Chapter 7
After the fight in 02, Rust and Marty just took parted ways. Rust just went back to Texas for two years free time. He didn't have any girlfriend or something crazy. Just working in a bar called Good Night Texas as a bar tender. And he spent almost all his spear time fishing at the lakeside next to his house and enjoying his Lone Star. Although his police career have been faded away for quite a long time, but deep into his bone, Rust kind of miss his four years as undercover and days back when he was in the narco. His soul was walking at the edge of the hell. There was a demon living inside of Rust's mind, and his spirit is the resource of that demon. That demon gets stronger and stronger, it corrosion his soul till the day Rust shot three cartel men in Port Houston. But the problem is Rust still got his nightmares almost every night. He has been suffering by his experiences.
It was a normal Saturday night. People were having fun in the bar, because tomorrow is Sunday, no need to work. And it is a bit rainy outside, so it will be a great day for sleeping. "Hey Rust, you got any plan for tomorrow?" An sexy women in black jacket and close-fitting blue jeans greeting with Rust as he was mixing a bottle of White Russian. "Or, you still wanna sleep till the noon hum?"
"I'm not interested in hanging out with you Miss. Gwen," Rust said as he was pouring the bottle of White Russian into twelve shots. "And I'm sorry to refuse your invitation again, my plans are none of your business."
"Still that rude, Mr. Cohle," Gwen licked her lips while she was looking into Rust's eyes. "Get me a Long island ice tea, will you? My throat is on fire."
Rust got home at two, this was a busy night. Now he needs to take a shower and have a nice sleep. "It's gonna be alright," as Rust put his head under the spray. "It has been a rough night at the bar, nothing could stop me from having a peace night."
Rust went to the bed directly after taking shower. He didn't take a smoke like he used to be, because he thought this is a great chance he can be such tired, and this can help him sleep deeply without having those night mares. But he was wrong.
At fist, Rust slept steadily. About ten minutes later he started to roll from the left side of his bed to the right side of his bed. His breathe became cramped, sweat flow down from his peaked check. A cool breeze blew over the room, Rust made a chill. He put his right arm under his pillow and curled up his body in a fetus shape. The wind became stronger, then, with a huge sound of something fell down on the floor breaks the silence. Suddenly, Rust got up from his bed with his pistol pointing at the bedroom's door.
It took Rust three seconds to figure out what was going on. He found out it was the night mare bothering him again. Rust lighted up a piece of CAMEL, and took a long drag, than closed his eyes facing the cross which hang on the wall. Rust wanted to make a meditation to get avoid from the night mare. But he found it is impossible to run away from the dreams. He can't stop thinking of the death of his daughter, the drastic argument with his wife, the psychopath and gang members shoot by him, and the bullets tear his flesh and dig a hole into his bones. The pain, the suffering, they all becomes stronger especially when he closed his eyes. Rust blew a smoke ring and watch the ring flew out from the opening window. He took a deep breath and decided to find a way out. This night mare must be end.
The next morning, Rust took out a big box under his bed which is full of the information about the Yellow King case, a bottle of Jameson and some heavy firepower which in case if some old troubles comes to visit. Rust put all the evidence and pictures on the table including the dream catcher. He tried to find out any connection between Dora Lange and the Ledoux's wood house, because he cannot find any physical evidence to prove it. Then, Rust notice that maybe the reason why they cannot get the evidence is because someone doesn't want it to be found by others. So, if he has to get the evidence, he has to get back to Louisiana to find out the truth. And Billy Lee Tuttle is the key to the case.
Rust put all his clothes, a box of Lone Star, his weapons and the whole box of the information about the case on the back of his red Ford truck. He inserted his car key, as he turned it, with a deafening sound, Rust is on his way to Louisiana. But before this, he changed his driver's license in case to make the state police have no idea where to find him.
After Rust arrived at Louisiana, he rent a container to live and work on the case. By connecting the information he already had from previous years while he was cooperating with Marty, and the sum of the news about murdering cases in recent years. Rust quickly find out these years when he wasn't working as a cop in Louisiana, women and children gone missing, and they all taken from areas with 10-mile radius of schools that were founded by the reverend Billy Lee Tuttle's Wellspring initiative. And there are fourteen schools got involved in this area. To make everything clear, Rust put out a map of Louisiana and a mark pen, so that he could pulled runaways instate and missing persons. Which is interesting is that, there is twice as many along the bayous. So here comes the question in Rust's mind, it looks like the whole case have strong connection with the Tuttle. Apparently, the schools were funded by the Wellspring program, and the reverend Tuttle is the supreme advisor of the project. But back to 02 when the reverend Tuttle's brother Edwin Tuttle which was the governor of the Louisiana, sent a task force trying to take over the case, because Tuttle recognize the scene which Ledoux told Charlie Lange about the ceremony. They wanted to hide this ceremony, in case to avoid the police force getting involved within it.
So the entry point is Billy Lee Tuttle. To figure this out, Rust decided to check out if there is something hidden in his house. So, Rust checked on the internet to see if where Billy lives, people like Billy have such famous reputation is easy to be found on the net. It shows Billy have three houses in Louisiana, one in Shreveport, one in Baton Rouge, and one in Oreland.
Now Rust shifted to Tuttle's house. He didn't find anything in the house located in Shreveport. But something very important was found by Rust in the second house.
After one week which Rust checked Tuttle's first house, he drove all the way to Shreveport with his professional sneaking suit. The house was located at the edge of Shreveport, so Rust parked his truck into the forest which is near to the house which would not draw other's attention. When the night falls, Rust pick out his sneaking suit and dress up at the back of his truck. The suit was all black, with a mask. It makes him looks like a ninja came out from the movie. With his equipment, a flashlight and a black backpack carried with a long professional climbing rope. This is a big house, and there are about twenty body guard go on patrol twenty four seven, round by round. Four in the front door, four in the back door, four just go circle around on the third floor and the other eight randomly walking in the house. It is pretty challenging.
Rust climbed to the top of the house almost every night in order to understand and memorize how the security system runs in this house, and the location of every surveillance. It took Rust two weeks to figure out the rules of how the system works. In the morning, Rust takes out a piece of A4 and drew a structure chart of the house. At the fourth week of April, Rust carefully sneak into the house from the east side window, which there is the weak spot of the whole house. Rust doubled up his body, and quickly moved in the darkness. Usually, one body guard will be around at the stair down to the basement. But luckily Billy took half of his body guard to the spring outing. So Rust easily reach down to the basement without a sound. He found there is a safe case at the middle of the room. And it is time for this ace B&E man show off. And the best way to figure out this kind of high tech coded lock is by easy but violent way. Rust slowly took out a medium length iron made stick, then concentrate on the top right corner of the box, which there is a crack and hit it with the stick in a high frequency. Rust's arm was like a siege stake brutally destructing the box. After six or more crushing blow, the box opened. Rust took out a bulging gray file bag. He opened the file and took out the stuffs. Picture, all about those missing kids, especially little girls, wearing white dress and eyes got blinded by a piece of cloth, and a big antler on their head. Apparently they were freaked out, from their mouths they were crying. It is fear.
Chapter8
After Rust quite the job, Marty still kept being a detective for about four years. Everything just ran its courts for Marty. He did had another young partner named Luke. Which is a hardworking young man, also outgoing just turned to be an detective. Kevin was ten years younger than Marty, Kevin is the kind of typical gentlemen, words like "ma'am," "sir" is quite often to be heard from him. No matter Kevin's on duty or not, he always wears a tidy black suit over his clean and decent white shirt with no strip on it, his straight suit pants just reach his ankle. Everyday Kevin's leather shoes were as clean as he just bought it last night.
Maybe it was because Marty has been partnering with Rust for too long, plus Kevin is such a different guy. He is such a serious man. He never smoke or drink, just go to work and go home, never had a girlfriend before. The biggest trouble is, it seems that Kevin have no idea about how to communicate with anyone.
Marty had a bad weekend, because Maggie was trying to divorce with Marty. They were yelling from day to night. Marty wanted to be given a second chance. But this is the second time he's been cheating a Maggie. And to hurt Marty, Maggie hocked up with Rust weeks ago, and that's why he and Rust had a fight, then Rust just quit and disappeared. But now he's in the car with Kevin driving to the bayous investigate the missing little boy Ron.
"What's bothering you detective Hart?" asked by Kevin in a serious voice. "You shouldn't be bothered even if today is the doom day sir."
"How's that, Kev?" Marty was looking outside the window with knitted brown.
"Cause we're working sir," Kevin only glanced his partner and keep saying "No offense sir, but it seems you had a pretty terrible weekend."
"Can you just focus on the road, hum?" Marty turned his head to Kevin. "I did had a pretty messed up holiday."
"Ok, well I'm just guessing, maybe you had an stormy argument with your family sir?" Kevin smoothed back his blond hair back, with his right hand while his right hand still holding tight to the steering wheel.
"You know what Kev," as Marty stretched out his left hand and pointed at Kevin directly with his sharp index finger. "If you dare guessing how bad I had during the weekend again, I will put you down man, I'm serious."
They got nothing in the morning investigation. When Marty went back to the office it was already 5pm. "Hey, Marty! Haven't seen you this morning." asked by the Boss.
"Oh yeah, me and Kevin we went to the bayou an investigated the missing boy Ron, but got nothing."Marty scratched his head.
"Well, ok. Listen, we gonna have a party tonight at the bar called The Star," Leroy touches his belly. "You know where it is right?"
"Sure Boss, see you later."
Marty always liked this kind of party, having fun, talking non-sense with others, complain about the daily life, and girls. But today he doesn't have much appetite on talking with his colleagues. He just kept drinking beers, and gets himself drunk as soon as possible. All those bothering and troubles could faded away temporarily.
By the time Marty came out from the restroom, He saw a middle aged police wearing slovenly uniform with his half of his collar were stuck up, another half just keep normal, his up three button gone nowhere. This police was holding a purple package, Marty was too dizzy to recognize what that might be in that package. The police walked groggy to a microwave, before he opened the oven's door, he looked warily around then he put the package into the oven, close it and heat it up.
The series action drew Marty's attention. If someone is already drunk, he shouldn't be able to look around alert before he do something, except this guy pretended to be drunk in order to deceive the public.
All of a Sudden, Marty memorized the case he used to investigating with Rust, that Dora Lang's death. The spiral, the antler and the devil nets were also interpret as a way that the murderer trying to cover the truth and lead the investigation to useless part.
Marty bottom up his beer, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Then, he walked straight to the oven, and check what exactly was that police trying to heat up. After Marty opened the package, he found a dead body of a baby inside.
It was hard to believe what was happening back in the bar. Marty cannot imagine after all these years as a detective, crazy thing like this just happens under his nose, and he had no idea about it. This is more than brutal or cruel, this is fear and inhumanity.
To calm himself down, Marty poured a shot of Jameson. As the brownness liquid pouring down from the bottle, Marty reminds he used to drink Jameson a lot when he and Rust were chasing after the crazy cook Ledoux. It was Rust who insist to keep investigate that case all the time, even when Leroy warned them both to stop investigating, just handed it to the special group which sent from the governor Tuttle. The consequence is, he and Maggie reconciled again. Maybe, it is time to jump out from this deep water and reexamine himself again. And the scene that he saw in the bar, should never happen again. It is time to quit.