Chapter 15

cabin tents rented for $25 a day summer $30 a night winter rate extra person was $10
trailer rentals: larger $75 mid size $60 small $50which had become my Titan home temporarily
John Boyd 28yrs old at the start of the story
Gabby Boyd 25 yrs old. At the start of the story
Alice Boyd current owner of the Gatehouse
Edwardo world famous catfish chef (according to mom)
Joy and Jen wait staff for Alice Boyd’s catering
Jasper Amos hunter, guide, knife make
Sylvia Amos sheriff’s detective lieutenant
deputy Angie Davenport
Janson Marshall Angie’s husband.
Marion davenport Angie’s mom
Clyde Summers suicide victim
Edward Gaines suicide victim while serving time with John
Max Bork Gabby’s fancy man
Willow computer geek
Tom Jasper’s cousin and half ass builder
Martin cameraman
Vanessa producer
Walter Pickering Vanessa’s boss
Lamar the mechanic and junkyard owner
Everette mom’s new bf
Greta a camera person for Country channel
Manson country channel lawyer
Joyce Reedmon TV personality
Dawn Goldman ex-con
Mark Herman corporal with highway patrol.
Lucy Lovett Wedding photographer.
Tommy Lovett her ex
Lucy Lovett’s 13year old son Jude
Ned and Nadine Drake bait shop owners
Cindy SAA member
Lewis Smith excon computer repairman.
Paul Ramsey x chief deputy
Jessica Robit new cleaner. Aka Jessica Robot.

I spent two hour preparing the new computer to fit my needs. When I finished, I downloaded my files from the HP to the Dell Laptop. After that I shut the laptop down and loaded Lewis’s CD into the HP. The first thing I did was to load the Malware receiver onto the HP. As the instructions written by Lewis said, I waited twenty minutes before checking a dummy email address.

While I waited I read the synopsis of the information Lewis had already learned. The targeted computer was owned by Paul Ramsey. I did not know who that was, so Lewis’s included biography was a big time saver.

Paul Ramsey had been the country’s chief deputy sheriff for ten years. He had resigned under a cloud two years before Lucy’s death. He was organizing the pop up clubs. He used his access to locate the clients. Then it was a referral and check out verification system. A lot of that information was based on conjecture. At first glance he sure as hell looked good for it.

It was actually thirty minutes before I got around to checking the email site. The emails I received on the dummy site were all from Ramsey’s computer. They would all be circumstantial evidence, but I had no plans to take his ass to court.

I spent what was left of the afternoon practicing with my Renaissance designed crossbow. It was a copy of the ones used in the holy lands. I didn’t realize that when I purchased it. I just knew it looked like an antique weapon. I figured that I could use to hunt wild boar and get away with it. I had never tested it on wild boar, but that was my story and I planned to stick to it.

I fed the worms before I went to the computer for my evening update on Ramsey, and his email operation. It was like Lewis had said, “It might take him a month, but they all eventually slipped up in the end.” I just had to trust that Ramsey would follow the rule.

I had been at it the whole month of June with nothing sticking out at me. I was sure by then that there had been a pop up club. People were for sure asking about club meetings, and Ramsey’s answered was always, “When the time is right you will know.”

During the month of June, while waiting for Ramsey to trip on his dick, I bought six barely used kayaks. They came with ten flotation devices. The local YMCA had decided the kayaks were too dangerous for young kids.

They were ten feet long and made for one adult to operate. The problem was that if any age person fell out of it, the person in the water had to beach it to climb back into it. On a ten or twenty foot wide river it wouldn’t be a problem. In the middle of a hundred acre lake, it might mean a dead six or seven year old kid.

Original retail price had been $300, but the actual purchase price for the camp had been $150. The price I paid was $100, but of course I had to take them all. I also had to make two trips to lug them home. Nonetheless my plan was slowly moving toward fruition. I offered a three day river fishing expedition package. It included use of a kayak and a two night stay in a cabin/tent. The charge was only $100.

I waited the complete month of June to see how the package sold. During that time I was also waiting for Ramsey to slip up. It was a month spent waiting, which was not my strong-suit. I was contacted by ‘?’ periodically. The information he or she supplied was not new, but I didn’t tell them that.

‘Jhn r u stl trying?’ the text asked.

‘Ys I am’ I replied. ‘is an Egyptian god the oprtor?’

‘Ys’ and that was the end of the texts for two more weeks.

During that time I hosted my first fishing expedition. We left at 7AM sharp. Anyone who was late found a map to the river posted on the bulletin board in the center of the Campground. The bulletin board was just that, a board nailed to a tree. When we arrived at the river, I gave them each a kayak. Before they could left the parking lot with it, they signed a release. Once they started up river I gave them a hand drawn map with the best fishing spots. I informed them that the buddy system could save their life. Then I turned them loose with my cell phone number in case of minor emergencies. In case of real emergencies try 911 and the final piece of advice YOU ARE MEN- EVEN IF YOU AREN’T- ACT LIKE IT.

Then I returned to the campground to do my chores. At noon I went to the public access to pick up the kayaks of the three who came in early. They had the options of driving their own cars and most of them had done that. So my kayaks were left on the redesigned trailer. It was capable of holding all six at one time.

Since there was a CCTV live cam in the parking lot, I hoped that I wouldn’t lose any kayaks. I also had a GPS tracker hidden inside each kayak. I was a sucker for that kind of gadget. A one time purchases that just kept on giving.

Next I had to find out the address for Ramsey. He turned out to live not five miles from me. When I got the address I went searching for his house. I found a quite modern two story house with a very nice river front lot. It wasn’t Old Man River, but it was still a nice view. The house itself was high enough to be out of the flood plane. The first story was a two car concrete block garage. It was a quite special, architecturally designed, dwelling. It made me even more sure that Ramsey had a dark source of income.

He suddenly came running down the steps pistol in hand. I thought seriously about challenging him, then thought better of it. I was pretty sure I could shank him, but if I did I would go back inside for a long stint.

“Who the hell are you and what business do you have here?” Ramsey asked when he was on the ground and beside the Metro Micro Van.

“I hate to admit it, but I am lost. I’m looking for a public access to the river. They told me at a convenience store that there was one here. I guess I got the directions wrong. The guy who directed me isn’t really an American,” I lied. It would be at least a little possible for the current Sheriff’s investigators to accept.

“Didn’t you see the no trespassing signs?” Ramsey asked.

“There were signs. I guess I missed them. I was looking at this map I drew while talking to the Middle Eastern clerk. I’m terribly sorry that I disturbed you,” I said.

As I turned the metro around for my drive out to the main road, I processed Ramsey. He had the bearing of a marine gone to seed. He fought to stand straight, while supporting fifty extra pounds and probably some back pain. He was a very unpleasant looking man. I wasn’t going to enjoy killing him, but if I convinced myself that if he killed Lucy, I could for sure kill him. Shooting him with the crossbow would simply be a matter of pulling the trigger which loosed the crossbow bolt. I expected the first bolt to hit him in the chest and take him off his feet. The second should finish him off with a little luck. If I didn’t kill him out right, I could walk up and finish him off with the Bowie knife.

That scenario was based on catching him alone for five minutes. He had traded his security for the river view. I would be forced to run one set of rapids which lay between the public access and his place. I could sit all day with my fishing road and binoculars watching for the right moment.

I planned to pick up a golfing range finder, then come back in a kayak to measure the distance from the river to the bottom of his steps. Then return home to setup a practice range. On that range I could learn if it was possible for me to hit him with a crossbow. It would probably take a few weeks to get it all worked out perfectly, if it could be done at all.

I reworked the maps and gave the next group of fishermen the chance to run the simple rapids to fish behind Ramsey’s house. The first thing I did after my half hour in the kayak paddling back and forth fishing in the river was to pull up to Ramsey’s pier and do a distance reading with the golfing range finder.

The range finder gave me a thirty two meters reading. I would be setting my practice range to thirty six yards when I get home. Then I turned my mind to enjoying the day. One of the guest and I fished near Ramsey’s dock. We even caught a couple of monster catfish.

We also got the privilege of paddling the frail kayaks into the current and up the rapids. It was a challenging course home, even though the rapids weren’t especially dangerous and the water not all that fast. Still it was challenging in the plastic kayaks.

“Son of a bitch that was fun,” the exhausted guest said.

“Your idea of fun is scary,” I said.

I went home to read Ramsey’s current batch of emails. I read both outgoing and incoming. There still was no discussion of the Popup Club. I fixed dinner while I read emails. It was a pile of barbecue and some left over rice. The sauce from the barbecue made the rice eatable. So did the reconstituted ice tea mix from Walmart.

The emails were my new hobby. I didn’t finish them till midnight. I didn’t even stop at the pro/con site I just fell into bed. I slept nice, even though nothing had been resolved.

5AM came early, but I managed a hot shower, in my outside shower, and a few cups of day old coffee, from my tiny microwave, before leaving for the river. I even managed to cook a quick breakfast, if you can call a bran muffin topped with peanut butter right from the jar breakfast. I got a chance to look at the morning news before I went outside to pick up that day’s fishermen.

The man who stayed with me behind Ramsey’s house came to me. “I’d like to ride with you today,” he said.

“Oh, why is that?” I asked.

“I don’t know why you are doing surveillance on that man, but I’d like to be part of it,” he said.

“I’m not doing surveillance on him. I’m just trying to rattle his cage. It’s personal so you probably don’t need to be involved. Let’s just fish up river today,” I suggested.

He shrugged and walked away. I drove straight to the public access ramp, then unloaded one kayak for each of the guests. I also chained and padlock the other two before I left the trailer alone in the parking lot.

Each of them had a car so they could go out for lunch stay out fishing up river. If the fishing was terrible they could return to their cabins. The two kayaks I had left after dropping off the fishermen were gone when I returned to collect them.

I called the Sheriff’s office and they came right out. They did some processing on the crime scene, then gave me the detective’s card before they left.

When I finally got home, I called Angie using the number on the card which the patrolman had given me. “Hello Angie, this is John,” I said. “I had a couple of kayaks stolen from me today. I need your help.”

“I haven’t read the report yet. Let me read it then I’ll get back to you,” she promised.

“Okay but pull the CCTV tape from the public access near my place and you’ll probably see it happen,” I said.

“Okay, I’ll take a look at it,” she said.

Mom called me a few minutes later, “Hey honey how many guests do you have tonight?” she asked.

“Five or six,” I suggested. “Depends on whether one of them has left for home yet.”

“I’ve got enough Mexican Buffet left over for eight. Do you want to give them a free meal?” She asked.

“Sure, if they don’t want it, I’ll eat it,” I said.

I met mom at the campground’s open parking lot. She had eight paper plates filled with Mexican re-fried beans spiced rice and a beef taco. The guys came out and thanked her. They sat around on the one picnic table eating, drinking beer, and talking. I sat with them until I saw the sheriff’s car pull into the open area.

I offered Angie one of the two left over plates of food. “Mom made it, so it has to be good,” I promised.

“Okay, but this will get you no favors,” she said.

We walked from the opening to my Titan trailer which was only twenty feet away. She sat at my counter eating, while at the same time watching the footage from the CCTV feed from the public access ramp. It took a little while, but we watched it on fast forward. Suddenly the tricked out Dodge Pickup truck pulled in. The two Hispanic young men used a bolt cutter, then each loaded a kayak into the bed of the truck and drove away.

“Well, I got the license plate on the truck, so tomorrow I’m sure I’ll have your kayaks back,” Angie said. “So now you can bribe me.” I should have told her about the GPS tracker inside the kayaks, but I was saving that information for later.

Next morning I carried the guests to the river, then I went to practice with the crossbow as I had done the day before. I practiced with the target at 36yards. It was the distance from the pier to the bottom of the steps leading down from Ramsey’s house. I had made six more driveway marker bolts, so I had plenty. After a few warm up shots I was able to put 80% of the bolts into the chest of the target. Seemed like a good enough average. If I brought him down, I could always walk up and put one though his skull. If I missed completely he likely wouldn’t even know that I had even been there. Well it might hit a post beside him, but I would swear that it was an accidental misfire.