Read Little Girl Lost 6: The Return of Johnnie Wise Online
Authors: Keith Lee Johnson
Little Girl Lost 6: The Return of Johnnie Wise (43 page)
“She’s found herself a rich man,” he said, still looking forward.
“What makes you think that,” she asked, testing him.
“All of her money burned up in the fire, Cassandra. How can she travel the world for two or three years with no money? She can’t. Someone else is paying.”
“Maybe she met a wealthy old woman who needs a companion to travel with her.”
“You’re being kind, and I really appreciate it. An old friend told me the truth about Johnnie, but I didn’t listen to her. I’m listening to her now, though. It’s so clear to me now. I wish it had been clear then, but it was all so foggy, while at the same time appearing to be clear. Besides, if there was an older woman, she would have said so and you know it. You’re just trying to soften the final blow.”
“I’m sorry. I just thought that you didn’t need to know the truth right now because she hurt you one last time before leaving.” She touched his hand. “If there’s any consolation it would be that she came here hoping you would stop her from marrying the man she’s about to marry. She was hoping to find you, but deep down, she didn’t think you would give her another chance since you heard that she had sex with her stockbroker.”
“Don’t you mean since I heard that she was reproducing with her stockbroker.”
Smiling, she said, “That’s exactly what I mean.” She paused and watched him for a moment. “What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to move on. I love her still, but before today, I hadn’t thought about her much, if at all. I’m going to be a soldier for the rest of my life. I’m going to eventually find a wife, get married, and have children. I’m going to travel the world, too, but, I’ll be doing it the Army way. I wish her luck with her new husband. I hope it works out for her, too. I hope she truly has found what she’s looking for in her God.”
“I hope she does, too,” she said sincerely. “I guess we can head back to Fort Jackson now.”
“Can we just sit here for a few minutes, please? I still need to let this settle.”
“Okay. I’ll sit here with you all night if you need me to.”
“Thanks,” he said. “By the way, do you know anybody that might be interested in buying a car? I’m willing to sell it cheap.”
“Um, how cheap?” she said, smiling and squeezed his hand affectionately.
Excerpt from Book 7: In the Line of Fire
“
So, the girl knows about her father, and Johnnie?”
T
hree weeks had passed since Earl Shamus was found in his Cadillac. The coroner told Tony Hatcher that he had died of natural causes even though he found something he couldn’t explain. What he found, while strange, wasn’t a big enough deal to do an autopsy. The coroner signed the death certificate and released the body to the Shamus family, so they could bury their dead.
The phone in Hatcher’s office buzzed. He pushed a button and said, “Yes.”
“Your two o’clock is here, Mr. Hatcher,” a woman said.
“Send him in,” Hatcher said.
A few seconds later, his door opened and a man wearing a charcoal suit walked in. He was carrying a large envelope. Hatcher stood up and waited for the man to come to him, admiring his impeccable style, wondering how far the outfit set him back. He was thinking that the whole ensemble must have cost at least a month’s salary. There was no way he could spend that kind of money for one suit.
“Mr. Hatcher,” the man said, offering his hand. “I’m Seymour Collins, attorney for the Shamus family.”
Hatcher offered him a seat and waited for him to sit, and then he sat, too. “I always get you and the other Seymour mixed up. He’s—”
“You must mean Phil Seymour. He’s the head of the Chicago office of Buchanan Mutual. You probably know the name because he’s mentoring Janet Shamus to take over as President.”
“Yes, that must be it. Now . . . what can I do for you, Mr. Collins?”
“I understand that you did some work for my deceased client, Meredith Shamus, some time ago, and I have reason to believe that you also worked for her husband, Earl, for a week or so immediately after her death.”
Hatcher didn’t respond. Who he worked for was confidential.
Collins tossed the envelope on the desk and looked at Hatcher, but again he didn’t respond. He just looked at Collins, waiting for him to ask a question.
“Did you take those pictures, Mr. Hatcher?”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Collins,” Hatcher said without bothering to open the envelope to see the pictures.
Collins picked the envelope up, opened it, and placed them on Hatcher’s desk, facing him. Hatcher glanced at the pictures briefly and said, “What can I do for you, Mr. Collins?”
Collins exhaled hard and said, “You can tell me if you took those pictures.”
They were the snapshots that he’d taken for Meredith Shamus when she hired him to follow Earl. One of the pictures was of Johnnie meeting Earl at the Savoy. Another was one of Benny punching Earl in the stomach. There was a picture of San Francisco license plates and much more.
“And if I did? Then what?”
“Meredith showed me these about six months ago when she got them from you. She thought Earl had killed the girl’s mother, a Creole prostitute named Marguerite Wise. As you know, Earl was having relations with her daughter and Meredith wanted to put a stop to it. I offered to talk to the girl and offer a few dollars to keep the Shamus name out of whatever happened to her mother, but Meredith insisted on handling the girl herself.”
Hatcher looked at his watch and said, “Is this going somewhere, Mr. Collins?”
Collins exhaled again, growing weary of Hatcher’s reluctance to cooperate. “I’ve got Janet waiting in your secretary’s office. I don’t want her to hear the things I’m going to tell you.”
“Which are?”
“According to the coroner, semen was found outside and inside Earl’s shaft. There were traces of soap on his leg. Someone had obviously cleaned in the area, but they didn’t think about the semen that would eventually come out and end up in his shorts.”
“And?”
“The man died of a heart attack, Mr. Hatcher.”
“I’m aware of that, Mr. Collins. Listen . . . I’m busy. Please get to the point. I have other business I need to attend to.”
“Does it make sense to you that a man dying of a heart attack would have semen dripping out of his shaft at the time of his death?”
“Stranger things have happened. What’s your point?”
“I think Earl was with this Johnnie girl when he died, and she somehow got him to his car and ran it into a ditch near the airport.”
“And she did that from Jackson, Mississippi, where she’s currently working.”
“So . . . Earl did hire you to track her down? That means that he may have met with her.”
“Let’s say he did meet with her, and he did have sex with her. Are you suggesting that she dressed him and put him in his Cadillac and drove him all the way back to New Orleans, and then caught a bus back to Jackson?”
“I’m suggesting that it’s possible.”
“Mr. Collins, Johnnie Wise would have needed help to do all of that.”
“What if she had help, Mr. Hatcher? What if Earl died in her bed?”
“What if he did? He had a heart attack. What if he had sex with her and died on the way back to New Orleans? That would account for the semen, would it not? But even if you’re right, the girl is only guilty of tampering with evidence.”
“She’s guilty of more than that, Mr. Hatcher.”
“What else is she guilty of?”
“Abortion and quite possibly the murder of a bellhop in Fort Lauderdale.”
“She was acquitted of the murders, Mr. Collins.”
“No, she was acquitted of Sharon Trudeau’s murder. She was never tried for the bellhop. The district attorney didn’t charge her with the bellhop’s death. The papers only talked about Miss Trudeau’s death, so that’s what they indicted her for.”
“But her lawyers got her off because she couldn’t have done that murder.”
“Exactly.”
“What would be accomplished by hauling her into court again?”
“This time the district attorney will ask her where she was the night of the murder, and she’ll have to say where she was. She’ll have to say she was in Bayou Cane, Louisiana. And then, the prosecutor will ask her what she was doing there. And if she answers, we get her for murdering her child. If she doesn’t answer, we get her for murdering the bellhop. Either way, she pays for Meredith Shamus’ death.”
“But she had nothing to do with Meredith’s death.”
“Sure, she did, Mr. Hatcher.”
“I was there. I saw the whole thing. Ethel Beauregard killed Meredith.”
“She made a deal with Meredith not to bring her family into this. And she broke that deal. Earl was planning to reunite with her against my advice. He told me he loved her and that he was going to try to reestablish something with her. He told me that if it didn’t work out, he was going to pursue this course of action.”
“So, you think he met with this girl?”
“I believe he did, yes. Did you or anybody on your team of detectives see him go into her room?
“No. We were all in Houston investigating Paul Masterson, the man Johnnie had been spending time with.”
“Hmm. So he sent you and your team of detectives to Houston, so he wouldn’t be seen going to her hotel room. He planned to make an outrageous offer—again against my advice. I believe the girl took it. She would have been a fool not to.”
“What was the deal?”
“He was going to offer her twenty thousand cash, a newly built home, a new car every year, college tuition, several vacations every year and much more.”
“And you want me to track her down and bring her back to New Orleans to stand trial for murdering the bellhop?”
“Yes.”
“That’s going to be really expensive.”
“How much do you need as a retainer?”
“Depends on if she’s still in Jackson. She should be gone by now. It’s been nearly a month. Her car should be fixed, and she should be on her way to East Saint Louis by now.”
“How much?”
“Assuming she’s gone, I’ll need at least five thousand. And that’s just to start.”
“Can you have your secretary send Janet in? She has the checkbook. With Phil Seymour’s guidance, I think she’s going to make a fine president.”
“So the girl knows about her father and Johnnie.”
“She found the pictures among her mother’s things, Mr. Hatcher. She wants to pursue this, too.”
Also By Keith Lee Johnson
The Little Black Girl Lost Series: Books 1 – 5
Fate’s Redemption
Pretenses
Sugar and Spice
The Honeymoon Is Over
Hell Has No Fury
FLESH: The Disappearance of Portia Barrington
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