Excerpt from The Biloxi Witness

by Wilma Knox

 

"And bring your smallest tranquilizer darts - your smallest." The terse conversation was typical of the Sheriff, especially when he was on the telephone.

"On my way, SIR!"

"Do you know how to get here?"

"Certainly." Kerry ran to pick up her bag, checked its contents briefly and added a few items. She met her father by chance in the hall, told him where she was going, and checked his face for a reaction. He was impassive. Kerry was well aware that he distrusted the Sheriff, but they had stopped talking about it.

She hopped into her red Taurus, savoring the new car smell and the rich color's contrast with the grey velour interior. She did not have the faintest idea why the Sheriff wanted a vet instead of the animal control officer, but she would know soon.

Webster Acres . . . Should I use I-10? I could have asked about that. Kerry frowned in concentration as she tried to recall just where the sub-division was. Finally deciding on the Interstate, she passed a small farm where cockfights had been held for twenty years, until her father had prodded an earlier Sheriff into action. For a long time after that their phone rang at odd hours of the night, breathing venom and threat. But the callers finally seemed to tire, or moved off to friendlier places.

She was rewarded when she found the entreance she wanted was indeed on the north side of the highway. Webster Acres, now coming up on her left, was identified by a low pair of white-washed cinder block columns, an obvious attempt to separate those within from the rough and tumble countryside. Kerry drove in a long winding road through the development, past huge houses, each with a carefully tended garden full of trophy plantings, until she spotted an open gate that announced a higher level of pretension. An intricate black grillwork gate was supported by massive brick pillars; a row of young trees had been allowed to grow along the fenceline, closing off the property from the view of strangers. The Sheriff's car and the crime scene truck were just visible down the curve of the narrow paved drive.

She drove in and pulled off under an overhanging branch behind the last car, leaving the driveway clear. The property was enclosed with a high chainlink fence that must have contained five or six acres of pine trees, with an occasional bay tree or scrub oak. At the top of the slope, a long two-storied white house faced with traditional white pillars sat in the midst of an extensive lawn, with its back to the pine trees, overlooking a bayou that ran out to a river just visible in the distance. She saw a group of men at the fence corner farthest from the house, at the foot of the bluff near the fence and the water.

Two uniformed men were crouched close together, their heads down. As she struggled down the hill toward them, catching her slacks on wild azaleas, Kerry wished she had worn walking boots. Just as she reached them, one of the men stood up and stepped back, revealing the body of a woman crumpled on the ground, her face completely covered by her wet, muddy hair. She was dressed in a green V-necked sweater, white blouse and gray skirt, all of which were muddy and covered with blood. Kerry's impetus carried her forward even while she felt a wild desire to turn and run. Almost without volition her eyes focused on the arms, which ended in bloody stumps. The hands were completely gone! Her stomach heaved, and she turned away, struggling for composure.

"Kerry." The Sheriff's voice cut into her consciousness. "Kerry, we need you."

She turned back slowly, hearing now the small but ferocious black muddy dog on top of the woman's chest that was barking and snarling with all its might. It was barking so hard that, with each bark, its forepaws lifted with the effort to drive them away. Its ears flopped and wide eyes showed a circle of white and primitive fear.

"Little devil does that whenever we come near," said Sheriff Frank Borth somewhat sheepishly. "Sorry to bother you, Doc. Want me to hold your bag?"

In all the months she had known him she could not recall his using her title before. "Thanks, I may need it." She pulled opera length leather gloves from the bag, then slipped into a plastic coat and snapped the buttons. A deep knee bend brought her almost eye to eye with the determined dog. By focusing on the dog she was able to ignore the tortured body it guarded.

Once down she lowered her eyes in a pose non-threatening to the dog, but that was a mistake. Even though itwas proper technique, it forced her once again to look directly at the bloody stumps. A horrible taste seeped into her throat. By tightening her jaws and concentrating fiercely on the animal's fear for a moment or two, she was able to press ahead. As she crouched there quietly, the staccato barking began to decrease in volume; the little dog was no longer throwing itself upward with each effort. Making low, comforting noises, Kerry raised her eyes to meet the dog's.

"How did you get in such a fix, baby?" This dog was no puppy, she realized, but a toy.

The dog stopped barking altogether and Kerry offered her gloved hand, palm up, for its inspection. It was then she noticed a thin, muddy piece of rope tied to the animal's collar that led to a brick on the other side of the woman's body. When she reached for the rope, there was an immediate low-pitched warning from Frank.

"That's evidence, Kerry."

"Of course. Can I cut the rope and give you the brick by holding onto the rope?"

"Sure. Ken, get an evidence bag for the brick," he directed his deputy.

"If you'd get the scissors out of my bag, without moving too suddenly. They're in the side pocket on the lock side."

Kerry slowly took the scissors from Frank, cut the rope and, grasping the cut end carefully with her gloved hand, handed the brick to the deputy. She returned her hand to a palm up position under the dog's nose. The dog sniffed her glove and started to whimper. Her soothing voice continued but now she was talking to Frank.

"Looks like the little dog was supposed to be drowned"

"Thinking the same thing," Frank answered softly.

Kerry reached out and rubbed the little jaw. The animal answered with a whimper, followed by a keening howl. She picked up the dog, noticing it was a bitch, and held her close to her body, warming and cuddling her at the same time. The dog continued to warble the blues, telling Kerry her troubles, but obviously at ease in Kerry's hands. This immediate empathy with animals was a quality that Kerry had had all her life; it had drawn her into veterinary practice like a magnet.

Kerry comforted the wailing dog as she removed the animal's collar. Both she and Frank had a good look at the collar before it went into an evidence bag. It seemed nondescript -- no tage, no license.

"I'll have this little survivor at my office if you need her."

"Thanks," said Frank. "You're now an official consultant on this case."

Kerry nodded as she relished the prospect of telling her dad, Kent Allen. The Sheriff moved close to her. "Not a word to anyone, not even Kent. You do understand?"

She looked him full in the eyes and made him smile with a low-pitched, "Yes, SIR!"

Kerry could barely manage to get back up the bluff carrying the dog. A deputy, Ken Boudreaux, carried her bag as he made macho talk.

"I told Sheriff I could shoot that little critter and get it out of the way. Most probably he just wanted to talk to you."

"Thank Frank for saving this muddy little dog, won't you?" She replied with sugar coated irony that escaped Ken.

The deputy helped her move a cardboard box to the floor of the front seat of the car. As Kerry dropped a towel into the box and reached out to put the muddy dog in it, the dog whimpered and started to whine. Ken laughed and moved off as she drew the dog close to her again.

"You're a lap dog, aren't you?" she said in a comforting tone of voice. "O.K. You can lie on my lap, but no sitting up and fighting with the air bag. Can't have you in its path."

The little dog sank into Kerry's plastic coat with a rattle and lay there quietly.

Kerry went back to town via I-110, an elevated traffic artery, going south over D'Iberville toward the beach highway. D'Iberville had been known simply as North Biloxi until ten years before, when it incorporated and blocked Biloxi from growing north by annexation. Pine trees were everywhere, sheltering homes and small businesses; only the density varied. Huge oaks with Spanish moss commanded the skyline as she approached Back Bay.

But she could not get the sight of that mutilated woman out of her mind. She had seen sickening cases of animal abuse that made her fighting mad, but the sight of this woman with no hands gave her a chilling sense of personal vulnerability.

Kerry tried to calm herself with a mental recitation of the eight flags that had flown over the Gulf Coast during its history, an incantation she found soothing for unknown reasons, but it seemed to have little effect this time.

DeSoto, LaSalle and Cadillac, she continued, stubbornly. Three cars named for important explorers plus F.F. (Founding Father) D'Iberville. The eight flags symbolize the waves of invasion that continued right through the 20th century. Today's gamblers, still with a glint of gold in their eyes, are only the latest in a long line of invaders, now lured by the fun-loving hospitality ashore and the breath of freedom from care that blows in from the gulf.

Spain had originally controlled the Gulf Coast as part of its Florida claim, and sent DeSoto with his Conquistadors to look for gold. Their journals were none too specific about their travels, because the explorers did not want anyone to be able to retrace their steps to the gold -- gold that never materialized. The Indian tribes had had the wit to tell DeSoto essentially, "Gold not here, it's that-a-way." Frustrated, the Conquistadores moved on. DeSoto died in 1543 near Tunica, Mississippi, but Spain's claim to the area was fatally undermined by the lack of settlements.

The next flag was carried by the French. They discovered the northern reaches of the Mississippi River as they pushed south from Canada to expand their fur trade. LaSalle hoped the broad river was the elusive passage to the Pacific, and in 1681 made his way down to the Gulf via the imposing waterway, claiming all the land in the vast Mississippi Basin for France. When he returned, however, using the Gulf route for four ships and 300 colonists, he missed the mouth of the river. Instead, he landed in Texas, where he was later murdered when the colony became moribund.

WAS TODAY'S MURDER THE WORK OF SOME ROVING KILLER? OR WAS HE SOMEONE FROM FROM AROUND HERE? HOW MANY PEOPLE MET DEATH AT THOSE HANDS IN THE PAST?

The French persevered in their attempts to locate the Gulf mouth of the river and in 1699 sent D'Iberville with a search party. They met the Biloxi Indians, who led them to good drinking water on the Biloxi Peninsula. The French claim to discovery was jeopardized by a Spanish ship in the vicinity that, fortunately for the French, ran aground far from shore in the shallow waters of the Gulf. The party pressed on to Lake Borgne in modern Louisiana, moving south and apparently sending out scouting parties, for they finally located the river. The only hitch was the necessity for an overland portage from Lake Borgne to the mighty Mississippi.

The British actually penetrated the maze of bayous, swamps, rivulets and miscellaneous waterways that make up the mouth of the river, and found the right route in from the Gulf soon after D'Iberville. They failed to realize their accomplishment, however, and as they reached whatis now known as English Turn, enterprising natives and a French exploring party convinced them they should turn around and give up the search.

Kerry glanced down at the dog. Fast Asleep. You probably had one hard night, little girl, she thought.

--From The Biloxi Witness, by Wilma Knox. © September 21, 2000 , Averrie-Robbins Publishing used by permission.