Never Smile at Strangers (20 page)

“YOU SLEEPIN’ WITH him?” Mac asked, his eyes shiny against the dull glow of the porch light.

“What?” Haley asked, incredulously. The dust hadn’t even had a chance to settle since Austin and Erica had driven off. It felt strange to find Mac waiting for her.

“I’ve noticed he’s been taking you home an awful lot,” he said. It was the first time she’d seen Mac’s eyes look so cold.

“Mama’s been leaving with the car lately. We work together, so Austin’s given me a few rides.”

“Wasn’t Erica working tonight? She could have taken you home.”

“Austin took her home, too, Mac. Her truck won’t start. Besides we closed early today. What is this about exactly?”

He took his gold lighter from his pocket and snapped it open, then shut. “You didn’t answer my question.”

A wave of anger passed through her. “No, I’m
not
sleeping with him. He’s got a girlfriend. But even if I were, I don’t think you and I would be discussing it.”

Mac said nothing. He held the gold cigarette lighter in his hand and the lid snapped open and shut again. Then he looked down at his muddy boots.

“And how did you know Erica was working tonight? Are you checking up on me?”

“I watch out for you,” he said, his voice soft but the vein in his neck trembling. “You know that.”

“But that’s not your job anymore.”

He looked out at the bayou. “Yeah, guess not.”

Haley studied Mac and suddenly wondered if he was more sad than angry. She noticed a sack next to the rocking chairs. “You brought crawfish?”

Mac nodded. “Ordered extra from Comeaux’s. Thought about your family.” He pulled his cap from his head and looked at her, his hair disheveled and plastered against his skull. He ran his fingers through it. “So, you like him like that?”

“What?” she asked.

“Austin.”

“Like what?” she countered. “The way you like Rachel Anderson?”

HE HURLED THE large rock and the big window shattered, the racket slicing through the still night. What he was about to do was risky. Riskier than anything he’d ever attempted. But he had no choice. Rachel was gone and this might be his only chance.

He had given Tom the benefit of the doubt with Tiffany, thinking that if he destroyed her, the family would have the opportunity to go on happily. Tom had had his chance and failed miserably.

Now he’d suffer the consequences for his actions.

A light blinked on in the bedroom. A moment later, one in the living room. The backdoor swung open and Tom Anderson stepped outside.

“What the hell?” He shuffled toward the broken window, stood in his bathrobe and scratched his head.

The crickets had gone mute those first few moments after the earsplitting noise of the window shattering, but now they began chirping again.

Adrenaline boiled in his veins. In a flash, he rushed up to Tom and struck him hard in the head with a metal bat. The older man cried out and, immediately, dropped to the ground. As Tom squirmed in the damp grass, his head cradled in his hands, he was struck several more times. In the kidneys, the backs of his thighs, his shoulders. Then he was cuffed.

He pulled Tom to his feet and pressed the hunting knife to his throat. Tom groaned.

“Fuck with me. . . just one time, and that’ll be the last thing you do. You clear on that?” he growled from behind the wool ski mask.

Tom nodded.

“Get movin’,” he snarled and pushed Tom toward the woods. He needed the man to cooperate for the trek back to the pond. Once there, he would finish him and dispose of the body.

Shivers coursed up the back of his neck as they walked through the dense brush, a hunting knife jammed into Rachel’s husband’s back. A second knife wedged between his belt and waistband. An owl screeched, its nocturnal hunt interrupted. The moon, fat and furious, sliced through the trees to light their gloomy path.

But he was suddenly having difficulty breathing. His breaths came ragged and shallow behind the itchy wool ski mask and he knew it was just the beginnings of a panic attack. The more he walked, the more ragged they came. He tried to think of something else. Something comforting to quiet the anxiety.

As they marched, single file, among the indistinct shapes and shadows of the murky woods, he forced himself to think of Sarah Greene. Her kill had been different than Tiffany’s. With Sarah, he’d spent a fair amount of time scrubbing blood from the walls and dingy carpeting of his bedroom.

The rush was like nothing he’d experienced before. It had been even more intense than with Tiffany. But the calm didn’t last for long. After only a few hours his mother’s horrifying presence had made it back inside his head. He wondered when it would ever end. And if it even would.

“Why are you doing this?” Tom asked, interrupting his thoughts and bringing him back to the present.

“Shut up and walk,” he warned.

“Does this have anything to do with Ra--?”

He yanked the handcuffs upward and Tom squealed. “I said don’t fuckin’ talk and I meant it.” He also applied more pressure to the knife pressed against Tom’s back.

The man went silent.

Just a hundred yards into the woods, the itching from the mask became so fierce, he couldn’t stand it. As he reached to readjust it, Tom suddenly sprinted.

It took him a second to realize what was happening. But quickly he was on the man’s tail. He chased the man as he zigged and zagged through the tall trees, screaming for someone to help him. Tom was fast, but handcuffed, he had trouble keeping his balance.

Catching up with him, he sank the knife deep into Tom’s spine. The man let out a thunderous yelp and tumbled forward, blindsiding a tree. Then he fell to the ground with a loud thud.

He hovered over Tom who lay wheezing and stinking of urine. Pale moonlight that had made its way through the tangle of giant trees lit the area just enough for him to make out the terror on Tom’s bloody face.

“Please. I’ll do anything. I. . . I have children.”

“You should have thought of them while you were fucking their babysitter,” he said, taking the bat from its harness.

“No, please,” Tom pled, wide-eyed. Pathetically, he inched backward on his rear end as though there was hope of getting away. “Please. I have money. I can pay you.”

He raised the bat above his head.

“Oh God, no. Please. No.”

Tom screamed the first few times the bat made contact with his head. But then the screaming quickly stopped.

He stared down at Tom’s body, his head nothing now but blood, bone and tissue. An exquisite calm entered him. But oddly, as the calm came and the rage dissipated, so did his energy.

He became lightheaded as something bright flickered meaninglessly behind his eyes. He yanked off the mask but it did nothing to help. He felt drunk and was desperate for rest.

He stumbled a couple of yards away from the body and its offensive odor and sank to the ground.

***

HE AWOKE TO daylight and instinctively wiped the dried saliva from the edges of his lips. He blinked. There were trees. Birds were singing. Above him a chattering squirrel leapt from one tree to another.

He tensed as he remembered. He was in the woods, lying a short distance from Tom’s body. He’d fallen asleep.

He’d fallen asleep!

He glanced at his watch and his heart pounded. This was dangerous. Very dangerous. The woods were too well-traveled with the investigation going on.

There was a rustling and he rose to his feet. He looked around woozily, his neck snapping left to right. He turned in a circle, his eyes darting every which way, taking in everything possible.

Then he discovered what the noise was. On the ground to his right lay a martin bird. Its wings and beak were squashed as though it had been stepped on, but it was still alive. Its beady black eyes were open and it gazed up at him, quivering.

He knew some believed that seeing a wounded bird up close was as unlucky as shattering a mirror or having a black cat cross your path. They believed it was an omen for something bad happening, a very unfortunate turn of luck. Luck. . . that he never had in the first place.

Spooked by his presence, the bird began to flail its better wing. It managed to scoot around in a 180, but after a few seconds it stopped. It watched him and began to tremble again.

He couldn’t stand it. Its helplessness. Its pain.

Gazing up at the sky, he pleaded for forgiveness, then took a step forward, thrusting his foot hard into the bird’s skull. . . and its suffering immediately ended.

Tears filled his eyes and his insides screamed. As far as he knew, the animal had been innocent.

He averted his eyes from the dead bird and started toward Tom, who
hadn’t
been innocent. He’d need to work quickly. If someone along the way saw him. . .

A branch snapped close by. He stopped and his body went rigid. Someone stood a few feet away from him. His hand shot to his back pocket to rest on his knife.

“Hel-lo,” he said, as casually as he could when he saw who it was.

“Howdy,” Chris replied, looking dumbfounded.

He’d seen Chris, the man who owned Luke’s, in the woods twice before. “You’re out awfully early. It’s barely seven o’clock.”

Chris glanced around, but said nothing.

He eyed the binoculars hanging from Chris’s neck. “What are the binoculars for?”

The man’s face went red but he didn’t answer.

“Don’t you worry, I won’t tell anyone that I saw you out here with those.”

Chris closed his eyes.

Sweat formed at his temples. The only option he had sickened him. “You lonely, Chris?”

Chris’s eyes opened. At first it looked like he was going to argue, but then he just looked resigned. “I. . . yeah, I reckon I am. But I’m no killer. That’s not me. I just have me a little problem. Since Luke Anne died and all, I’ve—”

“Been peeking into folks’ windows, right? Since your daughter died you haven’t been able to help yourself.”

Chris’s forehead creased with worry. “Yeah, but that’s all. I have nothin’ to do with those girls goin’ missing.”

“I understand. See, I’m lonely, too.” His grip on the knife tightening.

“You?” Chris studied him and he saw the man notice the blood stains on his arms.

He went for the knife.

Chris turned to run, but he didn’t get far.

ERICA TRAILED FAR behind Guitreaux. Far enough away, and he’d think her sounds were nature’s, she reasoned. But five minutes after she began following, Guitreaux abruptly stopped.

He stood still for a second. Then, without bothering to look back, he called, “C’mon, Danielle Steele. You’ll get hurt out here by yourself. Might as well join me.”

Erica felt her face fill with blood as she walked toward him. But she knew she’d have to play along to get what she wanted: the experience of the investigation firsthand.

“What are you doing?” she asked, now by his side, hoisting her backpack higher on her shoulders.

“Now I don’t want you blabbering to the FBI like you did with me. Got it?”

Erica nodded.

Guitreaux grinned. “Okay then. Know the Anderson’s place?”

“We’re going
there
? Why?”

Erica thought of Rachel. Did he suspect her, like those girls in class had said? Her husband, Tom? Rachel hadn’t even been home for days. She’d left shortly after Erica had seen Mac’s truck at her place overnight.

“The missus reported seeing someone in her backyard on a couple of occasions. And her kid saw someone in the woods near the house. So I’ve been watching their property regular. If someone’s been out there, he’ll come back.”

Erica remembered sitting on the Anderson’s swing set that night and watching the house herself. “Who do you think it could be?”

“Dunno. I reckon there’s a killer out there. Don’t you?” he asked, flashing her a grin. “That’s why you’re wanting to follow me and all, right? To see how I track killers?”

He pulled a low-slung branch out of the way and motioned for her to go ahead.

Track killers?
So far, Erica and the rest of the town hadn’t seen him track a thing.

“You ever catch anyone?” she asked.

Guitreaux laughed. “You kidding me? In the three months since I made detective, you mean?”

“It doesn’t bother you that everyone thinks you’re really bad at this? All this time not being able to figure out what happened to Tiffany Perron?”

“Sweetie, not much bothers me. Besides, I didn’t ask for this job. Not really. It just kinda landed on my lap.”

“But don’t you want to find out what happened?”

“Sure I do. More than anything. But if there isn’t anything to go on, no clues, not much saying she didn’t just run off, what can I do? I’ve exhausted many an avenue. All I can do now is keep my nose close to the ground. . . wait to stumble upon something. If there’s foul play, something’ll turn up. These things don’t keep secret for long.”

“Think the FBI’ll figure out what happened to Tiffany first?”

“Maybe. Look, am I a great detective? Hell no,” he said, “never said I was. But would I have been able to find out what happened to the Perron girl if there were any signs of foul play? Sure as shit I would have. Hell, if there were any signs of foul play, Lafayette would’ve sent boys down here to help me. But funding don’t grow on trees, sweetheart.”

“So you think Tiffany could have just run away?”

“She
could
have, I suppose. But it’s doubtful. Now c’mon. If you’re coming, seal those lips of yours. Don’t slow me down.”

Erica followed Guitreaux as he moved through the woods. Several times he stopped and looked around. Erica looked around too, not seeing anything out of the ordinary, but at the same time knowing better then to ask more questions.

Rays of sunlight coursed through the endless web of branches, casting shadows on the far sections of the woods as they plodded slowly along. Locusts buzzed loudly, absorbing the last of the day’s sun.

As Erica reached to pull a branch out of her way, a slender moccasin darted in front of her, then scurried beneath the leaves. Erica flinched, but kept pace behind Guitreaux.

Not a hundred yards from the Anderson’s, Guitreaux stopped dead in his tracks once again. Erica waited patiently, now familiar with his pattern. She waited for him to start up again, but this time he bent down.

He reached out and touched a leaf. Then his head shot up and he looked straight ahead at a tall oak. Erica’s stare followed his. Her breath caught in her throat.

Blood was splattered everywhere. Across the tree trunk, droplets dotted the surrounding leaves. The ground was also barren in spots as though something had been dragged across it. Her eyes moved another foot to the right and she saw a pair of legs, the feet bare and bloodied on the bottoms.

Guitreaux made the sign of the cross over his chest and whispered, “Lord Almighty, look what we got here. A clue.”