Byron Starr - Doppelgänger

“Jesus, Bob, slow down,” Jana said, but she was ignored.

Driving at breakneck speed, the white van streaked up the dirt road. When they topped the next hill, Bob let up off the gas and grinned ear to ear, “Bingo.”

It looked like a peace officer convention: three Newton County Sheriff’s Department cars, three game warden’s vehicles, and two state trooper’s patrol cars. As they drove up and parked on the shoulder across from the house, Bob looked in his rearview and saw a long black Suburban approaching. Recognizing the vehicle, Bob smiled and said, “Look at this.”

Jana turned around. “We’re in luck. That’s from the local funeral home.”

They got out and got their gear set up. As Jana and Bob crossed the road they were met by a state trooper wearing reflective chrome sunglasses. “Sorry, this is a crime scene,” the trooper said, shifting a toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other as he spoke.

“I can see that,” Jana snapped, she turned to see if Bob was filming. He was. After giving her hair one final toss to add a little body, she put on her best concerned reporter face and asked, “Does this have anything to do with the strange murders that have been going on in the area?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

Jana started around the trooper, but he blocked her path.

The house was a good three-hundred feet off the road, but it appeared that the entire area was being considered part of the crime scene and was now off limits. Jana looked at the mailbox. It read: Dan & Lisa Chamblin. She took out a pen and pad and jotted this down.

The camera was focused in as close as it could get as a man in a suit and two of the deputies placed what appeared to be a dead body on a stretcher, then loaded the stretcher into the suburban.

“Are you getting this?” Jana asked.

“Yeah.”

The man in the suit came back and picked up something else that was under a bloody sheet. (When they later played the tape in Bob’s hotel room, they would see a hand barely visible from under the sheet. It was a severed arm.) Bob kept the camera aimed on the suburban. The man in the suit climbed in, pulled out of the drive, and headed to town, followed by one of the deputy’s cars.

Jana smiled into the camera, giving a brief narrative of the situation while the black Suburban exited stage left in the background. Once the SUV was out of sight, Jana lowered her microphone and Bob slowly panned the camera away from her and back to the crime scene.

“Sound off?” Jana asked.

“No.”

“Turn it off.”

“Okay.”

“I’m curious, Bob. Why isn’t the coroner coming to get the bodies?”

“Jana, honey,” Bob said without taking the camera from his shoulder or his eye out of the camera’s viewer, “you’re really in the boonies out here. In little towns like this they don’t have a coroner, and probably don’t know what one is. They send the bodies off somewhere to be autopsied.”

“Oh.”

“That’s good, though,” Bob continued, still filming, “Better chance of finding someone willing to talk in a coroner’s office in Houston where there’s a few dozen employees than finding someone willing to turn informant when there’s only one pathologist and an aide or two.”

Not much later, all of the other cars, except for the one belonging to the state trooper who was keeping them off the crime scene, departed. Seeing that they weren’t going to get access to the crime scene, Jana and Bob also headed back to town.

James was standing at the front door to the sheriff’s office when Bill’s patrol car pulled up. Today the sheriff was accompanied by a large man in a western-cut sports jacket.

“Good to see you, James. You saved me a phone call,” Bill said.

At first this made James think he was about to be arrested and charged with murder again. However, instead of arresting James, Bill introduced him to the huge fellow standing beside him. “James, this is Captain Sam Jones of the Texas Rangers. Sam, this is James Taylor.”

Sam and James shook hands and exchanged pleasantries.

Bill invited James into his office and told Debra to tell Emilio to come on in the office as soon as she saw him. Before they went into the office, Debra asked if anyone wanted coffee. All three answered, “Yes.” She asked how each liked their coffee and started to the squad room.

They had just taken their seats when Emilio came in trying to manage carrying four cups of coffee. “Juan Valdez, at your service,” Emilio said in a greatly exaggerated Spanish accent as he entered, causing Bill, Sam, and James to bark out a round of genuine laughter despite the severity of the situation at hand.

Emilio passed out the coffee while the laughter tapered off to chuckles.

After taking his first sip of coffee, Bill began. “All right, we’re on a short schedule here, so let’s get down to business. In about an hour and a half the hounds will be ready at the Chamblin place.” Bill glanced over to Sam to make sure his time was correct. Sam nodded and Bill continued. “The handler’s name is Larry Williams. He’ll be nominally in command there, but his hands’ll be full tryin’ to keep around a dozen dogs under control. Me and Sam are a little too old to be chasin’ dogs around in the woods, so we’ll be back here monitoring the progress. I want you,” Bill nodded at Emilio, “to be there and keep in constant contact with me and Sam.”

“Yes, sir,” Emilio said.

Sam took something that looked like a hand-held cellular phone from the inside pocket of his sports coat. “This is a satellite communications phone,” Sam said, handing the little phone to Emilio. “Cellular reception around here is terrible, but with this little baby you don’t have to worry about being in range of some tower and there’s no chance of all the lines being busy. Use it to keep us updated on what’s going on.”

“Yes, sir,” Emilio said, picking up the phone and looking it over.

Bill spoke up again. “James, I want you to go with him,” Bill said, while opening his middle desk drawer. He took out a pistol in a holster; a badge was clipped to the holster. Bill slid it across the desk. “You know how to use it?”

James recognized the gun; it had been Greg’s. The badge, of course, wasn’t. Greg had been buried wearing his badge. “Yes, sir. Me and Greg took it out to the range a few times.”

“Good. Raise your right hand.”

As soon as James and Emilio closed the door behind them, Sam turned to Bill, “You sure deputizing James is a good idea?”

“No, I’m not. The boy’s a real wildcard. I honestly don’t know what to think.”

“I still think we should just ask him to volunteer.”

“It’s a little late for that, ain’t it?” Bill sneered, but they had gone over this on the ride back from the Chamblin house and he still hadn’t changed his mind. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t want him as a volunteer. He wouldn’t have any ties to us. He could come and go as he pleased. As a deputy, I’ll have a little authority over him.”

“He was a murder suspect only a few days ago. Not to mention the fact the boy has no law enforcement experience and no training at all.”

“Come on, Sam, you know a sheriff can deputize whoever he wants.”

“It won’t look good and you know it.”

“I could care less. I want to keep this boy close just in case he proves helpful, and if he ain’t helpful, I want him close so I can keep an eye on him.”

“Bill, don’t forget you’re an elected official. This could blow up in your face. I’ll tell you what, let me deputize him into the Department of Public Safety. There’s an old law that’s still on the books that allows Rangers to deputize citizens.”