The Trees Beyond the Grass (A Cole Mouzon Thriller) (24 page)

CHAPTER 70

IT WAS TEN
a.m. Wednesday morning, and in all the excitement, Cole had forgotten to return one of Ann’s calls. An hour and a half later, he had reached his limit of Ann advising him on what he should do or not do. She was naturally concerned. Who wasn’t concerned? But it appeared he was safe for the moment. She had offered to come down, back to Charleston, but Cole refused to have her anywhere near the city while his hunter was still on the loose. He had already sent away his family and demanded Jackie follow, but she was having no part of that. By the end of the conversation he promised to keep her in the loop, even if just through texts.

Agent Lea’s call had gratefully interrupted Ann’s ranting about crazies. His voice was excited as he clicked back over to his line. “Cole, you were right. Belladonna was found in the glasses, even the clean ones. My expert tells me that such a dose would cause a rapid heart rate that would ultimately end in death. A scary way to die. So, the last two murders involved poison!”

“Wow, what’s the source for something like that? It can’t be too huge.”

“Already on it, Colombo. Trying to locate shipments for the past twelve months to see if that leads us anywhere. I need to run, but I’ll advise you if we locate anything.” Agent Leas hung up suddenly.

Cole sat back against the couch, the TV humming in the background with some newscaster discussing the storm descending on the city. Eight inches of rain was projected in less than four hours, flooding and downed trees possible. The gloom of the storm approaching the city felt ironic, as he felt the doom of his hunter quickly approaching. He did not know from what direction, but his hunter’s imminence was casting a fast shadow over his life.

CHAPTER 71

“MR. CALHOUN… COLE,
I’m not going to tell you this will be easy to watch. But, Cole, I need you to watch this and see if anything,
anything
sticks out. I’m going to turn on the video and then step out of the room for you two to watch. I saw it with your sister earlier this morning. So, just open the door when you’re done and then we can talk. Deal?”

Cole took a deep breath and looked over to Cash. “Deal.” The small room’s walls were scuffed with black from angry heels and seemed ideal for its intended purpose of interrogation. But cramped in the makeshift theater, Cole felt claustrophobic and restrained, making it uncomfortable to breath.

Agent Leas had called and asked Cole to come in to the police station to watch the videos of his and Mark Calhoun’s interviews back in 1982. Cole went cold at the idea that something like that existed. The thought of seeing himself at two, almost three years old was cautiously exciting. But what would be said, how he appeared, threatened to evoke the same mental carnage suffered by Mark. The choice was made to play Mark’s first because he was older and would likely be conveying more useful information in Cole’s mind.
I can’t remember it now, but at two what really could I have said?

“Now this thing is on VHS so it skips a bit here and there. I’ve turned up the volume as far as it goes, but you may have to lean in at some points to hear what he’s saying.” The two men scooted their chairs across the linoleum to get closer. The screen flickered on as a blue screen turned to a title frame. Leas walked out of the room as a small child, no older than perhaps five, appeared on the screen. Cole’s mind momentarily flashed to Billy being four, close to Mark’s age. The thought of Billy in this video unnerved him and made his squirm in the black plastic seat.

“Mark, my name is Patricia Boone. Do you know why you’re here?” The brown-haired child nodded in affirmation. The too-short red tennis shorts and tube socks of the child aged the film. “Good, good. I’m here to talk to you about the past few days. Can you talk to me about that?” Again, his head nodded. Cole looked again at Cash, who was painfully transfixed by the screen, leaning in so as to not miss a word. The introduction between child therapist and patient went on for thirty minutes before there was any real headway.

“…I screamed, I screamed for Momma, but she didn’t come. He told me he would hurt me…hurt Momma if I didn’t stop.”

Tearful, the child responded, “Yes, ma’am, Miss Libby was there, she told him…told him our names.”

“Had you ever seen him before?”

“No, ma’am, never.”

“What happened next, Mark?”

“Miss Libby started crying…telling the man to stop, to leave us alone, but he wouldn’t. It was dark, ma’am, very dark.” The young Mark looked around as if he was about to tell a secret. “The bad man, he…he hurt me, tied my leg with another boy. Miss Libby, he hit her.”

“What other boy?”

“Mark, what was the boy’s name?”

“Lake, miss. He was smaller than me.”

“Was Cole there when you were tied?”

“Yes.” Mark looked down, clearly upset. Cole watched this person he had no memory of speak of him, speak of the horror he could no longer recall, and felt connected through the screen. He leaned closer. “He…all he did was cry. I tried to stop him. I rocked him like Momma does, but he wouldn’t stop. The bad man gave him some milk and then…then, he stopped crying.”

“What do you mean he stopped crying?”

“He just stopped. He just slept.”

“And Lake? What happened to him?”

“It was the day, the day he burned us.” Mark started crying again, weeping. “Can I see my mother?”

“In just a bit, Mark. Can you tell me about Lake?”

“When the bad man came to burn us, he burned Cole first. He didn’t wake up. He just laid there. I try to stop him miss, I did! I told him to get off Cole, to leave him alone. But he wouldn’t listen.” Tears continued down the child’s face unabated, gathering in thick streams. “He burned me next. I screamed. It hurt bad, ma’am. I told him no but he wouldn’t listen. Just kept saying I was number one.”

“And Lake? What happened to him?”

“When the bad man stopped burning me he took Lake away. He took him away.”

“Did you see him again?”

“No, ma’am. He was gone.”

Cole processed what he just heard. Mark, a boy maybe five years old, had attempted to protect him, to ward off the ‘bad man.’
A five-year-old boy
. But for Mark, he might have suffered more, possibly died. The clear drugging had been a blessing in disguise. It explained a lot, especially why he had no memory of what he was now learning about, as he sat there with the five-year-old’s brother.

“Mark, can you describe the bad man? What did he look like?”

“He was a police man. But, then…when he came back…he was just with jeans. He had a black hat on; I don’t remember his face.”

“A black hat? Do you mean a mask, or could you see his face?”

Mark moved in close to the therapist. Cash and Cole responded in kind, creeping up to the screen.

Cupping his hand along the side of his mouth, Mark whispered something that sounded like, “He wasn’t like Nita.”

“Who’s Nita?”

Simultaneously, Cash and his bother spoke, in different times, different places, but the same thing.

“She cleaned…” Cash sat back from the TV.

“You mean he wasn’t the same color?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you recall the trees…the marsh? Getting there?”

“Only behind the building. Miss Libby untied us, told us we had to run fast. The bad man was gone. But Cole couldn’t move. She carried him in the dark. The grass hurt, but we ran…we had to run and hide like when we play. That’s what Miss Libby said. The bad man was behind us, yelling for us, but we ran. Miss Libby stopped and told us to be quiet and stay still. Then she went to sleep.”

Mark sat up and looked the therapist in the face. The tears were back. “She wouldn’t wake up…she wouldn’t wake up, ma’am. I screamed but no one heard us… No one heard us.” Mark faded off with the last few words as though at that moment he felt alone and captive by his own mind from the fear of it all.

CHAPTER 72

THE INTERVIEW WENT
on for about ten more minutes with little more from Mark before the therapist concluded it and the white and black static filled the screen. Cole placed his hand on Cash’s forearm. “Your brother was a good kid…” Cole let the last few works linger as Cash closed his eyes slowly, trying to keep back the tears.

After a few moments, Cash recovered. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know. That protection that he showed you… he showed that to me every day, even when he was raging. There was always this side of him that could handle the internal anger and fear that consumed him. But if any such thing attempted to threaten me, he stepped in, like the big brother he was, and scared it away.” With a pause, Cash looked up. “Thank you, Mark.” The pain and longing wore on his face with deep sadness for a moment before he shook as a dog ridding himself of the dampness of rain, ready to proceed.

“You ready for this?” Cash had his hand on another tape, its spine marked in typewritten letters, “Mouzon, Cole – 3/22/82 Report No. 82-48921B”

Looking up, Cole asked with a slight grimace, “Do I have a choice?”

“Nope.” Cash smirked, clearly trying to break the tension.

“Well, put it in already.” It started like the first, just a blank screen.

“This is the interview of Cole Mouzon, March twenty-second, nineteen eighty-two.” Cole saw himself being held. There, holding him, was not who he would have suspected. It wasn’t Ava or Granny.
It was Jackie
. Tears welled up inside him and he fought them back. The salt that had accumulated in the corner of his eyes from a long day in saline air caused his eyes to sting. He felt an elbow in his rib as Cash knocked him out of an otherwise very emotional moment. Cole didn’t hear most of what was being said as he stayed tethered to the moment and realization that Jackie, even then, had watched over him. She rocked him in her arms as, question by question, he provided no insight. By the end of the very short interview it was clear that he had known nothing or had locked it away so deep in his mental safe that even now he couldn’t find the key.

The wall was down and Cole didn’t care. He wanted to run to Jackie in that moment and hug her. Pushing the urge to the side, he relaxed. The men sat back in their chairs as the video went to static again. “Wow.”

“You can say that again, Cole. Talk about memory lane, I feel…”

Agent Leas walked into the door. He had clearly been watching them as they took in the videos. Jackie was behind him, giving Cole a long look, and then closed the door with a pained, emotional smile. Just as now, she had always been there.

“So? Did that shake anything loose?”

Cash played protector in the tight space. “Man, give him some space. Let the man think.”

Leas pushed further. “Think? Think? There’s a murderer out there with his mark. Time is running out, and we don’t have time to hold your hand, Mr. Mouzon.”

“Why you…”

“Cut it out!” Cole jumped up and pulled the two apart, Cash having grabbed Agent Leas by the shirt. “Look, this isn’t helping. Agent Leas, I know how serious this is. This isn’t a carnival ride I’m on, it’s my life! All these years I was thinking I was just another Charleston boy with nothing in the world to worry about, and then…well, then you came into my life. And, it hasn’t been so much fun since then, Agent. I’m not blaming you, but let’s not make it worse. You both hear me?”

The men retreated. “Agent Leas…nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m sorry, but the only thing I apparently remember is the marsh.”

CHAPTER 73

COLE AND THE
rest had moved to the main area of the police station, which was nothing more than a room full of flat-topped desks covered in paper and desktop computers. Cole looked around and wondered how any work got done in an area that cluttered the mind just looking at it. Leas piped in while Cole was still distracted. “Cole. Do you know a Janet Christie? Auburn-red hair, slender? Around thirty-four, thirty-five?”

The question caught him off guard for a second. He pinched his eyes to recall his memories of Janet at SNOB and Tommy O’s, then slowly opened them as he responded with trepidation, “Uhm, I met her the other night. She had dinner with me and some friends. Why? Does she have something to do with this?”

“Cole, we aren’t certain, but it may be her? It may be Poinsett.” Cole’s mind spiraled with the news. He had met his hunter and didn’t even know it. How could he have been so stupid?
What a fool.

“We matched her house to the order of belladonna. And, this is where it gets real interesting; we believe one or both were in Texas at the time of the murder of the Patrick guy. We pulled all the flights between here and Dallas for the day of and two days after. It was like a needle in a hay stack, but we found a name that appears to be one of them, one of the Christies. But we aren’t certain yet. So we’re tracking their movements.”

“Why? Why wait? If they’re the killers, they’re going to act and act soon.”

Dribbling his right hand up and down, Leas said, “We have to move cautiously here, Cole. The case is pretty circumstantial. Until we can get something more concrete, we are left just watching and waiting.”

Cole was calm as he spoke. “What can I do?” If Janet or her husband was the killer, they were going to need something to tempt them, to draw them out to reveal themselves. “I can be bait.” It slipped out without even thinking. But the idea of turning the tide on Poinsett was too much to decline. He was tired of running, and if that meant staring his hunter down in the face, so be it.

“Cole. You know I can’t ask you to do that. But I also know that you appreciate the situation here. Unless we can get them to act, and soon, they will likely move on until the heat is off of you, only to then return again. I can’t promise that we can track them if they move on… No more than I can promise you will be one-hundred percent safe.”

Cole looked at Jackie as he spoke. “I understand, Agent. I know what I’m getting myself into. What’s the plan?”

The plan called for luring Poinsett into finally pursuing Cole. Poinsett had proved patient in acting out her threats, watching the hands of time tick off while calculating her attack. Left to plan, she was likely to catch Cole off-guard and unprotected. Or, she would become frustrated by the constant protecting and seek an easier victim.