by BJ Bourg
I stopped walking. “What?”
“Yep, the suspects were in Mitch Taylor’s Corner Pub on Tuesday, the same day they checked out of one of Lucille Cheramie’s camps,” she explained hurriedly. “And get this—they also gave Lucille’s helper two one-hundred-dollar bills from the same date series.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“But I thought you just said they rented a camp from Lucille Cheramie?” I’d heard Lucille’s name before, but I’d never met her. “How can she not know their names?”
“They paid with cash and said their names were Jim and Jimmy. She thinks they were father and son. They’re driving a dark gray, four-by-four Silverado with one tire that’s missing a hubcap.” She took a breath. “They probably made it back to Utah by now.”
I started walking again. “Amy, there’re probably thousands of dark gray Silverado four-by-four trucks with a missing hubcap. I need something more.”
“Well, you’ll have to work with that for now,” she said bluntly. “I’ll spend the rest of the day going up and down Washington Avenue pulling surveillance footage from Tuesday. We’re bound to capture their faces on video.”
“Faces won’t help much,” I said. “I need some names.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Thanks. Call me when you know more.”
“Yeah, well, answer your phone.”
Before I could respond, she ended the call. I shook my head and updated Susan and Leah, who had both been watching me with great curiosity.
“I didn’t see the names Jim or Jimmy in the file,” I said. “Did I miss it?”
Leah shook her head. “Those names have never come up during the investigation.”
“Any thoughts on the dark gray Silverado?” I asked.
“Same as you—there are thousands of them.”
When we reached our vehicles, Susan and I climbed into my Tahoe and we followed Leah. She had called Winona at her work number and learned that she had retired. She then called Winona’s cell phone and got an answer. Winona had agreed to meet with us at two o’clock, and that gave us about an hour for lunch. We were all hungry, so we welcomed the break.
“Where do you guys want to eat?” Leah asked. “We’ve got some good seafood restaurants in the city.”
“We’re from Louisiana,” I said, smiling, “no one does seafood better than we do. How about some Mexican food? I thought I saw a sign for something called the Red Iguana up the street.”
Leah smiled. “It’s to die for.”
CHAPTER 36
After a hearty meal that left me wanting a nap, Susan and I followed Leah to the outskirts of Windrift near the foot of a mountain range. She pulled into a crowded neighborhood and stopped in front of a modest home that was squeezed between two other homes.
“That’s a cute little house,” Susan said as we prepared to step out of my Tahoe. “I love the little garden out front.”
The entire front yard was a garden and it was well manicured. There were freshly planted flowers arranged in symmetrical patterns in the small space between what appeared to be her driveway and the neighbor’s driveway.
We were parked on the street and I had to duck under some tree branches as I walked to the narrow driveway. The door opened before we made it to the front porch and a woman stepped out to greet us. She rubbed her hands nervously on her jeans.
“Hey, Detective Anderson, do you have some good news?”
Leah frowned and glanced over at me. “Winona, these detectives—Clint and Susan Wolf—drove all the way from Louisiana. They have some news for you, and I’d like you to look at some names.”
The woman nodded and stepped forward to shake hands. She had shoulder-length hair that was dark brown and curly. Her hand was cold and soft.
“I hear you retired,” I said as we followed her into the house. She wasn’t wearing shoes and her bare feet slapped gently against the floor.
“Yeah, I left the company last year.” She indicated the chairs with a wave of her hand and we all took a seat. “It’s hard to believe this day has come.”
I noticed several cardboard boxes scattered about the living room and there were dishes on the counter wrapped in newspaper.
“Are you moving?” I asked.
“Yeah, you guys got here just in time.” She took a breath. It sounded as though she had been working hard. “After I retired and my girls moved out, I realized there was nothing in Windrift that was holding me back, so I decided to move closer to them. One lives in Albuquerque and the other lives in Fort Worth. I was trying to find a centrally-located spot, and settled on Roswell. I’ve always been interested in aliens, so why not move there, right?”
We all made small talk, trying to break the ice, and I decided to get down to business. “As I’m sure you’ve probably figured out,” I began, “there’s been a development with the case.”
Winona excused herself and walked to the kitchen to get a glass of water. She offered us a drink, but we all declined. When she was seated again, she said, “This case has taken a real toll on my life. After the robbery, I couldn’t drive armored trucks anymore. I was going to quit, but the company convinced me to stay.” She smiled. “They really took good care of me. They transferred me to the warehouse—where I learned to drive a forklift and worked to load and unload the trucks—and they gave me a hefty raise.”
“Most people would not have possessed the inner strength to return to work after such an ordeal,” Susan said softly. “It’s a token of your strength and determination.”
“I don’t feel strong,” she admitted with a wry smile. “I’m actually scared to death right now. My biggest fear was that someone would come here and tell me Bud was back in town and he was coming for me. I hope that’s not why you’re here.”
“No, I’m here to tell you he’s dead,” I said bluntly. “You’ll never have to worry about him again.”
Winona held her glass in midair. She opened her mouth to talk, but nothing came out. She worked her jaw for a bit and then asked in a squeaky voice. “He’s dead?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She cleared her throat. “What happened? Where has he been? I mean, how do you know it’s him? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, we’re sure.” I took out the driver’s license and handed it to her. “This was taken off of his person and his medical records have all but proven it’s him. He’s been dead and buried for thirty years.”
“Thirty years? You mean to tell me I’ve been living in fear all this time for no reason?” She shook her head incredulously, her chin trembling. “How did he die?”
“He was murdered,” I said.
“Murdered?” she echoed. “But…but who murdered him?”
Leah leaned forward and touched Winona’s trembling hand. “That’s why we’re here. We need to find his accomplice or accomplices, and we need your help.”
Winona scowled. “My help? What can I do? I thought he was still on the run.”
Leah reached for the file folder she had prepared and dug out the old canvass logs from thirty years past. She slid them to Winona. “I need you to study these names carefully. These people either lived in the canyon where the armored truck was dumped, or they were staying there at the time. We need to know if Bud ever mentioned any of these people or if you all ever met up with these people on your route. Maybe they worked at a pick up or drop off point? Maybe they frequented the video store? Anything at all might help.”
“Bud was pretty quiet,” Winona said idly as she began scanning the names. “He mostly talked about his daughter or some movie he watched. I tuned him out for the most part.”
We all sat in silence as Winona put on her reading glasses and began scanning the lists of names. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I excused myself from the table.
While it was hot in the sun, it was surprisingly cool in the shade of the small porch, and this surprised me. In Louisiana, it didn’t matter if you were in the direc
t sunlight or the shade—there was no escaping the smothering heat. Another thing I’d noticed was that my sinuses were dry. I didn’t know if I liked that or not.
“This is Clint,” I said without looking at the number.
“I found something.” It was Amy. “Check your text messages. I’m sending it now.”
I pulled the phone from my ear and checked the display screen. There was a close-up picture of two men walking out of Mitch Taylor’s Corner Pub.
“Are these our guys?” I asked, putting the phone back to my ear.
“Yep. I spoke to the bartender and she remembered them being there when Joseph Billiot and the asshole from New Orleans got into it. She said they paid for their drinks with a hundred-dollar bill and gave her another one as a tip.”
“Did she know their names or anything more about them?”
“The only thing she remembers them saying was that they couldn’t drink much because they had a long drive in front of them.”
“Amy, you’re the best!”
“If that were true, I’d have a husband or at least a boyfriend by now,” she remarked dryly.
I didn’t touch that one. Instead, I thanked her again and stepped back into the house. I had been seated at the table for another fifteen minutes or so when Winona shook her head and slid the lists of names back to Leah.
“I don’t recognize any of these names.”
“I have a picture I want you to look at,” I said. “We captured our two suspects on video surveillance footage as they were leaving a barroom.”
Winona lurched back in her chair and clutched at her throat. “Oh, God, are they coming for me?” She cast wild eyes from Leah to Susan to me and then back to Leah. “Is my life in danger?”
Leah moved closer and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “No, you’re not in danger.”
“How can you say that?” Winona demanded. “You don’t have them in custody, so how can you say I’m not in danger? You think they killed Bud, so what’s to stop them from coming for me?”
“We’ll keep you safe—I promise.”
The guarantee from Leah seemed to satisfy Winona and she took my phone in her trembling hands. Tears had welled up in her eyes and she had to reach under her reading glasses to brush them away. After peering at the image on my phone, she shook her head and handed it back to me.
“I don’t recognize either of them.”
I cursed under my breath. We had a description of a truck and a picture of our suspects, but they were almost useless without a name.
Leah’s phone must’ve buzzed, because she glanced down at it and began reading something. When she bit down and began to shake her head, I knew it wasn’t good.
“That son of a bitch!”
“What is it?” Susan and I asked in unison.
“My chief just texted me—a dentist from Windrift just held a press conference in front of his office and declared that he has positively identified the remains of Bud Walker.” She shook her head. “Now the entire media is burning up the phone lines at the police department.”
I pointed toward her phone. “Tell him to say nothing about this case! We need to keep this under wraps. Our suspects will haul ass if they know we’re on to them.”
“It might already be too late,” she said, holding up her cell phone so I could see a news article stating that the remains of Bud Walker had been discovered somewhere in Louisiana.
I cursed again, but this time it was out loud.
CHAPTER 37
“Let’s get back to that canyon,” I told Leah when we were standing outside of Winona’s home. “Someone out there has to know something.”
“But Winona didn’t recognize any of the names,” Leah said. “Besides, most of the people who were living there thirty years ago are long gone.”
I mulled over what she’d said. I glanced at Susan. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s worth a shot,” she said with a frown. “We don’t have much else to go on, and it certainly wouldn’t hurt to make a drive through there and knock on some doors.”
Leah shifted her feet.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I need to get back to the office,” she said. “I have to get the description of the truck and the pictures of the suspects out to my officers and to the surrounding counties. I also have to get it out to the highway patrol. In thirty years, this is the closest I’ve come to catching them and—now that the media’s gotten ahold of it—I’m afraid they’ll disappear again. If that happens, it’s over. We’ll never catch them.”
“I can take Clint’s Tahoe and deliver the information to your chief,” Susan offered. “Clint can jump in with you and y’all can check out the canyon.”
“Thank you!” Leah seemed relieved. She asked Susan for her cell number and then began typing something into her own phone. “I’m sending you my chief’s contact information and the password to my computer. Upload a digital copy of the surveillance pictures on my computer and make a flyer with the description of the truck. Print out twenty copies and give them to the chief. He’ll do the rest.” She then turned to me. “Let’s go!”
After grabbing my AR-15 for emergencies, I stepped onto the running board and settled into my seat. Leah wasted no time leaving Winona’s neighborhood. She drove faster than I would’ve driven down the narrow streets, but I was far out of my jurisdiction and wasn’t about to pass judgment.
“How many detectives do y’all have?” I asked.
“Two fulltime and two who are part time.” She braked hard at a stop sign and then sped forward when she saw it was all clear. “Our population is small, but the town is spread out over sixty square miles of rugged terrain, so we need at least four for the coverage.”
I nodded. While I was making idle talk, my mind was anything but idle. I was thinking ahead to what we might find in the canyon neighborhood. What if the suspects had already gotten wind of Bud’s identification and had been spooked? I agreed with Leah’s assessment that this was our last chance to catch these killers. They had gone thirty years without being caught. It spoke to tremendous discipline on their part. By now, most killers would’ve said something to someone, and whispers would’ve begun to leak out.
And how does someone bury two million in cash and just sit on it for thirty years? While it was difficult for most people to keep a secret, it would’ve been almost impossible for any normal person to leave that much money buried in the ground and not touch it. People dip into their savings or borrow against their 401(k)s every day for any number of perceived emergencies, such as college tuition, the once-in-a-lifetime family vacation, or ten percent down on a dream home. But to have that much money in the ground and never touch it for any reason—I had to admire these people.
“We’re almost there,” Leah said, turning onto a familiar road. When we drove past the juniper tree, I knew exactly where we were. She continued down a pathway that was narrow and winding. Most of the surface was loose rock and we left a cloud of dust in our wake. The suspects would be able to see us coming from miles away, thanks to the smoke signal we were sending up. I only hoped they wouldn’t be able to recognize that it was a police vehicle until we were already upon them.
“Is there another way out of this canyon?” I asked.
“There is, but it’s impassable,” she explained, her voice breaking up with the violent jostling of the truck on the uneven surface. “We had a rockslide about two years ago that closed off the eastern pass. The county doesn’t have much money for infrastructure and there weren’t enough travelers in that area to justify the expense, so they left it closed. They keep saying they’ll get to it next year, but next year never seems to get here.”
Leah turned abruptly to the right and the truck dipped suddenly as we left the rim of the canyon and began a deep descent into the valley below. The wall of rock to our left seemed to grow taller as we continued forward and it blocked the sun from our view. The valley was to our right and I could see a smatteri
ng of homes scattered across the canyon floor.
“Does this road go by every house in the canyon?” I asked.
“No. We have to go off road to reach a dozen of them.” Leah tapped the file folder on the console between us. “The easiest places to access are the vacation homes, and we’re hitting those last. If the killers are from here, they’re locals and they live deep in the rocks.”
I was inclined to agree with her, but I couldn’t be sure. It wouldn’t be easy to plan a heist from a vacation home, but it could explain how they were able to disappear for thirty years.
We left the road several times to check out different homesteads. Out of the five places we checked, four were occupied and one was empty. While nearly everyone had a 4x4 pickup, there wasn’t one Silverado and not a single person matched the pictures of our suspects.
“There’re two permanent places left to check before we make the rounds of the vacation homes,” Leah said, her voice betraying her concern. It seemed to transfer to her right foot, because she began driving faster. “I hope this wasn’t a waste of time.”
I grunted inwardly. Considering it was my idea to be out there, I hoped it wasn’t a waste of time either. I got a call from Susan saying she had given the information to the receptionist and she was now patrolling the town with the chief in search of the suspects. She said they had called out every officer on the force, including their auxiliary officers, and they were crawling all over the county.
“Oh, and the media found Winona Munday,” she said before hanging up. “One of the local reporters remembered her being mentioned in the initial stories thirty years ago and they dug up her current address. They’re reporting live from her front yard.”
“Is she talking to them?”
“From what the chief said, she just went outside and told them to leave or she would call the police.”
When we ended the call, I told Leah what Susan had said. She punched the steering wheel.
“Why can’t those vultures just leave her alone?” she grumbled. “When she was in the ICU, several reporters camped outside the hospital waiting for her to be released. We had to sneak her through the back to get her home, but it didn’t take them long to find her house. She had to move twice before the story grew old and they got bored with it. She’s probably terrified.”