But Not For Naught: A Clint Wolf Novel (Clint Wolf Mystery Series Book 5) Read online

  BUT NOT

  FOR NAUGHT

  A Clint Wolf Novel

  (Book 5)

  ___________________

  BY

  BJ BOURG

  www.bjbourg.com

  BUT NOT FOR NAUGHT

  A Clint Wolf Novel (Book 5) by BJ Bourg

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  Copyright © 2018 by BJ Bourg

  ISBN-13:

  ISBN-10:

  Cover design by Christine Savoie of Bayou Cover Designs

  PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 1

  “Not for nothing had he been exposed to the pitiless struggles for life…” – Jack London (THE CALL OF THE WILD)

  18 years earlier…

  Sunday, June 14

  Breechville, Kentucky

  The young boy had spent most of the morning watching Stepdad dip a brush in a bucket and splash bright white paint all over the side of the house. He had begged to help, but Stepdad told him to go away, so he sat under a tree and played with his Tonka truck while keeping a curious eye on the progress.

  He couldn’t tell time, but it wasn’t long after he and Sissy—it’s what he called his older sister—finished eating macaroni and cheese that he found himself all alone in the front yard with the bucket and paint brushes. Stepdad told him he couldn’t help with the wall, so he began looking for something else to paint. His eyes lit up when he noticed the old truck parked on the concrete driveway. He had heard Stepdad complaining to Mom about not having enough money to paint the truck. He smiled. Stepdad was always mad and saying bad words. This was his chance to make him happy.

  The boy wrapped his small fingers around the bucket of paint and tried to lift it. “Wow,” he said out loud. “This is heavy.”

  He started to slide the bucket by pulling on the wire handle, but it tilted over and paint spilled onto the dirt ground. He crossed his little arms and wondered what to do. He couldn’t ask Stepdad, because he wanted to surprise him and make him happy. Maybe then he wouldn’t be so mad all the time and he might not slap them anymore.

  “I’ve got it!” The boy rushed to the bucket of water and removed the paintbrush from where it was submerged. He dipped the brush in the paint and walked across the yard and toward the truck, holding his left hand under the bristles to keep from getting paint on the grass. When he reached the truck, he started stroking the surface with the brush, smiling as the white paint began to cover the ugly color of the truck. “That looks better!”

  The boy made trip after trip to the paint bucket. His left hand was covered in paint and he rubbed it repeatedly on his jean shorts, but he couldn’t get all of the paint off of it. His fingers were sticky and his hand smelled funny, but at least the truck was looking better. He was making another trip to the truck when the screen door opened and then slammed shut.

  “Brother, what are you doing?” Sissy cried, running across the yard. “Are you crazy? Stepdad’s going to be mad!”

  The boy smiled. “No, he’s going to be happy, Sissy. I’m helping him make his truck a pretty color.”

  Sissy slapped her hands to her face. “We have to clean this right now. Go get the hosepipe.”

  “But why? It looks so—”

  “Just do it before Stepdad wakes up!”

  The boy frowned. Sissy had never spoken like that to him and it scared him. Lowering his head, he trudged toward the side of the house where the green water hose was located. When Stepdad wasn’t around and Mom was home from work, she let them spray each other with the water, and he wanted to do that now. Smiling suddenly, he bounded the last few steps to the water hose and twisted the knob. He grabbed the nozzle and held it like a gun, aiming it right at Sissy as he ran across the yard. The water hose was long, and it slid behind him like a large green snake.

  “I’m going to get you,” the boy shouted, smashing the nozzle and laughing as a stream of water shot in Sissy’s direction.

  Sissy was on her knees rubbing a rag against the side of the truck when the water reached her. She screamed and jumped to her feet, startled and angry. Her wet blonde hair dangled in front of her face as she glowered at him. “Don’t do that! You need to help me—”

  “What the hell are you doing to my truck?”

  The boy dropped the water hose when he heard Stepdad’s voice. His knees began to shake and he watched in horror as the large man stomped down the steps, heading straight for Sissy.

  “Why did you put that paint on my truck?” he demanded of Sissy. “What is wrong with you?”

  Sissy shook her head and dropped the rag. “I…I was trying to clean it off.”

  Stepdad lifted his hand high in the air when he reached Sissy and she squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for what she knew was coming.

  “I did it!” the boy blurted, regretting it as soon as he said it.

  Stepdad hesitated—his hand high in the air—and turned to look at him. “You did this?”

  His teeth chattering nervously, the boy nodded.

  “Get your ass over here,” Stepdad said, waving for the boy to join him and Sissy.

  The boy walked as slowly as he could, keeping his head down as he approached the outer edges of his stepdad’s shadow. It made the man seem larger than life, and he certainly didn’t need any help. The boy had been on the receiving end of Stepdad’s anger many times, and he knew what was coming.

  As soon as he made it to the driveway, Stepdad reached over and pulled him forward, knocking him off his feet. The boy fell to the ground and skinned the palm of one hand and the elbow of his opposite arm. Grabbing a handful of his hair, Stepdad jerked him upright. “Why the hell did you do that? Huh? Answer me!”

  The boy just stood trembling, trying his best not to cry. He knew if he cried it w
ould only be worse. When he didn’t answer, Stepdad slapped him right across the face, knocking him to the ground. His left ear rang and the side of his face stung. Stepdad’s hands were like sandpaper and it felt like his face was bleeding.

  The boy pushed himself slowly to his hands and knees. He was dazed and his vision was blurry, but he could clearly hear Sissy yelling at Stepdad to leave him alone. He didn’t like it when Sissy got involved, because they both ended up getting beat up. He was about to tell her it was okay when Stepdad let out an angry snarl and shoved the palm of his hand roughly into her chest.

  Sissy’s arms flailed into the air as she fell backward. When she landed, the sound of her head smashing against the hard concrete reminded the boy of the time he slammed a watermelon on the road just to see what would happen.

  “Sissy!” The boy lunged from the ground and rushed toward his sister, but Stepdad backhanded him across the chest and sent him sprawling.

  “Get up, girl,” Stepdad said, glaring down at Sissy. “I mean it. If you don’t get up right now, I’m going to punish you for a week.”

  The boy stared wide-eyed from his place in the dirt. Sissy’s body was shaking in a weird way but, other than that, she wasn’t moving.

  “I’m not kidding…get up,” Stepdad said, his voice sounding louder. He reached over and, grabbing her by the arm, jerked her to a seated position. When he let go of her arm, she collapsed in a lifeless heap to the ground.

  Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks. “Is Sissy going to be okay?”

  Stepdad glanced around the neighborhood. “Shut up and go inside—right now!”

  The boy stood shakily to his feet and stared a second longer at his sister, whose lifeless body lay on the ground. She wore her favorite yellow dress and dirty white sneakers and the boy suddenly felt bad for spraying her with the water hose—

  “I said get in the house,” Stepdad bellowed, shoving a finger toward the front door.

  The boy rushed to the house and let the screen door slam shut behind him. He ran to the living room and then scrambled onto the sofa that was pushed up against the window. He watched through a crack in the curtain as Stepdad lifted Sissy into his arms and began screaming for help. Moments later, his cries got the attention of one of the neighbors, who ran outside holding a cordless phone in her hand.

  Soon after, sirens sounded and a big square ambulance drove up. Mommy arrived a few minutes later and she ran to the ambulance people who were working on Sissy. The boy could hear Stepdad saying he came outside and found her like that. He wanted to run outside and tell Mommy he was lying, but he was too afraid.

  He didn’t know why Sissy wasn’t moving, but she looked like Winter—their white German shepherd—did when she had gone to Doggie Heaven. It was the saddest night of his life. They had stayed up all night crying when that happened…well, except for Stepdad. He had told them to shut up so he could get some sleep.

  The boy watched as the people in the ambulance uniform put Sissy in the back of the wagon. Mom got in the back with Sissy and Stepdad got in his newly painted truck to follow them. When everyone was gone, he just sat there staring out the window until it got too dark to see anymore. He then padded to his room and slipped into bed. He cried himself to sleep, wondering if Sissy was gone forever like Winter.

  CHAPTER 2

  Friday, November 18

  Mechant Loup, Louisiana

  It was almost noon when I guided the ten-passenger tour boat under a tree that had fallen during a thunderstorm last summer. The tree had come to rest against a neighboring cypress and was suspended about twenty feet above the water. Branches covered the length of the tree trunk and thick Spanish moss hung like ghosts from their gnarled fingers, making for an interesting tunnel under which to coast. Every one of the six passengers in the boat turned their attention to the tree as we passed under it, no doubt looking for snakes.

  “Clint Wolf—is that your name?” asked one of the four women onboard, her voice betraying her nervousness.

  Before I could answer, my mother, Nancy, spoke up from her perch nearest me on the bench situated to the left side of the boat. While I got my dark hair and eyes from her, I certainly didn’t get her height. At five-two, she was eight inches shorter than me.

  “He’s Chief Investigator Clint Wolf,” Mom corrected. “He’s Mechant Loup’s first official investigator. He took the day off from his real job and he’s only doing this swamp tour as a favor to me. I’ve lived in the city of La Mort all my life and have never been on one of these boats. My husband is working overseas for three months, so I’m staying with Clint and his fiancée for Thanksgiving. Um, her name is Susan and she’s the Chief of Police here.”

  The woman cast an odd look in my mom’s direction—as though Mom had provided more information than the woman wanted to know—and then glanced back up at the tree. “What do we do if a snake falls out of the tree?”

  “Whatever you do,” I said flatly, “don’t jump in the water, because it’s filled with alligators.”

  Everyone began casting nervous glances around, including my mother.

  “Can they jump in the boat?” one of the men asked. He was a young guy with a pale complexion and he wore a dress shirt and slacks. “The alligators, I mean?”

  As I puttered along, I told them the story of how Dexter Boudreaux had lost his arm. There were gasps from some of the tourists and the guy with the slacks pulled back from the edge of the boat. I allowed the story to sink in with them for a moment before I spoke again.

  “So, while we look for Godzator,” I finally said, “why don’t each of you introduce yourselves and share what brings y’all to the southernmost tip of Louisiana.” I nodded toward the woman who’d asked about snakes. “Why don’t you go first?”

  A cold front was forecasted to blow through tonight, but at the moment it was eighty degrees and the young woman wore a light blue romper. She pulled her top a little higher on her chest and frowned. “I’m Shirley. I met a guy online who’s from here and who was supposed to be rich and good looking, but it turns out he lives with his mom and he posted a picture he found on a modeling site. He doesn’t even have a car.”

  “Oh, dear,” my mom said, “thank God you weren’t kidnapped and murdered.”

  The girl nodded. “Since I’d already driven six hundred miles to be here, I decided I’d do something fun. I’ve never been on a swamp tour, so, here I am.”

  I nodded to a fellow with short-cropped dirty blond hair. He sat beside a woman with long dark hair. They were obviously a couple. “What about you two?”

  “Matthew and Jill Bernard,” the man said. He nodded to my mother. “Like you, we’re here for Thanksgiving—visiting my mom. I joined the service four years ago and haven’t seen her since.” He lowered his eyes. “It seems she’s sick and might need a kidney transplant.”

  “He was stationed in Hawaii and we got to live there for over a year,” Jill explained, seemingly unbothered by the plight of her mother-in-law. “We’re in New York now, but I didn’t want to leave the Islands.”

  The guy with the dress clothes chimed in next, shoving his thumb in the direction of the girl sitting on the opposite row and at the far end of the bench. “My sister dragged me out here. We came down from—”

  “Look!” Shirley jumped to her feet and pointed out in the distance ahead of the boat. “Is that Godzator?”

  Achilles was resting at my feet and he popped his head up when he heard the tone of Shirley’s voice. I leaned toward my right to see past her, shook my head. “No, that’s a nice size gator, but it’s not Godzator.”

  Everyone crowded toward the front of the boat to get a better view, and some of them snapped pictures from their cell phones. Achilles’ ears were perked up and he rose to a seated position. “Stay,” I said calmly.

  “Can we get closer?” Matthew asked.

  I nodded and guided the boat slowly toward the giant lizard. I shut off the engine when we were fifty feet away
and held up my hand for them to be quiet and remain still. “If it feels threatened,” I whispered, “it’ll disappear beneath the surface.”

  We all watched as the alligator glided effortlessly through the water, moving closer to our location. When it was about twenty feet from the boat, someone gasped and asked if we were in danger. At the sound of the voice, the alligator instantly disappeared from view, like a ninja on the water.

  I continued the tour and we were able to locate a dozen more alligators, thanks to the warm weather we’d been having. Once I’d reached the end of the route, I turned around and headed back to Brennan Boudreaux’s restaurant on the water. The brother of former mayor Dexter Boudreaux, the elderly man owned Brennan’s Seafood and Swamp Tours. When I’d given up my tour business to go back into law enforcement work, I donated my equipment to Brennan and he invited me to give a tour anytime I felt like it.

  “Now that you’re not taking business away from me,” he had drawled, “I guess we can work together from time to time.”

  I tied the boat to the dock at Brennan’s Seafood and Swamp Tours and watched as the passengers disembarked one at a time. They all tried to give me a tip when they walked by, but I refused to take their money.

  “I do this for fun now,” I explained, “but if y’all insist on parting with the extra money, there’s a church south of town that’s taking donations to feed needy families for Thanksgiving.”

  They loved the idea and most of them hurried off, but Jill Bernard stopped and asked if she could pet Achilles. I told him to sit and then placed a hand on his head while he smelled Jill’s hand. He then turned his head, seemingly bored with her, and I nodded. After rubbing his ears for a few seconds and talking in baby-speak, she thanked me again for the tour and turned to follow her husband down the dock.

  “Is that it?” my mom asked.

  I gathered up the tour paperwork and nodded. “I’ll turn this in and we can head home.”