Shadow Tag, Perdition Games

by L E Fraser

  “But Toronto Police Services were the plaintiffs in the threatened law suit,” Reece said. “It was their responsibility to investigate. I don’t see an issue.”

  “The chief of police claims Gretchen never told anyone about the law suit,” Harvey said.

  “But she swore under oath at the inquest that she disclosed the threat to him,” Reece argued.

  “Therein lies the problem,” Harvey said.

  Officials believed Gretchen had committed perjury. Reece felt ill. As an officer of the court, if Gretchen had lied under oath at the inquest, what else was she capable of?

  “She’s been on a mission to prove police misconduct and humiliate the chief of police ever since,” Harvey concluded. “The chief is equally as driven to remove her from her position. Now he has the support of the deputy attorney general, it’s going to get ugly.”

  “What will happen to Reece if they prosecute her?” Sam asked. “It’s not going to look good that he’s been snooping into a slew of closed cases behind the cops’ backs.”

  “Well, he did it by order of his principal.” Harvey’s worried expression didn’t support his encouraging words.

  Gretchen would try to shift the blame onto him and assert she knew nothing about his investigation. Reece would have to prove he was following the direction of his myopic principal. There were no emails or witnesses to support his claim that she had ordered him to audit the cases for police due diligence. If she denied it, it would be his word against hers.

  He’d disagreed with the unofficial approach of Gretchen’s inquiry from the start. He should have outlined his concerns in an email so he had a paper trail. Instead, he’d focused on gathering evidence any way he could. Even if the deputy attorney general and chief of police believed she’d ordered the investigation, Reece hadn’t been transparent with Toronto Police Services. He’d gone behind their backs and used his PI agency as a cover. The implication would be that he’d colluded with Gretchen in her quest to dishonour the police department. The optics would be that he’d betrayed the blue brethren to curry favour with a Crown attorney and advance his law career.

  “Turn everything over to Bryce Mansfield.” Sam told him and turned to Harvey. “Bryce is the inspector in charge of the homicide squad.”

  “If Reece shares confidential documents, he’s in breach of his non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements,” Harvey said. “Truthfully, he shouldn’t be discussing it with us but nothing we speak about will leave this room.”

  “He has to do something,” Sam insisted. “Presumed complicity in this vendetta will destroy his law career.”

  As the significance of the situation settled onto Reece’s shoulders, he realized it was too late. He couldn’t prove he wasn’t a key player in a corrupt official’s game.

  Gretchen Dumont was going to ruin him and hand a prolific vigilante a licence to kill.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Journal

  MY FATHER WOULD not allow me to report Pearl’s death. He grew increasingly irrational, ranting about indifferent strangers touching her, authorities investigating, and pathologists dissecting her. Outsiders would not pollute Pearl’s final resting place with their prejudicial judgments and interference. Her interment would be private, conducted and attended by the people who had loved and understood her. As we had protected her in life, we would protect her in death. It was my filial duty, he said. I could not find the spirit or the words to disabuse him of the notion.

  He handcrafted Pearl’s casket from wild persimmon, polishing the wood until it gleamed. He toiled in solitude, refusing my offers of companionship and assistance. Furtively, I would observe him from the shadows outside his workshop, and inchoate pity would engulf me. Looking wan and much too thin in his tattered jeans, he laboured with hands that weren’t quite steady. He was poised on the brink of a precipice, clinging to a scintilla of control, his only salvation this grisly labour of love. The drone of a radio delineated the catastrophic damage wrought by Hurricane Rita, but our grief was too raw for empathy.

  Together, we tore down a section of the limestone wall that marked the lane to our property, and we built a small crypt to protect our beloved. We sealed her casket inside her tomb of stone beneath the ancient bald cypress she had loved.

  I would not allow the murderous demon, conceived from the violence of rape, to rest beside Pearl for eternity. I swaddled the small body tight in white linen and ran with it along the banks of the Teche until I spotted the dark olive scales and yellow eyes of a floating gator. My hands trembled as I dangled my gruesome package over the water but I could not bring myself to drop it. This instrument of death that had purloined my sister’s life deserved no better, yet a shred of humanity still existed within my withered heart. I faltered at the water’s edge, clutching the baby to my chest, and sobbed as rain beat down. How I hated it for taking Pearl’s life and how I hated myself for what it had driven me to become. Daggers of white lightning lit the horizon as I stumbled home and lurched into my father’s workshop to thrust the shrouded corpse at him. He laid it gently in a box of cypress wood he’d crafted as its casket, refusing to meet my eyes.

  Without Pearl, my mother surrendered to madness. She sat silently in her dead daughter’s room, her eyes vacant, and her small white teeth gnawing mercilessly at the peeled and infected skin around her ragged cuticles. Tears of blood would surface against her shredded skin and dribble down her fingers to dapple her hands in crimson blossoms. When twilight ebbed, I would drape an eyelet comforter across her shoulders and sit quietly at her feet, watching her blood soak into the cuffs of her ivory nightgown.

  Without my mother’s love, my father reacquainted himself with the escapism of morphine. He’d disappear into the bayou, to the man he had so often warned me to avoid, returning with a hunger in his eyes and the poison clutched in his fist. He’d sit on the front porch in a rocker that faced the cypress tree that sheltered Pearl’s crypt. Within seconds, sweet oblivion would eradicate the deep furrows of grief from his face. Yet occasionally, I could still glimpse a flicker of the man he used to be—a diaphanous shadow I chased but could not catch.

  I planted a ring of bluehearts, Louisiana iris, and Queen Anne’s lace around Pearl’s eternal bed. On oppressive, starless nights, I’d lie beside her and imagine the sweet melody of her laughter. I’d envision our parents when they were whole, their bodies intimately coiled around each other as they waltzed. I’d imagine Pearl’s white skirt floating on the water, her fingers tapping the rhythm of her words, her hair a radiant halo. I’d torture myself with a vivid montage, driving my mind to the brink of collapse, but I could not vanish into the warmth of madness as my mother had. Emotion would gather like black clouds above me and I’d stoke my blistering wrath until it choked my grief. Anger was my only reprieve from the incessant pain, and so I clutched it tight, vowing I would avenge my sister’s murder.

  The day I destroyed what was left of my family, my father was nodding in the rocker on the front porch, a bead of blood oozing from the crook of his arm. I rifled through his pockets and found a chain with a key to the lockbox he kept in the shed. It caught in the seam of his jeans. My hand slipped and knocked his chest. I waited, breath held, for him to jerk awake. If he had, I would have confessed my intention so he could persuade me to abandon the plan I had no true wish to execute. His head merely lolled against his shoulder and a string of drool dribbled off his chin. On a gentle breeze, I smelled a phantom fragrance of coconut oil and accepted that the task ahead of me was preordained.

  In the shed, I took my father’s .45 semi-automatic from the strongbox, loaded the weapon, and tucked it in the waistband of my jeans. My hands shook and doubt weakened my resolve, but I told myself that Basile Landry’s money and reputation protected his son from justice. It was foolhardy to believe Virgile would not brutalize another innocent girl and ruin another innocent family.

  I told myself that this was murder for the greater good.

&nbs
p; Virgile brazenly updated his Facebook with every detail of his vile life, and I had stalked his timeline, waiting for an opportunity. Today, he had boasted about attending an illegal dogfight on a private section of the Bayou Teche. Only by exclusive invitation, he had written, as if inclusion at a blood sport was a symbol of merit.

  It was a well-known fact that owners frequently shot their losing dogs, leaving the battered corpses for the gators. The despicable masses who sought entertainment in maltreated animals battling to the death would ignore a gunshot. Their only care was the dollars they’d bet on the grisly fight. If I was to kill Virgile Landry it had to be tonight, but misgivings again filled my heart. I ached for a sign from Pearl that she sanctioned my quest.

  The sun dipped behind the cypress tree and the sunset hues of orange and gold rippled across the still water. A sultry breeze stroked my cheek, perfumed with the aroma of wildflowers from Pearl’s grave. I glanced over my shoulder at our house. My eyes lingered wistfully on the silhouette of my father slumped in the porch rocker. At only sixteen, I was too young to shoulder this act of vengeance alone, yet honour compelled me to fulfill the deathbed promise I’d sworn to Pearl.

  I followed the Teche for an hour until I spotted lights and heard bloodthirsty squeals of delight. A ghastly stench of blood and feces wafted on the breeze, and the pitiful yelps of the wounded animals made my stomach clench with rage. A circle of spectators three deep surrounded what I assumed was the fighting pit. Camcorders waggled above heads and fists pumped the air. A preteen girl crawled up the back of a middle-aged man to perch on his shoulders. He massaged her buttocks as she lifted her shirt to expose budding breasts.

  I froze at the rear of the crowd, unable to move forward to see the dogs’ terror and the betrayal in their woeful eyes as they fought to survive. I could not bear to stand witness to the atrocities perpetrated against these blameless animals.

  A feral screech echoed from the pit, and the crowd howled and cheered. Bile filled my throat and gooseflesh prickled my arms. I staggered to the bushes and vomited burning acid, struggling to block out the rasping death knells of the beaten dog.

  It took a moment for me to comprehend that there were people milling around me. The losers in the crowd had dispersed, while the winners collected their ill-gotten gains. Excited chatter drifted over me as the crowd clamoured for the next round, and I had to fight the urge to open fire and rid society of these dregs of humanity.

  I mingled inconspicuously with the crowd and sauntered to a cluster of parked vehicles. I saw Virgile’s black Hummer under a copse of oak trees. A quick reconnaissance of the area exposed a thicket of brush where I could lie in wait. I headed to my hiding spot but jerked to a stop when a voice called my name. Fortifying my nerve, I turned to face my prey.

  “Hey, Virgile,” I said.

  “Well, well, well. Wonders never cease.” He leaned close to my face, his breath reeking of bourbon and cigarettes. “Are you crashing our little party, Blu?”

  Refusing to step back, I held his eyes. “I was out for a walk and heard the noise. Wanted to see what the excitement was about.”

  “How’s that gorgeous retard sister of yours? Haven’t seen her around town. Your pa keeping her on her back?” He laughed.

  “She’s dead,” I stated. “So is your son.”

  He took a step back and his lips spread into a smile. “Y’all accusing me of something?”

  “I know everything.”

  “Really? Brought the sheriff, did you?” He glanced around mockingly. “How about you and I have a chat?” He strolled toward the water, away from the sightlines of any stragglers leaving the dogfight.

  My fingers grazed the butt of the gun in the small of my back and my heart jackhammered in my chest. Virgile led us further from the lights and commotion of the pit, unaware that every step brought him closer to death. His arrogance was boundless, a cloak of false protection that he wore with supercilious entitlement.

  As I trudged behind him, fresh doubt suddenly rose unbidden in my mind. I saw the haunted expression in my father’s eyes when he returned from Afghanistan. I heard him screaming from the nightmares that plagued him, his conscience unable to reconcile the lives he’d taken for his flag. I saw him in his shed, caressing his surgical instruments and pining for all he’d sacrificed.

  A clairvoyant image of my future flashed across my mind. There would be no basketball scholarship, no university, and no medical school. There would only ever be cold darkness, wrought with more loneliness than I currently suffered. If I killed Virgile, I would not escape unscathed. Lying dormant inside me was my mother’s insanity gene and my father’s penchant for drugs. I understood now, with painful clarity, Pearl was showing me the truth. If I went through with this savage act, I would not survive the psychological aftermath. She didn’t want me to sacrifice my life to avenge her death. She embodied love.

  Pearl was begging me to find the strength to forgive.

  Virgile leaned against the trunk of a cottonwood and folded his arms over his chest. “I’ve been watching y’all for years,” he said in a conversational tone. “Watching how you took care of your crazy mother and sister. I used to sneak out at night and spy on you, see.” He wagged his finger at me. “Naughty kid, in cahoots with a soldier for the mob.” He smiled and lit a cigarette. “Cyril works for the New Orleans mob, but I guess you know that. He supplies your pa with his medicine.” He wrapped the word in air quotes.

  I turned to go. “See you later, Virgile.”

  “Wait, now—we’re having a conversation,” he said. “I think you’ll be interested in what I’m going to tell you.”

  I ignored Pearl’s beseeching voice in my head that begged me to walk away. I turned back to face him.

  “How old were you when you were selling those nutria tails to Cyril?” Virgile asked in a pleasant tone. “Fifteen? You’re a good shot, Blu. You know your way around a Remington.” He flicked his cigarette into the water. “Let’s play truth or dare. I’ll go first. Pick your pleasure.”

  “Truth,” I said and wished I had the strength to leave.

  “I was hoping for that one.” A cheerful smile lit his face and he swiped a lock of brown hair off his eye with a graceful finger. “One night, we spotted your sister outside. She was wearing a white nightgown and standing in the water, looking for you, I guess. The moon was shining down on her, and you could see everything through the sheer fabric. What a show for a horny young buck.” He exhaled through pursed lips and waggled his eyebrows salaciously. “She came out almost every night. Instead of following you, we started watching her.”

  Blood pounded in my head in a wave of white noise. Almost every night… Why hadn’t I anticipated her natural curiosity and desire to be with me? Why hadn’t I locked her in her room on the nights I went hunting?

  “I intended to wear a rubber but she fought, see. I hadn’t expected her to.” He shrugged. “I figured I could sweet-talk her and she’d submit. It’s perfectly logical to expect a retard to go along but your sister screamed. That’s when things took a nasty turn.” He took the serrated hunting knife out of his pocket, flicking it open and closed, then open again.

  Grief paralyzed me as moonlight glinted off the silver blade. The night Virgile raped Pearl had also been a full moon. Had she watched paralyzed, as I did now, while light shimmered against the deadly knife that slashed her flawless skin?

  “The deeper I cut, the less she fought. She just lay there making these stupid little whimpers.” He mimicked slashing, thrusting the knife across the air in front of him. “Not so much fun, see. So, I wrapped her nightgown around her neck. Then she bucked and writhed underneath me.” He chuckled and rubbed the crotch of his jeans. “Looking into those huge eyes, all wet with tears, and feeling her blood all over my hands was such a rush.” Virgile snickered. “I wrapped my fist around her hair and pulled.” He reached into his pocket and held something out to me.

  I stepped forward and froze. G
rasped between his thumb and forefinger was a lock of long platinum hair, tied with a pink satin ribbon. My mind flashed to the bloody clump of hair that had lain on Pearl’s naked shoulder when I found her. I remembered that the pink ribbon in the bodice of her nightgown had been missing.

  “A little souvenir to remember our special night,” Virgile said serenely. “Too bad we won’t get an encore.” He winked.

  I leaned over and vomited across his shoes, the sick bathing my mouth in acid. Virgile jumped back, squealing in disgust.

  My eyes felt hot and dry in the cloying humidity and a cold sweat chilled my arms. I moaned deep in my throat, unable to stop my mind from conjuring filmic images of Pearl’s angst.

  Virgile dipped the toes of his shoe in the Tech, one after the other, swirling them around to wash off my vomit. He was muttering something. For a panicked moment, I thought he was talking to someone before I realized he was mumbling to himself. This thing in front of me wasn’t human. It was an abomination—a creature devoid of emotion or conscience.

  From the direction of the dogfight, there was a high-pitched yowl and a gunshot.

  A second shot rang out. A rosebud bloomed where Virgile’s left eye had once been. His body pitched backward and he fell into the water.

  My ears rang, and my arm fell to my side under the weight of the weapon I grasped. Confused, I stared at the gun in my trembling hand, bewildered by how it had gotten there, and unable to recall retrieving it or pulling the trigger. A sour taste of vomit coated my tongue and the humidity was stifling. I gasped to inhale the water-drenched air, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. Virgile’s one sightless eye gaped up at the moon.

  Like the dogs in the pit, a primitive survival instinct consumed me. Slowly, I clicked on the safety and tucked the gun into my belt. I circled Virgile’s prone body, reached down, and grabbed his wrists. In jerking motions, I dragged him into the water. Once he began to float, I shoved his feet, propelling him further into the flowing Teche. He bobbed along the surface and I prayed to see the snapping jaws of a gator or hear the slap of a scaled tail. The only sounds were the hoots and hollers from the dogfight pit.