Blood Reckoning, page 6
“What you want us to do next?” he asks.
Before I can respond, his radio blares. It’s Phil.
“We’ve got a fire down here,” he says. “At the old McDaniel cabin. Come quick.”
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
The McDaniel place is an old, rustic fish camp that has been in the McDaniel family for several decades. During Hurricane Michael, the cat 5 superstorm that ripped through the region, an enormous oak tree had fallen onto it, caving in nearly half the roof and most of one wall. Because the structure was so old and weak to begin with and because the storm dumped several months worth of rainfall into it, the camp had been condemned and is waiting to be torn down and rebuilt—neither of which has happened yet.
When we pull up to the camp, we find Phil and Patty sitting in their boat out in front of it.
“Seemed suspicious to have a fire in it on a wet night like tonight,” Phil says.
I look up the incline of the bank to the cabin.
It’s an old tin roof fish camp built out of mismatched lumber over a long period of time. Its unpainted boards are warped and weathered and wet. Though raised up on stilts, it’s neither high enough or far enough from the river and has been flooded several times over its many years of existence. The lot it sits on is thick and overgrown and looks like what it is—abandoned.
The building itself isn’t on fire, but through the cave-in opening a fire can be seen burning in what looks like a closet in the back right corner.
The fire is small enough and back far enough that it’s difficult to see from here, and I wonder how Phil and Patty saw it as they sped by.
“Yes, it does,” I say. “Thanks for letting us know.”
“Guess it coulda been started by a lightning strike,” Phil adds, “but . . .”
“You were right to call us,” I say. “We’ll check it out.”
I shine the spotlight around the bank and the path leading up to the camp.
A boat has been moored here recently and there are footprints leading up to the cabin.
Patty says, “We’re gonna call it a night, get some sleep so we can be back out here in the morning to start searching again.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I really appreciate all y’all have done.”
“See y’all tomorrow,” Phil says.
He cranks his motor, reverses away from the bank, and then heads back up the river.
Merrill and I tie up the boat and make our way up the path, careful not to disturb the other prints in the ground.
The cloud coverage has cleared somewhat, and the huge, bright moon is visible again, making everything else more visible as well.
“Need to get Michelle back out here,” Merrill says.
I nod.
The wet ground is a muddy mess, and our boots alternate between slipping and being sucked into the muck.
We have to climb over downed trees and walk around upturned root systems. If someone came to the cabin earlier and set the fire, they had to really want to do so. It’s not easy to access.
When we reach the collapsed structure, Merrill hands me a pair of latex gloves, and we both glove up before entering.
Opening the crooked front door, we enter and immediately have to walk around the top of the fallen oak resting there.
The cabin is as wet as the swamp itself, every surface slick and dripping with rainwater.
The furniture in the open room is rotting and mildewed after being exposed to the elements in the years since the storm.
The fire is in a closet in the back right corner of the room on top of part of a collapsed wooden dining table. An old padded wooden glider rocker stands a few feet away from the closet, its green padding burned and charred. The closet and the chair are the only two areas to have been burned. The closet, which is empty apart from a few random hangers on the bar extended across it, is about the driest spot in the entire cabin, and is an obvious place to set a fire. But the chair is curious. Did the fire in the closet jump to the chair? It seems too far away, and if it is, why start a separate fire on it?
It’s hard to tell what is burning but it looks to be trash and debris and clothes.
We look around for something to put the fire out.
Finding a couple of wet sheets and blankets, we attempt to extinguish the fire while disturbing it as little as possible.
It takes us a few minutes because of the approach we’re taking, but eventually we are able to stamp out the fire.
I study the remnants of the fire.
When I confirm there’s no body beneath the debris, I exhale a sigh of relief and realize I hadn’t breathed deeply since we got the call that there was a fire here.
Most of whatever was in the fire is blackened and charred beyond recognition, but materials being consumed appear to be branches, leaves, some random broken wooden furniture parts and pieces, a blanket, and some clothes.
I can’t tell for sure, but from the small section of clothes that are the least burned, they don’t appear to be old.
I can’t help but wonder if they are Carla’s or Mason’s or whoever did her harm—if someone did her harm.
“This wasn’t from a lightning strike,” Merrill says.
I nod. “Sure doesn’t look like it. Definitely suspicious. And as wet as everything is a lot of accelerant would have had to be used.”
“Could’ve been somebody sheltering during the storm,” he says.
“But why not put out the fire before they left? Why have a fire at all?”
He nods.
“As much as I don’t want to think it,” I say. “It could be an attempt at burning evidence.”
“We’ll get an arson investigator and the crime scene techs out here in the morning.” Merrill says. “Hopefully they’ll tell us we’re being paranoid and overreacting.”
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
“John, I swear to you I don’t know where she is,” Mason is saying.
It’s a little after four in the morning. I woke him up at the jail and brought him to the interview room at the sheriff’s office so I can record the interview and run what he says through the voice stress analyzer.
I have yet to sleep, and I came here straight from searching the river, but he seems more tired and sleepy than I am.
To establish a baseline of true statements for the VSA, I ask him a series of innocuous questions.
“Is your name Mason Darius Hayes?”
“Yes.”
“Do you live at 747 Canning Street?”
“Yes.”
“What do you do for work?”
“I’m a . . . I’m in between jobs right now.”
“Is your dad the dentist in town?”
“Yes. Well, he’s a dentist in town. I think the medical center has one too.”
“Who all was out at your cabin tonight?”
“Just me and her.”
“Who is her?”
“Carla. Just me and Carla.”
“Footprints say different.”
“Maybe somebody was out there before us or someone came by after I left,” he says. “I don’t know. When I was out there it was just me and her.”
“I want you to really think about your answers,” I say. “Be as honest and truthful as you possibly can. These are your official statements. We’ll know if you’re lying, and it will look very incriminating if you change or amend your statements later.”
“I’m telling the truth,” he says, the tone of his voice tightening and rising some. “I swear it.”
“Did you hurt Carla?”
He hesitates for the briefest of moments but he definitely hesitates.
“No,” he says.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Have you ever hurt her?”
“No,” he says. “I’m not . . . I don’t do that. I mean, I’ve . . . I’ve definitely hurt her feelings and . . . I’m sure I’ve hurt her in little ways, but . . . not in the way you mean.”
“Have you ever hit her?”
“No.”
I don’t need the VSA to tell me he’s lying.
I narrow my gaze at him and lock my eyes onto his.
He looks away.
“I’ve never punched her or beat her up or anything like that,” he says. “I’ve . . . There have been times when she went crazy and I’ve had to subdue her. I may have slapped her or . . . but never hit or punched or anything like that. We’d get into arguments sometimes. She’d lose it and freak the fuck out. She’d scream at me, throw things at me, hit me. Hit me over and over. I never hit her back. But I’d grab her and stop her from hitting me. Hold her until she calmed down. She said I hurt her some of those times.”
“So your answer to my question have you ever hurt her should’ve been yes.”
“I guess so. Technically. But not to the way you mean it. She’s not missing ’cause I hurt her.”
“If everything you’ve told us is true, and I’m not convinced it is, she is missing because you left her alone, stranded on the river.”
“I . . . I shouldn’t’ve done that. But you don’t know how she could get. And I tried to get her to let me take her back to the landing, but she wouldn’t let me. You want to blame me for what happened, but what about blaming her? She’s the one who refused to get in the boat. She’s the one who chose to stay out there.”
“What reasons did she give you for not wanting to leave with you?” I ask.
“Said she wasn’t ready to leave, that she didn’t want to go back yet. Said she knew I was just going to drop her off and head back out there without her.”
“Were you?”
He nods. “Probably.”
“Why?”
“I had just had enough of her bullshit.”
“What else did she say?”
“That . . . that I had just taken her out there to fuck her, and once I had done that I was ready to take her back, that I was treating her like a whore.”
“Is that true?”
“Not the whore part, but . . . I thought that’s what we went out there to do. I didn’t know she wanted to . . . talk and hang out and shit.”
“So if you had just stayed a little longer . . . everything would’ve been fine and she would’ve gone back with you later?”
He shrugs. “There was never any predicting her moods.”
“Did you go straight back to the landing?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“What’d you do then?”
“Loaded up the boat and—”
“Anyone see you?”
He looks up, squinting. “Yeah, there was . . . There were two girls in a car turning around. I waved to them. Didn’t recognize them.”
“We’ll need a full description of them and their vehicle.”
“Okay. I noticed they had a Georgia tag.”
“Then what’d you do?”
“Went straight home and climbed into bed.”
“Anyone see you?” I ask. “Anyone able to verify what you’re saying?”
He shrugs. “I’m sure Mom saw my truck in the driveway if she looked out—and she usually does.”
“Usually does what?”
“Looks out. Knows when I come and go.”
“Who do you think the other footprints at your camp belong to?”
He shrugs.
“Probably whoever picked her up.”
“You say her a lot,” I say. “Is there a reason you don’t want to say her name?”
“No.”
“When’s the last time you were out at your cabin before you and Carla were there?” I ask.
He shrugs.
“That won’t do,” I say. “The only way out of this is for you to tell the truth—no matter what it is. You know when you were out there last.”
“Earlier today,” he says as if it gives him physical pain to do so. “Or yesterday, whatever it is. What time is it?”
“You were out at your camp earlier on Sunday before you went back out there with Carla?”
He nods.
“I need a verbal response.”
“Yeah.”
“Who was with you?” I ask.
He doesn’t respond for a moment, then says, “Cindy.”
“Cindy Capps?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
Cindy Denise Capps, or CDC as she is known to many, is our town’s only official sex worker.
“You took her out to your cabin to have sex with earlier in the day?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Did Carla figure it out?” I ask. “Is that what upset her?”
“She said the cabin smelled like sex, and she found one of Cindy’s cigarette butts.”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
CDC lives in one of the old redbrick government housing units across from the high school football field.
I knock on her door at a little before six.
When she opens the door she says, “Hey, John.”
She’s a pale, voluptuous, thirty-something white woman with green eyes and an auburn tint to her dark hair. Flecks of mascara cling to her eyelashes, and each of her nails has a little glitter-blue polish remnant on it.
“Sorry to show up so early,” I say.
“You caught me just in time. Was just about to head to bed.”
She’s in a too-short Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan t-shirt—and based on the pubic hair peeking out beneath it and the nipples of her enormous breasts poking out near the top of it that’s all she’s in.
“Glad I did,” I say.
“This must be official business,” she says. “Can’t remember the last time you showed up here empty handed.”
Except for on a few rare occasions I’ve only showed up at Cindy’s door to deliver food or medicine or clothes—and when it comes to this last I make a mental note to bring longer t-shirts in the future. She knows I’m not here to arrest her. I’d never arrest a sex worker. A sex trafficker or a john using an underage girl, yes, but never a sex worker, and she knows it.
“Sorry about that,” I say. “Been out all night searching for Carla. Came straight here from the sheriff’s office.”
“Carla missin’?”
“Yeah. You seen her or heard anything?”
She shakes her head. “But I’ll let you know if I do.”
“Thanks. Just got a quick question for you and I’ll let you get to bed.”
“Fire away.”
“Mason Hayes,” I say. “Did you go to his river camp with him yesterday?”
She shakes her head. “He’s come by here for a piece of pussy now and then over the years, but not in a while. I’ve never gone anywhere with him. Is he in the jail?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I had a collect call from an inmate in the Gulf County jail a little while ago, but I didn’t accept it.”
“He was probably calling to tell you he’d pay you to back his lie,” I say.
She nods. “Probably so.”
“If he calls back, would you accept it and let me know what he says? I’ll pay the charges.”
“’Course.”
“Thanks.”
“Hope you find Carla soon,” she says. “Hope she’s okay. For what it’s worth . . . I know a little about men, and I can’t see Mason hurting or killing a woman. He’s not the type. I know the type. And he ain’t it.”
* * *
As I’m driving back to the sheriff’s office, Dad calls.
“Merrill told me about Carla,” he says. “What can I do?”
“Can’t think of anything at the moment,” I say.
“I hope she’s just . . . and will turn up soon. Anything you need, just let me know. I’ll call Fred and let him know that the resources of my office are at your disposal.”
“Thanks.”
“I know what she means to you, what you mean to her,” he says. “How are you holding up?”
“Trying not to think too much about . . . Just workin the case—like it’s any other case.”
“Let me know what I can do for you, how I can help you.”
I swallow hard against the lump in my throat and say, “Thanks.”
“Merrill asked for time off to help with the search,” he says. “I denied the request. He can help you in any way you need, but I don’t want him having to use his vacation time. He can stay on the clock and be a loan from this office.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I really—”
“Just let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY
“You should’ve called me,” Fred Miller is saying.
I’m seated in a chair across from his desk—a monstrosity of solid cherry wood with an elegant and elaborate matching cherry wood nameplate with “Sheriff Fred Miller” in big, boxy bold letters. The only other objects on the desk are a phone, a calendar, and a six shooter cylinder pen holder, all of which look lost on the large open surface of the desk.
He’s sipping hot coffee from a large paper cup, the steam of which curls up and around his nose each time he drinks.
“Wasn’t sure what we had,” I say. “Still not. I’m hoping she’s gonna drive up this morning wondering what all the fuss is about.”
He nods. “I hope that happens. I really do. But you were right to handle it the way you did—apart from not calling me. I’d rather waste time, money, and manpower searching for someone who was never really missing than get a late start searching for someone who is.”
“I appreciate that.”
The walls of his office are decorated with large-framed Old West and cowboy prints of the bright, vivid, romanticized, mass-produced variety.
Though there are no traces of Reggie remaining in his office, I will always think of it as hers, and it makes me uncomfortable to be in it. And it doesn’t matter that it has been well over a year since she died or that she never felt like it was hers anyway.
As if sensing my unease and ever the politician, he says, “I’ve been thinking we need to create some sort of memorial to Sheriff Summers somewhere in the office. Only female sheriff in our county’s history. Only sheriff killed in the line of duty. You knew her the best and . . . I know y’all were close. When you can, be thinking of what you feel would be appropriate and let’s work on it together.”
