I called Buckshot from the Tahoe, but he didn’t answer. On the way to my office, I filled David in on the longhorns, the symbols painted on their sides, and Benoit, repeating the menacing conversation I’d had with him early that morning. When the captain got on the line, he said Buckshot was out working the case and checking up, as I’d requested, on Benoit. When I still couldn’t reach my fellow ranger, I called Benoit myself, twice, but he didn’t answer.
“So we think this professor was intuitive enough to figure out there was more going on than someone killing livestock? Or that he’s the one killing the bulls and that maybe he has Joey?” David said, piecing together the puzzling picture I’d drawn.
“Yeah, maybe. I’m not sure,” I admitted, fighting back a growing sense of anxiety. “The conversation struck me as peculiar at the time, enough to ask Buckshot to look into the guy. But yeah, thinking about all this, Benoit’s either qualified for a second career as a forensic psychologist or he knew what the kidnapper had planned because he was the one who took Joey.”
Just then my cell rang, and Buckshot said, “You trying to reach me, Sarah?”
Relieved to hear his voice, I asked, “Where are you?”
“On my way to hook up with Benoit, maybe fifteen minutes away from the Westover Plantation,” he said. “That’s where he told you he’d be, and I’ve been calling the SOB, but he’s not answering his cell phone. We’ve got to powwow. I’ve got some questions to ask, and I want to do it in person, make sure I get the right answers.”
Without taking time to consider what I should do, I turned the Tahoe around. I’d been driving to the office, but instead I made a left at the next corner and took a side street, heading south, toward Brazoria County and the plantation. The back roads would mean a longer ride distancewise, but the freeways were nearly at a standstill with hurricane evacuees.
“What did you find out?”
“Not who he is, but who he isn’t,” Buckshot explained. “Turns out that there sure enough is a Professor Alex Benoit who taught at Tulane University, and he moved to Houston a few years ago. All that’s true.”
“Then why do you think this man isn’t him?”
“The real Benoit isn’t at all like you described him. The real professor Benoit is eighty-two years old, and he’s living in a west Houston nursing home,” Buckshot said. “This fellow you’ve been dealing with, well, the guy’s an impostor. Must have come here and just said he was Benoit, and no one checked up on him. Why should they? He was doing all these nice things for the folks in that history society, donating his time.”
I thought back to the morning’s conversation, when the man I then believed was Professor Alex Benoit warned me that human lives could be at stake. Now I knew that man to be a fake. I no longer had any doubt. “I think this impostor has Joey Warner, the kid we’re looking for, Buckshot. An envelope with a drawing of a symbol like the ones left on the longhorns was dropped off at the boy’s father’s house this morning. This one symbolizes a child.”
“Why, that sick son of a bitch,” he snarled. “I get my hands on that twisted pile of—”
“Yeah,” I interrupted. “You won’t get an argument from me or from David. We want to talk to this guy, too. In fact, we’d like to be there with you. When you get to the plantation, hold up and call us, and we’ll let you know when to expect us. This guy may be dangerous. Don’t go in until we get there. We’re on our way.”
“I’ll try, Sarah,” Buckshot said. “But if you think he’s got that kid, and I see evidence he’s on the premises, I may not wait for y’all to get there. The traffic’s a disaster, and no telling how long it’ll take.”
I didn’t like the idea of Buckshot going in alone, but he had a point. The longer Benoit, or whoever he was, had Joey, the more danger the boy was in. “Okay, understood, but this guy’s a strange one. Be careful. And don’t go in alone. If you can’t wait for us, call the locals for backup,” I said, trying to steer around cars piled up at an intersection. Apparently as frustrated as I was, the driver of the car in front of us threw a U-turn and drove two wheels over the curb onto a sidewalk to try to get out of our way. “Listen, Buckshot, like I said, be careful. Don’t underestimate this guy.”
“You’ve got it, Sarah,” he said. “I guaran-damn-tee you that I’ll keep my eyes on him.”
I closed my cell phone, lowered the window, smacked my portable siren onto the roof, and turned it on, and the car that had just made the U-turn pulled over immediately, the driver no doubt figuring he was in line for a ticket. But I just kept going, maneuvered around the traffic, through the intersection. For a short distance it looked more promising, but two blocks down the road, David and I sat at a dead stop, trapped at yet another intersection, cars piled up and idling at a green light. Even the side streets were blocked.
“This isn’t going to work,” David said, stating the obvious.
Without further conversation, I made a U-turn of my own and headed toward the office, tossing my phone at David. “Call the captain,” I said. “Tell him that we need a chopper at headquarters, ASAP.”