Death Sentence - A Val Bosanquet Mystery: The Val Bosanquet Mysteries, #2

By A. J. Davidson

Death Sentence sees the return of recalcitrant detective Val Bosanquet from An Evil Shadow. Val stumbles across Diane Laing, the victim of a ten-year-old abduction and the last of four young women who disappeared. Val's attempts to locate the other victims inadvertently puts Diane at risk. When she is abducted a second time, Val faces down the FBI and a bomber to rescue the woman he loves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A. J. Davidson
• Release date: Sep 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466195356

A. J. Davidson

AJ Davidson is a traditionally published author and playwright, who, in Spring 2010, made the switch to Indie. He is keen to explore the potential of a rapidly changing publishing world, and is enjoying the closer contact with his readers that e-books afford. AJ has a degree in Social Anthropology. Married for 32 years, he has two children, a Harrier hound and a cat called Dusty. Not one for staying long in the same place, AJ has lived in many countries across several continents. He has worked as a pea washer, crane-driver, restaurateur and scriptwriter. A member of the ITW. Represented by the Jonathan Williams Literary Agency.

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Death Sentence

by

AJ Davidson

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

AJ Davidson on Smashwords

Death Sentence

Copyright © 2011 by AJ Davidson

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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Other books by AJ Davidson

Non-fiction

Kidnapped

Defamed!

Fiction

Churchill’s Queen

Paper Ghosts

Piwko’s Proof

Wounded Tiger

Decoys

An Evil Shadow – A Val Bosanquet Mystery

Moon on the Bayou – A Val Bosanquet Mystery

Sandman – A Val Bosanquet Mystery

Chapter One

Reincarnationists maintain that new life springs from death, a time for celebration as well as sorrow. East Feliciana Parish Deputy Sheriff Val Bosanquet was not a believer, but before the sun sank on a fateful July day, he would readily agree that one man's demise had led to, if not exactly a birth, certainly a rebirth.

Val, a former New Orleans homicide detective, was a campus cop when Clinton middle-school teacher, Diane Laing, went missing. She was the fourth woman to disappear in a series of suspected abductions. Back then, he had his hands more than full with Crescent City iniquity to pay much heed to events along the Mississippi state line. If it had not been for his cousin Nath, a young Marine, the Laing abduction might have quickly fallen off his radar. His cousin spent a fortnight's leave as part of the search teams combing the woods and soya bean fields surrounding the location of the last positive sighting of the victim. Each evening he would phone Val, updating him on the search and picking his brains as to what direction the investigation should be taking next. Nath had thrown himself into the hunt with the same steely determination and vigor that would mark him out as a soldier of exceptional ability. With youthful naivety, he was convinced sheer energy would help good triumph over evil. He had attended the same high school as Laing, but could not swear to ever having spoken with her. Over one hundred people volunteered to assist the East Feliciana Parish Sheriff’s Office look for the local girl. Despite their best efforts, the searchers did not discover a single trace of the missing twenty-three-year-old. Nath took it hard. He refused to believe the worse and insisted she was still alive.

Ten years were to pass before Laing surfaced.

During those years, Val had again dropped out of law enforcement. His brother Marcus manipulated him into signing on as the Chief with a campus PD. His stint on the university’s payroll ended badly and he left New Orleans for the East Texas border where he found a job with a private investigations agency. The sheriff of East Feliciana Parish, as sliver-tongued as any snake oil salesman, had enticed him into trying his hand at rural law enforcement. The two men met during the cleanup operation in the wake of Katrina. Seeing the destruction visited on the city of his birth and witnessing the worse the human race could offer convinced Val that he had more to contribute to society than the checking of credit ratings for Texas banks.

Val moved northeast, bought and restored a ramshackle shotgun house outside Clinton. As he sawed and planed wood, he played rock albums on an ancient stereogram the previous property owner had left behind, and then, in his spare time, started to tour goodwill shops to add to the collection of 1970s vinyl. Since leaving a devastated New Orleans, Val had gained twenty pounds and developed a pathological hatred of golf. He slotted smoothly into his new job and there was nobody more surprised than he was when he rediscovered the investigative grit that had made him New Orleans youngest ever homicide lieutenant. However, the break that led to Laing’s discovery had not sprung from any rejuvenated sense of purpose, but from a fatal accident and the contents of a department store’s shopping bag.

Word of the fatality reached Val late on a Friday afternoon, the penultimate day of July. A few minutes later and he would have been off-duty and might have missed the shout. A vehicle had swiped a forty-three-year-old white male as he was returning to his car parked on St. Helena Street.

Val cradled the phone on his shoulder so he could search through the clutter on his desk for some scrap of paper to note the details. He found a dog-eared internal memo and turned it over.

What did you say his name was? Val asked the Clinton PD officer who had called him to report the fatality.

Jake Harrell. He was carrying an out-of-date Louisiana driving permit.

The name sounded familiar to Val. Perhaps he had pulled him in some time or other.

The municipal cop continued, He was unfortunate. From the preliminary eyewitness reports, the vehicle did not strike him that hard, but he stumbled backwards over a curb and his head connected with a concrete bollard. The impact smashed in the back of his skull like a spoon cracking a hard-boiled egg. The paramedics say death would have been pretty quick. The driver of the vehicle stopped and called the paramedics on her cell.

Alcohol or drugs involved?

No cause to think so. The elderly female driver appears traumatized and the paramedics are recommending she be taken in for observation. The witnesses agree that speed was not a factor. Another officer is checking for security tapes, but as far as I can see, there's no camera covering this part of the street.

Val pulled a face. Just our luck. Any suggestion it was deliberate?

Not so far. The two wits who had the best view of the incident both say Harrell stepped out in front of the vehicle. The driver did brake, but had no chance of missing him.

Have you sealed off the scene?

Yeah. We were here pretty quickly. We were just a block away when the call came through. My partner preserved the scene and I rounded up most of the wits before they had time to melt away.

Sounds like you're on top of things, Val said, happy enough to leave the incident in the hands of the Clinton cops.

Pretty much, the officer confirmed. Reason I contacted you was because the victim was carrying your card in his wallet.

It was the prompt Val needed to jog his memory. Harrell had been the elder brother of the second of four East Feliciana women abducted during a sixteen-month period starting eleven years earlier. One of his less-rewarding duties as the Sheriff’s Office senior detective was the periodic review of historic, unsolved investigations. The missing women had been one of the first cases he had looked at after his appointment, spurred on by Last Seen, a true-crime book published by a local journalist. Predictably, the Sheriff's Office had come in for some heavy criticism for its failure to find the slightest trace of the women, or their bodies. The first woman abducted was Kristal Dean, then Samantha Thomas a week later. Six months went by before Jodie Ford went missing on her way back from visiting her older sister’s college campus. The final victim was Diane Laing. Dean was African-American, the other three white. Val had spoken to all of the close family members of the disappeared women, but had unearthed nothing of value. The original investigators did as thorough a job as could be expected of them, considering the paucity of concrete evidence. He remembered handing Harrell his card the last time they had talked, asking him to get in touch if any fresh information surfaced. The dead man, like Val’s cousin, had been a Marine at the time of his sister’s abduction; a captain with the 1st Recon Battalion.

There was no good reason for Val to attend the scene. He had not heard from Harrell since their last brief conversation just days into the previous year. No good reason at all − not even his jurisdiction. But Val wanted to know why Harrell still carried his card?

I'll be there in five, Val said, though it would mean skipping the customary last-Friday-of-the-month barbecue Sheriff Ted Harris was hosting at his house that evening. He would ask Deputy Blemings to accompany him. She was three months pregnant and had sworn off liquor. No point in spoiling the evening for Joel Wright, Val’s usual partner, who was probably sitting down his generous backside next to one of Harris’s spool tables at that very moment, with the thirst of a deranged wildebeest. Wright was due to start two weeks’ vacation and did not plan to waste a single moment in sobriety.

Val left his office and signaled to Blemings that she should join him. She rose from her desk and slid her Glock into the paddle holster on her hip. He quickly explained the phone call. They would ride the short distance from Bank Street in Val’s SUV.

Has the victim's family been informed? she asked.

Val was all too aware that more often than not a female deputy would have to deliver the very worse type of news. Equality in the workplace did not count for much when dealing with personal tragedy. He looked across at the young detective. Since becoming pregnant, Nicki had not worn a seatbelt. Her partner was a mortgage broker in Jackson. And a keen golfer.

Harrell's only relative was his sister, the second of the girls who disappeared. Her name was Samantha Thomas. Orphaned as children, when a Baton Rouge train wreck had claimed the lives of their parents, the social workers tried their best apparently but were unable to place them with the same family. A childless couple adopted the girl, not much more than a toddler, within a few months. Jake Harrell, just into his teens, was cared for by a number of homes and foster parents, but was never formally adopted. He joined the Marines as soon as they would have him, and the life suited him. I was surprised to hear that he had resigned his commission. He seemed the sort of guy perfectly cut out to be a lifer.

A hard ass?

Sorry to shatter your preconceptions, Deputy Blemings. He was bright, tight, and fit as a whippet. Looked good in camouflage combats, and came across as a man you could depend on in a crisis. Cool, calculating, not one to show his emotions. He didn't talk a lot.

"Could you be any more biased?"

Val grinned, everyone in the department knew of his fierce loyalty to the corps, even after Nath died in the hellhole they called Afghanistan. It was as though anything less than full on support would be dishonoring his memory.

How did he take his sister's disappearance?

Val turned onto St. Helena. Hard to say. I didn't get to meet him until almost eight years after her abduction. He had sought permission to trace his sister when she reached the age of eighteen. She did consent to meet him, but I don't think it went well. There was no big emotional sibling reunion, and she went missing eight months later. Harrell was serving in Germany at the time and therefore was never a suspect. He appeared to have accepted that she was dead and was not holding out any hope that she might still be found alive.

Maybe he was too busy holding a grudge against the cops.

Val shook his head disapprovingly. So young and yet so cynical. It’s as I said, he was hard guy to read. But I got the impression that he had lost his sister once before, so second time round it was easier to handle.

Blemings shot him a judgmental look, as if asking now who's cynical.

The accident had happened just in front of a department store, one of Clinton’s oldest retail institutions. Friday evening was the busiest time of the week for the store and there was a heavy footfall of customers coming and going.

They swung into the curb, behind a garishly decorated patrol car.

I see the crash investigation team is here, Blemings said, nodding towards two men in Day-Glo jerkins who were taking measurements and recording their findings on a clipboard. A third was taking photographs of the scene. An ambulance and a doctor-on-call car were partially shielding Harrell's body.

Let's go stamp on some toes, Val said. He flashed his badge to the nearest of the crash investigators, and raised the blue and white incident tape so he and Blemings could duck under it. About a dozen shoppers were huddled in the still bright sunshine in the front of the store, their eyes fixed on the dead man. The police officer who had phoned Val stood next to the body, talking to a middle-aged black man who held a stethoscope in one hand. The doctor, Val concluded, proving beyond doubt that the sheriff’s belief in his investigative ability had not been misplaced.

Harrell was on his back, his head oddly misshapen, one arm flung out to the side, the other tight against his body. He wore a white t-shirt and denim jeans. It appeared that the paramedics had moved him a few feet away from the concrete bollards so they could attempt resuscitation, but a dark smear of congealed blood identified the one that had inflicted the damage. Harrell’s legs were splayed out, the left twisted at an impossible angle, its foot bare, the sneaker sent flying by the impact.

More than a glancing blow, Blemings remarked, interpreting the same signs as Val.

Lying on the tarmac, not far from the forlorn sneaker, was a plastic shopping bag, emblazoned with the name of the department store.

And you are? demanded the investigator with the camera.

An interested party, Val said.

His reply cut no ice with the investigator. This is my crime scene. I decide who has access.

Deputies Bosanquet and Blemings, Val said. The victim is known to us from an investigation.

A current inquiry?

Not exactly. His sister disappeared eleven years ago, presumed abducted and killed. No trace was ever found.

Val noticed compassion soften the officer’s face. It did not linger.

So you'll have no objections if this one takes precedence. I do have a body, a fresh one.

Go right ahead. We won't get in your way, Val replied.

They turned away and approached the victim. Other than his face being of a darker hue than when they had spoken, Harrell did not appear to have changed. Val expected that he would have caught the summer sun working outdoors. Harrell worked sporadically as gamekeeper for some of the fowling clubs, out on the bayous and lakes in all weather. He also ran a one-man welding and fabrication business from a workshop at his home.

As Val was about to speak with the doctor, the medic's cell phone rang and he excused himself to take the call.

The deputy altered tack. Have you found his car keys? Val asked the municipal cop.

In his pocket, he said, pointing to a dark blue Ford Taurus parked on the other side of the street. I pressed the remote and the lights flashed.

Searched it?

The officer bristled slightly. I was about to do so when the investigators arrived. They told me to leave it to them.

Val nodded. They know best.

No cell phone? Blemings chipped in.

Not unless it's in the car.

Or it's been trousered, Val said, scanning the faces of the group watching the scene. A couple of the onlookers dropped their gaze and shuffled their feet.

He walked over to the shopping bag and hunkered down. Using a ballpoint to push back the plastic he made a quick inventory of the contents. A copy of the The Watchman, Clinton’s weekly newspaper; a carton of peanut butter cookies; a can of shaving foam; a twin pack of 60 watt light bulbs; a book of Sudoku puzzles. A final item struck him as bizarre.

He stood up and returned to Blemings and the officer. The doctor ended his telephone conversation and rejoined the group. Blemings introduced herself and offered her hand.

The medic gripped it tightly. Doctor Luke Green. I'm a partner with a Clinton practice, brought in to confirm death.

The victim was a local man, Val explained, taking his turn to shake hands. Did you know him?

Green nodded. He was registered with the practice, but I rarely had to treat him. I wish more of my patients were as healthy as he was. Harrell took good care of himself: non-smoker; drank moderately and did a bit of running.

You knew him socially?

Not really. Saw him about. I bumped into to him at a couple of chamber of commerce social events; Fourth of July barbecue; a Veterans’ parade.

Val grimaced.

Sorry, Green apologized. Poor choice of words.

Ever see him with a woman?

No, can't say I did. Pretty sure he wasn't married, but I’d have to check our files to be certain.

Maybe he met someone recently, Val said.

Green did not seem convinced. He was always on his own. I think he was a man happiest in his own company. Pleasant enough to speak with, I thought, but not one for idle chat.

The doctor's assessment of Harrell tallied with Val's own. Which made his recent discovery all the more puzzling. He now had a conundrum screaming out for a solution.

We're done here, Val told Blemings. They made their farewells and passed on details of where they could be contacted. The accident investigators were erecting a screen around the dead man. Val took one last long look at the body before he climbed back into the passenger seat of their vehicle.

Blemings noticed the intensity of his stare.

Something not right? she asked him.

He did not answer.

Listening to the Doctor describe him, Blemings went on. You and Harrell could have been twins. Apart from the running, obviously.

Depressingly, Val had thought the same thing.

Storm ditches and bayous crisscrossed the countryside around Clinton, the productive farmland part of the original cotton belt. The alluvial soil was so fertile farmers said that a Popsicle stick pushed into the rich loam would sprout leaves within twenty-four hours. The two deputies drove between tracts of land planted with the summer soya crop, the neat rows reaching into the distance as far as the eye could see. As they drove past, Val could see the tangled vines heavy with clusters of fat pods ready for the vining machines that would soon be harvesting the crop on behalf of the numerous canning and freezing factories scattered over this part of Louisiana. As a teenager, he had spent his summers toiling in a canning factory. The hours were long, but the work was not that arduous and at that age, the wages had seemed little short of incredible.

Harrell's home was the former coach house of an antebellum mansion that a cotton mill owner had built twenty years before the War Between the States. Situated on prime farmland ten miles west of Clinton, fire had badly damaged the main house in the 1930s, the derelict shell later razed to make way for a Second World War flight school for long-range bomber pilots. The USAF kept the coach house to store supplies. It was too close to the runway to be habitable, and abandoned after the war.

A new owner dug up the runway in the sixties and returned the land to horticultural use. A year before the millennium, Harrell had made the landowner an offer for the crumbling coach house which had been accepted with alacrity. He replaced the roof and installed utilities. Apart from the addition of a bathroom and a kitchen, the interior had seen little improvement. Val recalled how he had broken the ice with Harrell by talking real estate renovation; explaining how he was working on his own project at that time.

Home comforts could be described as Spartan, Val finished explaining to Blemings. And that's being generous.

Needs a woman's touch.

"That's it exactly. When I last spoke to him, it was clear that he was a man living on his