Doppelganger

by Byron Starr

  And the gossip was no longer contained to Newton County. Reporters from Beaumont and Lufkin arrived and started taking pictures of the crime scenes and asking questions. Worse yet, there was a reporter from the tabloid television show, Current Edition, snooping around town. And as if that wasn’t enough, Debra had been fielding calls from reporters from the major news networks.

  After Bill released his only suspect, he went to work trying to prevent more killings. Bill met with John Banks, the Newton County Police Chief, and suggested a dusk-till-dawn curfew for the city. John immediately met with the mayor, who called an emergency meeting of the city council. The curfew was put into effect that afternoon.

  Bill hated reporters almost as much as he hated big city lawyers, but he knew the media could be useful. He continued to refuse to talk to any of them in person or over the phone, but he did dictate a letter and have it faxed to all the TV and radio stations in the area. In the letter he informed the stations that the investigation was ongoing and he had no information that he could give out at that time. Then he got to the important part: he told them that, while there was no immediate cause for alarm, he suggested all citizens of Newton County stay inside from dusk till dawn and not to go outside for any reason — just to be on the safe side, of course. Bill knew that suggesting that the entire county stay inside at nighttime would add fuel to the fire as far as the rumors were concerned, but there was a chance that it might save lives.

  As far as the fact that this thing might have some sort of ability to take on other forms, Bill kept that information to himself for the time being. He wasn’t sure if the creature did or didn’t have some sort of supernatural power, but he certainly wasn’t going to admit anything of the sort might be going on or was even being considered. If he let it out that he was becoming more and more convinced that they were dealing with something that was neither man nor beast, he was sure that people would think he’d been sampling the narcotics in the evidence room.

  Toward the end of what Bill felt was the longest day in his career of law enforcement, he sat down at his desk and picked up the phone. He dialed an Austin number, and asked to speak to Captain Sam Jones, of the Texas Rangers.

  * * *

  The white van with CURRENT EDITION stenciled in huge red letters along its side pulled out from the Steak Shack’s parking lot and started north up Highway 87.

  Jana Parish was fuming, as usual. Just as she had hated her last three assignments, she couldn’t stand this one. Jana was a spoiled rich kid from Palm Beach, Florida. She had been a department store model while she was in high school, and had had numerous modeling jobs since. While she was attending Florida State on a cheerleading scholarship, she had posed nude for a calendar, causing her to lose her scholarship. But it wasn’t the loss of her scholarship that caused Jana to drop out of college. Her parents owned the controlling stock in one of the largest manufacturers of luxury yachts in the United States; money wasn’t exactly a problem. She had dropped out a semester after losing her scholarship simply because she couldn’t keep her grades up. After leaving college, Jana was able to use her looks and her father’s connections to get a job as a weather girl for WTRN in Savannah, Georgia. She was at WTRN for only three years before using those same attributes in landing her current job as a reporter for Current Edition. She had now worked at Current Edition for six years.

  Vanity had always been one of Jana’s strong suits, and for a good reason: the way she saw it, everything she had achieved so far in life was directly related to her blond hair, blue eyes, and tall, voluptuous body. The fact that her father’s influence had been just as important never crossed her mind.

  Not long after getting her job at WTRN, Jana made the mistake of getting married. She had met Lance Whipple while she was attending Florida State. When she moved, he swore he couldn’t live without her and wanted to marry her. At first Jana resisted his advances, but after six months in Savannah, she gave in and they were married. She retained her maiden name, however; there was no way she was going to go through her career with the same last name as the man who squeezed the toilet paper on those old TV commercials. Lance dropped out of college and became a house-husband. Three years after Jana got her job with Current Edition, Lance began to pressure her into having kids. Jana was emphatically against it; she had seen what a pregnancy could do to a woman’s figure. However, like when he had pleaded with her to marry him, Lance was persistent and she gave in. Jana’s worries proved prophetic — the pregnancy was a nightmare. After she had the baby she weighed one hundred and ninety-five pounds; eighty pounds more than she had before her pregnancy. Jana was furious, and she blamed Lance. She filed for divorce and didn’t even contest Lance’s custody of the baby, who she felt was partially responsible for her current problem.

  Jana had tried girdles, support hose, everything and anything she could think of to conceal her newfound weight, but the extra pounds were there to stay. According to the fourth doctor she asked, her metabolism had changed — the previous three had pointed toward her new eating habits, but Jana felt they were full of crap.

  As Jana had expected, after she put on the extra weight her assignments were fewer and farther in between. Where she once had been Current Edition’s top reporter, now she was being given one or two ridiculously stupid assignments every three to four months, and this assignment seemed to be no exception: a grizzly bear eats a couple of hicks in a redneck town, whoop-tee-do.

  Jana had been all over town, and the only interviews she had managed to get were a few housewives who were willing to tell about how they had picked their brats up early from school because some woman had been killed near the elementary school’s playground. Then Jana had visited the sheriff’s office and been given the runaround. She was used to this kind of treatment, but when she finally cornered the Old West throwback they called the sheriff in this county, he had talked down to her like no one since her fifth grade teacher — and Jana’s parents had gotten Mr. Bacon fired. To make matters worse he hadn’t allowed her cameraman inside the Sheriff’s Department, so none of his rudeness was on tape.

  It wasn’t until Jana went to a local restaurant that seemed to specialize in grease that she made any progress with the story. At the Steak Shack, Jana was able to find quite a few people who were willing to talk. Most of them all said the same boring and useless information, but, after wading through several such interviews, Jana was able to get some useful information. At first these animal attacks were thought to have been murders, and a James Taylor had been taken into custody and held for three days. To make matters even more interesting, James’ wife and child were the second and third victims.

  Here was Jana’s story: a poor ignorant country boy, wrongly accused of murdering his own wife and child by a cruel and heartless sheriff. She had her story and her revenge on that rude sheriff all rolled into one.

  It took Jana no time to find someone willing to give her directions to James’ house, and they were on their way.

  Just when Jana’s day was beginning to look better, her cameraman, Bob McCoy, ruined her mood. He was good at that. When they got in the car, she reached into his camera bag and said, “Hey! All my chocolates are gone. Did you eat that whole bag this morning?”

  “I only ate a couple of them,” Bob replied. “I think you hold the credit for eating the entire bag in one day.”

  Without a word, Jana huffily crossed her arms and sat back in her seat. That bastard. The bag had been half empty, and like he could talk anyway. He was pushing three hundred pounds.

  * * *

  When James arrived home he found he had failed to tell Greg that Lady was inside the house. There was a large amount of uneaten dog food on the back porch, and an enormous mess in the house. Living on scraps out of the trash and toilet bowl water for several days, Lady had made quite a mess in the house. Garbage and dog crap was scattered all over the kitchen and the living room.

  After taking a couple of hours to clean up Lady’s mess, James took a l
ong look around his old familiar home. He found the place just as depressing as it had been before he’d been arrested, back when he had almost convinced himself to chew on the business end of his double-barrel shotgun. The quiet stillness bothered James. He almost wished he were back in the county jail; at least there was noise there, and fewer depressing memories.

  James decided that getting out of the house would be the best thing for him. He would go into town and visit Guy at the shop. However, no sooner had James gotten out of his seat than a knock came at the door. Even though it was broad daylight, the knock brought on a brief moment of anxiety. James imagined a hideous creature with terrible long claws and teeth on the other side of the door. He hesitantly eased over to the door. When he looked through the peephole, he saw the distorted image of a tall, heavyset blond woman. Behind her was a man carrying a large shoulder-mounted camera.

  “Mr. Taylor, this is Jana Parish with Current Edition. We would like to have a word with you.”

  Damn.

  James couldn’t leave now; he’d have to wait until they were gone. He returned to the living room and plopped down on the couch. He sat silently petting Lady, afraid to turn on the TV for fear that they would see it from the window. For quite some time the woman continued to bang on the door saying, “I know you’re in there,” and “It will only take a few minutes,” and “We want to get your side of the story,” and so on. This went on for about ten minutes, then it petered out to just an occasional knock on the door and a “Mr. Taylor,” then after another five minutes there was silence. James tiptoed up to the door and looked out the peephole. Now they were parked on the shoulder of the road in front of his house. Well, at least they were out of his yard. Still, he felt like he was under siege in his own house.

  James lay down on the couch, this time turning on the TV. It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep.

  Two hours later James woke to a horrible smell. Lady, who had eaten more than her share of dogshit and garbage over the last few days of being locked in the house, was breathing directly into his face. As soon as James’ eyes opened, Lady ran to the front door, then ran back in a hurry. She frantically repeated this action over and over as if to say, If you don’t want another mess to clean up you had better let me out right now!

  James got up and walked to the door, but when he took a look out the peephole he saw the van was still outside.

  Damn!

  James led Lady to the back door.

  Once outside, she immediately shot out into the back yard and took care of her business. As soon as she was finished, Lady picked up a stick, brought it onto the porch, and dropped it at James’ feet.

  “Is that supposed to be a hint, girl?” James reached down and picked up the stick and threw it. Lady took off after it, grabbing the stick and bringing it back with her head high and her tail wagging furiously. “Good girl,” James said, taking the stick from her mouth for another toss.

  It hadn’t dawned on James how long it had been since he’d done something so simple as playing fetch with his dog. It felt good. James and Lady continued to play and, slowly but surely, James began to feel more relaxed.

  All good things must come to an end, however. James had just tossed the stick once more when he saw the Current Edition reporter and her cameraman coming around the corner of the house. The reporter was trying her best to hurry, but she was obviously not used to wearing high heels in soft ground and was stumbling every step of the way.

  “Mr. Taylor, if we could just have a word,” she managed to say as she stumbled clumsily toward the back porch.

  “C’mon, Lady. Let’s go inside.” Lady quickly returned and darted inside, taking the stick in with her. James followed her in without saying a word to the unwelcome intruder. He locked the door behind him. This time the reporter didn’t bang on the door. She returned to the van with her cameraman and they continued their stakeout.

  After a little more TV, James bedded down for the night, once again on the couch.

  * * *

  Although there was a Texas Ranger stationed in Jasper, only fifteen miles from Newton, Sam Jones, the Senior Captain of the Texas Rangers, was originally a native of Newton County and a good friend of Sheriff Bill Oates besides. He came down from Austin to personally see if he could lend a hand.

  Sam Jones was one of the living legends of Texas law enforcement. Sam had served in the Marine Corps’ during the Korean War. He was a nineteen-year-old second lieutenant when he first set foot on the Korean Peninsula in 1950. In 1953, Sam came home a decorated war hero. He remained in the Marines until 1957, when he went into law enforcement. Sam was a State Trooper from 1958 till 1960, and his status as a war hero helped him become temporarily attached to the Secret Service as bodyguard to Lyndon Johnson through his Vice Presidency and Presidency. Upon his return to Texas in 1973, Sam joined the elite law enforcement branch of the State of Texas, the Texas Rangers, and had been there ever since.

  Now seventy years old, Sam was well past the normal retirement age, but he was an old bachelor who had known nothing but the military and law enforcement all of his life. Retirement was probably the only thing in his entire career he had ever feared. Everyone who worked with, or even around, Sam knew the R-word was not to be mentioned in his presence.

  Sam Jones was a bear of a man, the type of man that was just plain big all over. He stood a full six foot four inches tall, weighed two hundred and seventy pounds, and despite his age, most of his extra weight was still muscle. Not that Sam was the same, lean, mean fighting machine who had fought in the hills of Korea — he had put on quite a few pounds since his Marine Corps days, but his chest still managed to extend further than his belly. Beneath his white Stetson, Sam had no hair at all. He had started going bald some time around the middle of his military career and had just decided to shave it all off. He liked how it looked and kept the style.

  Underneath Sam’s brown western-cut sports jacket was an old .45 automatic in a shoulder holster — the very same pistol Sam had used as an officer in Korea. The Battle of Chosin back in 1950 has the distinction of being one of the coldest battles man has ever fought. During one of the many engagements in that horrible battle, masses of Chinese troops charged up the hill defended by an outnumbered Marine battalion that included Sam’s own platoon. The soldiers, Chinese and American alike, found almost all of their guns had their breaches frozen shut and were useless, and the few rifles and machine guns that weren’t frozen became so after firing off their first ammo clip. Sam had kept his pistol inside his uniform using his body heat to keep it warm. As the Chinese soldiers charged his position, he held his fire, then drew his pistol from his coat at the last possible moment, firing point blank into the onrushing Chinese soldiers, killing four and wounding another before taking a bayonet in the hip. The ensuing melee had more in common with medieval warfare than that of the twentieth century. In the end, the Marine battalion held the hill, although they suffered well over seventy-five percent casualties. Sam’s heroics that day won him the Purple Heart and the Silver Star for bravery, as well as a promotion to first lieutenant, and his continued rapid promotion to Lieutenant Colonel before the war was over.

  Sam silently opened the door into Bill’s office and slipped into the room. Bill had just suffered yet another of what he would consider one of the longest days of his career. He told Debra he was going to take a nap and he was not to be disturbed, but Sam wouldn’t listen to Debra’s pleas to let Bill rest. The old sheriff was stretched out with his boots on his desk and his hat covering his head. Sam moved across the office until he was directly in front of Bill’s desk.

  Then one of Sam’s big hands knocked Bill’s boots off the desk, and Sam roared, “Get your feet off the furniture, you lazy varmint!”

  Bill almost fell out of his chair. The hat fell off his face and toppled to the floor. His temper boiled, his face turned red. Then he recognized the deep laughter. “Sam, you scared the hell out of me,” Bill said, then joined Sam in laughter.
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  When the laughter died down Sam said in his deep baritone voice, “I heard you’ve got yourself in one hell of a fix down here.”

  Sam and Bill were about the same age, but they had only known each other in passing before Bill ran for sheriff. After Bill was elected, Sam started coming to visit the sheriff’s office when he was in Newton visiting his family. They soon struck up a strong friendship.

  Bill picked up his hat and dusted it off while Sam sat down in one of the metal chairs.

  “You could say that,” Bill said. Then he picked up a manila folder that was so stuffed with paper that a rubber band had been stretched across it just to keep it closed. Bill handed the folder to Sam. “Here’s all the incident reports, statements, autopsy reports, and reports on a mutilated horse and two mutilated cows.”

  Sam’s eyes grew wide as he took the folder. “Damn, Bill.”

  “I told you it was complicated,” Bill said, smiling. “Oh, and there’s one thing that I wanted to touch base with you, in person. In those reports you will find an interrogation of a James Taylor, a local mechanic. His wife and kid are two of our victims.”

  “Any relation to Paul Taylor?” Sam asked.

  “No, he’s not originally from around here,” Bill answered, then continued. “This boy claims he’s havin’ dreams of the attacks while they’re takin’ place.”

  “You’re kiddin’,” Sam commented with a wry smile.

  “Well, Sam, it’s worth lookin’ into. You know I don’t go for none of that superstitious horseshit, but there’s just some really strange things about this case. For one thing, he predicted one of the murders while we had him locked up.”