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he last thing “Bo” Beauregard C. Valentine remembered before awakening in the pitch black, heavily armored prisoner transport van was falling asleep in his spartan death row isolation cell in Tarr’s Bayou Prison, Louisiana the night before his scheduled execution. For one of the few times in his life, he was worried.
What authorities were doing made no sense. Why risk transporting a murderer whose “career” had spanned seven different states on the day of his date with death? Unlike the patron Saint Valentine from whom his family was named, Bo had dispensed death to his fellow man, not love.
Nausea gripped the prisoner and he moaned, leaned forward suddenly, and vomited. He felt as if he’d been drugged, or had been the unlucky recipient of some really nasty, off-brand booze. He was sure that his dizziness and throbbing head were due to the former. The cold sweat running down his head and neck wasn’t entirely due to how he felt; it had as much or more to do with the unknown “whys” of his situation.
After a few minutes, Bo felt better and began to gather his wits. Turning, he felt along the cold iron wall of the armored vehicle with his left hand until his fingers detected a window frame. If nothing else, he might as well see where he was headed. Heavily shackled, his movements were limited. But not enough to prevent his next surprise: he’d expected the windows to be heavily barred. But he had not expected them to be shuttered with quarter-inch steel.
“That’s why it’s so dark in this rig,” he mumbled, now uncertain whether it was day or night. So much for finding out where he was going.
Now he was sure he’d been drugged.
But why all the secrecy?
Where was he being taken, and why?
Far from being recovered from the unknown drugs that had been administered to him, Bo slipped again over the lip of the well of sleep while he pondered his bizarre situation—a situation that would soon become a waking nightmare. |
Sometime later, Bo awoke to the screeching of tired brakes as the vehicle lurched to a grinding stop. Outside, he heard the booted crunch of gravel and a muffled conversation involving at least two men as they moved to the back of the armored truck. After a brief pause, he heard the jingle of keys followed by the rattle of a padlock. Then the metal doors screeched open on rusty hinges, and four shadowy uniformed men advanced, stopping in front of him. Without a word, the nearest figure stooped and unlocked all but his ankle shackles while one of the other three aimed a flashlight beam for assistance. The other two stood nearby with handguns drawn. If escape were to come, it would have to be later.
After being led outside, Bo got a better look at his captors, and lowered his head to hide the crafty smile crossing his lips: two of the four were “local yokels.” Unbelievably, it was to them that Bo was apparently being transferred. What fools, he thought. Did they not know of his reputation for multiple escapes?
Bo glanced around briefly and saw a low, squat concrete structure so old that the outer layer had spalled off into dank, rotting piles of limy sand near the wall’s base, and his heart rose a little further. If he were left alone long enough in such a makeshift jail, he knew he’d get his chance.
But then his excitement was replaced by gnawing unease. So intent had he been upon the grimy old building and his captors that he’d failed to notice the rest of his surroundings.
He’d been taken to a rural setting. Or more precisely, to low, soggy land bordering a swamp. Mosquitoes the size of horse flies buzzed lazily around him. The beating of their wings blended oddly with the piping of frogs, geckos, and other unidentifiable night life. Further back in the swamp, bass grunts suggested larger tenants than bullfrogs. ’Gators, perhaps? Black as pitch in the misty moonlight, long beards of Spanish moss wagged in the humid, fitful breeze like the tentacles of something from a Lovecraftian nightmare.
What were his captors up to? Were they simply going to kill him and dump him in the swamp? Could such a thing happen in 1963 in Louisiana and be gotten away with? Reluctantly, Bo knew it could. Swallowing hard, he said, “If you fuckers are gonna off me, then quit dickin’ around and do it.”
For a moment his shadowy captors stood in silence, gazing at each other. Then, one of the Tarr’s Bayou Prison guards nodded at the taller of the two locals, a lanky fellow named Howard Simineaux. Stepping forward, he waved the others back and said, “Me and my deputy’ll take over, now. You boys kick back and enjoy the show. This shouldn’t take long. Maybe an hour.”
One of the Tarr’s Bayou guards laughed and said, “Maybe he’ll be as tough as “Angel” Sanchez was. Took nearly two hours to crack that slimy asshole.”
Now Bo thought he understood. These men weren’t going to kill him, but try to make him ’fess up to the string of murders he’d committed the past several years via torture. So far, authorities had only been able to pin the rape and murder of eleven year-old Elaine Broussard on him. The legal system suspected him of several more murders, but the evidence had been too spotty. Bo had vowed to take the knowledge of where his other victims were buried to his grave.
And well he should.
For if they’d ever discovered the sexual torture and mutilation of seven year-old David Grimes in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, or the repeated rape and sodomy during a
drug-induced haze of five year-old Melissa Hanson in Camden, Arkansas that lasted over a week, or the beheading of
sixty-eight year-old Constance Fairweather in Sulphur, Louisiana, for a take of sixteen dollars and change, or . . . . In each murder but one, Bo had reveled in cutting the corpse into little pieces, and burying it in a burlap bag in the countryside tens of miles from the crime. He’d even kept one corpse in the trunk of a stolen car for two weeks, finally parting with it nearly eight hundred miles and three states removed.
No. It would never have done for the law to know about Bo’s other atrocities.
But now Bo was seriously worried; he’d personally known “Angel” Sanchez until his old cell mate had been transferred to his isolation cell just prior to execution, two years ago. The wiry little bastard was tough and crazy as they came. Sanchez once bragged to Bo that there was nothing the law could ever do to make him own up to the string of corpses and angst he’d left in his wake. Even Bo got the creeps around the cunning, evil little shit, and was secretly relieved when Sanchez had been transferred out of their cell for execution.
Bo heard later through the grapevine that “Angel” had spilled his guts before he died. At first, Bo hadn’t believed it. But it was true: Sanchez confessed to all eleven killings before riding his lethal lightning bolt to hell, courtesy of the State of Louisiana.
Cold sweat trickled down Bo’s face and neck in rivulets as he recalled another similarity between himself and his late cellmate: they’d both been transferred to isolation cells. While that was normal prison protocol prior to execution, Bo now realized that removing death row prisoners from communication with the general prison population allowed the law to do as they pleased to a few select prisoners without being noticed or caught.
As the two locals grabbed Bo and hauled him toward a rusted iron door near the front of the squat building despite his struggles, he growled, “If I get outta this shithole, I’ll pay each of you a visit you ain’t never gonna forget.”
Sheriff Simineaux chuckled, patted Bo on the back, and spat a large glob of chewing tobacco square on the toe of Bo’s right boot. In a low, menacing tone, he said, “Au contraire. You ain’t goin’ nowhere, ’cause you won’t be in there more’n an hour or two. That’ll be enough time to get what we want, and we’ll be riiiiight out here waitin’ ’til you’ve had enough.”
Acting quickly, deputy Dupree unlocked the iron door and thrust it open on squealing hinges. Stepping back, the sheriff and his deputy thrust Bo roughly inside, slammed the door and locked it.
Landing in a heap, Bo popped up on all fours, turned and crawled to the door in the darkness across a stinking, slimy floor, panting. The humid room stank of human offal, and some mysterious odor far worse. “I’ll cut you shits into little pieces for this,” Bo raved, pounding on the door. “I’ll . . .”
Before he could utter another word, the inky blackness of his cell was dispelled by a grimy, forty-watt bulb imprisoned in a rusty wire mesh cage. Turning slowly, he heard the wet, wheezing, sucking sounds of the thing he was imprisoned with at the same moment that he first saw it. Looking down at the sticky, reddish-brown slime covering his hands with eyes that threatened to pop right out of their sockets in terror, he now understood the ichor’s hideous source. The piss that started running down his legs and the crap that filled his prison uniform pants spoke volumes where Bo’s constricted, frightened vocal cords could not.
Bo Valentine turned out to be as tough as his reputation; he lasted almost two hours before frantically spilling everything, rather than remain imprisoned with the slimy, wheezing, creeping horror in that ten by twelve foot room that pursued him relentlessly—a physical task made all the more ghastly because it had no head, arms or legs.
By late the following morning, two days after his slated official execution date, Bo kept his appointment with death. Earlier, Bo had been right. The low, grunting noises he’d heard further back in the swamp had been ’gators.
Special ’gators.
Eight huge ’gators.
Penned, starving ’gators.
And just like several select inmates before him, it was to them that Bo’d been tossed by all four of his captors from a sagging wood gangway five feet above the ’gators’ pen shortly after Bo’s taped confession—a confession that would be heard only by a clandestine handful of men.
Two hours after disposing of Bo Valentine, Sheriff Simineaux placed a call on a private line to Baton Rouge. A deep male voice with cultivated old South charm answered on the third ring. After Simineaux had identified himself, the mysterious voice asked, “Did our honored guest ‘sing?’”
“Like a canary,” Sheriff Simineaux replied, chuckling.
After a brief silence, the man on the other end of the line said, “Good. Get his confession to me right away.” Then the line went dead. |
Assistant prosecuting attorney Jason Beinville sipped his second cup of chicory-laced coffee at his desk, reviewing his case load for the day when his phone rang. Without taking his eyes from the document he was reading, Jason nudged the phone from its cradle unerringly—a practice born of morning ritual developed over the past two years. “Beinville,” he said. “What’s up, Shirley?”
His secretary sighed on the other end of the line. “Mr. Goldberg’s calling about the lease renewal, again.”
Jason pounded his desk in frustration. Goldberg had been pestering the hell out of him for a month. The stingy,
hook-nosed bastard had an uncanny ability to know just how far he could raise the rent without a tenant going through the trouble of moving elsewhere. Reluctantly, Jason had to admit that the proposed new lease beat trying to sleep out on Interstate 10 during rush hour, but just barely. This office had been the digs of his famous grandfather, Prosecuting Attorney Howard G. Beinville for many years. Jason would rather die than surrender it to anyone else, but he wasn’t going to tell Goldberg that. “Might as well get it over with,” he mumbled. “Put the turdhead through, dear.”
By the time Jason finished negotiating his new lease with Goldberg forty-five minutes later, he felt like attempting to commit hara-kiri with the two inch pencil stub lying on his desk. His ear ached from the constant assault of New York Jewish nasal twang, and his butt had gone numb from the hardwood chair he’d been trapped in when the call came. “I’ll be lucky if I don’t get fucking gangrene of the ass,” he muttered, rubbing his numb cheeks as he stiffly circled his office on his six-three frame.
As he walked out the kinks, Jason wondered just how a New York Democratic Jew who was older than God had ended up in Baton Rouge as his landlord. Jason was a staunch Republican who believed that the best thing that could possibly happen to the U.S. of A. would be if the entire eastern Democratic seaboard slid off into the Atlantic and submerged. But he’d gladly settle for a tie: if the Democratic east just sort-of separated from the rest of the U.S. and became a new island nation adrift in the Atlantic, that would be just dandy. In his mind, there was no doubt that aliens had already invaded earth; they were Democrats.
Despite his dislike of the “tax and spend” attitude of Democrats, Jason prosecuted all perceived lawbreakers with equal fervor. When it came to his profession, he followed the letter of the law.
The one good thing that came of talking with Goldberg earlier was that the call had reminded Jason of his famous grandfather. A month ago, Jason had promised to go through his grandfather’s files and toss the excess baggage to save precious office space. He’d put it off, but decided that now would be a good time to start before ramping up for his next big case, starting in two weeks. After talking with Goldberg, he could work off his frustration with some honest exercise. |
Three days later with a mountain of material to go, Jason wondered about the wisdom of his decision. After a fifteen-minute water break he sighed deeply, and directed his attention to the bottom drawer of a new file cabinet. He began by removing a large accordion file concerning one of his grandfather’s most famous prosecution cases: that of drifter and mass murderer Antonio “Angel” Sanchez. Grunting, he heaved the massive file onto his desk on its side. Some of the contents spilled across his desk and onto the floor. Bending, he proceeded scooping them onto his desk and grumbled, “Get back up here, you miscreant fuckers.”
A few moments later, he came across a smaller battered accordion folder about three inches thick, and picked it up. If the day had not been sunny with the light hitting the folder at just the right angle, Jason would never have noticed the hairline crease along one bottom edge.
With a guilty thrill equivalent to that of a little boy caught with his hand in a cookie jar, Jason realized the contents of the note pad had been deliberately hidden away. Carefully, he withdrew the dog-eared, tattered document. Unlike the other notebooks he’d discovered, the condition of this one suggested that it was a “working” note pad his grandfather had carried with him constantly.
At first glance, the thing seemed innocent enough. It consisted mainly of business contacts listing other Louisiana prosecutors and law enforcement officials. Further inside, the listings included prominent officials working at Tarr’s Bayou Prison, including a warden and deputy wardens. Jason had nearly forgotten about that old state prison. All he recalled was the approximate date of its founding sometime in the early 1930’s, and its eventual closing in the late ‘60’s. A poor sister to Angola and other state prisons, Tarr’s Bayou finally died of financial malnutrition.
Running his finger down the list, Jason came across a doctor named Clay LeFevre. In addition to the doctor’s normal duties, LeFevre had served as the medical examiner at Tarr’s Bayou Prison, pronouncing the death of inmates. Something about the doctor’s name tugged at a vague memory.
Then Jason realized why: his famous grandfather and this doctor had probably crossed paths numerous times during inmate executions. Jason must have read the doctor’s name when reviewing his grandfather’s old case files when he first moved into his present office.
But the next few pages of the notebook puzzled Jason; they contained the names of seventeen men. To the right of each man’s name, a date and time were listed. After scanning the names and dates again, Jason chuckled to himself. Obviously, the list recorded the time and date of death of individual prisoners as recorded by Doctor LeFevre. Jason’s grandfather probably recorded LeFevre’s data in his notebook and transferred it to other official documents off site, later.
But something about the list troubled Jason.
During LeFevre’s stint as medical examiner at Tarr’s Bayou Prison, Jason was sure the doctor had witnessed the death of far more inmates than were on this list. He examined the names again, noting that there seemed to be no pattern time-wise between one man’s death and the next. In 1944, one man’s name was listed. In 1945 and 1946, there were no entries. In 1947 through 1950, there was one person per year that made the list. The year 1959 had been a banner year. Four people made the list. The last entry was in 1963 for a man named Bo Valentine; he’d been put to death on July 29.
Jason rested the battered notebook on a file cabinet and scratched his head in puzzlement.
Why only these men?
What was so special about them?
Or was he making something out of nothing? Jason didn’t think so, but he could not fathom what significance the list might hold. There was something about two of the names on the list that he couldn’t recall, but which made his lawyer’s mind uneasy. Had his grandfather mentioned those names in any of his old cases? Or had Jason perhaps once read something about the two and since forgotten?
He decided to research the matter further tomorrow. |
Jason had been right. The men listed in his grandfather’s notebook had indeed been executed Tarr’s Bayou prisoners. As he read about the crimes each had committed, Jason realized that every man on the list was accused or suspected of multiple murders. Four men on the list had killed over five times apiece before being brought to justice. His grandfather’s compilation seemed to be a “who’s who” of the very worst Tarr’s Bayou Prison had incarcerated.
When Jason glanced at the notebook entries again, he discovered what he at first took to be an error. According to official records, Floyd Breaux had been executed on the night of April 19, 1941. His grandfather’s notebook listed the date of death two days later on April 21.
Assuming his grandfather had made an error, he moved on to the next entry on the list, only to discover a similar discrepancy concerning Willie “Fat Boy” Jones. Official information listed his death on September 6, 1943. Jason’s grandfather listed Willie’s death as September 9, 1943.
With growing puzzlement and concern, Jason checked the rest of the list. In every instance, his grandfather’s notebook had given the date of death one to four days later than those revealed in the Tarr’s Bayou Prison records.
Shocked, Jason wiped a thin film of sweat from his brow, and decided to track down a second official source listing the same prisoner’s execution dates. Aside from what was obviously a typo concerning inmate Tommy “The Goose” Farr (his death was listed as January 22, 2061), the results were exactly the same.
How had Jason’s grandfather managed to record every execution date on the list wrong? Jason could understand one, maybe two being off, but the entire lot? Reluctantly, he knew it was impossible unless it had been done purposefully.
Why would his grandfather do such a thing?
What possible reason or reasons were behind it?
Did this in some unknown way concern illicit gain? Jason recalled that there had been a Louisiana governor during that era who had been “dirty,” and he wondered if there was a tenuous connection. Could there be some sort of conspiracy—some reason unknown behind the differing sets of dates?
While pondering that thought, Jason stared down at the battered notebook, and realized that there were a large number of pages left unread. He started thumbing through them. The first twenty-odd pages were blank.
But just when he assumed the rest of the notebook was empty, he came across further entries of a very different nature. Starting about three-quarters of the way through, Jason read the passages that shredded the noble opinion he’d had of his famous grandfather, and led Jason down a path to the brink of utter madness. |
| The Confessions of Howard Beinville |
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| After reading the first page, Jason saw just how passionate for justice his famous grandfather had really been, and how far the man had gone to achieve it. Midway down the first page, the manuscript read: |
| March, 1934 |
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| There are times when our legal system falls far short of true justice for the bereaved, most notably when cold-blooded murderers take some or all of their secrets to their graves upon execution. I confess being stricken nearly as deeply as a victim’s surviving family members, and oftentimes wish our culture was more like that of so-called barbaric countries who will, by God, extract the truth from human scum by torture if necessary before disposing of them. And why not? For in committing the despicable crime of murder, have not these diseased, subhuman bastards forfeited their every human right? |
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| Shocked by the vehemence of that passage and others suggesting “legal vigilanteism,” Jason read on: |
| June, 1935 |
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The problem of how to deal with this human excrement seems mainly one of getting withheld information without being discovered. Torture, even of the most guarded sort, would eventually be discovered by those outside our inmost circle, which now includes six. Whatever is to be done to these murderous scum must be approached from some other avenue so that when they attempt to say that their confessions were coerced, we can refute them.
Indeed, our method of extraction of the truth must be free of physical torture, no matter how subtle. Upon this point myself, J. Dupree, S. Knudson, T. Wyllie, and J. McIlvain agree.
But the question remains how . . . ? |
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Trembling, Jason paused to retrieve bourbon from his private larder. After reading the names from that last passage, he needed two shots before he could resume. All those listed were prominent men who, to the best of Jason’s knowledge, had been beyond reproach throughout their years in Louisiana law enforcement before retirement.
Plainly, Jason’s grandfather had been part of some illegal conspiracy. But was it one only of the mind? Trembling, he read on: |
| September, 1938 |
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With each passing year, my frustration and anger grows as I watch additional murderous inmates thumb their noses at the legal system and the survivors of victims, grow fat on death row for decades on our taxes, and then take their secrets with them.
But with this growing anger, I finally hit upon a breakthrough that may lead to our answer: if we cannot torture confessions from this filth, then why not devise a way to get answers using psychological torture? Drugs cannot be used because they might be detected. Part of the remaining puzzle is how to limit prisoner contact with outsiders after we have achieved our confessions before they are put to death.
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| On the next page, Jason read: |
| March, 1939 |
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We were fools! The answer was in front of us the entire time. We will have to step outside our inner law enforcement circle and add (with great caution) medical examiner Clay LeFevre into our group.
I will contact LeFevre for a formal chat and test the waters. Brief past conversations with him make this avenue hopeful. If LeFevre joins us, it solves many insurmountable problems.
Another key piece of the puzzle has already fallen into place. For a considerable sum and pressure from “higher up,” Warden Hopper has signed on. |
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| Jason continued reading, gripping the faded, dog-eared pages so tightly that his fingers turned white. In the middle of the next page, he read that which he prayed he would not: |
| February, 1940 |
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With the coming of a new decade, victory! The good doctor has joined our cause. With Clay LeFevre in place, we can now drug inmates in their sleep in their isolation cell just before scheduled execution. After they are pronounced dead by LeFevre and the body is removed from the view of outsiders, we then wheel the drugged convict down the back stairs to an armored transport van already assigned to other official business by Warden Hopper, allowing it off site for a few days.
While we’re grilling the prisoner at a site yet to be determined, two guard associates at Tarr’s Bayou fill a coffin with soil and cotton picked from fields surrounding the prison. After the coffin is nailed shut, the “deceased” is buried in their assigned prison grave, while we dispose of the real scum elsewhere after extracting confessions. |
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The manuscript slipped through Jason’s numbed fingers, landing on his desk. A strangled, wheezy sigh bubbled from his throat. For a few moments, he felt violently ill. “All these years,” he whispered, shaking his head in denial. “All these years, and I thought my grandfather was a true torchbearer of justice,” he said bitterly. Jason could barely believe the intricacy and sheer boldness of the plot.
Beneath him on his desk, the manuscript silently mocked him. He saw there was more to read and, like a helpless bird hypnotized by a snake, he picked it up and read the final damning pages: |
| August 1940 |
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The real beauty is how we solved the problem of getting prisoners to crack. We are dealing with hardened men who have often stated that they will take their secrets with them, so we knew we needed something more efficient than torture; something so powerful that most if not all of them would fold quickly.
Our weapons of choice will be fear and terror. The hideous solution to our former problem is nearly impossible to believe.
Two weeks ago, I heard about a certain Sheriff Simineaux in Toomey, Louisiana—a man who has supposedly kept a ghastly family secret handed down from his father for more than forty years. If this fellow’s hands are “dirty” as his former deputy Dupree states, then his facilities might be the ideal place to hold our “pigeons” while we extract the truth. |
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| Jason frantically read further, noting the next entry three months later: |
| November 1940 |
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Little did we know the ghastly, unbelievable truth of what we would find during our initial visit with Sheriff Simineaux. There are some things that no sane man should ever see. For once having witnessed them, the mind must admit that they exist. And to admit such things, normal, healthy men risk insanity.
Once Sheriff Simineaux had been confronted and he knew his secret was out, he agreed to show us the horror he’d kept locked in his smokehouse by the swamp behind his home for decades. When we first laid eyes on the horror, I think we all screamed but I’m not sure. I was too busy screaming, myself. I do remember two of our party fainted, and another grew violently ill at what we saw oozing and flopping across the sticky floor of that dark, dank cell. Sheriff Simineaux stood nearby, laughing like a loon. “When you been around it long as I have,” he said, “you get kinda used to it.”
Just when we thought there could be no greater shock, one of our party (Silvain Knudson) asked Simineaux what the thing ate. Knudson always was a ballsy sort, but none of us could believe he’d asked that question without so much as a tremor in his voice after his initial shock.
Simineaux smiled at us silently, relishing the moment through dark, glinting eyes. Then, as if he were calmly talking about the weather, he said, “It ain’t eaten once the entire time me and my father’s tended it.” Simineaux paused a moment, tittering. “Being headless and all, it ain’t, ah, ‘properly equipped’ for eating, no more. But it still likes to try.”
I think we all went a little mad, then. Even Knudson. Just the thought of that flopping, squirming horror positioning itself so that it could even get at food . . . .
Sheriff Simineaux may have been insane, but we didn’t care. What mattered was that we knew we’d found the perfect tool.
No man could last long in that cell with such a horror relentlessly pursuing him. |
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Jason read the last three paragraphs again, stunned by the irony of his grandfather calling Simineaux insane, while at the same time seeing nothing wrong with what he and his associates were preparing to do. Jason didn’t recall just when he put down the manuscript, because he did it while his mind was filled with hideous, unbelievable imagery. While unwilling to accept the final part of his grandfather’s writings concerning the horror as described, he reluctantly believed that there had been a lawless conspiracy of which his grandfather had been a key.
Death row prisoners had been drugged, taken hostage, and forced to confess their crimes to clear the books of unsolved murders. The differing dates of death between LeFevre’s notebook and official state records all but confirmed it. Many of his famous grandfather’s cases proved it—sudden, last minute insight into crimes and events formerly unknown, or rumored at best.
Or did they?
There was only one way to be sure. After frantically searching through his Rolodex, Jason found the number he was looking for. After explaining his problem and faxing over most of the data, legal paperwork was set in motion that granted the exhumation of certain graves at Tarr’s Bayou Prison—graves of deceased inmates named on Lefevre’s list. |
Within three weeks, authorities discovered that Jason’s suspicions were true. Putting all his cases aside, Jason drove to the old abandoned Tarr’s Bayou Prison site to see for himself. All that remained of the prison was the weedy, untended prisoner’s graveyard, surrounded by a padlocked gate and rusting hurricane fence. Positioned on a buried salt dome three-quarters the size of a football field, the old graveyard stood eight feet above the rest of the marshy acreage that had once housed the prison grounds. Every trace of the prison’s buildings had vanished, bulldozed and removed back in the ’60s.
When the first coffin was opened two hours later and held no body, Jason knew that his grandfather’s manuscript was true. For several minutes, his world seemed on the verge of falling apart.
Despite a gnawing urge that demanded his presence elsewhere, Jason stayed while a second coffin, equally empty, was unearthed. Little remained of either coffin. But damning traces of rotted fibrous cotton told Jason the hideous truth.
By then Jason had seen enough. Cursing himself for staying, he spun and trotted to his car, barely controlling the urge to gun the engine until he was well out of sight. He could ill afford unwanted attention. While he’d turned over most of his grandfather’s damning document to fellow branches of the law, he’d kept the part concerning Sheriff Simineaux to himself because a careful check of land records indicated that the old man was still alive and paying taxes near Toomey, Louisiana.
Right or wrong, this had become intensely personal. Jason wanted to hear the truth from Simineaux’s lips, if Jason’s grandfather’s reputation were to be ruined. |
As Jason drove frantically west on I-10 toward Lake Charles, eight units of the Louisiana State police approached the home of Silvain Knudson twenty miles south of Baton Rouge; he was the only surviving associate named in Jason’s grandfather’s manuscript. Knudson’s home wasn’t easily approached without a visitor being noticed. The only road leading to his stately old antebellum estate wound for two miles across flat, open rice fields. While Knudson’s lawn was thick with ancient live oaks, they’d been artfully arranged along the final quarter mile like the pillars of a church cathedral, leaving the final approach open between their gracefully arching limbs. Like caterpillars following one another on the rim of a bowl, the patrol units advanced slowly toward the house in single file.
When the highway patrol arrived and pounded on Knudson’s front door, they received no answer despite repeated efforts. Silvain’s Lexus SUV sat parked in the half-moon turnaround in the shade of a massive live oak, so they were sure he was home. A short visual search of the locked vehicle proved fruitless.
Armed with a search warrant, additional officers forced entry and searched all three floors of the voluminous house without luck. A further search of the veranda, glass-enclosed swimming pool, and greenhouse out back revealed nothing. Several officers fanned out through a surrounding pecan orchard, but found no trace of Knudson.
A rookie officer finally found the suspect in his closed, locked garage. In their haste to search the house, it had been overlooked.
Silvain Knudson had been ready for them. He was hanging by his neck from one of the garage door’s guide rails. |
Two miles south of Toomey, Louisiana, driving north, Jason spotted the rustic quick stop store on the right, nestled inelegantly among battered, droopy-looking palm trees and shaggy pampas grass. Out front, three rusted gas pumps stood like sentries, hailing from a time when gasoline sold for twenty-nine cents a gallon, not the current wallet-gouging price of a dollar twenty-four. Instinctively, he pulled into the gravel lot, parked, and walked briskly to the double doors. In small towns like Toomey, there were two sources of local information: city hall, and gossip mills such as this one. Jason decided to chance the latter to save time.
A wall of cold air hit him as the door closed shut behind, and Jason removed his fogged sun glasses so that he could see. Tinny zydeco music blared from a radio near the back of the store. Behind the counter a chubby, freckle-faced redhead bent forward, carefully laying fresh foot-long hot dogs and boudin in the warmer. Her employee name tag identified her as Lynn Jeanerette. Without straightening, she asked, “Help you, mister?”
“Maybe,” he said. “I’m looking for an old fellow named Howard Simineaux. Used to be the local sheriff.”
“Never heard of him,” she said, carefully spacing the ’dogs on the grill as if she were painting the Mona Lisa. Then she stood and yelled toward the back of the store, “Hey, Charlie, you know anyone named Howard Simineaux?”
Jason turned toward the scratchy, rheumy voice belonging to a withered old black man sitting at one of the old, tacky tables. His round face, flat, broad nose and rubbery lips reminded Jason of a cartoon character that had been smacked with a frying pan. Rising with the weird grace that only arthritic old people have, the old-timer said, “Ol’ Howard? Sure I know ’im, darlin’. Who wants to know?”
Lynette pointed at Jason. “This fella.”
The old man shuffled forward a few steps, squinting to see Jason better. “What business you got with Mr. Simineaux?”
Withdrawing his card, he held it close to the old man’s deeply wrinkled face. “Important legal business.”
For a few moments, the old codger ruminated on Jason’s comments, rubbing a patch of white stubble on his chin. Then he chuckled to himself and said, “You’s a tad late for anythin’ law-related, son. Simineaux ain’t been sheriff for more’n thirty years.”
Impatiently, Jason waved the old fellow’s comments aside. “So he’s still alive?”
Again the old man chuckled. “Oh, he’s alive, awright. If you c’n call lyin’ on yer back in bed the past few months bein’ et up by cancer bein’ alive.” Just as Jason was about to ask, the old man said, “If yer so hell-bent on seein’ ’im, just double back south on th’ highway ’bout three miles. There, you’ll see a gravel road leadin’ east next to an old abandoned Baptist church. Foller that road five miles, an’ look fer an old two story house with a wrap-aroun’ porch sittin’ back in th’ oaks ’bout an eighth of a mile on yer right. House was white, once, but it’s gray, now. Ain’t been painted since I last did th’ job way back in . . .”
While the old man prattled on, Jason thanked him, spun on his heels, and trotted from the store. Just before the door eased shut, he heard the old fellow’s last few words: “. . . gonna see Simineaux, ya better be quick. I heard he ain’t got moren’ another two, three weeks left.” |
It was just as the old man had said. Despite missing one turn at an unexpected fork in the gravel road that the old man had forgotten, Jason found the proud, ancient old house inside of half an hour. The black, hand painted name “H. E. Simineaux” could barely be read on the mailbox. Pausing briefly before advancing up the gravel drive, Jason gazed in wonder and a touch of sadness at the stately old place, protected by a riot of massive live oaks and oleanders that looked as if they’d been there since time’s dawn, lovingly planted by God Himself.
Then Jason shook his head to clear it of the near-hypnotic effect of this grand old remnant of the South, remembering the darker task before him. Easing down on the gas, he nudged his car down the long, winding drive, turned left onto the circle, and parked in front of massive old travertine steps. A pair of algae-encrusted, fierce-looking marble lions guarded both the steps and the sagging porch, above. A long tendril of Spanish moss draped itself over the face of one of the lion statues, giving it a sinister, piratical air.
Shutting off the engine, Jason stepped from the car and immediately noted a stifling, heavy silence. A stiff southerly breeze had dogged him during his entire trip. Now, it was as if a switch had been thrown, shutting it off. Only then did Jason realize he was afraid, and shook himself vigorously in anger to ward off the feeling. “Enough of this shit,” he mumbled. “Time to get some answers.” |
After Jason rapped on the door using the ancient brass knocker, he stood waiting for nearly five minutes before receiving a reply. He was on the verge of leaving when the door swung open on creaking hinges, and a huge black woman wearing nurse’s whites filled the doorway. Bessie Wharton was nearly as tall as Jason, who stood six-three. At a guess, he estimated she outweighed him by forty pounds, and Jason was husky. “May I help you?” she asked in a stern tone, not pleased at his sudden appearance.
“I hope so,” Jason replied, forcing a smile. “Is this the home of Howard Simineaux?”
Bessie had spun and already started to close the door in Jason’s face as she said, “Mr. Simineaux’s indisposed. He’s deathly ill an’ ain’t seein’ nobody.”
Desperately, Jason wedged his foot in the door. In a rush, he explained, “My name’s Jason Beinville. I’ve driven all the way from Baton Rouge. Mr. Simineaux and my grandfather did business together, and I . . .”
At that moment, a deep male voice of surprising strength boomed from inside the house. “Send him in, Bessie. I been expecting him or someone like him for a long, long time.”
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Looking down at the gray-skinned, emaciated, bedridden form hooked up to an IV drip and oxygen mask, Jason found it hard to believe that Howard Simineaux was still alive, let alone the source of the robust voice he’d heard moments before at the front door. Cancer was not just killing the man, but literally consuming him in front of Jason’s eyes.
Despite his obvious pain, Howard’s eyes twinkled with deep intelligence. Raising a bony hand, he managed a shaky smile and shook Jason’s proffered one. “Howard Simineaux.”
“Jason Beinville.”
Howard chuckled. “Recognized the last name right off. You must be related to old prosecutor Beinville. I can see the resemblance in your face.”
“I’m his grandson,” Jason said. “And since you remember that name, you probably know why I’m here.”
Howard struggled to a sitting position on the side of his bed, wincing at some internal pain. “I know more than a little, son. Can’t tell you how glad I am you’re here, because I’m eager to talk. You see, I was afraid this business was gonna go unfinished—in more ways than one.” He turned his head toward his nurse and said, “You can leave us now, Bessie. We got some business to discuss.”
Bessie nodded, turned, and closed the door behind her.
“She’s a damn fine nurse, and good company for an old fart like me,” Howard said. “Now, where were we?”
“I was going to ask why you didn’t come forward with the truth long before now.” Jason replied.
“I meant to,” Howard sighed. “But there was far more to it than just ’fessin’ up to the legal part. You know: what we did to all those prisoners. I put a stop to that back in ’63. Refused to work with your grandfather and the rest of them, anymore.” Howard chuckled darkly. “And they left me alone, too, knowing I could bring the whole sorry business down right on their heads. I told them I’d hidden letters detailing everything, and told them I’d better go on living to a ripe old age.” Pointing at his withered form, he added, “As you can see, they got the message.”
Howard laughed again, but it led to a coughing jag. After hawking a bloody gob of phlegm into a trash can beside his bed, he said, “Lately I’ve been feeling more rotten than ripe, but at least the old age bit came true.
“Anyway, I think I was meant to live long enough for you or someone to find me, because Doc Evans said I shoulda snuffed it eight months ago.”
“I know about your involvement with the secret group,” Jason said, “I discovered the sickening truth of it in my grandfather’s files. But what did you mean by ‘there was more to the matter than just the legal part?’”
“None of what your grandfather and the others did would have been possible without the horror, itself. While it’s true I stopped them from killing additional prisoners after ‘63, I never got rid of the thing.”
“What?” Jason asked, somewhat shocked. “You mean there’s actually some truth to that? And the, er, whatever it is, is still alive? Why, that would make it fifty years old, at least. My grandfather indicated it was your ex-deputy Dupree who put the group onto your secret. That was over forty years, ago, and the group had been operating long before that. Truthfully, I thought that part of my grandfather’s notes were bullshit.”
Howard laughed darkly. “Oh, the thing’s real, all right. Got it locked in the smokehouse where we used to toss the prisoners. Fifty years old?” he tittered, “Why, that’d be a mere pup! Son, the thing locked out back is nearly twice that old. And it hasn’t aged a day since our family was cursed with it.”
Howard’s eyes glazed over as he leaned back on his pillow, lost in the past. “It all started back in 1887. Back then, my great grandparents moved to this piece of land from N’Orleans, and built this place. With the assistance of black field workers whose families had been former slaves, it took four years.
“Long about 1893, my great grandparents had a daughter named Elizabeth. It was said she was a real beauty by the time she was fifteen, and had every man within fifty miles wishing to court her. She got engaged in 1907, and was gonna marry a wealthy plantation owner’s son named Slade Givins.
“But that all changed one dark night in July of 1908. Elizabeth was out walking through the pecan orchard, catching a breath of air, and taking a break from the fancy shindig her folks was throwing inside when her ex-boyfriend Bernard Veaux popped out from a tree behind her. Drunk as a skunk, he overpowered and killed Elizabeth right on the spot.
“For a short while after Elizabeth’s body was discovered, the family assumed it was one of the black farm helpers that did it. Back then, the Civil War was still fresh in a lot of folks’ minds. What with this being the South and all, blacks always fell under suspicion first.
“Fortunately for the young black fellow they were about to string up, but very unfortunately for Bernard, the real truth came out when one of the hounds discovered Bernard passed out in tall grass six rows over at the orchard’s edge. The dog bayed up a storm, and the lynch mob came running to see what all the fuss was about. They found Bernard lying there passed out with his shirt all torn and Elizabeth’s blood all over him.
“At first, they was gonna string Bernard up and hang him from the nearest tree.
“But they didn’t for two reasons: one, Bernard was well-thought-of in the community. He’d always been courteous to a fault, never had a bad word to say, and had always backed down from trouble. Local folks respected him for that. Even with what the lynch mob saw lying right in front of them on that dark, hellish night, they found it hard to believe Bernard, the perfect gentleman, had killed Elizabeth.
“The second reason Bernard didn’t get hung immediately was that he and Elizabeth had been courtin’ each other up until her father put an end to it about four months before. Back in those days, a girl of marrying age almost always had to have her folks’ approval. Unfortunately, Bernard was just the son of the local blacksmith—nice enough folks and all, but not exactly of the same class as my great grandparents. Anyway, they couldn’t see how Bernard coulda killed a woman he’d loved.
“But after the men had tossed some cold water on Bernard and he’d come to, he sat there bawling, and ’fessed up to what he’d done. Said his heart was broken and he killed Elizabeth in a drunken range, rather than let another man have her. He’d planned on killing himself, but he’d passed out before he could do it. Worst mistake he ever made, as you’ll see.
“By then my great grandmother Chenille had showed up, and she was heartbroken. But even more, she was livid. In a cold, razor-edged voice, she told the men to lock Bernard in the smokehouse out back. Then she stormed back to the house, went up to her master bedroom, locked the door, and wouldn’t let anyone in the rest of the night. Not even her husband. All night long he kept a vigil outside her door. It was said he heard strange mumblings—almost like chants at times, coming from inside her room. He swore later on that on two or three occasions that night, it sounded like two or more people were speaking in that room at once. But he figured he must have imagined it, due to the stress of the situation, and all.
“Next evening, she came down the stairs quiet as a cat tiptoeing on cotton balls, with a look that scared her husband and the servants half to death. There in the library behind closed doors, Chenille told her husband that she wanted Bernard’s arms and legs cut off while he was alive. She also told him she wanted the bleeding staunched so that when they started cutting off Bernard’s head, he’d still be alive, and painfully aware what was happening.
“What Chenille wanted done was ghastly. But what Bernard had done to Chenille’s daughter was terrible, too. In no time at all, five men bent to the grisly task. Bernard was tortured for over five hours in the smokehouse before he was eventually killed.
“But he didn’t stay that way. Dead, I mean.”
Jason’s eyes started at Howard’s ludicrous comment, but he held his piece. “Go on,” he urged.
“To understand how Bernard became the gruesome thing we used on those prisoners more than seventy years after that horrible night, you have to know more about Chenille. My great grandfather always loved her, from the moment he first laid eyes on her in N’Orleans. She had a slinky, feline, foreign kinda look to her that made men act like complete fools, including my great grandfather.
“It’s been said that Chenille was sorta dark-skinned, but there’s no existing photos to prove it. But she was supposedly mulatto—part black from Haitian or Jamaican parents. She musta been, because what she did to Bernard Veaux wasn’t anything less than dark voodoo.
“As preposterous as it sounds, Chenille’s murky past all made a kind of weird sense because back in the late 1800s, N’Orleans was one rowdy, dangerous place with a lot of foreigners coming in, looking for a better life. The town wasn’t the sort of place you’d find a young, attractive woman coming to, alone. But Chenille had. That as much as anything tells me she had a little more than luck and God on her side; something altogether as powerful, and much darker.
“Anyway, after the men had done their work, Chenille, who’d observed the torture and killing, dismissed them after telling them they’d done their part, and now it was time to do hers. When the men got the courage to come back next morning, Chenille had done just that.” Howard tittered, and the sound of it sent chills up Jason’s spine. “Chenille really put the whammy on old Bernard. Why, when we used Bernard’s mangled, wriggling torso decades later to terrorize those prisoners, the pus, blood, and other body fluids were oozing out of his mortal wounds just as fresh and lively as the day they were made. And the last time I checked a year or so back, Bernard’s still the same.”
Jason wanted to strangle the lying bastard and leave without another word. He felt he’d been played like a fool. But something held him back. “Okay, Simineaux. I’ve come a long way to get at the truth, so you’re on. Show me this so-called thing. When I see it, I’ll believe it.”
Howard smiled. “I know you think I’m loony, son. Can’t say that I blame you. But don’t you see? You were meant to see this thing. Like I said before: I should have been dead eight months ago. Something’s kept me alive so that I can put this thing to rest. Or at least try.”
“If it truly exists, why, in God’s name did you wait?” Jason asked. “Why didn’t you destroy it long ago, when you realized that what you were doing was wrong?”
“I wanted to, believe me. And not just because I knew that what we were doing to the prisoners was terribly wrong. I—I know this sounds crazy, but I wanted to end it for the horror, too.” Howard lowered his eyes and shook his head sadly. “Despite what Bernard had done to Elizabeth, I felt in my heart that the horror he’d become had more than paid its dues, what with the confessions and all. Whatever he did to Elizabeth was returned to him a million times over.
“Anyway, I wasn’t sure I could kill it,” Howard said. “You see, part of the curse stated that not by the hand of the family shall it pass.”
Then Howard pointed a shaky finger at Jason. “That’s where you come in. You’re not of the family. In a way, your grandfather has blood on his hands just as dark and tainted as anything Bernard and Chenille did. You may be the one hope I have of ending the curse.” |
After Howard had given Bessie the night off and she’d departed, Jason had been told where to find all of Bernard’s remains. Now with a flashlight in hand, Jason cautiously worked his way through the dark, musty attic, dodging the clutter and valuable antiques accumulated over several generations.
Jason had been told that Bernard’s severed legs, arms, and head were stored in a metal trunk lined with thick insulation to prevent the various appendages from being heard by guests as they flopped around ceaselessly inside. Even when Jason finally located the trunk, he still doubted the truth. But when he bent to unlock it, he heard faint rustling and thumping inside.
For the first time, Jason doubted. Cursing himself for a fool he bent closer, unlocked the trunk, and stabbed the flashlight’s beam inside. For a few moments, he stood frozen in shock. “Oh, God, no. True! I—it’s all true!” he mumbled. Inside the trunk, Bernard’s cursed limbs seemed agitated—almost excited.
Gagging, Jason backed away, and stumbled over a roll of carpet. Scrambling to his feet, he watched in horror as a
claw-like hand crawled over the lip of the trunk. “No!” he screamed. “Nooooooo!”
Glancing around desperately with the flashlight, Jason spotted an old set of golf clubs. Sprinting to them, he yanked a five iron out of the bag and scrambled to the trunk. Poking vigorously at the scrabbling hand, he managed to dislodge its grasp from the trunk’s edge.
By this time, a severed leg had managed to hook a knee over the trunk’s far end in a bid for freedom. Jason desperately hooked the horrid thing behind the knee and flipped the severed leg back into the trunk, slinging a spatter of blood as he did so. Panting from adrenaline and fright, he quickly slammed the lid, relocked the trunk, and lurched to his feet just as another hand fumbled crablike to the brink. Nausea shook Jason like a rag in a storm. Goosebumps the size of hen’s eggs took on a life of their own.
Slowly, he regained control of himself. Somehow, he found the courage to carry the locked trunk and its hideous moving contents downstairs and out across the back veranda. Reaching the edge of the lawn, he placed the trunk on the grass and searched for the path leading to the smokehouse where Bernard’s torso waited. He finally saw the weedy, overgrown trail off to his left. Obviously, no one had used it in quite some time.
After toting the trunk down the trail and setting it on the ground fifteen feet in front of the smokehouse, Jason doubled back for the gasoline that Howard told him was in the garage. As he headed back up the trail, Jason heard increased thumping inside the trunk, leaving no doubt that the severed limbs inside were agitated; they had redoubled their efforts to—do what, exactly?
Ten minutes later, Jason returned. After placing two gasoline cans within easy reach, Jason withdrew the smokehouse key and unlocked the door. Gritting his teeth and holding his breath, he thrust back the door on squealing hinges and stepped back. For a couple of moments, he saw nothing. Then at the same time that he smelled the rotten, foul air welling from the smokehouse like an invisible wave, Bernard’s mangled torso made its appearance. Covered in oozing blood and pus, the thing wriggled forward through the door of its prison into the light of a late, sunny afternoon. Wheezing through its severed windpipe, the thing paused briefly as if scenting the air.
Jason took one look at the thing and screamed a long, ululating wail that seemed to have no end. Now he understood the full horror of what his grandfather and his cohorts had put the prisoners through: Locked in the smokehouse with that thing chasing after them endlessly; crawling over them if they tried to rest, leaking its foul oozes upon them. Shivering, he wondered whether to make their torture even worse, a prisoner had been left alone with the thing in pitch darkness in the beginning, only to have the light turned on later to reveal a horror worse than that of not knowing what they were imprisoned with.
Jason knew that if the thing touched him, he might go mad. Desperately, he backed away and tripped on a flagstone hidden in the grass next to the trunk.
As if sensing Jason’s fall, the horror nudged forward like a ghastly inch worm. Flexing its torso, it left a sticky trail of dark red on the grass in its wake. Then without warning, it bent so that its severed neck nearly touched its pelvis. Straightening suddenly, the thing slammed its extremities onto the ground. Like a giant click beetle, the torso sprang four feet into the air and landed five feet closer to Jason.
Screaming hysterically, Jason backed away, kicking at the grass with his shoes. In response to Jason’s fright, the thing’s breathing quickened. Jason could see the loose flap of skin fluttering each time it exhaled, waving like a bloody flag. With each wheezing, piping breath it took, a fine spray of red mist erupted from the jagged opening and spouted into the air.
Jason rolled over, leapt to his feet, and sprinted up the trail. He was nearly out of sight when he looked back one last time and discovered that the horror wasn’t chasing him. Instead, it flopped and crawled steadily closer to the trunk. Just before it got there, Jason saw the trunk lurch violently to one side, nearly tipping. The trunk shuddered again, and this time the torso was ready for it. Seemingly defying gravity, it climbed up one side, flopped onto the lid, and flattened itself along one edge. The next time the trunk rocked, the added weight of the torso assisted in tipping it over.
Despite his fear, Jason stood on the edge of the clearing and watched spellbound, as the severed arms and legs fumbled their way out of the trunk toward the torso. Then, one of the arms paused briefly and, using its hand to drag itself through the grass, returned to the trunk. Moments later, the severed arm reemerged. Wriggling through the grass like a sidewinder, its claw-like hand dragged the severed head behind it by the hair. Briefly, the severed head’s eyes locked with Jason’s as it whipsawed through the grass.
On the brink of utter madness, Jason stared in shock as the bizarre scene unfolded. Like a dam holding back too much water, a steady pressure built in Jason’s mind. Somehow, he understood that if the pressure became too great, he would go insane. The dam of his chaotic emotions finally broke in a way that saved his sanity. Laughing insanely, he pointed with a shaking finger at the hand dragging the severed head. “Heee-heeeee. Whoops. You almost forgot something, there.”
In response to the severed, mangled limbs and head finding their way from the trunk, the torso’s breathing increased its pace, sounding like a wheezing steam engine. Limbs and torso came together and for a few moments, flopped and crawled over each other aimlessly like blind people at a midnight orgy.
But after a few moments, Jason saw that the movements were becoming more organized. Crawling to the severed head, the torso inched its gashed, ragged neck into contact. Arms and legs found their way to their respective places. Dumbfounded, Jason watched as the severed appendages reattached, healing in mere seconds.
Shortly after, a strapping young man slowly rose and stood where moments before, there had been a disarticulated monstrosity. Tottering briefly, he slowly turned and faced Jason.
So amazed was Jason by this seeming miracle, that he temporarily forgot the horrors he’d witnessed earlier. But his fear reemerged when Bernard’s body took a faltering step toward him. “Get back!” he screamed.
Bernard stopped his advance, and Jason sprinted to the nearest gasoline can. Frantically unscrewing the lid, he approached within twelve feet of Bernard, thrusting the gasoline can in front of him with a shaky arm. In his other hand, he clutched the lighter. “Come any closer, and I’ll torch you!”
For a few seconds, Bernard stared at Jason, unmoving. Then, a slow, uncertain smile struggled onto Bernard’s face—the first in over a century. Slowly, he held out his hands palms up, offering peace. “H-hearrrr youuuuu. O-onlyyy w-wishhh tooo . . .” Jason cocked an ear, trying to understand. Slowly, the smile dropped from Bernard’s face; he seemed frustrated by his inability to speak clearly. Swallowing hard, he tried again. “Th-thakkkksssss. Thakkkkkk uuuuuuuu . . .”
Suddenly, Bernard coughed, and a large glob of green phlegm dribbled from his mouth. Wiping it off with one hand, Bernard gazed at the mess for several moments, puzzled. Then he recognized what was happening, and tears welled in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. Issuing a choking sob, he turned away from Jason, and started walking slowly toward the swamp behind the smokehouse.
Just before Bernard turned away, Jason saw the skin on Bernard’s face, neck, and arms start to run like molasses, and he suddenly understood. Bernard’s next five steps and a few passing seconds accomplished what over one hundred years, delayed by a horrible curse, could not.
Just before the last rotting remnants of flesh fell from Bernard’s tottering skeleton, he raised both arms skyward in triumph, and managed to utter the single word “F-f-freeee” just before his bones collapsed into powder. Then, a strong gust of icy wind sprang up from nowhere, and blew them into the swamp where Bernard had wished to go. |
Jason managed to recover from the ghastly miracle of what he had seen. After cleaning up the site, he stopped by Howard Simineaux’s bedroom to pass the news. But when he leaned over the bed to wake him, Jason saw that he had passed. After a few moments of silence, Jason said, “Rest easy, old fellow. The curse is over. Justice has been done.”
In the parlor, Jason found Bessie’s number and called her to inform her of what had happened. After she and the EMTs arrived later, he said his goodbyes while the coroner was called. After leaving his address, phone numbers, and business card, he headed for his car.
Later that night driving east toward Baton Rouge with the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” keeping him company, Jason realized just how true those words had become.
While Howard Simineaux and even the tortured Bernard Veaux had found peace, Jason probably would not.
The torch of this hideous affair had been passed to him. Now, who could he pass it to? No one, he knew. After all: who would believe the incredible truth? For better or worse, the burden must live and die with him, whether true justice had been served on all counts, or not.
After a few moments, a slow smile crossed Jason’s lips. Laughing heartily, he cranked up the volume. “Screw it. A guy’s gotta do what he can, and forget the rest.” |
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