Eyes of the Predator (25 page)

“Pickham County 301, this is
State 115.”

George reached for his radio. “Go
ahead, 115.”

“George, you need to come over
here. The StarLite Motel, across the street.”

“On my way.” George walked out
without another word to the large, manager woman.

For her part, manager woman just
shrugged and flipped the channel on the old nineteen inch television in the
office to ‘Judge Judy’. She was glad to see the law go. Wasn’t good for
business.

Leon Tills stood quietly by the
young girl. His large hands roamed restlessly in and out of his pockets while
his partner, Bob Sully, talked to the Savannah PD officer. Lyn, standing next
to Leon, was dwarfed by the huge man. She appeared even smaller and frailer,
while Leon looked even larger.

Ever since they had encountered
the young girl, they had been trying to decide what to do with her. Leon, for
his part, was given the task of looking out for her, which meant “standing
watch” over her. His hulking presence was sure to discourage any other
potential problems like Henry from approaching Lyn. He accepted this task
willingly. Although he and Bob were partners, Bob was the thinker and talker,
Leon was the doer. Leon was okay with that. He was a damned good truck driver,
but Bob was the planner, always thinking ahead. He was better at talking to
people, so Leon was comfortable letting him take care of that sort of thing.

Right now that meant that Bob
talked to the police officer while Leon stood protectively over Lyn. They stood
alone about ten feet away from Bob and the officer. The thin, hard looking man
that had kicked Henry’s ass hadn’t come in with them, although he had said that
he would. Nobody missed him though, and no one was going to talk about the
little incident in the truck lot, especially Henry.

Leon thought about the hard man
that had beaten old Henry. No doubt, Henry had deserved it. If he hadn’t
stepped in, there was no telling what Henry might have done to the young girl.
But there was something strange about him, Leon thought. Even though Henry was after
the girl, they had felt that they needed to protect Henry from the man trying
to save her. Leon didn’t have words to explain it. The thin hard man had a
meanness about him. You could see it in the way he had attacked Henry. Leon was
glad the man had been there to make sure the girl wasn’t abused by Henry, but
he figured that if he and Bob hadn’t come along, he might have killed Henry.

Leon shrugged to himself. Maybe
that was what Henry deserved. Leon had a daughter of his own, and he didn’t
know what he would do if someone tried to abuse her the way Henry would have
done the young girl. Still, he knew that he and Bob would have had their hands
full stopping Henry’s assailant if he had turned on them while he was kicking
the dog shit out of Henry.

Leon looked over at Bob and the
officer as Bob raised his voice.

“What!” Bob said, incredulously.

“Sorry, sir. That’s how it is.”

“But look at her,” Bob said.
“She’s a child.”

“Nope. She’s eighteen,” the
officer replied. “Not a thing I can do. She can go where she wants and do what
she wants, ‘long as it’s legal. Hanging out in the truck stop isn’t against the
law.”

“But she almost got raped.”

“You know that for a fact?” the
officer asked, eyes narrowing.

“Well no, not for a fact, but if
this other fella hadn’t come along and stopped it, there was this trucker that
was gonna put her in his truck and I know it wasn’t gonna be good for her.”

“Look, I’m on your side. Where’s
this other fella? Where’s the trucker that was going to rape her?”

“Well they’re gone now, at least
I haven’t seen them around here for a while,” Bob replied, knowing that it was
over and done as far as Henry and his attacker were concerned.

“Well,” the officer continued,
“No suspects and no complaint from the girl equals no crime. Really, nothing I
can do buddy.”

Bob took a deep breath and looked
down at the floor.

“Miss,” the officer said to Lyn
making his point “is there anything I can do for you? Get some help, call
someone, get you a ride somewhere? Contact your parents? Family? Anything?”

Lyn looked up. She hadn’t spoken
since the officer had arrived and asked her name and what had happened. She had
said that nothing was wrong anymore and that the two truckers were just trying
to help her, but she was fine now.

“I’m fine, sir,” she said. “Really,
I’ll be okay. I’m just waiting for a friend to pick me up. These men helped me,
but I’m okay now.”

The Savannah PD officer looked at
Bob and Leon and shrugged. “Sorry guys. Wish there was something I could do. I
know it’s hard. There’s hundreds like her out on the roads. Just not much we
can do about it.”

The officer turned and walked
away. Bob looked at Leon and then looked at the floor. Leon, the stalwart, just
looked back and stood protectively near Lyn.

“You know, we are going to have
to leave in an hour or so. Have to get our loads down the road,” Bob said to
Lyn.

“I know. Thank you for helping
me.”

Bob shook his head fighting down
his frustration.

“You don’t understand. You’ll be
alone here again. Something could happen. There might not be anyone here to
help.” Bob looked around to demonstrate to Lyn that she really would be alone.
“This is a big place,” he said motioning with his hands, “and bad things can
happen. I mean you saw that, right?”

Lyn looked down and shrugged.

“I have a friend. He is going to
come pick me up. I’ll be fine until then.”

The two truck drivers looked at
each other. Leon’s face bore a look of supreme sadness; Bob’s showed
frustration.

Finally, Bob shrugged and said,
“All right then. We’ll be here for a couple more hours anyway. If you need
anything, come get us. We’ll be getting our rigs weighed and serviced.”

He turned and walked away, but
then stopped and looked back at Lyn and said firmly, “You take care. Okay? Call
that friend and have him come get you.”

Lyn smiled slightly and nodded
before looking back down at the floor.

Leon watched Bob’s back retreat
across the truck stop. He put a large, heavy hand on Lyn’s shoulder for a
moment, and they both stared at the floor. Then he withdrew his hand and walked
slowly away following Bob. He didn’t want to look back at her. Not knowing what
to say or what to do, he could only walk away.

Gunning the pickup across the
road, George spotted Shaklee’s car and roared to a stop behind it, kicking up a
cloud of dust. The car was parked at the end of the row of rooms away from the
office. The door was open, and an older man in overalls was standing outside.
The door to the room next door was open also. Bob came out of that room as
George walked up.

“Take a look, George. See
anything familiar?”

Standing in the doorway of the
room, George looked around briefly. It only took a second.

“The bedspread. It’s the same.”

“Yep,” Shaklee affirmed. “The
very same as the one the girl was wrapped in. Come next door.”

Walking into the next room, the
one at the end of the building, George saw what else had Bob Shaklee so
excited.

“The bedspread is gone.”

“Yes, it is George.”

“That means that this could be
the scene of the murder.”

“I’d say that’s exactly what it
means. I have the crime scene techs on the way. Let’s look around and keep
everyone away until they get here. Then we’re going to have a conversation with
our friend here.” He motioned to the man in overalls. “He says he doesn’t
remember anything from last night. Busy you know.”

“Really?” George turned to the
man. “Well, come have a seat in the back of my truck. Maybe you can think for a
while and come up with something we might want to hear.” George took him by the
arm and led him to the pickup’s rear, crew cab door behind the prisoner screen.
Giving him a quick pat down, he opened the door, and the man climbed in. George
slammed the door and turned away. Let him stew for a while. There wouldn’t be
much business at the office as long as the lot was full of state and county vehicles,
and there were more on the way.

George began looking carefully
around the parking lot in front of the room door. Bob worked inside carefully
noting every item in the room and peering closely at objects, furnishings, and
flooring looking for any small bits of evidence. Unless the killer was a
magician, chances are they would find something. Despite his precautions, there
would be something he had missed in his efforts to leave no evidence behind.

It took George only a minute to
spot the duct tape. It lay in the dusty gravel where a car would have been
parked if someone were staying in the room. Kneeling down, he turned it over
with his pen. There were three layers, about the length to go around the mouth
and head of a girl. It had been cut, not pulled off or unwrapped. What appeared
to be a small amount of dried blood stained the edge of the tape by the cut
mark. The killer had probably cut the tape quickly and roughly without worrying
about nicking the girl in the process. George had no doubt that the knife used
was the same one that had plunged deep into Mr. Sims and had then inflicted the
small tissue cuts on the girl’s body.

Near the tape were two white
plastic tie wraps of the type used by electricians to wrap wires and cables.
They had also been cut. Squatting in the dust, staring at the tie wraps and
tape, George closed his eyes and saw the scene as it would have looked the
night before. The girl bound, mouth taped, still alive, and not hurt much. She
would have been forced to walk into the room. Did she know she would never walk
out? The thought must have been burning in her mind, desperately trying to find
a way to stay alive. Hate for the animal that had done this boiled up inside.
Every piece of evidence pointed to a person who caused pain willingly and with
purpose. The pain was as much a reason for the murders as anything else.

He looked up and called to the
room. “Bob, you have an evidence bag?’

“Yeah, George. What do you have?”
Shaklee stopped in the doorway, looking at the spot where George knelt. “Good.
Should be able to get the victim’s DNA from the tape, probably the perp’s too.”

George didn’t move. Shaklee
walked to his car to retrieve the evidence bags and a camera to photograph the
items in place before placing them in the bags.

“We’ve made some progress,
George. We’re a lot closer than we were this morning.”

George looked up. “Lot of
progress, but we still don’t have a suspect. And even with his DNA, we won’t
know who it is unless he’s got a record and it’s in the data base. And the DNA
test could take weeks. We don’t have weeks, Bob.”

“Yeah, but we also have a
description of him, the ring, and the car. That’s a lot. We’ll find the
bastard.” He tried to sound more confident than he really was.

At the mention of the car, Bob
could see George’s head drop slightly. “Want to tell me about the car, George?”

George stood up. “You talk to
Ronnie?”

“No. I was there when he gave
that bullshit story to the sheriff about you checking your notes to confirm the
description. Haven’t known you long, but information like that…well, I don’t
think you would have had to check any notepad about that.”

“Well, you are correct, Agent
Shaklee.” George looked up at the sky and took a deep breath. “I was asleep.”

“Okay. So how does that tie in?”

“The car woke me up as it passed,
not too far from the Ridley’s place. I saw it, but I didn’t do anything. Didn’t
stop it, didn’t get a tag number, nothing. Just pulled my jacket around me and
dozed off again.”

“Well, George, you wouldn’t have
known.”

“Stop. Now you sound like Ronnie
Kupman. We had a murder in the county. That doesn’t happen often in Pickham.
The car was on a road that really doesn’t get traveled much at night. It was a
car that I didn’t recognize as a local. It had an out of state tag. I couldn’t
tell which state, but it wasn’t a Georgia tag. You would think I would have at
least followed the car to see where they went or how they were driving. I
didn’t. What I did do was nothing. I slept. Ronnie said I was checking the
notes to cover me. He knows the sheriff would love to get rid of me on charges
like that.”

“I see. So now you’re going to
spend the rest of your career beating yourself up.”

“What career? I’m working this
case and then hanging it up. Turn myself in to the sheriff when we get this
done.”

“Really?” Shaklee said
questioningly. “And give up Ronnie Kupman who covered for you. Seems a little
unfair to him.”

George had already thought about
that. “I’m going to tell the sheriff that the story about checking my notes was
my idea. Ronnie didn’t know any better. He just stays quiet. It will work out.”

Shaklee shook his head slowly.
“George, I get it. Any of us would feel terrible about it. I also think your
contribution to the case outweighs any error in judgment you might have made.
We wouldn’t be anywhere near as far along without you. Do what you want,
there’s nothing I can say to talk you out of it, I know, but it seems to me
that it would be a pretty big shame to lose what you bring to the table. The
way I see it, if your guilt stays with you, so be it. Maybe you
should
feel guilty every day the rest of your life. Maybe that’s the price you pay to
keep doing what you do best. I guess you could confess and cleanse your soul
and be drummed out of the county. You might feel better, and the citizens of
Pickham County might lose one of their best, maybe the
best
. Or, you
could hold it in, take the pain and guilt, and keep doing what you are supposed
to do. Maybe that’s your penance. It’s harder, that’s for sure.”