A Biloxi Christmas: A Novella (The Biloxi Series) Read online

  “Just stay where you are,” Jack stood still, kept the gun level, and his posture commanded authority. “Don't move. Got it?”

  The scrawny man wiped his hands across his face, mixing more blood with dirt and tears. He nodded, and his feet stayed rooted to the deck where he stood, but his hands dropped and bounced a quick rhythm on his thighs.

  Kate's brain scrambled to put together what had happened here. Blood pooled under the chest and shoulders of the body. From her angle, Kate couldn't see the face. If this thin, fidgety man had killed the larger man, those girls saw it happen.

  “He ain't gonna hurt nobody,” someone behind her said. “He's just trying to help.”

  “I understand.” Jack glanced back at the person that had spoken, then refocused on the man on the boat. The gun stayed trained on the man. “Sir,” his voice had gone flat, emotionless. “I need you to keep your hands where I can see them and come up here with me.”

  “He didn’t do it.” A small voice in the crowd spoke out.

  Kate instinctively knew it was one of the girls. It was the voice, small and shaky. She looked back at the girls. The crowd had parted slightly when the girl spoke up.

  “He was just helping us get out.” The same voice, only this time Kate could see the girl’s face.

  She recognized that face. The girl was dressed in a pair of cut-off shorts and a tank top. She shivered visibly in the cool evening air.

  Kate gasped when realization hit her. That was Julianna Parker. She was related to Allen Thompson, a financial crimes detective. They were related by marriage only, but the girl was still part of his family.

  “Jack,” Kate said softly, putting her hand on his shoulder.

  Jack glanced down at her, and Kate gestured for him to come closer. He did, keeping his eyes on the man climbing from the boat. She leaned up on her tip toes and whispered into his ear. “One of those girls is Julianna Parker, the girl from Allen Thompson’s family that’s missing.”

  The muscles around the corners of Jack’s eyes creased as anger gripped him. Finally, the man he was watching stepped off the boat. “Okay, stop.” Jack said.

  “Kate.” Jack inclined his head toward the man.

  Kate instinctively understood what Jack wanted and she quickly checked the man for weapons.

  “He’s clean.”

  Jack lowered his gun. “You.” he pointed to the man that had just climbed off the boat. “Sit. Right here. And don’t even think about moving.”

  The kid did as he was told and sat, with his back to the boat, up against a piling. His hands landed on his thighs and his fingers started tapping rhythmically as soon as the rest of his body stilled.

  Jack moved so he could look at the girls and keep the kid from the boat in his sight. He didn’t put his gun away, but kept it ready at his side. In the distance, sirens sounded, heading in their direction.

  “Did someone call the police?” He asked the group as he studied each of the girls in turn.

  “I did.” A heavy set woman who looked to be in her forties said. She had bouffant hair and wore a gaudy Christmas sweater that was so small it snugged against her girth and left skin showing around her muffin top.

  They’re so young. Kate’s heart ached. All of the girls were probably in their late teens, but in their current state, she would have guessed them to be much younger.

  “Girls,” Jack spoke softly, the cop-voice he’d used on the kid on the boat replaced by that of a worried parent.

  When they were all looking at him, he asked, “Are you all okay? Is anyone hurt?”

  None of the girls spoke. They all stared at Jack with wide eyes as tears flowed down their faces. Kate couldn’t see anything more than minor injuries, but the thought of the wounds that didn’t show made her want to cry too.

  TWO

  “What's your name?” Jack directed the question to the scrawny man sitting on the dock.

  “Chad.” The man was so thin he looked malnourished. Dark circles made his eyes appear sunken into his face. His fingers still drummed a fast cadence on his thighs. Jack wondered if he was on something.

  Chad glanced at the girls, but Jack couldn’t tell what he was thinking. The kid was jumpy and nervous. It could be guilt. Or he could be concerned that he had been caught, but Jack didn’t think that was the case.

  “Chad,” Jack kept his voice even, exculpatory. “I have a question and I need you to tell me the truth, you understand? This is very important.”

  The kid’s eyes grew wide and for a second Jack thought he might cry, but then he took a deep breath and seemed to pull it together. He nodded his head in rhythm with his fingers.

  “Good.” Jack caught Chad’s gaze and held it. “Are you on something?”

  Chad’s nodding changed direction so that he shook his head from side to side. After three shakes, he stopped.

  “Man, I need you to tell me the truth,” Jack’s tone became that of a friend, trying to be understanding. “I’m not interested in busting you. I just need to know how clearly you’re thinking.” Because if you’re stoned, you won’t be of any help at all.

  “I’m not.” The young man refused to look at Jack. “Abbie…” his voice cracked on the name. “Abbie and me would smoke a little at night. We was supposed to get together tonight, but I haven’t had anything yet. I was hoping he would have some. We trade off, depending on who can buy the stuff.”

  “Good,” Jack was relieved. The kid might be strung out, but at least he wasn’t stoned beyond comprehension. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  Chad shook his head, his unkempt, greasy hair shaking back and forth. “I dunno. I just came back from the parade, you know? We,” he leaned his head toward the crowd and Jack assumed he meant someone specific. He wasn't sure who, but suspected it was probably the person that had spoken up about Chad's innocence.

  “We got this shrimp boat. And we decorate it every year. Lights and everything. So we came back, and I was coming to see Abbie. I...” Chad hesitated. “I hang with him, like I said. So I was coming to see him.” Chad looked away. “That’s how I found him,” a shudder shook the kid so hard his teeth clattered together.

  “Thank you, Chad. That helps.” Jack wanted to keep him talking. Once the on-duty officer arrived, he wouldn't get a chance to talk to him again for a while. “Tell me exactly what you saw when you got here.” Jack wished he had something to make notes on, but he'd left his notebook in his truck. This was supposed to be a romantic night with Kate. He’d planned…

  Those plans didn’t matter now. Obviously the timing was wrong. Sometimes it felt like it might never be right.

  “I saw Abbie, just like he is. I tried to help him, but he wouldn't say nothing. Didn't move.” Chad's voice broke. “He's dead.” The scrawny man sobbed once, and then he shook his head, greasy hair flying. “I didn't do this.”

  Jack heard the plea in Chad's voice. “It's okay, Chad. I believe you, but I really need your help here. Did you see anyone else on the pier when you came up?”

  Chad shook his head and swallowed air as if he were drowning. “I shook him. That's all. The only people I seen are all standing right there.” His hands paused in their tapping and he pointed at the small group of people behind Kate. “We all just come in from the parade, though. We was together.”

  “What about the girls?” Jack watched Chad’s reaction as he asked the question. “How did you know they were here?”

  The kid’s face brightened. “I helped ‘em. That taller one, there,” he pointed to Julianna. “She started screaming soon as I stepped onto the boat.” Chad let out a nervous laugh. “Between her and Abbie, I almost fell off the boat.”

  Jack nodded. He’d learned to remain quiet during a pause and wait for the other person to speak. By nature, people don’t like silence, especially when they’re nervous or anxious. They’ll talk just to fill the silence.

  “I shook Abbie, but he didn’t respond. I tried to check for his heartbeat, but I don’t know if I did it
right,” Chad’s gaze traveled around the people, up and down the dock, and finally landed on his own grease-stained hands. “As soon as I saw him, I knowed he was dead. All I could do was help them girls.”

  “Roe, what are you doing?”

  Jack looked up. He'd been so focused on keeping Chad talking that he hadn’t noticed Bob Sinclair walking down the pier. During the reorganization, Sinclair had been promoted to Patrol Detective. He must have been nearby to be the first on the scene tonight.

  “I'm containing your scene,” he said to Sinclair.

  Jack walked Sinclair the patrol detective through what he’d seen and what he’d learned from Chad. Then, Jack looked for Kate. The girls had found spots to sit on the dock, and she knelt near them. From where he stood, Jack couldn’t hear her words, but he could tell her tone was soothing and reassuring.

  That’s why I love her. Jack had learned more about Kate over the past few months.

  They worked on the remodel of the house he’d bought for him and Lisa. Jack watched Kate sometimes when she didn’t know he was looking. He loved to see her in jeans and a flannel shirt, hair in a ponytail and paint smudged on her face.

  Kate had no idea how beautiful she was to him. She took his breath away. It was an ordinary moment like that when Jack realized he was in love with her. They had been working on the kitchen remodel, trying to finish it up before the holidays kicked in. The next day he’d gone and ordered an engagement ring. He knew. Kate was the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

  Now, if he could just work up the courage to tell her.

  THREE

  By the time Jack finished briefing Sinclair, the crime scene techs had arrived. Sinclair’s attention turned to them. As he orchestrated setting up a perimeter, getting the photographer started, and starting a crime scene log, Jack moved to kneel by Kate and the girls.

  “Girls, can you tell me what happened? Why you're here?” Jack's voice was gentle, and he tried to stay slightly outside of the circle the girls and Kate had formed. He didn’t know what those girls had been through, and he didn’t want to threaten them in any way.

  Julianna was the first to speak up. “He was going to take us somewhere. I don't know where.”

  Jack looked at her closely. It was definitely Julianna, but the brightness of her personality that had shined, even in the pictures Jack saw, was gone now. That brightness had been replaced by eyes that were flat and dark and circled by deep shadows. Her face was streaked with dirt and dried blood. And it looked like she’d had her lip busted at one point. The cut was a few days old, though. It had scabbed over and started to heal.

  Her voice was soft, but solid. Jack was surprised. He'd expected her to sound scared. To be overwhelmed.

  She continued. “He kept telling us to shut up. That if we ruined his payday, he would kill us right here. I still tried to scream. I was hoping someone would hear us.” She took a deep breath. “They didn't. He put us down there. Chained us together.”

  Jack noticed the chains that still held them all in close proximity. They’d been so huddled together since he arrived on the scene that he hadn’t noticed the restraints before.

  “He had just come down there when we heard someone on the deck,” Julianna shuddered. “He yelled at us to sit down and be quiet, and then he left and closed the door.”

  “Did you see what happened?” Jack hoped she could identify the killer, though he thought whomever had done this probably deserved a medal, not a life sentence. Or death row.

  He couldn't say what the sentence would be when they found the killer. He only knew they would, but he wasn’t sure the killer hadn’t done the world a favor. Dale Abernathy was a particularly nasty kind of criminal; the kind that preyed on young girls for the payday. Jack wouldn’t be upset if they never found out who killed him.

  Julianna shook her head. “I heard him talking. Then I heard two pops. Then nothing until that guy,” she tipped her head toward Chad, who was sitting at the end of the pier with another police officer, “showed up and started yelling.”

  Jack and Kate talked with the girls for a few more minutes but they didn’t learn anything more that was useful. Jack also knew those girls would face many more questions before they even got to talk to their families, and he didn’t want to add to their distress.

  He placed his hand on Kate’s shoulder to let her know that he was leaving, and then he went to stand on the perimeter of the action to watch what was going on. It was likely that he and Kate would end up working this case, but officially, they were only witnesses right now, and he didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes.

  He leaned against a piling and slipped his hands into his pockets. His right hand immediately closed around the ring. Tonight had not gone at all as he’d planned. He’d wanted to tell Kate he loved her. To ask her to marry him.

  They had only been together for a short while as a couple, but he knew she was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He never thought he would ever find someone that he wanted to share a life with after the death of his wife and daughter, but Kate had surprised him. She was there when he least expected it, and she made him feel like a whole man again. He wanted a future with her.

  But what if she doesn’t feel the same way?

  That was the question that held him back. What if? He’d come close to telling her he loved her after they docked the boat. It had been such a perfect night. Then he planned to propose to her at dinner at Mary Mahoney’s. That ‘what if’ took over his brain when he opened his mouth, and he couldn’t say the words. He’d chickened out. Again.

  It wasn’t the first time. Every opportunity he’d had to tell her he loved her, the timing seemed to be wrong. He bought the ring three weeks ago and had been carrying it in his pocket ever since, waiting for the right moment. A moment that never seemed to come.

  “Roe.” Sinclair interrupted his train of thought. “We found something you might want to see.” He waved Jack over to where he stood on the deck of the boat with a crime scene tech.

  FOUR

  Frankie moved his truck a few blocks away and then walked back to the docks. He sat back in the shadows of a wheel house two piers over from Abernathy’s boat watching. A tall, thin man called out to Abernathy as he walked down the pier from the boat that had just docked. The old shrimper was decked out with multi-colored lights strung up the wings, which were locked in place upright. The nets had been festooned with Christmas ornaments that glittered and glowed, and the entire deck of the boat was trimmed in a garish lighted garland, punctuated every few feet with magnolia flowers and leaves.

  Magnolias. What did they have to do with Christmas? Frankie grew up in the South and he still didn’t understand the obsession with magnolias at Christmas. The trees bloomed in the spring. Winter wasn’t even the right season for them.

  The man had called out to Abernathy and then started yelling when he found the body. Frankie watched as several people came running down the dock. More shouts. Frankie grimaced. What was wrong with these idiots? That man - Abernathy - was the worst kind of criminal. He traded on human suffering. He had planned to sell those girls for money. So some pedophile could do whatever he pleased with them.

  The thought made Frankie's stomach turn. They were girls but they didn't deserve that.

  Frankie appreciated a good woman. Or he would if he could find one. Ever since his wife left him for another man, all he'd been able to find were cheap women who knew nothing about being a good wife. Maybe there weren’t any good women any more. His momma had raised him better than to think you could sell a girl into slavery. Women had their place, and one of these days he’d find the right one to take her place at his feet.

  The shouts on the dock grew more frantic. He'd found the girls. Now the skinny man would understand. When his crying continued, Frankie wanted to walk over and put two slugs between his eyes. He couldn’t understand why anyone would grieve over that worm. That sniveling man making all the noise was no bett
er than Abernathy if he couldn’t see what a service Abernathy’s death was. He deserved no better a fate.

  Frankie's fight to control the urge to kill the skinny sniveling man was interrupted when a man and a woman jogged into the group. They looked different than the small crowd that had gathered. Cleaner. Better educated, if a person could look that way. Even from where he was seated, in this shadowed space, he could see the difference.

  The man looked almost familiar. He was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt covered with an open jacket. It was the way he held himself. Something about it was familiar.

  When Frankie saw him show something to the people gathered near Abernathy’s boat, recognition dawned on him. That was Jack Roe. Frankie would cuss, if he were a cussing man, but his momma had taught him better than that.

  She would say, “Son, only uneducated, stupid people cuss because they don’t know how to make a point. If you want people to recognize your intelligence, don’t use the words of the ignorant.” That was usually followed by a solid whomp on the head with a wooden spoon because of a foul word that had slipped out of his mouth in front of her. Sometimes, she would make him chew on Dial soap. To this day, he couldn’t even stand the smell of that stuff.

  Frankie had met Jack Roe only once, but he knew Roe's reputation. He was a bulldog. Now, through a random coincidence, he was involved. He wouldn't let this go. No matter how depraved Abernathy had been. No matter how much the scum had deserved to die. Frankie had done the world a favor. More than that, he'd done a friend a favor.

  He pulled his phone out to make a call, watching as Roe talked first to the crowd, and then leaned down to the woman that had run up with him. She was pretty. Blonde hair. Slim. Well built. Nice curves in all the right places. He wondered what color her eyes were.

  As he watched, the woman took control of the crowd. She held herself with an authority that made Frankie think she would be confident, but there was something else about her, too. A vulnerability that he sensed more than he saw. Like she tried to appear to be one of those independent women that didn't think she needed a man, but inside she was insecure and in need of validation. Women like that were a challenge to him. They just needed the right man. Him. He was the right man, and he’d proved it in the past.