Blood in the Lake

by Anne L. Simon

  My God. Early delinquency, a charmer who could get jobs but not hold them, addictions, and now cruelty to animals. The symptoms raced through my mind to a possible diagnosis. We could be dealing with a sociopath. Now I had the courage to go directly to Mr. Strait.

  Bonnie showed me right into his office. His intense eyes peered at me through the round glasses, and his hands tented before him on the desk. He listened in silence to what I had to say about the urgency of talking to our witnesses again, about the possibility we had received evidence we were obligated to disclose to the defense, and about time ticking down to the beginning of the trial.

  “Tom is totally focused on moving forward, Mr. Strait. For two solid days he’s been closeted with Detective Aymond and Mr. Castille going over the jury questionnaires. He says he’ll get to me later, but I’m concerned.”

  His eyes fixed on mine, Mr. Strait tapped his forefinger on the desktop. Fifteen seconds crawled by before he spoke.

  “I agree with you about the need to talk to those witnesses. Soon. We can defer consideration of the exculpatory evidence issue until we know what else Skipper Domingue and Cousin Dudley might have to say.” His expression softened. “I’ve seen this kind of obsessive preoccupation with pre-trial preparation before. Serious trials, especially capital cases, suck the life out of us. No doubt I was guilty of the same tunnel vision when I was on the front line, but that’s what the support of the office is here for—keeping perspective. We’ve got to get a conviction the right way or not at all.”

  Mr. Strait picked up the telephone and called downstairs for the detectives. Elnora reported that Buddy had left Tom’s office and didn’t say where he was going, but she reached Deuce in the Lafayette Sheriff’s Office fine-tuning the dragnet for Mickey Brown. Mr. Strait handed me the phone. I laid out the issue for Deuce, and he saw the urgency right away.

  “Let’s tackle Skipper first,” Deuce said. “I could shake loose from here and get to The Southern Wave by around 6:30 tonight. Could you see what you can do about setting up a meeting? Call me back to confirm?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “I know you could talk to those guys by yourself—I learned that when I saw you with Mrs. Falgout—but I wouldn’t want you to go into that bunkhouse alone, unless maybe you get turned on by sweaty men decorated with tattoos.”

  Thanks, Deuce. I needed the levity.

  With just a wave of his hand, Mr. Strait indicated the phone on a side table. Thank God I’d thought to bring the number with me. Skipper Domingue agreed to the 6:30 meeting.

  “I’ll see you there,” Deuce said when I called him back. “I’ll keep checking around to try to find Buddy. He’s AWOL, I’m afraid.”

  Mr. Strait and I talked a little more about the issue of exculpatory evidence, and I could tell he took seriously the possible need for disclosure to the defense. He was sure Tom would finish jury prep by tomorrow and be ready to make the crucial decision.

  “His case, you know. It’s his call.”

  Back in my office, I settled in my chair and willed tension to drain away. No doubt about it, I could be looking at a very satisfying career if I went to work for Mr. Strait. If I wanted to be a prosecutor, that is. Amanda Aguillard appearing for the State of Louisiana. I liked how that rang.

  But my mind swirled in confusion about my future with Tom. One argument couldn’t erase the closeness I’d felt during the past six months, especially when everything seemed to be going south during the tense run-up to a capital trial, but had I been a blind and infatuated idiot?

  Even worse, was Tom even thinking about a future with me? Damn the poison thoughts my Aunt Mazie had put into my head.

  * * *

  That night, I left the house at 5:30, giving myself an hour for the thirty-minute ride to meet Deuce for our interview with Skipper. I didn’t know the exact location of The Southern Wave, but I figured someone at a gas station in Delcambre would give me directions. Only one road led from Delcambre to Intracoastal City. Had to be along there.

  A police car blocked the right turn out of our driveway so I turned left, opting for the back way around the lake, past the turn-off to the Jefferson House, the site of the old salt mine, and onto the cane field road through to the swamp area on the far side of the lake. Front way or back, the distance from my house to Delcambre would be about the same. Fewer cars traveled the back way, but the route was perfectly safe. At the tail end of winter standard time I could count on at least another hour of daylight. Plenty of time to get around the lake.

  I hadn’t been this way in years. Past Jefferson House, I went by half-a-dozen modest frame houses nestled into the lakeshore. I had no idea where I’d live one day when I had a real job, but I hoped I could be in the country, with all its imperfections, and not a developer’s perfect dream, the houses all built according to the latest architectural fad—French Provincial, southwest, New England Colonial, whatever, the St. Augustine grass lawns fertilized and watered to a deep green, trimmed weekly to a perfect carpet. No soul.

  My hands on the steering wheel sensed a slight shimmy, the vibration increasing when I reached the rougher surface near the site of the old salt mine. I wasn’t concerned. Cane trucks rattling these roads during grinding take a toll on the blacktop. Come spring, no doubt this route would be on the parish short-list for asphalt patches. I slowed a bit, but kept moving. Another quarter mile and I couldn’t blow off the sensation of a drag to the right. I had a problem.

  I pulled over to the side of the road, stopped the car, and stepped down. I came around to the front and took a look at the suspected source of trouble—the front passenger-side tire. Yup. Almost flat. I must’ve picked up a nail or something sharp. Damn.

  I could change a tire—I’d done so a few times in college when I drove a beat-up truck J. Allen had retired from life on PawPaw’s farm—but calling Dad to come out to give me a hand would be quicker. Then I made a more careful inspection of the offending tire—and gasped. No sharp object lying innocently in the road had caused my problem. Someone had sliced a deep and ugly gash into the outside wall. I clamped my jaws to still a shudder of fear.

  I opened the passenger side door, and reached for my phone. My brand-new, graduation present iPhone sat in my purse, dead as a doornail. Keeping the charge had not crossed my mind during my hell of a day. OK. I could just roll on the flat.

  Then I noticed steam coming out of the hood. Damn. Someone had also drained the radiator. My car was a goner.

  What was plan B? Run home? Just a couple miles. I looked down at my stupid work shoes. No. I couldn’t run in three-inch heels.

  I could walk home. No. Not enough time.

  When did someone get to my car? Perhaps while I changed clothes after work. What about the high security the detectives assured me would keep everyone away? Apparently worthless. This was crazy. Who would do such a thing? Why? The hell with Deuce’s warning to beware of paranoia. I had a full-blown, gigantic case of it. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs to stop shuddering. Someone was after me, and he was probably that sociopath, Mickey Brown. I scrambled into the car, locked all the doors, and succumbed to panic.

  Five minutes or fifteen, I couldn’t say. Enough, already. Rational thought returned. Forget trying to make the meeting with Deuce. Get the hell out of there. I got out of the car, went around to the back and reached for the latch to open the trunk. Maybe I had an old pair of running shoes in there I could put on my feet.

  Everything went black.

  * * *

  Consciousness returned slowly, expanding in concentric circles from a center point in my brain like ripples on the surface of the lake. Where was I? On my way to meet Deuce for an interview with Skipper Domingue. Someone had another plan.

  I cautiously raised my eyelids and saw nothing. Night had swallowed the day. Spread-eagle, flat out on my belly, my right cheek scraped the coarse surface of the blacktop. OK, I was on the road behind my disabled car on the back way around Lake Peigneur.

 
I struggled to sit, the effort causing a shot of pain at the base of my skull. I reached up and touched my hair. Sticky and wet. I smelled my fingers. Blood. I closed my eyes to let a wave of dizziness pass. No slip and fall had put me in this position. I’d been hit.

  I didn’t know if I’d been out cold for minutes or hours. I remembered that my phone, my only timepiece, lay dead in the car. Did the moon high overhead mean it was close to midnight? I should have paid more attention to that kind of science when I was in high school.

  But what damn difference did it make what time it was? Holding the back bumper, I pulled myself to my feet. Wait. Whoever did this might still be somewhere around. I shrank back down behind the trunk of the car.

  Idiot. What makes you think the person is somewhere up front? He could be anywhere—up front, on the side, next to your ear, right behind you. I raised my head for a cautious look around. Nothing but the night.

  Clouds scudding across the sky intermittently allowed the moon to cast a pale light on the scene. Dense trees walled both sides of the road. I knew the area; there would be no houses or any possible source of help for at least a mile in the direction I’d come, and ahead, only swamp and sugarcane fields until the road around the back of the lake emerged at the Delcambre Canal. No wonder Uncle Jay thought Ti was crazy to think he could find landmarks for pirate treasure out here in this jungle. Worst of all, no one would know I was missing. Deuce would wonder what had happened to me, but he’d just go on to the bunkhouse because I’d told him the interview with Skipper could not be delayed. People at home wouldn’t expect me to return for hours. If and when they set out to find me, they wouldn’t come this way on the first try. Tom? Damn Tom. I wasn’t even on his radar.

  The clouds blew off, the night sky opened, and for just a moment the moon cast a brighter light on the road ahead. Nothing. Just as well. At this point I trusted no one but myself. I pulled up to a standing position. The clouds again covered the moon, and all light disappeared. The reality of my isolation overwhelmed me. I fell against the car and gave way to sobs.

  For how long? I don’t know. I needed to think. Should I get back in the car and stay there until dawn, hoping someone might come by? No. I wouldn’t trust anyone who did come. Cicadas buzzed. An owl hooted his mournful call. I felt I’d been dropped onto the surface of the moon.

  I had to think that the person who slashed my tire was the same person who threatened Taddy. Mickey Brown? Yes. But what was his game? Threats and vandalism were doing a good job of frightening the hell out of us, but if he were really dangerous, wouldn’t he have done something worse by now? But then maybe if he were Sarah’s mythical other dude, he’d already done worse—killed PawPaw and maimed Mrs. Falgout.

  Why did he hang around? He could’ve gone to Mexico or Canada months ago. Then I thought of all those indicia of socio-pathology. No one could predict what someone like that had in mind.

  Home. That’s where I wanted to be. I stood up, straightened my shoulders and resolved to walk the way I’d come.

  But I had only one shoe. I pushed in the latch on the trunk, dug out my flashlight, and searched the ground. No shoe around where I fell, or up under the car. I walked around the car, covering every foot of pavement on either side and a good twenty feet behind and ahead. The guy must have pitched my right shoe into the bushes on the side of the road. I’d never find it in the dark.

  I felt more than heard a low rumble. Vehicle headlights appeared ahead. I snapped off my flashlight, dashed for the side of the road, and threw myself down into the growth. Blackberry-bush stickers and poison ivy seemed minor risks under the circumstances. I crouched in the thicket until the car sped past. No. It was a truck. Light color. Damn. I watched the taillights swerve again to avoid my car. Uncontrollable shudders returned.

  Insects buzzed and pricked my face and neck. No mosquito at Lake Peigneur would have to seek out another blood meal for at least a week. I wanted to go home. OK. Get up and go.

  I had only one shoe. Oh, I remembered, I had been going to the trunk to look for an old pair of running shoes.

  No such luck, but I found a towel and created a makeshift boot for my bare right foot. I started to walk. Diddle, diddle dumpling. As each layer of cloth wore through, I retied the material to construct a new sole. Underneath the cloth, my foot scraped raw and bled.

  Strange shapes emerging in the intermittent moonlight set my imagination into overdrive. What lurked behind the trees pillowing up close to the road? Croaking frogs, buzzing cicadas, the hoot of an owl were enchanting background noise from the screened porch at my house, but even those familiar sounds seem menacing when you’re completely alone in a pitch black southern night. The closer you listen to the sounds in our lowlands, the more you hear the abundant life that calls south Louisiana home.

  A rat ran across the road; a soft flutter of wings and a puff of air had to be a bat flying within an inch of my face; a limb recoiled as some denizen of the night found a new perch. An owl perhaps? I could have handled each of these events alone, but together they tipped over the boat. I dissolved into tears and sank down on the tarmac.

  But for just a few moments. Get up you wimp. You want that nut to come back and give you more of what he’s already done? I resumed my hobbling walk.

  A break in the trees at the drive to Jefferson House sent my spirits soaring. I was close to home. I could feel gravel embedded in the cuts on my foot, but if I just made a few hundred yards more, put one foot down and then the other, I could get there. I rounded a corner, and a small glow appeared ahead. No sailor sighting safe harbor rejoiced more than I did at the sight of a light on my own front porch.

  Then disaster. Taking my eyes from the pavement for just that moment, I tripped and fell. Pain shot through my right ankle, above my shoeless foot. My flashlight had fallen with me, smashed and gone dark.

  The glow of light from my house taunted me from a distance. How could I get there?

  First: get out of the middle of the road, ninny. If someone did come by, they’d run me down before I could get out of the way. Keeping my ankle immobile, I dragged myself to the shoulder, shredding my left pant leg on the rough asphalt. Next: assess the damage. My ankle and my toes wiggled. I hadn’t broken anything. I flexed my foot. Painful, but working. Now to see if I could get up. No, not without something to get hold of. The clouds broke and I made out the shape of a road sign on the shoulder just ahead.

  I dragged myself toward the sign, each pull leaving cloth of my pants on the pavement. Then I was leaving behind my own skin. I reached the sign, grabbed the post, and pulled myself upright. My ankle held. I grasped the signpost until a wave of dizziness faded. Then somehow, some way, with my porch light as a beacon marking safe harbor, I made it home.

  “Mom,” I called out as I fell on the steps. She heard my pounding and came to the door, holding the telephone.

  “Deuce is calling for you—my God, what happened? You’re all torn apart!”

  Mom dropped the phone on the floor and reached out her arms to pull me inside.

  “I’m OK,” I said. I picked up the phone and sat bleeding on the carpet to talk to Deuce.

  “Skipper’s not sure one way or the other,” Deuce reported, “but he thinks one of the guys he overheard had an accent. Maybe you would’ve done better at getting him to recall the voices. Wait a minute. You sound funny. Is something wrong?”

  “I’m home now, Deuce. Can you come on over here?”

  Deuce didn’t get it. “Not right now, Mandy. My buddies are calling. We have sightings of white trucks all over the parish, and I’ve got a few dozen to run down.”

  “Well, Deuce, I have one to add to your list.” I told him my story.

  “You stay locked inside your house, hear me? I’m calling Tom right now. I’m telling him to forget the damn trial and get over there to be with you.”

  When Deuce hung up I told Mom I needed a bath, first aid, and a cold beer! Did I need Tom? I really didn’t know.

  The Whis
key River Bridge

  DAD TOOK ONE look at the bottom of my feet, set his lips hard together, and shook his head at Mom.

  “The ankle looks OK to me, but someone has to pick each piece of gravel out of those cuts on the bottom of her foot and she’ll probably need a shot or two. Tetanus, antibiotic, serious pain medication. Our girl is way beyond my First Aid, Mimi. We need to get her to the emergency room.”

  All I wanted was to hit the bed but I was too weak to protest. Dad’s arms lifted me into the car, and I faded out hearing Mom giving an order to one of the officers on duty. “Go with them,” she said. “Nobody leaves this house without someone who has a gun on his hip.”

  I surrendered to the caregivers.

  Two hours later, Dad and I returned home. Weak as a kitten, I let Dad carry me up the front steps. The sight of Tom coming to me from the living room made me even weaker. He looked like hell. He reached out his arms and encircled my shoulders. I let myself lean on his chest but kept my fingers gripped tight on the bars of the crutches. I felt his lips brush the side of my face.

  “Thank God you’re safe.” He whispered the words as a prayer.

  Yes, I was glad to see him, but I couldn’t get past the past week—or past thinking about what a doormat I’d been for months. I’d be keeping my distance until I had a chance to figure out where we were headed.

  “I’m a bit worse for the evening’s adventure, Tom, but nothing’s broken. I’m going straight to the bath. Maneuvering the tub is going to be another adventure. Mom says she has a plan.”

  And you’re not part of it!

  He spoke softly into my ear. “When Deuce called me and said you hadn’t shown up in Delcambre, I—I—” His voice cracked.

  On one level, I was mad as hell. But underneath the hurt, Tom Barnett still had me. Damn. My tears welled up again. I managed to get out three words.

  “Not now, Tom.”