Tears of Blood, Ch. 2

The incoming call interrupted the lunch Aubrey was taking in his cube. “Sergeant Vaughn here,” he spoke into the receiver.

“Aub? We’re here,” Ray Lanier chirped. “Got in about an hour ago, I unpacked us, and then rested a lil bit. Ben wanted me to call you up to see when you were going to be getting through so I would know what time to make the reservations for the three of us. He’s still getting ready for our afternoon downtown at the old slave market and shops. I’m pretty excited about it. I’ve never been here before.”

“Why don’t ya’ll finish settling in and then come on down to the station. I want to get any thoughts you and Ben have on the Birthright case and then I’ll take you guys to Hyman’s…best seafood in Charleston since they opened,” Aubrey added.

“Birthright case?”

“Yeah. Remember the ditch? It is to be on Birthright Street”

“Gotcha. Ok, soon as Ben is ready we’ll be on over. Just follow the signs to ‘Downtown’ and that will take me to King Street, and you are at 307 King, right?”

“That’s it. You can’t get lost. I’ll see ya’ll then.”

Aubrey was right. Ben and Ray pulled up to the police department in less than an hour. Veronda let them through the office door and into Sergeant Vaughn’s cube for their reunion. All six feet, two inches of the cop’s two hundred and twenty pound body rose to it’s feet with the grace of a ballerina.

“So detectives, got my murder solved yet?” Aubrey kidded before giving each of them an extra exuberant handshake.

“I must admit, it is interesting. I have investigated a lot of murders involving shotguns, but never one like this. When you told me the guy was shot in the ass and the fragments pierced his organs, I had no idea you meant literally. Who would stick a gun barrel up a guy’s ass and shoot him? The only thing I can think of he thought the body would serve as a silencer. So this photograph of the headstone here,” Ben paused, “it was taken before anything else was moved?”

“Yup. We didn’t even know there was a body in the ditch until we moved it. We just knew that it was stolen property, so we snapped a few shots of it for the evidence file.”

“That’s it,” Ben said looking down at the picture. “We stopped at South Of The Border on the way here, and when I got out the truck I stepped on a nut. I knew the site of it on the pavement reminded me of something I saw in the photographs you sent. What are the yellow splotches on the road, around the headstone, really everywhere?”

“When we got to the location there were acorns covering the burial site, and those ‘yellow spots’ are the one that got trampled” Ben could make out tiny acorns peppering the site where the body had been placed and the police would later find. “Damn, Aub, don’t you think it looks kinda odd?”

“Ben, they fell off the trees. The street is lined with them. I know you are itching like mad to go to the site, so why don’t you and Ray go check it out. I still have a few hours to go here.”

“Well that sounds good to me,” Ray piped up. “We’ll give it a look over then come back here to take you to dinner.”

“I can’t think of anything better. I wanted yall to try Hyman’s…best seafood in town. I’ll be ready when you two get back. Veronda can give you easy directions to Birthright Street, it isn’t that far….maybe fifteen minutes.”

“Ok, see ya in a few.”

Ben stopped by Veronda’s desk for the directions while Ray went to get the car. Twenty minutes later they were at the scene.

The majority of the acorns had become buried during the exhumation of the body, but there were squashed ones still on the road. “Ray, look around…this is the only spot where there are any acorns. My favorite uncle teaches horticulture at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, and I remember looking through his books when I visited him growing up. Acorns only grow on oak trees; all the ones on this street are pine. These acorns didn’t fall off a tree, they fell out of somebody’s hand: They were placed here for a reason.”

“So how was the outing?” Aubrey asked when the two got back to the police station.

“Those acorns are a clue, bud,” and Ben explained the ‘no-oak-tree’ theory.

“Something told me you would find something everybody else has overlooked.”

“And it has my appetite in high gear. Let’s hit that fish house you mentioned.”

When the three entered Hyman’s Seafood on King Street, he realized this was not a fish house. It was a landmark. The tables and chairs had little placards denoting celebrities that had used that space while dining there. Of course Aubrey had called ahead and reserved the table that bore Elizabeth Taylor’s name, knowing Ben and Ray would have an affinity for that one. Halfway through their Lowcountry crab spread, the shrill ring of a digital phone rang and in a movement that looked almost synchronized, as arms all around the restaurant grabbed their hips to bee if it was their phone. The guilty party was Aubrey.

“Sergeant Vaughn,” he answered, and after a few moments, “Get Wilcox and Bonds over there now, Veronda. I’ll meet them there. For the record, Dawson and Lanier are on the roster as well. Yep, my two friends. Keep in touch.”

“What’s up? And when did we join your squad?” Ben jibed.

“We got another one.”