dawn was the first person I called and she was happy to see I was back online. She told me her conversation with Samantha had been tough, but Samantha had handled it better than could’ve been expected. “When are you getting here?” she had asked, sounding impatient.

  I had answered by walking through the door. We were now in the conference room with the notes from every officer involved in the case scattered across the large table. We began pouring over canvas sheets from the recent search for Debbie, as well as past complaints and traffic stops that occurred in Plymouth East within the last year, but we kept coming up dry—until we received the anonymous tip.

  A seasoned dispatcher named Julie called Dawn’s phone and told her they’d received an anonymous call from a female stating Virgil Brunner was the killer.

  “Did she say what proof she has?” Dawn asked, waving for me to get close so I could hear the answer.

  I put my ear right next to Dawn’s, but I couldn’t hear anything. I was beginning to think the years and years of shooting my three-oh-eight rifle were starting to take a toll on my hearing.

  Dawn nodded and then asked Julie to send the audio file to her phone. “The lady didn’t leave a name,” Dawn said as she activated her text messages, waiting for the file to arrive. When it did, she played it and held the phone up so I could hear.

  “Hello,” said an oddly familiar voice. “I’m calling to say I think…um, I believe the killer of those women is Virgil…I believe it’s Virgil Brunner. I know he did it and I have proof, but I can’t give it until he’s arrested. I’m scared for my safety.”

  The mystery woman’s voice was quivering and she was speaking low, but I realized almost immediately who she was.

  “It’s Skylar Brunner,” I said. “I’m positive!”

  “I agree it’s her.” Dawn was frowning. “What the hell does she have on him?”

  “We need to interview Skylar and find out what it is.”

  “She won’t talk until he’s arrested, but we’ve got nothing unless she talks.” She stood and paced back and forth in the conference room. “What do you think she’s got on him?”

  I’d been wondering that very thing since we got the call, but I couldn’t imagine what evidence she could possibly have.

  “What if he took pictures of the women when he killed them and she found those pictures?”

  Dawn stopped pacing. “You mean, took the pictures as trophies?”

  “Could be…or he might want to relive the incident over and over. Reenact the fantasy or some crazy shit.” I raised an eyebrow. “Or it could’ve been proof to his employers that he completed the job.”

  “Are we back to thinking Gerard and Joey paid him?”

  “They could’ve paid him cash. Virgil’s no fool, after all.”

  As we continued to bounce ideas off of each other, a thought suddenly popped into my head and exploded. “I’ve got it!”

  My outburst startled Dawn and she clutched at her chest. “Damn it, you scared the hell out of me!”

  “Follow me.” I rushed from the conference room and hurried to my desk, where I unlocked the door to the locker box hanging from my wall. Dawn stood behind me and looked over my shoulder as I pulled out two large plastic evidence bags. When I turned around, I held them up so she could see the yellow envelopes Virgil had sealed and then gotten hand-delivered to Gerard and Joey. “Virgil’s DNA is on these envelopes. If he did it, it’ll match the DNA we recovered from the victims.”

  “This is great!” Dawn’s eyes widened with excitement, but then narrowed. “What if it doesn’t match?”

  I didn’t have an answer, so I didn’t give one. I heard talking on the other side of my cubicle wall and I hollered, “Melvin, do you feel like heading back to New Orleans?”

  “Can I shoot your sniper rifle?”

  “Only after I’m dead,” I said.

  “Then it’s a deal.”

  After handing the envelopes to Melvin and calling in a rush order to the lab, Dawn and I met with the sheriff in his office and briefed him on the new developments.

  “I though
t we weren’t looking at him as a suspect?” he asked.

  “We weren’t until we got this tip,” I explained. “I also think we should pull surveillance on his house until we get the results.”

  “How long will it take to get the results?”

  “Melvin’s leaving now and the lab said they’ll get on it right away. We should have the results by tonight.”

  “I’ve got everyone stretched thin doing roving patrols throughout the parish, but I guess we can spare a couple of officers—”

  “Dawn and I will do it,” I said quickly. “We’ll take Rachael and Warren with us.” Warren was a solid guy and I’d take Rachael anywhere.

  “Very well,” the sheriff said. “Take whoever you like, just as long as you solve this damn case. I don’t want another woman being tortured in my parish.”

  CHAPTER 51

  Dawn and I met Warren and Rachael in the parking lot of the detective bureau, and Rachael and I shrugged into our ghillie suits. I instructed Warren to drop Rachael off on the western side of Virgil’s property. I turned to Rachael, who had just zipped up her suit and shoved her rifle into her drag bag.

  “Skirt his property line to the west and try to find high ground on the northwest corner. You should be able to have a good visual of his house from there.” I turned to Warren. “After you drop her off, disappear somewhere along the highway to the west, but be ready to move at a moment’s notice.”

  They both nodded. Before heading toward Warren’s unmarked Charger, Rachael asked, “Where will you be?”

  “I’m going to set up in the woods across the highway from his house where I can watch his front gate. We need to see who comes or goes.” I then grabbed my drag bag and cradled it in my arms as I slipped into the front passenger’s seat of Dawn’s Charger.

  As Dawn drove down Plymouth Highway, I stared out the window and wondered if this case was finally coming to a head. It was the most disturbing homicide case I’d ever worked and I wanted to put it to bed. I couldn’t imagine the pain our victims had endured at the hands of this beast before they died, and I knew we couldn’t allow him—or her—to kill again.