by S. A. Austin
CHAPTER 74
With the panel closed Jacob sensed her presence inside. He used the lighter to frighten her into thinking he might burn the place down. The other side of his brain wanted to give her a moment of simplicity.
The secret place belonged to him. He thoroughly resented anyone else using it. The hidey-hole had been his one and only safe haven when his papa was on a drunken rampage, or when he needed a break from his mama’s increasing craziness.
Earlier, while pacing the road watching and waiting for her, it occurred to him she’d either passed out because of exhaustion or exposure, or her ass was in the house. He doubted she’d left the property. The place would’ve already been swarming with cops.
The blow to his manhood, in more ways than one, had rendered him incapable of standing up. He lay on the floor, curled in a ball with a protective hand on his crotch, the other over his re-injured eye. Heard her running down the stairs. She fell once. A pained yelp made him smile.
* * *
BJ threw open the kitchen door. Screamed. A woman with long black hair and wearing a long pale blue dress was standing about four and a half feet away with her arms outstretched, fingers clawing the air. Lightning flashed vividly above her. She was soaking wet, her hair and dress clinging to a thin body. Her mouth had been stitched-shut with thick black thread like... like a life-size voodoo doll.
BJ ran up the hallway. Movement on the third floor stairs made her look up, then down. The foyer door stood wide open. A shadow darkened the doorway. She crept into the living room.
Had she only imagined seeing somebody?
A deep chill rippled down her spine. She sensed the ‘somebody’ was now behind her.
She ran out the door and around the house.
Did I just see a set of headlights go off?
She stopped and listened to a car slowly driving by.
* * *
Jacob zipped his jacket. Chased after BJ. When he came around the corner at the rear of the house he stopped so fast he almost lost his balance. A woman. Outside the kitchen door.
“Mama?”
He smacked rainwater and blood out of his eyes.
“Is it, is it really you?”
She said something inaudible. Started running in the direction of the barn.
Jacob charged after her. “Wait for me, Mama.”
She stepped on the hem of the dress, tripped and fell down. Rolled onto her back. The wet garment had wrapped tighter around her knees, but she managed to stand up.
Jacob caught up to her. Gradually reached back with his left hand, moved his jacket aside, and eased his gun out of his waistband.
She screamed bloody murder.
He aimed and fired. Mama fell backward, her arms outstretched.
“Like Jeebus Christ on the cross.”
He pointed his flashlight at her face. She had drawn a black zigzag mark over her lips.
Why, for chrissake?
Inside the barn, Jacob tucked the flashlight in his pocket. Grabbed a rope off of a large rusty nail. Hiked the coil onto his shoulder to free up his hands. Reaching down to pick up a concrete block he saw something on the ground behind the stack. His breath caught in his throat. The rope fell to the ground. He raised the article of clothing to eye level. Recognized it right away. It was the bloody pale blue nightgown Mama was wearing when she died.
Why had Papa hidden it?
Going back to where he’d left the woman beneath the old elm he called the moss gatherer, his heart was in turmoil.
CHAPTER 75
Although illegal, Homicide Detective Lucas Cantin drove with the parking lights only over the dark dirt road. The old black sedan he had borrowed from the officer’s garage noisily bounced on its shocks with each rut.
A red light soon came into view. He moved forward with caution. Held the brake down, and twisted sideways in his seat to have a look through the passenger window.
Taillights.
The farmhouse appeared uninhabited, but that didn’t mean it was. If the storm had caused a power outage, he expected to see candlelight.
If it’s actually inhabited by the living.
In a matter of seconds the deluge weakened to a light drizzle before coming to a sudden and complete stop. The full moon poked through a hole in the clouds.
He got out, vaguely aware one foot landed in a puddle of water. Lucas came within reach of the vehicle. A patrol car. Hugging a palm tree with the bumper. He knew for a fact that particular car had been assigned to Officer Jacob Wentzel.
He wrecked it, or someone stole it and they wrecked it.
He considered the location.
No, I don’t think so.
Lucas patted his sidearm.
Playing a flashlight in and around the car, the rookie cop was nowhere to be seen. About to step up to the porch, a low beam of light stopped him. Headlights. Coming toward him at a steady clip. He waited at the edge of the road.
Detective Northcutt called out to him as he approached. “Glad to see you got my message.”
Message? Lucas held his flashlight down at his side. Turned his cap around backwards on his head. His partner clicked on his own torch. “What’s going on?” Lucas was surprised how glad he was to see Gary. He didn’t realize the place had spooked him so much. All the dark alleys in the city didn’t come close to the sinister atmosphere of this old farm.
“I found out BJ planned to meet with a detective named Raynor Schein,” said Gary, keeping his voice down. “There is no Schein in the department. But here,” he pointed to the house with his flashlight, “is where she planned to meet him. Have you seen her?”
“I just got here.” Lucas tilted his head at Wentzel’s car. “He’s here, though. You think Wentzel is the mysterious Schein?”
“At the moment, I don’t have any answers.”
Forgotten details came back to Gary. Beau said that ever since BJ’s book was published she’s been traveling all around Louisiana. But BJ said her husband would never let her travel any great distance without him. How much of everything she’s told him has been the truth? He looked forward to asking her. First and foremost, he had to find her.
They examined the patrol car.
Lucas reached through the open window, concerned why it was open on such a stormy night, and turned off the lights. “Any sense of what happened here?”
Gary cupped a hand beside his mouth and shouted, “BJ. Where are you?”
“Damn,” said Lucas, “warn a fellow next time?”
“Sorry. C’mon.”
Leading with their guns they crept to the rear of the house without stopping. Advanced on the barn with extreme caution. Heads turning this way and that, both watching and listening for any signs of movement.
“We need more light,” Lucas whispered. “Follow my lead.”
“It’s possible I scared him off when I yelled.”
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
They positioned their cars to face the barn. Hit the bright lights almost at the same time. Each gripped one of the wooden doors, and swung it wide open. Used a large rock and an old tin pail to hold the doors in place.
They waited just inside the entrance. Shined their lights, bottom to top then down again. The building appeared to be about eighty feet long, fifty feet wide, and forty feet high.
Lucas slowly went up the ladder to the loft, thinking it’s a better hiding place than the house. He aimed his light over and around the hay bales. Standing in the yawning mouth of the loft doors he could just barely make out a water well in the distance where moonlight glinted on a metal ladle.
How...? He shimmied down the ladder. “Gary, come with me.”
The men ran in single file to the well. Stopped within five feet of it.
“What have you got in mind?” Gary asked quietly, looking at a boarded-up well.
“Wentzel? Schein? A new player?”
“Hiding inside of it, you mean? We’ll find out soon enough.”
After a cursory
glance around, they put down their flashlights. Shoved the boards to the opposite side, some hitting the ground, others falling back against the stone wall, both kind of amazed not to hear anybody shouting at them. In unison, they shined their lights in the well.
The sight of her took Gary’s breath away.
She was on her stomach, her face turned away from them. Dressed in a gray sweatshirt and matching pants. Barefooted, ankles bound with tape. Wrists tied together with a thin nylon rope. Legs bent at the knees behind her back and strapped to her wrists with more of the same rope. Silver tape wrapped around her head, sealing her mouth shut. At that distance, it was impossible to tell if she was dead or alive. The missing bucket lie on its side partially buried in the dirt. The top and bottom ends of a shovel were visible, the middle part hidden beneath her, creating an illusion that she’d been skewered.
The well rope had also gone missing, but unlike the bucket, it was nowhere to be seen. Gary started running to the barn. Lucas hurried to catch up to him.
Near the pegboard wall, Lucas lifted a fifteen-pound thirty-foot rope off a large hook. Held it tight against his chest with both arms. Gary wound his arm around the top half of a single straight wood ladder, the back half digging a tiny trench across the ground.
Heading to the well, the cumbersome items slowed them down.
Lucas heaved the rope onto one shoulder, and raised the free end of the ladder. Stumbling over the uneven terrain with his hands full he was forced to let go of the ladder.
Gary grew more impatient with every step. She might be alive. “She better be alive.”
The first to arrive, Gary lowered the ladder into the well, leaned it against the inside wall at a forty-five degree angle. The fifteen-foot ladder was now about eleven and a half feet tall. He kept his Maglite on, tucking the long handle in his overcoat pocket. Swung his leg over the side, and gently put his foot down on the next to the top rung. Clinging to the edge of the wall with both hands, he eased his other leg over. Waited a moment until he had evenly distributed his weight across the rung and the ladder leveled out. He descended quickly.
“She’s hogtied, too heavy for me to lift,” he shouted up to Lucas. “Toss me the rope.”
Lucas lay his flashlight flat on the wall, the beam pointing at the area above the ladder. Tied one end of the rope around the thick pulley, pitched the rest of it into the well.
Gary secured the other end around her waist. “Haul her up.” When she was a couple of feet above him, he hopped onto the ladder and followed her.
Together they hauled her out, her body stiff with rigor mortis. Gently lay her down on her stomach, untied the rope.
Lucas cut the tape off her ankles with a switchblade knife.
Gary untied the thin rope around her wrists. Rolled her on her side. Jerked back, reflexively.
It wasn’t BJ Donovan.
“Wh-who…?”
“I’ll be damned,” Lucas whispered, “it’s Yeager. Officer Renee Yeager.”
“Fuck.”
Gary gently peeled the tape off her face. With her long blond hair and petite build, a lowlife piece of shit used her to make them think it was BJ. But why? Why go to all that trouble? Why kill an innocent woman? And how’d the kidnapper slash killer know the detectives would come to the well and find her? Hell, how did he or she know they’d come to Wentzel Farm?
“Why did he tape her mouth and bind her arms and legs? Surely he killed her in the alley. Or am I missing something here?” Gary nervously smoked a cigarette.
Lucas wasn’t ready to fill him in on what he’d learned on his own. He stepped away to call whoever the hell he was supposed to call in a shitty situation such as this.
He rejoined Gary, who stood with his back to Yeager. Lucas wasn’t able to look at her, either, both feeling like they had failed her.
The wail of sirens broke the heavy silence.
“The cavalry’s arrived,” Lucas said, glumly. Too late to do this rookie any good. “Don’t forget your butts. You shouldn’t even be smoking out here.”
“I still don’t understand what’s going on.”
Yeah, I know you don’t. Lucas debated about going ahead and telling Gary about his secret investigations, but a couple of details were missing. He didn’t have a complete picture to share with him or the captain.
“If we had done our job right in the first place, this,” Gary pointed in Yeager’s direction, “wouldn’t have happened.”
“That’s simply not true,” said Lucas. “We just put it all together too late to prevent Renee’s murder. Investigating Wentzel’s background, we learned about this farm. But that was only because he was honest with most of his answers on the questionnaire. You’re overlooking a crucial element. It was a cop who had done this horrible thing. A person trained to get into the mind of a killer. We know Wentzel’s been hot to trot about joining the detective division. He’s always reading shit. There’s also the fact that, since he’s one of us, he was there for the briefings. He knew each step in the investigation we were going to take before we took it.” Lucas turned his cap back around. “That’s how he stayed one step ahead of us. That’s also how he knew we’d eventually come here. As to why he’s done all this shit I, I can’t say at this time.”
“I hear you. Doesn’t make it any better, though.”
Gary and Lucas shut off their headlights. The bright colors of various lights on the tow truck hauling off Wentzel’s patrol car grew dimmer and dimmer.
Several officers, pros and rookies alike, continued to mill about, searching the house and the barn. Some had gone as far away as the bridge. Inspected it, high and low.
“Nothing so far, sir.” An officer reported to Northcutt.
“Thanks for your help. Tell the others to call it a night. Our disgraced rookie is on the run.”
CHAPTER 76
No sooner had she heard the car pass by earlier than she ran off. Heard a woman scream. Heard a gunshot. Ran nonstop until she reached her car.
BJ drove across the back field dangerously fast. Her low-beam lights grazed the side of an old rusted-out dark green car partly hidden in an overgrown briar patch.
Hiding in the woods several yards back from the bridge, she lifted a miniature bottle of tequila out of a vinyl trash bag dangling off the radio volume knob.
The cops explored every inch of the bridge. Even down in the creek, apparently not thinking about snakes. An errant beam of light clipped her front bumper. She grasped the handle, ready to open the door.
BJ fought the urge to transform into a black panther, and become one with the darkness.
CHAPTER 77
“See you later, Gary. I’ve put in a sixteen-hour shift today. Time to hit the sack.” Lucas stretched and yawned. Got in behind the wheel.
“Me, too. We’ll catch the bastard tomorrow.”
Lucas put down the window on the passenger side. “We’ll meet at the office in the morning. Don’t forget, it’s your turn to bring coffee and beignets.”
Gary nodded. Standing by the driver’s side of the sedan he had swapped his Mustang for, he squatted down and pretended to tie a shoelace. Hoped Lucas didn’t notice he’d worn loafers.
The rear end of Cantin’s car disappeared around the farmhouse. Gary ran to the road, and continued watching until the car lights were no longer visible.
Everyone was gone. He finally had a minute alone with his thoughts.
Gary wanted Wentzel all to himself.
Cupping his hands around the lighter, he lit another cigarette. Hiked his collar up on his neck to ward off the chill caused by a cold front that had descended on the city at the tail end of the severe thunderstorm.
He put a foot on the rear bumper of his car, rested his arm on his bent knee, and finished smoking. Flicked the butt into a mud puddle without thinking. He also wasn’t thinking about his car. He needed to hide it.
“Damn.”
He drove into the barn and around a pegboard wall. Switched everything off.
/> The tow truck driver had turned in Wentzel’s cell phone left on the dashboard of the patrol car. Gary had a sneaking suspicion Wentzel would do the same thing he’d do, if their roles were reversed. Walk to the nearby grocery store, and ask to use their phone. Call for a cab to come and pick him up. Leave town without going home first.
Wentzel had to know they were on to him. He’d know his downtown apartment’s being staked out. More than that, he knew Wentzel would want to see, before leaving the city for good, if Renee Yeager’s body had been discovered. He’d stand over her grave and reminiscence about putting her down there, just like any other murderer.
About to light the oil lantern on a work bench by his car, he quickly backed off. Too much hay. Too little time to get the fire fighters out here.
Gary hurried to the other side of the barn to the middle of a two-tier railing on the loft. Placed his flashlight on the floor and angled it at the hayloft ladder, hoping it’ll appear as if it had been accidentally dropped in the confusion. Shut the doors on his way out.
He started to hide at the elm by the barn. Too easy. He jogged to the tree Wentzel had crashed into. Ducked down. Damn, this idea’s worse than the other. He can see me from every angle. The woods on the other side of the road might pose a problem if there were any nocturnal creatures out and about. He ran toward the barn, but at the last second steered cleared of it. Crouched by a tree that wasn’t as wide as the other two, but would be sufficient.
Gary refrained from smoking so as not to reveal his hiding place. Admonished himself for even taking up the habit again. In all the years he’d been a cop he’d never had a personal connection to any of the cases he worked on. Had no idea what one had to do with the other.
His plan was simple. Attracted by the light in the barn, Wentzel would sneak in there, pick up the flashlight, and see the car. He’d then run to the well to view Yeager’s body for the last time. Afterward, he’d run back to the barn, and attempt to make his escape in the sedan.