(5/9) (Crime Drama, nc, not pc)
SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY
by Rhett Dreams (c. 1996)
Author's note: This story borrows characters from two novels by Thomas Harris:
"Red Dragon" and "Silence of the Lambs." It is highly recommended that you
read this particular story in order; otherwise, you miss important elements of
the plot.
Warning: This fictitious story is decidedly NOT politically correct and is
intended for mature readers.
Chapter Five
Trent's deputies called in from the Washington place with bad news. The
Reverend's daughter was still missing, now three hours overdue. Trent and
another deputy joined the others and began searching in the last hour before
nightfall. They split up and each took a different path through the mostly
wooded area that fell between Sarah's house and the church and parsonage. In
one clearing, Trent found fresh tire tracks and the faint outline of footprints
in the moist soil, not inconsistent with a girl her age and a larger, heavier
man. They spent much of the rest of the evening taking pictures and making
measurements, and following the tire tracks back out to the road. The muddy
tracks continued for only a hundred feet or so on the pavement, but indicated
the driver's northern direction.
Trent returned to the parsonage and told Reverend Washington and his wife
what they'd found and what they feared. Despite his involvement and leadership
in a dozen abductions and three killings, Trent was now murderously angry. He
was a cop under his amoral skin and it burned him to have this happen in his
backyard. It was a personal insult.
- o -
"Oh, God... Ummmm... yeah, Gene," moaned Clarice Starling. Not even five
minutes had passed since Gene Myers got home and he was now fucking his cock
into her from the rear, she bent over the kitchen counter. After arriving home
and whistling his appreciation for her transformation, he put the bag he was
carrying down on the kitchen counter and kissed her long and hard. He accepted
the glass of wine she handed him, and learned that his daughter was gone for
the night and he was alone with the beautifully-attired girl. She was half-way
into explaining what Nora had arranged for their dinner when she stopped, aware
that his eyes had been examining her body openly and now looked at her across
the few feet that separated them with unmistakable passion.
She stopped talking, sighed, and slid the straps off her shoulders and
let the dress fall to her ankles. Stepping out of the dress she turned and
leaned onto the counter top that separated the kitchen from the eat-in area,
presenting him with her barely covered ass. Within a minute he was standing
behind her, his pants lowered, her panties snapped open, and had his
condom-encased cock at her sex.
He drove into her quickly, his hands on her hips.
"Oh, yes," he groaned. "Oh God, how I've been wantin' this."
"Fuck me, Gene," she said. "Hard, fast quick... cum in me." He'd spent
three days with her but away from her, always anxious for the time they could
fuck again. He barely managed to last until she came before he erupted inside
her tight cunt, the release exquisite.
They had just finishing dinner when the phone rang. Clarice had enjoyed
the excellent food after three meals a day at diners while they were on the
road, and the conversation. She had noticed the amorous look return to his eyes
as they lingered over their wine, and now hoped the interruption would be
brief.
It was not. The call was from the Beverly Hills detective who was
helping Myers try to trace one of the MP's car, this one a Ferrari. They had
traced it by checking new registrations of the same make and model year, then
cross-checking, by hand, the validity of the vehicles VID, and it was an
incredibly tedious process for all but the rarest cars. The new owner was a
specialty car rental company, that leased and rented exotic cars largely to the
Hollywood elite. The owner and manager of this enterprise was quickly
convinced to give the cops the name of the dealer he had bought the car from,
paying cash of course. This man was brought in and offered a deal, immunity
from prosecution if his help resulted in a conviction. He gave them the name
of the Jackson, Mississippi car repair shop that was a front for buying and
selling stolen cars and parts, from all over the south.
The raid was planned for that night. The cops in California and
Mississippi were concerned that waiting even a day of so might result in a
leak, either from their informant or elsewhere. An operation this big was
likely to be well connected.
Myers and Starling arranged for a helicopter to take them up to Jackson,
after she had quickly changed out of the black cocktail dress and into a suit.
By the time they got up to Jackson, the raid was over. The man believed to me
the head honcho had tried to flee, wounding one officer before he was shot
dead. It took an hour to break into his office safe where they found over
$200,000 in cash and a bookkeeping journal. Myers and Starling pored over the
journal, which was either in code or just cryptic. There were many hundreds of
entries but they found an entry that they believed to be the Ferrari because
the model number and price received, $48,000, matched the amount the dealer
told them he paid. The complete entry for the Ferrari read:
11/3/94 PB F-350C 30,000 Whl, NID 12/16/94 HS 48,000
Myers jotted down the entry on a blank piece of paper, then he and
Starling discussed what each field meant, referring back to the journal to look
at other entries for clues. The first column was clearly the date the car was
received, and it fit nicely with the Ferrari owner's case. She'd been reported
missing two days later. The second column was the last one to break, and they
finally decided was some sort of code letters for the person who sold them the
stolen car. The third column was the model number of the recovered Ferrari.
Next was likely the price paid. The next field, "Whl, NID", was uncommon for
other entries, most of which read, "Cut/Sld" or "Cut/Inv". They concluded that
this entry indicated the disposition of the car, and for the Ferrari meant,
"Sold Whole with a new vehicle identification number". Date sold was next, and
checked out based on their informers data. "HS" didn't make any sense until
they called the Beverly Hills cop and he told them that the dealer informant,
George Starr, went by the nickname "Ham". HS were the initials for "Ham Starr".
The final field was the price they got from Starr for the car.
Excited now, they went back to the beginning of the journal, looking for
any entry that had "PB" in the field for buyer. They found thirteen entries,
cars bought from "PB", the last of which fit perfectly with the Bethany Albert
case. They copied down each entry. Myers requested that the Jackson Police
send him a photocopy of the entire journal in the morning, then he and Starling
took the chopper back to N'Orleans.
It was after four in the morning when they got home. They were exhausted
but also excited about this amazing breakthrough. They had no idea who PB was,
but the transaction dates and model designations of eight of the thirteen
entries were entirely consistent with eight of the nine MP cases Myers had
culled from his records and those of other jurisdictions across the south.
They had lots of work ahead, but their suspicions that these MP cases were
linked were now confirmed.
Wearily they climbed the stairs to the second floor and went into Gene's
bedroom.
"Mind if I bunk with you tonight?" said Clarice, carrying her toiletry
bag into the attached bathroom.
"As long as all you want to do is sleep," he said, sitting heavily on the
bed and leaning over to remove his shoes and socks.
"It's not just old guys like you who get tired," came her teasing voice
from the bathroom, "I'm beat too."
Stripped down to his shorts, Gene rose and entered the bathroom when
Clarice was done. When he returned she had removed her suit and blouse and had
one foot up on the bed while she rolled the stocking down her leg. He got into
bed and watched as she removed the other stocking, then the garter belt. By
the time she removed her bra and panties Gene's cock was hard under the sheets.
"You're one fine looking woman, Starling."
"And you're tired," she said.
"Oh, I don't know..."
She noticed then that his cock tented the sheets. Smiling, she went back
into the bathroom and got a condom.
"I'll do everything," she said. "You just lay back and relax."
She pulled the sheets down and pulled his shorts off. After sucking him
to full hardness she worked the condom on and straddled him, easing herself
down on his cock.
"This is nice, Starling" he said, his hands behind his head.
"Evening didn't turn out like you planned," she said, rocking back and
forth on his cock.
"Not quite," he said. "Though it started great and it's ending just
fine."
"You were gonna try to convince me to let you to take my ass, right?"
"Convince you, or tie you up and take you there anyway."
Starling laughed. "Won't be necessary."
"Party pooper."
They came together after a few minutes, then slept spooned together,
which is how Nora Myers found them when she returned home four hours later.
She smiled, closed their door, and went downstairs to make coffee.
"I'll bet she got as good a workout as I did," she said to herself.
- o -
Sheriff Trent pulled his cruiser in front of the dilapidated Heinz house
early Saturday morning, surprised that Tom hadn't come out to greet him. He
should have been able to hear him coming down the long driveway whether he was
in his trailer or the house. Trent turned off the ignition and exited his car,
and warily approached the small silver trailer that had been Tom's home for the
past fourteen months.
He found Tom inside, snoring heavily, his clothed and unkempt body
sprawled on top of his filthy bed. He tried to rouse the sleeping man, first
verbally and then by shaking his shoulder gently, but he was out cold. A quart
bottle of Jack Daniels lay on the floor, almost empty, the cap gone and nowhere
in sight. The place smelled from stale cigarette smoke, stacks of half-eaten
TV dinners that hadn't been thrown out, and other garbage. He was about to
leave when he saw a video tape on the small table at the other end of the
trailer. Curious, he inserted the tape in the small TV/VCR unit. He turned on
the TV but kept the sound at it's lowest setting, and rewound the tape for a
minute or so before he hit play.
What he saw both angered him and frightened him. The recording was
obviously made in the basement of the main house, and showed Tom fucking his
massive cock into the restrained body of sixteen year old Sarah Washington.
The bottle of bourbon was on the floor next to the bondage contraption, almost
full. Trent stopped the tape after a few minutes, ejected the tape, and turned
off the machine. He examined the sleeping black man once again, and noticed
that he had a great deal of mud caked on his boots and dirt packed under his
nails.
"Shit, Tom," he said to himself. "What have you done, you dumb nigger?"
He left the trailer quietly and was on his way to the house when he
noticed a shovel leaning against the side of the trailer. The blade was caked
with fresh soil. Trent took a quick tour of the basement and found a video
camera set up on a tripod, aimed at the bondage contraption they'd built and
used so often. He also found blood on the concrete floor.
Angry with Tom and frustrated with himself for not anticipating that this
kind of thing might happen, Trent followed Tom's tracks into the woods. Less
than a hundred yards from the house he found the girl's grave, the freshly
turned earth obvious despite Tom's pathetic attempt to cover it with leaves and
pine needles.
He returned to his cruiser and quietly drove away, his mind examining his
options. He couldn't arrest Tom, obviously. He thought about his options as he
drove to the police building, and concluded that he'd have to watch the tape
through before deciding. He knew that Tom would be out for hours, and even if
he woke he'd be in no condition to remember what he'd done with the tape now in
Trent's hands.
He pulled the blinds in his office and told his secretary that he didn't
want to be disturbed. After rewinding the tape he watched it from the
beginning, using head phones to pick up the audio. It started with the image
of the black girl bound across the barrel. Tom's body appeared and blocked the
camera for a second as he walked toward the girl. She cried and begged as Tom
undressed and took several long swallows of the bourbon. He ignored her cries
and greased the young girl's sex before working his thick meat inside her
virgin hole. She cried and screamed as he methodically raped her, his cock
stained with her blood before he finally finished and withdrew. Before the tape
shifted to the next scene, Trent had plenty of time to see the mixture of
blood, cum and lubricant leak out of the raped girl's hole.
It was quite clear that Tom and stopped the taping for some time, then
started it again later. He was still nude during the beginning of the second
scene, drinking heavily from the now half-empty bottle. While he wove
drunkenly back and forth in front of the weeping girl, he taunted her, telling
her that he'd fuck her ass next. He apparently grew tired of her crying and
begging because he stuffed two socks into her mouth before fucking her again,
this time using her narrow ass. Trent watched it through, spotting the moment,
ten minutes into the sodomy, where the girl choked to death on the large wad in
her mouth. He realized that the drunk black man was unaware that he was now
fucking a corpse.
When the tape ended, an idea formed in his mind that would get rid of
Tom, protect himself, and might even bolster his chances at reelection. The
tape would have to go. During one moment Tom had bragged to the girl of the
other times he had bound and fucked white girls and men. He'd have to search
Tom's place and the house, to make sure that he hadn't made tapes of any of the
other victims. Then he'd kill Tom and stage it so it looked as if he'd been
forced to shoot the man in self defense.
Trent visited the evidence room and borrowed another gun, this one a .32
automatic. He found a box of shells and returned to his cruiser for the short
ride back to the farm. Tom was still dead to the world, unmoved from where he
was earlier, sprawled on the bed. Working quickly and quietly, his hands in
gloves, Trent wrapped Tom's fingers around the gun, then on each bullet before
inserting them into the cartridge.
He searched the trailer thoroughly, finding two additional video tapes as
well as a box of jewelry and watches Tom had taken from the victims. He went
outside and placed this stuff in the trunk of his car. A quick search of the
house and basement uncovered nothing incriminating, Trent returned to the
trailer and banged loudly of the door.
"Hey, Tom!" he hollered a few times before opening the door.
Tom groaned and raised his head only after Trent had repeatedly called
his name and shook him on the shoulder.
"Aw, shit, boss... let me sleep this off."
"Can't Tom," he said. "Wake up, man!"
Tom groaned and rolled over. He held his head gingerly between his hands
as he struggled to his feet, then lurched into the tiny bathroom just in time
to throw up into the toilet. Trent found a relatively clean towel and ran it
under the faucet at the kitchen sink. When Tom reappeared he tossed him the
towel and told him to clean up and meet him outside.
"I feel like warmed over shit," said Tom when he came out a few minutes
later. "Why couldn't you have let me sleep? This hangover's a killer."
"Because there's a good chance they'll track the Washington girl here and
nail you for rape and murder. You killed the girl, right?"
Tom's eyes widened as he remembered the previous night, and his splitting
head ache worsened. "Oh, shit!"
"Your fuckin' car, Tom... it left tracks where you nabbed the girl, and
the measurements will help us narrow it down to just a few models, one of which
is your old Caddy. My boys will go through the registrations and, given your
record, they'll visit you real soon."
"It was an accident, boss," moaned Tom. "The little bitch jes' died on
me."
"You bury her?"
"Yeah, boss," he said, "over there I think."
"Is that where you buried that other guy last fall?"
"No... shit, my head hurts... the white guy I buried where ya tol me,
down in the pines, thataway." He motioned in the opposite direction.
"Well, Tom, there's nothin' to do now 'cept cover your tracks. Get a
bucket full of soapy water, real hot, and a mop. You're gonna have to wash up
downstairs before one of my boys comes to check on you."
The black moved to obey as fast as his head would allow, and Trent went
downstairs to retrieve the video camera and its tripod. He passed Tom on the
way out, and told him to wash everything in the room, and wipe clean every
surface. He knew they'd still find traces of the girl's blood in the drain but
he wanted to wash away as many other hairs or fibers as possible, so nobody
would become suspicious that Tom might have been involved in the other deaths.
He stowed the camera equipment in his truck with the other stuff he'd taken
earlier. After reconnoitering the area for the best spot to do Tom, he waited
in the shade of a tree for Tom to finish his chore.
- o -
The closest neighbor heard the shots ten minutes later, while he was
working in his garden, two distant reports followed seconds later by two more.
Knowing it wasn't hunting season, the man went into his house and called the
police. The deputy who took the man's call had only minutes before received a
radio call from Sheriff Trent, asking for backup at the Heinz farm. Putting
two and two together the deputy ran out to his cruiser and raced to the farm,
his siren blaring.
He found Sheriff Trent's cruiser and was relieved when he found his boss
around the side of the house, standing over the body of a black man he
recognized as Tom.
"You okay, Sheriff?" he said as he approached. The man on the ground was
clearly dead, two bullet holes visible in his chest, his eyes staring blankly
to the sky. Laying half on his hand and half on the ground was an automatic
pistol.
"Yeah, thanks, Fred. I was checkin' on ol' Tom, for the business with
the Washington girl, and he saw me and jes' took off. I called for backup and
followed him. He took a shot at me, two actually." Trent motioned behind him
and the deputy saw two bullet holes in the side of the house, about head high.
He couldn't have known that the holes were made by Trent after he had shot Tom,
using the gun that was now in the dead man's hand.
"Shee-it, sheriff," said the deputy, "you're lucky to be alive. Any sign
of the girl?"
"No. Why don't you check the trailer and I'll check the house. Don't
disturb anything, Fred. Nothin'. We're looking for the girl now, or any sign
she might have been here."
A third cruiser arrived and Trent went to meet them. With only a few
common-sense suggestions from Trent, one of the deputies found the grave twenty
minutes later. The county coroner was called to the scene, joining a growing
group of the sheriffs men and state policemen who were swarming over the
trailer, house and grave, collecting evidence and photographing the scene.
After the body was tentatively identified as Sarah Washington, Trent left
to drive to the parsonage to break the bad news to the Reverend and his wife.
"We didn't get to little Sarah in time," he said, then explained solemnly
that their daughter had been found dead. Later when he got the black minister
alone he laid it on heavy, blaming himself for the girl's death. "If I hadn't
given Tom a second chance, and gotten him that job as caretaker, he'd be in
jail and your little girl would still be alive."
"You can't blame yourself, Sheriff," said the slain girl's father. "The
lord Jesus says we got to forgive sinners, give them the chance to hear His
words and accept Him into their hearts. You gave him that chance but the devil
got that man first and filled his sorry soul with evil."
- o -
Clarice came downstairs a little after nine Saturday morning, freshly
showered and dressed casually in blue jeans and an oversized Washington
Redskins tee shirt. She had enjoyed waking up in Gene's arms, feeling his warm
body pressed against her back. He was still asleep when she left.
"Good morning," she said, finding Nora in the kitchen drinking a cup of
coffee. "That coffee smells heavenly."
"It's over there, Clarice, and the mugs are in the cabinet above."
Clarice made herself a cup, while Nora asked, "I can't remember that last
time dad slept in past seven or so. You must have really wore him out."
"Not me, I'm afraid. We spent the evening flying up to Jackson, working
on this case, then flying back. Didn't get home until after four. I hope your
night was more fun."
"Oh, that's too bad. But my evening with Lou was super."
Clarice sat down with her coffee. "Tell me about it, so at least I can
live vicariously through you."
Nora did, and Clarice's eyes grew big as the younger girl described the
XXX movie that Lou had rented and how they'd stopped in on occasion to perform
live the acts they'd seen in the film. She was in the middle of describing the
anal sex scene when her father came into the room.
"Hi dad," she said, her unfinished story lingering between the two women.
"Hi Gene," echoed Starling, and both women smiled at each other.
"Nora... Clarice," he said, knowing he'd interrupted something. He went
straight for the coffee pot and poured himself a cup.
"What were you two ladies talking about that's such a damn secret?"
"Oh, it was nothing, dear," said Clarice.
"I was telling her I got laid last night," said Nora. "You want to hear
all the details?"
"Not another word, daughter," he said, holding up his hand. "Let me get
my coffee, and the newspaper, and I'll go find a hole someplace to hide in."
Nora laughed.
"That's not really necessary," said Clarice, smiling at Gene's
embarrassment but tapping the place next to her at the table. "We promise to
be good and not talk about... how some men really know how to show a girl and
good time while others..."
"Take their honeys to Jackson in the middle of the night, to look for
used car parts," finished Nora.
"I got Abbott and fuckin' Costello," he muttered as he sat heavily in the
chair next to Starling.
"Don't swear in front of the children, dear," she said, patting his hand,
grinning.
"Fuckin' right he shouldn't," said Nora.
- o -
Myers and Starling spent a couple hours Saturday afternoon in the office,
mapping each entry in the journal with the appropriate MP case.
"My mistake," he said, "assuming they were only after women. What do you
think they did with the men?"
"If they were young and good looking, they might have sold them into
slavery, assuming that's what they did with the women. Quinn tells me there's
a market for both."
"One of these guys... a Mr. Walter Flinn, was thirty-eight."
"Gee, an old fart," said Clarice, smiling into the face of her
forty-three year old lover.
"You're gonna pay for that, missy," he growled.
They both smiled and went back to work. There were thirteen Journal
entries indicating that the Jackson shop bought had bought the car from "PB",
and they were able to find twelve MP cases with exactly the right dates and car
makes. Myers got some poster board from the supply room and they created a
four-by-four-foot exhibit for the conference room, listing for each case the
date the car was delivered to Jackson, the date the original MP report was
filed, name of the MP, make and model of the car, the last-known location of
the victim, and the direction they were presumably traveling.
Myers went to post the exhibit in the conference room for when the team
reassembled Monday morning, and Starling used his office phone to call Jack
Crawford. She tried his home number and then his office, not surprised to find
her boss at his desk, working on a Saturday. Since his wife died of cancer two
years earlier, he'd put even more time at work.
"Enjoying your vacation, Starling?" he asked.
"I certainly am," she said, not taking the bait. She filled him in on
the Jackson raid, the journal they found, the matching dates from Myer's
collection of MP cases. She concluded her succinct report with their theory
that the Walters case might be linked to a dozen other MP cases along the gulf
coast.
"Good work, Starling," said Crawford. "Before I forget, Congressman
Walters called yesterday, wanting to talk to you about his daughter's case.
You may want to call him back and update him."
"But I don't have anything solid, yet. It's all speculation at this
point."
"Tell him that. He's a U.S. Congressman with a hair up his ass about the
Bureau, and he's just lost a daughter. Don't give him names or places, but you
can sketch what you've learned and what you're doing. He gets secret briefings
all the time, and knows not to blab anything."
She called the Congressman next and found him at home. She carefully
summarized their suspicion that his daughter's case may be linked to a dozen
missing persons cases. She told him that other young people driving expensive
cars had disappeared and that it was possible that his daughter and Henry Burns
had run into the same outfit.
"Then it's possible that Henry Burns wasn't responsible for Debbie's
death."
"Too early to be sure, Congressman, but it's a possibility that we're
investigating very actively."