A Crying Shame Read online

  SELECT BREED

  I’d like to hear your theories on this case,” Sheriff Saucier said.

  Badon was hesitant. You won’t like them,” he warned.

  I don’t like anything about this case.”

  Very well, if you insist. These creatures are after selected women of the parish—a few at a time—for breeding purposes.”

  My God!” The Sheriff couldn’t believe anyone could be so calm when discussing something so ... disgusting as monsters breeding with women. Are you serious?”

  If you check the old police files,” Badon continued coolly, you’ll find that—beginning about 1840, women who lived near the swamp began vanishing mysteriously, one at a time. But the more recent records indicate it’s four or five women at a time, usually over a six month period.” He waited for the Sheriff to absorb this before he went on, Many of the women are tourists, not local people. This leads me to believe that the creatures have help from the locals.”

  Why, in God’s name, would a normal human being want to help these ... monsters?” The Sheriff cried.

  Badon smiled. Because they are related.”

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  A CRYING SHAME

  BY WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

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  Table of Contents

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  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  EPILOGUE

  THE SURVIVALIST SERIES

  THE CONTINUING MERCENARY SERIES BY AXEL KILGORE

  COMING SOON!

  THE SPECTACULAR SHELTER SERIES

  Copyright Page

  What is life? A madness. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story. And the greatest good is little enough: for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams.

  —Pedro Calderon de la Barca

  Prologue

  Well, I’ve had about all of this I’m going to tolerate,” the woman said. I’m going to call the police.” She walked to the telephone.

  The police have no jurisdiction out here,” her brother informed her. You know that. Have to be the sheriff’s department.”

  They’re still cops, aren’t they?” she asked, a slightly belligerent tone to her voice. But it was spoken to cover her fright. She looked at her brother. Paul, damn it, I’m scared!”

  He sighed, returned her gaze for a few seconds. Then he shrugged and returned to his evening paper. He looked at but was not really reading the print.

  She punched out the numbers and spoke very firmly and rapidly. She abruptly slammed the phone back into its cradle. As quickly as possible!” she said heatedly. About forty-five minutes! What kind of sheriffs department do we have in this parish?”

  A very overworked one,” her brother replied. Also understaffed, underpaid, underequipped. They do the best they can, Linda.”

  And I’m constantly bothering them with crank calls, huh? Go ahead, Paul, say it.”

  He kept silent.

  The woman glared at him. She took a light sweater from a hall closet, slipping it around her shoulders. I’m cold. The air conditioning is too low.”

  Her brother said, Then adjust it to your liking, Sis.”

  You’re very condescending this evening, Paul,” she accused him.

  Just trying to get along.”

  She stood for a moment, looking at him. Paul, don’t you even care what’s out there ... making that noise? My God! It’s been going on every night for ... oh, hell ... days!”

  Nights,” he corrected.

  Paul . . . sometimes you make me so ...” She stamped a foot in anger.

  He put aside his paper, folding it carefully, as was his fashion. He was a very meticulous man; almost fussy. But not in the least feminine with his well-ordered life. He placed the paper on the floor, beside his recliner. It’s the wind, Linda. Maybe it’s a big armadillo stumbling about ... they have poor eyesight, you know? Sis, I don’t know what’s making that noise.” For some reason, she felt he was lying, holding back from her. She wondered why. I don’t know what it is,” he repeated, and I don’t care what it is.” The note of deception was definitely in his voice.

  This is the third or fourth night, Paul. And it’s happened many times before. Paul ... I’m scared!”

  Paul rose from his chair. Linda, if it will make you happy; if my going out into the goddamned rain will please you. If—above all else—it will shut you up ... I will go outside and look around. Will that satisfy you, Linda?”

  Paul—”

  I know.” He gently cut her sentence short. I’m sorry I snapped at you, too.” He started for the front door. Her voice stopped him.

  Take a gun, Paul.”

  He slowly turned in the foyer. Both of them heard the scratching, pawing sound in the front yard, audible over the rain. A gun, Sis?”

  Yes. Please, Paul? You brought an arsenal up here with you. You must have had some reason for doing that. And it would make me feel better knowing you’re armed.”

  He nodded his head in silent compliance. All right.” That pawing sound was repeated. Both of them looked at the door; neither made mention of the strange noise. Paul went to a gun cabinet, pulling out a double-barreled twelve-gauge, breaking it down, loading it with three-inch magnums. Shotgun loaded, he went to the door. W
ind and rain greeted the opening, the rain dampening the hall floor. The night yawned dark and wet past the now-lighted porch.

  He looked back at his sister, standing with her arms folded under her breasts. I’ll be back in a minute,” he told her.

  That was the last thing Paul Breaux ever said to his sister.

  She nodded. Be careful.”

  She sat down in a chair, watching her brother close the door behind him, shutting out the sounds of the storm, muting them. She felt her skin prickle; it seemed to crawl with a life all its own. She rubbed her forearms. Dread, she guessed. Fear. Linda was not superstitious, was not afraid of the dark ... of graveyards. But she dimly remembered her visits to her grandmother, way down in the swamps of south Louisiana, years back, when she was but a small child. Her grandmother refused to live in New Orleans, choosing instead to stay at the old home place. Her grandmere used to tell her stories of the beasts that prowled the swamps and bayous; stories of the catachmar, the loup-garou.

  But, she sighed, that had been a long time ago. Her grandmere had been dead for years, and all those stories were just tales to frighten a child. Nonsense. She didn’t really believe in all that.

  Or did she?

  A scream ripped the stormy night—a yowling sound. Not human. No human could make a sound like that.

  She sat still and perfectly straight in the chair. Paul’s shotgun boomed, shattering the darkness, the blast matching the thunder that rolled about the plantation house, on the edge of the Crying Swamp. The shotgun roared once, then again. Wind and rain whipped the house by the mysterious swamp, the largest swamp in all of north and north-central Louisiana. Thousands and thousands of acres. It was named the Crying Swamp because many people had heard strange noises coming from the moss-hung gloom, floating plaintively over the black water. A sobbing sound, echoing through the tall, huge, ancient cypress. And over the years, so the stories went, people had gone into the swamp ... and never returned. No trace of them ever found. No one to tell what had happened.

  Paul screamed in pure anguish; Linda jumped to her feet, trembling in fear, her breathing shallow. Her skin felt cold and clammy. The shotgun came crashing through the big picture window. The heavy weapon had been bent double. It landed at her feet amid a shower of glass.

  Paul!” she screamed.

  A growl greeted her call.

  She ran to the window; the wind lashed through the broken glass whipping the drapes, popping them as a blacksnake whip in the hands of a master. She jerked the drapes apart. A face and form out of hell stood on the porch, staring at her, slobbering a thick drool from animal lips.

  She screamed, her frightened cry seeming to anger the creature. It reached for her, through the broken glass, its paw grabbing at her.

  Linda jerked back, away from the awfulness she was seeing through unbelieving eyes. But she knew it was real ... true. She turned, in her haste banging her shin against a planter. Plants tumbled to the now-wet floor. Ignoring the pain in her shin, she ran in a panic down the hall to the office. She jerked open a drawer of the desk, her hands fumbling, sweaty, nervous. She pulled out a .32 automatic pistol. She could hear the ... whatever in the name of God it was ... beast ... snarling and pawing on the porch. She didn’t know what to do; where to run; her legs felt useless, numb from fear. Her skin was cold-feeling, and the sweat that dripped from her face was sticky.

  The beast howled in the stormy night, its cry the sound of the hunter who has cornered prey. There followed the sound of more glass breaking, shattering and falling to the floor.

  The lights went out, plunging the room in the great old house into mind-chilling, nerve-screaming darkness. A hard rip of lightning, sulfurous in its charge, cut through the night.

  That ... thing was in the house. Linda could sense its presence; could feel the evil slowly searching for her in the unfamiliar darkness of the mansion. She could hear it sniffing the humid air, and she could smell its awful odor as it tracked her through the house, following her female scent through the hall, past the guest bedrooms on the lower level of the plantation house, to the office. Its bare feet scratched the hardwood floor; its toenails clicked, then caught, pulling at the fabric of the carpeted office entrance. It stopped just inside the door.

  Linda jacked a round into the pistol by rote; she had been trained well in the use of weapons.

  What do you want?” she screamed the question.

  Dear God—leave me alone!”

  Growling filled the room in reply.

  The stench of the beast drifted into the closed room, almost overpowering her with its odor.

  Leave me alone!” she warned, her voice shaky.

  The beast was moving, stalking her, a couch separating the upright man/creature in vague human form from the woman, terrified, rooted to her spot by fear. She raised the pistol just as a flash of lightning cut the night, momentarily illuminating the office.

  And she witnessed the creature, saw it in all its hideousness: the huge head, the malformed grotesqueness of the half-human, half-animal body, covered with hair; the dangling arms, the fangs that dripped stinking slobber from apelike lips, the hot yellow eyes that seemed not to blink.

  It roared at her, its breath fouling the air. The beast lifted its arms, holding out its hands—almost, it seemed to Linda, beckoning to her.

  She sighted the pistol on its chest, her finger taking up trigger slack. I’ll kill you,” she cried, tears of fear and stark terror staining her cheeks.

  The creature leaped for her. She began firing, the muzzle spitting lead and flame. The beast howled at the slugs that tore its flesh.

  The last thing Linda remembered was the sound of her own screaming as the beast reached for her.

  Chapter One

  Morning, boys,” Sheriff Mike Saucier greeted his deputies in the lounge of the Fountain Parish Sheriff’s Department. The lounge was actually an old storage room that had been converted. It held an old table, four rickety chairs, and a coffee pot. It sometimes was used as an interrogation room. That was one hell of a storm we had last night, eh?”

  Oui,” Deputy Wagner said, with an accent that caused Mike to cringe.

  Good God!” Mike said, pouring a cup of coffee. Roy, don’t ever cross the Fain River and attempt to speak French. My coonie cousins over there will be laughing all the way to supper.”

  Ah cain’t hep it, Shuriff,” Roy drawled. How alse kin ah practice ma coonass talk?”

  The small room was still echoing with laughter as the sheriff took his coffee into his office. He was chuckling and shaking his head, thinking: Hopeless—the man is hopeless. He wants to learn Cajun French so badly, but he’ll be a rolling-hills redneck till the day he dies.

  He looked up as his chief deputy walked in.

  Chief Deputy Joe Ratliff had a frown on his face ... as usual. Joe was an outstanding lawman, and took his job very seriously; he was a bulldog until a case was concluded. He was also a hard-shell Baptist—which he took even more seriously—constantly bitching about the bad language” used in the department. Joe had once tried to initiate a morning prayer service in the department. For a week he had tried very hard. For a week nobody showed up. Joe still groused about that.

  Joe.” Mike smiled. How you this morning?”

  Joe, as usual, came right to the point. When they passed out the ability to chitchat, or to engage in even the slightest of social amenities, Joe, as one of his coworkers once said, was standing behind the door. Quiet night, Sheriff,” he said.

  Joe then proceeded to bring Mike up to date on the night’s activities. Mike had never asked for this verbal report; indeed, he would have much preferred to scan the arresting reports himself. But it was something Joe felt he should do. And he did—every morning. He would call Mike at home on the weekends, except that the last time he did that, Mike was entertaining a lady, and was unusually blunt with his chief deputy. Profanely so. It never happened again.

  Sheriff Saucier sighed with relief. Glad to hear it was quiet. Well, J
oe ... if it was that quiet, perhaps then we can dispense with the—”

  Wacker Jolsen’s in jail again.” Joe plunged ahead, totally ignoring Mike’s sighing. One fight; nobody wanted to press charges. We rolled on all the calls ’cept one. A call came in at nine-forty-one. From the Breaux house. Something prowlin’ around outside, she said. The dispatcher said she got uppity with her.”

  Who got upset with whom?”

  No, sir. Not upset. Uppity, that’s all. That Breaux woman, as you well know, Sheriff, is New Orleans society.” He said it as if it were something to be avoided with the same precaution one might take entering a syphilis ward. Never has liked us around here. Makes that plain as the nose on your face. She thinks that—”

  Mike waved him silent before Joe really could get wound up on the subject of the Breaux family and start preaching—which he loved to do. Often. I know all about it, Joe. You’ve told me often enough. I have your feelings about Linda Breaux branded in my brain. I hear them in my sleep. Why didn’t a deputy respond to her call?”

  Dispatch says she couldn’t raise nobody. Said she tried several times. When the Breaux woman didn’t call back, Alma figured whatever it was out there had gone away.”

  Alma knows better than that shit!”

  Joe said nothing about the sheriff’s profanity. But he did raise an eyebrow and silently make a mental note to pray for the soul of Mike Saucier at the Wednesday-night prayer meeting at the Smith Bayou Baptist Church. Joe really was a good man. Just slightly fanatical. He said, I think Alma canned the report. How many times we rolled out there, Sheriff? Twenty? Thirty?”

  At least. But that’s our job. And let us not forget, there is much bad blood between Alma and Miss Breaux.”