by Polly Iyer
“We’re talking hundreds of miles of swamp and wetlands, Ernie, and…”
“Things that go bump in the night,” chimed Cash.
“Yeah, I know. My father used to travel the rivers treating people who’d never see a doctor otherwise. When we narrow down our options, I may have a way to give us an edge, but first I want to talk to Dree.”
“Do you want me to release a picture of Macon to the media?” Cash asked.
“Not yet. I don’t want him to know we’re on to him. He might spook into accelerating his plans, and I don’t want that.” No, I don’t want that at all.
* * * * *
“Man, he’s fit to be tied,” said Saint Mark Parish Sheriff, McCoy Jenrette, when Lucier and Beecher arrived to interview Dree. Jenrette looked like Rod Steiger’s double from In the Heat of the Night: shirt arcing from button to button, chewing on an unlit cigar that looked like it was rolled before the revolution.
“Joey wanted to know what we thought he’d forged. Course I couldn’t tell him because you guys failed to clue me in when you called. He asked for a lawyer and I had to let him call. Something called civil rights, ya know. The mouthpiece ain’t here yet.” Jenrette leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his impressive girth. “Now, you wanna tell me what this is all about?”
“We think Dree may have knowledge where a suspect is holding Diana Racine.
“You mean the psychic that was kidnapped?”
“That’s the one. We think he’s the same guy who murdered two women in New Orleans last week and stabbed one of my men.”
“And you think that little ratty-ass goober Dree helped him? Jesus.” Jenrette motioned the men to sit. “This guy’s such small potatoes you couldn’t even make a french fry outta him.”
Lucier chuckled at the analogy. “Joey and the man we have pegged for the snatch, Harley Macon, were cellmates for a while, and Dree’s the only one from Louisiana we’ve found with a connection. We want to ask him a few questions. We’re not saying he knew what Macon planned, but we think he forged a driver’s license for him and set him up with a hideout.”
The door opened, and one of Jenrette’s deputies poked his head in. “Sheriff, Clayton’s here.”
“Show him in, Clyde. Then get Joey in here, will ya?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who’s Clayton?” Beecher asked.
“Clayton Dree. Can you believe this loser’s brother is a lawyer? But before you start worrying, he’s an idiot, just like Joey. Mostly does ambulance chasing, but ever’ now and then he goes to trial. Usually loses.”
If Lucier weren’t so anxious about Diana he would have laughed at the sight of Clayton Dree’s Matlock impersonation: off-white suit, white shirt and light blue tie. But the resemblance ended there when he shifted his eyes from the Panama hat to the silver-toed snakeskin boots. Jenrette peered over his half glasses and chomped on his cigar to hide the smirk. Lucier kept his gaze away from Beecher but caught the expectant look on Jenrette’s face after his introduction when Clayton Dree spoke his first words in the high-pitched voice of a lisping twelve-year old girl. Lucier put his hand over his mouth and bit his bottom lip. Beecher feigned a yawn, followed by a cough to keep from laughing outright.
“Well, gentlemen, seems like you’ve got a client of mine here under false pretenses,” Clayton Dree said. “McCoy, you pick on my brother, that’s what you do. You know he’s innocent of all charges.” He shook his head and blinked a few times, furrowing his brow. “By the way, what are the charges and have they already been filed?”
“Not yet, Clayton. Don’t get your britches all in a wad. Sit down.” He introduced Lucier and Beecher. “They want to talk to Joey, but they insisted on waiting for you.”
“That’s a load of crock, McCoy. Joey asked for me as soon as he got here. After all, what’s family for if not to help each other out? Ya know what I mean?”
“Clay, am I glad you’re here,” Joey Dree blurted upon entering the room. “This is a joke. They got nothing on me ’cause I didn’t do nothin’.”
“Anything, Joey. You didn’t do anything. Tell that to the good men here, okay? Answer their questions and they’ll let you go home. Isn’t that right, Lieutenant?”
Ignoring the lawyer’s question, Lucier turned to the bony, ferret-faced man. Standing five-three and weighing maybe a hundred pounds stark naked, Joey Dree bore a skull and crossbones tattoo on his puny arm. Seemed the Dree brothers decided that perception substituted for substance, but Joey’s tattoos didn’t make him look any tougher than his brother’s getup made him look the high-priced lawyer.
“Joey, do you know a man named Harley Macon?” Lucier asked.
“You know I do,” Joey said, fidgeting in his chair. “We shared a cell for five years. What’s he got to do with anythin’?”
“You forged a Louisiana license for him last year in the name of James Randall. You remember?”
Joey jumped up out of his chair. “That ain’t true. It ain’t true, Clay. I swear. I ain’t never forged nothin’ for him. I don’t do that shit no more. Tell ’em, Clay. I done served my time. Got me a real job and keeping my nose clean. Tell ’em, Clay.”
“Sit down, Joey.” To Lucier: “You heard my client. He doesn’t do that anymore. You don’t have any proof or else you’d have arrested him by now. And since you haven’t, we’re finished here. I’ve got an appointment.”
“Not yet, counselor,” Lucier said. “We think you did, Joey, and I’ll tell you why. Harley Macon came to New Orleans last year with a phony ID, and we have a witness who saw the two of you together.”
“That’s baloney. I ain’t never seen him in New Orleans. He came here—” Joey stopped dead on the last word and flicked away a bead of sweat that crawled down the side of his flushed face. “You tricked me. No one seen us together. You tricked me. Clay, they tricked me. You heard them. Ain’t that against the law? Entrapment or something?”
“Joey, sit down and shut up.” The lawyer looked at Jenrette, then at Lucier. “My client here, this dumb ass, didn’t mean what he said. You caught him off guard. He didn’t admit to anything except seeing this Macon fellow when he visited here. As far as I know that’s not a crime. One friend visiting another friend.”
“Except this friend is wanted for two murders,” Beecher said.
Clayton started to say something, thought better, then shut his mouth.
“If I find out he’s lying,” Jenrette said, “I’ll make sure he’s charged as an accessory. That’s a long time in jail, right, Lieutenant?”
“At least twenty years.”
“Clay, I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no murders. I swear. I done him a little license, that’s all. He’s a friend.”
Now Joey looked like a road worker in mid-August. Lucier expected him to dissolve into a grease puddle on the floor.
“Joey, you gotta be as stupid as one of them retards in the home up in Hillsdale. Sheeit! I can’t imagine you and me come from the same gene pool.” Turning his attention to Lucier, he said, “Okay, what’s on the table?”
Lucier noticed Clayton Dree’s catch phrases, obviously gleaned from watching too many hours of Matlock and Law and Order. “We drop all charges on the forgery if Joey tells us where Macon is. Besides papers, he wanted a hideout, and we think Joey knows where.” Lucier turned to Joey. “You walk out of here free and clear, but I want to know, and I want to know now. The offer lasts for thirty seconds.” He’d watched his share of the television shows too.
“Okay, okay. I told you, I made the license. Macon forced me. He can be a real scary fellow when he wants. Like sometimes he says things he couldn’t know, but he does, like…like he’s reading your mind. But I swear, I don’t know where he went. He asked if there were any secluded places he could lay up for a while. Places that weren’t used no more, like maybe deep in the rivers somewhere. Stuff like that. I told him some places I knew, but I swear I don’t know which one he was going to. I suspect he checked ’em all out. B
esides, I don’t think he wanted me to know, in case somethin’ like this happened. And I didn’t want to know. If I didn’t know nothin’ I couldn’t squeal him out. That’s the God’s truth.” He turned to his brother. “Clay, that’s the truth, I swear.”
“Did you get him a gun too?” Lucier asked.
Joey jumped from his seat. “No. I’m a con. I can’t get caught with a gun. No. No guns. He asked, but I don’t know nothing ’bout guns.”
Thou protest too much, Lucier thought, but didn’t pursue it. Besides, Macon’s MO didn’t include guns.
The Matlock impostor looked at his brother, then at Lucier. “So, no guns. Now, if Joey tells you the places he told Macon, does the deal still hold?”
Lucier got up from his chair murmuring under his breath. Joey was telling the truth. The man was too stupid to put on such a show. “The deal holds. I want to know every place you told him, even as a possibility. Understand?”
“I won’t have to go to jail?”
“No, no jail, unless you go shooting your mouth off to Macon. Then, I swear, I’ll put you in the cell myself and throw away the key.” He turned to the lawyer. “And I’ll hold you responsible if word gets out of this room about Macon and some reporter screws up our search and rescue.” If she’s still alive. “I don’t want this psycho to freak and kill her.”
Joey pushed an oily strand of hair off his forehead and wiped the sweat with the back of his hand. His voice was steady. “Macon don’t freak. He ain’t scared of nothin’. That’s what’s so scary ’bout him.”
“You have our word,” Clayton said. “Nothing leaves this room.”
Jenrette brought a map of the area. Half an hour later they had a list of five, once-thriving fishing areas on bayous with cabins now either overgrown or ignored by the yuppie crowds luxuriating in high-end hotels and golf resorts. Lucier warned the Dree boys that if Joey held anything back, the deal was off, and he’d pay one way or another. With conditions understood, the Drees left in a hurry, Clayton full of himself for getting his brother freed.
“Sheriff Jenrette, we’d like to check out these five places. We’ll need a couple of your deputies, if you can spare them. I’m afraid we’d be lost.”
“We’ll do what we can to help. After all, if this Macon guy’s here, he’s in our jurisdiction. How long will it take your men to get here?”
“A couple of hours,” Lucier said. “In addition, I have a friend who knows those areas like the back of his hand. I’d like to call him in on this, if it’s okay with you to include a civilian.”
“Fine with me,” Jenrette said. “We don’t have any swamp rats on the payroll. This is the smallest parish in Louisiana, Lieutenant. Just trying to keep the peace. A few robberies ever’ now and then, some family problems, things like that. We rarely have big problems, but we’ll do whatever it takes to help.”
“Much appreciated, Sheriff.” Lucier called the district and told Cash and Halloran to phone everyone off duty to come in and cover, then join him and Beecher as soon as possible.
“You know we could get a bird to fly over the area and see if there’s any signs of life.”
“I’m afraid that might spook him. This guy’s not stupid.” Shaking his head, Lucier said, “He must have had one hell of a time hanging around with Joey Dree for five years.”
“Them backwaters can be dangerous. The ones on the list have been let go for a long time, and the roads leading in are hard to find, if you can find ’em at all. Used to go fishing out there myself in younger days. Might still be a few cabins in habitable condition. We should start with those. My guess is your guy picked one of the better camps.”
“Would he have to rent or go and take his chances?”
“The owners of some of them places have died off and left the property to relatives. Too much trouble and money to bring them up to rental condition, so they’ve been left to deteriorate. Most ever’ one around here’s forgotten those places even exist.”
“Perfect. So even if she’s screaming her head off, no one will hear.”
“That’s ’bout right.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Failing Fast
As a performer, Diana knew looks were important. The swollen-shut eye and bruised jaw reflected in the bathroom mirror would have scared her audience into running for the nearest Amazing Kreskin show. Her body exploded in pain with every twitch. He’d attack her again until he succeeded in destroying her one remaining strength, and the way she felt, her mind wouldn’t last long. He’d win his perverse game by default.
She dozed intermittently, a trick she learned as a teenager when dragged from one performance to another, tutor in tow. What day was it? She’d lost track of time.
Tires crunched the dirt, a car door slammed, and the smell of greasy fries followed the rustle of paper bags into the room.
“Guess what I’ve got?” he said.
Without opening her eyes, she said, “Burgers and fries.” If I get out of this alive, elevated cholesterol will kill me before I recover.
“A psychic reading or olfactory senses?”
“Psychic, of course.” From her good eye, she saw him examining her.
“You look terrible,” he said. “What’s the matter with your eye? And your face is all swollen. No, you don’t look good at all.”
She saw the half-smile on his face and returned the sarcasm. “Thanks. I feel great, though.”
He uncuffed her and watched as she strained to a sitting position. Spreading the food on the bed, he unwrapped his sandwich and squeezed ketchup on the inside of the bun and another packet on the paper. Dipping a few limp fries in the ketchup, he dropped them in his mouth and devoured a quarter of the burger in one bite. “Well, our game should perk you up,” he said after swallowing. “We start tonight.”
“I told you I’m not playing until you guarantee not to kill anyone.”
“And I told you I’d play your way to see how it goes. Even so, you’re in no position to make demands, are you? Why, you can hardly sit up to eat your sandwich.”
Still struggling, Diana looked at the beast devouring dinner as if nothing mattered except the next bite. “You think physical abuse will weaken me. Doesn’t work that way. You can’t change what is. I’ll know if you’ve killed someone.” She leaned forward, focusing on his face. “You’re inside me, Harley. I’ve got you inside me.”
He stopped eating for a split second and squinted into deep thought. “Interesting way of putting that. I sure have been inside you.” He finished his sandwich. “And what if I kill someone? What will you do? From where I’m sitting, little Miss Diana Racine, you can’t do a damn thing, can you?”
For once, she had no smart-aleck answer.
“Not eating? Hmm, don’t mind if I do.” He snatched her dinner and proceeded to demolish it, smacking his lips and licking his fingers in an attempt to aggravate her. It worked.
Diana watched as her stomach growled for nourishment. She should have eaten the damn thing, disgusting or not. Stupid to let him take it. She lifted the drink in a mock toast. “I will have this, though,” she said, thinking that if she didn’t smarten up, she would die of starvation before he killed her.
He took the drink from her hand. “After you go to the bathroom. I don’t want you wetting the bed while I’m gone.”
Diana eased off the bed, careful not to move too fast and shift the rib that she now knew was broken. She clutched her side to hold herself together and ease the pinch that accompanied every movement. Macon had taken her hard, and his brutal attack weakened her even more. She held on to the table, then the wall as she made her way.
She avoided his gaze when leaving the bathroom, afraid an unintentional curl of her lip might precipitate another assault. She felt herself breaking down. Her legs dragged as if each weighed a ton, and lifting them onto the bed seemed an impossible task. Macon lifted them for her and cuffed her left wrist. He handed her the drink, took the bag of trash and left.
Diana si
pped, the wetness cooling her cracked lips, the fizz waking her insides. He returned and took the drink from her hand.
“You’re failing much faster than I expected. Guess I didn’t take into consideration how small you are. So tiny and delicate.” He ran his hand down the front of her body. “Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.”
Diana knew what he was going to do, and she didn't have the will to resist. He could take her now without fastening her to the bed. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why? I guess because I can.” He unbuttoned her shirt. “You know, back home you found only the last girl. That was a mistake. You never found the other three because I wouldn’t let you. I remember seeing you in the papers, with your cute little braids and your father showing you off like a prize thoroughbred.”
Oh, my God, those poor girls. Her hand stretched across her mouth as tears fell down the sides of her cheeks and spread onto the pillow like a stain of shame. Logic told her that she had nothing to do with the murder of those girls, but her heart pained from the realization that Macon had taken their lives to play a stupid game. A game she didn’t even know she was playing.
“No one knew who killed those girls. Not even you.”
“You murdered four innocent girls so I could find them?”
Macon said nothing.
“I can’t play your sick game now. I’m too tired and hurt. My mind doesn’t work when I’m tired.”
“Nice try, but you told me that isn’t so. Anyway, I won’t kill the first one. I promised, but you have to tell me where she is. She’ll live, but I make no promises about the next one.”
Diana wanted to get into his head. She wanted to, but she couldn’t.
“You know, twenty years in prison without a woman is a long time. When I got out, I did a few hookers, discards that no one will ever miss. Cops don’t even look after they check out the pimps. The two women in New Orleans were collateral damage. Part of a grand scheme in which you, my dear Diana, are the main prize. That first one, though, what was her name, Buffy? Ah, yes, Buffy. A real wildcat. Too bad. She would have been fun for a while.”
