Rivers to Blood (23 page)

I nodded.

“So what you gonna do?” Merrill asked. “’Sides get another dog?”

“Stay off the river,” I said.

“That’s probably best,” Fred said, as if I had been serious too. “For a while anyway. At least until we—”

“Fred,” Dad said. “He’s joking.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well, it’s probably not a bad idea. I mean—”

“It’s okay,” Merrill said. “He got no other pets. Nothing else to lose.”

My phone rang inside my pocket, its electronic alert sounding odd and out of place in the late quiet night.

“Maybe that’s him,” Fred said.

“Yeah,” Merrill said. “Callin’ with the rest of the message.”

I walked away from the others and answered it.

“You the one looking for Junior?” she asked.

Where had I heard that voice before?

“What?”

“This the guy who talked to Tom about Junior?” she said.

Then I realized it was the community hours receptionist from Air Ads Inc., which made me remember that when I had first pulled up out there the guy working on the plane thought I was Junior.

“I came by and asked Tom about a plane going down,” I said.

“Have you found him?”

“Who?” I asked.

“Junior,” she said.

“Junior who?” I asked.

“Tom’s son,” she said. “Do you know where he’s at?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

“Did his plane go down?” she asked. “He okay? He ain’t in jail or nothin’, is he? Your card says
prison
on it.”

“I’m embarrassed to admit it,” I said, “but you’ve lost me. Let’s back up a minute. Junior is Tom Brown’s son?”

“Well, his adopted son, yeah.”

“And he’s missing?”

“Uh huh.”

“And so’s his plane?”

“Well,” she said, “it’s Tom’s plane, but yeah.”

“How long’s he been missing?” I asked.

“’Bout two weeks,” she said.

“Why didn’t Tom say anything when I asked him?” I said. “Has he reported Junior missing?”

“Junior stays in trouble. Always got some big plan to get rich and retire to the Keys. I’m real worried about him this time though. He usually shows back up by now. Have you seen him?”

I thought about it.

“I just might have,” I said.

Chapter Fifty

T
he Cajun Café was a rarity in a town like Pottersville. Going far beyond the standard small Southern town fare of hamburgers, fried chicken, pork chops, and meatloaf, it served the best Cajun food this side of New Orleans. The chef could be successful anywhere. Thankfully she only wanted to live in Pottersville.

Amid other correctional officers and prison staff who had the same hour for lunch we did, Merrill and I were sitting with DeLisa Lopez at a table in the front near the large plate glass windows.

It was bright and hot.

Every time I looked through the window, I had to squint, and when I looked back into the restaurant it took a moment for my eyes to adjust.

Across Main Street the Potter State Bank sign said it was nearly ninety degrees. With the sun slanting in through the window and the number of patrons crowded into such a small area, the air conditioner was finding it difficult to keep up. Of course the spicy shrimp creole didn’t help any.

“Here’s the updated list,” Lisa said. “The only inmates on it are the ones who work outside the gate.”

She placed a copy of the list between us at an angle on the one small corner of the table without glasses, plates, or moisture on it.

We both turned our heads at an angle similar to that of the paper and looked down at it.

“These two are the inmates,” she said, pointing to the two names off to the side by themselves. “Wayne Booth and James Frey.”

I had been alone in the sanctuary of the chapel, lights off, contemplating the two cases in the quiet, when Lisa had called and suggested we look at the list over lunch. Time alone in the chapel was far more scarce since Chaplain Singer had started, and I was reluctant to give it up—not only because of how much I was enjoying it, but how the time to process things was helping the fragments begin to take form.

Suddenly I became aware that someone had said something to me that I hadn’t responded to.

I looked from Lisa to Merrill.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Sorry. Just a little distracted.”

“I heard about your dog,” she said. “I’m so––”

“Ain’t the dog,” Merrill said. “That look mean he figuring shit out.”

Lisa looked at me, her eyes wide beneath arched eyebrows.

I frowned and shook my head. “Just the very vague beginnings of some farfetched theories. Go ahead. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll get to that in a minute,” she said. “Does it have to do with Anna too?”

“Everything has to do with her where he’s concerned,” Merrill said.

I nodded.

“Wanna talk about it some more?”

“I’ve let go,” I said. “Let her go. Really and truly. Completely this time. And I’m still grieving. And that grief is always with me no matter what else I’m doing. Sort of like a low-grade fever. That’s it. That’s all it is.”

“Sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

I nodded. “Only the case right now.”

She nodded. “When you’re ready I’m here. Okay. So … the rest of the list is made up of staff and COs. The ones at the top are the ones we know the least about. The ones at the bottom are the least likely.”

We looked at the list again. I was having a hard time focusing on it.

As I pushed my bowl of creole forward I noticed that Lisa had stopped nibbling on her red beans and rice, but Merrill’s work on his shrimp po boy showed no signs of slowing.

Our waitress, a sweet but slow early twenties single mom working on her GED in night school, hadn’t been by our table in a while and all that remained in the bottom of our glasses was a small amount of a watered-down brandy-looking substance formed from melting ice and a touch of sweet tea.

I glanced outside again.

Across the street a slow-moving elderly man everyone in town called Uncle Charlie shuffled down the walkway beneath the bank’s sign toward the entrance. When he finally got there, he pulled on the left door to discover that he was either too weak to open it or it was locked.

When I looked back in I could see Sandy Hartman watching me from his table near the back. A few minutes later when Merrill went to the restroom, he joined Lisa and me at the table.

If possible he was even more pale, the circles beneath his eyes even darker. He seemed to be deteriorating, as if the center of him was slowly spinning apart and the rest of him imploding in on it.

“Are y’all any closer to catching him?” he asked. “I feel like I’ve been out of the loop lately. What’s going on?”

I told him what Carla and Cody had told me about the abductions and torture without using their names.

His eyes grew wide, his gaunt face genuinely alarmed. “So it’s a staff member? He’s free? Just walking around out there somewhere?”

“That’s most likely,” I said. “Could be a work squad inmate but it’s doubtful.”

“I’ve actually felt somewhat safe when I wasn’t at the prison,” he said. “I’ve even been sleeping some at night.” He shook his head, his breathing becoming even more erratic. “He knows who I am. He could come after me anytime.”

“We’re not going to let that happen,” I said. “We’re going to catch him very soon. We’re getting closer and closer all the time.”

He took in a deep breath and let it out very slowly, then did it again, and I could tell he was trying to regain his composure.

“Sorry,” he said, still slightly out of breath. “I feel like such a … like he really did turn me into his little …”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve been through an awful experience. You’re still traumatized. It’s normal to be afraid.”

We were quiet a few moments more as he seemed to continue to take control of his fear.

“Anything else?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure if I should tell him any more but decided to. I’m of the school that it’s always better to know.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Really. It helps for me to know. It really does.”

“I think the place he’s taking them is close to the river,” I said.

“Why?”

I told him what Cody said about hearing boats pass by.

“It can’t be underground and close enough to the river for him to hear a boat pass by,” he said. “It’d be full of water.”

“That’s true,” I said. “Any place where a boat could pass by would be.”

“Well, now, wait a minute,” he said, his voice rising. “The river is low right now, the water table too. I guess it could … I remember reading something about a few bunkers built into the banks of the river during the Civil War. What if he’s using something like that?”

I nodded. “Could be. Thanks. We’ll check it out.”

He stood and nodded at us. “Please let me know if … if anything new … if there’s anything I need to know.”

“I will.”

“Thanks,” he said, and returned to his table in the back.

“See a name on the top of the list who spends a lot of time on the river?” Lisa asked.

I glanced back at the list.

She tilted her head to the right a couple of times, indicating a table about ten feet away. Shane Bryant and Todd Sears sat in silence eating the Southern fried special designed to attract lunch customers like them who had no interest in anything except meat, potatoes, and vegetables.

Shane was on the list.

“He was in or around the medical building every time one of the rapes occurred, and he’s always on the river,” she said. “He could have found that Civil War bunker or whatever it is and turned into his own little rape room.”

Merrill returned from the restroom shaking his head. “Guess what I just heard. Inspector found a shank with traces of blood on the tip hidden in Michael Jensen’s duffle he left on the van when he escaped.”

“When?” I asked. “Why’d it take so long?”

“That the kicker,” Merrill said. “Was a while back. New warden told the inspector not to tell anyone––especially you or your dad.”

“So he’s the doer,” Lisa said. “That’s how the rapes are both inside and outside of the prison.”

“We need to find out if the one outside of the prison took place after Jensen’s escape and if there have been any others inside since he’s been gone.”

“I’ll find out about the inside ones,” she said. “You take the outside.”

I nodded and looked back over at the bank. Uncle Charlie was still standing outside trying to get in. He was pulling on the right side door now, but it didn’t budge either.

Scanning the restaurant, I spotted the bank president and a couple of the tellers. They were normally here at this time, and the bank usually stayed open.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, standing and dropping my napkin on the table.

“Something wrong?” Lisa asked.

By the time I was outside a small group of people had gathered around Uncle Charlie. They were pulling on the doors and cupping their hands around their faces as they pressed against the glass to see inside.

As I crossed the street an alarm began sounding and the small group was scattering, Uncle Charlie shuffling away as best he could.

Running toward the door I heard a vehicle speed up behind me and screech to a stop. I spun around hoping it was a deputy.

It wasn’t.

It was an old mud-covered Ford truck. The driver was wearing a black ski mask, and holding a small handgun, which he had yet to point at anybody.

When I spun back around, two men in similar masks were unlocking the front doors of the bank and walking out. The large man in front held a shotgun in one hand and had a large black canvas bag draped over his opposite shoulder. The smaller man behind him had an identical bag and carried a handgun.

Reflexively I held up my hands.

I could hear crying and a few screams coming from inside the bank and the sound of a siren in the distance.

The man in the truck honked his horn and I turned my head toward him. He was motioning frantically to the two men coming out of the bank.

When I turned back toward them, the big man in front hit me on the side of the head with the butt of his shotgun. My knees buckled and I went down.

The pain in my head was so intense that I threw up and couldn’t see for a moment.

As soon as I could I rolled over to get a better look at the robbers. They tossed the canvas bags in the back of the truck, jumped in the cab, and sped away.

I searched the bumper for the tag but there wasn’t one. They had probably stolen the truck and removed the plates and would abandon it soon.

By the time I had gotten to my feet, people had emptied out of the Cajun Café and the other downtown businesses and were craning to see what was going on.