by S. A. Austin
Gary and his Glock would be there to stop him.
“And that’s only if he’s still around.”
That was the only reason he didn’t want to lay in wait by the well. If Wentzel went to the barn first and saw the getaway car, there’s a good possibility he’d change his mind about Yeager.
Sitting on his haunches, his hands gripping both sides of the tree to maintain his balance, he hoped he didn’t have to wait long. The leg he’d injured, after a blackbird landed on the hood of his car one night, had already begun to cramp. He was interested in finding out if that bird was the same bird at the Caulfield house, since everything about it was unusual.
A slight noise. He held his breath.
An animal?
He cursed the brightness of the full moon, the same brightness he appreciated when he needed it. The sound of a person trudging down the road in his direction, his or her shoes making a faint suction noise in the thick mud, was growing louder.
A dense cloud drifted across the moon. Gary scrunched down lower to better blend in with the darkness. Although grateful he’d chosen to wear his black overcoat, he was even more grateful the rain had ended earlier and the wind had died down. Otherwise, he doubted he would’ve heard the walker in the storm.
The walker in the storm. Huh, that’d make a great title for my noir detective novel.
He poked his head out from behind the tree. Frowned.
What happened to the odd noise? Had the person changed direction? Gotten off the road and onto the grass? Had he, or she, sneaked into the house through the front door? The house he had planned to investigate for himself after Lucas departed? He believed he must’ve distracted himself with the realization that he needed to hide his car.
That’s what happens when I’m overwhelmed with all the stuff I need to get done.
“It’s not too late to do it now, I don’t think,” he murmured.
About to stand up, Gary’s cramped leg made a popping sound equivalent to a finger snap. He grunted in pain. Stretched his leg out for a quick rubdown. A swift blow to the back of his head put him out of his misery.
CHAPTER 78
Jacob Wentzel closed the panel of the secret compartment, believing it’d be better to stay put.
He’d heard all the commotion earlier, when he was busy dumping the crazy lady and a concrete block into the pond. He never did find out who she was.
She wasn’t Mama. That’s what mattered the most to him.
He wanted to get to the hidey-hole in the attic, but cops were everywhere. He was closer to the bridge, so he ran there. Scurried underneath, and hung onto the crossbars to keep away from the water where snakes, mudbugs, and Hell knows what else crawled freely.
It became abundantly clear they were searching for him. Why? He did not know. He was sure he’d covered his tracks every step of the way. One thing he did know was that they’d have his apartment in the city under surveillance.
What they didn’t know was that he had a new place in the French Quarter. Fate surely played a role that day. He’d hole up there. When the time was right, he’d skip town. Maybe hop a train like a hobo. Go out west. Maybe California. Maybe pay his new landlady a visit if her hubby was still out of the country.
When he was at the bridge, he saw them coming for him. Mainly, he saw the beams of many flashlights bobbing this way and that. He felt the way Frankenstein must’ve felt when the village people came for him.
Jacob giggled, girlishly, the stress getting to him.
“Ah well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’ll be long gone after tonight.”
Before going into hiding, leaving Louisiana for good, he had one last thing to do. He wanted to say goodbye to Mama the only way he knew how. He folded her nightgown and lay it on the floor. He believed she would’ve hidden in there if she’d known about it.
BJ was the only writer he personally knew. He told her about the woman in the well hoping she’d write Marie’s story to give her closure. He also wanted it known Virgil was a murderer.
Jacob closed the panel, then the closet door.
Afraid to reveal his hideout, he stood to the side of the octagonal window, and studied the yard with a limited view of it. No flashlight beams. No indistinct radio chatter. No guns and shiny handcuffs. No people. And thank God, no bloodhounds from Hell.
His stomach growled. Hunger overrode his curiosity over why dogs hadn’t been brought in.
Too much rain?
A horrible image struck him.
I’ll bet they’re en route.
“Hey, there’s that pan wrapped in tinfoil on the kitchen table.”
He practically hopped down the stairs. Made it to the second floor without encountering anyone. He patted his pocket, made sure he hadn’t left his flashlight upstairs. There was another flashlight on the floor of the compartment, if he needed it. Before he reached the foyer he knew the front door was closed.
He leaned on the newel post wondering how it had come loose? Held his breath and listened.
Not one single solitary sound.
Just eat and run.
Pointing the flashlight at the floor, he walked fast to the kitchen. Removed the foil. Gagged. The fruit pie (apple?) had spoiled. Lack of refrigeration? A splotch of greenish mold bigger than a silver dollar topped the dried-up crust.
“Bleh!”
He doubted there was anything else to eat. Knew a half empty bottle of whiskey was in the cabinet. Another look at the pie, he was pretty sure the liquor was gone.
“The crazy lady?”
Let’s get this show on the road, Officer O’Rourke always said.
He ran into the barn.
“A flashlight?” Jacob didn’t know how he felt about that.
Wait a second. If this one belongs to BJ, who owns the one in the secret compartment?
“Or vice versa?”
He remained by the entrance, ready to haul ass. Calculated the situation. Eyeballed the area for any other messages. Rubbed the side of his neck. Grew uneasy.
Did they find out Mama had been thrown down the well?
Jacob sighed, wearily. He envisioned the bottom of the black hole, and thought about his mama. Pictured his papa doing the same thing, only he would’ve been sneering, probably guzzling liquor, too.
He was deeply saddened by the memory of her lying down there for many years until three boys happened to stumble upon her. Although he knew where his papa had buried her, it had taken a long time for Jacob to find the courage to go anywhere near the well. When he finally did, he didn’t want to get her out of there because he was terrified of breaking her bones while hauling her up.
For many years. Jacob Wentzel had spent the same amount of time planning his revenge against the person he knew was most responsible for the death of his beloved mama.
“Bérénice Jacquette.”
If she hadn’t been born, his papa wouldn’t have had a reason to kill his wife. Virgil Wentzel killed her as surely as if he had put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. Leaving her in the loft to bleed to death had been premeditated murder, in Jacob’s eyes.
Virgil could’ve just dumped his Marie in the pond. Jacob suspected the reason he didn’t was because he couldn’t have used her as a prop to keep her son and daughter in line. He needed to physically show them her body. Show them what awaited them if they didn’t act right.
He blamed Mama for many things, but mainly for having the affair, and then for giving birth to an evil child. He’d hidden in the secret place the entire time she was in labor, and prayed for her to die before she gave birth to someone who’d take away any and all affection that rightfully belonged to him.
He recalled his papa’s drunken rampage and how it had frightened him enough to run to the attic in the first place. Recalled seeing Papa drive off with the tiny bundle in the front seat of his pickup truck. Then come back with the spawn of Satan in his arms. Recalled, when Bérénice got a little older, the many times she did black magic shit to cause h
im real physical pain.
Jacob was relieved beyond belief when she was sent to Chalmette to live with Uncle Jessup and the missus. But for the next eight years, Jacob’s backside suffered the hate and misery of a father’s guilty conscience.
He and his papa lived in wretched silence. Except for when his papa ordered him to do most of the chores his Marie used to do. And that was only when his papa was sober. Back then, Virgil spent a lot of time drinking, down by the old stone well.
More than anything, Jacob remembered how hard he prayed for his sister to die when she was in a coma at the hospital.
Then there’s BJ Donovan. He was lonesome when he met her. They had fun. For a while.
He reckoned he annoyed her with his incessant desire to meet her, to the point where he’d either scared her off or he’d just lost her interest. Whichever the reason, it was damn near impossible for him to leave her alone. Perhaps because he had unburdened his soul to her online, and he, stupidly, thought it might mean something to her.
He still had strong feelings for BJ, but they were of a different nature. All along there’d been a sense of familiarity.
Jacob wiped the tears off his cheeks.
Ready to go, he spotted a black car almost hidden in darkness.
“Sweet Jeebus. Transportation.”
Apprehension seized him by the throat.
He’d done nothing wrong. But seeing Gary Northcutt’s sedan—and he was fairly certain it was Northcutt’s—made him realize his law enforcement career was truly over.
The things a couple of the cops in the search party said about him had frightened him. Somebody must know about the secret of the pond, because it was obvious he’d been set up to take the fall for murders he had not committed.
Killing Eli and Vanessa had been an unfortunate accident. He truly believed that.
CHAPTER 79
Jacob grasped the door handle on the driver side of the car. An odd sound from outside stopped him from getting in. He automatically put a hand to his lower back and made sure his gun was still tucked in his waistband. He ran to the flashlight and shut it off. For the first time that night, he noticed the angled beam of a full moon shining on the dirt floor through the loft doors.
He crept to the wall on the side of the barn doors that were standing wide open. A deep frown. Wasn’t one of them closed when I entered the barn a few minutes ago? Had he been so lost in his little world that he didn’t hear the other door open? Shit, I guess so.
Jacob looked over at Northcutt’s sedan. “So that really is who’s stalking me, huh?”
He raised his eyes to the loft for a moment. Scanned the barn with the aid of the moonlight, and found the hayloft ladder. Balked at the notion of moving it to the end by the loft doors.
Virgil had been the last person to put it over there.
“And that’s when he brought his dead wife down from the loft.”
No, that’s wrong. The last time I was in the barn the ladder was leaning against the middle of the loft where it’s normally kept. It’s been moved since then.
“Probably by that crazy lady.”
Another noise, closer this time, spurred him into action.
Nowhere to run, he jumped onto the ladder, clambered up to the top. Gripped the two-tier railing with both hands, swung his leg over it. Lost his balance, and landed on a pile of hay. A soft grunt escaped his lips, possibly giving away his location.
He darted across to the loft doors thankful they were already open. Got down on the floor, stretched flat on his stomach and pulled himself closer to the outer edge. He studied each upstairs window of the house for any kind of light or any kind of move—
Jacob burst out crying.
He lay where his mama had lain when she died.
She’d been in far too much pain to try to jump down off the loft, or to tie a rope to the rafters and swing down to the ground, or do any of the other things he imagined were possible. He was nine years old but too frightened to save her. Papa had threatened him with bodily harm if he were to ever set foot inside the barn.
So he watched her, day after day, from his bedroom window space.
He watched her raise a hand to say goodbye.
He watched her close her eyes and silently die.
Then he watched Papa smile when he showed him and Bérénice her final resting place.
After he put the woman in the pond, the woman he thought was Mama, his heart was heavy. For it had dawned on him, all along he had been ready, willing, and able to kill his own mama.
Jacob gave in to his grief for the first time in his life.
Through his tears he noticed a dark figure in the yard. Assumed it was Northcutt.
He got to his feet. The flow of tears began to subside. He sniffled hard. Brushed hay off his clothes. Patted his face with a damp shirttail, careful not to hurt his swollen eye.
The man was gone. Hanging on to the edge of the door frame he poked his head further out and looked down. Now someone new was skulking around the yard?
In his moment of grief, he’d finally made his peace with his mama.
He had forgiven her.
He’d have to find his sister, and reconcile their differences.
“In death we do part?”
CHAPTER 80
Jacob stood between the dirty white sheers, and watched BJ trot across the back yard, blond curls bouncing with each footfall. The light of a Long Night Moon cast an eerie pallor on the limbs of the old moss gatherer.
She yanked open one of the barn doors. Turned her head and looked up at him.
He ran out of his parent’s bedroom, down the stairs, and out the back door. Didn’t stop running until he reached the inside of the barn.
Lamplight?
He made his way toward the center, constantly looking all around him.
Where’d she go?
BJ revealed her hiding place, a wide wooden support column beneath the loft. She held a handgun behind her back, a duplicate of Bernie’s gun she’d purchased at a gun show in Baton Rouge. She gripped the front of the wig and slowly peeled it off her head, freeing long spiral curls. Let the hairpiece fall to the floor in a silent heap.
Jacob came a little closer to her, his mouth agape. “Bérénice? Is it really you?” He slapped his forehead. “Holy cow, how stupid of me. BJ. Bérénice Jacquette. The sense of familiarity. I get it.” It had been a long time since they’d been together. He couldn’t believe how much she looked like Mama. At the moment, he was happy to see the only family he had left in the world.
“Good job, Sherlock. Or is it Schein?” Her voice was low and cold.
“Happy birthday, I think. What are you now? Twenty-seven?” The look on her face was unchanged. He massaged his neck. Oh shit. His face grew warm when a vision of dirty-flirty emails hit him. He licked his lips. I didn’t know it was my half-sister.
“I thought I knew why you were here,” he said, “but now I’m not so sure.”
“I struggled to be free of my dreadful past, but people kept pulling me back. Edgar Allan Poe said it best when he said ‘I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down’. I’d had enough of looking over my shoulder and feeling ill at ease. So one by one the deed was done. Bones to dust, revenge is just, eh?”
“I’m confused,” he said. “Are you telling me you’re a murderer? Damn, girl. Are you the serial killer the city’s hunting for?”
“Maybe.” A blasé shrug.
Everything that had happened since the day he returned to his family’s farm and found the skull and bones by the—
Jacob sucked in his breath. “You killed our papa?”
“Correction: I killed your papa, who killed mine.”
“And Kelly? You came in the house while we were sleeping and, and.…” He fought back gruesome images of locusts and wild honey and empty eye sockets. “Why her?”
“She had no right having sex in Mama’s bed. No right to worm her way into our lives.”
“Jeebus, Bérénice. The w
oman named Sue that was found in an alley, was that your doing?”
“I sensed she was going to be a problem for me somewhere along the way since you tried to meet her. I waited in the alley. Pretended to cry. Told her my dog ran in there. He’s hurt, and I don’t have my cell phone to call for help. Long story short, she fell for it. Literally.”
“And the hooker? Her, too?”
“Seeing that garbage with you disgusted me.”
“Please don’t tell me you killed the cop, the young rookie.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
“Good lord,” he said quietly. “You killed them all.”
“Yes,” she said as evenly as possible. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
She stepped forward. Jacob instinctively took two steps back.
“You never knew about the horrific things that were done to me when I was little,” she said. “I’m sure Virgil never told you. I wasn’t his, therefore, I didn’t exist. Just so you know, I took special delight in getting rid of Uncle Jessup and the missus.”
Her eyes seemed to glaze over with the memory.
“I walked right into their cabin by the swamp, one night. Living in the middle of nowhere, I reckoned they assumed locking their doors wasn’t necessary. I administered a majick powder containing fresh remains of poisonous toads, nettles, and a number of other ingredients along with a potent toxin found in the organs of pufferfish. Tore their clothes off. Went outside. Uncle Jessup hadn’t unhooked the flatbed trailer from his pickup truck from when he went to a lumber store a few days before and bought roofing material. I backed up the truck and trailer close to the door. Dragged them out of the cabin, one at a time, then up the ramp of the flatbed where I put them on top of leftover shingles and tarpaper. They were paralyzed but completely aware. I drove backward to the bald cypress tree, forty feet from the cabin. The same tree where Uncle Jessup hung me one stormy afternoon, and made me fight for my life until I agreed to let him have his way with me. Unsure how long they’d be in a vegetative state, I bound their wrists with zip ties. Pressed a wide piece of duct tape over their mouth in case anyone was in hearing distance. Each stared unblinking as I tightened a noose around their neck, slung the loose end over the branch then tied it to the trailer. I drove forward. Uncle Jessup and the missus were whisked off the flatbed, towed across the ground and halfway up the tree. They hung there, as stiff and still as Mama’s old white sheers, slowly choking to death. I wasn’t satisfied. I went to the kitchen and found what I needed. I slashed the bottoms of their feet with a soup can lid I dug out of the trash, for all the times they made me eat cold and greasy soup right out of the can. I used garden shears on Uncle Jessup to cut off the thing that offended me. Standing on the flatbed, I pitched chunks of raw meat in the water, and some on the bloody ground beneath their feet. A gator rose to the surface. Then three more. I slowly backed up the truck again, just enough to lower them closer to the wide mouths of the ravenous creatures. Turned off the motor. Got in my own car, and drove away. When I returned some time later, I had proof positive Uncle Jessup was half the man I always knew he was.”
