Sam nodded his head. "I was with some of them ... south of here, so to speak."
Don grinned, his teeth flashing white in the night. "I heard that, Sam."
"This must be Doc Livaudais comin"," Rita called. "He"s got it c.o.c.ked back."
Tony pulled off the road and parked, leaving his caution lights flashing. Don pointed to the mangled body by the side of the road.
"Jesus Christ!" Tony said, squatting down beside the body.
"That"s about the only person that could help him now," Don said.
"I. D.?" Tony asked.
"None. How"s our buddy at the clinic?"
"He"s resting. I just got through st.i.tching up Frank and Thelma."
"Lovern?" Sam asked.
"Yeah," Don said. "They had what is commonly referred to as a domestic squabble."
"Sounds like they beat the h.e.l.l out of each other," Sam said.
Everybody laughed at that and any tension that might have existed between cops and civilian vanished. Don was thinking that Rita had been right in thinking Sam Balon would be a good man to have on one"s side.
"Yeah," Rita said, taking in Sam"s rugged handsomeness in the flashing and whirling red, blue, and amber lights of the vehicles. "And those family squabbles are on the upswing around here, too."
Then Sam said something that puzzled them all. "That"s usually the way it starts."
"The way what starts, Sam?" Rita said.
Sam shrugged his heavy shoulders. "Just talking to myself, ma"am. It"s been a long day."
"Rita, not ma"am."
"OK ... Rita."
Tony was looking at the young man, an odd glint in his dark eyes. There was ... something something about this Sam Balon that pulled one"s attention to him and held it there. The young man seemed to be just too cool, too composed, too sure of himself ... but, Tony decided, nothing in any unlawful manner; he was sure of that. about this Sam Balon that pulled one"s attention to him and held it there. The young man seemed to be just too cool, too composed, too sure of himself ... but, Tony decided, nothing in any unlawful manner; he was sure of that.
Dog padded up to Sam, startling everyone with his silent, c.o.c.keyed approach.
"Jesus!" Tony said. From his position in the ditch, he was very nearly eyeball to eyeball with Dog.
"Relax," Sam said. "He"s with me. His name is Dog."
Don picked up that Sam did not say, "He"s my dog." Or, "He"s the family pet." Or any other line denoting the dog belonged to anybody. Just, "He"s with me."
Odd.
"What kind of a dog is that?" Rita asked. She knelt and Dog came to her, allowing himself to be petted.
"I don"t know," Sam said. "He"s only been with us about a week."
The cops let it stop at that point. It was obvious that Balon was not going to volunteer anything else.
"Want me to call Art for the ambulance?" Don asked Tony.
"Yes. And we"ll tell him to keep his mouth shut about this."
"How long"s he been dead, Tony?" Rita asked.
"Just guessing, I"d say between twenty-four and thirty-six hours. And all this," he indicated the mangled body, "certainly wasn"t done here, by the side of the road."
Sam walked over to the side of the ditch. His eyes had caught a glint of metal. "Doctor, would you shine your flashlight on the man"s closed fist. The other one. Thanks. What is that?"
Don and Rita gathered around, Rita having just called dispatch to notify Art Authement at the funeral home.
Tony forced the man"s stiffened fingers open. A cross fell from the dead fingers. It shone brightly on the dewy gra.s.s of the ditch.
"Better call Father Javotte, too," Tony said.
Rita walked back to Don"s car. Don looked at Sam and said, "You"re very observant, Sam."
"I"ve learned to be," Sam replied.
He left it at that.
8.
Sam asked if it was all right for him to return to his home. It was. Just to be at the substation in the morning and give his story.
Fine. See you then.
A still badly shaken Mr. Fontenot was sent home.
While the two cops and the doctor waited for Art to show up with his meat wagon, Don brought Rita up to date, and this time, he left nothing out.
Rita stood in the Technicolored darkness for a few seconds. The flashing, whirling, and blinking lights seemed to make the scene a surrealistic one. "Sonny needs to be in on this, Don," she finally said.
"As soon as we get back to town. No-you go on and have dispatch call him out. We"ll all go see the Dorgenoises when we leave here. You, too, Tony."
"Fine."
While Rita made the call, Tony said, "What are you going to do, Don?"
"I don"t know," the deputy admitted. "I need to call the sheriff. But he"s set to leave on vacation in two or three days. I screw that up for him, he"s gonna be p.i.s.sed."
"Well, if you"re looking for an opinion, Don, here"s mine. Sheriff Ganucheau and Chief Deputy Wines are both retiring. The new people take over July one. He"s probably just going to tell you to handle it. I"d call him right now."
"I guess you"re right." Don walked to his car just as Rita was wrapping up talking to Sonny Pa.s.son.
"Sheriff isn"t gonna like this, Don," radio dispatch said, from the parish seat.
"Just get him on the horn," Don said. Don could just see the sheriff, in his pajamas, b.i.t.c.hing and cussing as he left his house heading for his unit. The sheriff came on the speaker. "10-41, Sheriff," Don said.
The men changed frequencies and Don brought the man up to date.
Surprisingly, the sheriff was not upset with the young deputy. "You do have a problem, Don," Ganucheau said. "The news about Jackson doesn"t come as any surprise. I"ve always suspected that. As for that drifter being attacked by ... what he claims got him, I don"t know. I"d be suspicious of that. Run him from ankles to elbows. Ice him for a couple of days. Not in jail. In the hospital. Tony can think of something. As for the ... other matter, you"re just going to handle it best way you see fit. Anything comes up, Wines will be at his house, in bed. He was workin" in his garden late yesterday and the heat got him. Doc put him to bed. He"s really sick, Don. So don"t bug him unless it"s absolutely necessary. Myron will be in charge. Handle this real delicate, boy. Don"t shake any trees that don"t need shaking. You know what I mean."
"Yes, sir. Have a good time on your vacation, sir."
"Thank you, boy."
The sheriff broke it off.
Maybe in me, Don thought. He knew that unless it was requested, nothing on the alternate frequency was ever recorded by dispatch.
And sometimes-a lot of times-the G.o.dd.a.m.n tape recorder was broken and nothing was recorded. Due to the economic condition of the state, a lot of funds were being cut, and many SO"s were in bad shape, in a lot of ways.
In the distance, Don could see the lights of Authement"s meat wagon flashing through the night. Don hung up the mike and walked back to Tony and Rita.
"What"d he say?" Tony asked.
"Exactly what you said he would. Tony, I got a bad feeling in me. I can"t explain it, but it"s d.a.m.n sure inside me. Some ... thing thing is happening in this part of the parish. You know what I"m trying to say?" is happening in this part of the parish. You know what I"m trying to say?"
Tony said, "Not entirely, Don. Personally, I think it"s all this early heat that"s getting to people."
"Something d.a.m.n sure is," Don said, his voice low.
Mary Claverie sat up in bed at the inst.i.tution located just outside a small Central Louisiana town. The moon was very full and shining very brightly through the high, barred window of her room. Many inst.i.tutions now prefer to call them rooms, rather than cells. Rooms, barracks, quarters, apartments . . . it"s still a maximum security hard lock-down.
Now! She heard the silently whispered word ring very clear in her head. "Now." She heard the silently whispered word ring very clear in her head. "Now."
She swung her feet off the bed and slipped them into house shoes. Smiling, she thought about all those pills she had pretended to be taking over the past month ... and had not.
First time in a long time she"d been able to think with a clear head.
For her, a clear head. Anybody else would be sitting in a corner blowing spit bubbles.
Mary reached into her night stand, way into the back, under a box of tissues, and took out a small box of matches. She had found them in the exercise yard and had clutched them to her as a small child would do with a pretty doll.
Only problem was, she didn"t know, then, what to do with them.
Those answers came later, in her sleep. She guessed they came in her sleep; she didn"t really know. Maybe someone plugged some more of those wires to her temples and fed her Morse code.
She tapped her feet in what she imagined Morse code must be like and suppressed a giggle.
The voice had told her to stop taking her pills. So Mary had stopped.
The voice had told her to start paying attention to things around her, and Mary had done so.
Now, without the mind-dulling and spirit-ebbing drugs, she found that escape could be very easy.
But that voice had told her to wait. Wait. It would tell her when to leave.
Now it was time.
Mary reached under her mattress and pulled out a piece of gla.s.s. About seven inches long, wrapped at the base to keep the edges from cutting her own flesh, Mary moved toward the door.
It was so easy to find things once your head became clear. She had just walked over to where those nasty-talking men were building the new addition and found the gla.s.s.
Of course, she had to endure all the vulgar comments those men had to say.
"Look at that queen," one had said. "G.o.dd.a.m.n, she"s so ugly she could haunt graveyards."
Laughter.
On and on the men talked, spewing their filth. Mary just walked a bit, found what she was looking for, squatted down pretending to be looking at an early flower, and picked up the piece of gla.s.s. She wrapped the gla.s.s in a piece of paper, stuck it between the cheeks of her a.s.s, and entered the building holding it like that. Made her walk kind of funny, but that was all right; everybody walked kind of funny around this place.
"Ooohhh," Mary moaned, her face pressed close to the base of the door. "Ooohhh!"
Since Mary had never been violent, she wasn"t confined in the real hard lock-down wing of the inst.i.tution. This was more like just a regular hospital.
"Ooohhh! Miss Somerlott, please help me. I"m sick."
"Is that you, Mary?" the night nurse called.
"Yes"um. Please help me. I"m bleeding."
"Bleeding!" A jangle of keys. "Where are you bleeding, Mary?"
"From my ... privates, ma"am. I can"t stop the bleeding."
Mary scooted away from the door, so Miss Somerlott wouldn"t be able to see her through the gla.s.s and wire mesh opening in the door.
They had told Mary that she had been very hard to handle when she first came to the hospital. She had been very strong and very violent. But she was a good girl now; had been for years and years. She guessed no one ever thought about how violent she had once been. But Mary had never forgotten it. Mary had a lot of stored up grudges. And tonight, tonight, she was going to get even.
At last.
Then she was going back to Becancour. And she was going to get even back there, too. She was going to get even with those filthy boys who had raped her in the big ol" spooky house. She was going to get them-all of them. And she was going to get those brothers of hers, too, "cause they had signed the papers to put her in this rotten place. And she knew from reading the papers that that Margie Gremillion had married Dave Porter, so Margie was gonna get it, too.
Mary never did like Margie.