Maximum Guilt (Hidden Guilt Book 2) (16 page)

“Listen, Detective Porter. I apologize if my question seemed accusatory or inflammatory. We’re all on the same team here,” the officer added.

“Apology accepted. Anytime I’m approaching an area where a known killer and fugitive may be hiding, I draw my weapon. That’s pretty much Police 101. As I was saying, when I passed the vehicles, I drew my weapon and went around the house to make sure no one was trying to escape on foot. I went onto the porch and tried the door to see if it was unlocked.”

“Detective, if you believed multiple perps were in this house, why didn’t you call for backup?” another officer said.

“I didn’t know how long I’d have to wait for officers to arrive, given the remote location. I also knew a child was potentially in immediate harm’s way.”

“Your child?”

“Yes, my child. But it wouldn’t have mattered who’s child it was. I jimmied the door and started clearing rooms to see if I could find anyone.”

“So, do you feel you had probable cause to enter the house without a warrant, detective?”

I was about finished playing games with these armchair quarterbacks. I had real work to do out there, and Stacy and her sister were putting miles and miles between us.

“Yes.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“No.”

The room fell silent and stayed that way for several moments. Finally, the chief cut in.

“Detective Porter, please continue.”

“Gladly. As I cleared the house, I heard music coming from one of the rooms. I couldn’t pinpoint which room it was at first, but as I got closer, I realized it was coming from the basement. I ran down the hallway and kicked the door opened, but the music was so loud that no one noticed. I started down the stairs, and Stacy noticed me first. She ran for a side exit and Brittany quickly followed. Their grandmother’s eyes were closed, so she never saw me. I noticed a child lying on the ground surrounded by candles, and I suspected some sort of voodoo ritual was being performed. The girl on the floor was covered in blood and a mutilated goat lay only a few feet away from her. As I neared, the grandmother spotted me and turned like she was moving for a weapon. I fired a warning shot at the ground near her. I yelled for her to lay on the floor and she complied. We done here?”

“Almost, sir. Why didn’t you give chase to the other assailants?”

“Like I said, there was a child involved—a bloody one—and I wanted to attend to her medical needs. I felt like that needed my immediate attention, rather than chasing two killers through unfamiliar swampland on foot. I also had another perp in handcuffs, and I didn’t want to leave her behind with the child.”

“Detective, this gives me and my team everything we need. Personally, I believe everything you did here today was justified. I probably would have done things the same way. As a husband and father, I am sorry for everything your family has undergone. I can’t begin to imagine. I don’t believe we have any more questions,” Chief Davidson said.

I got up and shook his hand then headed for my truck. By the time I got to the front door, the chief had caught up with me.

“Detective, for what it’s worth, I don’t believe my officers were trying to corner or entrap you. I’ve been working with these men and women for nearly a decade. We aren’t used to the fast pace you HPD guys move at. If you hadn’t noticed, things move a whole lot slower here. We’ve had our troubles here in NOLA in the past, but the murder rates are way down; so are the aggravated crimes. So the way one of my officers would go into a situation is probably a lot different than what you’d do in Houston.”

“Got it,” I said.

“Good luck finding her.”

“Luck is about right. She’s good—really good. I’ll take any luck you or anyone else can throw my way.”

Chapter 32

As I walked back to my truck, I noticed I didn’t have my cell phone. I must have left it back in the conference room. Just as I turned to head back in, the chief came through the door, my cell phone in hand.

“I believe this must be yours. You just missed a call, too.”

I checked my phone and returned the call as I climbed back into my truck.

“Sorry I missed your call, De Luca. You here in NOLA?”

“Hey, David. Yes, we just got off the plane. Where are you?”

“Leaving the police station. Had to give my statement. I’m about to go back to Stacy’s grandmother’s.”

“Have they brought her in yet? Why don’t you see if she’s going to talk before you leave? Paul and I can start poking around at the house.”

“That’s a good idea. Doubt I’ll get anything out of her, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Call me when you leave,” De Luca said.

This was going to be fun. They weren’t exactly welcoming me with open arms here. I went back to the officer I had spoken with upon my arrival.

I sensed a bit of an attitude.

“Let me guess; you need to see the chief again.”

“If I could, please.”

I leaned on the counter, hoping my wait wouldn’t be too long. Just then, the chief walked around the corner.

“Detective Porter, is there something else I can do for you?” Chief Davidson said.

“Yes, I hope so. I need to ask—”

“You want to question the grandmother?”

“Yes.”

“She’s currently in a holding cell. I’ll get her to a room for questioning. Come with me.”

That went a lot smoother than I thought it would. I was nervous about leading the interrogation, because the case did involve my daughter. I needed to keep my cool here which, given the circumstances, wouldn’t be easy.

I got settled in the interrogation room and waited. As I contemplated which approach I was going to use, she walked in.

I gestured toward the seat in front of her. “Have a seat. I’m Detective David Porter. I’m willing to bet you’ve known who I am for quite some time now. Please state your name for the record.”

“You know who I am already, detective.”

“Fine. Don’t state your name. When I found Karen Porter, you and two other accomplices were performing some sort of ritual on her. What were you attempting to accomplish?”

“We were making her better.”

“Better? How?”

“You wouldn’t understand, Mr. Porter. To people like you, we are witch doctors. I won’t waste your time or mine trying to explain.”

“Try me,” I said as calmly as I could. She said nothing, but her eyes bored into me. I was growing more impatient by the moment; this wasn’t getting me very far.

“Not talking. Okay. Along with kidnapping, endangerment of a child is also on the list of crimes committed by you today,” I said.

“I don’t care about you or your laws.”

I decided to play on her heartstrings, if she had any, to see if I could wrangle any information out of her. I doubted it would work, but what the hell.

“Do you know where your granddaughters are headed? I’m going to catch them. I’d prefer to bring them in alive. I know you care about them, so why don’t you help me out here?”

“Do I look stupid to you, cop?”

“No, ma’am, quite the opposite. That’s why I’m asking you to help me. We both know I’m going to catch the girls eventually. We also both know they aren’t going to go quietly.”

“I don’t have anything else to say to you, David Porter. You are a monster pretending to be a do-gooder. I know what you did to my Lisa.”

“Contrary to what you believe, my only crime was youthful ignorance.”

She didn’t reply. I knew this conversation was going nowhere—at least nowhere good.

“Thank you for your time,” I said.

That went exactly how I’d believed it would. Time to catch up with De Luca and Lafitte to see what they had uncovered.

Chapter 33

I was able to navigate back to the crime scene without the help of my guide. It would be dark soon, and I was glad to arrive before it was a pitch-black abyss out there. It was a good thing Lafitte was there, too. No way I could have made it out of these bayous in one piece after dark.

I parked and headed for the house.

“David! You finally made it,” De Luca said as I walked through the front door. “How’d the interrogation go?”

“About as good as you’d expect. Got nothing I can use. She didn’t say much, but I really hadn’t expected her to. You guys find anything here yet?”

“We have IT going through the computer we found, but so far nothing. Lots of books on voodoo and witchcraft. A couple books on secret societies, too.”

I walked over and gave my old friend Paul a hug.

“What was that for?” Paul said.

“I love you, Paul. And I appreciate all of your help on this.”

“We’re brothers, man—for life.”

“I know we are. I want to talk to you about joining my new unit in Houston when this is over. I want somebody I can trust. Gonna be a huge undertaking, brother. Be like old times in a lot of ways.”

“I will definitely give it some thought. Honored you’d ask me, old friend. We need to brief you on the Carl Blake crime scene after we leave. Nothing earth-shattering, but we did find a few things that could help us.”

“Sounds good. I still want to know why they went after the Blakes. Anyone been down to the basement yet? I’m willing to bet if there’s anything noteworthy here that’s where it will be.”

“No, we haven’t been down there,” Paul said.

There was only one other NOLA detective on the scene, along with the guy from IT.

“We are going to take a trip down to the basement,” I called out to the detective.

“I’m about done here,” he called back to me.

“Me too, I can finish checking out this computer from the station,” the IT guy said.

“Ok if you guys come up with anything let me know. Thanks for your help on this.”

The three of us headed down to the basement, Lafitte and his flashlight in the lead. We reached the basement door, I opened it and pulled the chain switch turning on the lights.

We made it to the bottom of the staircase and started rummaging around. This room was filled with a lot of stuff, crates, papers just crammed full.

“Look at all this shit,” De Luca said.

“Classic voodoo. I’d be willing to bet each of your family members has a goddamn doll somewhere in here, David,” Lafitte said.

“I wouldn’t doubt it. I’m looking for anything we can find on their little group—a list of members, leadership structure, something I can track these girls down with.”

There were crates stacked everywhere. Some contained candles, drums, and other musical instruments. Others were full of paper. It’d take us hours to sift through them all, but it had to be done. We were here, and I didn’t want to leave any stones unturned.

I sat down on one crate and pulled another in front of me. “Looks like we’re going to be here for a while. There’s got to be something useful in all of this shit.”

“I don’t know, David. Would you leave important files here to be found?” De Luca said.

“Good point, but they’ve been operating here for over a decade, and we just found it. You get complacent. They probably didn’t think we’d ever find this place or tie the grandmother to any of it. If we don’t find anything, we don’t find anything I don’t want to leave here wondering, though.”

We all dug in our heels for the long haul. An hour in, none of us had come up with anything worth a shit.

“I gotta get up and stretch these old legs of mine,” I said.

“Still think we’re going to find something here, David?” Lafitte said.

I heard Lafitte talking, but I’d zeroed in on a vault tucked away in a corner.

“Hey, look over there. What do you guys think is in that thing?” I said.

“Your voodoo dolls?” De Luca said.

“Very funny. Why would you need a vault for voodoo dolls?” I said.

“Guns maybe?” Lafitte said.

Lafitte and I walked over to the vault and tried to lift it. No such luck. Together, we pushed it to the middle of the room.

“Jesus Christ! What the hell is in this thing?” Lafitte said.

“Old vaults were built a lot studier than the new ones. Made out of some heavy-ass metal, that’s for sure. One of you want to give me the key for this?” I said.

De Luca pulled her gun, took aim, and fired two rounds. Voilà!

“There you go, boys,” she said.

Chapter 34

Stacy and Brittany were headed back into Gulfport. They’d spent the afternoon hiding out in their car in the woods.

“Stacy, let’s go there,” Brittany said, pointing to a Dillard’s outside a mall.

“Sure. I bet they have some sexy clothes in there. Before we go in, I need to find a Starbucks. They have free Wi-Fi. We need to find our dates for tonight before we get ahead of ourselves.”

“Good thinking. Did you hear back about torching Grammy’s place?”

“Yes, it’s being executed as we speak.”

Stacy pulled into Starbucks, and the pair went inside. She plugged in her laptop, logged on to her go-to site, and started browsing. She changed her profile to read “Sis and I looking for double-trouble tonight—any takers?”

Within two minutes, Stacy had five hits. She cross-checked each with her sex offender search engines, hoping to find a match. So far, everyone had come up clean.

A few minutes later, she had three more hits.

Hey Missy. Me and my brother Claude would love to wine and dine you two sweeties tonight. . .

“I may have something here,” Stacy said.

Stacy read Bubba’s
message to Brittany and clicked over to the sex offenders list.

Hey Missy you still there?

Hey I’m here, sorry. We got lost in your photos. You boys are handsome. We need some attention tonight if you know what I mean??? You up for it?

Stacy turned the screen so Brittany could see. “Well, look at what we have here,” she said.

Both Bubba and Claude had multiple sex offender charges and a slew of DUIs.

“Real class acts, these two guys,” she grumbled.

Brittany shook her head. “These guys are pieces of shit, Stacy.”

“And probably very, very dangerous. We can’t afford to make any mistakes tonight. We’ve never tried to pull this off before. A lot could go wrong.”

Hell yeah we’re up for it. We ain’t had no sisters before. Gonna show you girls a real good time.

We can’t wait. Never been to Gulfport before, you got a spot in mind? We want to do some dancing first. That ok?

Whatever you want yall call the shots. There’s a place called Good Times on Graham Street.

We’ll find it – ten pm ok?

See you two beauties at ten.

“Now we can go to Dillard’s,” Stacy said. “We got ourselves a couple of dates.”

Chapter 35

“Well, I got it open. Are you boys going to just stand there and look at it?” De Luca said.

I pointed to the shot-up vault in front of me. “Wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but I guess it’ll work.”

I yanked the busted lock off the vault door and opened it to find . . . more paper.

“So do we stop looking at the papers in the crates and focus on these?” De Luca asked.

“Well, somebody had these locked up for a reason. Could be a will or other legal documents in here, I guess. Birth certificates and such, good find I’ll take this. Paul, why don’t you give me a hand? Let’s see if we can sort through these real quick.”

Paul and I dug through the stack but were coming up empty-handed. My head hurt and my stomach rumbled. This wasn’t manual labor, but we’d all been going strong for several days now. We’d been sorting for thirty minutes when our luck changed.

“David, I think you’ll want to see this,” Lafitte said, handing me a sheet of paper.

The look on his face told me it was going to be good. 

I pumped my fist in the air. “Hot damn, Paul! Jackpot!”

“What is it?” De Luca said.

“A list, a roster of members. If this is in here, there’s got to be more. This is a great start, but I’m sure none of these ladies are going by these legal
names anymore. But at least this will give us a starting point. This is golden,” I said.

I took a quick glance over the list. I didn’t need to see Lisa Crease’s or Brittany Foy’s name, but something in me really wanted to see them on paper. As expected, Marci Wingup was listed as the head honcho, with Lisa as second-in-command. Down in the members section I located Brittany’s name.

Suddenly, I stopped and looked up. “You guys smell that?” I said, turning my nose up to get another whiff.

“I don’t smell anything, but I’m fighting off a cold,” De Luca said.

“Smells like something’s on fire,” I said, concerned but not ready to panic.

“This ain’t the city, David. People still burn trash out here,” Lafitte said, laughing.

I chuckled. “Joke’s on me, I guess. Hadn’t thought about that. And you’re right; we are a long way from Houston. Let’s see what else we can find in this treasure trove and then get the hell outta here.”

We continued to sift through more papers.

“Wait! I smell something now, too,” De Luca said.

“I’ll go tell the neighbors to wait until we leave to burn their trash. Geez” Lafitte laughed. “Calm down, Houstonians.”

“Just go check it out, wise guy,” De Luca said, enjoying the moment.

I pulled out another stack of papers as Paul headed up the stairs.

A few seconds later, I heard Paul yelling something. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, so I got up and walked to the bottom of the staircase.

“Hey, did one of you guys lock this door? It won’t open,” Lafitte yelled over his shoulder.

“What do you mean? Just push it open,” I yelled back. “Put those muscles to use.”

“It’s freakin’ stuck, man. Like it’s jammed or something.”

I looked up the stairs and noticed smoke seeping in under the door.

“David, this fucking place is on fire!” Lafitte yelled.

Stacy!
They were trying to burn us alive!

“David, we’ve got to get the hell out of here now!” De Luca said.

Lafitte took the stairs two at a time. He grabbed De Luca and started for the back door I’d pointed out to them when we came in.

“David, let’s go, man. Leave all that stuff. We’re gonna fucking die in here.”

I hurried back to the vault and grabbed a handful of papers that I hadn’t sorted through yet. Paul and De Luca had just reached the door. The smoke was starting to overtake the room and I was finding it harder and harder to breathe without wheezing.

“For God’s sake, David! Come on, man!” Lafitte yelled again.

I followed them, carrying an armload of papers. No way I was leaving all this behind.

Lafitte pulled and pushed on the door. “It’s stuck, David. It won’t fucking open!”

“This is no accident. We’ve been trapped in here,” I said.

Paul dropped to the floor and pulled De Luca down with him, trying to stay below the smoke. I kicked the door as hard as I could but still nothing. My chest ached. The smoke made it impossible to take a full breathe. I wheezed, and inhaled a cloud of smoke that knocked me to my knees.

“We have to find another way out,” I said, struggling to get the words out.

“De Luca!” Lafitte screamed.

De Luca had been overtaken by the smoke. She passed out and lay lifeless on the floor. We had to find a way out. Suddenly, the room was shrouded in darkness. I assumed that the fire had knocked out the electricity. By now, the rest of the house had to be ablaze. One of us needed to begin CPR on De Luca, or I knew she wouldn’t make it.

“Paul! Paul, listen to me. I’m going to get us out of here. You’ve been doing CPR for over twenty years. Take care of her.”

I took the flashlight and crawled to the nearest wall. I hadn’t noticed any windows before, but I had to try to find one. I didn’t want to die here—not like this. Paul had started CPR on De Luca; I could hear him counting the compressions. I was running my hands along the wall when I felt a sharp pain. I’d sliced my hand on something. I couldn’t see what it was, but I felt blood squirting everywhere. I yelled out in pain.

“David?” Paul called out.

“I’m okay. Keep going! Don’t stop!”

The fire had intensified. I could actually hear it raging above us. I was starting to think I might not be able to get us out of this one. Each breathe I took was shorter and more painful. Then I heard a loud noise at the back door. I thought I heard someone yelling, but it was probably just wishful thinking.

“David, did you hear that?”

“New Orleans Fire Department! Anyone in there?”

“Yes!” I yelled at the top of my smoke-clogged lungs. “We’re trapped in here!”

“Back away from door! We’re coming in,” a voice yelled.

I pulled De Luca and Paul away from the door and listened as the firemen pounded their way inside. The door was solid—some sort of wood—and it was taking a tremendous amount of effort for them to get in. Finally I heard it break through. The banging stopped a gust of cold air flooded the room. I felt hands grab my shoulders and drag me out. I was still clinging to a handful of papers.