John Miller - Too Far Gone

“I’ll just have to find another one,” he said. “Somewhere else.”

“Did Evans call you earlier tonight?”

“He wanted a briefing, so I told him what happened out there. He asked me what we found in the cabin.”

“Did he mention the notebook?”

“He didn’t mention it specifically. But he wanted me to give him the list of items we found. After the first time I told him, he asked if that was all and if I was sure. Then he asked me for the list again.”

“Did he talk to Kennedy?”

“Not that I know of. The perps had the notebook before Gary was taken, so why did they go to the trouble to kidnap him?” Manseur said. “There’s something about this that doesn’t quite add up.”

“Grace obviously wanted Gary dead and out of her way.”

Manseur reached into a small evidence envelope and took out a picture of Grace standing beside a short man with a neatly trimmed beard. “This was in the suitcase,” he told her.

Alexa nodded. “Doc,” she said.

Manseur lifted one last evidence bag and gave it to her. Inside was a receipt for a motel room.

Sibhon. Sibby. Sibhon.

Dark in my eyes.

Where I am.

Cut the fog.

Cut the fog.

I am Sibby.

Here I am in the dark.

Don’t forget.

Never quit.

Tell the lies.

Find them where they hide.

Say the poems.

Say the poems.

Find the poems.

Stop saying I did it.

Tell a lie.

Stick a needle

In Sibby’s eye.

Fucker man, fucker man.

Put the chopper in my hand.

Windy rain. Windy rain.

The stinky nurse is here again.

Lie bitch, lie bitch.

I know the trues.

I never lose.

I still can choose.

The baby comes, the liars go.

The smiling cop deserves a blow.

At 5:30 A.M., Manseur and Alexa arrived at the Crescent Inn on Chef Mentaur Highway, a long line of rooms with their doors painted fire-engine red to match the plastic shutters that had been screwed into the stucco beside the windows. The sad and shabby place was an illustration of deferred maintenance and a haven for crack whores on their way down.

At the sound of a buzzer activated by opening the door, the manager came out from the adjoining room. A rumpled daybed was visible through the partially open door. The middle-aged woman wore a crooked smile, which, thanks to the smeared lipstick, caused it to appear to be sliding off her face. Her red hair with inch-long brown roots was flat on one side and her eyes bleary from the alcohol-a rancid bourbon reek wafted from her-and the interrupted sleep. Before Manseur even raised his badge, the woman frowned in recognition of police authority.

“I don’t know what all goes on in the rooms,” she said automatically. “I just collect the money and hand out the keys.”

“Room 113 occupied?” Manseur asked.

The manager made a show of opening a registration ledger and pointing to an entry. “Four days ago. A week paid in advance. Cash.”

Manseur looked at the entry the woman’s finger was resting on, reading it upside down before she turned the book to him. “John Hancock? Stands out among all the Smiths and Joneses,” he quipped.

“You remember him?” Alexa asked.

“How could I forget an educated and polite young man such as he is? Quality individuals are not exactly in plentiful supply around here.”

“Quality?”

“The vocabulary of a man of culture and breeding.”

“Is this him?” Manseur showed her the photo of their John Doe standing with Grace Smythe.

“Don’t tell me he’s in trouble? Don’t tell me. He some kind of what, grifter? They can fool you-the good ones. Thank God he paid in advance.”

“Was he alone?”

“He had a woman in his truck. She didn’t come in. I saw her through the window.”

“Describe her,” Alexa said.

“She’s the one in that picture. I saw her pretty good, even though I didn’t go out and visit with her. He paid cash in advance for ten days, and that’s as far as my interest went into his business.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Day before yesterday morning, I think.”

“What was he driving?”

“An old green truck, which was not what you’d think he would drive. My father had one for his dry-cleaning business when I was a little girl.”

“A panel truck?” Alexa asked.

“Dingy-looking. I figured he was planning to fix it up like people do with old shitty vehicles like that. They have the body fixed, you know, paint them, and it’s no longer junkyard trash to a collector.”

“I’ll need the room key,” Manseur said.

“I’m not gonna stop you. If anything kinky or illegal is going on in there, it’s no skin off my butt.”

Manseur and Alexa went to the door of room 113, Doc’s lair, and stood on either side of it, guns drawn. The extortionist was wounded, but if he was in there, he’d be armed. Inside, the television was blaring hurricane warnings. Manseur slipped the key into the lock and turned it slowly, pushed the door open fast, and rushed in, with Alexa right behind him.

The overpowering stench of human excrement mixed with sweat and stale urine filled the airless room. Alexa hit the light switch and they stared at a large woman dressed in a nurse’s uniform, lying motionless on the horribly soiled sheets. The uniform had been rolled up to expose her naked body from the waist down. Her wrists and ankles had been duct-taped together. Two bands of duct tape had been looped around her head to cover both her mouth and her eyes. Whoever had taped her eyes and mouth had also pinned her long white hair to her head in the process. Two cargo-securing straps had been looped around the bed, and the ratchets tightened to hold her bulk in place.

“Jesus Christ,” Alexa murmured, shoving her Glock into her purse.

“I think it’s more likely Sibby Danielson,” Manseur contradicted flatly. “Why’s she in that uniform?”

Frowning, Alexa moved around the bed and reached to feel for a pulse. The trussed woman jerked from her touch like she’d been touched with a live wire and began thrashing violently. Due to the duct tape over her mouth, her protestations were a steady humming.

“She’s alive?” Manseur asked, surprised.

EMS arrived fifteen minutes later. Sibby Danielson had to be sedated before being freed by EMS and strapped to a gurney to be taken to Charity Hospital for a physical evaluation. Then she’d be relocated to the maximum-security mental ward to undergo observation.

The motel room held no obvious clues, and Alexa doubted the techs would find any meaningful fingerprints in the hundreds they would likely collect there. It was clear the maids didn’t bother to wipe the counters between hourly visitors.

The police plane that was using a receiver to search the lakes and swampy areas between New Orleans and Baton Rouge a grid at a time hadn’t picked up the signal from the GPS by nine A.M.

Every available police officer in the region was pulling traffic duty, while the nonstop tourist-driven party on Bourbon Street was still going strong. Katrina wouldn’t even notice that she was blowing intoxicated revelers into Mississippi.

From Charity Hospital, Alexa had followed Manseur back to headquarters and she’d collapsed immediately on the couch in his office and fallen into a fitful sleep. Her dreams were filled with Grace Smythe, Casey West, LePointe, and a menacing giant. When she awoke, two hours later, she was alone. She got up, found the restroom, used the toilet, and washed her hands and her face.

Back in Manseur’s office, she poured a cup of coffee from the pot Manseur had made and stared at the stacks of phone logs they had left on the conference table the afternoon before. Manseur had highlighted the numbers of interest, and she flipped through them again, looking for something in them that would make everything fit together.