Cemetery Road (Sean O'Brien Book 7)

by Tom Lowe

  I said nothing, looking down at the worn beige carpet. There were two shoeprints, one more discernable then the other. I could make out a slight pattern on one print. It appeared to be a boot imprint left from dark brown mud. I pointed to the print. “I wonder if that was left by Jesse or one of the bad guys.”

  He stared at the pattern a moment. “Couldn’t tell you. We’ll check on it down at the hospital.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I pulled out my phone, leaned in close to the print and snapped a picture, the flash illuminating the room for a second.

  He said, “I think I’ll get a photo, too. I’m not sure if we’ll need it in the long run, but better safe than sorry.”

  After he took the photo, I walked back to the door and outside, the night air still cool from an earlier rain. I followed two more muddy prints indicating the man had stepped on the concrete walkway from behind a small row of border grass and shrubbery. I used the flashlight on my phone to illuminate tracks, boot tracks. They seemed to match the pattern left on the carpet. There was a small pyramid shape at the heel. The officer appeared behind me. I motioned to the prints. “This is where one of the two guys stood. He may have become a little wet if he waited long in the rain.”

  The officer examined the prints and snapped a second picture. “Hope we can use these. It all depends on whether or not your friend wants to get further in the mud with these guys. No pun intended.” He grinned.

  “Yeah, the thing about pressing charges is someone has to find the guys who did this so my friend can have the option to press charges or not.”

  He nodded. “We’ll do our best. There aren’t any security cameras pointed directly at this area. The one witness said he saw the perps from a distance. The masks make an ID impossible. Maybe your friend has an idea who did this to him.”

  I reached in my wallet and found Deputy Ivan Parker’s card. “Here, take this. This deputy is working a case in the county, and he found a clean boot print near the crime scene. Maybe it’ll match. You can make a cast and compare.”

  “What kind of crime is he working?”

  “Hate crime. Someone left a hangman’s noose in the yard of an elderly black woman.”

  The officer glanced back down at the patterns left in the mud. “I heard about that. Something like that is an indication of a real nut. I don’t know much about your friend, but if the prints match, I’d say he’s lucky we didn’t find him dead in that room.”

  I nodded, turned and walked onto the parking lot, stepped a few feet beyond the parked squad car, the second officer looking up and nodding. There were two open parking spaces next to his car. I saw a fresh oil stain on the asphalt. Whatever car or truck had left it, hadn’t been gone too long because the stain, about the size of a small pancake, wasn’t diluted by rainwater. I squatted down and touched it with my fingertips, the dark oil still warm to the touch. I spotted four cigarette butts near where the driver’s side door and window would have been. I looked at the butts, unfiltered cigarettes. Someone had been here waiting…watching. Chain-smoking unfiltered cigarettes while his goons beat Jesse, and by the smell in the room, one of the marks left on his body didn’t come from a fist.

  I walked quickly toward my Jeep, hitting the GPS on my phone for the best route to the hospital.

  FIFTY-NINE

  I could never shake the apprehension. I felt it each time I walked through the doors of an emergency room. Often it was here where the results of an attempted murder, in spite of heroic efforts of medical personnel, flat-lined into a homicide. It’s where I used to speak with distraught family members, trying to make sense of the senseless, trying to find who tipped the first domino and which tumbling tile caused the unalterable consequence of death.

  I thought of that when the glass doors automatically opened and I smelled the whisper of bleach, adhesive, and the elusive trail of human despair, looking across the waiting room into anxious faces struggling for courage.

  The admitting receptionist was a middle-aged woman in a blue uniform. She sat in an open cubical in front of double closed doors that read: NO ADMITTANCE. She looked up from her computer screen as I approached, her alabaster face cast in bluish light from the screen. Her nametag: Gail Stevens.

  I smiled. “Hello, Gail. Looks like the nasty weather is keeping your team busy tonight.”

  “It’s not helping anything. Glad the rain finally stopped. Can I help you?”

  “I’m here to see how Jesse Taylor’s doing. He was brought in a couple of hours ago.”

  “Are you a member of his family?”

  “Maybe better than family…I’m a close friend.”

  She almost smiled. “Then you can’t go back. Sorry. You can take a seat in the waiting room.”

  “I understand. Maybe you can check to see how he’s doing. I’d hate to call his elderly mother with inaccurate information. No sense in putting her through stress she doesn’t need.”

  She looked at me a second and then picked up a phone and hit three buttons. “Hey, Barb. Can you check on Mr. Taylor? Is Doctor Paxton done with him?” The woman nodded, listening. “Thanks.” She disconnected and looked up at me. “You can give Mr. Taylor’s mother some good news. He’ll be released. He had stitches and was treated for cracked ribs. He’s had some medication. If he’s released tonight, he could probably use a good friend to drive him home.”

  I smiled. “Thank you.” I entered the adjacent waiting room and took a seat in the corner so I could see who was coming and going. The first to arrive were the same two officers from the motel investigation. The officer I’d spoken with nodded as he and his partner were allowed in the patient treatment area. One of the officers carried a notepad, the other an iPad. I hoped that whatever medication Jesse was on wouldn’t cause him to say anything beyond the details of his assault.

  The automatic glass doors opened with a whoosh and Caroline Harper stepped inside the emergency room. She wore jeans, white blouse, a shawl, her face tight, hair hastily pinned up. She looked at me, her mouth forming an O. She held a closed umbrella and stepped into the large waiting room. A half dozen people looked up from turning pages in magazines, texting, watching CNN news on a muted TV screen, pictures of a forest fire in the background.

  I stood and walked to her, ushering her into one corner of the room. She looked up at me and asked, “How is he? Have you heard anything?”

  “It looks like he’ll be okay.”

  “Oh, thank God. I was so worried. Jesse thinks he’s a knight, and he’s really more like Tin Man in Wizard of Oz, but in Jesse’s case he does have a big heart.” She smiled, her eyes drained. “Did they find the men who did this to Jesse?”

  “Police are back there with him now. Apparently the men who attacked him wore ski masks. Looks like he has cracked ribs and facial lacerations.” I didn’t mention the odor of hair and flesh I’d detected in Jesse’s room.

  She crossed her arms, purse hanging from one small shoulder. “The police are here.”

  The two officers came from behind the main doors and walked over to us. The officer I’d spoken with in Jesse’s room sighed and said, “He has no idea who did his to him. Said he’d press charges if we picked up the guys who beat him. He does have a permit to carry those two firearms in his room. If I were he, I’d go back there just long enough to pack my bags. Looks like what they gave him was a painful warning. He says he doesn’t know why he was attacked.”

  The other officer shook his head a bit and said, “But I think he does know. He’s just not too eager to say anything. Now that Mr. Taylor’s cleaned up, I recognize him. He’s the same guy who was arrested in that fracas at Shorty’s Billiards.” He looked up at me. “You a friend of his?”

  “Yes.”

  “You might want to give your friend some sound advice and tell him to stop doing whatever he’s doing to piss certain people off. I’d guess that whoever roughed him up is probably connected to the Shorty’s incident. There were more than thirty people in that joint when the fight
went down. That’s a pretty big pool of suspects.”

  Caroline said, “At least you have somewhere to start.”

  The officer nodded. “Yes ma’am, we just have to eliminate twenty eight of ‘em. And we’re still not positive the perpetrators that beat up Mr. Taylor came from the brawl in the pool hall.”

  I said, “You have the boot prints in the room and in the mud.”

  “Forensics investigators would pour a mold in a homicide. His isn’t that, and Mr. Taylor tells us he’s moving on.”

  I smiled. “Is that what he said?”

  “Go ask him. You two have a good night.” The officers left.

  Caroline turned back to me and started to say something when the NO ADMITTANCE doors opened and Jesse Taylor stepped out.

  SIXTY

  A nurse came from behind Jesse as Caroline approached. The nurse smiled. “Are you his wife?”

  “No, I’m a friend.”

  “He’ll need to be driven home. He’s had a low dose of Vicodin. Here’s his paperwork with a prescription. He has two cracked ribs, sixteen stitches, and a burn. He’s going to be sore.” The woman glanced at the people in the waiting room. “I hope you feel better. Take care.” She gently touched Jesse on his shoulder and then went back into the treatment area.

  Jesse just stared at us for a moment, somewhat perplexed. There was a large adhesive bandage above his left eye, his shirt partially unbuttoned, a binding wrapped around his middle, the bandage visible under his shirt. Caroline bit her lower lip and walked up to Jesse. “Are you okay? Should you be leaving? Maybe you should stay overnight in the hospital.”

  Jesse slowly inhaled deeply, a slight flinch in his eyes. “Doc cut me loose. Besides, my insurance is runnin’ on empty.” He took a step, his jawline popping.

  I moved up to him and said, “Let me help you to my Jeep.”

  He nodded. “I always wanted a Jeep. My car’s at the motel.”

  Caroline said, “Jesse, you can’t go back there. Not after what they did to you. Stay at my house. I have plenty of room. You’ll have privacy and even your own bathroom.’’ She smiled.

  “That’s real sweet of you, Caroline, but—”

  “I don’t want to hear it. We can go by the motel for your things, and then I’m taking you home.” She looked up at me. “Sean, can you help him to my car?”

  I reached for Jesse’s arm. He winced in pain, pulling away. “Sorry, man. You just touched a spot that’s on fire.” He rolled up his sleeve. There was a dark red mark on his forearm, a burn mark. It resembled a square with layered serrated pieces, a splintered hole in the center. I knew immediately it came from a round shot through a padlock. A clear ointment had been applied over the burn.

  Caroline gasped. “Dear God…what’d they do to you?”

  He looked up from his wound, his eyes filled with darkness. “I’d been drinkin’ and sort of lost it. This burn came from the lock I shot off on the south gate to the reform school. After I shot if off the gate, I went around to the front entrance and handed the lock to the rent-a-cop guard, Johnny Hines. I told him to give it to Hack Johnson to remind him he’s never gonna be safe. He gave it to somebody in their family, because after they jumped me, one of ‘em heated it with a butane torch.”

  I said, “When you asked to have it delivered, that’s waving a red cape in front of the bull, or in the case of the Johnson family, a herd.”

  He started to grin, his mouth more crooked, his eyes now heavy. “You got to get in the ring to fight. I figure I can’t find the bastard back in the swamps…so I’ll draw him out.”

  “Jesse, it’s not an eye for an eye,” I said. “It’s trying to prove Johnson or someone else killed Caroline’s brother. That’s what’ll stick. Nothing else. Do you understand me?”

  He lowered his eyes back to the burn on his arm. “When I was a kid, I was scarred for life. Now the bastards have branded me. Branded me like a rancher brands his cattle, his property.” He looked back up at me, water welling in his eyes. His voice was raspy, now barely above a whisper. “I’m no one’s property. I am a man!”

  I nodded, lifted Jesse’s arm to my arm to steady him and gently helped him walk outside, Caroline following. She opened the front passenger door to her car. I lowered him onto the seat. He leaned his head against the headrest, eyes closing. I shut the door and turned to Caroline. “He’s out. Follow me to his motel room. I’ll get his stuff and then follow you to your house to help get him inside and into bed.”

  She looked up at me, the ruddy light from the illuminated EMERGENCY sign falling across her face. “Thank you, Sean. When I first contacted you, when I spoke with you at the marina…I didn’t know things would turn out this way.”

  “Things haven’t turned out yet, not completely. It’s a process of discovery and elimination. Some doors are opening. Others are still closed and locked. All we can do is track down leads, go backwards in time to the source. You need to know what happened to your brother. Men like Jesse need to know they may have been warehoused and abused as kids, but their pasts and futures matter.”

  It was close to one o’clock in the morning when I finally got to bed. I lay there in my motel room, the worn mattress lumpy, thinking about the past twenty-four hours. I played back conversations, events—looking for patterns, links, looking for vine-covered and rusty closed doors. Places with twin routes to the past and present. Tomorrow I’d receive the package from FBI agent Carly Brown. I’d get the GPS tracker from Dave. I hoped the shotgun shell and the print would open a crucial door into the past. And I wanted to see if the tracker would lead me to someone currently trying to keep that door shut and locked.

  Sometime tomorrow I’d visit Cypress Grove, an assisted living facility. Maybe I could talk with one of the people that reporter Cory Wilson said was a resident there, Julie Carson, the mother of the state attorney, Jeff Carson. I didn’t know if she had dementia or some other mental condition. But I did know what I wanted to ask her. And her response just might get me a little closer to finding Andy Cope.

  SIXTY-ONE

  Jesse Taylor scooped up a final spoonful of grits and scrambled eggs from his plate. He sat at the kitchen table in Caroline’s home, the smell of bacon and coffee in the air. He sipped black coffee from a small white cup, Jesse’s index finger almost too large for the handle. He set the cup back on the saucer and said, “Can’t remember the last time I had a breakfast this good. Thank you, Caroline.”

  She smiled, the light from the morning sun coming through the tall glass windows in the Florida room, yucca and ficus plants growing from earthen pots in each corner. “I’m just so happy you’re eating. I know it’s not easy with loose teeth and cracked ribs. How’s the burn on your arm?”

  Jesse glanced at the wound. He wore a fresh white T-shirt and jeans. “It’s painful, but I’ll live. I’m hoping that when it heals there won’t be much of a scar.”

  “Did you take your medicine?”

  “Took the antibiotic. I’m tryin’ to hold off on the painkillers. When I cough, though, my ribs feel like somebody’s pullin’ them apart with a crowbar. But I don’t do well with narcotics; they make me tired and nauseous.”

  “Do only what you feel you need to do. I’m hoping you’ll have a speedy recovery and they’ll catch the men who did this to you.”

  “All I want is a speedy recovery of Andy—at least finding his whereabouts. The word speedy sounds damn weird after all these years. I need to get my car outta that motel lot before they tow it. Can you run me over there?”

  She got up and stepped in the kitchen. “Can you drive?”

  “No problem with that.” His phone buzzed. Jesse looked at the screen. He recognized the number. It was Jeremiah Franklin. “Hey, Caroline, do you have the newspaper?”

  “It’s on the front porch. I’ll get it for you”

  “Thanks.” He answered his phone and whispered, “Hey, Jeremiah, where are you?”

  “Heard what happened to you. Sonia works up there at the hosp
ital. She saw a report on what they done to you, Jesse. Are you hurt bad?”

  “I’m all right. The important thing is we got the bastards scared. They’re scattering here and there like cockroaches in a kitchen drawer.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “Damn sure I can walk.”

  “Meet me at the old place we fished as kids.”

  “You mean Bellamy Bridge on the river?”

  “Yeah, that old fishin’ hole brings back warm memories for me. You too, I suppose. Meet me there at noon. When I see you I’m gonna tell you what you want to know. I’m gonna tell you who it was that killed Andy Cope.

  Both Fed-EX packages were waiting for me at the motel office. I signed for them, bought a large black coffee at a convenience store, and drove to the Heartland Motel, hoping Jesse’s car was still there. It was. I parked next to it and opened the small package Dave had sent. There were two state-of-the-art GPS trackers. Last night, after packing Jesse’s stuff into Caroline’s car, I made sure one of the doors to Jesse’s car was unlocked.

  I put a battery inside one tracker, got out of my Jeep, opened the front passenger door to Jesse’s car and slipped the tracker under the seat. At the hospital, Caroline had said Jesse wanted to be a knight—maybe he wanted to be her white knight, but he had the rust of Tin Man and no elixir, no can of oil in sight. I couldn’t keep him on a leash, but I could keep tabs on him. And if he ventured too far from Marianna, too deep into the abyss, I could bring him back. Or I’d at least know where to look.

  I got back in the Jeep and opened the package from Special Agent, Carly Brown. She had enclosed a handwritten note. I silently read it. Sean, here’s your fifty-year-old print and the shell. Let me know if there’s a police agency you want me to send a digital copy to. Enclosed, you have an enlarged copy to use. If you find a match, you might be studied at Quantico in the future. And you might want to play the lotto, too. Good luck with everything. Carly.