Poisoned Soil: A Supernatural Thriller (33 page)

Chapter 27

Lonnie arrived at his desk in the sheriff’s office at 9:30 a.m. As he got out of his car, the humidity in the warm October air reminded him of a mission to New Orleans he had taken with members of his church immediately after hurricane Katrina. The moist air was tropical and smothered the mountains like a giant, wet towel.

“Mornin’, Lucy,” Lonnie said as he walked through the door.

“Mornin’, Lonnie,” she said. “Feels like we’re on a tropical island don’t it?”

“Yep. Don’t go breaking out your bathing suit though, we got work to do,” Lonnie said with a smile to his executive assistant. As he walked into his office and sat his Starbucks coffee cup on his desk, Lucy walked in to brief the sheriff on the day’s schedule.

The D.A.R.E. poster hung prominently behind the sheriff’s desk, taking fully half of the available wall space. Behind the desk in one corner was the Georgia state flag. In the other was the American flag. The desk itself was tidy, as usual. Pens in their holder, an empty inbox, a full outbox that Lucy would now empty. Other than that, lots of empty space for Lonnie to spread out whatever project he might work on.

“What do we got today, Lucy?”

“Nuttin’ you can’t handle, Sheriff. This package came in via FedEx a few minutes ago from Facebook out in California. And you got that luncheon at noon with the senior class at Rabun County High. Gonna tell ’em not to drink and drive, Lonnie? Or are you just gonna tell ’em to mind what ma says?”

Lonnie looked up to see Lucy’s sarcastic grin. She emptied the outbox, turned, and walked away without giving him a chance to respond, even if he wanted to. She knew he didn’t.

With precision, Lonnie sliced through the end of the 9 x 12 envelope with his letter opener, being as mindful as he would in examining evidence at a crime scene. He pulled out a thick stack of white paper that was stapled in the upper left corner. He estimated that there were probably sixty to eighty pages in the stack as he stared at the cover page.

CONFIDENTIAL

The
information in this file is confidential material provided by Facebook solely in response to an officially sanctioned subpoena, court order, search warrant or other legal information request. The intended recipient is requested to handle the provided material in accordance with their organization’s protocol for handling sensitive or confidential information.

“Good grief,” Lonnie uttered to himself. “This’ll take all day.”

He flipped the pages, thumbing through all eight sheets of the subpoena itself before seeing the first page with any data worth looking at.

Neoprint for profile 149230525 taken on 2012-10-09 for dates (2012-07-01 thru 2012-10-08)

He read the details aloud as his eyes scrolled down the page. “Let’s see...Name, Jesse Simmons. Recent Login IP address, email addresses, member since January 2008, born November 11, 1989, screenname is mountainman, relationship status is...none.”

As Lonnie flipped the page he saw deputy Freeman Bishop walk through his door.

“Mornin’, Freeman,” Lonnie said, and returned to the document.

“Mornin’, Sheriff. Just heard that the National Hurricane Center said the hurricane has strengthened and may actually make landfall near Savannah,” Freeman said.

Lonnie dropped the picture of Jesse and looked up.

“Savannah? They haven’t taken a major hurricane since --.”

“1890s is what they said on the TV,” Freeman said. “At least not a major one.”

“What are they saying about this one?” Lonnie asked.

“Saying it’s looking like it’s gonna make landfall as at least a Category 4,” Freeman said.

“At least?” Lonnie asked as he rose, thinking he must be missing something.

“Yep, maybe even a five,” Freeman said. “They’re already asking folks to evacuate the islands down there. That’s a long way from here, Sheriff, but I figure a lot of folks will want to volunteer to help out if needed.”

“Did you happen to see what path they’re projecting the storm to travel?” Lonnie asked.

“Well, their map shows it hittin’ the Georgia coast tomorrow late afternoon or early evening, then heading up toward north Georgia or western North Carolina early Friday morning. Course they say there’s still a lot of leeway.”

Lonnie stood stoically visualizing the storm’s impact, both on the coast and on the mountains if the storm was really as strong as Freeman was saying.

“Them weather guys are always saying that, ain’t they?” Freeman asked.

“Saying what?”

“That there’s a lot of leeway. Lots of variables. That way they can be right no matter what way the wind blows.”

“I reckon so,” Lonnie said.

Freeman stood opposite Lonnie and looked down at his desk, seeing the picture of Jesse.

“Holy sh—” Freeman started and stopped, remembering that Sheriff Lonnie was also Pastor Lonnie. “What is that?” Freeman pointed to the picture.

“That, Mr. Bishop, is one of the missing boys we’re looking for, Jesse Simmons.”

“Yeah, but
where
is that? I mean, look at the size of that boar!” Freeman said. He invited himself around the desk to get a better look.

“Son of a–” Freeman began before biting down on his lip. “You don’t wanna go messin’ with them, Sheriff. I was huntin’ ’em one time, them wild boars, and if you get yourself cornered they’ll flat out kill ya.”

Lonnie looked at Freeman’s face. He was lost in the photograph the way a World War II veteran relives the horrors of Normandy when presented with an old black and white photograph.

“I been on some of them hunts,” Freeman said. “Was on one when one of the boars, just like that ’un, killed a fella.”

“What? Where was that?” Lonnie asked. He waited for Freeman to answer, but he remained lost in the photo.

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Lonnie said. Freeman looked up and and narrowed his eyes with an intensity Lonnie hadn’t seen from him before.

“You better believe it!” Freeman said. “Arkansas. Five of us was on a huntin’ trip ’bout twenty years ago. 1993 I think. We’s all chasing after some pigs that had been ripping up cornfields. The fella that got killed was older...‘bout 65 I reckon, and he owned that cornfield we were huntin’. Don’t remember his first name but they called him Hopkins, which I sorta figure was his last name.”

Freeman paused and reflected on the story. Lonnie stood and listened as he reached for his coffee. “We seen this big ’ol boar in his cornfield. I reckon he was 400 pounds if he was an ounce,” Freeman continued. “I shot him with my 30.06 from about a hundred yards, hit him in the shoulder. Knocked him about a foot to the right then he took off a runnin’.”

Freeman grabbed the sheriff’s right arm and looked him in the eye. “I’m tellin’ ya that was a dag blam 150 grain bullet and it just flat out bounced off his shield!”

“Shield?” Lonnie asked.

Freeman loosened his grip and remembered where he was. “Them boars grow these thick shields, Sheriff, ’bout a two inch plate of cartilage over and around their shoulders. That way the tusks from the other boars don’t bother them none. Them shields can flat out stop an arrow, Sheriff, and if that boar’s big and mean enough, it can stop a 30.06!”

Lonnie sat down and brought the coffee before his lips, but didn’t drink it. He looked at Freeman’s intensity and waited for him to finish his story.

“Anyway, I hit this thing and it took off into the cornfield. We had a fella with a huntin’ dog and he sent it off after the boar. Then he and another fella chased after the dog while this fella Hopkins, me, and one other stayed back. After a couple of minutes we hear this scream from the cornfield and see that dog come running back. Then his owner’s coming behind with that other fella helping, limping and bleeding badly. That boar tore up that fella’s shin.”

Lonnie didn’t feel he really had the time for the long, drawn-out story, but it was too good to miss. He leaned back in his chair and looked up at Freeman.

“It was starting to get a little dark so we all tried to doctor up that fella’s leg. All of us, that is, ’cept Hopkins. That old coot took off in the cornfield after that boar, all by hisself. Heck, we didn’t even know he’s gone ’til we heard this god-awful scream for help. Me and one other fella ran out to find him and he’s just laying there, blood gushing out from just above his knee.”

“We called the ambulance and it didn’t take ’em more than ten minutes to get there. But that boar had hit a major artery and that old fella bled to death right there in his own cornfield.”

Lonnie’s mouth hung open as he heard the story. “Well I’ll be,” was all that Lonnie could muster.

“It took us two more days but we found that boar,” Freeman said. “Killed him myself. And let me tell you, Sheriff, I stood twenty yards away and watched him die. He was good and dead for half an hour before I had the courage to walk over and check. This thing had two six-inch rippers...bottom tusks if you wanna call ’em that, coming out of his lower jaw plate, and two more six-inch tusks coming out the upper side of his mouth. They use them upper tusks to sharpen the lower ones and let me tell you, I ran my finger against it and them things is razor sharp! I felt that beast’s thick, bristly hair and looked in them swirling dark eyes.”

Freeman stood, shaking his head. “That thing, dead or not, nearly scared the life out of me. And he looked a lot like that thing right there!” Freeman put his finger emphatically down on the Facebook picture of Jesse standing behind Eduardo just after he had killed him.

“Where was that picture taken, Sheriff?”

“Don’t know, Freeman. This here’s a picture from the missing boy’s Facebook account. They—you know what Facebook is?”

Freeman looked at Lonnie and exhaled as if he had just been asked if he knew where the ground was. “I ain’t exactly no retard, Sheriff. I do got some kids, I’ll thank you to remember.”

Lonnie chuckled to himself, but was guarded to not let Freeman see. “Right,” Lonnie continued. “Anyway, Facebook sent us this printout of his personal account and this picture here caught my attention. Where does it look like to you Freeman?”

Freeman leaned over and examined the black and white photocopy closely. “Heck, Sheriff, that could be most anywhere. Some thick woods it looks like but that could be from Alabama to Maine.”

“Yeah,” Lonnie admitted. “Not much in that picture to help us except the front end of that old pickup behind him. What’s that look like to you Freeman? An old Chevy? C10 maybe?

Freeman looked again. “No, that ain’t no C10 sheriff. That’s an old F-100. Probably ’bout a 1965 model.” Freeman’s eyes fell to the text underneath the photo:

Created Saturday, September 1, 2012 11:24:19 EST. Comment posted Tuesday September 4, 2012 16:24:43 EST by WildPanther: “Glad we killed that sucker. R U coming back to work?”

“Who’s this other fella, Sheriff? This WildPanther?”

“That, Freeman, is what we need to find out.”

Lucy rushed through the door holding a piece of paper. “Sheriff, this just came in for you,” she said as Lonnie and Freeman kept looking at the picture. “From the U.S. Coast Guard.”

Lonnie looked up and grabbed the note and began reading it as he thanked her.

INTERNATIONAL

U.S. Coast Guard Responds to Medical Emergency in Bahamas

Wednesday October 17, 2012

Late on October 16, Operations Bahamas Turks and Caicos (OPBAT) operations center responded to an urgent request for emergency assistance from a doctor on San Salvador Island, Bahamas. The 7th Coast Guard District, headquartered in Miami, and Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater immediately approved the medical evacuation. An OPBAT helicopter is in route to San Salvador where the patient, Rose McBride, along with her husband and a doctor, will be flown to the Miami International Airport. A medical team is prepared to transport the patient to Jackson Memorial Hospital to receive treatment in the intensive care unit. Due to the impact of Hurricane Isabel, all phone lines are down in the Bahamas. The patient’s husband, John McBride, requests that you notify the patient’s sister, one Angelica Savage of 13 Hale Ridge Road, Clayton, Georgia of this emergency as she is caring for the patient’s daughters.

Lonnie looked at his watch and saw that it was already 10:30 a.m. He took the Coast Guard note, grabbed the Facebook package, and headed for the door. “Lucy, I have to run out to Hale Ridge real quick with this Coast Guard message so I can get back to the high school on time.”

***

Tammy stepped off of Hal’s front porch and walked slowly past the ashes of the prior night’s campfire. Hal had gone off hunting again and evidently had taken Rex with him. One of the hens came over and pecked at the ground in front of Tammy. She continued walking out of the camp, hoping to find Ozzie. Since his encounter with the coyotes the week before, Ozzie had distanced himself from everyone. Hal, Rex and even her. She didn’t know where he had been staying or sleeping, and suspected he had been sleeping during the day since she often heard him at night rustling in leaves from the ridge above, or chasing an animal off if something, anything, came to close to the camp.