The Resaca Bend Murders

By Bill McCarthy

A criminal defense attorney temporarily accepts an assignment as a prosecutor to help an old friend. When the friend dies, Bill is now stuck with the criminal prosecution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781649527868

Book preview

Chapter 1

Three cops at arm’s length walking abreast of each other are searching the terrain looking for anything unusual. They will comb the area in quadrants. This is Resaca Bend—miles below the dam where the river is changed to a stream. In the distance are limestone cliffs with the bluffs lined by trees.

I get a clear line of sight. In a depression, there appear two naked bodies on the backs, arms outstretched as if in crucifixion, midsections streaked in congealed blood the color of rusted metal.

The closest victim is a male with tightly clenched fists. Tied with a cord, these have turned the black-blue of death. Limbs are stretched to near dislocation, pulled taut by a plastic-coated cord, similar to that used in earlier murders. Metal tent stakes driven deeply into the ground have been used for this purpose; there is a fifth stake driven hard into the abdomen transfixing the victims to the ground. This is the cause of death.

This killer takes victims in tandem—a man and woman, staked out. In each case, college kids. Shrinks say there is a ritual, a signature they have now linked to two other double murders, one in the northern part of the state and the other in Louisiana.

Now the killer has departed from his pattern. The woman will, in the medical euphemism of the coroner, be called well nourished. There is a mane of disheveled and unkempt gray hair atop the man’s head. They are not young—his usual quarry. The woman’s face I cannot see. Articles of clothing are laid out in a neat pattern near the head of each victim, folded as if freshly laundered.

Then the bizarre: panties are stretched over the woman’s head, waistband down around her chin and neck obscuring her face. Through the leg holes, her brassiere is threaded, each cup protruding through separate leg holes like a grotesque set of Mickey Mouse ears.

I reflect on the confluence of events that brought me to this point. Ten days earlier with Dan Carpenter in the hospital, his breathing labored. You won’t have to prosecute. Just hold their hands during the investigation. Bless the warrant, any searches. I’ve talked to the judges—they’re on board.

Whose pipe was Dan smoking? Three days out of a triple bypass had drawn every ounce of animation from his body; a pale gray-green ghost against the white hospital sheets. A man once my equal in stature looked like he was wasting away. I described the scene. Sick, he said. He was describing the entity I am now appointed to pursue—what the press is calling The Resaca Bend Killer.

Steve Hebert of Cajun descent, the chief of detectives, approaches. Mr. Mac, I thought you should be here—I hope I didn’t inconvenience you.

No, I say as we put a face on the usual pleasantries, because you are new, I thought it best to keep you informed.

Do we know who they are yet? I ask.

No identities yet, he says. We’ll check clothing after the photo shoot. He is fixing the scene, chronicling the location of every item around the bodies. Kids found them this morning.

I look toward the bodies. Same MO, I say. Like the others?

Pretty much, except for the age. It is the third set of killings in less than two weeks for a county where criminal news is drunk driving after a heavy weekend.

What has begun as a case of caretaking for a friend has become a burden that monopolizes every aspect of my life. My private practice miles away is a shamble, all because a favor consumes every waking hour. Two days ago, Dan died. The judges of Lufkin County now have me strapped in for the duration.

Further ahead, an evidence tech is ascending to a tree platform perfectly marked but for a descending strand of rope. Probably bird watchers, Hebert says. Some of these folks are crazier than the birds they chase. Well, check it out.

Find anything up there? says Steve.

Blood, says the tech. Steve is now deeply frowning.

Chapter 2

Bill Mac—a long time, ten years to be exact. I had not seen him since his conviction and removal from the practice. In his late forties, he has aged well beyond those years. A tight-lipped, forced thin smile—a bundle of scorn tightly strung. Penetrating dark eyes, cold as steel, and a hard athletic body, the lean mean obsession of a former Marine.

Heard you left the DA’s office. Too bad. I was so looking forward to seeing you in court. I’ve waited.

I still get there on the defense side, I say.

Oh, it wouldn’t be the same, he says.

The place is open to the public, I tell him. Come sit in the audience. Hiss if you like. I give him a little grin like this is coming to an end.

Oh, they didn’t tell you, says Martin Gaines. I’m practicing again. Of all people, I thought they’d tell you since you represented the state bar. There is life after disbarment.

We’ll be seeing each other, he says, and don’t worry, I don’t harbor grudges. What happened happened.

In his day, Martin did some heady cases, mostly white-collar, though he has seen the seamier side of crime. He defended to a standstill the prosecution of the Warlords—a group of Aryan thugs charged with the murder of a black man. He drew the wrath of the cops and prosecutors. He also won which, in his book, is all that counts.

Chapter 3

Four years ago, Richard Stevens worked in the bowels of the AG’s office shagging criminal appeals. He found the fountain of political patronage in a GOP club with people who believed only good Republicans speak in tongues and foster the social ideas of Beaver Cleaver.

Since then, he ascended to the judicial heavens faster than Elijah. He sits in the public justice chambers of the superior court.

He tells me how busy he is to let me know my audience will be short. He is down one judge, a vacancy on the court. Stevens is pulling strings to put one of his cronies from the AG’s office in this spot. He made statements, now denied, that only former deputy AGs are qualified to be judges; his views of professional and social diversity. If narrow-mindedness is a virtue, Stevens is its patron saint.

So what is it you want? The animation of Calvin Coolidge, a human droid whose maker forgot to program a