Buck Vs. the Bulldog Ants

by David Kersey

CHAPTER FORTY NINE

  Crescent Beach ain’t much, Cramer thought while casing the territory. In fact, north of Daytona, there isn’t much until St. Augustine to the north. Just miles and miles of beach on a long, pencil thin strip of barrier islands. The Matanzas River flows on the west, and west of the river is mostly marshy wetlands, the Atlantic on the east, and the two bodies of water are separated by Highway A1A and a mishmash of homes and condos alongside the roadway. Mostly old stuff and built out. Old Florida, it had that look. And it should. St. Augustine is considered the oldest community in the United States, having been settled by the Spanish in the 1500s. Ten miles south of St. Augustine, Crescent Beach hosted about 2,000 residents. There wasn’t even a lodging facility or gas station at the exit on I-95. That’s was a signal that he was about to enter another Podunk.

  Charlie Cramer was only moderately happy as he turned east onto Highway 206. He had no picture of her. He had found her on Google under a link about Military Women. Barbara Crawford, Crescent Beach, Florida, United States Army, Infantryman. That infuriated him and the reason he selected her. Afghanistan 2009. One tour in Afghanistan. Infantry for God’s sake, the same as Jackson. Obviously part of Obama’s diversity metrics nonsense. Charlie gripped the steering wheel hard thinking about it. This country is sick, very sick, he thought. She worked at Lila’s Tropical Plants on A1A, according to the Mexican woman at the Mobile Station. That’s all he had to go on. Small town, people know each other, but he dared not ask around too much. He found Lila’s Plants, a small storefront probably just able to pay the rent. She is the cashier and leaf duster, he guessed but didn’t know. She might have a brain but he doubted it. He wondered how many able bodied troops died because of her. Didn’t matter. Her life was not worth living because she enlisted in the man’s army. Women who want to be a man should disappear. He’d see to it.

  He window shopped at Lila’s. This was Sunday. The store hours sign said it would open from one to five today. Why? He thought. Surely there couldn’t be enough seasonal business to cover the overhead. There were no decals indicating an alarm system or camera on premises. He couldn’t see inside because the sun was reflecting off the windows at this hour, plus there were no lights on inside. Then he noticed a hand written sign taped on the front window. “See you in church Sunday”, followed by the name and address of the church and the times of the services. He checked his watch. Twenty minutes until the 11:00 service.

  So she had religion if that was her writing. He located the brand name church on the west side of A1A. He took a pew in the back. Dozens of superstitious people which meant the same amount of beliefs that in reality were as obscure as the difference between good and evil. People searching for something, and judging by the sea of gray hairs rising above the pews they hadn’t found it yet. Charlie was searching for something quite different, so he didn’t open his mouth during the singing of 18th century hymns. Instead he watched two women that would match Barbara’s age of 26. One appeared to be sitting with an older woman. Her mother? Friend? Parishioner? The other was sitting with presumably her husband. Google made no mention of marriage. Which one was she? Maybe neither. Didn’t matter. He snuck out just before they would ask for his money, the money that would enable these people to continue their search for something week after week. He would stake out Lila’s at one o’clock, but before that he would stick around across the street for a while. A clue might fall into his lap, but the bigger reason was that he was hungry.

  He watched the church parking lot while attempting to digest a burrito from Pedro’s Authentic Mexican Cuisine. Pedro’s was across A1A on the beach side. He looked at the half eaten burrito and wondered why Mexico still had a population. People started milling out of the church. He chucked the junk food and got into his car, and waited for Miss Barbara Crawford to appear full of her new righteousness. He guessed her to be the one sitting with the old lady on a hunch, simply because the woman sitting with the man had an expensive look about her, much more so than the chick with the old woman. Either that or the rich looking bitch was Lila. They got into the same car, the two women who had sat side by side, Barbara the driver if that was really her. He followed them south on the highway, then west at feeder highway 206, over the Matanzas River, on to the mainland. Two miles so far, where is she going? He was a hundred yards behind, one car in between them. Left hand turn signal. She turned onto Sea Treasure Avenue. Sixth house on the left. She pulled into the drive of a modest older home of the ‘50s era he guessed. They both got out of the car and walked inside the house. Damn, either that wasn’t her or she was not going to dust leaves at Lila’s today. That tiny business couldn’t support more than two employees, three at the absolute most. So either Lila would work on Sunday, or that bitch he wasted his Sunday morning on wasn’t Barbara Crawford. He assumed the latter. He wasn’t happy.

  Charlie chose a driveway past the wrong victim’s house to turn around. He was returning past the wrong lady’s house again when she reappeared, carrying a pie. Damn. Still in the running maybe. He pulled into a driveway down the street and watched her drive by from his rear view mirror. He again followed her, all the way to Lila’s Tropical Plants. It was 12:55 in the afternoon when she unlocked the door, carrying a pie.

  He watched for an hour from the Oceanview Suites parking lot, directly across the street from the strip center that included Lila’s. Not one customer in one hour. No cars in the strip center lot since Lila’s was the only store open. Very light traffic on A1A for a Sunday because it dead ended at Matanzas Pass just a couple of miles to the south. Not much reason to drive that way unless you lived down there, and this was the off season, which meant a huge number of vacancies to the south all the way to the Pass. No big box stores to the south, only homes and condos. So traffic should continue to be light and not much call for Lila’s green thumb. He got out of his car and scanned the Suites building behind him. No security cameras hung from the wall facing the highway. Good. It was a mom and pop suites motel not used to having killers in their parking lot. He decided to be Barbara’s first customer of the day. If Lila’s had security cameras, which he doubted, he would let her live and move on. He could always come back after a few months. If no security, he would not let her live. It was that simple.

  He drove his car across A1A and parked in front of Porter Paints, two doors north from Lila’s. He stuck the wadded up plastic gloves in his pants. He put the sheathed end of his San Mai down the back of his pants and made sure his shirt tail covered the haft. His ears began to roar with adrenaline. He saw Jackson’s black face mouthing something through the rain of dust. His heart raced. An aching in his groin. Straighten up, soldier, he thought to himself. He fought the urge to quit the mission, as if he could still feel a modicum of guilt, which he didn’t. He opened his car door.

  He window shopped at Lila’s for a few moments, but he was really trying to see if there were cameras. He couldn’t tell, the windows were tinted too dark to make out that kind of detail. He reached in his pocket and pulled out handkerchief. With it he pulled the door open and saw that the lock was the simple half turn bolt type. He turned the lock behind his back, careful to not allow his fingerprint on the small butterfly type metal lock.

  “Hello, can I help you?” Cheerful voice. Not bad looking now that he stood closer to her. Standing behind a waste high counter that supported a half-eaten pie.

  “Just browsing for now, thanks.”

  The store was really a flower shop. Nice, clean floor-to-ceiling coolers around the walls. Much more affluent than he had imagined. He had expected fake rubber tree plants in two dollar wicker baskets. He milled around checking each corner by the ceiling. No cameras. He stood behind a center display of floral arrangements that were tall enough for him to slip on the gloves unnoticed. He stuck his gloved hands inside his pockets and approached the counter. He saw her name tag. Barbara.

  He peered out to the parking lot. No cars. He grabbed the knife and made sure she saw it. “Barbara, would you p
lease be kind enough to open your cash drawer?”

  “Please, mister, don’t hurt me. I am going to be married next month.” She nervously opened the cash drawer and gathered up what looked like a couple hundred dollars. There was probably more cash stashed in an office but he didn’t care about that.

  “Hand it over. Are you Barbara Crawford?”

  She hesitated a few seconds. He could tell she was trying to fix him in her memory in case she survived, and also trying to figure out why this stranger knew her name. “No, she said, she doesn’t work here anymore, I just wear her name tag since I’m new.” Cramer studied her. She had looked away when she made the denial, the sign of an untruth.

  “Oh, what’s your name then?”

  She hesitated too long. She couldn’t think of a name to use. Fear often freezes mental abilities. She was lying. This person was in truth Barbara Crawford. “How many American soldiers did you get killed because you’re a stupid, weak slut?”

  “What?” She reached below the counter.

  Charlie Cramer raced around the counter. She raised her skirt and kicked him in the groin area. Close, but no cigar. When she saw that she has missed the target she backed against the wall. She reached for an empty vase. Too late. His knife cut her neck almost in half. He watched her slide down the wall, with her hands glued to her neck, into a sitting position. She was still alive, watching him in horror, eyes bulged out as he’d seen with the Miller woman. Her mouth wide open, attempting in vain to suck in air, her legs kicking as if she could run away. Cramer saw that she hadn’t been reaching for a gun, it was a panic button, straight to the police or an alarm company. Damn. He bent over and pulled on her legs to lay her out flat on the floor. He tore open her shirt and cut the cross hurriedly on her stomach. Her head had turned to the side. No time to waste. He had wanted to lock the door behind him when he left but there was no time to hunt for her keys. He ran out the door. Started his car. Turned north onto A1A, then west on 206 which would take him to I-95. On 206 a police car, fully lit up, approached him and sped past. The cop paid no attention to him he didn’t think. His ears were ringing so loudly he couldn’t concentrate. He was driving with the plastic gloves still on his hands, spatters of blood on them. Damn, Charlie. He saw the knife on the passenger seat, dripping blood onto the seat. He had screwed up. He slowed down when he realized he was twenty over the limit. Get a hold of yourself, he thought as he pounded the steering wheel. His groin hurt. He reached into his shirt pocket for the Prednisone tablet. It wasn’t there.

  “Peterson, you’d better have a look at this,” said Palm Beach County Detective Garcia who was studying the computer screen.

  “What’s up?”

  “Homicide in St. Johns County, Crescent Beach. Female victim had a cross cut in her stomach.”

  “Armed robbery?”

  “Yeah, that’s on the report. And homicide.”

  “Throat cut?”

  “Yeah. Exactly the same. Vic was still dressed except for the torn blouse.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday at 14:52.”

  “Barney Fife a little late getting the report out on the wire, dontcha think?” Peterson scowled. “Call them back and tell them to set aside the robbery as the motive and concentrate on the homicide. Sounds like we got ourselves a sicko on the loose. And make sure they file the case number on the Miller woman in their report. Have them call me. Never mind, I’m calling them. What’s the number?”

  Cramer had made it out of the state in less than two hours, having sliced through the heart of Jacksonville since it was a Sunday that offered little chance for a bottleneck, and hadn’t stopped until the Brunswick, Georgia exit. His plan to cut across the northern part of Florida on I-10 had to be abandoned. Florida was too hot. He was sure the State Police were notified but he also knew they wouldn’t have enough to go on to set up road blocks. Still, the woman in Pensacola had to be scratched for the time being. He needed time off, at least a week, to think and reconnoiter. He continued northwesterly through Georgia, through Atlanta, and decided to settle in the remote mountain area named Cherry Log, Georgia, where there were daily rentals of Blue Ridge mountain cabins according to the color brochures found anywhere and everywhere inside gas stations. That area would be considerably off course but it seemed to offer the reclusion he needed to pull himself back together. The thing that bothered him the most was the lost prednisone pill, and if he lost it while bending over Crawford could it be finger printed?