Markers (Joshua Stokes Mysteries Book 3) (2 page)

Three

Rescue

They all heard the soft whimper-like noises coming from the backseat area of the now righted vehicle; however, with the roof mashed flat over the passenger compartment, they could not see inside it. Suddenly, Joshua had an idea. He ran and picked up the bumper jack, then let the pickup down until it fit the opening of the driver’s door they had already pried open. He then began to jack. With each pump of the jack handle, the roof slowly began to rise upward. The sound of groaning metal overpowered the soft, human noises they had been hearing. Joshua jacked until the runner ran out of shaft height on the jack bar. His deputies had been trying to peer into the vehicle as he jacked the space open.

If the car had been a larger vehicle, he believed it would have been an easier rescue. On the other hand, they may not even be performing a rescue, thought Joshua. Larger vehicle roofs are harder to smash flat than the smaller coupes they were manufacturing nowadays. The 1969 Chevy Camaro they just uprighted, was a five passenger, two-door vehicle. The passenger compartment and roof area was small. The vehicle flipping so many times was what had flattened the roof.

“Good Lord, Sheriff, I think there’s a baby in there!” exclaimed Deputy Davis.

“I think so, too” said Calvert.

“Yeah, I see the side of one of those child seats for babies,” Cook told them.

“Damn’it!” was all Joshua could say. He turned and walked toward the ambulance that was waiting because he had told them to hang on when they first heard the noises coming from the vehicle.

“Is she still unconscious,” Joshua snapped to the attendant.

“No, sir, she’s coming around a little.”

“I need to talk to her,” he said. The attendant moved out of the way so that Joshua could climb into the back of the ambulance.

The ambulance crew had cleaned the blood from the woman and he had his first good look at her. She was a nice looking girl but her eyes showed her fear and pain.

“Ma’am, do you have a child in the backseat of that car,” Joshua asked gruffly. The woman nodded her head.

“Then why in the hell were you driving so goddamned fast that your car flipped that many times before coming to a stop? And,” he almost yelled “You was playing the radio so damn loud you could not’ve heard a frigging freight train if it was in the backseat!” Joshua was furious. He had nothing against loud music and fast driving; he liked to do so himself when he was alone, but he would never risk the life of someone else, especially a child by driving recklessly. He figured she had the radio that loud to drown out the babies cries as she was driving toward Citronelle.

“Sheriff,” said Deputy Cook as he walked up to the back of the ambulance.

“What,” snapped Joshua?

“The car has a Fulton County Georgia registration tag on it,” Deputy Cook said, as if that could explain something.

“What are you doing here in Mobile County?” Joshua asked the woman.

“I was running away,” the woman answered. Her voice quivered and Joshua detected a slight foreign accent.

“Running away from what or who?” he asked gruffly.

“My, ma-master.”

“Master-What the hell” exclaimed, Deputy Cook, who was still standing at the back of the ambulance.

“Yes, please explain yourself,” Joshua said, not quite as gruff as earlier.

“I was running away with my little girl so they could not sell her when she becomes old enough,” the woman told him. As he watched her eyes, he saw them fill with even more fear and pain. She then grabbed her stomach and moaned loudly. The emergency medical technician elbowed his way to the woman’s side and told Joshua that his questions were going to have to wait. As he examined the woman, he said that he thought she had internal bleeding and that if they did not get her to the hospital in time, she could possibly die. Suddenly the woman reached out toward Joshua. The attendant moved so that he could get back to her side. She gripped Joshua’s hand, hard. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Please don’t let him have my baby!” she begged.

“Who”

“My mas-husband, he will come for her. Prašome šerifas-please Sheriff, don’t let him take her, please I beg of you!” The sheer angst in the woman’s voice let him know that the man she was running away from-her master or husband, whatever he was to her, frightened the hell out of her. She definitely thought her child was in danger or that the man would eventually harm her if she stayed in his presence.

“Where are you from, besides Atlanta? What is your name?” Joshua fired the questions. “Where were you born?” he asked because of her speaking the foreign words.

“Lithuania - I was brought here when I was nine or ten years old.” Joshua had heard of the slave trade and of sex trafficking; it had gone on for decades but was at an all time high. With so many different modes of travel available nowadays, it made it easier for them to smuggle girls and boys in or out of the country. Joshua was also of the mind that many of the children that had disappeared in the United States over the years had also been either intergraded into the business in the US or shipped overseas. He’d read just a year or so back that a shipping container had been halted in the port of New York, because a brave girl had yelled out when she heard dock workers talking nearby. When opened, officials discovered a dozen girls between the ages of nine and twelve inside it.

“Damn” he heard Cookie say under his breath.

“Please, keep my little girl safe, please I beg of you… I give her to you,” the woman said, once again gripping his hands. “You have kind eyes… please take care of her,” the woman’s voice was becoming weaker. Joshua did not know if she was dying or if she was just becoming unconscious because of her injuries.

“Sheriff, we need to leave with her!” the attendant exclaimed.

“I can’t let you do that if there is a baby still in that car!” Joshua exclaimed. “I need to ask her one more thing just in case she doesn’t make it.”

“Make if quick, Sheriff.”

“What is his name - your husband?” at first, Joshua was not sure if she was going to respond; she had closed her eyes.

“Jonathan McIllwain,” she whispered and said something else that he could not understand. Joshua was having a hard time hearing her so he leaned down and moved closer to her lips so he could hear her.

“What? Ma’am, I can’t hear you.”

“Anna Leigh - my little girl…” Joshua was not certain he understood her. He could have sworn she said
Annaleigh
, which was his mother’s name. He felt the woman’s grip loosen on his hand and then watched as her body contracted violently. He could not draw his eyes from her face as she went through the different stages of dying and death. Only when she exhaled her last breath did he loosen his grip on her hands.

Something Carolyn De Iberville said came to mind. His granddaddy told him the same thing years ago, but when Carolyn said it, it clicked. ‘
To every thing, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven
:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that, which is planted
;’ Ecclesiastes 3.1.2

“What kind of name is Mac-ill-Wayne?” he heard Cookie ask someone. How stupid can he be, he thought at Cook’s wonderings but could neither move nor respond. He felt the woman’s spirit surround him and fill him. He wished he could will life back into the frail body that lay in front of him.

“Sheriff, we need more help over here,” he heard Paul Calvert yell; only then did he move. He jumped out of the ambulance and went to the wrecked vehicle. Deputy Cook was hot on his heels. Joshua now knew there was a baby girl inside it and if she lived, she was definitely going to need his help to keep her safe.

Calvert and Davis had succeeded in jacking the back of the roof up about a foot and a half on the driver’s side of the vehicle, which was just enough space for Deputy Cook, who was long and lean, to insert his upper body into the car and reach the child. Cook unhooked the restraints and laid the child seat sideways on the seat. He then pulled it toward him as he exited the car. The opening was not large enough to accommodate the car seat’s removal so he had to release the straps to remove the child from the car seat and then took her out by hand.

When Joshua first saw the little girl, it almost brought tears to his eyes. She was smiling and cooing. Small teardrops dampened the corner of her eyes and cheeks. He had so feared that she would be badly injured, but he did not see a scratch on her; she was perfect. Her bright blue eyes met his and it was as if she recognized him… She reached toward him with her small pudgy hands.

“Look Sheriff, she wants you to take her,” Calvert said and smiled.

When Joshua took the offered child’s small body in his arms, it was as if the entire world temporarily stopped spinning; everything stood still as if in a vacuum.

It was the first time in Joshua’s life he had even held a child, much less one so small. Her bright blue eyes glowed from the tears she had shed and he could see marks on her shoulders where the restraints had held her as the car was upside down, but no serious injuries that he could see.

Her small fingers wrapped around his finger, she cooed and said, “gaga”.

“I never thought I would say this but I’m calling in the FBI,” Joshua mumbled it to keep from speaking too loudly and frightening the baby. “Little Annaleigh, we need to see what we can do to keep you safe and sound don’t we,” he cooed softly. All of his deputies looked at him as if he had completely gone insane.

Other than Cook, they had no idea what he was talking about, and although Cook had been at the back of the ambulance, he really did not know either. Joshua was not even sure that Cookie knew the woman had died.

It was not easy for him to let her go, but Joshua knew the baby needed to be examined by a doctor to make sure she did not have any internal injuries. Little Annaleigh held tight to his finger and then began to cry as he turned her over to the care of a female ambulance attendant. He fought back unfamiliar emotions as he gave instructions that after they reached the hospital that no one other than the doctors or nurses were to come anywhere near the child and that he would be down to check on her later in the day.

When the ambulance cranked and drove away, his thoughts were that at least she would have one last ride with her mother; and, if it was within his power, unlike him, little Annaleigh would know who her mother was and where she was buried…

Four

Safe and Sound

They all watched the ambulance drive south on Lott Road. Joshua watched until it traveled completely out of sight. He had received many gifts in his life but no one had ever given him a child. He knew he could not take this child and raise her, but he could see to it that she landed in a safe environment and that she was well taken care of; yes, he could definitely see to that, he thought to himself. He also knew the baby was safe but he did not know if she would be sound, only time would tell about that. It would be hard to judge how a child would turn out after being in such a horrible accident and losing its mother at such a young age. He knew little Annaleigh was far too young to remember what had happened when she was older; she could be no more than a year old at the most. His thoughts were interrupted when he heard someone speaking. It took him a moment to realize they were calling him.

“Sheriff,” Joshua heard someone say quietly. The man who stopped to help him, before the deputies and ambulance arrived was talking to him.

“Yeah,” he responded.

“I walked up the road to see if I could see what had caused her accident. About three hundred yards back, there is a dead buck on the side of the road. Its fresh, I figured it could have jumped out in front of her causing her to wreck. If you don’t need it for evidence, I’m gonna take it home, dress it, and put it in my freezer.”

“Sure, no problem” Joshua responded.

“You know how it is, Sheriff. Been out of work a couple of weeks and groceries is getting scarce around there,” the man explained.

“Don’t need no explanations, it’d just rot and be eaten by buzzards,” Joshua said matter-of-factly. “Before you leave, give one of my deputies your name and address in case we need a statement about what happened here today. And, I appreciate your help,” Joshua said as he wrapped up his instructions.

“Yes, Sir, glad I happened to come along when I did.” Joshua nodded his head as he turned away to walk to his patrol car. He lit a cigarette and took several deep draws as he walked toward it. He sat down behind the wheel and reached under the seat to get the bottle of whiskey he kept there. He took several long swallows, not caring whether anyone saw him or not.

The whiskey soothed his frazzled nerves. It felt good sliding down his throat and into his belly. He replaced the cap and stuck it back under the seat. He started on the paperwork as finished his cigarette and then walked back over to the wrecked car. He asked his deputies if they had found anything to identify the woman yet, but none of them had even been looking since the ambulance left. They had been standing around reliving their roll in the rescue. Joshua heard a vehicle and turned to see the skid truck coming toward them. Cookie stuck his head through the driver’s window, scrounged around some and come back out with a purse in his hand. Joshua took it and looked inside, he saw a wallet that he pulled out and immediately opened. A Georgia driver’s license identified the dead woman as Lita Folb McIllwain.