Letters From the Grave
Once again, he swapped license plates with two cars, leaving one without a plate. The plate he kept wouldn’t be missed by the owner unless, by some misfortune, they discovered the wrong plate on their car. The car without a plate would probably get pulled over once the owner returned to Lafayette, but that could be days, and then there would be even more confusion if the cops found the stolen plate on another car. He chuckled at the thought.
Jake was gone at sunrise. Julie appreciated that he kissed her in the mornings but didn’t waken her, although she was actually awake with her eyes closed. She was imagining the her enjoyment treating him to her full cooking repertoire. She had developed into a good chef over the years. Paul had loved to cook also, and it was a main activity together, enjoying new things created in their kitchen. Now, with Jake, he genuinely appreciated her skill, but he wasn’t a cook himself. Today would be another surprise, and she couldn’t wait to get to the store.
While she prepared for the day, Jake was flying low over the water with the sun barely above the horizon in the east. He could smell the sea air and slowed momentarily to watch a pod of dolphins, ravaging a school of baitfish. He could only hover for a minute, as he was on a tight schedule. His passengers, all oil rig workers were anxious to be on the clock, but they too enjoyed the diversion. He would have breakfast on the platform in fifteen minutes.
Julie left for the store around ten o’clock. It would take several hours for the vegetables and broth to cook down into the brown wine sauce they would have with the tenderloin. Jake will be blown away! She was excited at the prospect. Her biggest disappointment with shopping in their area versus near her home in Texas was that the nearby grocery store was inferior, and she couldn’t get the quality of food, particularly produce, that she wanted. The trip took over an hour and she hurried the bags into the house to keep things from spoiling in the extreme heat and humidity. It was in the mid-90’s and equally humid. It was one of the things she disliked about moving from Texas to Louisiana. It was hot in Mineral Wells also, but not such oppressively humid.
She put everything in the refrigerator and would take things out when ready to use them. She really missed her cookware that would arrive with the furniture in two days. She wanted to time everything perfectly, and the sauce took about five hours to cook properly. Once things were tidy in the kitchen, she began chopping the carrots, onions, and other vegetables and herbs. After twenty minutes of chopping, she took the largest deep pot Jake possessed, melted a cube of butter and began browning the vegetables, adding a little flour and seasoning. It was about two o’clock when she added two quarts of beef stock to the pot, bringing it to a boil. By three, she reduced the heat to a slow simmer, to begin cooking down the mixture, allowing the vegetables to slowly dissolve. She covered the pot and was going to take a break when she saw him! Ryan was standing on the rear stoop, staring at her through the upper-half door window. He had an evil grin on his face and was hidden from T.W.’s view behind Jake’s house.
He just stood there, smiling as terror overtook her. This was the part of being with women he enjoyed the most, watching them panic, frozen in place before they screamed. She was momentarily petrified, unable to move as her heart raced, but then she thought of the guns in the back room. She ran and Ryan smashed the door open, only feet behind. She screamed down the hall as he stumbled over one of the dinette chairs, cursing and throwing it aside. Her panicky squeals delighted him. He bounded after her, as she slammed the bedroom door, locking it.
She leapt to the gun safe, turning the handle. Ryan yelled from outside, “Oh, Julie. Sweet, Julie. Let me in, pretty lady.”
She tried to push the handle down further, more than necessary, not realizing the lock was already disengaged. Jake had always opened it before, and she didn’t know how extraordinarily heavy the door was. The door weighed almost a hundred pounds. Tears were streaming as she lay on the floor one leg braced against the side of the safe, pulling the handle with both hands. “Go away!”
“Oh, I can’t do that. I came all the way here just to be with you. Open this damn door!”
The safe door opened slowly as she strained with hidden strength. “Go away! I’ve got a gun!”
“Gee, this will be more fun than I expected. All I got’s a big ol’ knife.”
The safe opened just enough for her to reach in when Ryan shattered the doorframe. Julie turned with the Beretta as he stepped toward her. The gun fired, but the bullet hit the floor, barely missing her own foot. Ryan jumped onto her. Pinned against the safe, she fired again and Ryan screamed in pain. The gun blast seared his midsection, but the bullet had missed again with the gun deflected between their bodies. He momentarily grabbed his stomach, screaming in rage before striking her with a hard boney fist.
He stood over her collapsed body, breathing hard. He had had intentions of raping her as part of his original plan, but now the burn on his skin needed attention. He ran back to the kitchen carrying the gun and opened the freezer, taking a bag of frozen vegetables and holding it against the powder burn. In a few moments, the sensation subsided, but he was still breathing hard.
“What you doin’ there, boy!” T.W. was looking through the broken back door. Ryan looked at him with rage then lifted the gun.
Two hours later, Jake pulled into the driveway, but Julie’s car was gone. He backed into the street so that Julie could pull in ahead when she got home. He stopped momentarily to check the mail box then looked over to wave at T.W., but he wasn’t there. Even a big old man has to go inside for nature calls now and then.
He smiled, walking down the driveway to the back. Something smells good! Then everything changed when he saw the back door smashed in. “Julie!” He jumped through the door, looking frantically for her, hoping not to find her body. There was debris in the hall by the gun room and he ran back. The guns safe was open. He ran from room to room, yelling her name. She wasn’t there, and her car was gone!
His first thought was to call her cellphone. Maybe she ran out to get something from the store and someone broke in while she was gone. He pushed her speed-dial number and listened. He could hear it ringing in the house. It was in the living room in her purse. She had not gone out!
Jake started to call nine-one-one when he looked outside in the back. Two legs were sticking out of the shrubs at the back of his yard. He pushed the door debris out of the way and ran back into the yard. T.W.!
He wasn’t moving, lying face down on the ground between two bushes. Jake knelt beside him, grabbing his shoulder to turn him over. T.W. groaned. “T.W., are you hurt badly?”
“Oh, Jake. Hep me up will ya?”
Jake turned the big man over and helped him sit. Blood flowing down his face had coagulated and turned to red mud in the dirt. Jake brushed some of it away. “What happened, T.W.?”
T.W. was groggy and probably had a concussion. At his age and poor health, the blow to his head could be fatal. “Oh, Jake.” He licked his lips. “That skinny feller, you know who I mean? Anyway, he broke in and hurt you woman.”
“Where is she, T.W?”
“Ah don’ know, Jake. I had ma ol’ rifle, but I guess it weren’t loaded ‘cuz it didn’t shoot. Anyway, that skinny feller took it and hit me with it. I tried to run, but he kep’ after me, and I guess got a good whack on my head. Maybe a couple good ‘uns.”
“You damn old fool. You could have been killed. This guy’s a killer. You should have called me!”
“Jake, I’m sorry. I tried to hep.”
Jake patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t you move! I’ve got to call for help.”
Within ten minutes several police cruisers were in front of the house, and EMTs had T.W. stretched out on a gurney. Tibbs arrived with the cruisers.
Jake ran to him. “Tibbs, he got her. He got Julie!”
Tibbs didn’t have to ask who “he” was.
“How’d it happen, Jake?”
“I
don’t know, Tibbs. I wasn’t here. My neighbor, T.W. there, must have seen some of it. He tried to stop him and’s lucky to be alive.”
“Looking at the back door, I’m guessing he broke in while she was inside?”
Jake was shaking his head in agreement. “Yeah. Looks like it to me. He bashed in the door to my back room also. Looks like she was cooking and ran back to lock herself in the room with my guns. He broke that door in, too.”
“Any guns missing?”
“I don’t know -- let’s go look.”
Jake pulled the broken back door and frame off, throwing it into the backyard. Tibbs said, “Better not to touch too much, Jake. We’ll want prints.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
They went to the back room and stepped over the debris. At least there wasn’t any blood. Jake looked inside the safe. “Both my pistols are gone and my spare mags and ammo.”
Tibbs took his notepad out. So, what firepower does he have?”
Jake explained the weapons. No one noticed the two nine millimeter shells with all the wreckage from the door. Tibbs said, “All right, Jake. This is now a crime scene. I want you out of here. Grab anything you need, then let’s go so the lab guys can go to work. Anything obvious missing?”
“Yeah, Julie’s car.”
“Okay, so we’ll assume Ryan has wheels and guns, and Julie