The Devil's Cat Read online

  "That's what I'm thinking. How long you on tonight?"

  "All night. I'm workin' a double shift. Max has the flu, or something."

  "Ride with me tonight, Rita?"

  "Sure, Don." She did not question why he would ask that. Rita and Frances were the best of friends. She knew Frances would think nothing of it. "You meet Balon's wife yet, Don?"

  "No. But I was told she is some kind of sensational-looking woman."

  "I saw her this morning. Believe me, she is all of that, and more."

  "Those blinking lights up there belong to Balon, you think?"

  "Yeah. He said he'd park by the body and not touch anything. You know, he said something else that was kinda odd."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah. He asked me if it was common for cats to run in packs around here?"

  "How'd you answer him?"

  "I said I never had paid no attention. But come to think of it, they have been runnin' in packs. You noticed that?"

  "Yeah. I sure have."

  Both Don and Rita were experienced cops; they both had worked killer wrecks and shootings and stabbings and seen mangled and torn bodies.

  But nothing to match this.

  The body had indeed been clawed and partially eaten. Don took pictures of the scene and the body and then radioed in for Dr. Livaudais. A lot of cops would rather work something like this for a time before calling in the coroner, since they had a bad habit of screwing up evidence without meaning to do so.

  "You know him, Rita?" Don asked.

  "No. At least, I don't think so. Hell, Don, his face is torn off."

  "Yeah." Don went through the man's pockets, finding nothing. He stood up. "Nothing. All right, Rita, get your flashlight and work that way, try to find out …"

  "You won't find a thing," Sam said. "I looked. But about twenty or so minutes before Mr. Fontenot knocked on our door—by the way, he's sitting in the living room with my wife and son—I heard a car stop, then a door closing hard, then the car sped off, burning rubber. The tracks are right there." He pointed.

  Don and Rita looked. "I'll get the camera," Rita said.

  "You're very observant, Mr. Balon," Don said. "And very cool."

  "My wife and I don't watch much TV, except for PBS programs. It is a quiet night, and we were talking. As for that," he said, pointing to the mangled body, "I've seen worse."

  "Prior service, Mr. Balon?"

  "Call me Sam, please. Yes. Army Ranger. Eyes and Ears Only clearance."

  And not too many folks have that clearance, Don thought. "I was Marine Force Recon."

  Sam nodded his head. "I was with some of them … south of here, so to speak."

  Don grinned, his teeth flashing white in the night. "I heard that, Sam."

  "This must be Doc Livaudais comin'," Rita called. "He's got it cocked back."

  Tony pulled off the road and parked, leaving his caution lights flashing. Don pointed to the mangled body by the side of the road.

  "Jesus Christ!" Tony said, squatting down beside the body.

  "That's about the only person that could help him now," Don said.

  "I. D.?" Tony asked.

  "None. How's our buddy at the clinic?"

  "He's resting. I just got through stitching up Frank and Thelma."

  "Lovern?" Sam asked.

  "Yeah," Don said. "They had what is commonly referred to as a domestic squabble."

  "Sounds like they beat the hell out of each other," Sam said.

  Everybody laughed at that and any tension that might have existed between cops and civilian vanished. Don was thinking that Rita had been right in thinking Sam Balon would be a good man to have on one's side.

  "Yeah," Rita said, taking in Sam's rugged handsomeness in the flashing and whirling red, blue, and amber lights of the vehicles. "And those family squabbles are on the upswing around here, too."

  Then Sam said something that puzzled them all. "That's usually the way it starts."

  "The way what starts, Sam?" Rita said.

  Sam shrugged his heavy shoulders. "Just talking to myself, ma'am. It's been a long day."

  "Rita, not ma'am."

  "OK … Rita."

  Tony was looking at the young man, an odd glint in his dark eyes. There was … something about this Sam Balon that pulled one's attention to him and held it there. The young man seemed to be just too cool, too composed, too sure of himself … but, Tony decided, nothing in any unlawful manner; he was sure of that.

  Dog padded up to Sam, startling everyone with his silent, cockeyed approach.

  "Jesus!" Tony said. From his position in the ditch, he was very nearly eyeball to eyeball with Dog.

  "Relax," Sam said. "He's with me. His name is Dog."

  Don picked up that Sam did not say, "He's my dog." Or, "He's the family pet." Or any other line denoting the dog belonged to anybody. Just, "He's with me."

  Odd.

  "What kind of a dog is that?" Rita asked. She knelt and Dog came to her, allowing himself to be petted.

  "I don't know," Sam said. "He's only been with us about a week."

  The cops let it stop at that point. It was obvious that Balon was not going to volunteer anything else.

  "Want me to call Art for the ambulance?" Don asked Tony.

  "Yes. And we'll tell him to keep his mouth shut about this."

  "How long's he been dead, Tony?" Rita asked.

  "Just guessing, I'd say between twenty-four and thirty-six hours. And all this," he indicated the mangled body, "certainly wasn't done here, by the side of the road."

  Sam walked over to the side of the ditch. His eyes had caught a glint of metal. "Doctor, would you shine your flashlight on the man's closed fist. The other one. Thanks. What is that?"

  Don and Rita gathered around, Rita having just called dispatch to notify Art Authement at the funeral home.

  Tony forced the man's stiffened fingers open. A cross fell from the dead fingers. It shone brightly on the dewy grass of the ditch.

  "Better call Father Javotte, too," Tony said.

  Rita walked back to Don's car. Don looked at Sam and said, "You're very observant, Sam."

  "I've learned to be," Sam replied.

  He left it at that.

  8

  Sam asked if it was all right for him to return to his home. It was. Just to be at the substation in the morning and give his story.

  Fine. See you then.

  A still badly shaken Mr. Fontenot was sent home.

  While the two cops and the doctor waited for Art to show up with his meat wagon, Don brought Rita up to date, and this time, he left nothing out.

  Rita stood in the Technicolored darkness for a few seconds. The flashing, whirling, and blinking lights seemed to make the scene a surrealistic one. "Sonny needs to be in on this, Don," she finally said.

  "As soon as we get back to town. No—you go on and have dispatch call him out. We'll all go see the Dorgenoises when we leave here. You, too, Tony."

  "Fine."

  While Rita made the call, Tony said, "What are you going to do, Don?"

  "I don't know,' the deputy admitted. "I need to call the sheriff. But he's set to leave on vacation in two or three days. I screw that up for him, he's gonna be pissed."

  "Well, if you're looking for an opinion, Don, here's mine. Sheriff Ganucheau and Chief Deputy Wines are both retiring. The new people take over July one. He's probably just going to tell you to handle it. I'd call him right now."

  'I guess you're right." Don walked to his car just as Rita was wrapping up talking to Sonny Passon.

  "Sheriff isn't gonna like this, Don," radio dispatch said, from the parish seat.

  "Just get him on the horn," Don said. Don could just see the sheriff, in his pajamas, bitching and cussing as he left his house heading for his unit. The sheriff came on the speaker. "10-41, Sheriff," Don said.

  The men changed frequencies and Don brought the man up to date.

  Surprisingly, the sheriff was not upset with the young deputy.
"You do have a problem, Don," Ganucheau said. "The news about Jackson doesn't come as any surprise. I've always suspected that. As for that drifter being attacked by … what he claims got him, I don't know. I'd be suspicious of that. Run him from ankles to elbows. Ice him for a couple of days. Not in jail. In the hospital. Tony can think of something. As for the … other matter, you're just going to handle it best way you see fit. Anything comes up, Wines will be at his house, in bed. He was workin' in his garden late yesterday and the heat got him. Doc put him to bed. He's really sick, Don. So don't bug him unless it's absolutely necessary. Myron will be in charge. Handle this real delicate, boy. Don't shake any trees that don't need shaking. You know what I mean."

  "Yes, sir. Have a good time on your vacation, sir."

  "Thank you, boy."

  The sheriff broke it off.

  Maybe in me, Don thought. He knew that unless it was requested, nothing on the alternate frequency was ever recorded by dispatch.

  And sometimes—a lot of times—the goddamn tape recorder was broken and nothing was recorded. Due to the economic condition of the state, a lot of funds were being cut, and many SO's were in bad shape, in a lot of ways.

  In the distance, Don could see the lights of Authement's meat wagon flashing through the night. Don hung up the mike and walked back to Tony and Rita.

  "What'd he say?" Tony asked.

  "Exactly what you said he would. Tony, I got a bad feeling in me. I can't explain it, but it's damn sure inside me. Some … thing is happening in this part of the parish. You know what I'm trying to say?"

  Tony said, "Not entirely, Don. Personally, I think it's all this early heat that's getting to people."

  "Something damn sure is," Don said, his voice low.

  Mary Claverie sat up in bed at the institution located just outside a small Central Louisiana town. The moon was very full and shining very brightly through the high, barred window of her room. Many institutions now prefer to call them rooms, rather than cells. Rooms, barracks, quarters, apartments . . . it's still a maximum security hard lock-down.

  Now! She heard the silently whispered word ring very clear in her head. "Now."

  She swung her feet off the bed and slipped them into house shoes. Smiling, she thought about all those pills she had pretended to be taking over the past month … and had not.

  First time in a long time she'd been able to think with a clear head.

  For her, a clear head. Anybody else would be sitting in a corner blowing spit bubbles.

  Mary reached into her night stand, way into the back, under a box of tissues, and took out a small box of matches. She had found them in the exercise yard and had clutched them to her as a small child would do with a pretty doll.

  Only problem was, she didn't know, then, what to do with them.

  Those answers came later, in her sleep. She guessed they came in her sleep; she didn't really know. Maybe someone plugged some more of those wires to her temples and fed her Morse code.

  She tapped her feet in what she imagined Morse code must be like and suppressed a giggle.

  The voice had told her to stop taking her pills. So Mary had stopped.

  The voice had told her to start paying attention to things around her, and Mary had done so.

  Now, without the mind-dulling and spirit-ebbing drugs, she found that escape could be very easy.

  But that voice had told her to wait. Wait. It would tell her when to leave.

  Now it was time.

  Mary reached under her mattress and pulled out a piece of glass. About seven inches long, wrapped at the base to keep the edges from cutting her own flesh, Mary moved toward the door.

  It was so easy to find things once your head became clear. She had just walked over to where those nasty-talking men were building the new addition and found the glass.

  Of course, she had to endure all the vulgar comments those men had to say.

  "Look at that queen," one had said. "Goddamn, she's so ugly she could haunt graveyards."

  Laughter.

  On and on the men talked, spewing their filth. Mary just walked a bit, found what she was looking for, squatted down pretending to be looking at an early flower, and picked up the piece of glass. She wrapped the glass in a piece of paper, stuck it between the cheeks of her ass, and entered the building holding it like that. Made her walk kind of funny, but that was all right; everybody walked kind of funny around this place.

  "Ooohhh," Mary moaned, her face pressed close to the base of the door. "Ooohhh!"

  Since Mary had never been violent, she wasn't confined in the real hard lock-down wing of the institution. This was more like just a regular hospital.

  "Ooohhh! Miss Somerlott, please help me. I'm sick."

  "Is that you, Mary?" the night nurse called.

  "Yes'um. Please help me. I'm bleeding."

  "Bleeding!" A jangle of keys. "Where are you bleeding, Mary?"

  "From my … privates, ma'am. I can't stop the bleeding."

  Mary scooted away from the door, so Miss Somerlott wouldn't be able to see her through the glass and wire mesh opening in the door.

  They had told Mary that she had been very hard to handle when she first came to the hospital. She had been very strong and very violent. But she was a good girl now; had been for years and years. She guessed no one ever thought about how violent she had once been. But Mary had never forgotten it. Mary had a lot of stored up grudges. And tonight, tonight, she was going to get even.

  At last.

  Then she was going back to Becancour. And she was going to get even back there, too. She was going to get even with those filthy boys who had raped her in the big ol' spooky house. She was going to get them—all of them. And she was going to get those brothers of hers, too, 'cause they had signed the papers to put her in this rotten place. And she knew from reading the papers that that Margie Gremillion had married Dave Porter, so Margie was gonna get it, too.

  Mary never did like Margie.

  The door swung open. Mary lunged and drove the piece of glass into the right eye of Nurse Somerlott. She fell backward, not uttering a sound as the long piece of glass entered her brain. Mary jerked out the long piece of glass and tossed a blanket over the nurse's face so her uniform wouldn't get all bloody.

  Mary had plans for that uniform. Trouble was, she thought, pausing, she couldn't remember where those plans came from.

  Oh, well. No matter.

  She stripped off the nurse's uniform and pulled her own shapeless sack of a dress off. The nurse's uniform was almost a perfect fit. Mary pulled Nurse Somerlott onto the bed and covered her up. She took the ring of keys and slipped out into the hall. Mary walked back to the nurse's station and punched the button that would unlock all the doors in this wing. Then she walked to the pipes running up the wall and turned off the water supply to the sprinkler system.

  She was so smart! Mary congratulated herself. She wasn't crazy; she was just brilliant.

  Then she ran from room to room with her box of matches, setting the blankets and curtains on fire. Then she locked all the doors and just …

  slipped into Nurse Somerlott's coat and …

  walked out the back door.

  She could hardly keep from hopping and skipping and jumping as she walked to near the front gate, hiding in the bushes, waiting for the fire trucks. She knew that when the fire trucks came there would be lots and lots of confusion. She also knew from years of listening to the nurses talk among themselves, that the doctors almost never took their keys out of their cars. No need to. The doctors' parking area was well lighted and right in front of the guards' station. It had been almost thirty years since Mary had driven a car, but she thought she could still drive.

  She looked at the building. Lovely fire was all over one wing. It was so pretty. She would have loved to stay around and listen to all those crazy bitches scream and holler as they burned to death.

  But, she thought with a sigh, she had work to do, and one's work must come first.
/>   Bonnie Rogers sat on her front porch with her cats, and gazed up at the moon. So pretty when it was full. And deadly.

  She had waited for almost thirty years for this moment. Now it was almost time. She touched the cross that hung around her neck on a long chain, nestling warm against her flesh, just above her full breasts.

  The cross hung upside down.

  She rose abruptly and walked back inside her house. Her house was pitch-black but the woman moved through it as if it were as light as noonday. Bonnie needed no light to see at night—night was her time. She shunned die light, hating it, fearing it.

  She went into a large room at the rear of what had been her parents' house. Except for some brass cups and other ornately decorated brassware, the room was empty. The drapes were of heavy black velvet. Bonnie knelt in the center of a large circle, painted on the bare wooden floor, and began praying. But her prayers were not directed Heavenward.

  "Oheh, Oheh," she chanted, beginning her invocation against Cod.

  She chanted long, the sweat breaking out on her face, dripping down and dampening the inner circle.

  "The earth is damp, surroundings cold.

  Hear me now, speak these words of old.

  Soon thy corpse will stir the mud,

  To rise, and walk, and suck the blood."

  Bonnie collapsed, in a trance, within the circle.

  Margie turned in her sleep and put one arm out, expecting to find her husband there.

  Her arm hit the cold bottom sheet and she came awake.

  "Dave?" she whispered.

  Her only reply was the hum of the air conditioner.

  She slipped from the bed and put on a house coat, sliding her feet into house slippers. She walked through the ranch-style home, walking silently, not calling out for her husband, her eyes searching the darkness. Then she glanced out the sliding glass doors leading to the patio.

  The moon was shining brightly in all its lush fullness.

  Then she spotted her husband.

  Dave was standing naked in the backyard, his arms outstretched. His head was thrown back, face to the full moon.

  "What the hell?" she muttered.

  She was much closer to the truth than she could realize.

  She slipped to the kitchen window, trying to get a better look at her husband's face, for he appeared to be saying something.