Clint Wolf Series Boxed Set 3 Page 5

  I rapped my knuckles on the metal handrail. “Did you borrow Katrina’s bus, or is this yours?”

  “This is mine. Katrina has her own bus.”

  I studied Mrs. Beatrice’s eyes. It didn’t look like she was hiding anything, but one could never be sure. After all, it was her first week ever driving this route and now a young girl was missing. Could it be a coincidence, or might there be a connection?

  “Where do you live, ma’am?” I asked in a casual voice, not wanting her to think I was suspicious of her.

  “Central Chateau.” She grunted and shot a thumb over her shoulder, toward the south. “Katrina lives back there, so all she has to do is leave her house and drive straight to Attakapas High School, picking up students along the way. I have to leave my house and drive over thirty minutes to get to that turn-around, and then I have to stop at all the houses I just passed up. I tell you, I’m on the road twice as long as Katrina, but, since I’m only part time, I get paid less than half what she gets paid. It’s not fair. When I found out the route I’d have to drive, I almost turned them down.” She folded her short and plump arms and rested them on her protruding belly. “Had I known I’d be in trouble with the law, I definitely wouldn’t have taken the job.”

  Ignoring her comment, I rubbed my forehead. As the minutes dragged on and we hadn’t heard from Rose, I began to get an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t think it would be appropriate to ask Mrs. Beatrice if she kidnapped Rose, so, instead, I asked if she ever had a ride-along.

  She immediately shook her head. “If I do, it has to be someone who’s been cleared by the school. They have to undergo a background check and complete some training before they can get on any bus.”

  A thought occurred to me and it chilled me to the bone. The uneasy feeling that was starting to grow in my stomach began to creep upward, threatening to choke me.

  “Thanks, ma’am,” I said. “I have to go.”

  Once I was standing on the shoulder of the road again, I called Lindsey. As the phone rang in my ear, I watched Mrs. Beatrice stop to pick up Luke. The young boy was staring at my flashing lights as he got on the bus. Even from that distance, the curiosity was evident on his face.

  “Mechant Loup Police Department, this is Lindsey—”

  “It’s me,” I said, cutting her off. “I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Sure. Anything.”

  “Check the sex offender registry and give me the names of every sex offender in Mechant Loup. Last I checked, we only had two in town, but it’s been a minute since I looked.”

  There was a long pause on the other end. I checked my phone to make sure we were still connected, and then asked if everything was okay.

  “Dear Lord…do you think some pervert took her?”

  “I sure hope not.” I kicked at the loose gravel on the shoulder of the highway with the toe of my boot. “God help her if one of them got their hands on her.”

  After we hung up, I put my phone in my pocket and leaned in my SUV to turn off my flashing lights. “And if that is what happened,” I said out loud, “God help the bastard who took her.”

  CHAPTER 11

  7:30 a.m.

  Two miles north of the Murdock home

  24 hours missing…

  I pushed through the thick bushes and stopped when the southern side of the small white house came into view. The paint was chipped throughout and the siding was green with mildew in places. There were three windows along that wall. Two of the windows had solid shading, and the third had an a/c unit protruding from it. The unit dangled precariously from the opening and was propped up by a long two-by-four.

  “Are you sure this is the house?” Amy asked. She was two feet to my left and her pistol was in her hand.

  I pulled out my cell phone and checked the address again. The numbers matched. I then checked the aerial photo and confirmed we were at the right place. “This is it.”

  Lindsey had located three sexual predators living in Mechant Loup. Since Francis Fitch lived the closest to Rose Murdock, he was going to be the first person to whom we paid a visit.

  “Let me see the picture again.” Amy’s voice was barely over a whisper, but I could hear her clearly in the crisp morning air.

  I located the picture of Francis Fitch on my phone and handed it over. “He’s wanted for failure to register,” I said. “This is his mother’s address. We’re not sure if he’s here, but it’s the address he gave the guards when he was released from the state penitentiary, so it’s our best bet.”

  “Damn, he’s an ugly little shit.” Amy handed back the phone. “What was his original charge?”

  “It was ten years ago. Molestation of a juvenile. She was thirteen, he was twenty-seven.”

  “That’s disgusting.” I heard Amy’s knuckles crack as she clenched her fists. “If you ask me, he should still be in prison.”

  “Or dead.”

  She nodded in agreement. “Do you want me to call and see if Melvin’s ready to make contact? I’m dying to meet this asshole.”

  “Yeah, give him a call.” I peered through the trees, studying what I could see of the front porch. Other than an aged swing hanging from a small A-frame, a red gas can, and an old pair of shrimper boots, the porch was clear. “Tell him we have a perfect view of the front yard, so it would probably be best if he knocked at the back door.”

  Amy nodded. “Yeah, we don’t want him hitting the woods. If he makes a run for it and gets away, I’ll really be pissed.”

  While she called for Melvin, I slinked around her and made my way toward the west, trying to get a bead on the back door. It was no use. The trees were too thick in that area and I wouldn’t be able to maintain a visual on the back of the house unless I stepped out in the open.

  In response to Amy’s call, the radio scratched to life and Melvin said he had just parked his truck north of the house and was proceeding on foot. “I’m going to cut through this cane field in front of me and come out in the back yard. I’ll do a radio countdown before I knock.”

  While much of the sugar cane in Chateau Parish had been harvested, there were still some patches that had been left untouched, and such was the case with the fields to the north of the Fitch homestead. The leaves were brown and the stalks didn’t look very healthy, but they would provide enough cover for Melvin to maneuver his way toward the back yard undetected.

  I bent my knees and prepared to spring forward in the event Francis broke out running. I was still in that position five minutes later when I saw Melvin’s round head appear from behind the rear corner of the house. He gave me a wave and mouthed that he was going to knock on the back door in five seconds.

  “Look alive,” I whispered to Amy, “Melvin’s about to wake up the neighbors.”

  I felt her body tense beside me. She looked like a panther ready to pounce. Having worked with her for a few years now, I was acutely aware of her courage under fire and her willingness to meet danger head-on. I would go into any high risk situation with her by my side.

  We both continued to wait, the only sound being that of our heartbeats and a bird chirping from somewhere above us.

  Within seconds, I heard a loud banging sound from the back of the house. Melvin knocked so hard that it sounded as though he punched a hole in the wooden frame. After he knocked, everything became deathly quiet. Even the bird had stopped singing.

  Melvin knocked a second time, but we couldn’t hear any movement inside from our vantage point. My radio scratched to life and, in a low voice, Melvin said he thought he heard something.

  “If this is his mom’s house,” Amy said, “it could be her moving around.”

  “It could also be Rose—or Francis.”

  “Do you really think he’d bring her here?”

  “I really don’t know. I just hope we find her soon—and I hope she’s well.” I listened while Melvin knocked again. When he stopped, I whispered to Amy, “If it is the mom Melvin heard moving around, she would’ve sure
ly answered the door by now—unless she’s in on it.”

  “Okay, that’s it,” we heard Melvin holler from the back of the house. “If you don’t open up by the count of three, I’m coming in. One…”

  I cocked my head to the side, straining to cover the distance and penetrate the walls of the house with my ears.

  “Two…”

  Amy and I crept through the bushes and moved closer, taking up a position behind a lawn mower shed, but we were still too far to hear anything from inside the house.

  “Three!” There was a pause before Melvin hollered, “Alright then, here I come!”

  Movement to my right brought my head around and I gasped when I saw feet dangling from the ceiling of the front porch overhang. Before I could process what I was seeing, Francis Fitch dropped from the ceiling and landed with a thud on the hollow floor. It was then that I realized he had come from an opening to the attic.

  “Hold it right there!” I bellowed, breaking from our hiding spot, running shoulder-to-shoulder with Amy, who had seen him at the same time I did.

  Francis reacted like a cat when he heard me. He scrambled to his feet, leapt from the porch, and bolted toward the highway.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!” I knew I couldn’t shoot him in the back—hell, I hadn’t even drawn my pistol—but I wanted to try and scare him into giving up. It didn’t work. Instead, it seemed to light a fire under his ass, because he ran even faster.

  As Amy and I ran, Melvin’s thunderous steps approached from behind. Francis had reached the highway and sprinted right into the southbound lane, not even checking for traffic. I shot a quick glance to the left as we were reaching the shoulder of the road. Before I looked back to my right, I heard tires screeching and Amy hollering.

  I jerked my head around and, just as my gaze came to rest on Francis, I saw the truck in my peripheral vision.

  It was an eighteen-wheeler and it was approaching at a high rate of speed. Francis tried to react, but he was too late.

  One second Francis was there—in mid-stride, running across the highway—and the next second he was gone. The big rig struck him with such force that the front grill seemed to swallow up his body. Amy and I skidded to a stop just as the truck blew by us. As it passed, the force from the wind turbulence nearly knocked us off our feet.

  Eyes wide, I turned to look at Amy. She looked stunned. “That…that could’ve been us.”

  I only nodded.

  CHAPTER 12

  The driver of the eighteen-wheeler fought to keep control of the rig as it careened down the highway. Smoke billowed from the rear tires and the strong scent of burning rubber filled the air. After skidding and fishtailing for about twenty feet, the truck finally came to a stop. The front of the truck was resting on the shoulder of the highway, about five feet from a stout tree, and the rear of the truck was blocking both lanes of traffic—not that there was any traffic.

  “Dear Lord,” Amy said, staring at the skid marks and a large red stain on the blacktop. “Is that all that’s left of him?”

  Melvin lurched to a stop when he reached us and his eyes widened. “How on earth do we write this one up?”

  While it had been a horrific incident to behold, my mind was preoccupied with other thoughts. “Melvin, can you check on the driver?”

  “Sure,” he muttered dryly, “and I’ll find a matchbox to collect what’s left of Francis Fitch.”

  An involuntary chuckle escaped from my lips. I looked at Melvin and saw that a wide grin had spread across his face. “Sorry,” he said, “I couldn’t help it.”

  As suddenly as the grin had appeared, it faded, and that sober expression returned to his face.

  “Amy, come with me,” I called over my shoulder, turning to head back toward the house. “He ran out into traffic for a reason, and that reason might be our missing girl.”

  Amy nodded and hurried behind me. “Do you think he committed suicide, or did the children in this town just get lucky?”

  Amy hated child molesters as much as I did, and it was evident in her voice. Although a human being had just died, none of us had any pity for the man. I’d always thought there should be a special place in hell for people who hurt children, and I was hoping Francis Fitch was currently getting the grand tour of that place.

  “I think the kids of this town just got lucky,” I said, jumping up onto the porch and studying the attic entrance overhead. It was a square opening and it was about seven feet above my head. I scanned the area, but there were no ladders. “He didn’t look in either direction when he approached the road, so I think he was just trying to escape.”

  Amy nodded, shot a thumb upward. “How are you going to get up there?”

  I grabbed one end of the A-frame that held the swing and dragged it until it was directly under the opening. “Do you think it’ll hold my weight?”

  Amy shrugged, but grabbed one end of the frame to hold it steady. “What do you think he was doing up there anyway?”

  “I have no clue,” I said, “but it worries me that we don’t hear any noise. If he did take Rose and she is alive, she should be making some kind of noise, if only to move around.”

  Amy frowned and nodded. We both knew the survival rate when it came to children being kidnapped for sexual purposes.

  Grabbing one of the legs of the A-frame, I gave a little skip and then jumped onto the cross bar. It elevated me enough that I was able to reach into the opening and pull myself up through the hole in the ceiling. As I propped myself up on my elbows—my legs dangling free from the opening—I took a breath and my throat immediately began to pick. I tried to stifle a cough, but it broke through.

  “Are you okay?” Amy asked from below.

  “I’m sucking in fiberglass particles from the insulation,” I explained, trying to pierce the darkness with my eyes. Francis had disturbed the particles when he scrambled through the attic, and the tiny daggers were floating all around me. I could almost feel them sticking to my throat. I clamped my mouth shut and started breathing through my nose.

  “Wait—doesn’t insulation have asbestos? And isn’t asbestos dangerous?”

  The house was old, that’s for sure, so it was possible there was asbestos in the insulation, but I didn’t have time to worry about that.

  “It’s not like I’ll be up here forever.” I could see a rectangular beam of light shining up from somewhere in the middle of the sea of insulation. “I’ll retrace Francis’ steps and let you in through the front door.”

  The beam of light clearly indicated an opening in the attic, and that’s where I was heading. If Rose was inside, I needed to get to her right away. Swinging my legs to get some leverage, I pushed myself higher into the opening with my hands and rested a knee on the edge of the framework. After retrieving my flashlight, I picked a route along the rafters and set out for the beam of light.

  “Are you okay up there?” Amy asked when I bumped my head on a ceiling joist and cursed out loud.

  “I’m fine, but I think I cracked the lumber.” I continued shuffling forward, feeling with the toes of my boots while penetrating the shadows of the attic with my flashlight. Other than some old boxes and a baby crib that had been disassembled, it was empty.

  My hand instinctively went to my sidearm when I neared the opening. Wanting my left hand free, I turned my flashlight off and shoved it in my back pocket. The rafters beneath my feet creaked with each step I took and I winced, hoping no bad guys were down there. Child predators usually operated alone, but I could never be too careful in my job.

  I crept to the edge of the opening and saw an attic pull-down ladder descending to a narrow hallway beneath me. The ladder was wooden and would definitely make noise when I put my weight on it.

  Outside, I could hear sirens approaching and excited chatter emitting from Old Blackbird Highway. I recognized Melvin’s voice telling people to keep driving, that there was nothing to see. He was mostly correct, because there wasn’t much of Francis left for anyone to see.
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br />   I crouched near the top of the ladder and waited, allowing the sirens to draw closer. When it sounded as though they were just outside the house, I slowly made my descent into the musky-smelling hallway. As I figured it would, the ladder creaked in protest with each step I took, but the sirens helped to cover my movements. I listened for the slightest sound of human presence as I moved. There was none.

  When I reached the carpeted floor, I found myself facing an open door to a bedroom. Drawing my pistol, I entered and made a quick search, looking for potential victims. It was empty. I returned to the hallway and squeezed around the ladder. To my right there was another open door that led to a bathroom. I stuck my head inside and saw that it was also empty.

  Across from the bathroom there was an opening that led to a small kitchen. I could see it was empty, so I made my way to the end of the short hallway, where a closed door awaited me. I knew it would be better to let Amy inside first so she could cover me, but I didn’t want to turn my back on an unknown area that might conceal potential danger.

  Grasping the loose knob with my non-gun hand and standing as far as I could to the left of the doorway, I turned it until it stopped. I took a breath and held it before easing the door open. I froze when it creaked loudly, but there was no sound from inside the room. I trained the muzzle of my pistol toward the crack I’d already made and continued pushing the door open.

  Once the door had swung as far as it could go, I did a quick-peek into the room. It looked unoccupied. I sighed, stepped inside. Other than a bed at the center of the space and a small wooden desk in the corner, the room was void of furniture. There were, however, piles of clothes, pizza boxes, and crushed Coke cans strewn about the floor.

  “Someone likes pizza,” I mumbled to myself, picking my way through the mess and stopping in front of the desk. A laptop computer was on the desk, but it was closed. I wanted to check the history, but I needed a warrant before I could search for evidence. At the moment, I was only able to conduct a search for bodies—victims and suspects—so I’d have to wait to do a more thorough search later.