Bottom feeder, p.8
Bottom Feeder, page 8
“Hey, Dad, look who’s coming our direction,” he says as he pounds the last tent stake into the ground with a hatchet.
Andrew lifts his head. “I see them, son. Why don’t you go help your mother get the rest of our things out of the trailer?”
“Okay. Do you think they want to talk to you?”
“If they stop here, you’ll know the answer to that at the same time I do.” Maybe this is a courtesy visit from local law enforcement.
As the cars inch in his direction, he notices one is a state trooper, the other a local marshal. As a matter of protocol, he’s met the Shreveport city marshal and the city marshal across the Red River in Bossier City, but not the marshal from Minden.
The two cars slow, which draws the attention of the campers in nearby trailers and tents.
Clint and Jerry chat on a sideband to the police radio channel inside their respective cars.
“So, how will we recognize him?” Jerry asks. “I don’t expect he’ll have a big shingle out with the US Marshals badge on it. Knowing some of the people who camp up here, that wouldn’t be the best idea.”
“Well, Hardin said he was driving a brand-new Chrysler, had a silver teardrop trailer. Those are what most of us in law enforcement call clues. Kinda specific clues.”
“Oh yeah, clues. I’ve heard of those before,” Jerry drawls.
Clint smirks as Jerry’s voice comes back over the radio.
“I know you’re smirking; I can hear it from here.”
“You’re right.”
“Figures. Hey, wait. Is that the car and trailer there by the water?”
Clint nods and then keys the transmit button. “Yep. Look, even has a Louisiana-shaped cutout with their names already hanging from a tree.”
Both men slow their cars, shut off the engines, and get out. Andrew looks for his wife, who has just stepped out of the trailer with items destined for the picnic table.
“Andrew? What’s going on?”
He shakes his head and shrugs. “Part of the job, honey. You heard that trooper at the roadblock who recognized me. I guess he must have mentioned seeing me to his boss, who thought it okay to come say hello. I’ll talk with them for a few minutes and send them on their way.”
She hands the items in her hands to Colin and points at the table. “Colin, put these on the table, please.” She adds with some emotion in her voice, “And be careful with those knives.” Satisfied that Colin will do as she has requested, she looks once more at the two cars and then steps back into the trailer.
Clint and Jerry smile as they approach. Clint speaks first. “Marshal?”
Andrew nods and holds out his right hand. “Andrew McLean. How are you gentlemen doing today?”
“Clinton Ward, Louisiana State Police, but please call me Clint.” He turns to Jerry, who adds, “Jerry Thomson, city marshal for Minden.”
Andrew offers, “I’ve met your counterparts in Shreveport and Bossier, but I haven’t ventured over to Minden yet. It’s a pleasure to meet you two. What brings you to Caney Lake Campground? Hope this is a social call and not official business.”
The men share a look which telegraphs “Not quite,” and Andrew’s cop senses kick in. Concerned, he moves away from the campsite. Both men fall in with him as he heads towards the trunk of Clint’s cruiser and leans against the cool metal.
“Okay, what gives? I assumed this was just a courtesy call. Is there something that I can help you with? Something on your mind?”
“Well, Marshal—”
“Call me Andrew, please. I’m not on duty. We’re in a campground. I’m not wearing my gun, nor do I have my credentials in my back pocket. Just Andrew, please.”
“Alright, Andrew. We came to see you sort of as a courtesy and sort of on official business.”
Huh. Well, this should be interesting.
“One of my on-the-ball troopers recognized you over at the checkpoint.”
“Yes, I know. I appreciate that he didn’t broadcast that fact to everyone.”
“Yeah, he’s a good man. Solid cop. But listen, you recall that greenish little Subaru that was in the ditch? Right in front of where you were directed to turn around?”
Andrew nods but says nothing.
Jerry picks up the conversation. “You see, sir”—the look on Andrew’s face makes Jerry reframe his words—“uh, Andrew, Timmy Johnson, the man who owns that car, is a local troublemaker. He went missing in the thunderstorm that happened here last night.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but missing persons aren’t usually top priorities for a city marshal or a state trooper, right?”
“You are correct on that assumption. However, the lines of responsibility get a bit grayer when the owner of that car is found murdered.”
Clint pauses as “murdered” lingers between the three men for a moment. He continues, “His bones were found strewn across the beach over at the church camp on the lower lake.”
Andrew replies, “You’re telling me there was a murder over on the lower lake?” Andrew starts to point towards the spillway and dam separating the two lakes but stops short, given that his wife might be watching. “That’s not quite a quarter mile away from where we are standing. I assume the forensics team from Webster Sheriff must have worked the area of the murder. Did they get anything useful from the body? Have you identified any suspects?”
“Well, you see, that’s where we hit a bit of a snag. We did locate Mr. Johnson, but fact of the matter is there was nothing left of him but bones. All 206 of them. Oh, his clothes were there too, but not much else.”
Andrew is intrigued now. “Bones? No meat, tissue, muscle, internal organs?”
Jerry and Clint shake their heads almost in unison as Clint replies, “All gone. The only thing left of our victim are his bones, which, I would add, had an unusual tint to them. The crime-scene guy thought that fact was interesting, but he can’t conclude anything until the state lab examines the bones in Bossier City. He did say that all 206 bones from the human body were there. He also thinks that even the bone marrow is gone.”
“You said the bones had no marrow and a slight red tint?”
“Why? Does that sound familiar to you?”
Andrew nods slowly. “Maybe.” He shifts his position against the police car. “Sounds like a couple of cases I heard about over in East Texas. One at Lake O’ the Pines and another on the Texas side of Caddo Lake. For some reason, I think there’s been something like what you described over near the Mississippi line, too. I know the FBI worked the two I mentioned in Texas because there was some belief that the perp crossed state lines to commit the crimes.”
“You don’t say?” Jerry wonders aloud. “Wonder why we haven’t heard about these.”
Clint opines, “Jerry, it’s the FBI. I’m sure they took over the investigation and never did anything about it. Who knows why they do the things they do?”
Andrew laughs in agreement. “I see you’ve met them.”
“Yes, and I’d prefer not to involve them in what we have here, given their propensity to swoop in, take over, and then do nothing.”
“Sorry to say this, but given what you described, the circumstances seem similar enough that there might be a connection to those older cases. We thought we had a fugitive serial killer on our hands, which is how the Marshals Service got involved. But whoever was committing the crimes stopped or moved on.” Andrew scratches his chin. “My wife’s not gonna like this. She was already a little skeptical about staying here after my son pointed out the ‘missing’ posters in town.”
Jerry’s face clearly expresses his unhappiness. “Yeah, I wish they’d stop putting those things up where the tourists can see them.”
Andrew contemplates what to do next. “Alright, this is just between us for the moment. If my wife finds out about this, we’ll be packing up and heading back to Shreveport in record time.”
“Well, we won’t tell her then,” Clint says with a conspiratorial whisper.
“Agreed. Mum’s the word from me!” Jerry concurs.
A look of concern crosses Clint’s face. “By the way, are you armed? We can certainly provide you with a firearm or two, at least to protect yourself and your family as we sort this out.”
Andrew smiles wryly. “I’m a typical cop on vacation. I brought two pistols and a twelve-gauge shotgun, and enough ammo to hold off a small army. But don’t tell my wife: she’ll say that doesn’t seem to be very camping-friendly.”
Jerry and Clint share a look that conveys their approval.
“Hey, one last thing.”
Andrew cocks his eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“Well, the trooper who recognized you was pretty impressed by your tattoos. How long were you in the Navy?”
“Did twenty years. Once I separated, I went right into the Marshals Service. Got appointed to my current position six months ago. Before that, I was chief deputy marshal over in Dallas.”
“Yes, we, uh, know about your time in Dallas,” Jerry says with a slight chuckle.
“What about the other tattoo?” Clint inquires.
“You mean this one?” Andrew says, rolling up his sleeve to reveal the large, colorful tattoo of a yellow jacket with a machine gun.
Clint and Jerry admire the artwork for a few moments.
“Seabees, huh? Man, I bet you saw some of the action,” Clint says. “I was a drill instructor for the Coast Guard during the mid to late sixties, and Jerry there was with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations in Nam at about the same time.”
Andrew is impressed that both men served and directs his first question towards Jerry.
“OSI? That’s great. I knew a few OSI agents when I was attached as an instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center over in Georgia. I’m curious, what did OSI do in Vietnam—that is, if you can talk about it?”
“Since we’ve declared victory of sorts and have moved on, I guess I can talk about my work there. My primary job was to secure and remove classified payloads and hardware from aircraft that had been shot down.”
Andrew raises his eyebrows. “Behind enemy lines?”
“Yes sir.”
“Seriously? That was a job? I would have thought we’d have self-destruct mechanisms on aircraft for situations just like that. Couldn’t the pilot just set fire to the plane and call it good?”
“Some could, but if the pilots did not survive the crash, or they ejected and didn’t have time to destroy what the Russians or Chinese might get their hands on, they’d send my team in. We’d do whatever it took to either retrieve or destroy whatever the pointy heads up in DC told us to retrieve or destroy.”
Jerry considers that Andrew is not used to his off-kilter sense of humor and finishes with “Uh, you know, the big-head, ivory-tower guys who run the show from the Pentagon. The guys with little-to-no combat experience or knowledge. Those guys.”
Andrew laughs and decides to plow ahead with his next question. “Well, Jerry, I know we just met and all, but if you don’t mind, exactly how did a, well, a Black Air Force OSI special agent end up in Minden, Louisiana, and manage to get himself elected city marshal?”
Jerry doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah, it’s been interesting. I grew up just south of Shreveport, in a small community called Keithville. Played football, which is how Clint and I met. He was a safety; I was a wide receiver. After high school, I got drafted, and my test results said I would make a good military policeman. I was thrilled, given I wasn’t interested in being a pilot and I didn’t want to get stuck loading things that go boom onto fighter jets.”
Jerry pauses and chuckles, which makes Andrew curious about what is coming next.
“I always figured the only reason I got the classified job was because I was a little bit more expendable than some of the White soldiers. But we all fought the same enemy over there, so eventually, they just saw my Black colleagues and me as soldiers. As you can imagine, some didn’t like that I had a badge and a gun, but to be entirely clear, most of the men I put into handcuffs were criminals or had ties to a certain white-sheet-loving group.
“Honestly, in the Air Force, the color of my skin was never a consideration. Could I do the job and do it in such a way that I got results that didn’t embarrass the brass? Yes. And that’s what mattered. When my last tour in Vietnam ended, I asked for and got assigned to OSI Region Eight, located over at Barksdale. I was thrilled to be back home, even though some citizens hated us for being over in Vietnam. At Barksdale, I was the senior agent, running a team whose job was to try and defeat the security of our nuclear weapons storage. We were also tasked with corrupting local airmen at bars, getting them to reveal classified information about nuclear weapons, tactics, aircraft, and storage security details to hookers or strippers, stuff like that.”
Andrew cocks his head sideways and raises an eyebrow. Jerry continues quickly since he knows where Andrew’s mind has gone.
“The hookers and strippers were also OSI, brought in from another office so no one would recognize them. When I retired, I just wasn’t ready to stop the cop thing. As far as getting elected, Minden isn’t the backwater redneck heaven some would think. Sure, I faced resistance. The good ole boys who still fly the battle flag of the Confederacy were concerned, but they also had only ever had a White marshal. Everywhere I campaigned, I stressed my experience. It’s not Jim Crow days anymore, the times are changing, and I hope the handwriting is on the wall regarding discrimination based on skin color. Eventually, the agitators who only complained about the color of my skin accepted me or moved on to their next stupid crusade.”
“Well, I am pleased to get to know you. We have lots of Black veterans in the Marshals Service, so I’m sure your experiences in Vietnam and then with OSI make you a pretty awesome city marshal. And I’d love to chat you up someday about your operation to ‘corrupt’ airmen. I bet that was a lot of fun!”
“Indeed, it was.”
Andrew turns to Clint and asks, “And what about you, Mr. Drill Instructor?”
“Enlisted right out of high school. Eventually made my way to the Coast Guard Investigative Service, where I spent the majority of my time until I transitioned over to the academy. Finished my hitch as a master chief petty officer.”
“You gentlemen have some impressive credentials to be roaming around North Louisiana. I believe with you two on this case, the suspect doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Thank you, Andrew. Now, what about you?”
Andrew crosses his arms, showing thick muscles which strain at the fabric of his shirt.
“Well, I was three years into college when the war began. I went to enlist in the Navy but was talked into joining ROTC and completing my degree. I graduated and went to Navy recruit training and then right into Officer Candidate School. After OCS, I attended the Naval Construction Training Center and the Advanced Base Depot schools. The instructors at both did as much as possible to prepare us for wartime construction operations through instruction in trade skills, military discipline, and advanced combat training.”
“How’d you end up with the Seabees?”
“My father’s family was in construction, and I knew earthmovers, dirt, and dynamite. I was around all that my whole young life. After OCS and all the Navy schools, I got assigned to the Bureau of Yards and Docks.”
Seeing puzzlement on both faces, Andrew feels a quick explanation is in order. “They’re responsible for building and maintaining Navy yards, dry docks, and other facilities relating to ship construction, maintenance, and repair. It was a good job, but I heard rumors that the government was forming construction battalions and sending them to the Pacific theater to rebuild places destroyed by the Japs. Frankly, against the wishes of my father and family, I couldn’t sign my name on my transfer papers fast enough. In my mind, a duty station near a beach was a great idea—I grew up around the water. I guess I hadn’t thought through the fact that the enemy was going to be shooting at us the whole time.
“Anyway, I was immediately transferred to a new command, the construction battalion.” Andrew pauses for a moment. Clint and Jerry see his war experiences playing out in his mind, behind his green eyes. They wait patiently.
“I was attached to one of the first five Seabee battalions the Navy deployed. After training, we were immediately sent to the Pacific. Although technically designated to support combat operations, we frequently found ourselves under fire and fighting once we landed and started to work on restoring airfields, piers, ammunition bunkers, supply depots, hospitals, fuel tanks, and barracks side by side with the Marines.”
“Did you spend most of your time on dry land?”
“Not entirely. We split the detachments into commands, and I ended up on the USS Enterprise, working to repair her even as she engaged enemy ships and dive bombers.” Andrew chuckles. “We worked to repair the forward elevator while she fought and sank the Jap carrier Hiei. I’d like to say that earned us shore leave, but in reality, we just moved on to the next impossible task.”
“Guadalcanal?”
“Yes. We were all over the central and northern Pacific as our forces pushed back the Jap army and navy. The sixth Seabees detachment even worked with the scientists who assembled the bomb used on Hiroshima.”
Clint’s voice goes up an octave. “Really?”
Andrew nods. “That team built the facility used to store and assemble the bomb components. They also stood guard duty to protect the scientists while they worked. When the bomb was loaded into the Enola Gay, it was at an advance base the Seabees had constructed for the sole purpose of delivering the bomb to our enemies.” He pauses, laughs, then continues with “I’m sure you guys have heard the old saying ‘Marines will be guarding the gate to Heaven, but the road there was built by Seabees.’”
