by BJ Bourg
He paused and snatched another pile of tissue from the box and wiped his face. When he removed his hands from his face, I winced. Pieces of white fuzz from the tissue had stuck to his moustache. It grossed me out, so I pointed to it.
“You’ve got stuff on your caterpillar,” I said. “You need to wipe it off.”
He stared at me in confusion.
“Your moustache,” Susan said. “He means your moustache. You’ve got white fuzz all over your moustache.”
He quickly rubbed his face with the back of his hand. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I thought I could feel something dangling.”
“Get back to what happened Saturday night,” I said. “Before you got sidetracked, you were telling us you couldn’t sleep and you got mad.”
“Well, I was just so tired that I…um, I kind of blacked out.” He nodded as if to reassure himself. “Yeah, I black out sometimes when I get mad, and I was mad and tired and not thinking straight, so I just blacked out. I don’t remember what happened next.”
“That’s great.” I was done wasting my time, so I stood. “Let’s go to prison.”
He gasped in horror. “Prison? For what? I’m being honest.”
“You’re going to prison for murdering Mrs. Richardson.”
“But I didn’t murder her!” he protested. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”
“How do you know?” I pressed. “You blacked out. There was no one there but you, Mrs. Richardson, and probably Ty. Mrs. Richardson’s dead and Ty is missing, so they’re not talking. That only leaves you, but you blacked out, so you can’t say you didn’t murder anyone. Without your statement, I’ve got to go with the evidence—and the evidence says you were the only one at a murder scene, so, in my book, you’re the killer.”
“No, wait a minute, I—”
“You what?” I asked folding my arms across my chest. “Are you going to try and say you didn’t black out now? And do you expect me to believe that shit?”
He blinked several times before answering. “I didn’t…um…I didn’t black out. I swear it—but not on my daughters,” he added hastily. “I just plain swear it. I didn’t black out.”
“Then why’d you say you blacked out?”
He lowered his head. “I guess I was scared.”
“What did I tell you about lying to me?” I asked. “I won’t sit here and listen to lies. I’ve got too much to do. Now, tell me again what you did when you went across the street.”
“I was angry and I wanted to walk over there and tell Ty to keep it down.” He shifted in his chair. “Well, first I was gonna ask his mom to control him, but she didn’t answer the door.”
“Did you open it?”
“No, it was already open.”
“Continue,” I said, reclaiming my seat.
“I went to Ty’s camper next. The door was open and—like you mentioned—there was a mess on the ground near the door.” He sniffed and took a swipe at his left eye. “I think there were pieces of food scattered around. There was a box on the ground, but I couldn’t make out what it was because it was dark.”
“Go on,” I pressed. “What happened next?”
“Ty wasn’t in his camper and I didn’t hear any more noise, so I thought about going back to my trailer.” He shivered. “Now I wish I would have.”
“You didn’t,” I said. “So what did you do instead?”
“I saw a light on at the back of the house, so I made my way to the shed.” He stopped talking and whimpered before dabbing at his eyes with the tissue. “That’s when I found her. Mrs. Carol was on the floor on her back. Her eyes were closed and it looked like she was sleeping. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Why didn’t you call 9-1-1?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I’ve never had any interactions with the police or anything, so I didn’t know what to do.”
“Did you touch her?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded.
“Where was Ty?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shake of the head. “I didn’t see him.”
“What kind of weapon did you bring with you?” I asked, taking a gamble. I knew this man was a coward, which meant he would never cross that street empty-handed.
He gasped. “What?”
“You heard me,” I said. “I’m not repeating the question.”
“Um, I would never hurt anyone.”
“Wrong answer.” I started to rise again, but he threw out both hands.
“No, please, I’m telling the truth.” He swallowed hard. “I took a hammer with me, but just for protection. I was afraid that Ty was dangerous. I thought he might attack me and I only brought the hammer in case I would need to defend myself.”
“Right.” I shook my head. “What in the hell am I gonna do with you? You’ve spilt more lies than tears in here today. I can’t believe a damn thing you say.”
“I’m being honest about this.” He clasped his hands together in front of his face. “Please, you’ve got to believe me. I went to check on Ty and I couldn’t find him. I found his mom instead and it freaked me out. I thought Ty must’ve hurt her, so I closed the door and left.”
I thought back to the only two times I’d encountered this man, and something suddenly occurred to me.
“Did you find the door to the shed open?” I asked.
He nodded.
“And you closed it when you left?”
Again, he nodded.
“Did you do anything else?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“When you closed the door, did you do anything else?”
His shoulders slumped. “I probably locked it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s a habit of mine,” he explained. “Every time I close a door, I have to lock it. It drives my wife crazy. I’ve locked us out of our house at least a dozen times, which is why we have a key hidden in the flower pot hanging on the porch.”
“Don’t tell people where you hide your key,” I scolded. “You never reveal that.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
That was probably the only thing he’d said all day that I believed—not that he was sorry, but that he had locked the door. I’d seen him do it twice in the two times I’d encountered him.
“Where’s Ty?” I asked again.
“I don’t know.” His eyes grew wide at the thought of me not believing him. “I swear I don’t know where he is. The last time I saw him was Friday night when that car almost hit him.”
I was thoughtful. “Have you seen that car again?”
He shook his head from side to side.
“When I find Ty, will I find him dead with a hammer mark in his skull?” I asked.
Logan recoiled against the back of his chair. “I hope not!”
“You hope I don’t find him or you hope he doesn’t have a hammer hole in his head?”
“The last one.” He licked his lips. “I do hope you find him, because he can help prove that I didn’t hurt his mom.”
“How can he do that?”
“By telling the truth about what happened,” he said naively. “Once he does that, you’ll know I had nothing to do with hurting his mom.”
“Where’s the hammer you used to bash in Ty’s skull?” I asked quickly.
“It’s in the red toolbox in my—wait a minute!” His mouth opened in shock. “You tried to trick me!”
I studied him for a long moment. He seemed to crumble under the weight of my stare.
“Where’s the hammer?” I asked in a serious tone.
“In the red toolbox in my little shed. That’s where I picked it up when I got back home.”
“Do I have your permission to go to your house and retrieve it?”
He shrugged. “Sure. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“When I send it to the crime lab, will they find Ty’s blood on it?”
He started to say he hoped not, but
caught himself. “No, sir. Ty’s blood is definitely not on my hammer.”
I asked him a few more questions, but his answers got me no closer to finding Ty or his mom’s killer. This made me think that if I found one, I’d find the other.
When I returned Logan to his trailer, his wife and babies were gone. I felt better about that. I didn’t want to disturb or alarm them.
Logan led me to the toolbox that contained the hammer he said he’d brought with him to Ty’s house. I collected it as evidence and asked to search the rest of his house. He gave his consent and I spent the next hour searching for evidence that might suggest he had something to do with Mrs. Richardson’s death or Ty’s disappearance. I found nothing.
“You’d better hope I don’t find Ty dead,” I said over my shoulder as I was leaving his house. “That won’t look good for you.”
He had followed me onto his front porch and I heard him stop dead in his tracks and gulp audibly. He turned quickly and tried to return inside, but cursed when he realized he’d locked himself outside.
CHAPTER 34
When I left Logan’s house, I called Susan and she assured me she had the search well in hand. Thus, I drove to the crime lab to drop off the hammer. It was a little after three and I wanted to get it to them before they closed for the day.
As I drove, I realized how much I missed having Amy’s assistance, so I gave her a call.
“What’s up, Amy?” I asked when she answered. “How are you?”
“I’m good.” Her voice was low, but she sounded better than she had the last time I’d talked to her. “I had my first session with the psychologist today.”
“Oh, really?” I asked. “The one from California?”
“Yeah, they’re doing a lot of online therapy nowadays, which means they can see patients from anywhere in the country, as long as they’re licensed in that state.” She sighed. “It made it so much easier for me, because she’s far away and I know I won’t run into her in the grocery store or something.”
“Do you like her?”
“Yeah, I do.” Her voice seemed to grow stronger as she talked. “I wasn’t expecting anything out of the first session, but I actually walked away feeling encouraged. She made me realize that what I’m experiencing is totally normal—that I’m not going crazy. For a moment there, I thought I was losing it. I saw my entire career getting flushed down the toilet. If I can’t drive, I can’t work. I mean, can you imagine having to get a ride everywhere you go? I need some milk…call a friend. I need to get my hair cut…call a cab. I need to know what things were like during the Old Testament…call Clint Wolf.”
Her last statement was so unexpected I choked on my tongue with laughter. Before the ambush, she had taken great pleasure in ribbing me about my age. While I would still be thirty-six for another five months, Amy had started teasing me about being old when I pretended not to notice my last birthday—not because I was concerned about creeping up on forty, but because I didn’t like the attention. To hear her make the joke made me extremely happy. She sounded like her old self again.
“I’m much more optimistic now,” she continued. “The psychologist told me that if driving was my main trigger, then I should be content to ride shotgun for a while. She said she would teach me some techniques to help deal with the trauma, and she said she’s confident I’ll be driving again in no time.”
“I’m so happy to hear that.” I was still grinning wide, filled with joy over the news. “Take whatever time you need.”
“Yeah, and you’d better not replace me,” she warned. “I don’t want to have to kick somebody’s ass.”
“I can’t replace you—I need you!” I went on to bring her up to speed on the case. When I was done, I asked if she had any thoughts.
“You couldn’t hold Logan?”
“No.” I sighed. “The fingerprint just proves he was there, it doesn’t prove he hurt Mrs. Richardson. We’re not even sure she was hurt. It could’ve been an accident.”
“What about arresting him for burglary?”
“I thought about it, but I wouldn’t be able to prove he made an unauthorized entry, and I also wouldn’t be able to prove his reason for being there.”
She was thoughtful. “What about following him to see if he leads you to Ty?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” I tapped the steering wheel as I drove. “We don’t have the manpower for it—unless I called the sheriff’s office for help.”
“Scratch that,” she suddenly said. “Ty’s dead. And there’s no way Logan would be dumb enough to return to the body.”
I drove for a long moment without saying a word. I didn’t want to believe it. Ty was such a good person. If something bad had happened to him, he certainly wouldn’t have understood what was going on or why it was happening. I still wasn’t ready to rule out Neal Barlow, and I said as much to Amy.
“No, I agree fully,” she said. “That slick bastard would be top of my list.”
“You really think he’s dead?” I pressed.
“Yup. Start looking to the sky.”
I inadvertently glanced up. It was blue but clouds were starting to gather. I thought I’d heard something earlier about a cold front blowing through tonight. It would bring some rain, which would hamper our search somewhat.
“Look to the sky for what?”
“Vultures,” she said simply. “Tonight will be the fourth night he’s missing. Thanks to the warmer weather we’ve been having, I’m betting he’s ripe right about now. He’ll be on their radar.”
Although I was well into Chateau Parish and miles from Mechant Loup, I glanced up at the sky again, searching for a flock of circling birds.
“Thanks for the tip,” I mumbled, still not happy about the prospect of finding Ty dead. I just kept hoping he was wandering around somewhere, lost and confused. I figured we would find him, get him some help, and he’d get well enough to tell us what happened to his mom.
“Don’t mention it,” she said. “My consulting fee gets deposited into my bank account every other Friday. I mean, I guess that’s what we can call it, since I haven’t been to work in forever.”
I didn’t want to get all sentimental and dampen the conversation, so I refrained from telling her that it was the least the town could do, considering how much she had sacrificed for the people of our community. Instead, I asked her if she thought Ty had been murdered or died from the elements.
“What’s the hammer look like?” she asked.
“Like a hammer.”
“I mean,” she said in feigned sternness, “does it have blood or brain matter on it?”
“I looked at it, but I didn’t see anything. If Logan used it to kill Ty, I’m sure he would’ve cleaned it before putting it away.” I shook my head. “Our only hope is that the lab can recover something from it.”
“God, I wish I was out there.” She was silent for a few seconds and then said she had to go. “I’ve got to practice.”
“Practice?” I asked.
“Yeah, I want to get back to doing back flips.”
I laughed and shook my head as I tossed my cell phone on the center console. I thought about that laughter. It was good to be able to do that again. Rather than going back to that night and dredging up those horrific scenes in my mind, I focused on the present. She was recovering—both physically and emotionally—and she would be back at work in no time.
“Too bad it wasn’t in time to help with this case,” I said aloud, as I turned on the highway that led to La Mort. “I can sure use some help.”
Thanks to a crash on the interstate, it took me forty minutes to make it to the crime lab. I signed the chain of custody forms, delivered the hammer to the intake officer, and then hurried back to town. I made it across the bridge just as the sun was going down and it was starting to rain.
I found Susan at the police department with the other officers and some of the volunteers who had been searching the fields all day.
“Well, what’s
the plan for tomorrow?” Susan asked. “We covered a lot of ground, but we didn’t find any sign that Ty might have come through there.”
I sighed heavily and sat at a table in the break room. A few people milled about, and I saw Melvin talking to Sam Beard. There were a few pots on the stove, and I figured I’d eat here before heading home. My mom would’ve fed Grace and I knew Susan had already eaten.
“I think I’m calling it,” I finally said. “If Ty did walk down Camp Street, he either doubled back and returned to this side of town or fell in one of those drainage canals. Either way, we’re wasting our time in those woods.”
“I’m afraid you’re right.” She frowned. “Ready to go home and get some sleep? I have a feeling it’ll be another busy day for you tomorrow.”
It was impossible for any of us to know it at the time, but the words of Susan and Amy would both prove to be prophetic.
CHAPTER 35
I woke up at seven o’clock on Thursday morning—a bit later than the past few mornings—and took my time getting ready for work. Susan was already up and fussing over breakfast when I walked downstairs. Grace was chasing the dogs around the living room and my mom was sitting at the table. She looked up when I approached.
“Clint, you look tired,” she said with a frown. “Are you getting enough sleep?”
“I never get enough sleep.” I joined Susan and helped her finish breakfast. We ate breakfast over small talk and Grace kept interrupting to ask questions in her improving English.
“Daddy, you a cop?”
“Yes, Pumpkin.”
“You catch bad boys?”
After swallowing a mouthful of grits, I nodded. “I catch bad boys and bad girls.”
“Mommy’s a bad girl.”
Susan gasped. “Am not!”
“Daddy, Mommy said a bad word.” Grace paused long enough to drink from her cup. A trickle of milk leaked down the side of her face and she wiped it with the front of her shirt. “Mommy said shit.”
“Gracie, don’t say that!” Susan tried to sound stern, but the corners of her mouth curled up into a smile. “That’s a bad word. Only grownups can say that word.”