Dead in the creek, p.15
Dead in the Creek, page 15
“Actually, neither of us have a signal on our phones.”
“Where are you calling from?”
“We’re inside the old lady’s trailer.”
I hated to have to leave the Jeep behind at the house but we couldn’t hang around, either. So Alex and I left on foot and walked side-by-side through the overgrown weeds and grass along the road.
Alex said, “Can all of this really be connected to Sarah’s death?”
I hesitated a moment before I answered. “I wish I knew. But right now we have no idea why she had those invoices, and why she has the key to a PO Box owned by a freight company we’re not even sure exists.”
We walked in silence for the next hundred yards or so. The only sounds around us came from the birds and a few screaming hawks.
Every few steps I’d look back over my shoulder, worried the old lady and whoever was behind the wheel with her would come looking for us. We were sitting ducks.
I stopped and wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my arm. “What if Sarah is actually the one behind all of this? How do we know she wasn’t stealing from Hendrick? We don’t know a thing about her, do we? And what if that key was meant for Melinda from the start? Finally gets to that PO box and finds a stack of cash or checks or whatever’s in there.”
Alex said, “Maybe we should have gone to the post office before we went to the house.”
We continued our walk and kept quiet for the next two-and-a-half miles until we finally made it to the post office parking lot.
We walked to the front door of the building and a horn blew.
Billy pulled in and parked behind us. He put down his window. “Need a lift?”
I nodded but turned back to the door and held up the key. “As soon as I see what’s inside this PO Box.” I pulled open the glass door and walked toward the small room off the lobby. There were three walls covered in various sized post office boxes.
I moved my eyes up and down the numbers and stopped on the one I was looking for: 4738. I stuck the key inside and turned it once, counter-clockwise. I looked inside the box and pulled out a handful of envelopes postmarked as recent as two months ago. There were eight in total, one sent every Monday of every week.
The return address was Hendrick Logistics, sent from Jacksonville.
I walked outside toward Alex and Billy waiting by his Lexus.
I handed the envelopes to Alex then tore one open myself. I removed a check and stared at it for a moment. I held it up to Alex and Billy. “It’s made out to A.M.A. Freight for thirteen thousand dollars.” I looked at the signature. “Signed by Kelly Swift.”
I opened another one and pulled out another check, also signed by Kelly, made out to AMA. I held it up to Billy and Alex. “This one’s for eight-thousand dollars.”
Billy said, “Can you tell me what’s going on here? Or you just want me to shut up and drive you home?”
“Well,” I said, “for some reason Mickey was sending Sarah these checks. I don’t know what A.M.A. Freight is or what her connection is to it. Or if the company even exists. It doesn’t look like it. We still don’t know if that old lady is Mary Cisco or not.”
Alex said, “Do you think Kelly’s involved with some kind of scheme?”
Billy had a confused look on his face. “Involved how?”
I had opened another envelope and looked up at Billy. “The old lady had pictures of a little girl in her bedroom. And I’m almost certain they were pictures of Emma Buckman, when she was a child.”
“Emma Buckman? That’s Sarah’s husband’s girlfriend, right?” Billy scratched his head. “And what about the dead guy from the apartment?” Billy said. “What’s he got to do with all of this?”
“Bruce Rose?” I shrugged and shook my head at the same time. “I honestly have no idea. Not yet, anyway.”
We all stepped into Billy’s Lexus and took off onto the road.
Alex leaned forward from the back seat. “Those envelopes look like they’d been piling up long before Sarah was killed.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but, did you say whoever shot at you was driving an old green Durango, with tinted windows?” I turned and saw Billy’s eyes up in his rearview mirror.
I turned around and looked out the back window.
Alex did the same.
And all three of us saw them. Granny and her gang were right behind us.
The car in front of us had stopped and turned sideways. We had nowhere to go.
Chapter 32
I turned from the passenger seat and watched the old lady walk from the Durango behind us, blocking the road. She had the double barrel shotgun by her side, and didn’t move at all like an old lady, each step she took a long, exaggerated stride.
Two men followed behind her. Without a doubt, I knew they were the men who had tied me to the chair at the apartment. The tall skinny one held a gun in his hand. The short stocky one had a wooden baseball bat.
I turned back to Billy. “Either you have to get us past that car ahead of us, or we’re going to have to go out there and fight.”
Billy looked toward the car ahead of us, then turned and looked over his shoulder toward granny and the two men. He reached under his seat and came up with an old Ruger 9mm he’d had for as long as I’d known him.
“When was the last time you shot that thing?” I said.
“Took it to the range a couple of years ago.” With a single nod, he said, “Don’t worry, I can hit a target.”
I looked back at the old lady and the two men. They had stopped walking toward us, and for some reason hadn’t yet fired.
Although I had a feeling granny was itching to pull that trigger.
Billy turned around in his seat with the Ruger in his right hand. “The last thing I want to do is shoot an old lady, but…” He looked back at Alex. “You sure that’s who shot you?”
Alex was slouched down in the back seat with the Glock in her hand. She stayed low, ready to come up firing.
Billy turned back toward the steering wheel and reached his hand down for the shifter. The engine was running, and he slapped it into reverse and slammed his foot down on the gas.
I turned in the passenger seat and saw the old lady and her boys dive out of the way to avoid being clipped by the rear-end of Billy’s Lexus.
He ripped the steering wheel and spun the car around.
With his foot on the gas, Billy held the wheel with one hand—the other holding his Ruger—and tried to squeeze past the green Durango still blocking the street.
But there wasn’t enough room. He smashed into the side of the Dodge and dropped his gun on the floor. He grabbed the wheel to maintain control of the Lexus.
Alex yelled “Look out!”
Billy tried to avoid a live oak but he clipped it once we were past the Durango. He tried to keep control but drove straight into a chain link fence at the entrance of an abandoned parking lot.
I turned in my seat and watched the old lady and her boys come to their feet and run back to their vehicle.
Billy cut the wheel hard and took us toward 40 West.
“They’re coming!” I yelled, reaching down for Billy’s Ruger on the floor next to his foot. I looked up at the sunroof and pushed the button to open it. With the Ruger in my hand, I stood on the passenger seat and stuck my head through the opening.
Both the Dodge and second vehicle were catching up.
Billy was going too fast for me to take aim, so I dropped the barrel a couple of degrees and shot at the grille. I pulled the trigger and fired a single shot. Steam came up from under the hood but the Durango didn’t slow. They stayed right on our tail.
The skinny, tall man I recognized from the apartment hung outside the passenger window with a shotgun in his hands.
“Get down!” I yelled to Alex and Billy.
The man started to fire and sprayed bullets toward us. He blew out the rear window.
Alex was crouched down on the floor in back.
Billy ducked his head without taking the Lexus off the road. He yelled into the wind blowing around the inside of the car from what used to be the rear window. “Will you just shoot him!” Billy yelled over the sound from the wind. “Do you need me to come up and shoot that thing? Or are you going to just let them keep firing at us?”
Alex tugged at my shirt. “Will you get down before you get shot!”
But I didn’t.
I stood up through the open sunroof again, and raised the 9mm toward the Dodge behind us. Even though the windshield was tinted, I could see it was the skinny man behind the wheel. I tried to aim, then pulled the trigger. The bullet ripped through the windshield but I wasn’t sure if I’d hit him.
The Dodge crossed two lanes and smashed straight into the Jersey barrier along the side of the highway. The other car behind it kept driving and disappeared past us.
We slowed down and pulled off the road.
I pulled open the door and put one foot down on the ground. “I’m going to see which one of them knows what happened to Sarah.”
Sirens could be heard coming toward us, but still off in the distance.
Alex pushed open the back door and stepped out next to me with her Glock still in her hand. She walked ahead of me along the breakdown lane and headed toward the smashed SUV. She got closer and had her Glock raised in front of her.
I ran to catch up to her.“Wait!”
I looked back and saw Billy step out of his car. He popped the lid on his trunk and came out with another gun in his hand. He hurried toward me and Alex.
Cars buzzed by us on the highway. The three of us walked side-by-side in the breakdown lane.
We approached the Durango, unsure who was dead or alive inside.
Three police vehicles came screaming around the corner. One car was from the Georgia State Patrol. The other two were Camden County Sheriff’s vehicles.
The deputies from Camden stepped out with their guns drawn. The state patrolman walked toward them then turned to the Durango. He removed his weapon from his holster.
One of the two deputies walked past the Durango and pointed his gun toward the three of us. He yelled, “Drop your weapons!”
All at once, without a second of hesitation, we placed our guns down on the pavement and raised our hands up over their heads.
He yelled again, “Face-down on the ground! Hands behind your head.”
I looked past the deputy and saw the patrol officer reach for the driver’s side door on the Dodge. I yelled to him, “They’re armed inside that Durango! Don’t let that old lady fool you!”
I stayed down on the ground and tried to watch.
Two more vehicles arrived from the sheriff’s office. Two deputies rushed to assist the others standing just outside the Durango with their guns still drawn.
The Durango’s back door opened and the old lady stuck her head out. “Help him, he’s hurt.”
The officer opened the driver’s side door and reached in to help the wounded driver. The tall skinny one stepped out with his hands up in the air. Blood came down his face. “I’ve been shot,” he said, then dropped to the ground.
We were all handcuffed and thrown in the cruisers. I showed my private investigator’s license and tried to tell our side of the story, but it went ignored. The deputy tucked my head down and guided me into the back seat of his cruiser. “That old lady shot Alex. And I’m sure if you trace these guns, you’ll match them to a bullet left in a man named Bruce Rose, who was shot to death down in Jacksonville.”
“We get down to the station, you can do all the talkin’ you want,” The young deputy slammed the door in my face then got in the front seat.
Alex leaned forward with her face against the steel grate. “Will you please at least contact Detective Mike Stone, with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office?”
The deputy put the car in drive without a word.
Billy turned and tried to look out the rear window. “Where are they towing my car?”
“It’ll be at the station on East Fourth. That’s where it’ll be.”
“East Fourth?” I said. “East Fourth where?”
“Woodbine.” The deputy removed his hat and placed it down next to him. “Camden County Headquarters.”
Chapter 33
I gripped the bars of our cell and tried to listen to the old lady and her short stocky friend in the cell next to us. She told the deputy her name was Mary Cisco, but I was sure that was a lie.
I heard the man whisper and the old lady told him to shut his trap.
There was a good chance the two were related.
Billy leaned forward on the bench at the back of our cell, his elbows down on his knees. “What’s going to happen here?”
I turned to him, “I think once they realize we’re the ones telling the truth here, we’ll be freed.”
Alex stood next to me and leaned on the bars with her arms folded at her chest. She looked back and forth along the empty hallway. “You say that like it’s automatic.”
“What’s ‘automatic?’ ”
She kept her eyes outside the cell. “That they’ll suddenly realize we’re the good guys.”
The deputy walked through a door and stepped toward our jail cell.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Is there any chance you happened to call Detective Mike Stone yet, with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office?”
The deputy stared through the bars. He took a moment before he answered. “I spoke with him.” He turned his eyes toward Alex. “He mentioned Mr. Walsh tends to drag you into trouble like this once in a while.”
I pointed into my chest. “Me?”
The deputy walked away, in the direction of the cell with the old lady and the tall skinny man.
Billy got up from the bench. “How long can they legally keep us without pressing charges?”
Alex and I both turned to Billy but neither of us answered.
The deputy walked past us again and looked straight ahead. He headed for the door.
“Excuse me,” I said. I pushed my face close to the opening between the bars.
He stopped with his hand on the doorknob then turned to me with a nod. “What?”
“What are the charges?”
He stared back at me. “Reckless driving, for one. Although that’s a misdemeanor. Illegal discharge of a weapon. Firing a weapon on a state highway, well, that’s a whole ‘nother story. And if by chance that man you shot doesn’t survive surgery, then I think you can guess what that would mean.”
“You’re kidding, right? I think the word you’re looking for is called self defense. They shot at us, more than once. You see all the holes in Billy’s Lexus? The rear window that just so happens to be missing?”
The deputy didn’t say another word, pulled open the door and disappeared.
The door opened and the voice I heard was not one I’d normally be happy to hear. But I was actually relieved when I saw Detective Stone walk through with the young deputies and Chief Deputy Enis Jackson.
The deputy stepped forward and slid his key in the jail cell’s door.
Billy pushed past me. “Are we free?”
“Not quite,” the deputy said.
I looked at the three men in front of us and stepped out of the cell with Alex and Billy. “What’s that mean, ‘not quite?’ ”
I turned and glanced back at the old lady in the cell adjacent to the one we were in, separated by a concrete wall.
She stared back at me with her creepy, green eyes.
Alex turned and whispered to Mike. “That old lady, I’m almost certain she’s the one who shot me.”
Mike stared down at Alex then looked over at me and Billy. “But you just drive into Georgia, act like a gang of vigilantes.”
I laughed. “You see what they did to Billy’s car? Looks like Swiss cheese. All we did was try to get away.”
The Chief Deputy Jackson spoke up. “You broke into the woman’s home. Isn’t that correct?”
Alex and I both exchanged a look.
“We didn’t break-in,” I said. “The door was open. And that was only after she shot at us three or four different times.”
Chief Deputy Jackson turned and walked through the door without another word, stopped and held it without looking back.
We followed him out of the holding area and into the same room they held us in before they decided to lock us in the cell.
Jackson sat at the end of the long table and gestured with his hand toward the other chairs. “Have a seat.” He looked up at the young deputy in the doorway and gave him a nod. “I’ll take it from here.” We sat at the table and the deputy closed the door behind him. Chief Deputy Jackson turned to Mike. “Go ahead.”
Mike looked at each of us from across the table, quiet for a couple of moments. He appeared to gather his thoughts, then stopped with his eyes on me. “Why don’t you go ahead and start from the beginning.” He glanced at Chief Deputy Jackson. “And Jackson has assured me, you leave anything out this time he’ll be sure I won’t have to worry about seeing you down in Jacksonville for a while.” He turned his chin down and stared at me through the tops of his eyes. “You got that?” He turned to Alex. “I need to hear every detail. And I want the truth.”
I said, “Then you’ll help us?”
Mike glanced at the Chief Deputy again, then slowly nodded and shifted his eyes back to me. It was clear, even though they were from different states, this wasn’t their first dance together.
“Well, to begin with, we didn’t drive all the way up here to break into an old lady’s mobile home.” I thought for a moment, then looked across the table at Mike and the Chief Deputy. “I’m not so sure that old lady you have back there in that cell is Mary Cisco.”
Chief Deputy Jackson leaned forward on the table. “What makes you say that?”
“Alex and I saw a photo at her home. I didn’t realize it until I saw her up-close earlier but, in the photo, which had to’ve been twenty years old… She had a little girl on her lap. If I had to guess, that old lady is either the grandmother or aunt or…someone who is related to a young woman named Emma Buckman.”
