But Not For Love, page 4
part #9 of Clint Wolf Series
I frowned. Both cars they owned were here, so at least one of them should’ve been home. I eased my hand to the doorknob and tested it. It was unlocked. I was about to move around to the southern side of the house to get Mallory when she suddenly appeared out of the darkness.
“There’s no front door,” she explained, “only a side entrance.”
I nodded, asked what she thought.
“Something’s not right. I couldn’t hear a peep from inside and both of their cars are here. We should’ve heard something. Even if Jake and Allie were inside and being quiet, it would be hard to keep the kid from making noise.”
I nodded, remembering little Sammy. He was a cool kid and I’d felt sorry for him when we’d first met last year on the streets of Mechant Loup. He was a bright kid, so he understood what had been happening to his mother. I just couldn’t believe Allie had gone back to Jake. I knew she had her reasons and I had to respect them, but I couldn’t understand it.
Susan had put Allie up in the shelter she ran for battered women, and then eventually helped Allie find a job. She also helped Allie find a nice apartment for her and Sammy. I knew Susan had checked in on Allie from time to time, but she seemed equally surprised to hear that she had reunited with Jake. Neither of us ever saw that coming.
So far, from what Mallory and I could see out here, that might have turned out to be a horrible mistake—unless they were out with family or friends and had gotten a ride out of here. At least I could hope.
“The back door is unlocked.” I indicated with my head toward the knob. “Want to make entry?”
“The front door is also unlocked.” Mallory’s tanned face appeared pale in the moonlight and I could see her brow furrowing. “We don’t really have the authority to go in.”
She was right. Although Allie’s mom had called in with a concern, we couldn’t go barging into the house without some supporting information. I pulled out my flashlight and, shielding the glow with my left hand, scanned the ground near the back door. Other than some shoe prints in the dust, which was not at all uncommon, there was nothing to raise any alarms.
I shifted the light toward the steps and began working my way upward along the door. I sucked in my breath when the light splashed against the wall to the right of the door. Mallory gasped beside me.
“That’s reason enough to go in,” I said quietly, my shoulders drooping. There, smeared into the rusty tin, were streaks of bloody fingerprints. From the angle of the smears, we could tell the pattern had been made while the subject was on the way out of the house.
Without saying another word, Mallory and I palmed our pistols and pushed through the door.
CHAPTER 7
The back door of Allie’s house opened into a tiny kitchen. It was so small there was barely enough room to walk around the card table that was positioned at the center of the room. It served as a dining table. I could make out the shadows of several plates, a cereal box, two coffee cups, a set of keys, and miscellaneous items on the tabletop. We stepped gingerly across the aged wooden floor, circling the table while trying not to make excessive noise. Mallory moved slightly toward the right and I moved to the left as we approached a dark space on the opposite wall in front of us. It appeared to be an opening into another room.
A sliver of moonlight shone through the kitchen window and we were using that as our guide to get around the table and chairs without making noise. We didn’t know whose blood it was on the exterior wall or if there was a threat inside, but we didn’t want to give away our positions by using flashlights.
A board creaked to my right and I heard Mallory suck in a breath. She had stepped on a loose board. We both froze in place for a few long seconds. As we waited, I studied the dark space on the wall and realized it was some sort of blanket being used as a barrier to separate the two rooms. I thought I could hear the low droning of a television from somewhere on the other side of the barrier, but I couldn’t be positive.
Once we were sure no one had heard the floor creaking under Mallory’s boot, we continued forward and reached the barrier. I reached out and moved the thick blanket aside, while Mallory did the same thing on her end. I was on the left and could see into the room on the right, where a tiny television was resting on a plastic stand. It gave off a little light, but not enough to make out all the shapes and shadows in what appeared to be the living room.
Mallory and I stepped through the opening one at a time, each of us getting out of the doorway quickly—her to the right, and me to the left—and then we stopped to study our surroundings, trying to detect even the slightest hint of danger.
The living room was shaped like an L, with a rectangular section jutting out of the northeastern corner, which was to my far left. That section was too large to be a closet, but too small to be a bedroom, so I figured it had to be the bathroom. As tiny as the house was, I didn’t expect there to be two bathrooms. The widest part of the living room was the same width as the kitchen, and I realized this was a shotgun house.
As we waited and listened, a strange but familiar smell drifted to my nostrils. I groaned inwardly—it was the sweet smell of spilled blood, and not just a little. It would take a lot of blood to generate that much of an odor, and I knew whatever we found, it wouldn’t be good.
“What’s that?” Mallory asked, touching my arm and pointing toward the left.
I shuffled closer to the left and strained to make out the shape of the object. It appeared to be a sofa shoved up against the northern wall. Something was stretched out on the sofa. A person, perhaps?
“Cover the bathroom,” I whispered. “I’m going to use my light.”
Mallory nodded and moved forward. When she reached the door to the bathroom, which was opposite the main door that was located on the southern wall, she gave me a wave. The scene on the television had grown dark, so it was hard to see her, but I could make out the motion of her hand enough to know she was ready.
Holding my pistol firmly in my right hand and taking a breath, I extended the flashlight away from my body and flipped it on with my left thumb. I didn’t like what it revealed. I’d seen a lot of crime scenes in my time, but rarely had I witnessed one as bloody as the scene before us. Mallory gasped audibly.
Someone had murdered the figure on the sofa, and that murderer might still be in the house. And what about Sammy?
God, I hope the kid’s okay, I thought.
I quickly shined the light toward the southeastern side of the living room, where the door to the bedroom stood closed. I moved beside Mallory and whispered that I would take the bedroom if she took the bathroom. She jerked her flashlight from a clip on her belt and nodded solemnly.
Once she’d rushed into the bathroom, I hit the bedroom. A quick shine of my flashlight brought some relief, because I didn’t see another body. The room had a full-size bed shoved in one corner and there was a twin mattress on the floor next to the bed. I knew instantly that it was where Sammy slept, because I recognized the model cop car I’d given him last year. It was banged up, but it still looked like a miniature version of Susan’s marked Tahoe.
I paused and smiled for a second, flattered that the gift had meant so much to the little boy. But as quickly as the smile came, it faded. Where was Sammy? Was he okay?
I called out that the bedroom was clear and rushed back into the living room.
“The bathroom’s clear, too,” Mallory said, joining me as I approached the sofa.
Allie Boudreaux was lying on her back. She wore a terrycloth robe with a quilt wrapped around her legs. It appeared every drop of blood inside her had had spilled from the holes in her body. There was blood cast-off on the wall behind the sofa and on the ceiling. Her face, neck, and chest were painted red. There were over a dozen stab wounds in her upper torso and neck area, with one to her cheek and another through the quilt and into her left leg. Her hands were curled up against her breasts. Her eyes were wide and her teeth were clenched.
I looked away, feeling the weight of having seen so much death and destruction in my short thirty-three years of living. Would it ever stop? Would there ever come a time when good people would be able to enjoy their lives in peace, without worry of being shot or stabbed or bludgeoned to death? Would we ever win the war on drugs, domestic violence, and child abuse?
Still fresh in my mind was my latest shooting, and I wasn’t handling it as well as I would’ve liked. There were times when I found myself craving a drink and it scared the hell out of me. I didn’t want to slip back into that destructive routine. Each time I’d felt the urge to pick up a bottle of vodka, I had turned to my rock—my wife, Susan. I would call her and tell her what I was thinking. Never one to judge, she would simply point out what was important in my life—my job, my marriage, our unborn child—and remind me that I was stronger than the urges. Her words of encouragement always pulled me through, but what would happen if the power of those words faded? What if I didn’t call her the next time I felt like having a drink?
“That bastard,” Mallory said softly, breaking through my thoughts. “He finally killed her.”
I glanced at the detective standing beside me and wondered if she ever felt the urge to drink away her problems. I dared not pose the question. Instead, I turned my attention back to the young mother who lay lifeless on the couch. What a waste it was.
“Have you dealt with Jake before?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She sighed. “I arrested him a couple of years ago for beating Allie, but she dropped the charges and he walked away clean. I tried to talk her out of dropping the charges back then, but she wouldn’t listen. I told her this would happen someday.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you heard about the beating last year.”
“I did.” Mallory nodded for emphasis. “I also heard the district attorney’s office was having a hard time locating her for the trial. Well, we’ve located her, but she’s definitely not going to court.”
I glanced over my shoulder toward the back door. “We need to find Jake, and we need to find out if Sammy’s okay.”
“I’ll call it in,” Mallory said, “and get SWAT out here to start the search and apply for an electronic search warrant so we can process the scene.”
“What about K-9?” I asked. “If Jake hit the cane fields, we’ll never find him without a track.”
“Good idea.” While Mallory got on the horn to call for assistance, I made my way outside and began scouring the back yard, searching for more blood or any signs that would indicate his direction of travel. I located two drops of blood on the southwestern corner of the house, which indicated he had run around to the front of the house. I checked the door handles on the cars to see if he’d touched them with his bloody hands after stabbing Allie, but they were clean. I wondered if the set of keys on the kitchen table were for his car or Allie’s.
I dug out my phone and called Susan. She gasped out loud when I told her what had happened and what we knew so far.
“That no-good piece of shit!” she said. “I wish I could be the one to put the cuffs on him. God, I feel so helpless, sitting at home doing nothing while you’re out there fighting to get justice for poor Allie.”
“Well, you can help.” I slapped at a mosquito on my forehead. “I need to know if Sammy is with Allie’s parents. Can you call them and find out?”
“Sure.” There was a long pause. “Clint, you don’t think Jake would hurt him?”
“I hope not. Please let me know as soon as you hear from them.”
I ended the call and was making my way toward the back of the house again when I heard sirens in the distance. The air was clear and the land in southeastern Louisiana flat, so I knew sound traveled far. Those units could be miles away. If Jake was bedded down in the fields watching the house, he might hear the responding units and go deep into the bush. If he pushed through the cane to the dark and dense swamps beyond it, he could disappear forever.
Mallory was standing outside at the corner of the house and I asked if she could tell the units to shut off their sirens. She nodded and handed me her cell phone. “It’s Sheriff Turner…he wants to talk to you.”
Buck Turner was the Sheriff of Chateau Parish. A former cattleman, he was as good a man as they came and was a loyal friend. He was always supportive when we needed him in Mechant Loup, so I made it a point to always make myself available when he needed me.
“Hey, Sheriff, what’s going on?”
“This Jake Boudreaux—isn’t he the same prick who tried to kill Melvin back about a year ago?”
“Yep, he’s the one.” Although Turner couldn’t see me, I nodded. “He’s a dangerous man.”
There was a pause and Sheriff Turner sighed heavily. “Do you mind taking lead on the hunt for this guy? I never rescinded yours and Susan’s commissions, so y’all are still deputized to do business in Chateau. That is, if the mayor is willing to loan you to me.”
“She’ll be fine with it.” I hesitated. “What about your deputies? How will they feel about me working this case?”
“Mallory requested you. She said she’d feel good having someone who knows how this bastard thinks, so she doesn’t mind. As far as the rest of my detectives go—if they have a problem with you, then they have a problem with me.” He chuckled. “And they don’t want a problem with me.”
“I’ll do it,” I said simply.
“Great, can you put me on speaker with you and Mallory? I’ll brief y’all on what I’ve got.”
I pressed the speaker button and handed Mallory back her phone. She held it between us.
“Okay gang,” Turner began, “I just woke up Britt Lucas—she’s the domestic violence prosecutor handling Jake Boudreaux’s case—and she said Allie Boudreaux went into her office yesterday to drop charges. Britt let Allie sign the slip, but she told Allie she wasn’t dropping the charges. One of her investigators followed Allie when she left and he saw her get into a car with Jake.”
There was a long pause. When Turner spoke again, his voice was heavy. “Britt was pretty upset when I told her Allie was dead. She feels responsible for allowing Allie to drive away with Jake. She said she knew something awful was going to happen, and she wished she would’ve acted.”
“There’s nothing she could’ve done,” I said. “She couldn’t stop Allie from leaving with Jake no more than we could have.”
“She knows that,” Turner acknowledged, “but she still feels bad.”
“What will she do about the trial?” Mallory asked.
“She’s going to meet with the judge first thing this morning and get a continuance. In light of what’s happened, Jake has bigger problems.”
After we ended the call with Sheriff Turner, Mallory entered her Charger and got on her laptop to type up a search warrant. While she did that, I waited out front for the posse.
I didn’t have to wait long. Gretchen Verdin arrived first and parked her marked K-9 unit behind my cruiser. I was damn glad to see her. I started to approach her when my cell phone rang. It was Susan.
“Hey, baby, what’s up?”
“They don’t have him, Clint. Allie’s parents haven’t seen Sammy in two weeks.”
“What?” I stopped in my tracks and my shoulders drooped. “But where can he be?”
“They don’t know.” Susan sighed deeply. “The last they knew, Sammy was with Allie and Jake.”
CHAPTER 8
“Hey Chief, how’s it going?” Gretchen asked, dropping from her unit. Gretchen was a K-9 sergeant with the sheriff’s office and she was a fine officer. I’d had the pleasure of working with her before, and there was no one I’d rather have helping us look for Jake. Three-quarters Chitimacha Indian, it was said she could track a cockroach across the surface of the bayou—and that was without using her large canine companion. Given the giant sea of sugarcane surrounding us, we would need someone with her tracking abilities.
“You know I only answer to Clint—and it could be better,” I said idly, wondering if Jake had taken Sammy on the run with him. I shot a thumb toward the house and frowned deeply. “A good woman died inside there last night, and her son is missing. We don’t know if the father took him on the run or…or worse.”
Gretchen frowned herself as she shouldered a tactical backpack. She was slender and tall. Her hair was one length and pulled back into a short ponytail, and it matched her dark eyes. Without saying a word, she moved to the back of her vehicle and released her partner, Geronimo, who was a large German shepherd. He wasn’t as tall or as heavy as Achilles, but his coat was thicker and he was a saddleback with a dark mask. He was definitely an intimidating figure.
“I’ll keep him on a short leash, just in case the boy is with him,” Gretchen explained. “How old is he?”
I thought back to when I first met the kid last September. He had held up four fingers and said he was going to be six, but Allie had corrected him and said he was turning five.
“He’s either five or six by now,” I said.
Gretchen nodded and studied our dark surroundings. “A rural setting is better for tracking, but the chances of being ambushed are greater.” She smiled and her tanned face lit up. “That’s where you’ll come in. If we jump him and he poses a threat, you’re going to cover us.”
I glanced toward where Mallory was sitting in her cruiser. Her face glowed from the light of her laptop screen. Once the warrant was approved, she would need some help processing the crime scene. I loved working scenes, but there was nothing quite as exciting—or dangerous—as a manhunt, and Turner wanted me going after Jake. Besides, Mallory was a seasoned detective and all she needed was someone to hold the dumb end of the measuring tape for her.
“Give me a minute,” I said to Gretchen. I approached Mallory’s cruiser and knocked on the window. When I told her Gretchen was ready to start tracking, she nodded.
