Dead in the creek, p.14
Dead in the Creek, page 14
I’m sure Alex knew what I was up to, throwing something we knew little about at Mickey. I was doing nothing more than hoping to get him to admit to something we had no proof he’d done.
“Okay,” I said. “Then how about you tell me who Mary Cisco is?”
He snarled his lip. “Who?”
“Mary Cisco. With A.M.A. Freight?”
He shrugged and shook his head. “I’ve honestly never heard the name.” He scratched his head, one hand still up on the ladder. “A.M.A. what? Freight?”
“You paid them hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past year. We have invoices that show the amounts that’ve been paid.”
Mickey continued to shake his head. His eyes stayed down toward the floor. “We work with hundreds of vendors, Henry. Truckers…freight companies…auditors…” He shook his head. “I certainly don’t know every vendor we’ve ever paid. I mean, it’s not like we’re running some local flower shop, writing checks as deliveries come in. We have over two hundred employees.”
I waited for him to stop talking.
But he continued. “And, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars may sound like a lot, but that’s peanuts compared to some of the bigger companies we work with. I’m paying out millions a year to some of them.”
“So your company pays hundreds of thousands of dollars to a vendor you’ve never heard of?”
He stared back at me for a moment without saying a word, then scrunched his face. “So who is this person, Mary Cisco?”
“Well, if you’re not going to tell me who she is,” I said, “Alex and I are going to go find out.”
He stepped toward the counter and leaned with his hands down, his arms spread wide from his shoulders. He turned his head to look at me. “You have to believe me. I’ve done nothing wrong. I… I’ll look into this freight company for you, if you’d like. Maybe I can get you some answers.”
“How about, for now, you go ahead and tell us why you came here looking for me.”
Mickey sat down on the stool I’d left for him. He put his short legs up on the lowest bar, had his hands flat on his knees. He looked right at Alex. “I love my wife, you know. I really do. But, sometimes when you’re in a position like I am, I guess you could say things happen.” He looked down into his lap. “Things that of course shouldn’t happen, but they do. We all make mistakes, right?”
I wasn’t sure how long it was going to take him to get to the point, so I thought I’d come right out and ask him the question I needed to ask. “Mickey, did you kill Sarah?”
His eyes opened wide, his eyebrows raised. “Me? No way. Never. Never even in a million years.” He looked back and forth from Alex to me. “Sarah and I…” He stopped. “She was carrying my baby.”
I was in the middle of sipping my beer and spit half of what was in my mouth on the floor. “Jesus Christ!” I said. “What do you mean she was carrying your baby?” I wiped my chin with the back of my hand and gave Alex a quick look.
Her eyes were wide open, as was her mouth.
Mickey stood from the stool and walked toward the sink in the galley. With his back to us he scratched his head, then turned. “Of course, having a baby with Sarah would have ruined my marriage. But I didn’t care. I mean, it’s not that I didn’t care. Like I said, I love my wife.” He looked at me. “I really do. But—and I know this sounds strange—I couldn’t have been more thrilled when Sarah told me the news.”
Alex stared back at Mickey. “You were thrilled?” She turned and gave me a look.
I just shrugged.
A tear came down Mickey’s cheek. “My wife and I tried for years to have a baby. It almost destroyed our marriage.” He looked down toward the floor. “We both blamed each other.”
“Before you continue,” I said, “I know I already asked you this but now I’m not so sure exactly where you’re going with this news.” I sipped my beer, but knew I needed something a little stronger. I wished I hadn’t smashed my only bottle of Jack on Bruce Rose’s head. “Mickey, I’m going to ask you one more time. Are you telling us this because you killed Sarah?”
Without a second of hesitation he shook his head. “God, no. Never!” He paused, his eyes on mine. “I grew up with five brothers and three sisters. Not having kids of my own was never even a thought. Everyone in my family has kids, but me.”
Alex took a step closer to Mickey. “So, you purposely got Sarah pregnant?”
“On purpose?” He shook his head. “Of course not. It was a mistake. I told you that. I simply made a mistake. But, as I said, I was thrilled at the thought of having a child. But I wasn’t going to leave my wife. I couldn’t. I didn’t love Sarah. And she didn’t love me. But she was carrying my child, and—”
“What makes you so sure it was yours?” I said.
“She told me she hadn’t been with anyone else. Not even that poor excuse-of-a-husband. I believed her when she told me they hadn’t slept together in almost a year.” He wiped the tear from his cheek and again sat down on the stool. He looked toward the floor. “My baby died in that accident with Sarah.”
I looked toward Alex. “Nothing came up in the autopsy?”
Alex glanced at me and shook her head, then turned to Mickey. “Who else knows about this?”
Mickey shrugged. “I can’t imagine anybody knows. I certainly didn’t tell anyone.”
I said, “What about Jeffrey?”
“I can’t imagine she told him, although she knew at some point she’d have to. She knew it would’ve ruined her marriage for good, as if either one of them would have cared.”
The three of us were quiet for a couple of moments.
Mickey looked at his watch and turned and glanced toward the ladder. “So, I need to get going in a moment.” He looked back toward me and Alex. “What do I need to give you to keep this all quiet?”
I walked to my refrigerator and pulled out another bottle of beer. “You mean your affair with Sarah?”
“Well, it wasn’t even an affair. We were only together one time.”
Alex and I both had our eyes on him, waiting for him to finish.
“But I hope you’ll keep this quiet. Just tell me whatever you need from me. Any amount of money. Whatever it’ll take.”
I said, “If you want to pay us to keep quiet, then why’d you tell us in the first place?”
“I’m telling you because I don’t want you to think I would have ever done anything to hurt Sarah. I don’t want you to think I’m a suspect.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Mickey, I can’t think of anyone who would have more of a motive than a man who got a woman pregnant and needs to ensure his wife wouldn’t find out.”
He shook his head. “But why else would I tell you?”
I leaned with my hands on the counter across from him. “How about if I make you a promise. If I find any connection whatsoever between you and what happened to Sarah… Your wife getting word about your affair—or whatever you want to call it—will be the least of your problems.”
Chapter 30
We passed the sign for Kingsland, Georgia and I turned to Alex. “I imagine you have to go through a lot of trouble to rent a PO Box using a fake name or business.”
Alex had her eyes on the road. “I’m not sure it’s even possible.”
“Anything’s possible,” I said. “Especially when you’re raking in checks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars; you have enough to take care of a few postal workers, make things a little easier for you.”
Alex was finally able to get the physical address attached to the PO Box. So before we went to the post office we searched for a building or a home with the physical address she’d found.
I reached for the radio and turned up the volume.
Alex gave me a look. “What’s this?”
“The Bill Evans Trio.”
“Since when did you start listening to this kind of music?”
I smiled and kept my eyes on the road. “See, maybe we don’t know each other as well as we thought.” I shrugged. “This music helps me think.” I could feel her watching me.
She said, “You’ve never played the piano, have you?”
“When I was younger I did. But it’s been a long time.” I looked down at Alex’s hand. The thought crossed my mind to reach for it. But ever since we kissed in the office, we’d both acted as if nothing ever happened.
Maybe that was the best thing to do.
We were a few miles from the Georgia line, still on 17, and turned off onto Highway 40.
Alex had her eyes on her phone again. “The GPS is spotty. I’m not getting any directions. But I think it’s off here, somewhere.” She looked toward the road and at the last second pointed toward the windshield and said, “Go right!”
I cut the wheel, almost taking the Jeep up on two wheels. That was one of the problems with the older model Jeeps. They weren’t made for sharp or sudden turns.
The farther we drove down the road, the more sinkholes I had to avoid. Within a half-mile, the aged, cracked asphalt turned to dirt and gravel.
Alex held one hand up on the roll-bar, her other hand gripping the dashboard.
The road split. A large wooden sign on the road was painted with white, faded numbers that were hard to read. Arrows pointed right and left.
“Go left,” Alex said.
I turned on the road, which quickly became more of an overgrown throughway than anything else. There were tire tracks that cut through the tall grass. We continued ahead as the Jeep bounced up and down with each dip in the earth.
After another few hundred yards we were mostly surrounded by trees, with tall grass and mud along the road. A mobile home was within view up ahead, with a big yard and a lot of trees surrounding it.
“That’s it,” Alex said. “Number six-four-nine.”
I turned the wheel and we parked on the grass. I looked toward the home’s narrow, aluminum door. A maroon Buick LeSabre with faded paint and rust covering the bottom of the doors was parked over a patch of dirt where the grass hadn’t grown. Next to it was an old aluminum lawn chair with the same green webbing like the ones I kept at my boat.
Alex stepped from the Jeep and nodded toward the chair. “Is that yours?”
“Different color green,” I said.
I stepped onto the makeshift cinder block step in front of the aluminum door. I listened for a moment and heard sounds, like they were coming from a TV. I knocked and waited.
Alex had her hand on the holster she wore under her shirt.
The sound from the TV stopped. I backed from the step and looked at a window a few feet from the door when I thought I saw a curtain move.
I knocked again.
The inside door opened. An old woman, paste-like white with dirty gray hair tied up on her head, stood behind the broken screen. She had a look to her I knew looked familiar.
I turned and glanced at Alex. The look on her face was as if she’d seen a ghost.
The woman had a look to her eyes like nothing I’d ever seen. They seemed to glow.
“Ma’am, my name’s Henry Walsh.” I nodded my head toward Alex. “This is Alex. We’re here because this address seems to be associated with a PO Box owned by a trucking company called A.M.A. Freight.” I looked around the yard. “I don’t see any trucks in the area, but I’m wondering if by chance you might be able to help us out?”
The old lady still hadn’t said a word, but her gaze shifted from me to Alex.
She started to close the door and Alex grabbed my arm.
“It’s her,” she said.
But before she could, I pulled open the screen door and stuck my foot over the threshold, stopping the door from closing. “Ma’am?”
The woman pushed on the door from the other side, but I didn’t move my foot.
Alex said, “Did you see her eyes? It’s her. From that Dodge Durango.”
The pressure eased on my foot and I pushed the door open. “Hello? Ma’am?”
I looked into the darkness inside the home and didn’t know where the woman had gone.
But then she stepped out from a room with a double-barrel shotgun, lifted it and fired a shot, just as Alex and I both dove out of the way.
We ran around the side of the trailer and another shot was fired. This time she blew the bark off the side of a tree no more than six feet from where we’d stopped.
I turned the corner of the home and tripped on what looked like a makeshift grave with a crooked wooden cross sticking out of the ground.
Alex pulled her Glock from her holster. “I’d hate to have to use this on her.”
“Now’s not the time to worry about granny,” I said.
We leaned with our backs pressed against the side of the woman’s home, out of view from the front. But a window opened just over our heads and the shotgun’s barrel poked out of it.
The old woman yelled, “I should’ve taken care of you when I had the chance!” She fired another shot into the ground at our feet.
We went around back, where there was a small shed twenty yards away from where we were. There was a truck or an SUV parked behind the shed and covered with a blue, nylon tarp.
“You ready?” I said.
Alex gave me a nod and we both ran as fast as we could toward the shed.
But the woman fired another shot and hit the side shed.
Alex and I ran for a wood pile along the edge of the property.
As soon as we dove over the top, an engine roared. The tail lights on the vehicle behind the shed came on. Before we could make a move, the tarp flew off. Underneath was the green Dodge Durango with the dark tinted windows.
It Durango took off, rocks and grass and dirt kicking up all around it. A gunshot fired from the vehicle, and another from inside the trailer.
“Stay down!” I yelled. As if Alex needed my instruction.
The green Dodge drove around to the front of the trailer. A horn blew and we could see the old lady run toward it with the barrel of her gun pointed right at us. She stopped, pumped once and took another shot in our direction.
The bark on a tree behind us blew up, wood pulp dropping on our heads.
I raised my eyes up over the pile and watched the old lady jump into the passenger side of the Durango. It drove ahead and was out of our view, but two more shots were fired.
Alex and I jumped to our feet and ran to the side of the trailer. I stuck my head around the corner toward the front, but it was too late.
The old lady and whoever was in that Durango were long gone.
I looked over at the Jeep and saw I had two flat tires. “Shit,” I said. “That’s not good.”
Alex looked out toward the so-called road. “That was them. That old lady shot me.” She looked at me and shook her head. “This is unbelievable.”
I walked to the Jeep and reached inside for my phone. I looked back at Alex. “You have a signal?”
She looked down at her screen and shook her head. “Nothing.”
Chapter 31
I walked ahead of Alex with my gun raised and stepped through the front door of the trailer. I stepped into the kitchen. The place smelled like fried food and cats, although I didn’t see any cats.
To the left was a living area with a small TV and an antenna hung from a nail on the wall. There were three glasses with ice inside on top of a coffee table. I picked one up and sniffed inside. “Bourbon,” I said. I reached down and picked up an empty box of Winchester Shells. I noticed two wooden chairs under the window. “I could be wrong, but those chairs look like what I was tied to. Although I can’t imagine why they’d take a chair all the way down from Georgia, just so they could tie me to it.”
Alex looked around the kitchen. “Doesn’t look like much of a trucking company, does it?”
I walked past her and stepped into a bedroom with a double bed and a single side table next to it. The top of a tall dresser was covered with framed pictures. I pulled open the dresser drawers but didn’t see much inside. I lifted the neatly-folded clothes but didn’t find much of anything underneath.
I looked at the photographs on top. They all appeared to be older photographs and all of the same little girl. I pulled down one of them and turned to Alex walking in behind me. “Look at this,” I said.
Alex took it from my hand then studied the photo. She shrugged and handed it back to me. “You know her?”
I looked at the photo. “You don’t see it? Picture that face, maybe twenty years older.”
Alex shrugged. “I give up.”
I took a moment, wondering if I was trying too hard to get my mind to see what I maybe didn’t see. But I knew I was right. “If that little girl isn’t Emma Buckman, then it’s certainly someone related to her.”
Alex took the photo from my hand again and studied it some more. She looked at me. “I guess I see it. But…”
“It’s her. Look at it.” I grabbed another photo of the same girl but maybe a little older. I pointed to the photo. “If I’m right, then what the hell is her relationship to the old lady?”
“Does this mean Emma Buckman’s behind all of this? Behind Sarah’s murder?”
I placed the photo back on top of the dresser but didn’t answer Alex’s question. I looked around. “Let’s see what else we can find in here, see if we can make some connection’s to A.M.A. Freight.” I had almost forgotten I had two flat tires and one spare. And two cell phones without a half of a signal between them. I walked from the bedroom and used the landline phone hung on the wall in the kitchen.
Billy answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”
“In the middle of nowhere, just over the Georgia line.” I told him I had two flat tires.
“How’d you get two flat tires?”
“An old woman with a double-barrel shotgun in her hands. Luckily she didn’t have a very good shot, although we’re pretty sure she’s the same person who shot Alex the other day.”
“The old lady shot Alex?“
“Looks that way. But listen. I hate to ask, but we need a ride. We’re pretty much stuck.”
Billy didn’t hesitate a moment. “Text me the address. I’ll leave right away.”
