Blood of Cain (Sean O'Brien (Mystery/Thrillers)) (27 page)

I heard a man clear his throat and yell, “Yesterday I think. Can’t be a hundred percent sure anymore.”

She turned back to me and folded the Japanese fan, putting it on a glass coffee table next to a vase with plastic blue flowers. “If the girl was there, maybe she stole the truck.”

“Maybe Boots let her borrow it.” I smiled.

“That’s a possibility. But whoever took the truck must have done it when I went to get my husband out of bed. I showed this video to police, they made a copy, but I don’t think they noticed the small section of the truck that you saw. You’re observant.”

I smiled and stood up to leave. “If you don’t mention it to them, they’ll never know it’s gone.”

She reached for the fan and opened it like a peacock spreading its feathers. She fanned her face and said, “I hope you find her.”

I was leaving Gladys Johnston’s driveway when a propane gas delivery truck rolled to a stop in front of the Fish Camp. The side of the red truck with the large white propane tank read:
Paul’s Propane Service
. I watched a twenty-something service tech get out of the truck, clipboard in hand, toting a small camera. He looked at the crime scene tape flapping in the breeze and made a decision to enter the property. I parked and followed him.

He was about halfway down the property line when he stopped, almost like he had paused to pay his respects to those in a funeral procession. He stared at what was left of the trailer. I walked up behind him and said, “I don’t think they’ll be needing gas for the immediate future.”

He jumped like he’d been touch with a cattle prod. “Man! You scared the crap outta me.”

“Sheriff’s deputies will scare you more if they see you traipsing through a crime scene.”

“I thought that yellow tape was just hanging all over the ground, like they’re pretty much done.”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll be quick, I’m just taking a couple of pictures. It’s for insurance. I can see it wasn’t our tanks that exploded. They’re still in one piece, pretty black from the fire, but they didn’t blow. Man, I just filled ‘em, too. Couple of days ago. So if somebody left the gas on, they got lots of gas to ignite.”

“When you filled the tanks did you see the girl living in the trailer?”

“She was feeding some ducks down there in the creek.” He turned and looked closer at the remains of the trailer. “She wasn’t hurt … was she? The news said two guys were killed in the fire.”

“She apparently wasn’t home when it happened.”

He inhaled deeply, reassured, nodding. “That’s good. She was real nice. This explosion and fire’s bad enough, but when you know somebody involved it sort of makes it personal.”

“Yes, it does. What’d she look like?”

“The girl?”

“Yes.”

He looked back down to the creek as if she was standing on the bank. “She was really pretty. About five-five, I’d say. She had dark brown hair … and her eyes.” He glanced back at me. “Her eyes were the prettiest I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to describe them.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Well, I best take the picture and be on my route.”

***

I caught I-75 north and headed across the state of Florida back to Ponce Inlet. I watched the traffic behind me, looking for a tail. I pushed the Jeep to near one-hundred miles an hour for a minute, then pulled off the interstate at a rest stop, parking on the side of the building farther from the highway. I watched for cars pulling into the rest stop, those passing in the event a driver might hit his brakes. Three cars entered the parking lot. One had a family of five, including a grandmother. The second car had two teenagers in it. The third was pulling a small boat. Two fishermen shuffled out, faces red from the sun, and walked to the restroom. I started my Jeep, placed the Glock on the passenger seat, and made my way back to the highway.

As I drove north, I now knew that Courtney Burke had been hiding in the trailer before it exploded, she was driving a red Toyota pick-up truck, and she was probably long gone from Gibsonton. On one hand, I wanted to call Detective Dan Grant and tell him what I knew. On the other hand, not so much. If my phone was tapped, my calling Dan would alert killers hunting Courtney. Dan and state police would issue a BOLO and set up a dragnet on major roads leading out of Tampa and Florida.

Since two men hunting Courtney had just died, and because one man giving her a safe haven was murdered, I knew that Courtney could easily be shot to death during a road-side stop.
Subject resisting arrest
, the report would read.
Armed and dangerous
. As long as the elimination was not in the immediate scope of the dashboard cameras, cross-fire shootings can be beyond accusation and reprimand.

The presidential election was coming up quickly. Somehow I had to keep Courtney safe until then, and that’s if Senator Logan’s opponent won. What would it mean if Logan won? Would Courtney always be a political liability? If she was found innocent of the charges, would that lessen her embarrassment factor? Andrea Logan would no longer be labeled the possible mother of a serial killer. But that would mean finding Courtney and getting a DNA sample first. That alone would clear the landscape for Logan or destroy it. Were they willing to roll the dice? The two dead guys in the fire spoke volumes. And now, under the circumstances, there was no safe jail or prison to hold her in some kind of protective custody.

I needed to buy a couple of disposable mobile phones, and then make a call to Dave or Dan Grant that would set in motion a trap that would catch hired guns and maybe free Courtney from what I now knew was a death sentence.

When Courtney Burke reached New Orleans, the rain that seemed to have followed her since Florida, ended. She’d driven straight through, stopping once to put gas in the truck and to use the restroom. There had been very little news on the radio stations that constantly faded in and out as she drove through the night.

She didn’t know if her face was still plastered everywhere, of if she could move about with relative anonymity. She remembered what Boots had told her:
‘There will be a lot of people trying to locate you. Isaac and I both believe this could be very dangerous for you. Your face is on all the news stations and online. You must be very careful.’

She turned onto Decatur Street, saw the sign for Café Du Monde, and then entered the parking lot. Tourists roamed the streets, hopping horse-drawn carriages, watching street performers and snapping pictures. With so many people about, Courtney thought she’d blend in better in a city like New Orleans.

She parked, slipped on a pair of dark glasses, and a baseball cap Boots had given her. She fixed her hair in a ponytail, and pulled it through the open spot in the back of the hat. She unfolded the piece of paper and read Boot’s writing:
Mariah Danford, 41 Dumaine.
Courtney got out of the truck and walked towards Café Du Monde.

She could see the three towers of the old St. Louis Cathedral across the park-like setting of Jackson Square, church bells ringing in the distance, the oaks alive with birdsong. Portrait artists were setting up shop on the tree-lined street, opening beach-sized umbrellas, propping up easels. She watched a man wearing a Star Trek T-shirt and black derby twist balloons into animal caricatures. Another performer was dressed in Civil War uniform. His entire body was spray-painted in shades of Confederate gray. He stood motionless, a human statue in the park, only moving his head or arms when an unsuspecting tourist approached to take a picture.

The morning air was filled with the smell of chicory coffee, blooming camellias, and fresh-cut grass. Courtney watched the Mississippi River roll quietly by as horse-drawn carriages traveled down Decatur. She heard the trot of hooves on the pavement and carriage drivers telling riders about the history of the square, the cathedral, and Jax Brewery.

She ordered two beignets and a large café au lait at Café Du Monde. After Courtney paid for them at the counter, she asked the middle-aged woman running the cash register if she knew how to get to Dumaine Street.

“You’re not far, honey,” she said, counting back change. “Five blocks down Decatur and then take a right onto Dumaine.”

Courtney found an empty park bench close to Jackson Square under the shade of old live oaks draped in tousled cloaks of Spanish moss. The beignets, warm and covered in powdered sugar, tasted delicious to her. The hot coffee seemed to flow into her through all her pores, warming her. For the first time since Boots’ murder, she could breathe easier without her lungs feeling as empty as her heart.

“Draw a pretty picture for a pretty lady,” came a voice from behind her.

Courtney turned around and saw a street artist bend in a slight bow from the waist, tipping his medieval Robin Hood-type hat. It was fern green with a red feather wedged into one side of the hatband. He stood straight and grinned, a dark black goatee on his round face, eyes the color of his hat. Courtney thought the man probably weighed close to three-hundred pounds.

He said, “Hello, me lady. You can be my first portrait of the morning. I assure you that all other portraits after you today, and tomorrow for that matter, will pale by comparison. I am Little John, and I’m at your service.”

Courtney swallowed a bite of beignet and looked up at the man, the morning sunlight in his plump face, left eye squinting, the rumble of a tugboat diesel pushing a barge up the Mississippi. “Thanks, but I really don’t need my picture drawn.”

“Why so serious?”

“Just tired, that’s all.”

“It’s more than that. I can tell because I look at faces all day.”

“No offense, but you don’t need to be staring at mine.”

“Since I draw caricatures of people, I look at how faces have certain, let’s say unique qualities, and then I just use pen and ink to embellish them. And because I study faces all day here in front of Jackson square, I’m a pretty good reader.”

“I have to go.”

“Some people read cards, some read palms, and I try to grasp the energy of the person in the time it takes me to sketch out the crux of the face. I always begin with the eyes. Would you mind taking off your sunglasses?”

“I told you I wasn’t interested in having my picture drawn. Please, just go away.”

“I can’t. This is my office, or studio.”

“Then I’ll leave.”

He smiled and angled his head. “Tell you what, I’ll do it for free. Your only cost is the twenty minutes of your life it takes me to capture you on canvas.”

“I don’t want to be captured on canvas.”

“Before I started doing caricatures, I was a police sketch artist. Did thousands of sketches of bad guys and gals just from descriptions people remembered. I find now that it’s hard for me to forget a face I’ve drawn or wanted real bad to draw.” He pulled a phone out of his jean’s pocket and raised it to snap a picture of Courtney.

She lifted her hand in front of her face. “No!”

“Aw, c’mon. Such a pretty face. Even with the hat and glasses, I can tell.”

Courtney turned her back to the man, grabbed her bag of beignets and her coffee, and walked quickly away from him. After she’d gone farther away, she looked back for a second and saw him talking on the phone.
How’d he make
such a quick call? Maybe he dialed 9-1-1. I’ve been spotted!
Her heart raced. How could she escape or hide in a city she didn’t even know?

Think!
She ran, trying to ensure that there were trees, cars, people, and objects blocking the view of the street artist to her movements towards the Toyota truck. She ran across the parking lot, jumped in the truck and started it. She remembered the directions the cashier had given her, and Courtney drove down Decatur Street, hoping that the woman named Mariah Danford was home.

I bought two disposable phones and used one to make a call to Dave Collins. I told him what happened and he said, “So right now there isn’t a posse on the tail of an older model red Toyota pickup truck, but it’s just a matter of a short time before that changes. Courtney may still be in Florida. It’s unfortunate that in her wake three more people are dead. Two probably because they were, no doubt, hired guns who stepped in the wrong trailer at the wrong time. So their SUV was wiped clean and no one has a clue who leased it, right?”

“Someone does.”

“Of course. I’d love to follow the bread trail back to wherever the hit order originated. Maybe it was Bandini.”

“I don’t think so. Why would they shoot the dwarf? These guys took orders from bigger fish—sharks, and they smell blood. Maybe they were the two guys who followed me into the Denny’s parking lot, or could be from the same litter. Somehow Courtney survived the first attack. I’ve got to find her before they do. If I can prove that she’s not Andrea Logan’s biological daughter, Courtney will no longer be a liability in the eyes of corporations and PACs funding Logan’s presidential bid.”

“But if you prove the opposite it will be deadly for her.”

“It’s already deadly. I don’t have a choice.”

“Yes you do. This kid’s stepped into the middle of some serious defecation. And by default, she’s taken you with her. We need to think this through, Sean. Every possibility, angle and probability. The irony is the more visible you are, the less likely that someone will put a bullet in your head. With your old connection to Andrea Logan, if something should happen to you, her hubby or at least those orchestrating his campaign would be more than suspect. They can’t afford for that to happen. It’s similar to when Giuliani was fighting the mafia in New York. The mob hated him, but he was too visible, too public to be the recipient of an organized hit. You’re that way now. Courtney is not. And because she’s wanted in murders, it’s worse.”

“I have to find her.”

“You have no idea where to look. She’s not going to show up at another carnival. Do you think the murdered dwarf is related to Solminski, the one working for Bandini?”

“Yes. Looked close in age. Maybe brothers. Possibly twins.”

“She might try to get in touch with him, especially since they’re friends and she’s driving the dead man’s truck. Could you convince Solminski to tell you if she does?”