Page 1 of Diamonds in the Mud

Prologue

From the case files of the local police department in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, dated November 3rd:

“Today at approximately 06:15 a.m. CST, Officers James Lee and Randy Cordova were out on patrol on County Road 56 near mile marker 38 when they pulled onto the highway’s shoulder to remove some tree debris in the road from last night’s storm.

Officer Cordova claims that roughly five minutes after pulling over, he heard a sound like that of a dying animal emanating from the eastern marsh. The officers worked their way approximately thirty feet into the wetlands and then called for immediate backup when they spotted a child. They were unable to reach the exact spot without sinking into the marsh themselves.

When Chief Roswell arrived, it took the three of them almost half an hour to pull the young girl, estimated to be about five years old, out of the soggy marsh. She had been buried chest-deep in the mud and was covered with bug bites and what appeared to be burns and lacerations.

The child was rushed to the medical center where it was estimated that she had been stuck in the marsh for more than twenty-four hours. The girl, who couldn’t remember her name, was severely dehydrated and…”

The rest of the words in the handwritten report were smudged and no longer legible.

Chapter One

“A real diamond is never perfect.”

–Anthony Doerr

Rayne

I finished typing my single-page report and immediately fought the urge to wad it up and chuck it at someone’s head.

Who in the hell would do such a thing?

An entire box of puppies, no older than a few hours old, had been tossed into the dumpster behind the Piggly Wiggly on O’Riley Street. Their little bodies were stuck in place due to the tar-like substance that someone had poured all over their fur.

I’d seen a lot in the five years since I’d taken the job as investigations lieutenant at the PD in my hometown of Gemsville, Louisiana, but this was the worst thing I’d ever laid eyes on. The worst kinds of criminals were those who harmed the innocent and weak.

Gemsville was built like a lot of small towns scattered all over the South. The city and county buildings and the old town center were in the heart of the town, which was circled by a large highway. Most of the businesses, schools, and homes were in the inner circle. The Red River ran smack through the middle of the town and was the unofficial separation between classes.

The larger, higher-class homes sat to the east side of the river while the smaller ones were on the west. These rules were set long before I’d been born, and most of the businesses followed them too, except for the businesses directly downtown, which had been renovated in the past ten years or so. Most of them catered to younger crowds in an effort to drive money into the revived location.

Since taking this job in the town I’d been raised in, home of some forty-thousand people, I’d witnessed drug overdoses, spousal and child abuse, and straight-up murders. Still, I knew that the box of dead puppies would be the thing to keep me up at night.

It wasn’t even seven o’clock in the morning and my gut was rolling. I doubted I could eat the kolache I’d picked up before getting the call about the dogs.

“Rayne?” Someone knocked on my door, and I jerked my head up from my messy desk. “We got a call.” Sherry Ericson, the PD’s version of an office assistant, stuck her head in my door. The woman’s perfect mocha-colored skin always reminded me that I should take better care of my own skin.

“A call?” I asked, waiting. I knew Sherry did things on her own time. If she was ever in a hurry, that’s when I knew I’d better start to worry.

She leaned on my doorway and sighed. “You know the two Bobbys?”

I rolled my eyes. “What’d they do now?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head back, sending her beautiful afro swaying. Which reminded me that I was probably due for a hair appointment. How long had it been? A year? I reached up as I waited for Sherry to finish the story and played with the split ends in my muddy brown, straight-as-a-nail hair. “They called in to complain about loud noises coming from the Taylor’s last night around one.”

This surprised me. The two Bobbys, as everyone in the precinct called them, were Robert Elwood Sr. and Robert Elwood Jr. Over the course of the last ten years or so, the father and son duo had spent more time in the drunk tank than they’d spent in their own beds. What surprised me wasn’t the fact that the Bobbys had called the cops, but that they’d called about a noise problem at Henry and Sharon Taylor’s residence. The Taylors were Gemsville’s very own “It” family. Sharon Taylor had recently been re-elected as the town’s mayor, while her husband sat on almost every single board in town, including the school board, the city council, and the boards responsible for planning and building, parks and recreation, and historical preservation. He even sometimes sat in on the police and fire district meetings. The family had their hands in everything that was Gemsville.

The Bobbys’ single-wide trailer sat less than five hundred yards from the Taylor’s old ten-thousand-square-foot mansion and its pristine ten-acre, perfectly manicured yard. The historic plantation, complete with white marble columns, had been in Henry Taylor’s family since the slave trading days. It was a historic gem and also one of the largest homes in the parish.

There were a lot of rumors around town about the Taylor plantation. Some were good and some, like the fact that it was haunted, not so good.

It was a well-known fact that the Taylors never let common people, such as they considered me to be, into the massive place. Every year during the holidays, they held an elite ball with a very exclusive guest list that included ten other couples either from very wealthy families or of high political station. They never allowed anyone single into the mix, or so the rumors said. There were a few exceptions for coworkers who held power or money, but that was it.

The fact that the two Bobbys had heard a loud noise coming from the place didn’t sit well with me.

“So, have a couple uniforms stop by and⁠—”