by Layton Green
“And I think I know who it was,” Grey said.
Again, all eyes were on him.
– 17 –
“A priest?” Viktor guessed.
“Not a priest,” Grey said, remembering the muscular female guard who had taken over when they had visited Sebastian at Angola.
I’ll watch ’em, Frank.
You sure?
No offense, but you’re new, and I don’t like letting him out of my sight.
Grey gave a description of the prison guard to Sergeant Boudreaux. “Can you check her background?”
He stood. “Wait here.”
After he left, Grey said to Viktor, “Even if this lead pans out, how do you rate Sebastian’s chances?”
“His chance at this defense has always been slim, Grey. Exceedingly so.”
“But what do you think? After what we’ve seen?”
“I think we need to hear what this guard has to say.”
The detective returned fifteen minutes later and showed Grey and Viktor an employee ID card faxed from the prison. “This her?”
“That’s the one,” Grey said, recognizing the cropped blond hair and bodybuilder’s physique. He peered closer to read the name. “Lynda Harringdon.”
“I called about her after the fax went through,” the detective said. “Born and bred in West Feliciana Parish, and as far as anyone knows, she’s never left. Got her GED, bounced around a few lawn-care companies, did a stint as a personal trainer before she joined the Farm.”
“Was she there when Scarecrow was inside?”
He nodded. “I was told she’s a good employee, does her job and keeps her head down. I was also told Scarecrow’s got connections up there, no doubt about it.”
Despite the lead on Lynda, a week passed with no new evidence. Only two days remained before trial.
Grey and Viktor were growing desperate.
The detective sergeant had dug into the Jarrod Trufont angle, but besides the call from Scarecrow’s cell phone, which was inadmissible evidence, he had nothing.
Which surprised no one. Any deal between the interim D.A. and the gang leader would have been made in person, or through proxies. It could take months or even years to build a case.
Viktor had spent the time holed up in the Columns Hotel preparing his argument for trial, though he decided not to move forward if no evidence of a ritual was found. The case was simply too thin. He had a reputation to protect. Grey had asked the professor if the scrolls Viktor had taken from the Druze’s house had any value, and Viktor dismissed them with a disgusted wave of his hand. Useless, he had said. Knowledge I already possess.
Grey had spent the week in much less comfortable environs: an abandoned trailer in West Feliciana Parish. The single-wide had a direct view of Lynda Harringdon’s clapboard shack perched on the edge of a stagnant, mosquito-infested bayou.
They had no leverage, and Grey knew a direct approach would yield no results. He had decided to stake her out, with nothing to show for it.
As far as Grey could tell, Lynda Harringdon led the most predictable existence on the planet. She rose every morning at sunrise, left the house half an hour later, went straight to the prison for an eight-hour shift, hit the local gym after that, went home and ate a frozen dinner on her sagging back porch overlooking the bayou, then drank beer and watched television for an hour before bed.
At eleven p.m. on the fifth night of the stakeout, just before Lynda turned in for the night, and just before he was about to call Viktor and report another disappointing day, Grey got a break.
Choked in foliage and shielded by live oaks, the empty trailer Grey had commandeered was a hundred yards down the bayou from Lynda’s shack. Except for the swamp rats and the bugs, the trailer made a perfect lookout.
With his high-powered binoculars, Grey followed a rusted-out Ford Bronco as it pulled into Lynda’s gravel driveway, parked sideways in the front yard, and disgorged three people: two leggy girls in jean shorts and halter tops, and the blond man with the braided goatee from Scarecrow’s gang.
Grey gripped the binoculars.
Something was going down.
He had to get closer.
The blond man grabbed a duffel bag from the passenger seat, then shepherded the girls inside. They looked underage and underfed, and had Creole skin tones.
Grey stuffed his gun in the waist of his jeans, threw on a long-sleeved black shirt and a pair of latex gloves, and crept through the weepy cypress trees lining the shore of the bayou. His feet stuck in the mud and the marshy ground exuded a sewer-like stench.
From his new vantage point behind one of the cypress trees, he watched as the whole ensemble, Lynda included, moved to the covered back porch. The blond man opened the duffel bag and took out a baggie full of white powder, six pill bottles, and two enormous loaves of French bread squared off at the ends.
She gets bribed with bread? Grey thought.
Lynda looked pleased. She put away the bread and the pills while the man prepared lines of coke on a plastic side table. After the initial round, the lines of coke moved to the stomachs and then the bare chests of the girls. Beers were passed around, Lynda started fondling the girls, and the party moved to the bedroom.
An hour later, the blond man and the girls left in the Bronco.
There’s no time like the present, Grey thought.
He crept down the bayou, climbed onto Lynda’s back porch, and slipped through the rear screen door. He found Lynda naked on the living room couch, drinking a beer and watching ESPN.
“What the—” Lynda dropped the beer as she jumped to her feet, her small breasts jiggling weirdly on her muscular torso. She eyed a shotgun on the kitchen table behind Grey, and decided to rush him.
Grey sidestepped the clumsy attack and threw her across the kitchen. Her shoulder crashed through the drywall.
“Get dressed,” he said.
She stumbled to her feet. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Someone you don’t want to cross.”
She came at him again, lunging for his waist. This time he kneed her in the face. She crashed to the ground, dazed and moaning.
Grey grabbed an afghan off the couch and threw it at her. “Forget the clothes.”
She sniffed and wrapped herself in the blanket. At first, rage defined her blood-smeared face, but as she took in the set of his jaw and his hard green eyes, the anger slowly turned to fear. “Hey—you’re that guy from the prison. What the hell do you want?”
“For you to stop attacking me.”
“Are you police?”
“Sort of.”
He emptied the shotgun of ammo, pocketed the shells, and tossed the gun to the side. “Sit,” he said, taking one of the chairs at the kitchen table.
She complied.
He showed her the photos of the drug-fueled sex party he had just taken on his cell phone. She blanched and said, “What are you gonna do with those?”
“I’m not sure how you slip by the drug tests at the prison, probably because you supply whoever’s running them, but it’s not just the coke, is it? My guess is those pill bottles are full of steroids. How many felonies are we up to?”
“It’s just a little side—”
“Here’s how this is going to go,” Grey said, pocketing the phone. “The people I work for want Scarecrow Redbone worse than they want you. So either I can show these pictures to Scarecrow, and we both know how that will go, or I can turn these over to the cops without your consent. Or you can work with us. The choice should be an easy one. Prison guards don’t fare too well in their own prison.”
She looked terrified at the mention of Scarecrow, even more terrified at the prospect of incarceration.
After another prompt from Grey, she reluctantly told him everything. About how Scarecrow kept her stocked with her vices of choice in exchange for access to the contraband channels and heavy hitters inside Angola. Who, of course, wielded plenty of influence in the outside world.
“There’s
something else,” Grey said, when she had finished.
“No, there ain’t.”
“Before John Samuelson was executed,” Grey said, meeting her gaze, “you orchestrated a meeting between him and Sebastian Gichaud. Off camera.”
Her mouth hung open. “What—how do you—”
“I just do.”
She started to protest, and he stood.
“Where you going?” she said.
“To talk to Scarecrow.”
She flapped her arms like a wounded bird. “No, no. Just sit. I’ll tell you. It’s . . . I don’t know why you would care about that, but I’ll tell you if you want.”
Grey waited for her to gather her thoughts. He flicked a mosquito off his hand and tried to ignore the stench of polluted marsh air drifting through the screen door.
Lynda fidgeted under his gaze. “A week before they put Samuelson on the gurney, Scarecrow called and said he had a special request. He wanted me to put Samuelson in a room with some kid who was coming up to visit him.”
“Uncuffed?”
She nodded. “I said no way to that. He called back the next day and said what if he was in the room, too?”
“You mean Scarecrow?”
Another nod. “It wasn’t easy, but I took Samuelson off-grid and put him in a room with Scarecrow and this kid Sebastian. Angola’s a big place, there was no one else around.”
“Did you stay in the room with them?” Grey asked.
“I watched through the window.”
“Could you hear them?”
“No.”
Grey leaned forward. “What happened?”
She mashed her hands together as she spoke. “There was a metal desk bolted to the floor, and two chairs. Samuelson sat directly across from the kid. Scarecrow took out a . . . scroll, I guess you could call it . . . from his coat pocket and unrolled it. It looked real old, like some kinda religious thing. It was creepy.”
“Could you see what was on it?”
“It was too far away.”
Grey pursed his lips. “Go on.”
“Samuelson was cuffed in front, and at the ankles. When Scarecrow put the scroll in front of him, Samuelson had a weird look on his face, like he was . . . I guess eager’s the best word.”
“How did Sebastian look?”
“I dunno. Nervous. Scared. But yeah, a little bit eager, too.”
“So Samuelson started reading?”
Lynda shook her head. “Scarecrow put a photo of a woman on the table.”
Grey’s eyebrows rose. “A woman?”
“She had the same eyes and hair as the kid. Could’ve been his mother, maybe an aunt or something.”
Grey didn’t think it was Sebastian’s aunt.
“The kid looked happy when he saw the photo. Actually smiled at that monster. Then . . . —” she took a deep breath “—then it got weird.”
A chill had seeped in through the screen door, and Grey felt his skin prickle. He had left the door open so he could hear any approaching vehicles, but he doubted he could hear much over the cacophony of insects. After dusk set in, they sounded like an invading army.
“How so?” he asked.
Lynda drew the blanket tighter. “Scarecrow put a candle and a few other things on the desk. He was blocking my view, so I couldn’t see what they were. I know Sebastian and John Samuelson were rubbing their hands in something oily. Then they ate some things, I couldn’t tell what, it was wrapped in some kind of leaf. But I swear—I swear something inside was wriggling.” She shuddered. “After a while the kid and Samuelson joined hands. Scarecrow lit the candle and hit the lights.”
“Did you get a better look at the desk when Scarecrow moved?”
“There was just the scroll, the candle, and the photo.”
Grey swallowed. “Then what?”
“Samuelson started reading from the scroll. I could see his lips move and the other two staring at him. The kid didn’t move a muscle for a while, and then this look of total pleasure came over his face, like some girl was going to town on him under the desk. After that, he started wiggling his fingers and feeling his face like he was tripping on acid. This went on for a while and then—” she blew out another breath, as if the story was taking a physical toll “—and then the kid’s face screwed up, like he’d seen a ghost or something. Something awful. I’ve never seen anyone look so scared. He started clawing at his face and screaming—he screamed so loud I heard what he said.”
“And?” Grey said, when she paused.
She looked out at the darkness hovering over the bayou. “He was screaming, ‘get out of me.’”
Grey pressed his lips together. “What happened then?”
“Samuelson kept reading. The kid tried to jerk away but couldn’t, like he could barely move. Scarecrow was standing behind the kid, and he put a hand across his chest to hold him in place. With his other hand, he—” her hands fidgeted on the table “—he peeled his eyelids back. Samuelson was grinning now, still reading, until him and the kid both jerked straight up like they were on some kinda puppet string. They started twitching, like they were having a seizure or something, and then they just collapsed.”
Lynda looked down. “John Samuelson’s head banged straight on the desk, like he was out cold. Scarecrow was holding the kid’s head up. I wanted to run in there but Scarecrow told me he’d kill me if I interfered. I didn’t know what to do. I thought they’d both died or gone crazy from whatever sick thing they’d eaten.”
She paused and looked out at the bayou again. Grey was about to goad her to finish when she said, “I thought they’d died or something, but then they both opened their eyes at the same time.” She crossed her arms and rubbed her hands against her triceps, as if she couldn’t get warm. “Sebastian started smiling like he’d won the lottery, but John Samuelson, he . . . he just started screaming.”
– 18 –
Disturbed by what he had just heard, Grey was about to leave Lynda’s house when he came to a realization. While Lynda might be valuable to Scarecrow because of her access to Angola, she wasn’t part of his tribe.
How far did that trust go?
“You have something on him, don’t you?” Grey said to Lynda.
“What?”
“There’s video footage. Of the ritual.”
“No,” she said, though her eyes flicked to the side before she answered. So she’s not as dumb as she seems, Grey thought.
He took out his phone and started dialing.
“What—what are you doing?”
“Calling the police. I don’t have time for games.”
She put her face in her hands, causing the blanket to slip. She jerked it back up. “Okay. Okay.”
His eyes tracking her every movement, Grey followed Lynda to a fireplace that, judging by the climate and the lack of grime, had probably never been used.
Lynda stuck her arm high up the chimney, groped around, and came back with a USB drive wrapped in a plastic baggie. A piece of packing tape was attached to the bundle.
“I used my cell phone through the glass,” she said. “There’s still no sound.”
Grey pointed at a laptop sitting on a folding table beside the couch. “Show me.”
She did, and Grey watched the same story unfold on video that Lynda had just told him. He saw for himself the chilling transformation that came over both men when the ritual was finished.
The video stopped as the three men were leaving the room, just after John Samuelson had stopped screaming, taken the photo of the woman off the desk, and clutched it tight.
Grey left Lynda with a warning to stay quiet until the police contacted her. She sullenly agreed. He retrieved his duffel bag from the abandoned trailer and drove off.
A few minutes later, he left the gravel back road and pulled onto the highway. A fog had rolled in off the bayou, and the moon was nowhere in sight. The night pressed in around him.
Grey thought about what he had seen and heard. No matter what kind of madne
ss he and Viktor uncovered, there was always an alternate explanation. A whisper of rationality in the back of the mind, a mustard seed of doubt.
What does it take to believe, Grey wondered? What was the meaning of faith, and how did one truly grasp it? Or had the saints among us come to grips with the transient nature of belief?
When Grey reached Baton Rouge, he swung into a Waffle House on the outskirts of town. He was starving and needed caffeine.
The place was packed. Grey had to sit at the bar. He didn’t like having his back to the door, but no one knew he was out there except Lynda, and she had no choice but to cooperate with Sergeant Boudreaux. She would lose her job once she did, but that was far better than the alternative.
Two fried eggs, hash browns, and a coffee refill for the road. As Grey was waiting in line to pay, a pair of headlights reflected off the side window of the diner.
“Cash or credit?”
Maybe he was being paranoid, but something about the way the lights had swung into view seemed off to Grey. Too reckless for a commercial parking lot. Too bold.
He handed the checkout clerk a twenty and turned his head.
It was too late.
Two men in ski masks burst through the door, guns raised. Grey started to dive over the counter and pull his gun in the process, then stopped. The diner was packed. A sudden movement could spark a firefight. Innocent people might be caught in the crossfire.
Grey put his hands up as they came for him. The taller man kept his gun trained on Grey while the shorter one patted him down. Wise, Grey thought, for one of them to stay back. These guys didn’t move like soldiers, but they had some street smarts.
Or maybe they had seen Grey in action.
After taking Grey’s gun, the shorter, thicker man wrenched Grey’s arm behind his back and marched him towards the door.
“No one moves!” the other man bellowed, waving his gun around. The voice sounded familiar. The blond Viking, Grey guessed. “Anyone calls the cops, we’re coming back for your families!”
Grey’s eyes were in constant movement, evaluating the situation. As soon as they left the diner his heart skipped a beat when he saw the Ford Lightning in the parking lot and another assailant in a ski mask standing by the tailgate, holding a gun in one hand and a lead pipe in the other. The truck’s engine was purring. Grey noticed the driver wearing a baseball cap with a purple braid sticking out from the back.
