John Miller - Too Far Gone

“No! The media will just make it into a sideshow!” LePointe snarled.

“They’ll jump all over it,” Alexa agreed. “The possibility of a Sibby Danielson connection to Gary’s disappearance will be one hell of a trigger, especially since they were already looking into Sibby’s whereabouts. They’d had a tip that she’d been released from River Run,” she said for LePointe’s benefit. “I assumed it was because it’s an anniversary of the murders. I think we should use them to get word out on Gary.”

“About time,” Casey said.

LePointe’s worried eyes shifted back and forth between Alexa and his niece. Alexa was sure he was seeing the horror of film crews camped outside his high gate, the unpleasant questions, scores of investigative reporters rooting around in his business like a pack of wild pigs.

“The police report said that Kenneth Decell rescued Casey from Sibby that night,” Alexa said. “Your private investigator, who conveniently was here when the postman delivered this letter.”

Alexa felt Casey’s eyes on her, but she kept hers on LePointe, watching every facial tic and eye movement, every gesture.

“Is that some sort of accusation?” LePointe demanded. Clearly Dr. LePointe was a stranger to being accused of anything. “He helps me and the trusts with a variety of matters, and he has been searching for Gary West too. And yes, Sibhon injured him, so perhaps I have felt some degree of responsibility toward him. But he is a good and thorough investigator.”

“I’m not accusing anybody of anything, yet. I’m just stating what I believe to be the facts, and wondering how things may be connected.”

LePointe’s eyes shifted as his mind glimpsed solid ground and stepped toward it. “Do I need to remind you that you are a guest, invited in by us, a consultant who is supposed to help us find Gary?”

“I am an FBI agent trying to assist the local authorities in finding Gary West, and in the course of that investigation I have uncovered information that may figure into the disappearance of Mr. West.”

“And how was it that you ended up at River Run interviewing Dr. Whitfield about Sibhon Danielson?”

Alexa pounced. “I didn’t say that I had been at River Run or mention that I spoke to anyone there. How did you know that?”

Dr. LePointe’s silence was deafening, so she went on.

“The media asked for the official police files pertaining to the homicides, which Detective Manseur pulled to see if there was something there that might be helpful. I thought the media investigating a rumor that Sibby Danielson had been released was too coincidental. I accompanied Detective Manseur to River Run. Nurse Fugate’s name came up, and I discovered, in the course of trying to contact her to discuss Sibhon, that Nurse Fugate had been murdered and that in all likelihood Ms. Danielson had been staying in her home. All that I’ve been trying to do since early this morning is to find Mr. West, and I intend to do exactly that. Unfortunately, this letter’s appearance and your pronouncement of its authenticity to Jackson Evans has cost us precious time. As of now, it appears to me that you may be trying to mislead the authorities and impede their investigation. Now I’m going to kick this into high gear, no matter how the media chooses to deal with it. It appears it may open some personal and professional unpleasantness for you, which I can honestly say doesn’t bother me.”

“There’s a great deal at stake,” LePointe said. “A very great deal. The foundations’ reputations are paramount. If we are careful about what we say publicly, no-”

“I don’t care about that!” Casey snapped. “I don’t care about what anybody says or thinks, and why you do is a mystery. All anybody gives a flip about is how much money they can get from you. They couldn’t care less about our illustrious reputation. Damn you! I’ll give away every penny I own to anybody who will give Gary back to me. If he isn’t back today, I’m going to drop to my knees and beg on television. And if he doesn’t come home, I’ll spend every cent I have to find those responsible and see them punished.”

“If Gary can be found, he will be,” Alexa said.

“Casey, show some backbone!” LePointe growled. “You will not do any such thing. You will not let anyone see you begging!”

Casey pointed her finger at her uncle. “I never realized what a horrible and disgusting person you truly are. I wish to God I could hate you. If I find out you or Decell had anything to do with Gary…I’ll see you in prison.” That said, she rushed from the room.

After collecting the envelopes containing the evidence, Alexa followed Casey, who had taken Deana from the maid and was striding for the front door, while her uncle’s booming voice-ordering her to come back this very moment-rang hollowly through the house.

The name his mother gave him was Elvis Cash Orbison Brown, but nobody had called him that since he was a kid, and so he thought of himself, as everybody else did, as Grub. He wasn’t sure how old he was, but he reckoned it at nineteen or twenty years, give or take. He knew his birthday was in the winter, and since it could be Thanksgiving, he had decided on that day. Someone asked him for the exact day he was born, because they said Thanksgiving was always on the third Thursday in November. Grub was still trying to figure out why they’d laughed at him, though he believed it had something to do with him having his birthday on a big holiday.

By the time his mother passed-dying from a cottonmouth bite that she got while walking home along the bayou late one night from the Big Time Tavern-Grub had already been working odd jobs around Moody’s Bait amp; Gas a good while, to earn the pocket change that his mother had taken from him as soon as he got home. Well, she stopped that when she died. He wasn’t glad she died, because he’d liked the way she cooked for him and stuff, but it was the first opportunity he’d had to keep what he earned.

Once she had told him that she’d give him a dollar if he could jump over his own shadow, and when the men in the store had laughed at him about the Thanksgiving birth date, he had told them that very thing. It silenced them and they didn’t laugh at him for a while. And Grub wondered if any of the men at the store could jump over their own shadows, because he had tried and tried till he was winded, but it was too hard. He could only jump all around it, so he’d given up.

He hadn’t gone to school long because of how the other children held their noses and laughed at him and the teachers decided he wasn’t able to learn the stupid crap they wanted to teach him. Even though they’d acted like they liked him, he’d known the teachers didn’t. His mama didn’t care one way or the other, but the few times she’d read the notes they’d sent home pinned to his clothes, she’d gone to the school drunk and raised almighty hell with them. After the last visit, they stopped talking to him, much less pinning notes on his shirt. His mama was most happy walking back and forth from the bar along Bayou Berant where she’d spent her time.

Although he wasn’t book smart, Grub knew enough to hide when he saw Leland Ticholet pulling up to the dock. Leland didn’t just get mad at you and forget it later. Leland had never given Grub any money, because he didn’t look for help from anybody, and you didn’t want to talk to him unless he talked to you first. Grub had broken that rule that morning trying to be friendly and make conversation, but it had gone wrong because Leland was a mean shit-head and he had given Grub offense. Leland didn’t want any friends and, the way he acted, he wasn’t about to get any either.

Grub knew what Mr. Moody had told the game wardens a few days back was a big lie. He’d told them that he didn’t know if Leland sold alligators, and nobody with good sense wanted to know bad enough to go near Leland’s camp. Mr. Moody told them nobody he was aware of bought alligator meat or skins, but Grub knew Moody bought them-not only from Leland, but off of lots of other people, too, only not at the store. He did that at a shack he used for alligator business.