Too Far Gone Read online

  “I’m sorry,” Grace said immediately. “Of course he isn’t, Casey. I didn’t mean…” She let the apology dangle unfinished—lingering in the silence like an unpleasant odor.

  Alexa didn’t particularly care for Grace, but she admonished herself for that judgment. Grace may have been trying to comfort Casey in her own misguided way, or trying to control the situation in her capacity as Casey’s closest friend and an employee whose job was to make herself useful in whatever way she could.

  “On the positive side,” Alexa told them, “there wasn’t the amount of blood to indicate a fatal wound. The blows, based on the weapon’s mark in the door panel, would seem to indicate that the door’s proximity to Gary’s position means the area necessary to draw back was shortened and lacked enough inertia to inflict a fatal injury.”

  “But he still might have been very seriously injured?” Casey asked.

  Alexa nodded. “That’s possible.”

  “It isn’t a probability?” Grace asked.

  Casey fixed her with a warning glare.

  “Forgive my intrusion, Casey, but if someone killed Gary, they’d probably have left the body there, right?” Grace asked.

  Alexa nodded.

  “I mean, why would they drag a body from one vehicle to another in a residential neighborhood, where they could be seen by anybody looking out the window? They abducted him, and chances are, he’s going to be alive in case Casey wants proof of life, right? Isn’t that how it goes? Abductors usually release the people after they get the ransom, don’t they?”

  “Well, taking him could be a positive thing,” Alexa said, fighting to control her urge to ask Grace how she knew where the Volvo had been found. Instead, she turned to Casey and said, “Casey, could I have some water?”

  Grace left the room without waiting to be sent for the requested water.

  Deana slipped down from the couch, went back to her toy box, and began looting it again, squealing with delight.

  “My poor baby,” Casey said. “Deana knows only that her father isn’t here. I’m thankful for that. I know she’s picking up on my fear and anxiety. I should try not to be so emotional, but I can’t help it. I know you’ll find Gary and he’ll be all right. I know that.”

  “We’re doing everything we can,” Alexa said. “Look, I’ll keep you apprised as best I can as the investigation goes forward, but I’m asking you not to share anything I tell you from here on out with anybody else.”

  “You mean Unko? Ken Decell?”

  “I mean anybody. I know it’s going to be hard, but can you do that for me?”

  “Anything you say, but…You can’t mean even Grace?”

  Alexa nodded solemnly. “Normally I wouldn’t be sharing as much as I have, but since you’re responsible for my involvement, I’m breaking protocol a lot more than I should. Protocols are in place for good reason. It dictates we share almost no information with a possible suspect, or anyone who might share our information with someone who might be involved, and giving you premature information that could change has obvious drawbacks and risks, putting you through needless emotional turmoil, or might give you unrealistic expectations. I’m making an exception here because I think you need to know certain things so you might see something we don’t or make some connection we wouldn’t that’s useful in locating your husband.”

  “Okay,” Casey said softly. “Nobody. I promise.”

  “You should also understand I’m not warm and fuzzy when it comes to my work, and what I tell you may seem blunt or harsh. I hope you’ll understand that it isn’t because I don’t empathize with you. Empathy can be detrimental. Casey, I promise you I’m going to do everything I can possibly do to find Gary, but you have to understand that I might not succeed. As much as I hate to say so, there are no guarantees. I’m not in control of this, and may not ever be. But I will do everything in my power to resolve this satisfactorily.”

  “I’m really much tougher than I look,” Casey said.

  “I’m sure you are. I need Grace’s social, phone numbers, and her current address,” Alexa said, taking out her notebook.

  24

  A fly landed on Leland’s top lip and crawled right into his nose like it lived there. He turned, pinched his nostril to pin it, closed his mouth, pressed his index finger to close the clear nostril, and expelled the stunned fly out into the shallows, where a minnow ate it right off the surface, then vanished into the murk. What he was doing wasn’t hard work, but it was time-consuming, and he had things to get done.

  Overhead, a line of honking geese churned the air as they rose from the bayou. Turning from his task, Leland watched the flowing line of geese start to straighten, and he smiled at how the birds formed up into a flying V. How could they learn such precision, know a letter of the alphabet like that, with brains no bigger than a rat turd.

  After field-dressing them—removing their innards so they couldn’t float up—Leland had filled the empty cavities of the corpses with chunks of concrete, then tied up their torsos with nylon rope. Blood had made the deck so slippery, he had to move carefully to keep from falling. He had decided to bait some gator hooks on the way back to camp so he wouldn’t waste time. He didn’t want the warden’s boat, because the twin engines were smaller than his one, and it was too sloppy in the turns for his taste. Before he’d got the better boat from Doc, he mighta kept it and painted it and used it to work out of, but his boat was a lot, so he didn’t mind scuttling theirs.

  As he approached the last gator hook, hanging over the water from a tree limb, he slowed and let the vessel coast in under the tree. A fat cottonmouth swam across the water, sitting up so high it didn’t appear to be getting wet as it made for the shore, vanishing into the reeds. Leland wished he could catch it and put it in with the others, but he didn’t have time just then, and he’d find one just as big when he did.

  Leland took the last piece of meat off the bone and baited the hook with it. After he was satisfied that the tendon would make the meat difficult for the gators to steal off the hook, he looked at the way the sock was rolled down under the ankle before throwing the leg bone, socked foot and all, up into the weeds onshore.

  25

  “Grace isn’t involved,” Casey insisted. “I know her like I know myself. Better even.”

  “I have to check out everybody who’s involved with you and Gary on a regular basis. It’s standard operating procedure to look first at everyone close and work our way out. Make me a list as soon as you can. For the time being, I’m assuming that whoever did this knew yours and Gary’s schedule—when he’d be where.”

  “Grace Smythe. One twenty-three Durban Place. I’ll make up a list of our other friends and close associates and their addresses and phone numbers.”

  “Okay,” Alexa said.

  The phone rang.

  “Grace’ll get that,” Casey said. “Every time it rings I pray it’s a kidnapper just asking for some money. If they ask, I can pay the ransom. You wouldn’t interfere with that, would you, Alexa? If an exchange got messed up and Gary suffered for it, I couldn’t live with myself.”

  “It’s totally your decision, Casey. I’ll make suggestions based on my experience, though, and you’d be smart to take them. If you get a demand, you should let me know immediately.”

  “They usually say not to tell the police, don’t they?”

  “Yes, but they won’t know you did.”

  After a few seconds spent in silence, Grace Smythe, wearing a worried expression, came back with a chilled bottle of water in her hand and gave it to Alexa absently and unopened. “It’s Lucille Burch. The bottle blonde with the sharp nose and whiny voice. The reporter, or whatever she calls herself.”

  “What does she want?” Casey asked.

  “She told me she wants to get your reaction to something.”

  “Gary?”

  “No. She says that she’s been told that the Danielson woman is out of the hospital. She’s trying to confirm the story before she puts it
on the air.”

  Casey gasped.

  Alexa knew who Sibby Danielson was, but not that she had been released from the hospital she’d been committed to after murdering Casey’s parents twenty-six years before.

  “Don’t talk to her,” Alexa advised. “Grace, tell her Casey has no comment.”

  “No comment always looks worse than anything people say,” Grace insisted.

  “I know Lucille Burch,” Casey said. “She’ll never give up.”

  “She’s likely just looking to get her facts in line and spice up a story by getting you to tell her something she doesn’t yet know is true,” Alexa said. “She probably doesn’t know about Gary’s disappearance yet, or she wants to get confirmation if she has caught wind of it. You shouldn’t talk to the press until the time is right, and I don’t think it is.”

  “I’d think you’d want people calling in tips,” Grace told Alexa.

  “We need good tips, but we don’t have the manpower to run down hundreds. So far we’re lucky not to have to deal with the complications the media would provide. When the time is right, we’ll fill them in and ask for their help if we think it’s in Gary’s best interest. I’ve been here before. Trust me. With the hurricane heading this way, and nothing from you to fuel chasing after Sibby rumors or looking into a tip about Gary, she’ll probably put it on a back burner. When and if we decide to announce that Gary has been abducted, we’ll get maximum exposure. Let’s give it a few hours before we make that call. If this is a kidnapping, the perps probably will be watching the news, and the media will make any coming and going unobserved very difficult.”

  “You could say she doesn’t concern you,” Grace told Casey. “You could say if she’s cured, it’s cool, or something like that.”

  Casey’s eyes went from Alexa to Grace and back. “Tell Burch I said this is the first I’ve heard about it. Tell her I won’t involve myself in speculation.”

  Alexa nodded. “Grace, tell her Casey has no knowledge about Ms. Danielson nor any comment at this time.”

  Grace left the room, headed for the kitchen.

  “I didn’t know that woman could ever get out,” Casey murmured. “How could Sibhon Danielson be let out and me not know about it?”

  “If she was insane when she committed the offense, she could be released as long as she was no longer a danger to herself or others. They don’t set specific sentences for those adjudicated insane.”

  Alexa figured the anniversary could explain why the media was snooping around after information on a twenty-six-year-old case. The date had drawn media interest, and with a few phone calls a researcher could easily discover whether or not the perpetrator was still incarcerated. Alexa wondered how long it would be before some cop clued them in on Gary’s disappearance. She was amazed it hadn’t happened yet. That could only be due to the threat of the storm and the fact that most people in the area, including the police, had more pressing things to be concerned with at the moment. It appeared that the hurricane might actually be beneficial to the investigation.

  She knew that she had to find out where Sibby Danielson was. It seemed unlikely, but if the murderer was really out in the world, she might be somehow involved—especially if the person, or persons, who took Gary might have been after his wife. Casey was the lone witness to a twenty-six-year-old double homicide. It was remotely possible that, in a psychotic mind, Casey West might fall under the heading of unfinished business.

  26

  A very tired Michael Manseur sat at a desk in the office of the evidence labs just around the corner from headquarters. CSI Chief Sergeant Mickey Wayne Cooley put a piece of paper in front of his guest, along with a cup of strong coffee. The head of Homicide merely nodded once in appreciation.

  “The glass shards are from a sealed-beam headlight manufactured for older vehicles—which makes sense, given the height of the bumper strike on the Volvo and the green paint sample,” Cooley said. “Used to be a fairly common stock lens that fit hundreds of vehicles.”

  “Great,” Manseur replied.

  “The transferred paint in the sample isn’t as common. There are two layers showing two paint jobs. The outer layer is more recent and was sold by auto-paint suppliers. But the undermost layer is a factory color from an early-sixties GMC truck.”

  “A truck,” Manseur said.

  “It wasn’t used on just any trucks. You’re looking for one of these in a sun-faded goose-shit green, Michael.” Cooley set a photocopy of an old advertisement for the vehicle in front of Manseur. “Panel truck—forerunner to the commercial van.”

  “That’s great. Won’t be many still registered.”

  “Not a single one in that color is registered in the state of Louisiana. We’re querying adjacent states now. The scratch on the Volvo’s inside driver’s door was made by a pipe that’s three-quarter inches in diameter that was cut off clean. No thread mark in the impression. Pipe is no more than about sixteen to eighteen inches long, based on angle of the strike and the distance that the door opens.”

  “Great,” Manseur grumbled before carefully sipping his hot coffee. “Pipe.”

  “According to trace, it’s a pipe with high lead content. What’s commonly referred to as a ‘lead pipe,’ as in Colonel Plum did it in the conservatory with a lead pipe.”

  “So that’s rare?”

  “Lead is toxic. Lead pipes haven’t been commercially available since the early sixties, and you only find them in old structures or scrap yards.”

  “Lucky thing for us there’s no old buildings in New Orleans.”

  “True, it’s around. If it helps, there was trace water with a high salt content transferred along with the blood, so the pipe’s been immersed in water recently and there are other blood types. One human.”

  “One human?”

  “O negative only on the human side. The other is animal blood. Also found a hair that looked like rodent hair, but not rat.”

  “That leaves, what, gerbils, hamsters, squirrels, and muskrats?”

  “It’s closer related to South American tapirs than muskrats.”

  “Tapirs?”

  “Nutria cousin the size of a pig. There’s one out at the zoo. The hair might have been there before the attack.”

  “I doubt Gary West had any dealings with swimming rodents.”

  “Amount of human blood was negligible and there were two blows.”

  “That’s what Keen said,” Manseur said to himself.

  “Keen?” Cooley asked.

  “FBI Special Agent Keen,” Manseur said.

  “Not Alexa Keen?” Cooley asked.

  “You know her?”

  “I know of her. Tech I work with at the FBI lab told me about her. He said she reads crime scenes better than he can. Said she has a gift for thinking twisted, reading people, and interpreting scenes accurately. I’ve sort of kept up a little with her career since. Last year she was involved with that Army Intelligence shake-up around that judge’s daughter’s kidnap deal in the Carolinas.”

  “With Winter Massey,” Manseur said, nodding.

  “Winter ‘hell-comes-to-breakfast’ Massey. He’s another one I try to keep up with. Seems whenever he’s anywhere around here, I get almost as busy as the medical examiner. Next time I hear he’s in town, I’m going on sabbatical till the smoke clears. You know him from that Manelli firefight out near St. Rose?”

  Manseur shook his head. “The Porter homicide. I was out on vacation for the Manelli thing.”

  “Man’s a human tornado,” Cooley said. “You know how lightning never strikes twice in the same place? If Massey was here, wouldn’t be any point in another hurricane coming.”

  “Yeah.” Manseur smiled. “He’s a very good man.”

  “I’m sure. We’re processing the Volvo prints, and there’s a bunch to go through. I need reference prints from the people who use it. How’d Alexa Keen get involved?”

  “She was here in town and agreed to help out.” Manseur stood and picked up the report
. “For practice, I guess.”

  “You picked out a dry spot to get your girls to, Michael?”

  “They’re going to stay with my wife’s sister in Birmingham. Leaving later today.”

  “You might want to go with them before leaves are canceled.”

  “All leaves are already canceled. Everybody’s reporting in. You didn’t know?”

  “I haven’t heard anything on account of what I’ve been doing on your secret case. This Katrina might be the big one,” Cooley said. “You thought about that? It happens, there won’t be much left of this place.”

  “They always turn,” Manseur said. “Most of the citizens won’t stop their normal business until they’re sipping their drinks underwater.”

  “So where’s the plate?” Cooley asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “The license tag from the Volvo?”

  “Why you want to know that?”

  “I was wondering why all the hush-hush was afoot on an obvious red ball case without anybody saying so. Must be a big one. I could run the VIN to find out,” Mickey said.

  “You could, but I don’t think you want to.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because, if word of that name were to happen to leak out prematurely, everybody who knows is going to have to bend over so the super can shine a great big spotlight up their hidey-holes. Curiosity killed the cat, Mickey.”

  “One thing I always wondered,” Cooley said.

  “What’s that?”

  “What was it that cat wanted to know?” He laughed at his own joke.

  “Wasn’t what he wanted to know that killed him,” Manseur said, walking to the door. “Was the answer did that.”

  27

  Manseur was moving up on the sidewalk toward his office when his cell rang. It looked like every cruiser in town was parked on the street outside HQ. Uniformed officers and detectives were gathered in groups, shooting the breeze. He fished the phone from his coat pocket, looked at the caller ID, and answered.