Eyes of the Predator (34 page)

Turning the glass of bourbon
slowly in his hand, he wondered if the parents of the girl murdered and left on
Ridley Road had been notified. He had made a few death notifications in his
time with the sheriff’s department. Traffic accidents mostly. It was always
unpleasant, but traffic accidents were something people knew about. They had
some connection to everyday life. Not everyone died in traffic accidents, but
it wasn’t unheard of. It was something a parent could hate but understand.

How did you tell parents that
their daughter had been brutally and sadistically murdered, for no apparent
reason, other than some animal had picked her out of the crowd? What
understanding could they have? What sense could they make of that? It was
something he had not had to do, and he was glad of it.

Closing his eyes, George saw the
old Chevy glide by in the dark, except this time, he followed in his county
pickup and stopped the car. He pictured himself walking up. The slender brown-haired
man would be behind the wheel. The girl would be in the passenger seat, and he
would stop anything from happening to her.

But that couldn’t be. It would
never be. The girl was already tortured, dead and in the weeds on Ridley Road.

She was dead. George was too
late. He was always too late for the important things, it seemed.

But at least he could have looked
the animal in the eye. And then what? Yes, then what? Arrest him? Kill him? Be
killed by him? All possibilities. George was too tired to figure it out.

In one gulp, he downed the
bourbon and laid back on the bed waiting for the alcohol to dim the day and
allow him to drift into sleep.

****

Angel Sims…Mrs. Harold Sims…sat
on the front porch of the house she and her husband had shared for sixty years.
They had raised their family there. The chair he had been sitting in the night
before rocked gently in the breeze blowing in with the rain.

Unconsciously, she reached out to
touch the arm of the chair where his arm would have been resting. The wood was
damp and cold, and her fingers recoiled quickly, settling in her lap.

A lone tear marked its way down
her brown, weathered face. She watched the woods where the trail entered on the
other side of the yard, where he had disappeared into the dark just about this
time last night. Mist swirled across the yard, brought up by the rain and
humidity and the cooler night air. It was as if Harold had disappeared into the
mist. She knew he wasn’t coming back, but her gaze was expectant, hopeful. It
was all she could be.

“Driver’s license and proof of
insurance, please.” The trooper’s flashlight shone directly into Clay’s eyes
causing him to squint.

Clay took his hands from the
steering wheel and reached into his back pocket to retrieve his wallet.
Flipping it open, he handed the license and insurance card to the trooper who
kept the light partially in his eyes and partially on the license so that he
could read them in the dark.

“Guess I was speeding, officer,”
Clay said, uncomfortable with the trooper’s scrutiny and light in his eyes.

“Yes. Yes, you were, Mr.
Purcell.” The trooper raised the light so that it was full in Clay’s face
again. “Is there some reason for that?”

“I’m looking for someone.”

“Looking for someone? Who?”

“A girl. Her name is Lyn,” Clay
said impatiently. “Look, sorry I was speeding officer. I know I got a ticket
coming, and I’m not trying to be smart, but I need to get moving again. Could
you check me out and write the ticket, and I promise to hold the speed down
from now on.”

“A girl named Lyn,” the trooper
continued calmly and without acknowledging Clay’s comments. “Who is she?
Girlfriend? Wife? Some sort of domestic problems between you?”

Clay’s head dropped in
exasperated resignation. “No. Nothing like that. She’s a girl my brother and I
met last night…this morning…at a diner on the interstate. She needed a ride so
we took her to a truck stop outside Savannah.”

“That was nice of you. So where’s
she headed?”

“Canada.”

“Canada? Really? Where’s she
from?”

“Somewhere down in Pickham
County. She wouldn’t say where exactly.”

The trooper’s next question was
spoken in a voice that had suddenly lost the neutral-toned modulation of a
routine traffic stop. “Tell me exactly where you met this girl and where you
left her. The whole story.”

The trooper’s tone startled Clay.
The traffic stop had just taken a turn, and he wasn’t sure if it was for good
or bad. The one thing it did, for certain, was raise his concern for Lyn.

Clay quickly recounted the
encounter at the I-95 Diner and the trip to the AcrossAmerica Truck Stop. He
explained the phone message Lyn had left and his search for her at the truck
stop. When he got to the part about Lyn leaving in a vehicle described as an
older, faded Chevrolet in the company of a medium built white male with brown
hair, the trooper stopped him.

“Mr. Purcell. I need you to come
back to my vehicle with me.” He opened the door of the pickup and backed up
waiting for Clay to follow.

Clay’s heart pounded in his
chest. Stepping from the pickup, he moved past the trooper and towards the
cruiser.

“You carrying any weapons?”

Clay turned at the trooper’s
question.

“No. Nothing.”

“Show me your belt line and
pockets.”

The trooper watched closely as
Clay pulled his pockets inside out and turned around.

“Good. Have a seat in the
passenger side,” the trooper said as he moved to the driver’s door.

Clay did as he was instructed.
Once in the cruiser, he told the story again. The trooper was particularly
interested in the description of the Chevy and the man driving it, and of the
girl.

When he was done, Clay sat
quietly while the rain tapped on the cruiser’s windows and ran in sparkling
drops across the glass. The trooper picked up the radio microphone and began
giving the information Clay had provided about the car and driver and added the
description of the young girl going by the name of Lyn who may be accompanying
the driver. He added that the vehicle might be associated with the murders in
Pickham County earlier that date, and the vehicle and driver should be
approached with caution.

When he was done, the trooper
looked at Clay and said, “I need you to follow me to the state patrol post at
Statesboro. There are some GBI investigators that will want to speak with you.”

Clay nodded. Murders. In Pickham.
The pounding of his heart in his throat prevented him from saying anything more
than a choked, “Yes.” A minute later, he was back in his truck following the
state patrol cruiser. Their speed increased to ten miles an hour over the
limit, but this time it was legal. 

“George!”

The cell phone that had been
annoying him a moment before rested on the pillow and leaned against his cheek.
George Mackey lay with his eyes closed, hoping the voice in the phone would
stop yelling at him soon so that he could go back to sleep.

“George! Dammit, George answer.”

George pushed his eyes open and
squinted at the light from the illuminated face of the phone. The voice was not
going to stop yelling. Reluctantly, craving the sleep he had been dragged from,
he spoke.

“What is it?” he asked through
the fog in his brain.

“George, you need to get up.”

“ What? Why…who is this?

“It’s Bob…Bob Shaklee. Start
waking yourself up, George. We’re gonna need you.”

“Bob? Why? It’s the middle of the
night, Bob…what time is it?” His voice had the pleading, groggy whine of
fatigue mixed with what, Shaklee knew, was alcohol. It was apparent that George
had self-medicated before going to sleep.

“It’s just after two in the
morning, George. Now get moving.”

“Bob, can’t this wait until
daylight?” George’s voice was pleading with fatigue.

“No, George, it can’t. The Chevy
was seen at a truck stop outside Savannah. We have a witness at the state
patrol post in Statesboro, and we need to get moving. Meet us there.”

The fog began evaporating from
his brain, and George sat upright in the bed.

“Right. I’m moving now. Won’t
take long.”

“One more thing, George. There
may be another victim. Young girl from the truck stop. She was last seen alive,
and he may not have had time to hurt her yet.”

George’s mind whirled as he shook
himself fully awake.

“Girl. Another one?”

“Yes, George. Another girl. Last
seen alive. We may be able to find the killer and maybe save the girl…if we
hurry. It’s a long shot, but…”

George cut him off. “On my way.”

He ended the call, tossing the
phone onto the nightstand with his wallet, badge, and the off-duty nine
millimeter Glock he carried when not in uniform. Grabbing a pair of semi-clean
blue jeans from a chair by the bed, he tugged them on as he hopped into the
bathroom where he washed his face in cold water and ran a comb through his
hair. Squinting into the mirror in the dim, yellow light, he shook his head
wryly acknowledging to himself that he looked exactly like what he was, a
boozed-up, middle-aged man trying to mask his condition and pull himself
together enough to take care of the business at hand.

Turning from the mirror, he went
back to the bedroom chair and grabbed a faded, short sleeved, plaid shirt that
had been under the jeans he was now wearing and hurriedly buttoned the bottom
two buttons and then shoved his feet into the boots beside the chair. Grabbing
the wallet and badge from the nightstand, he shoved them in his back pockets
and then pushed the belt clip of the Glock’s holster down over the waistband of
the jeans.

The coffee he craved would have
to wait until he was on the road. George lifted the pickup keys and an old
khaki windbreaker from a hook by the front door. Thirty seconds later the tires
of the county truck were spitting gravel as it pulled from Fel Tobin’s driveway.

Redemption for his sins was not
something George Mackey expected, but he would not be late again.

A gust of wind caused the rain to
rattle against the window behind Clay Purcell. The room’s fluorescent lights
reflected off the glass and aluminum window frame. Outside there was only
black. The storm blocked any moonlight or starlight that might have made its
way to the window.

He had been in the room for over
an hour. The trooper who had brought him in sat at a desk across from him
completing paperwork of some sort.

Not long after arriving at the
state patrol post, Clay had impatiently asked the trooper, “Am I arrested?”

The trooper had looked up from
his paperwork and said simply, “No.”

“Well what then? Can I go?”

“No.” The trooper’s tone was even
and firm.

“I’m not under arrest, and I
can’t go. What if I just decide to leave?”

“Don’t.” The trooper, the little
silver nametag on his shirt said ‘Collins’, looked up from his paperwork and
stared into Clay’s eyes. The look said it all. Clay was not leaving, and
Trooper Collins would make sure of it.

Clay just nodded and resumed
looking around the small office from his chair. What Trooper Collins did not
say was that Clay’s status at this point was unclear. At the least, he was a
possible material witness to two homicides, and they needed all the witnesses
they could find right now. At the most, well that was to be determined. He
seemed to know quite a bit about the old Chevy and its driver. Criminal files
were full of suspects who had tried to appear helpful and to be on the side of
law enforcement in order to evade detection or capture. In Clay’s case, maybe
he was telling the truth, maybe not. But Trooper Collins knew that he was not
the one to make that determination, and until the GBI investigators arrived, he
would make damn sure that Clay Purcell kept his ass in that chair.

The room that the non-arrested
Clay sat in was painted government tan over cinder blocks. The furniture was
institutional metal gray. A hallway on one side led to several small rooms.
They had to be small, Clay knew, because of the dimensions of the building he
had noted as he entered.

A door on the other side of the
room was closed. Clay wondered where it led. He had heard that the patrol had
barracks for troopers who were posted away from home and wondered if there were
more troopers, off-duty, on the other side of the door. There had been a couple
of other cruisers in the lot as they had entered the building.

As he pondered the possibility of
additional troopers sleeping in the building somewhere, a radio on a shelf
behind the desk crackled.

“Post 12, from State 115.”

Trooper Collins turned and pulled
the mike from the clip on the side of the radio.”

“Go ahead, 115.”

“Post 12, we’re thirty miles out,
ETA twenty. Is the subject standing by?”

Realizing that he was the
‘subject’, Clay looked up and into Trooper Collins’ eyes. Yep, he was still
standing by. No doubt about that.

Collins returned Clay’s look and
nodded as he spoke. “Ten-four, subject standing by.”

Clay was a little concerned about
being the ‘subject’, but he was more concerned about Lyn. It was clear the
patrol and GBI were working on something big, and it seemed that Clay had
stumbled into the middle of it. And if he was in the middle, what did that mean
for Lyn?

Trooper Collins shuffled his
papers, but he remained focused on Clay. He would have to cooperate with them.
Hell, why wouldn’t he cooperate with them. They were the Georgia Patrol and the
GBI. If there were something wrong, they would be the ones to take care of it.
They would be the ones to help Lyn. Those would be Cy’s words for sure. They
made sense but somewhere inside, Clay wanted to hurry back to his hunt.