Between Dusk and Dawn (8 page)

“
The coffee will be ready
in a few minutes. I have some homemade tea cakes to go with them.”
LaShaun smiled at the somber man.

“
Don’t go to no trouble for
me.” Mr. Young seemed accustomed to being shunned instead of
welcomed.

“
I didn’t, Mr. Young. The
tea cakes are waiting for guests, and the coffee was easy.” LaShaun
sat down knowing he waited for her to sit first. “How can I help
you?”

“
Lotta times folks just ask
that outta habit. Don’t really want to help. They just tryin’ to
get rid of somebody fast.” Mr. Young sighed again.

LaShaun now had time and more light to
study him. Mr. Young’s thick hair was a silvery white. A long lock
fell across his high forehead. Deep frown lines cut into both sides
of his mouth, as though smiling was something he rarely did. He
looked about seventy years old. His shoulders sloped down as though
he was weighted with heavy burdens. She thought of the scripture in
the Bible; he appeared to be a man of sorrows, acquainted with
grief. << Isaiah 53:3>> And yet she sensed something
else beneath a shield to keep others out.

“
I know you’re Manny
Young’s granddaddy,” LaShaun said, answering his unasked
question.

Orin Young’s shoulders slumped lower.
The weight of acknowledging his kinship with a serial killer seemed
to press him down even more. He nodded. “Most folks don’t know he
was a twin. His baby sister died, something called placenta
failure. His mama always said Manny sucked all the life outta his
twin.”

His first victim?
LaShaun felt a lump settle into her mid-section at
the thought. “But you said he was a happy boy, so his childhood was
normal. Right?”

“
His mama wasn’t right in
the head. She took off, ended up living on the streets in New
Orleans. My son, well he had problems with drinking. Me and my wife
raised Manny. We’d go fishin’ and huntin’. He loved to hunt.” Mr.
Young stopped and looked at LaShaun. “It ain’t what you’re
thinkin’. He didn’t take pleasure in killin’ just for the sake of
it. Lots of reporters said that, but they lied.”

LaShaun wondered if Mr. Young’s love
for Manny made him blind to early signs of violence. Yet there were
stories of killers who seemed no different from others; no horrible
childhood to explain the burst of brutality later in
life.

“
I see. So his childhood
was normal, even happy,” LaShaun said.

“
We did our best,” Mr.
Young said with strength. A light flared in his watery gray-green
eyes.

“
I’m sure you did, sir.”
LaShaun meant it. She felt his fierce love for the boy as he
remembered him.

“
Still he missed his mama,
like any child would. Never could understand why she was gone. My
son wasn’t around, and when he did show up most times he was drunk
and draggin’ some bar fly floozy with him.” Mr. Young scowled as
though his son had walked into the room. “Manny had his problems
when he got older, but he wasn’t no killer.”

“
The state police had
strong evidence that Manny murdered at least seven of the twelve
victims.”

Mr. Young blinked hard for several
seconds and then rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand. He
looked at LaShaun. “I don’t think it was him. Oh, I know they had
evidence he did it. I’ve never been one for superstition, all that
hoodoo hocus pocus crap. But I seen his eyes, and it wasn’t
him.”

LaShaun sat forward forgetting the
scent of coffee that floated into the room. She wondered if he
would have the strength to say it. “Explain what you
mean.”

“
I looked in my boy’s eyes.
I don’t care what nobody says, Miz Rousselle. What looked back at
me wasn’t my grandson.” Mr. Young spoke with such force that the
cords in his neck stood out. Then he lost steam again and sank
against the cushioned back of the chair. “My wife lost her mind,
too, when she looked at him. Been in a nursing home this past year.
Doctors say it’s Alzheimer’s. I know different.”

“
Mr. Young, I can’t help
you by going to see your grandson.”

He shook his head slowly. “Joyelle
told me you said no.”

“
Then why did you come to
see me, Mr. Young?” LaShaun studied him as he seemed to waver on
how to answer.

“
Whatever got hold of my
boy is movin’ in other folks. I knew your grandmama.” Mr. Young
wore a sad smile as he nodded at her surprise reaction. “My wife
grew up not far from here, before her daddy lost his land. She’d
play with Odette when they was kids. We never thought of her as
evil. Fact is she helped us with our daughters. The girls went wild
when they got to be teenagers. All three of ‘em, only a year apart.
Odette put a scare into them.”

“
How?” LaShaun raised an
eyebrow.

“
They were sneaking into
the woods with boys, having liquor parties and such at night.
Odette caught the kids out on her property and pretended to be
workin’ magic on ‘em.” Mr. Young wore a genuine expression of mirth
for the first time. “They call it scared straight when they make
kids tour a jail or prison, right? That’s what she did. Scared
those rascals straight. At least two settled down, finished high
school and got decent husbands.” The light died from his
eyes.

“
Must be hard on all the
family,” LaShaun said.

He seemed unwilling to broach that
painful subject. Instead he stood up. “Listen to Joyelle, and talk
to those other folks she told you about. Maybe you’ll reconsider. I
thank you for your time.”

“
Stay and have some coffee
to take the chill off the night. We can talk some more
and--”

“
No, ma’am. I’ve lost the
knack of being company for other folks. Besides, I don’t have any
more answers for you. All I know is Manny got taken over by
something bad, real bad. He wasn’t no angel, but he don’t deserve
to die with a needle full of poison stuck in his arm.” Mr. Young
gazed down at LaShaun solemnly. “You take care.”

His last words didn’t sound like a
normal leave taking goodbye. He turned around and walked out of
living room with LaShaun following him. The dour man’s steps seemed
heavy as he trudged across the porch, down the front steps and into
the shadows. LaShaun saw the vague outline of a truck just off a
path beyond a clump of azalea bushes. The headlights flared up and
he backed out to the road. The rumble of the engine faded into the
night as LaShaun locked the front door. For the first time a
flicker of trepidation tickled the base of her spine.

*****

LaShaun came wide awake in the dark.
She lay still as her eyes adjusted to the darkness in her bedroom.
Every sense in her body told her she was alone. Yet her spiritual
sense shouted the opposite. Nothing moved in the room. There was no
sound except the occasional creak of wood settling in the old
house. She was used to hearing the creaks and cracks. In fact they
were oddly comforting. But she knew something was up. Coming fully
out of a deep sleep always signaled she needed to be cautious. The
antique brass clock on the table ticked off the seconds. The modern
digital clock glowed on the nightstand next to her queen-sized bed.
Fifteen minutes went by before she heard it; a soft insistent
scratching. LaShaun rose slowly from the bed as though not wanting
to startle the source of the noise. Anyone else would think mice.
LaShaun wasn’t anyone else. Her supernatural alarm clanged inside
her head causing a dull throb to take hold behind both ears. With
catlike movements she pulled on a pair of jeans, a long sleeved
t-shirt and a jacket. She found her leather walking boots at the
foot of her bed and put them on, grateful she’d gotten the zipper
version for fast dressing. In minutes she found the large hunting
knife one of her male ancestors had used in the early eighteenth
century. She clipped the leather sheaf that held it to her waist
and walked down the hallway to her the back door leading to her
porch. She unlocked the door, and the sound of the metal caused the
scratching to cease.

LaShaun opened the wood door, then
pushed through the screen door to step onto the porch. The soft
glow from the tall security light reached the back yard, but only
partially. Most of it was left in darkness, which LaShaun
preferred. She scanned the quarter acre neatly mown lawn. Then she
looked at the denser indigo blue where her woods began. Something
in the distance moved; an outline different from the tree trunks
and shrubs. LaShaun walked across the porch and down the steps
toward the shape. It moved away. The thing wanted to put distance
between them. Waves of apprehension and shame brushed across her
senses like an unworldly breeze. LaShaun focused on sending a
message of reassurance, of calm, to the thing. Instead it cringed
even farther into itself. Then a sharp metallic taste flooded the
back of her throat. A warning. She snapped back to her surroundings
too late. Something hard slammed into her from the left and LaShaun
hit the ground. She rolled onto her back as the man, or something
crouched over her. Loud breathing above sounded like a cross
between a human and an animal. The thing’s fetid breath caused
LaShaun to choke on bile rising in her throat. Whatever she faced
had been feeding.

LaShaun made whimpering sounds to
simulate being in fear. The being let out a low growl as if
pleased. A yelp from the woods caused the head to whip toward the
sound. LaShaun drew her knife from the leather case and slashed at
where she thought the legs would be. The shrill scream of pain sent
chills up her spine. Suddenly the shadow over her vanished, and the
scream faded as it ran for the cover of her forest. LaShaun
scrambled to her feet and whirled around to check all sides for
more danger. Her senses told her they were gone. Finally she let
out the breath she was holding with a long sigh. LaShaun backed her
way up the steps, across her porch and through the kitchen door.
She slammed it harder than necessary and snapped the metal
locks.

Her whole body ached from the impact
as she walked on shaky legs to her kitchen. Only the soft light of
the oven hood glowed, so LaShaun turned on the fluorescent lights
set in the ceiling. She looked down, but found no scratches on her
skin or rips in her clothing. Then she looked at the antique silver
knife, wondering why she’d chosen to pick it up in the first place.
A thick deep red liquid oozed on the blade. After a few seconds it
sizzled as if the metal held heat. The liquid turned to ashes.
LaShaun found brown paper used to wrap meat for the freezer. She
tapped the ashes onto it though not sure why. Folding the paper
carefully, LaShaun went into her small parlor. She found one of
seven old family books, each bound in soft leather. Selecting the
one she thought would be most helpful, LaShaun spent the rest of
the night reading.

Chapter 5

The musical chiming in her dreams
sounded familiar. LaShaun shifted position without opening her
eyes, and wondered why the rabbit she was watching suddenly played
a flute. Then she snapped awake. She lay stretched out on the small
sofa in the entertainment nook off her kitchen. The forty-six inch
flat screen television showed the local morning newscast, but the
sound was muted. The book she’d been reading lay face down on the
braided rug in front of the sofa. LaShaun looked at the digital
clock display on the televisions screen. Six forty-five. When the
doorbell chimed again she pushed herself upright, stretched and
went to the back door. Chase looked as sleepy as she felt. She let
him in.

“
Good morning.” LaShaun
yawned as Chase kissed her cheek. “You’re off to work
early.”

“
Good morning back. And no,
I’m going home after working almost twelve hours straight.” Chase
went to the kitchen and straight for the coffee maker. He sighed
when he saw it was cold. “Okay, I’ll make the first pot. You’re up
pretty early.”

“
Not exactly. I barely went
to bed,” LaShaun said.

“
You didn’t even drink this
batch you made last night. Why couldn’t you sleep?” Chase emptied
the left over coffee and wet grounds to make a fresh
pot.

LaShaun remembered her family journal
and retrieved the book. Chase had his back to her as he measured
coffee grounds into the filter and then filled the water well. She
slipped volume seven of the Histoire de la LeGrange Famille into
the book shelf below the television, not ready to share the
remarkable Rousselle and LeGrange chronicles with him
yet.

“
Just restless I suppose,”
LaShaun replied and found the television remote. She turned up the
sound a little.

“
I see. Wouldn’t have
anything to do with Orin Young stopping by last night for a chat,
would it?”

LaShaun spun around to find Chase
gazing at her with both hands resting on his wide leather police
belt. He still wore his handgun, safely holstered. He also had a
set of handcuffs and various other tools of the trade. His marine
blue knit shirt had the department insignia on the right shoulder
in gold. Chase looked very official.

“
I didn’t think Xavier
Marchand was one to gossip.”

LaShaun gave him a brief smile as she
went past him to the cabinets. She took out two coffee mugs and set
them on the granite counter top. Moving fast she grabbed a small
cast iron skillet, got eggs from the fridge and started
breakfast.