The Devil's Laughter Read online

  “You have a compassionate streak in you, Link,” the Bureau man said. “One I didn’t know you possessed.”

  “The animal hospital?”

  “Yes.”

  Link shrugged his shoulders. “You can’t blame an animal for being what God made it. And it’s unfair to expect more from an animal than you would from a thinking, able-to-rationalize human being. Unfortunately, many people do.”

  “How about people like Brown and Harden and Barlow and Dale?”

  “Is this on or off the record?” Link asked.

  “Neither of us are wearing a wire and you haven’t been read your rights, so it’ll have to be off the record. I am of the belief that we have a serious problem in this parish, Link. Gerard spoke to me about his millennium theory. He may have a valid point; history bears him out. So since we’re going to be in this together, talk to me, Link. I want to know about the man into whose hands I might well be placing my life. What would you do with those people I just named?”

  “I’d dispose of them,” Link said flatly, coldly, and without hesitation.

  That shook the Bureau man right down to his polished wing tips.

  Ray smiled.

  “Another man in this century had that same thought, Link,” Cliff reminded him.

  “Hitler?” Link asked, then shook his head. “I’m no Hitler, Cliff. He went after innocent, productive, law-abiding folks; a race or religion, depending on your point of view. The types of people you asked me to comment on take away from society much more than they give. I just don’t see the point in keeping them around if they won’t change. And it isn’t that they can’t change. They won’t change.”

  “But you’d give them that alternative?”

  “They already have it, Cliff. They’ve had it for years. It’s built into the framework of our society. But they won’t take it, Cliff. And any time you have to put a gun to someone’s head to make them follow even the simplest of society’s rules, as soon as you take the gun away, they’re right back at it again.”

  “You’re a complicated mixture of good and evil, Link,” the Bureau man said.

  “No,” Ray said. “He’s just got a mean streak in him. A real deep streak of dark, his daddy used to say. Dr. Donovan. Fine man. And you’ve always had it, Link. I remember the time that bully-boy from over Ruston way came into town, puffin’ and blowin’ and talkin’ about how bad he was. We were all home from college. He got all up in your face, calling you this and that, pushing you to fight. You sucker-punched him and then stomped him, Link. Stomped him bad. Must have been a hundred of us standing around that night, watching you maul that ol’ boy. You ground him into the parking lot. He never was right after that. He never really recovered from that beating you hung on him. He committed suicide about five years after that.”

  “I am not one damn bit sorry, Ray.”

  “Yeah. I figured you’d say that. You been that way all your life, and we come up together.”

  “That punk pushed me for no reason, Ray. He crowded me hard and wanted a fight. He got it.”

  “Yeah. But when you fight, Link, you don’t just fight and forget it. You make war. And you don’t take prisoners – in a manner of speaking. You’re a revengeful man. That’s one of the reasons I wanted you in on this little . . . problem we have in the parish. I just hope I didn’t make a mistake.”

  “People who ignore warning signs are stupid, arrogant, and do not have any respect for the rights of others. They deserve whatever misfortune befalls them. Why should we respect their rights if they don’t give a damn for ours?”

  Cliff looked at the sheriff and arched an eyebrow. The Bureau man’s expression was unreadable.

  Ray said, “Link, in some ways, you think just like a damn rattlesnake. You’ve got a thousand times more compassion for animals than most other folks, but you don’t have fifteen cents worth of pity or compassion for another human being you think is out to do you wrong, or to hurt someone or something that you care about.”

  Cliff’s eyes widened and his gaze turned to Link.

  “You’re right, Ray,” Link agreed without taking umbrage. “But the way I see it, humans have the mental capacity to think and reason and learn and know the difference between right and wrong. If they refuse to do that, then I don’t give a damn what happens to them.”

  Ray stood up and Sweeney followed suit. “Yeah,” the sheriff said. “I know that’s the way you see it, Link. I just wanted Mr. FBI Man to hear it from your own mouth. I think we’re going to be in a world of shit here in this parish. And real soon, too. I just don’t want to get in your way when you get going. ’Cause for all the good you have in you, Link Donovan – and that’s more than most of us – when that dark side of you is exposed, you’re the meanest, most cold-blooded son of a bitch I ever run into in all my life.”

  Chapter 11

  Link made sure all the doors in the house were closed and locked and all the windows down and secured. He made sure the dead bolts on both locks were open, so they could not be locked in the cellar, and the two known keys accounted for. Link made sure the flashlights worked and they each had extra batteries. He stuck candles and matches into his pocket. He placed a carpenter’s hammer, a crowbar, and a sledge hammer on the landing leading downward into the cellar. Anne insisted that he take heavy nails and drive them into the floor in front of the open cellar door.

  That done, he smiled at her. “You ready?”

  “As much as I’ll ever be,” she replied.

  He could see that she was very apprehensive about inspecting the cellar of the old home.

  “Stay up here,” he told her. “Let me do a few minute’s walk-around down there. I’ll call when I want you to come down.”

  “All right.”

  Link slowly walked down the stairs into the dusty semi-gloom of the basement. The first thing he did was replace the dirty, low-wattage lightbulbs with new, hundred-watt bulbs. He looked around him, knowing the windows had been bricked up but also knowing there had to be fresh-air plates along the foundation of the house. He found them and felt better.

  Damn, but the place was huge and piled with boxes and crates and trunks of all sizes and age. Some of them looked as though they’d been stored for over a hundred years and probably had. It was a fire hazard of the worst kind.

  “Link?” Anne called.

  “It’s okay. Come on down.”

  She stood in the center of the huge basement and looked all around her. “My God, where to start?”

  “Same place you start a book,” Link said with a smile. “At the beginning.” He walked over to a pile of boxes and pulled at the top crate. It was very heavy and he almost dropped it.

  She saw him strain and ran to assist. “Good Lord!” she said, helping him ease the heavy wooden crate to the floor. “It’s got to be filled with books.”

  “That would be better than old bones.”

  “Please,” she said. “My nerves are not at their best right now.”

  Link knelt down and pried open the lid. The crate was filled with books. He looked up at Anne’s suddenly pale face. The books were all very old and dealt with the occult and devil worship.

  “Getting off to an interesting start,” Link said.

  They both jumped at the sound of footsteps above them. Link ran up the steps, Anne right behind him. At the top of the stairs, Link jerked out his .380, rounded the corner into the hall, and almost shot Ray Ingalls.

  “Whoa!” the sheriff hollered, holding up his hands.

  “How the hell did you get into the house?” Link asked, shoving the automatic behind his belt and leaning up against a wall, catching his breath.

  “Through the front door,” Ray said. “It was wide open.”

  Anne grabbed at Link’s arm and hissed her alarm. “I locked that door myself,” Link said. “Knob and dead bolt and chain.”

  “And I saw him do it,” Anne said. “Not more than fifteen minutes ago.”

  Ray looked at them, shifting his g
aze from one to the other. “No doubt in your minds about that?”

  “No,” Link said. “I locked every door in this house that leads to the outside, and I locked them personally and carefully.”

  The three of them walked the house. The kitchen door was unlocked, as was the back door.

  “Oh ... shit!” Anne said, pointing to a window. The lock had been turned open.

  They inspected all the windows. Every window in the house had been unlocked.

  “That does it,” Anne said. “I will not stay in this house another night. I don’t care what I said before. You both are looking at a big chicken!”

  “Now wait a minute,” Link said. “Just hold on. No one tried to hurt us. Some one or some thing just unlocked the windows and doors. Not one door or one window, but all of them. Maybe they wanted to make damn sure we had a way out of this place.”

  “Some thing, Link?” Ray asked. “Like in ghost?”

  Before Link could respond, Anne said, “This is an old plantation home, right?”

  “Yes,” Ray said. “What’s left of the original place is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Second floor was pretty well destroyed by fire, my granddaddy told me. He said it was ... it was . . . shit!” the man said, and sat down heavily in a chair.

  “What’s wrong, Ray?” Link asked, moving toward the man. Ray’s skin tone was ashen.

  “I’ll get some water,” Anne said.

  Ray gulped the water down and handed the glass to her. He said, “I just remembered something. My granddaddy told me it was the strangest fire he’d ever seen. Only the top floor burned. The ground floor wasn’t hurt a bit. And the fire was very fast. One second it was burning out of control, the next instant it was out. Just like that. He said it scared the living hell out of him and all the other people who had gathered to form a bucket brigade. They never got a chance to toss even one bucket of water on the place. The Baptist preacher said it was like the hand of God swooped down and smothered the flames.”

  Anne looked down at her arm. The flesh was covered with goose bumps. She shivered and rubbed her arms.

  “I wonder how long the house stood empty after that?” Link said.

  “Years,” Ray replied. “At least thirty years. The Jackson family bought the burned-out hulk and renovated it. Granddad told me that only a few months before he died. They lived in it for a couple of years and then were murdered one night. The whole family hacked to death with axes.”

  “I am not staying here another damn night,” Anne said. “I am packing up some clothes and getting gone from this place.”

  “Anne,” Link asked softly, “who sold you this place?”

  “The Jackson and Garrison Real Estate Agency.”

  Ray’s face again paled and Link grabbed onto the back of a chair.

  “What’s the matter, guys?” Anne asked.

  “You . . . ah ... have . . . I mean, did you save any or all of the correspondence between you and this... ah ... agency?” Ray asked.

  “All two letters?” Anne asked. “Sure. But everything else was done by phone or fax. The keys were mailed to me along with the purchase agreement from the bank – some bank out of New Orleans – and the monthly payment will be electronically drafted out of my account here in LaGrange.”

  “A local agency handled this?”

  “No. It’s located in a suburb of New Orleans. I forget the name of the town. But I have the address right here.”

  Ray dialed the number on the letterhead. He slowly hung up the phone.

  “Let me guess,” Link said. “That is no longer a working number.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” Anne demanded. “My attorney out in L.A. checked this deal all the way through. This house is mine, as long as I make the payments, and it was all done legally.”

  “Oh, I’m sure of that,” Ray said. “I’m just curious who the seller might be and how you got hooked up with them. Jackson and Garrison Real Estate Agency is just a little too cute for me.”

  Anne got it then. Her lips made a small, silent “Oohhh.”

  “I see. Yes, I remember what you told me now, Link. This place was originally owned by the Garrison family, then sold to the Jackson family. Yeah,” she said dryly. “Real cute. Can’t you see me laughing?” She shook her head wearily. “I’m going to make a fresh pot of coffee. I have a hunch this is going to be a long day.”

  Ray was busy on the phone, getting Cliff Sweeney to see what he could dig up on the Jackson and Garrison Real Estate Agency. Link wandered around the house, looking at all the unlocked windows and sighing a lot. He finally joined Anne in the kitchen. Ray came in about ten minutes later.

  “The FBI gets results in a hurry. No such real estate agency in that town. The P.O. box was paid up for six months. It runs out the end of this month.”

  “Why . . . me?” Anne asked.

  Neither man could answer that. Link asked, “Who put you on to this house, Anne?”

  “The agent there in L.A. Big place. Everything is on computer now and real fast. Tell the person where you want to live, and they start punching things up. Soon you have a printout of who has what for sale and for how much, and who to see to buy it.”

  “You still have that printout?” Ray asked.

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid not, Ray. I threw it all away during the move.”

  The three of them had coffee, sitting in silence at the kitchen table. They heard a series of clicks and three heads turned.

  The nails Link had driven into the wooden landing were being pulled out and tossed onto the tile of the kitchen floor. The two dead bolts were withdrawn back into the lock. The door closed silently. The dead bolts clicked into place.

  * * *

  “This will be just fine,” Anne told Link, as he set her suitcase down in one of the bedrooms of his house. “I’ll pick the kids up at school and make arrangements for the bus to start picking them up and dropping them off here at your place.”

  Link had gotten over his sudden fright as quickly as it had dropped on him. He smiled down at Anne. “I’ve known Ray all my life. I never saw him move that fast before.”

  Despite herself, she smiled. “He was out that side door in a hurry, wasn’t he? And I should know. I was right behind him. What possessed you to stay in that kitchen, Link?”

  “Craziness on my part, I guess. I’ve always been curious about things. I just wanted to see what the door might do next.”

  Her fright returned. Anne had never given much thought to haunted houses or ghosts or goblins before, and on those rare occasions when she had, it was to dismiss the subject as nothing more than myth. Never again would she feel that way. “That door. What? ...”

  Link waved her words away. “I don’t know. All I know for sure is what the three of us saw. It was . . . unbelievable, impossible. But it happened. Anne, why did it happen?”

  She stared at him and shook her head. “I . . . I don’t follow.”

  “Was there a message behind it? Was it a warning? Was that . . . action, for want of a better word, trying to tell us to stay out of the basement? Or was it a signal to investigate the basement? Maybe it, or they, or them were trying to tell us that there was something awful in that basement and to never open that door? There has to be some reason for what happened today. And it’s tied in, somehow, to all the weird things that have been happening in this parish.”

  She slowly shook her head. “The only thing I know for sure is this: I don’t ever want to go back inside that house.”

  “No,” Link said. “You have to go back.”

  “I beg your pardon? I have to go back?”

  “Yes. Don’t you see? You’re central to this . . . situation . . . problem; call it what you like. Somehow, for a reason that none of us yet know, somebody or something wanted you here, in this place, specifically in that house. You, or one of your children.”

  “If you’re trying to frighten me, Li
nk, you are doing a bang-up job of it. And kindly leave the kids out of it. There is no way I will allow Betsy or Billy to ever set foot in that house.”

  Paul knocked on the front door and Anne nearly jumped out of her tennis shoes.

  “Settle down,” Link told her. “It’s the young man who takes care of the animals.” He introduced them and was pleased to see that Anne liked Paul immediately. Link had never found anything to dislike about the young man.

  “I’ve been walking the property, Link,” Paul said.

  “That’s not smart during hunting season,” Link cautioned him.

  “I thought all your land was posted?” Anne asked.

  “It is. But those signs don’t mean a damn thing to some people. Sit down, Paul. We’ve got to talk. It’s been a very interesting morning.”

  * * *

  Naturally, Billy and Betsy loved staying at Link’s. After spending time in a house that produced very strange night sounds, a pup tent would have been lovely. Anne told them they were staying there so workmen could repair the floor.

  “Right,” Billy said. “Or until the ghosts are gone.”

  Link smiled and winked at her. When the kids had scampered outside to play with the animals – after being warned that burros kick and goats butt – Link said, “They know what’s going on, Anne. I’m the furthest thing from an expert on children, but I do know that kids are a lot more astute than adults give them credit for being.”

  “They’re not going back into that house, Link.”

  “Oh, I agree with you about that. The kids might play a central part in this mystery. But I think it’s you, too.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she said. “Come on, let’s check on your critters. Didn’t you say you wanted to release the raccoon today?”

  Link took a Colt AR-15 from his gun rack and stuck a spare thirty-round clip into his jacket pocket. He and Anne took the raccoon from the hospital and together they walked deep into the woods around the house, releasing the raccoon close to where Link had discovered it. The animal scooted away.

  “Good luck,” Anne called.