Chapter 2
Coburn. C-o-b-u-r-n. First name Lee, no known middle initial.”
Sergeant Fred Hawkins of the Tambour Police Department removed his hat and wiped sweat off his forehead. It had already gone greasy in the heat, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. Mentally he cursed the heat index of coastal Louisiana. He’d lived here all his life, but one never got used to the sultry heat, and the older he got the more he minded it.
He was in a cell phone conversation with the sheriff of neighboring Terrebonne Parish, giving him the lowdown of last night’s mass murder. “Chances are that’s an alias, but it’s the name on his employee records and all that we have to go on at present. We lifted prints off his car… Yeah, that’s the damnedest thing. You’d think he would’ve sped away from the scene, but his car is still parked in the employee lot. Maybe he thought it would be spotted too easily. Or, I guess if you go and kill seven people in cold blood, you’re not thinking logically. Best we can tell, he fled the scene on foot.”
Fred paused to take a breath. “I’ve already put his prints into the national pipeline. I’m betting something will turn up. A guy like this has gotta have priors. Whatever we get on him will be passed along, but I’m not waiting on further info, so you shouldn’t either. Start looking for him A.S.A.P. You got my fax?… Good. Make copies and pass them out to your deputies for distribution.”
While the sheriff was assuring Fred of his department’s capacity for finding men at large, Fred nodded a greeting to his twin brother, Doral, who joined him where he was standing outside his patrol car.
It was parked on the shoulder of the two-lane state highway in a sliver of shade cast by a billboard sign advertising a gentleman’s club that was located near the New Orleans airport. Sixty-five miles to the exit. The coldest drinks. The hottest women. Totally nude.
All sounded good to Fred, but he forecast that it would be a while before he could seek entertainment. Not until Lee Coburn was accounted for.
“You heard right, Sheriff. Bloodiest crime scene I’ve ever had the misfortune of investigating. Full-scale execution. Sam Marset was shot in the back of the head at close range.”
The sheriff expressed his disgust over the viciousness of the crime, then signed off with his pledge to be in touch if the murderous psycho was spotted in his parish.
“Windbag could talk the horns off a billy goat,” Fred complained to his brother as he disconnected.
Doral extended him a Styrofoam cup. “You look like you could use a coffee.”
“No time.”
“Take time.”
Impatiently Fred removed the lid from the cup and took a sip. His head jerked back in surprise.
Doral laughed. “Thought you could use a little pick-me-up, too.”
“We ain’t twins for nothing. Thanks.”
As Fred drank the liberally spiked coffee, he surveyed the line of patrol cars parked along the edge of the road. Dozens of uniformed officers from various agencies were milling around nearby, some talking on cell phones, others studying maps, most looking befuddled and intimidated by the job at hand.
“What a mess,” Doral said under his breath.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“As city manager, I came out to offer any help that I or the City of Tambour can provide.”
“As lead investigator on the case, I appreciate the city’s support,” Fred said drolly. “Now that the official bullshit is out of the way, tell me where you think he ran to.”
“You’re the cop, not me.”
“But you’re the best tracker for miles around.”
“Since Eddie was killed, maybe.”
“Well, Eddie ain’t here, so you’re it. You’re part bloodhound, too. You could find a flea on a pissant.”
“Yeah, but fleas ain’t as slippery as this guy.”
Doral had arrived dressed not as a city official, but as a hunter, fully expecting that his twin would recruit him to join the manhunt. He took off his dozer cap and fanned his face with it as he gazed toward the edge of the woods where those involved in the search were gathering.
“That slipperiness of his has got me worried.” Fred would admit that only to his brother. “We gotta catch this son of a bitch, Doral.”
“Like right effing now.”
Fred chugged the rest of his bourbon-laced coffee and tossed the empty cup onto the driver’s seat of his car. “You ready?”
“If you’re waiting on me, you’re backing up.”
The two joined the rest of the search party. As its appointed organizer, Fred gave the command. Officers fanned out and began picking their way through the tall grass toward the tree line that demarcated the dense forest. Trainers unleashed their search dogs.
They were commencing the search here because a motorist who’d been changing a flat on the side of the road late last night had seen a man running into the woods. He hadn’t thought anything about it until the mass slaying at the Royale Trucking Company warehouse was reported on the local news this morning. The estimated time of the shooting had roughly corresponded with the time he’d seen an individual—whom he couldn’t describe because he’d been too far away—disappearing into the woods on foot and in a hurry. He’d called the Tambour Police Department.
It wasn’t much for Fred and the others to go on, but since they didn’t have any other leads, here they were, trying to pick up a trail that would lead them to the alleged mass murderer, one Lee Coburn.
Doral kept his head down, studying the ground. “Is Coburn familiar with this territory?”
“Don’t know. Could know it as good as he knows the back of his hand, or could be he’s never even seen a swamp.”
“Let’s hope.”
“His employee application said his residence before Tambour was Orange, Texas. But I checked the address and it’s bogus.”
“So nobody knows for sure where he came from.”
“Nobody to ask,” Fred said dryly. “His coworkers on the loading dock are dead.”
“But he’s been in Tambour for thirteen months. He had to know somebody.”
“Nobody’s come forward.”
“Nobody would, though, would they?”
“Guess not. After last night, who’d want to claim him as a friend?”
“Bartender? Waitress? Somebody he traded with?”
“Officers are canvassing. A checker at Rouse’s who’d rung up his groceries a few times said he was pleasant enough, but definitely not a friendly sort. Said he always paid in cash. We ran his Social Security number through. No credit cards came up, no debts. No account in any town bank. He cashed his paychecks at one of those places that do that for a percentage.”
“The man didn’t want to leave a paper trail.”
“And he didn’t.”
Doral asked if Coburn’s neighbors had been interviewed.
“By me personally,” Fred replied. “Everybody in the apartment complex knew him by sight. Women thought he was attractive in that certain kind of way.”
“What certain kind of way?”
“Wished they could fuck him, but considered him bad news.”
“That’s a ‘way’?”
“Of course that’s a ‘way.’ ”
“Who told you that?”
“It’s just something I know.” He nudged his twin in the ribs. “ ’Course I understand women better than you do.”
“Piss up my other leg.”
They shared a chuckle, then Fred turned serious again. “Men I talked to said they knew better than to mess with Coburn, which wasn’t a problem, because he came and went without even a nod for anybody.”
“Girlfriends?”
“None that anybody knew of.”
“Boyfriends?”
“None that anybody knew of.”
“You search his apartment?”
“Thoroughly. It’s a one-room efficiency on the east side of town, and not a damn thing in it to give us a clue. Work clothes in the closet. Chicken pot pies in the freezer. The man lived like a monk. One thumbed copy of Sports Illustrated on the coffee table. A TV, but no cable hookup. Nothing personal in the whole damn place. No notepad, calendar, address book. Zilch.”
“Computer?”
“No.”
“What about his phone?”
Fred had found a cell phone at the murder scene and had determined that it didn’t belong to any of the bullet-riddled bodies. “Recent calls, one to that lousy Chinese food place that delivers in town, and one came in to him from a telemarketer.”
“That’s it? Two calls?”
“In thirty-six hours.”
“Well, damn.” Doral swatted at a biting fly.
“We’re checking out the other calls in his log. See who the numbers belong to. But right now, we know nothing about Lee Coburn except that he’s out here somewhere, and that we’re gonna catch shit if we don’t find him.” Lowering his voice, Fred added, “And I’d just as soon return him in a body bag as in handcuffs. Best thing for us? We’d find his lifeless body floating in a bayou.”
“Townsfolk wouldn’t complain. Marset was highly thought of. Practically the freaking prince of Tambour.”
Sam Marset had been the owner of the Royale Trucking Company, president of the Rotary Club, an elder at St. Boniface Catholic Church, an Eagle Scout, a Mason. He had chaired various boards and was usually grand marshal of the town’s Mardi Gras parade. He had been a pillar of the community whom folks had admired and liked.
He was now a corpse with a bullet hole in his head, and, as if that one hadn’t been enough to kill him, another had been fired into his chest for extra measure. The other six shooting victims probably wouldn’t be missed much, but Marset’s murder had warranted a televised press conference earlier that morning. It had been covered by numerous community newspapers from the coastal region of the state, and all of the major New Orleans television stations were represented.
Fred had presided, flanked at the microphone by city officials, including his twin. The New Orleans P.D. had loaned Tambour police a sketch artist, who’d rendered a drawing of Coburn based on descriptions provided by neighbors: Caucasian male around six feet three inches tall, average weight, athletic build, black hair, blue eyes, thirty-four years of age according to his employee records.
Fred had concluded the press conference by filling television screens with the drawing and warning locals that Coburn was believed still to be in the area and should be considered armed and dangerous.
“You laid it on pretty thick,” Doral said now, referring to Fred’s closing remarks. “No matter how slippery Lee Coburn is, everybody’s going to be after his hide. I don’t think he has a prayer of escaping the area.”
Fred looked at his brother and raised one eyebrow. “You mean that honestly, or is that wishful thinking?”
Before Doral could reply, Fred’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID and smiled across at his brother. “Tom VanAllen. FBI to the rescue.”