“We would have found them. The Wercomico is brackish. Has a little salinity to it. Bodies float. Ain’t you ever heard Pip’s story about the baptismal drownings back in … what was it, ’68? No. They had to put them somewhere else. A place that was special to them. A secret place,” Titus said.
“Okay, but where is this?” Carla said, pointing at the painting.
“I don’t know. But I know I’ve seen that tree before. That tree is their secret place. We find it, we find the bodies. I’d put money on it,” Titus said. He rolled the canvas up and replaced the ribbon.
“Go get your laptop,” Titus said.
“Titus, I gotta be honest with ya. If he’s hurting kids, I don’t think I can watch that,” Davy said.
“It’s okay, Davy. Nobody wants to see that shit in their head,” Titus said.
“But you’re going to look at it?” Steve asked. He seemed relieved that Davy had said what he was thinking.
“Someone has to bear witness,” Titus said. Twenty years removed from the last time since he willingly attended a church service, and he still found himself using the jargon of the devout. It never left you, not completely. The cadence, the syncopation, the King James syntax. It was all there waiting to reemerge like seventeen-year cicadas.
* * *
If the pictures had been obscene, the videos were abhorrent. Titus felt like pieces of him were being sullied that could never be cleaned. He was being infected with a rot that would never heal. Carla had tried to stay and view the contents of the thumb drives with him, but after the first video she went running out of the house. She stood in the yard with Steve and Davy as the sun began to slide behind the horizon. There were a total of fifty-one videos on the one thumb drive. Seven of those videos depicted the torture and murder of young Black teenagers. The other videos featured younger white children. These victims appeared drugged and unconscious. There was also a coded mailing list. The other thumb drive held thousands of still images.
Titus shut off the computer. He went in Jeff Spearman’s kitchen and ran cold water from the sink faucet. He took off his hat and his shades, then splashed cold water on his face. He’d heard a few people at the Bureau say you got numb to the cruelty that lives at the core of some creatures that passed for human. Titus thought if he ever got numb to the things he’d seen today he’d eat his gun.
He went back in the living room and closed the laptop. He gathered the thumb drives and put them in an evidence bag. He picked up the computer and his notepad and went outside to join his deputies.
“Take these external drives and the phone and his computer back to the office. Put it in the evidence room. Don’t talk about anything we’ve found today. Not yet. We are going to have to get the state police involved, the Bureau may want a piece of this too. Child pornography is a federal offense,” Titus said. It felt good to talk, to speak about taking action. That was the least he could do for the children Spearman, Latrell, and the Last Wolf had murdered.
“Spearman and Latrell are dead. What the state boys gonna do with our case?” Carla asked. Titus sensed a shift in her demeanor. She had gone from horrified to righteously enraged.
“The third man in the videos is still alive. He is still walking around like he isn’t a monster. We’re not giving up control of this case. But we need the resources to track down these victims. Find their bodies, find their families. Then we find him,” Titus said. He handed Carla her computer, then pulled out his notebook.
“He’s at least six feet tall. Spearman was five-nine, and he’s taller than him. He’s muscular, probably around two hundred pounds. He was using a fake voice. He tried to make himself sound … demonic. He was white or really light-skinned. You can see it through the eyeholes. Left-hand-dominant, but he used both to … he used both hands. The location was either a shed or a large outbuilding. Walls were sheet metal, painted black, but covered with dozens of paintings depicting angels. LED rope lights were strung up on the perimeter of the ceiling. Didn’t see a door in or out. Could be a gutted-out trailer. They made Latrell hold the phone to video them, except when they made him get in the shot. Seven videos end with the demise of the victim.” Titus closed his notebook with a sharp snap.
Seven, Titus thought. They killed seven kids. Seven families are out there somewhere wondering where their children are. Seven innocent little kids strapped to a table and suffering for these fuckers to get their kicks. And Latrell knew, and he didn’t say anything. He didn’t say a word. If there was a hell, he and Spearman would be on the same spit.
Hell got plenty of room, Red DeCrain whispered to him in his head.
“Let’s get all this back to the office. We got a lot of work to do,” Titus said.
“I guess you never really know what people are really like, do you?” Davy said.
“I don’t think anyone really wants to know,” Titus said.
* * *
When he got back to the office, he typed up an email to the state police, but he saved it in his drafts. He’d send it when Trey got back and broke into Spearman’s computer. Titus guessed that everything incriminating was on the thumb drives, but it didn’t hurt to be thorough. Then he went over the monthly expense reports, checked his inbox for any BOLO requests, summonses that needed to be served, warrants that needed to be processed. Roger had sent him a sick leave request for two weeks but he’d miscalculated his PTO. He only had three days of sick leave left. He signed the evidence tags and initialed the time and date on all the items they took from Spearman’s house. He sent Steve home to finish what was left of his day off. He sent Davy back on patrol. Carla volunteered to take up Roger’s shift, so he approved her overtime and sent her out as well.
That he went about these tasks so adroitly after staring into the depths of the abyss that was what passed for the souls of those three sociopaths made him feel unclean. He knew better than most that the wheel of life would keep spinning, with little regard to the families who had lost their children or the children who had lost their lives. Waiting for the world to shed tears for your pain was like waiting for a statue to speak. So you filed the reports, you answered the emails. You carried on as best you could. And if you were like Titus, if you wore a badge on your chest, you promised you’d do all you could to find the Last Wolf and peel off his mask. Show the world the face of the monster.
There were times when he thought that badge gave him too much power. When he was with the Bureau, he’d seen what that power could do. How, to a certain degree, the badge was a shield that protected you from consequences and repercussions in the name of justice. Titus had been allowed to leave the Bureau under that mantle of protection. When he ran for sheriff, he promised himself he would use that power to help, not to hurt. Not ever again.
He took a deep breath and grabbed the evidence bag holding Latrell’s phone. He slipped on his gloves and retrieved the phone from the bag. Titus opened the phone and started scrolling through the different screens. Latrell’s phone was so old Titus felt like he was an archaeologist. No apps, plain HTML script. No pictures, no videos. Just lots of text messages and phone numbers with no names. Most of the texts were from Latrell’s mother, begging him to call her. Pleading with him to get help. Quite a few were from people Latrell had queried about where he could score. A few texts were from a woman with whom Latrell seemed to be involved. He pushed a small button on the phone and advanced the scroll of messages. A text popped up that stopped him in his tracks. It was a simple declarative sentence, but it dripped with menace:
I saw your brother walking all alone today.
It was the last text Latrell had received. Titus checked the date.
It was three days ago.
Titus dialed the number attached to the text. A robotic voice told him the number was out of service. He’d put in a request for Latrell’s phone records, but his gut, that old unreliable narrator, told him the number was probably to a burner phone. It only showed up once in Latrell’s phone. There was another number that called Latrell frequently, most recently last night. Titus touched the screen and hit the call button above that number. He was not surprised at all when he heard Jeff Spearman’s phone begin to vibrate on his desk.
SIX
By the time Titus was done with the daily minutiae that wasn’t connected to the quickly expanding murder case against Jeff Spearman and company, it was nearly 8:00 P.M. He hadn’t eaten anything all day. The only thing he’d tasted was that cup of coffee at around six in the morning. Titus got up and grabbed his hat. He was going to head home. True, he was leaving an hour early, but he figured he’d earned it.
As he was heading for the door, the desk phone rang.
“Of course,” he said. He answered it.
“Scott on line three,” Cam said. He was due to go home in a few. Kathy was coming on to do the night shift. Titus pushed line three.