Not One of Us

by Debbie Herbert

  The other three men were galvanized into action. Eddie swung his pool cue at Ray’s head, but Ray snatched it before it made contact and snapped it in half. He clutched the pieces of the broken stick in either hand like a weapon. Tommy lunged toward Ray, only to be walloped on the side of his head. The contact made a nasty crack, the noise creating a whip of black that exploded in my mind’s eye.

  A trickle of blood streamed down Tommy’s left temple. “Son of a bitch,” he cried, raising a hand to swipe at the blood.

  The third man wisely did nothing but shoot Ray a scowl.

  But Tommy exploded to his feet and lunged again at Ray, this time making contact. The men fell to the ground, breaking a chair leg from the nearest table on the way down. Tommy was on top as they hit concrete, but Ray quickly maneuvered out from under him and straddled Tommy, his right arm raised overhead, hand fisted to land a punch.

  The bouncer, a lumbering six-foot-five giant weighing at least three hundred pounds, ran over with surprising speed. “Break it up,” he ordered, grabbing Ray’s raised fist and pulling him off Tommy. Both men quickly rose, glaring at each other. Tommy was breathing hard but shallowly, as though it hurt his ribs to draw a full breath. “All of you—out right now,” the bouncer ordered.

  The first attacker crossed his arms over his ample belly. “You’re going to be sorry,” he warned Ray. “Better stay away from us.” For all the world, he sounded like an elementary school bully displaying false courage in the bouncer’s presence.

  Ray snorted. He dug his wallet out from his back pocket and slapped a ten-dollar bill on the table. “I was just leavin’,” he said drily. His dark eyes slid over the men. “You pansy-ass boys oughta pick yer fights better.”

  Tommy balled his fists at his sides. “Oh yeah? You just better watch your back and get the hell out of our town.”

  Ray shuffled toward the door, shaking his head. “I’m real scared.”

  “You should be,” Tommy called to Ray’s back. “You come near me, and I’ll kill you, motherfucker.”

  Ray didn’t bother turning around as he raised his right arm and flipped off the crowd.

  “The rest of you get out of here too,” the bouncer ordered, turning to the attackers. “Mister Broussard don’t tolerate no fighting in here. I’ve warned y’all before. Something like this happens again, you’re all banned.”

  The four of them huffed and blustered as they strode to the door, muttering about revenge.

  “Cops already been called,” the bouncer warned. “Better not start no scuffle in the parking lot either ’less you want to spend the night in lockup.”

  The door slammed behind the last of them, and I hurried back to the booth I shared with Dana and stared out the window. Ray had strapped on his helmet and mounted a beat-up motorcycle. The engine roared to life and emitted a cloud of noxious black smoke as he sped out of the parking lot, spewing gravel in his wake.

  Tommy and his friends piled into a battered pickup truck that had a shotgun mounted in the rear window. The driver hit the accelerator, and they made an equally loud exit from the lot, their tires spitting up dust and gravel.

  “Think they’re following Ray?” Dana asked.

  “They’re just stupid enough,” I said with disgust. “Let’s hope their chase is only for show, a way of saving face after getting their asses kicked and thrown out of here.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed, though her eyes looked doubtful.

  I settled into my seat and sighed, the slight alcoholic haze already stripped away by Ray’s oblique mention of the Cormiers. All I’d done was upset myself. Regret roiled in my gut. And if I’d never gone to talk to Ray, would he have escaped notice from Tommy and his gang of rednecks?

  Still, he’d piqued my curiosity with his remark about people disappearing around the bayou. If there was a connection between my cousin and Deacon’s murder, I couldn’t just let that go. If there was a way to find out what had happened to Deacon and his parents, I’d do anything to know. Damn the danger.

  “Need another bloody mary?” Dana asked. “After all, I’m driving tonight. Remember?”

  I pulled my gaze from the window. “Yeah, I need one, but I’m going to pass.” It wouldn’t do for me to arrive home all liquored up. The whole point of my return to Bayou Enigma was to help take care of Mimi and Zach. I’d be useless to both if I drank any more.

  “I understand.” Dana’s eyes radiated sympathy. “How is your grandmother?”

  “Fine until she’s not.” So far, I’d only glimpsed a few lapses of memory—Mimi wandering into the den and leaving a pot of okra to burn on the stove, repeating herself in a conversation, with no recall of telling the same story minutes before. I’d insisted she see a doctor, and she’d been diagnosed with dementia. Specifically, he’d determined she was at stage four Alzheimer’s with moderate cognitive decline. The doctor had warned that her condition would grow progressively worse, although no one could predict how fast the fall from normalcy might be.

  “And Zach?” Dana pressed.

  “Same as ever.” I’d already told her about my family’s precarious situation.

  “I’m glad you’re home with them. It’s a good thing your job is so flexible.”

  Thank heavens for that, at least. I took a deep breath, calming the ever-present worry about what was necessary for Mimi and Zach in the long term. Before Mom had died, I’d promised her that I’d always make sure they were okay. Over the next few weeks, I’d have to decide exactly what fulfilling that promise might entail. Not for the first time, resentment flared in my gut that Zach’s and my father had cut loose and run shortly after Zach was diagnosed at age two. No help would come from that quarter. A few pellets of rain plopped against the window, a prelude to the gulf storm expected to arrive later that night. The day grew darker by the second, matching my apprehension. What if those idiots caught up to one another on some lonely road in the boondocks and one of those men got hurt? What if, right at this very moment, Mimi was cooking dinner and had left food on the stove and started a house fire?

  I had to get home immediately. It felt like the storm—and trouble—were about to break.

  Chapter 3

  DEPUTY OFFICER TEGAN BLACKWELL

  Yellow crime scene tape wrapped around the small shotgun-style house. The place possessed a tired vibe, with its faded paint peeling off cheap pressboard and drooping shutters missing several slats. A frail-looking older woman with a head full of hair curlers visible underneath a scarf spoke with two police officers, rubbing her hands together. As she talked, her neck kept craning back toward the house as though pulled by an involuntary force. On the drive in, we’d spotted several curious neighbors already striding down the dusty road, drawn to the commotion and the sniff of impending drama.

  We pulled into the gravel driveway and stopped a few feet from the threesome. I spilled out of the passenger-side door of the sheriff’s cruiser with my partner, Joe Oliver, Erie County’s head investigator. I still couldn’t believe my luck that Oliver had chosen me to mentor.

  Neither could my fellow officers and coworkers, especially the older ones who knew me from high school. Back then, I’d weighed fifty pounds more and had a reputation, both of which led me to the unfortunate nickname “Big Easy.” In the years since, I’d done my best to shrug off the moniker, eventually marrying and losing the extra pounds. For the most part, my contemporaries let bygones be bygones, especially since I’d entered law enforcement.

  Although I’d been employed at the sheriff’s office nearly two years as a deputy, I’d finished my field training and probationary status only six months ago. The others still jokingly referred to me as a rookie—and although they said it in jest, I sensed they believed I’d not yet been truly tested.

  As I’d been trained, I scanned the area, taking in all the details. Houses in this older neighborhood were spaced far apart, and despite the obvious worn-down and lower socioeconomic level of the place, the house in question was tidy and well maintain
ed. The owner had gone to some lengths to pretty up its faded plainness with colorful hanging flowerpots on the porch. Pink pansies lined the gravel path to the front steps, and the sparse grass was freshly mown. An old motorcycle and an ancient Plymouth Duster were parked in the dirt driveway. The air smelled fresh and clean from last night’s rain.

  The few houses we’d passed were mostly occupied by older couples who enjoyed the spring warmth from the comfort of rockers on the porch. There were also a couple of residences where the lawns were littered with tricycles and kids’ toys. The sort of area for old folks on a fixed income and young couples or single moms on a tight budget. I could relate to the whole single-mom-tight-budget scenario. By the thinnest of margins, my bimonthly paycheck separated me from this downtrodden neighborhood.

  A sudden gush of gratitude rose in me for my own humble home. It wasn’t often I thanked the stars for the old twelve-hundred-square-foot brick house that sheltered me and my two children, but we had a roof over our heads and plenty of food on the table, thanks to this job. When my ex-husband, Josh, deserted us five years ago for a model-skinny paralegal, I’d worked a string of minimum wage jobs that had left me tense and exhausted. Between my meager earnings and court-ordered child support, we’d barely scraped by. Just months later, Josh sent a few signals that he was tiring of Darlene and willing to return home, but exhausted or not, I’d nixed that straightaway.

  Surprisingly, that burst of defiance gave me the confidence to search for a better job. My brother Liam, a cop in Montgomery, learned of an opening in the local sheriff’s office and urged me to apply. I never expected the opportunity to pan out or that I’d actually make it through the required training should they hire me.

  The past two years of law enforcement training hadn’t been easy, but to everyone’s surprise, including my own, I’d made it, easily sailing through the police academy curriculum and shooting qualification test. I even enjoyed the job sometimes, though I wouldn’t admit it to my fellow officers. The one time I had, they’d laughed and rolled their eyes, promising that my tune would change after I’d been there long enough to witness the crimes that they had.

  I had a feeling that was about to change today.

  I swallowed a lump of dread when we approached the house and I recognized one of the cops. Gilbert Dempsey was one of my ex-husband’s closest friends, one that I’d never cared for. Not then and certainly not now. He and Josh had worked together a couple of years after high school in the local fish processing plant. It had surprised us all when Gilbert, a heavy drinker and equally heavy gambler, was hired by the Enigma PD. But Gilbert’s new career never slowed down his dicey extracurricular activities or turned him into a polite gentleman. He always slid me covert, sly glances when he thought no one was watching, even when I was married to Josh.

  Oliver immediately took charge of the situation, greeting the uniformed cops and addressing the woman as we approached. “I take it you’re the neighbor who called?” he asked.

  She nodded, still rubbing her arms. “Yes, Reba Tankersley.”

  Dempsey volunteered more information. “We arrived less than five minutes ago and secured the scene.” He motioned for Oliver and me to follow him as he took a step backward. He nodded at his partner, Leroy Granger. “You stay here and keep everyone away.”

  “What’s happening? Is Raymond in there?” Reba asked, her voice thin and reedy.

  Four more of the neighbors wandered up the driveway. A baby squalled where it sat propped against her mother’s hip. “You all right, Reba?” an older man in the crowd asked, pushing forward.

  We left Granger to deal with the gathering crowd.

  Dempsey led us around the side of the house. Once we were out of range for the others to hear, he spoke. “Forensics has been called and are en route.”

  This was bad. Very bad. A tingle of apprehension ran down my spine. I was about to get my first murder case—or possibly it was a clear case of suicide. Either way, what lay inside that house was going to be my first on-the-job brush with an unnatural death.

  I strode to the rear of the small house. The back door was cracked open a couple of inches.

  “The door was open when we arrived,” Dempsey informed us. “No sign of forced entry, though.”

  Plenty of folks in the backwoods didn’t bother locking their doors at night. My folks never had while we were growing up, and my three siblings and I had survived into adulthood.

  I scanned the small yard, which backed up to a densely wooded area. Nothing seemed amiss, but someone could have hidden here earlier, lying in wait to murder the residents inside.

  “We looked through the window here,” Dempsey said, pointing at a window to the left. It was the old-fashioned kind with roll-out panes that were cranked out from inside. “That’s when we discovered the body,” he continued. “Granger and I immediately entered through the back door and checked to see if the victim might still be alive.” He paused a heartbeat. “He wasn’t.”

  Oliver nodded. “Who is the victim?”

  “According to the neighbor, the house belongs to a Ms. Letitia Strickland, who died earlier in the week. Her son, Raymond, was down here for the funeral.”

  Raymond Strickland. The name instantly clicked, followed immediately by another name, another image: Jackson Ensley. My gut roiled. Once again, I tasted the sour tang of Jackson’s tongue thrust down my throat, his hips grinding painfully into me, my back scraping against cold leather in the back seat of his car. The rising terror as his hand covered my mouth, stifling my screams.

  I shut down the memory, snuffing it out as quickly and completely as a candle doused by water. Too bad I hadn’t heard earlier that Strickland was in town and that our call this morning would lead to his mother’s home. Surprising, since the crime was still talked about, almost as much as the mysterious disappearance of the Cormier family years later.

  “Ahh . . . Raymond Strickland,” I drawled, trying my best to appear nonchalant, wishing I’d had time to prepare for this reminder of the past.

  “The one and only,” Dempsey confirmed.

  Oliver frowned. “Who’s this victim? Enlighten me.”

  Joe Oliver had been working for the sheriff’s department only four months. After Sheriff Lancaster died unexpectedly, Oliver was brought in from Mobile County to supervise the office until elections were held that fall to vote in a new sheriff. The county commission and mayor’s decision to do so rankled several of the investigators hoping to fill the vacancy left by Lancaster’s death. Temporarily running the office would have given them a leg up on the competition to impress voters.

  “Ray was convicted of murder when I was a senior in high school,” I volunteered. “Shot his best friend in the back of the head, supposedly in a drug deal gone bad,” I explained before turning to Dempsey. “When did he get out of prison?”

  “Been a good little while, but he’d never showed his face here until his mother died.”

  Oliver cut our reminiscence short. “We’ll take a quick look around until forensics arrives.”

  He slipped a pair of rubber gloves from his pockets, and I did the same. As I pulled the latex over my hands, I couldn’t resist peeking through the window. A double bed took up much of the room. And on the bed . . . I blinked once, then twice.

  The victim, a tall man wearing boxers, lay facedown on the mattress. His head was a mangled mess. Blood and gray matter splattered the walls and white sheets. Long, thin strands of dark hair, streaked with silver and mixed with blood, hung down his neck and shoulders.

  My mouth went dry, and I instinctively pulled away from the window. It didn’t seem real. The morning was too pretty, too calm, and the damn birds were chirping up a storm. As if to mock me, a finch chattered close by as it winged its way toward the woods. Everything was too normal—except for the man inside.

  I gave myself a moment to get it together before following Oliver up the back porch steps. This was my first time seeing a body, and I wanted to respond in a calm,
professional manner. If I didn’t, I’d never hear the end of it at the station.

  The day of reckoning had finally arrived. I wasn’t going to blow it. I’d worked too hard trying to gain everyone’s respect to lose it now. I needed this job. My kids depended on my paycheck.

  Oliver pushed through the door, and I followed him inside. The back entrance opened into a kitchen so tiny its width could be spanned by holding out my arms in both directions. All was clean and tidy. A mountain of plastic food containers sat atop a folded kitchen towel, clean and neatly stacked. Whether Ray was an ex-convict or not, his mother must have been a decent sort of person for the community to have dropped off casseroles for her son in this time of family tragedy. Now the emptied containers had been washed, ready for their owners to return and pick up.

  To our right was a dining room with a table and four chairs. Straight ahead lay a comfy den with shabby furniture, a worn area rug, and an old, bulky TV that sat atop a plain but functional wooden stand with shelves beneath.

  No sign of a disturbance. Not even an errant scrap of paper lay on the cheap linoleum floor.

  Oliver started down the hall, glancing over his shoulder at me, a question in his eyes.

  I gave him an I’m-just-fine nod, and we proceeded down the hall, passing a cramped bathroom. The victim would be in the next room to the left. Across the hall was another bedroom, the bed neatly made with a threadbare chenille bedspread and a painting of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns, the blood trickling from his forehead and into his piercing brown eyes before trailing down his cheeks and disappearing into his beard.

  “Morbid spirituality,” I grumbled under my breath. My gaze remained transfixed on the painting’s droplets of blood as though preparing for the grisly scene awaiting me only fifteen feet away.