by BJ Bourg
I stood and nodded. “Well, let’s go get her.”
It only took a few minutes to mount up in my Tahoe and drive across town. We weren’t expecting any trouble out of her. As far as I knew, she didn’t even know about the arrest of her husband and she hadn’t been the one who committed the murder, so the arrest should go off without incident. Still, we weren’t taking any chances.
I stopped my Tahoe at a neighboring house and Susan and I eased out of the vehicle. Susan indicated she would go to the back door and I headed for the front.
There was a cold breeze blowing and I shivered a little. Our local meteorologist had forecasted a cold week ahead. She said this was just the beginning, and that things would go downhill from here. She was never wrong, so I accepted my fate like a man waiting for the gallows.
I knocked on the front door and waited for Betty to answer. I couldn’t wait for warmer weather. Were it not for mosquitoes, summers in Louisiana would be absolutely perfect. While the state birds were definitely a nuisance, I would take them over the cold any day. I was only grateful our winters were mild. I didn’t know if I would like living up north where—
Suddenly, the still night air erupted in violent gunfire and I heard a woman scream.
CHAPTER 57
Chateau Parish Sheriff’s Office Motor Pool
“I’ll wait here,” Amy told Baylor when they followed the tow truck into the parking lot of the sheriff’s office motor pool. She slapped her left leg. “I don’t want to slow you down.”
Baylor leaned toward her and fixed her with his dark brown eyes. “You don’t slow me down and I would never leave you behind—ever.”
She smiled. “I know. That’s why I love you.”
“Wait—you love me?”
“Yeah, I do.” Her heart pounded in her chest, not sure what to expect from Baylor. He was a man of few words and he never discussed his feelings. In fact, neither of them had talked about their relationship. Their history to this point had been simple: they had discussed going on a date, the shooting had happened, and then Baylor had moved her in with him during her recovery. Were they dating? Was it exclusive? Was she moving out after she recovered? She had no clue.
“I love you, too, Amy Cooke,” Baylor finally said, never taking his eyes off hers. “I knew it for some time—long before the ambush—but I didn’t think you would feel the same way about me.”
Amy sat stunned. “Wait—you were in love with me before that crazy bitch almost killed us?”
“Yep.”
She slugged him in the shoulder. “Then why in the hell didn’t you say something?”
“I…I don’t know.” He shifted his eyes to the front of the car, where the driver of the tow truck could be seen talking to a sheriff’s deputy near the gate. He turned back to her. “I guess I was afraid you wouldn’t feel the same and then it would make things awkward at work.”
“Hmm, I guess you’re right.” Amy considered this for a moment. Finally, she sighed. “Okay, I forgive you for making me waste several months of my life living as a single.”
Baylor leaned forward and Amy’s spine tingled when their lips met. When he pulled away, she slowly opened her eyes.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, “and then we can continue this discussion at home.”
Amy nodded and watched him leave. It wasn’t until he had disappeared through the gate with the tow truck that she remembered why she’d wanted to remain behind. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out of the passenger’s seat and made her way around the front of the car.
When she reached the driver’s door, she paused for a long moment. She closed her eyes, took a series of deep breaths, and tried to clear her mind.
“Think back to when you were a teenager and first learning to drive,” her psychologist had said during their last conversation. “Remember how exciting it was? You were like a young eagle getting ready to fly. You could taste your freedom. The simple act of driving was going to open up so many doors for you. You would finally be independent. You would never have to rely on others for a ride anymore. You could get a job and drive yourself to work. You could travel across the country to see Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, the East Coast, West Coast—all of it—if you wanted to. If you had a sudden craving for an ice cream cone, you could jump in the car and go get one!”
In her mind’s eye, Amy could see that first time she was in her dad’s car learning to drive. He was beside her offering last minute instructions. His voice was calm and he didn’t sound a bit worried. Although she was bubbling with excitement, she was also terrified. She had asked her dad what would happen if she crashed his truck—the one he loved so dearly. He had laughed and said he’d get a better one, but that she shouldn’t worry, because she was ready.
Amy opened her eyes and snatched open the driver’s door to Baylor’s cruiser. Favoring her left leg a little, she slipped into the driver’s seat and twisted the key. The engine roared.
“Ah,” Amy said softly, “the sound of freedom.”
Without giving it a second thought and remaining mentally stuck in the past, with her dad beside her, Amy moved the AutoStick to R and backed out of the parking spot. She left the parking lot of the motor pool and got on the highway. With the windows down, she raced north for miles, letting the cold air of freedom blow through her blonde hair. She wasn’t sure how far she had gone, but when she came upon a widened portion of the shoulder, she abruptly slowed the vehicle, veered slightly to the right, whipped the vehicle around in the middle of the road, and then headed south again, a large smile spreading across her face.
Amy was parked back in the same spot at the motor pool by the time Baylor exited the secure storage portion of the motor pool, but she was still sitting in the driver’s seat. She buzzed the window down and smiled when she saw the quizzical expression on his face.
“Get in, lover,” she said. “I’m driving this bitch home.”
CHAPTER 58
My heart thumping in my chest, I made a mad dash for the back yard. I’d been around firearms my entire life and had a discerning ear. The gunshots I’d heard had been fired from a single weapon—an automatic shotgun—and there had been no return fire. The thing that caused my heart to explode in my chest was that Susan was armed with a handgun, so the shotgun fire had to have been directed at her. There was only one reason she wouldn’t return fire, and that was because she had been hit and put down before she could react. The thought sickened me.
When I came around the back corner of the house, my pistol was out in front of me. I didn’t even remember drawing it, but there it was, ready to destroy Betty Watts. A sense of panic was threatening to choke off my air supply and I was breathing harder than I should’ve been.
I lurched to a skidding stop when I took in the scene behind the house. Gasping for air, I stared in shock.
“What the hell happened, Sue?”
Susan stood there holding an automatic 12-gauge shotgun in her hands. The muzzle was angled downward and aiming at the back door of the residence. There were two holes in the lower portion of the door. Three of the four glass panes at the top portion of the door were blown out.
“What happened?” I asked again, confused. Susan had been armed with a pistol, not a shotgun.
“In one second, I was standing to the right of the back door waiting for you to knock,” Susan said, apparently still trying to comprehend what had just taken place, “and in the next second, the barrel of this shotgun was shoved through the window and Betty started blasting off shots. If the sound of the breaking glass hadn’t alerted me in that split second, she would’ve gotten me for sure. Somehow, she knew exactly where I was standing.”
“Is she down?” I asked, listening intently for any sound from inside that would indicate Betty was still mobile.
Susan nodded without hesitation. “I dipped low, grabbed the shotgun by the barrel, and jerked it away from her. I flipped it around and fired two blasts through the door. After that, I heard a soft t
hump hit the floor. She hasn’t moved since and she didn’t make a sound.”
I nodded and pulled a flashlight from my back pocket. As Susan retrieved her dropped pistol from the ground and returned it to her holster, I moved carefully toward the door. I twisted the knob and pushed it open. It moved a few inches, but stopped when it made contact with something soft. I stepped closer and forced it open. When I peered around the edge of the door, I saw the lifeless body of Betty Watts lying there.
I lifted the light and scanned the kitchen and adjoining living room. All was quiet and empty. I slipped inside and held the door for Susan to join me. Once we were inside, I flipped on a light and squatted beside Betty’s body. The woman was clad in the same dress jeans and loose blouse she’d worn earlier. However, the blouse was now covered in blood that gushed from two one-dollar-sized holes in her belly. Her inexpressive eyes were wide. Her mouth was also open wide, but she wasn’t breathing.
Removing a latex glove from my back pocket, I pressed my index and middle fingers to her neck. There was no pulse. I began administering CPR while Susan called for an ambulance. She then dropped down to help me.
Susan and I must’ve taken turns working on her for ten minutes before the ambulance arrived and two medics took over. We stood aside and I glanced around the room. On the far wall of the kitchen, I noticed two splintered bullet holes that marked the continuation of the trajectory the shotgun slugs had taken. I moved closer to examine the holes, and then checked the opposite side of the wall. I found that the bullets had punched right through. There was a hallway wall opposite the kitchen wall, and it was here that the 1 oz. slugs had come to rest. I shivered at the thought of one of those slugs hitting my wife.
“Clint,” Susan called from the kitchen. “Come check this out.”
I rejoined her and she showed me the screen of Betty’s cell phone. I cursed under my breath.
“This is how she knew I was back there,” she said. “She almost got me.”
On the phone screen, every detail of the back yard was displayed in a grayish hue. I stepped around the medics and passed through the back door. I scanned the rear wall of the house with my light. Up in one corner, hardly noticeable even with my light shining directly on it, there was a tiny surveillance camera fastened to the soffit. I shut off my light and the camera became completely invisible.
Whoever installed the camera had definitely intended for it to go unnoticed. I couldn’t help but wonder if Dillon had put it there to keep his wife honest. Since she knew about its presence, he probably hoped it would deter her from engaging in illicit activities, which was why she had been forced to meet men at her sister’s house.
I shrugged at the thought as I considered another option. He could’ve simply wanted to keep his wife safe. Whatever the case, Betty had used it in an attempt to ambush Susan. I thought back to Amy and what had happened to her, and shivered again. I said a silent prayer of thanks and walked to the doorway.
The medics continued to work on Betty as they loaded her onto a gurney and began wheeling her through the house. Susan followed and helped them get her into the back of the ambulance, but I remained behind and headed for the bathroom. I wanted to determine if Nikia had been telling the truth.
“Well, well,” Susan said a minute later when she walked up behind me. “That’s how I looked when I was pregnant.”
I only grunted. I was on my knees and had my arms wrapped around the toilet bowl, searching for the hole that Nikia had described. As I moved my hand along the wall, my fingers brushed up against the baseboard and it moved. I grabbed it with the tips of my fingers and pulled it loose. When I ran my fingers along the wall behind it, I felt a hole. Inside that hole, I found the hide-away phone.
“Got it!” I untangled myself from the toilet and rested on my haunches as I fumbled with the phone. It was a cheap device and easy to work. Within seconds, I’d found her contacts list and text messages. “Well, well, while she had been cheating on her husband, she sure was faithful to Nikia. His is the only number she communicated with.”
Susan had moved closer and was looking over my shoulder as I scrolled through the text messages.
I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw an exchange of messages from the Friday night that Betty had returned home to unexpectedly find Dillon hiding in their home. Betty’s messages were clear to understand, but Nikia wrote like a four-year-old and I had to strain to figure out the words.
Betty: OMG! Dillon is home!!!
Nikia: Wut the hell I tought he was workin wut did u tell him
Betty: I told him I was raped. He wants to know who did it!?! What do I say???
Nikia: Wear u at
Betty: Hiding in the bathroom. I told him I needed to use it and that it burned. He’s demanding to know who did it and threatening to kill them. I’m so scared! He’s going to find out about us!!!!!
Nikia: No he wont tell him Ty Richards did it
Betty: The crazy guy?
Nikia: ya Dillin gunna go after him and well be in the clear
Betty: Are you sure it’ll work?
Nikia: ya
“That little bastard lied!” I looked up at Susan. “Nikia set this whole thing in motion. He’s going down hard for this!”
She nodded and glanced back at the tiny screen. There were only a few more messages after that night. On Sunday night, Nikia had texted Betty and told her that Dillon murdered Ty and the two of them were in the clear. He later told her that he would contact the police department and report seeing Ty walking east of town. He said that once the heat was away from Jezebel Lane, he would move Ty’s body deep into the swamps where no one would ever find him.
“And if they do find the body and it leads them to Dillon,” he had written in his horrible English, “we’ll still be in the clear. You just need to stick to the story about Ty raping you and we’ll be fine. Don’t ever tell anyone we were having an affair and they won’t be able to link us to the crime. Deny, deny, deny!”
Betty had asked what would happen if Dillon told the police that Nikia helped kill Ty, and Nikia replied, “I never touched him, so they won’t find any evidence against me. And if he does involve me, I’ll offer to testify against Dillon. The cops will jump at the chance to have an eye witness on their side. After the trial, we can be together forever.”
Betty had asked Nikia what would happen if Dillon wasn’t arrested, and he responded by saying Dillon would have an accident one day and they could be together then.
After every message Nikia sent, he reminded Betty to delete their texts messages and the call history. She said she had, but in actuality, she hadn’t deleted a single one of them.
In his last few messages to Betty, Nikia asked what was wrong and why she wasn’t responding to him, but he received no response to any of those messages. In his final text message, he told Betty to destroy the phone or she would risk ending up in prison with Dillon.
“This will bury Nikia forever.” I stood and held up the phone. “Thanks to this, the district attorney’s office will definitely seek the death penalty against him. He basically put out a hit on Ty. Had it not been for him mentioning Ty’s name, Ty would still be alive today—and so would his mom.”
“You’re right,” Susan said with a nod. “He’s spent his entire life using and abusing women, and now he goes and does this?” She gritted her teeth. “It’s past time that someone gave him a lot of what he’s been giving. Death would be too easy for that little prick.”
I couldn’t argue, so I didn’t. I returned to the kitchen and indicated the crime scene. “Ready to get this thing processed?”
CHAPTER 59
Three weeks later…
The week after Susan shot and killed Betty Watts, the Mechant Loup parade had gone off without a hitch. Amy, who was recovering nicely from both her physical and emotional wounds, had led the procession through town. Baylor rode shotgun in case she had an episode, but she made it through the entire parade without experiencing the least bit of
anxiety.
Also on the day of the parade, but much earlier, Susan had received word that the district attorney’s office had cleared her of any wrongdoing. Thanks to the surveillance footage the sheriff’s office detectives had retrieved from Betty’s phone, the shooting was as open-and-shut a case as any they had ever been. While I hadn’t been worried about the results of the investigation, it was nice to receive the official word that she was cleared.
I had paid Nikia and Dillon each a visit in the parish jail. When I showed Nikia the text messages from the hide-away phone, he had begun cursing Betty for not deleting them and then he’d refused to talk to me. He demanded to see his lawyer, but I told him there was nothing to discuss. As for Dillon, he had been overcome with rage when I told him how Nikia had planted the seed in Betty’s mind about accusing Ty of rape. He promised to find some way to get to Nikia and kill him while he was in jail. This prompted me to notify the warden that Nikia was in danger, and he instituted measures to keep the two men separated while they were being held there. While I figured Nikia deserved whatever he got, it was my duty to do my part to protect those who were in the state’s custody.
As I had predicted, Prosecutor Britt Lucas from the district attorney’s office had called yesterday to tell me she was seeking the death penalty against Nikia and Dillon. I hadn’t predicted she would call yesterday—only that she would seek the death penalty.
“Those photographs were horrible,” she had said of Ty’s injuries. “Once a jury sees what they did to that poor man, they’ll convict them in thirty minutes and sentence them to death in fifteen.”
As I slid the crime lab reports into the protective sleeves that were attached to my three-ring binder, I glanced at the clock on the corner of my computer screen. It was almost midnight on Friday and I should’ve been home, but I needed to get this report out before Monday.