Dead By Morning

Chapter 14

Maleah didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or just slap Derek in the mouth. During the process of rolling off her, he managed to unsnap her holster and remove her Glock pistol before she could. He aimed and fired. The bullet hit the tin sign hanging over the front door of the Paulk house. The pinging sound rang out over the dog’s incessant barking.

“Unless you want the next one aimed directly at you, then don’t fire that damn shotgun again,” Derek hollered at the shooter.

“When did you damn bill collectors start carrying guns?” the man called out to Derek, then shouted at his barking mixed-breed dog. “Shut up, damn it, Pork Chop.”

“We aren’t bill collectors,” Maleah said, as she grabbed for her gun still in Derek’s clutch.

“We’re from the Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency.” Derek handed Maleah the Glock and whispered, “Don’t holster that thing yet. You never know what Jethro there might do.”

Jethro? If they hadn’t been in such a deadly serious situation, she would laugh. Derek undoubtedly meant Jethro Bodine, the big dumb character from the Beverly Hillbillies TV series of long ago.

“Are you folks lost?” the shooter asked.

“We’re looking for Jeri Paulk,” Maleah said as she rose to her feet, pistol in hand.

“That’s my wife.” The man lowered his shotgun, the muzzle pointed toward the porch floor. “I’m Lonny Paulk. What y’all want with Jeri?”

Derek stood, brushed the dirt and grass from his slacks and took a stand at Maleah’s side. “We’re looking for her sister, Cindy Dobbins. We think she might be in danger.”

Lonny stepped out farther onto the porch and came over to the edge of the steps, shotgun still pointing down, and motioned to them. “Y’all come on up closer.” He twisted his head and yelled over his shoulder, “Jeri, get your fat ass out here. There’s some folks here who want to talk to you about that fuck-up sister of yours. Seems she’s gotten herself into more trouble.”

As they approached Lonny, Maleah noted several things all at once. He was as hairy as a grizzly, his greasy brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and he emitted an unpleasant body odor. The man definitely needed, at the very least, a haircut and a bath.

Maleah paused when she reached the foot of the steps. Derek halted directly behind her.

“Who the hell’s looking for Cindy?” A short, obese woman who was almost as broad as she was wide—about five feet—came out onto the porch. The first thing Maleah noticed was the woman’s hair. It looked like bright yellow straw. She wore an oversized moo-moo in some hideous floral design of purple, hot pink, and turquoise that on a taller person would have hit them mid-calf. But on Jeri, the hem reached her ankles and floated over her small, broad feet and bright orange toenails.

“Are you Jeri Paulk?” Derek asked. “And is Cindy Dobbins, also known as Cindy Di Blasi, your sister?”

“Yeah, I’m Jeri and I got a sister named Cindy. What’s this all about?” Jeri waddled across the porch to her husband’s side.

“We’re from the Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency,” Maleah told them. “We’re investigating a series of murders and we have reason to believe your sister Cindy is in danger. We’re trying to locate her to warn her. We want to offer her our agency’s protection.”

“Who is it that you two are working for?” Jeri sized up Derek and apparently liked what she saw because she licked her lips and smiled at him.

Once again, if not for the gravity of the situation, Maleah would have laughed. “We’re agents for the Powell Private—”

“I heard that part,” Jeri said. “But who hired you?”

“Several murder victims were connected to our agency,” Derek explained. “Our employer assigned us to investigate.”

“How’s my sister involved?”

“The killer that we’re tracking is a copycat killer.” Maleah watched for a reaction and when Jeri looked as if she understood, Maleah continued. “He’s copying the style of a murderer known as the Carver. Your sister Cindy has been visiting the Carver, who is incarcerated in the Georgia State Prison. We want to question her.”

“You said she might be in danger,” Lonny said. “How?”

Derek leaned over and whispered to Maleah, “Cindy’s here.”

Maleah didn’t know how Derek knew or why he was so sure, but she had learned not to question his instincts, which for the most part had proven to be infallible.

“Jerome Browning, aka the Carver, has had three visitors in the past year, one was a writer interviewing him for a book about his life, the other was his lawyer and the third person was Cindy.” Maleah paused, giving Jeri and Lonny time to digest the info. “Browning’s lawyer was murdered earlier today. We have reason to believe that Cindy could be next.”

Silence.

Lonny turned to his wife. “I told you not to let her stay here. That woman is nothing but bad news. Every goddamn time she’s around, trouble follows her.”

Jeri planted her fat little hands on her ample hips. “She’s my sister. What did you want me to do, tell her she can’t come to me when she needs family? Lord knows I’ve put up with enough shit from that bunch of heathens you come from.”

“Are you saying that Cindy is here?” Maleah asked.

A petite figure appeared in the doorway and stood behind the screen door.

“Cindy?” Maleah asked. “Are you Cindy Dobbins?”

The woman pushed open the door, came outside and moved past her sister and brother-in-law. “I’m Cindy Dobbins.” She turned to Jeri. “You and Lonny go on back inside. I want to talk to these people alone.”

“Are you sure?” Jeri asked Cindy.

Cindy nodded.

Jeri and Lonny went inside, but left the front door open.

“Y’all come on up here and take a seat.” Cindy motioned for them to join her on the porch.

Maleah holstered her Glock and then walked up the steps, Derek directly behind her. Cindy sat in the dilapidated recliner. Maleah’s first instinct was to wipe off the metal chair before sitting, but she didn’t. When she sat, Derek came over and stood behind her. The yellow bug light shining down from the bare bulb in the ceiling cast a blaring amber glow across the porch

“Is Wyman Scudder really dead?” Cindy asked.

Maleah studied the slender, petite woman, who certainly looked older than thirty-five. But she wasn’t a badlooking woman, just old before her time. Hard living could do that to a person. Her short, curly hair had been dyed a dark burgundy red which made her pale face seem colorless. Without makeup and wearing jeans and a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, she didn’t look like a prostitute, just a rode-hard-and-put-away-wet middle-aged country gal.

“Yes, Wyman Scudder is dead,” Maleah said. “We’re pretty sure he was murdered.”

“How did you meet Mr. Scudder?” Derek asked.

“Look, before I answer any of your questions, I need to know that I’m not going to get in any trouble with the law.” Cindy glanced from Maleah to Derek. “I got myself involved in something I wish I hadn’t. But I didn’t have no idea . . . I just needed the money. I’ve been out of the business for a while, you know. I’ve tried waitressing and working in the chicken plant and all sorts of odd jobs. I got a kid, see, and it ain’t right that she’s in foster care. The only way I can get her back is . . .” Cindy swallowed her tears.

“You have a daughter?” Maleah leaned forward toward Cindy. “What’s her name?”

“Patsy Lynn. I named her after my mama.”

“How old is Patsy Lynn?”

“She’ll be eleven this October.”

Maleah looked Cindy square in the eye. “Cindy, my name is Maleah Perdue, and I promise you that Derek—” she glanced at him “—this is Derek Lawrence. I promise you that we will do whatever we can to protect you and that includes protection from the police.”

Cindy took a deep breath. “He paid me five thousand dollars. All I had to do was visit Jerome Browning at the Georgia State Prison and exchange a few letters and a few phone calls.”

“Who paid you?” Derek asked. “Who hired you?”

“Wyman Scudder. I thought you knew.”

“Are you saying that Wyman Scudder hired you and he’s the one who paid you five thousand dollars?” Maleah asked. “You never met anyone else, were never contacted by anyone else?”

Cindy shook her head. “Nobody else. Just Mr. Scudder.”

“Then you never met a man named Albert Durham?” Derek asked.

Cindy didn’t respond immediately. Maleah sensed that the woman was giving her reply a great deal of thought.

“Cindy?” Maleah prompted.

“I never met him. But . . . Jerome talked about him. You know, when I’d go visit him. The first time I went for a visit, he said a man named Albert Durham was going to write a book about him and make him even more famous than he already was. Jerome liked the idea of the whole world knowing who he was and what he’d done.”

“But you never met Durham?” Derek said.

Cindy shook her head.

“Can you tell us exactly why Wyman Scudder hired you?” Derek asked.

“Wyman was my lawyer, a few years back. We . . . uh . . . sort of had a thing. You know. For a while. I hired him to help me try to keep my daughter out of foster care. I couldn’t afford to pay him.” Cindy hung her head.

“When did Scudder first contact you about visiting Jerome Browning?” Maleah asked.

“About five months ago. He said he had a client who needed a friend, a female friend, to visit him every once in a while. I thought why not? I mean for five thousand, I’ll do just about anything.”

“What did you and Jerome talk about?” Derek asked.

“Everything. Nothing. Mostly about him. He liked to brag. And sometimes, he’d give me messages for Wyman.”

“What sort of messages?” Maleah asked.

“Nothing really. Just things like, ‘tell Wyman to come see me’ or ‘ask Wyman to tell Mr. Durham that we need to talk.’ Stuff like that.”

“You exchanged letters with Browning and spoke to him on the phone,” Maleah said. “Do you still have those letters?”

“No, I ain’t got them.” She shook her head. “I turned each one over to Wyman as soon as I got it. They weren’t really for me no how. That’s what Wyman told me.”

Maleah and Derek glanced at each other.

“What about the letters you wrote Jerome?” Maleah asked.

“I didn’t write them letters. Wyman gave them to me, all typed out real neat like, and told me to write them out in my own handwriting and then mail them off to Jerome.”

“Do you remember anything about what was said in those letters?” Derek asked.

“Not really. I didn’t care. Weren’t nothing to me one way or the other.”

“I understand,” Maleah told her. “But if you could remember something, anything, about the content of those letters, it might help us.”

“Would it help you find the man who killed Wyman?”

“Yes,” she replied. “And the person who has already killed five innocent people, using the same method that Jerome Browning used in his Carver murders. If you would come with us, let the Powell Agency give you around-the-clock protection, you could work with us to prevent this person from killing again.”

“But how can I help you? I really don’t know nothing.”

“You probably know a lot more than you realize,” Derek said. “The more you think about your visits with Browning and about the telephone conversations and the letters you exchanged with him, the more you might remember.”

“You think so?”

Derek smiled. Cindy responded the way all women did to Derek’s charm.

“You help us and we’ll help you. Tell us what you want and we’ll do our best to see that you get it.”

Cindy studied Derek as if trying to decide whether or not she could trust him. She nodded. “Okay. You’ve got a deal, but I need to talk things over with my sister first and then pack a bag.” Cindy got up and headed for the front door, then paused and asked, “I can let my sister know where I’ll be and I’ll be able to talk to her whenever I want, right?”

“Absolutely,” Derek assured her.

As soon as Cindy disappeared inside the house, Derek and Maleah got up and walked out into the yard.

“Do you think she really can’t remember anything or she’s playing us to see what she can get out of us?” Maleah nodded toward the house.

“A little of both. I’m sure it didn’t escape your notice that Cindy isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

Maleah grunted. “I noticed, and apparently it runs in the family.”

“I figure if Griff can find a way to get Cindy’s daughter out of foster care and if we can promise to return her daughter to her, she’ll tell us everything she knows. And I can guarantee you that she knows more than she’s told us.”

When he had left Ardsley Park, he had fully intended to check into a downtown Savannah hotel and get a good night’s sleep. He had planned to kill Saxon Chappelle’s cute little sixteen-year-old niece tomorrow evening. But as fate would have it, he had decided to stop for a bite to eat and had carried his Netbook into the coffee shop café. While drinking an after-dinner cappuccino, he had removed a keychain flash-drive from his pocket, hoping it contained some useful information. After killing Wyman Scudder, he had downloaded the files from the man’s computer before wiping Scudder’s computer clean. It would take an expert a good while to restore those files, if it was even possible.

Just as he had hoped, Scudder had kept a current address and phone number for Cindy “Di Blasi” Dobbins.

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

He laughed. He had put off killing Poppy Chappelle, but not without a good reason. He wanted her alone when he killed her. No witnesses. No collateral damage. Following in the Carver’s footsteps as closely as possible didn’t allow him much leeway.

He wasn’t sure exactly how much Cindy knew, but if she knew anything at all that might help the police or the Powell Agency, she was a liability, just as Wyman Scudder had been. He no longer needed either of them, just as he no longer needed Jerome Browning. But Browning didn’t pose a threat. He had used the convicted killer for his own purposes. And as smart as Browning was, his ego had prevented him from realizing the complete truth. However, by now, the Carver knew that Albert Durham would never write Jerome Browning’s life story.

He could have waited until tomorrow to hunt down Cindy. Maybe he should have. But the moment he read the info from Scudder’s file on Cindy, he realized that she was probably hiding out at her sister’s place in Apple Orchard, South Carolina, and he had gotten an overwhelming urge to get the job done as soon as possible. And that’s why he had driven straight from Savannah, a nearly three-hour trip. That’s why he had set up about 250 yards into the woods, just far enough in so that he couldn’t be seen from across the road at Jeri and Lonny Paulk’s house. He had parked his car at a safe distance, but close enough to make a quick getaway. Hitting a small target, the size of a human head, at between 200 and 300 yards required the type of skill that he had acquired years ago and had used numerous times. He never became attached to a specific weapon, neither pistols nor rifles nor knives; instead he used whatever he considered perfect for the individual job. Tonight he had brought along a recent purchase—an M24 SWS.

One clean shot was all he needed. One shot directly into the kill zone where the bullet would sever the brainstem and cause instantaneous death.

He hadn’t been there more than six or seven minutes now, watching and waiting for the right moment to strike. How long had the Powell agents been talking to Cindy? Lifting his Bushnell binoculars, he zeroed in on the Paulks’ front porch. Cindy had gone back into the house and the Powell agents were standing in the front yard talking. Just what had Cindy told them? She couldn’t have told them something of any real importance because her knowledge was limited. And with her out of the way, the agents would have no way to verify what, if anything, she’d told them.

Minutes ticked by, four, six, ten. The Powell agents hadn’t left, which meant they were waiting for something or someone. During the wait, he had gone over his plan, preparing for several different scenarios, one that included having to kill the Powell agents as well as Cindy’s sister and brother-in-law. Having to kill that many people would complicate the situation, make it messy. He preferred neat loose ends, all tied up, no usable evidence left behind. He always wore thin leather gloves that had been handmade in Italy, thus leaving no fingerprints. Whenever there was a possibility of leaving footprints, he made sure he wore inexpensive shoes that could be picked up at Wal-Mart. He prided himself on not making mistakes. Mistakes could be deadly. And he intended to live to a ripe old age.

When the front door opened, it was Lonny Paulk who came out onto the porch, not Cindy Dobbins. This time he wasn’t carrying a shotgun.

“Cindy’ll be out soon,” Lonny told Maleah and Derek. “The wife ain’t too happy about her going off with you two. She says we don’t know y’all, don’t know if we can trust either of you. But Cindy says she trusts you, so I reckon that ought to be good enough.”

“We’ll make sure Cindy is kept safe,” Maleah assured Lonny. “She can call her sister every day if she’d like. We’re not taking her prisoner.”

“She says that the lawyer she hooked up with a while back got himself whacked and that the guy who killed him just might come after her next,” Lonny said. “Any chance that me and the Mrs. might be in any danger?”

“I don’t think you and Jeri have to worry. The killer has no reason to harm either of you, especially once Cindy is no longer staying here with y’all.”

Lonny turned halfway around and hollered into the house, “You two women stop your yakking and get out here. You’re keeping these folks waiting.”

When she glanced his way, Maleah noted the smile in Derek’s eyes although he hadn’t changed his expression in any way.

“Hold your horses,” Jeri told her husband as she held the screen door open for her sister. “I needed time to say my good-byes to Cindy.”

“I’m ready,” Cindy said as she followed Jeri onto the porch.

Derek moved forward, reached up and took Cindy’s small, seen-better-days suitcase while Jeri and Cindy walked down the steps and into the yard, the two women arm-in-arm. Maleah opened the SUV’s driver’s side door, slid behind the wheel and impatiently strummed her fingertips on the steering wheel. After placing the suitcase in the back of the Equinox, Derek stood outside the SUV. The sisters hugged each other and shed a few tears. Cindy released Jeri and walked toward Derek, who had opened the door for her and waited to help her up and into the vehicle.

Suddenly, halfway to the SUV, Cindy dropped like a stone falling through water and instantly hit the ground. The crack of rifle fire pierced the bucolic stillness just as the bullet entered Cindy’s head. The sound was familiar in a rural area where hunting was a major pastime. But Maleah quickly realized that this nighttime shooter’s prey had been human and that Cindy Dobbins had been killed by a skilled rifleman.

Jeri screamed at the top of her lungs.

Lonny mumbled, “What the hell?”

After reaching inside the SUV to grab the Beretta Maleah kept under the seat as a backup weapon, Derek got to Cindy first and checked for a pulse. He looked up at Maleah, who rushed in behind him, and shook his head, then rose to his feet.

“Call nine-one-one,” Maleah yelled as she flipped open her holster, pulled out her Glock, and headed across the country road.

Derek caught up with her just as she entered the woods. “Hold up,” he told her. “We don’t know where this guy is. It could take us a while to find him, if we can find him. Slow down and think this thing through.”

“Damn it, Derek, while we’re thinking, he could be getting away.”

As if on cue, a car started somewhere nearby.

Without hesitation, they both rushed from the edge of the wooded area and ran up the road toward the sound of the vehicle’s screeching departure. The red taillights winked mockingly at them as the car sped off in the opposite direction.

Maleah cursed under her breath as she turned and raced back up the road toward her SUV still parked in the Paulks’ driveway.

“She’s dead,” Jeri wailed. “My sister’s dead.”

“Shot clean through the head,” Lonny said, a look of shock in his eyes.

“Call 911, damn it,” Maleah told them. “Get the sheriff out here.” She jumped in the Equinox and revved the motor.

Derek barely got the passenger’s side door open before Maleah started backing up the SUV. By the time he managed to jump inside the Equinox, she had the vehicle headed up the road, back toward the main highway.