Buck Vs. the Bulldog Ants

by David Kersey

CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT

  “Would you look at all these dead bugs, mom, they’s everywhere?”

  “I know Tillie, John had the ACC guys out here yesterday to fumigate. Who would have thought there’d be this many though?”

  “Some of ‘em is still kickin a little. Look at this one. An over there’s another one just like it.”

  “Tillie! Don’t touch it. I know what that is. Do you?”

  “Looks like a wasp but I don’t see no wings.”

  “I need to go get John immediately. Oh my God, Tillie. Come on, I don’t want you in here by

  yourself.”

  Sheriff Sims stood watching the forensics team pour over the Oldsmobile Alero. Something had to be found there to conclusively pin guilt on Minnick. So far nothing in the tracks left by the serial killer was undeniable proof it was Greg Minnick. Prednisone, sure, he was a user, not proof of the murder of Barbara Crawford. Palm Beach County had no proof in the Janice Miller case. Little Rock only had a man in black and a dark SUV in the Joan Robertson murder. Indianapolis had him leaving the area on a flight the day after they found Wanda Lopez. Coincidence, not proof. Nothing was found in the Port Charlotte search of his home that implicated Minnick. Any evidence in that home would be thrown out of court anyway since there was not enough suspicion to validate the search warrant. Unless he did something that would prove his guilt in Pittsburgh the guy would walk on circumstantial evidence. If apprehended he’d get jail time and await trial, but eventually he would walk as a free man. There was not enough ironclad proof.

  Garrison drove slowly on Highway 9, carefully matching what his eye saw with the aerial photography displayed on the laptop, then parked on the south shoulder of the road. He lifted the binoculars and began to scan the area, slowly sweeping from left to right. He was surprised there were construction workers present on a Sunday. Four of them nailing down roofing materials. The building that was obviously the kenneling facility seemed empty of movement. An eight foot fence surrounded the facility and the workmen. Beyond the fence was the main house separated from a garage. He could see no movement there. He laid the glasses down and motored off.

  “John, hate to interrupt the Cavs game but you’ve got to come with me. There’s bulldog ants in the farmhouse. Live ones I think.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “No, John, come take a look.”

  John told Cassie and me to stay put though we both wanted to go. The Cleveland Cavaliers were losing anyway as usual ever since Lebron left.

  The gravel road that was parallel and a mile north of Highway 9 was two miles long according to the aerial on his laptop. Garrison passed a farmhouse to the north in the first mile, then slowed to a crawl in the second mile, looking for the Jeep trail the aerial showed turning off to the south. He found it in the middle of the second mile and turned off the gravel road onto the winter hardened earth through the trees. Bushes scraped the side of the Beamer. He had a half mile to negotiate through the dense forest to reach the north side of the target. It was slow going and a twisted route.

  “Look, there’s one still kicking. Here’s another one.”

  “You know, when I burned the cornfield they must have found a way in here. I didn’t have the interior of the house sprayed back then, just the perimeter. I thought that would keep them out of the house.”

  “There must be an active colony in here somewhere John.”

  “Watch your step. Why don’t you two girls wait outside? I’ll have a look around.”

  “Not on your life. What if you get attacked in here by yourself? I’m coming with you.”

  “Me too. We had ‘em in Tennessee, mom. I just never seen one ‘til now.”

  “Tillie, there’s a white pump sprayer in the garage. Take the Polaris and bring it back here. Unfortunately the pesticide I keep on hand is not the right formula to stop them in their tracks. I gave what I had left of that formula to Loman last year when he got attacked.”

  Garrison slowed to a stop and checked the aerial. He had reached the small clearing that was approximately half way to the large pond. There were two Jeep trails forking away from the clearing. He chose the one angling to the west which would take him in the direction of the outbuildings that appeared to be the roof of a house and adjacent barn on the target property. A quarter mile to go. The BMW bounced and scraped its way until he was halted by a fallen pine too large to drive over. He would walk the remaining eighth of a mile.

  “I don’t see any more than the two you spotted up here, just roaches and a few spiders. We’ll check the ground floor but I have a suspicion that if there’s a colony it’s in the basement.”

  The Jeep trail he was walking turned abruptly to the left. He stopped to get his bearings. He had left the laptop in the car but he was certain the left hand turn of the trail would take him off course, so he began to walk through the dense forest in a southwesterly direction. Then he froze. Was it a tree limb falling to the ground? He extracted the machete from the sheath. The woods were always a spooky place to him, full of unexpected noises. His mom had called him a sissy kid because of his disdain for the out of doors. He stood in place for over a minute, barely breathing. Movement to his left, followed by the sound of a limb snapping. Then he saw the white rump of a deer bounding away from him. Minnick hated the woods. He resumed walking. After another hundred yards he spotted the chest high fence. He knew where he was.

  “There’s two more here in the master bedroom, still a tiny bit alive. I didn’t have the right type of pesticide sprayed yesterday that would kill the bulldog ants. I had no idea they could have survived what we put down last summer.”

  “There’s got to be more somewhere John. These strays wouldn’t have survived if there wasn’t a nest, would they?”

  “I’m afraid you are right about that. There’s a nest alright. But where? Ants are remarkable creatures, Marlene. When you think you’ve got them beat, you don’t.”

  “They’s one here in the kitchen. Here’s the sprayer Mister John.”

  “Tillie, stay with us, don’t be wandering off on your own. Ok?”

  “Yessir.”

  “I’m going to check the basement. You two stay up here.” John opened the basement door, flicked on the light, sprayer in hand, and stepped down.

  Minnick/Garrison checked his watch. A little past 3 pm. He debated, should he jump the fence now or wait until later? He had heard the sound of what he took to be an ATV so there was activity not too far south of this point. He jumped the fence. Better to know in the light what terrain might confuse him in the dark. He came to the edge of the pond and followed the bank to his right which should lead him to a dirt road.

  John’s cell phone rang. He paused halfway down the steps and dug the phone out of his pocket. The digital readout indicated it was a call from James Jenkins.

  “Hello Jenkins, how’s the world treating you?”

  “John, you have anybody hunting my 320 today?”

  “No, Jim, not a soul. Why?”

  “A car, a BMW, passed by my spread over an hour ago and didn’t come back through. That’s a dead end down there. I’m quite sure the car had a Pennsylvania plate, you know, that yellow stripe across the bottom of the plate is hard to miss. I went down there and the car was nowhere to be found. I think he’s inside the 320, and John, people don’t hunt in a BMW sedan nowadays, do they?

  “No, that makes no sense. Did you call Chip?”

  “Not yet, wanted to check with you first. I ain’t going in there by myself.”

  “Don’t think I would either. Call Chip. He’s off duty today but he’ll send someone out.”

  “Exactly what I’m gonna do.”

  Garrison walked south on the dirt road, eyes straight ahead, just like he had done many times in Afghanistan, looking for the slightest movement. Ahead he could see the tops of withered corn stalks. That would be the cornfield he had seen on the aerial. The farmhouse and barn would be west of the stand of corn. He stopped and thought abou
t his plan to take down Marlene Johnson and Matilda Davis. In daylight the corn field would not offer adequate cover at this time of year. Too transparent. Two more hours until dark. He would go back to the car and wait for the two hours to pass.

  John called for Sid Showalter on speed dial. “Sid, sorry to call on a Sunday. You’re not going to believe this. I found a very active nest of bulldog ants down in the basement of the old farmhouse. How could we have missed them?”

  “That’s incredible John. Are there a lot of them?”

  “Who knows? There’s quite a few working this old wood pillar. I’ve got to have the solution we used right away. Can you help me out?”

  “I’ll get there as soon as I can but it might take over an hour, maybe two even.”

  “Do it Sid. I’ll pay you for it.”

  “On my way.”

  “Hey Sheriff, this is James Jenkins.”

  “Howdy Jim. What’s up?”

  Jenkins explained the situation.

  “Ok, Jim, I’ll send Lykins out in the Jeep.”

  Chip rubbed his chin while sitting at his desk at home. A BMW in the woods made no sense whatsoever. He knew through a conversation with a highway patrolman that the cross killer’s last known location was Pittsburgh, some seventy miles away. The BMW allegedly carried a Pennsylvania plate. He would not underestimate the scenario. He called Lykins and instructed him to take Wilder and Parker with him. He opened the desk drawer and grabbed the .38 that he would take with him to Christianson’s house.

  John sprayed the wooden pillar. Three ants dropped to the concrete floor, still very much alive but dazed. In a few more seconds the old wooden column came alive. At least twenty ants were scrambling out of the pillar. He backed away from it, remembering these ants could jump and also had good vision to five feet. He kept an eye on the pillar and sprayed the base of the walls around the entire basement. He scampered up the stairs and closed the door but not before noticing an ant crawling up the stair rail. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Sid’s coming with the right stuff and this solution in the sprayer won’t do what it takes. Damn, who would have thought it?” His cell phone rang once again, this time from Chip.

  Garrison jumped the fence to retrace his way back to the car. Every twenty steps he used the Marauder to saw small branches just enough to bend them down to the ground. He would need those signs in the dark after he was done. He was nearly back to the car when he heard the sound of a vehicle to the north. He squatted behind some chest high underbrush and waited, parting the brush enough to see the front of the BMW some hundred feet away. He needed the flashlight he had left in the car. It sounded like the vehicle had left the gravel road since he couldn’t hear the crunching of gravel from under the tires. He ran to the Beamer, grabbed the flashlight and ran back to his former position, yet that was too exposed and too close. He moved into the heavily wooded area south of where the Jeep trail turned. Just his luck, he thought, hunters putting a cramp on his mission. In ten more minutes the hunting vehicle shut off its motor. They had apparently stumbled across his car. He heard voices. Voices that probably carried shotguns. He needed to get back over the fence to dig in until dark. He stepped lightly, peeling his way through branches, careful to make no noise.