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Although illegal, Homicide Detective Lucas Cantin drove with the parking lights only over the dark dirt road. The old black sedan he had borrowed from the officer’s garage noisily bounced on its shocks with each rut.
A red light soon came into view. He moved forward with caution. Held the brake down, and twisted sideways in his seat to have a look through the passenger window.
Taillights.
The farmhouse appeared uninhabited, but that didn’t mean it was. If the storm had caused a power outage, he expected to see candlelight.
If it’s actually inhabited by the living.
In a matter of seconds the deluge weakened to a light drizzle before coming to a sudden and complete stop. The full moon poked through a hole in the clouds.
He got out, vaguely aware one foot landed in a puddle of water. Lucas came within reach of the vehicle. A patrol car. Hugging a palm tree with the bumper. He knew for a fact that particular car had been assigned to Officer Jacob Wentzel.
He wrecked it, or someone stole it and they wrecked it.
He considered the location.
No, I don’t think so.
Lucas patted his sidearm.
Playing a flashlight in and around the car, the rookie cop was nowhere to be seen. About to step up to the porch, a low beam of light stopped him. Headlights. Coming toward him at a steady clip. He waited at the edge of the road.
Detective Northcutt called out to him as he approached. “Glad to see you got my message.”
Message? Lucas held his flashlight down at his side. Turned his cap around backwards on his head. His partner clicked on his own torch. “What’s going on?” Lucas was surprised how glad he was to see Gary. He didn’t realize the place had spooked him so much. All the dark alleys in the city didn’t come close to the sinister atmosphere of this old farm.
“I found out BJ planned to meet with a detective named Raynor Schein,” said Gary, keeping his voice down. “There is no Schein in the department. But here,” he pointed to the house with his flashlight, “is where she planned to meet him. Have you seen her?”
“I just got here.” Lucas tilted his head at Wentzel’s car. “He’s here, though. You think Wentzel is the mysterious Schein?”
“At the moment, I don’t have any answers.”
Forgotten details came back to Gary. Beau said that ever since BJ’s book was published she’s been traveling all around Louisiana. But BJ said her husband would never let her travel any great distance without him. How much of everything she’s told him has been the truth? He looked forward to asking her. First and foremost, he had to find her.
They examined the patrol car.
Lucas reached through the open window, concerned why it was open on such a stormy night, and turned off the lights. “Any sense of what happened here?”
Gary cupped a hand beside his mouth and shouted, “BJ. Where are you?”
“Damn,” said Lucas, “warn a fellow next time?”
“Sorry. C’mon.”
Leading with their guns they crept to the rear of the house without stopping. Advanced on the barn with extreme caution. Heads turning this way and that, both watching and listening for any signs of movement.
“We need more light,” Lucas whispered. “Follow my lead.”
“It’s possible I scared him off when I yelled.”
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
They positioned their cars to face the barn. Hit the bright lights almost at the same time. Each gripped one of the wooden doors, and swung it wide open. Used a large rock and an old tin pail to hold the doors in place.
They waited just inside the entrance. Shined their lights, bottom to top then down again. The building appeared to be about eighty feet long, fifty feet wide, and forty feet high.
Lucas slowly went up the ladder to the loft, thinking it’s a better hiding place than the house. He aimed his light over and around the hay bales. Standing in the yawning mouth of the loft doors he could just barely make out a water well in the distance where moonlight glinted on a metal ladle.
How...? He shimmied down the ladder. “Gary, come with me.”
The men ran in single file to the well. Stopped within five feet of it.
“What have you got in mind?” Gary asked quietly, looking at a boarded-up well.
“Wentzel? Schein? A new player?”
“Hiding inside of it, you mean? We’ll find out soon enough.”
After a cursory glance around, they put down their flashlights. Shoved the boards to the opposite side, some hitting the ground, others falling back against the stone wall, both kind of amazed not to hear anybody shouting at them. In unison, they shined their lights in the well.
The sight of her took Gary’s breath away.
She was on her stomach, her face turned away from them. Dressed in a gray sweatshirt and matching pants. Barefooted, ankles bound with tape. Wrists tied together with a thin nylon rope. Legs bent at the knees behind her back and strapped to her wrists with more of the same rope. Silver tape wrapped around her head, sealing her mouth shut. At that distance, it was impossible to tell if she was dead or alive. The missing bucket lie on its side partially buried in the dirt. The top and bottom ends of a shovel were visible, the middle part hidden beneath her, creating an illusion that she’d been skewered.
The well rope had also gone missing, but unlike the bucket, it was nowhere to be seen. Gary started running to the barn. Lucas hurried to catch up to him.
Near the pegboard wall, Lucas lifted a fifteen-pound thirty-foot rope off a large hook. Held it tight against his chest with both arms. Gary wound his arm around the top half of a single straight wood ladder, the back half digging a tiny trench across the ground.
Heading to the well, the cumbersome items slowed them down.
Lucas heaved the rope onto one shoulder, and raised the free end of the ladder. Stumbling over the uneven terrain with his hands full he was forced to let go of the ladder.
Gary grew more impatient with every step. She might be alive. “She better be alive.”
The first to arrive, Gary lowered the ladder into the well, leaned it against the inside wall at a forty-five degree angle. The fifteen-foot ladder was now about eleven and a half feet tall. He kept his Maglite on, tucking the long handle in his overcoat pocket. Swung his leg over the side, and gently put his foot down on the next to the top rung. Clinging to the edge of the wall with both hands, he eased his other leg over. Waited a moment until he had evenly distributed his weight across the rung and the ladder leveled out. He descended quickly.
“She’s hogtied, too heavy for me to lift,” he shouted up to Lucas. “Toss me the rope.”
Lucas lay his flashlight flat on the wall, the beam pointing at the area above the ladder. Tied one end of the rope around the thick pulley, pitched the rest of it into the well.
Gary secured the other end around her waist. “Haul her up.” When she was a couple of feet above him, he hopped onto the ladder and followed her.
Together they hauled her out, her body stiff with rigor mortis. Gently lay her down on her stomach, untied the rope.
Lucas cut the tape off her ankles with a switchblade knife.
Gary untied the thin rope around her wrists. Rolled her on her side. Jerked back, reflexively.
It wasn’t BJ Donovan.
“Wh-who...?”
“I’ll be damned,” Lucas whispered, “it’s Yeager. Officer Renee Yeager.”
“Fuck.”
Gary gently peeled the tape off her face. With her long blond hair and petite build, a lowlife piece of shit used her to make them think it was BJ. But why? Why go to all that trouble? Why kill an innocent woman? And how’d the kidnapper slash killer know the detectives would come to the well and find her? Hell, how did he or she know they’d come to Wentzel Farm?
“Why did he tape her mouth and bind her arms and legs? Surely he killed her in the alley. Or am I missing something here?” Gary nervously smoked a cigarette.
Lucas wasn’t ready to fill him in on what he’d learned on his own. He stepped away to call whoever the hell he was supposed to call in a shitty situation such as this.
He rejoined Gary, who stood with his back to Yeager. Lucas wasn’t able to look at her, either, both feeling like they had failed her.
The wail of sirens broke the heavy silence.
“The cavalry’s arrived,” Lucas said, glumly. Too late to do this rookie any good. “Don’t forget your butts. You shouldn’t even be smoking out here.”
“I still don’t understand what’s going on.”
Yeah, I know you don’t. Lucas debated about going ahead and telling Gary about his secret investigations, but a couple of details were missing. He didn’t have a complete picture to share with him or the captain.
“If we had done our job right in the first place, this,” Gary pointed in Yeager’s direction, “wouldn’t have happened.”
“That’s simply not true,” said Lucas. “We just put it all together too late to prevent Renee’s murder. Investigating Wentzel’s background, we learned about this farm. But that was only because he was honest with most of his answers on the questionnaire. You’re overlooking a crucial element. It was a cop who had done this horrible thing. A person trained to get into the mind of a killer. We know Wentzel’s been hot to trot about joining the detective division. He’s always reading shit. There’s also the fact that, since he’s one of us, he was there for the briefings. He knew each step in the investigation we were going to take before we took it.” Lucas turned his cap back around. “That’s how he stayed one step ahead of us. That’s also how he knew we’d eventually come here. As to why he’s done all this shit I, I can’t say at this time.”
“I hear you. Doesn’t make it any better, though.”
Gary and Lucas shut off their headlights. The bright colors of various lights on the tow truck hauling off Wentzel’s patrol car grew dimmer and dimmer.
Several officers, pros and rookies alike, continued to mill about, searching the house and the barn. Some had gone as far away as the bridge. Inspected it, high and low.
“Nothing so far, sir.” An officer reported to Northcutt.
“Thanks for your help. Tell the others to call it a night. Our disgraced rookie is on the run.”