Wounded Earth

by Evans, Mary Anna

  “You fraud,” Larabeth said politely to Guillaume's answering machine. “‘Succumbed to the siren song of modern conveniences’, my right eye. I happen to know that you air-condition that barn you call a house. And I'm glad you do, because it distresses me when my friends drop dead of heat stroke. This is Larabeth, by the way, in case you don't recognize the voice, although I'm sure you do. None of your other acquaintances make as much sense as I do. I'm staying at the Lincoln Log Lodge in lovely Lincoln, Nebraska, but I'll be back in New Orleans and hard at work before you crawl out of bed. Call me. Stay safe, and try not to get arrested until we've had our talk, okay?”

  Larabeth hung up. It was too late to call anyone else. It looked like companionship, even telephone companionship, might not happen that evening.

  Or perhaps it would. The telephone rang and it took barely a second for Larabeth to know who might be on the line at such an ungodly hour. It could be Babykiller, calling to gloat some more. But it could be that Guillaume was really at home, just screening his calls. Or it could be J.D., calling to make peace. The odds were two out of three in her favor, but there was a sick taste in her mouth as she answered the phone.

  “Did you have a nice day, Doc?”

  If a cobra had a voice, Larabeth thought, this is what it would sound like.

  Babykiller didn't pause for a response. “You've had all day to think about me and I know you did. I don't believe in big talk or empty threats. I have shown you what I am made of. Wanton destruction—cropland, animals, livelihoods, lives—means nothing to me, not when I'm in pursuit of a worthy goal. I have shown you what I can do. I can move anything anywhere. I can, with sufficient funds, get certain people to do anything for me. I know where you are all the time, and I can get in touch with you any time I like. It would be unwise for you to resist that. If, say, you didn't answer the phone, then you wouldn't know what I was thinking.”

  “I don't care what you're thinking,” Larabeth said, glad she'd remembered to hook her portable recorder to the hotel phone.

  He chuckled. “Of course you care what I'm thinking. You know what I am. And surely you know by now that there is nowhere to run. You're not fully aware of all my capabilities. Not yet. Just let me offer some friendly advice. Put your affairs in order. Perhaps we should all put our affairs in order.”

  Larabeth thought she heard him catch a slight breath before continuing. “Relax, darling. I won't leave you here to suffer through my revenge with the unworthy masses. Oh, no. I'm going to take you with me. Sleep well and stay close to the phone.”

  Larabeth held the phone in both hands. She should call someone for help. Surely they would take Babykiller's threats seriously this time, after a bloody sea turtle crawled onto her doorstep.

  If she called anyone, who would it be? This thing was too big for the police; there had been dead animals scattered across the country. She needed a federal agency. All right, then the FBI was the lucky agency who got her call.

  But how much good could the FBI do, really, even if she gave them her tapes of Babykiller's veiled threats and paranoid ravings? How could they hope to find him, if he never admitted anything substantial and he never gave a clue to where he was?

  And even if she called the FBI, suppose her stalker couldn't be found. What then? She could afford to hire a bodyguard or three and maybe they could keep her safe, but could she live the rest of her life under armed guard? No, under those circumstances, she didn't think she would want to live at all.

  Larabeth came to a decision. Yes, she would do the good-citizen thing and turn her tapes over to the authorities, but she would do it in the morning. She had no recorded confession, no smoking gun that couldn't wait until daylight.

  She doubted that calling for help would increase her safety level, for now. She was sleeping next-door to a detective, there was a security guard pacing past her door, and the police persisted in cruising through the parking lot outside her window.

  Tomorrow, she would spend the morning in airports and on airplanes, two of the most security-ridden places on earth. She would be relatively safe until she got home. That's when she would call the FBI.

  She would have liked to call J.D. Her world would feel safer if she could talk to him, but she was too damn proud. She wouldn't go crawling to him after what he had said to her, not if it meant they didn't speak to each other for another five years. Fifteen years. Not if it meant that they never spoke to each other again.

  She listened to the security guard stomp by. His footsteps came slower; he was getting tired. The police car cruised through the parking lot for the fifth time that night. It had been nearly a week since she slept much and it looked like this night was going to be no different.

  * * *

  Larabeth arrived at the office at a fairly reasonable hour on Tuesday morning, given that her red-eye flight had dumped her at the airport at 7:30 a.m. and that she had gone home to change clothes. She had dressed to suit her mood and was, as a result, wearing her most severe navy-blue suit with the plainest white silk shirt she owned.

  Norma greeted her with a snort. “I see you've decided to scare that delightful security consultant away by dressing like a corporate robot. And he's so much more interesting than the stuffed shirts you usually date.”

  Larabeth's mumbled “Yeah” was not an invitation to chat, but Norma clearly wanted to discuss J.D. and his romantic merits. Larabeth glanced pointedly at her office door, and said, “We've got the inside track on the Nebraska herbicide cleanup and, politically, N-Deck has to award the thing quickly. Call Amanda and ask her to bird-dog the project for me.”

  Norma took the hint and got down to business. “J.D. stopped by here a minute ago to tell you that he'd be working on internal security with the accounting staff all day today. Said there was no reason for you to be there. Oh, and he also said he'd be working through lunch. It looks like you're free today to do something minor, like run the company.”

  Great. So J.D. had ignored her on the airplane, pointedly moving to an empty seat in the coach section and leaving her to stew in first class. Now he had come to work, but he was avoiding her. Responsible, but stubborn. And he still had no clue how to treat the boss. Some things never changed.

  “The answering service said there was a very bizarre call just before I came in this morning.”

  Larabeth paled. “It wasn't—”

  “No, it wasn't that stranger that called before. It's someone you know. Probably the strangest person you know.”

  “"Guillaume.”

  “Exactly. He dictated a protracted message, which they took down word for word. Here it is,” Norma said, handing her three pink message slips, stapled together and covered with handwriting. “The upshot is that he wants to have lunch today. Please, for BioHeal's sake, don't go anyplace too visible. He's a nice man—a little weird, maybe, but nice—but I don't think it would help the company's image for you to be seen with one of those environmentalist lunatics.”

  Larabeth actually cracked a smile. “You're a born PR wizard. I should move you to the marketing department, but I'd miss you too much. Don't worry about Guillaume. We'll eat at some greasy diner and drink Cokes out of the bottle and nobody that really counts will see us. They'll be in the French Quarter lunching on duck liver and sausage salad with grilled baby vegetables.”

  Larabeth went into her office, closed the door, and laid her weary head on her desk. Trying to get comfortable, she rested her cheek on her right forearm and felt something lumpy and sharp under her elbow. It was broken glass.

  Jerking herself upright, she traced the trail of glass across the broad expanse of her executive's desktop. An oval picture frame sat in the far right-hand corner of her desk, behind the telephone, in the position reserved for the obligatory family picture. Larabeth had always left that corner empty.

  Her face was trapped in the expensive frame. So was Cynthia's. Someone had shot their picture in Nebraska, a moment after they met. Then they had gotten it to her office quicker
than she could get there herself.

  The strange frame was expensive, made of burnished mahogany and elegantly inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Mother-of-pearl. Mother. Her shadowy nemesis thought of everything.

  Larabeth could see him, creeping into her office with this thing in his hand, and slamming its glass face on her desk. Tiny shards of glass had flown everywhere. She picked up the frame and her face fell out.

  Behind the frame, hidden until she picked it up, was a nondescript pair of office scissors. Someone had brushed the glass from her sepia-toned face, then taken these scissors and slashed her head off.

  Carefully putting her head back on, she studied the picture. She looked like a startled calf, meekly returning Cynthia's handshake. Her briefcase strap had pulled the neckline of her dress askew, revealing a sliver of bra strap. She assumed that Babykiller had left her this offering and it bothered her beyond reason that her lingerie was exposed. He had extracted another shred of her privacy.

  And he knew about Cynthia. Of course he did. The coincidence of their chance meeting, smack in the middle of her slow torture at Babykiller's hands, was too great. It beggared credibility. She and Cynthia had been set up.

  The phone rang and she reflexively checked the digital readout. It was Norma calling. Good. Babykiller preferred her private line.

  “It's an Agent Yancey from the FBI.”

  Norma's voice was completely normal, as if the Feds called every day. Larabeth wondered whether the woman was capable of speaking in an unpleasant tone, even if the devil himself called. “Put him through,” she said, relieved that she could quit agonizing over whether calling the FBI was the right thing to do.

  A brisk and self-consciously official voice wafted from her speaker phone. “This is Agent Randall Yancey, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I've been assigned to follow up on the victims of the recent animal slashings.”

  Larabeth couldn't help herself. “Detective, I believe the victims are dead. Perhaps I could put you in contact with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.”

  “Not the animal victims. The people targeted by the slasher. I'm acting as a liaison between the Bureau and the human victims in Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, and Mississippi. I have a transcript of your interview at the scene. Is there anything you would like to add to your statement that could help us track down the perpetrator?”

  Larabeth grimaced. This guy was so green he smelled like grass. She'd be willing to bet that he was one month out of school. Nevertheless, he had a supervisor who surely had a few more gray hairs and she'd promised herself that she would share her Babykiller tapes with the authorities. Well, the authorities had come to her.

  “I did think of a few more things that—” Larabeth suddenly thought of Babykiller and how he always knew where she was. She thought of wiretaps and surveillance personnel. She heard him say, You're not fully aware of all my capabilities, and Put your affairs in order, and, worst of all, I'm going to take you with me. There was no way she was going to let him know she was talking to the FBI.

  “Actually, no. I guess I did give the agent in Lincoln my complete statement.” She paused. “I presume you're going to talk to Guillaume Langlois?”

  “Yes, ma'am, he's on my list.”

  “Good,” she said. “I wish you the best of luck.”

  Larabeth hung up the phone as young Agent Yancey sputtered, “Wait! I have more questions.” She buzzed Norma to hold her calls, then she drew a notepad and two manila envelope from her desk. She wrote,

  Agent Yancey,

  When you hear these tapes you will understand why I am afraid to talk to you. Perhaps you will find something useful on them. I haven't. If I receive any more calls or if I have any bright ideas, I will let you know through Guillaume.

  Larabeth McLeod

  She drew copies of her taped conversations with Babykiller from her purse and slipped them along with the note into one of the manila envelopes. Then she began another letter.

  Guillaume,

  I can't discuss this on the phone and I'm even afraid to talk about it in person, but I need your help. When Detective Yancey of the FBI calls you, make an appointment to meet him at your house so you can show him where the eagle carcasses were left. Give him this package, but don't say anything about it. I know this is a weird request and I'm sorry to make it, but you are one of the few utterly trustworthy people I am privileged to know.

  Larabeth

  She tucked this note and the envelope containing the tapes into the second manila envelope. She was looking forward to seeing Guillaume again. He made her feel safe.

  * * *

  Larabeth clutched the tapes in their plain envelope tightly as she hugged Guillaume Langlois hello. Babykiller had driven her to these cops-and-robber tactics. If she had to play silly games, it was comforting to play them with her dearest friend. Guillaume was going to enjoy sparring with the Feds.

  She had suggested they meet at a diner near BioHeal's offices and Guillaume was, as always, amenable to the idea of a cheap and tasty lunch. “This is New Orleans. There's no need to pay for a pretentious meal,” he said as he settled down to eat, gesturing broadly at the city on the other side of the diner's plate glass window. “Everybody knows how to cook. And it's a port city, so ships bring us fresh food from all over the globe. You have to work hard to get bad food here.” He rubbed his belly. “Look at me. I'm walking, talking proof.”

  “You're not fat, Guillaume. You're just well-fed,” Larabeth said, eyeballing the blackboard specials.

  “My point, exactly. The entire local culture is based on the notion of being well-fed and happy.”

  Larabeth wasn't just being polite. She really did think that well-fed was a better adjective for Guillaume's shape than fat or stocky. His barrel chest and sturdy, tree-trunk legs provided the strength and support a voice like his required.

  And Larabeth did love Guillaume's voice. It was round, low, powerful, an instrument fit for a prophet or a demon. He didn't speak with a definable accent, but his speech retained a faint flavor, just a scent, of his ancestral French. His voice was a rare blessing and he used it freely.

  Even now, he had beckoned the waitress to him and she stood in thrall as, with that voice, he exchanged mundane pleasantries and ordered a plate of etouf. Larabeth had watched him incite a crowd to acts of civil disobedience that would surely get them arrested. He was lavishing as much effort and attention on this one waitress as he had on crowds of hundreds or thousands.

  The effect was the same. Larabeth could tell. The woman's face was alight. Guillaume made her feel as if she were the only person in the room.

  Larabeth ordered her po-boy. The waitress gave her a perfunctory nod, then rushed to the kitchen to make sure Mr. Langlois's etouf had plenty of crawfish in it and to secure the fresh bottle of Tabasco sauce that he had requested.

  Guillaume turned his attention to Larabeth and she felt the sun come out. Fortunately, she was well aware of his charm and, while she enjoyed it, she rarely allowed herself to be swayed by it. As long as she knew Guillaume for what he was and what he was not, there was no harm in enjoying his company.

  “And so, cherie, we find ourselves with a common enemy,” he said, beaming at the waitress as she delivered their order. “Who would have considered it possible?”

  “You don't have to behave like we're exact opposites,” she sputtered through a crispy mouthful of French bread. “I care about the environment, too, you know. And sometimes I feel like I'm doing some real good, cleaning up contamination and keeping my clients honest. Or as honest as possible, anyway. Maybe I think my approach is more constructive than yours.”

  “I eschew ‘constructive.’ It is neither hot nor cold; I spew it from my mouth.”

  “Really, Guillaume.” Larabeth speared a choice crawfish tail off his plate and popped it in her mouth. “I doubt if your followers understand half of what you say. Wouldn't it help if you dumbed your vocabulary down and bypassed
the biblical allusions?”

  “Have you no imagination?” he roared. His waitress friend looked up, concerned, from the table she was clearing.

  He lowered his voice a bit and continued. “They love the oratory. You don't have to understand the word ’matricide’ to feel anger when you hear that Mother Earth is being raped and murdered. They understand my message, however I say it, and they are moved to action. And the few, the ones who hear me and understand everything, they are the heart, the soul, the brains, of our movement. They are the people who make things happen. They, Larabeth,” he looked into her eyes and she felt an unreasoning desire to leave BioHeal and save the world, “they are like you and me.”

  Reminding herself that it was never wise to let Guillaume control a conversation, she broke in. “Since you admit that we do have something in common, then the fact that we have a common enemy is not so surprising as you seem to think.”

  Guillaume's fork paused halfway to his mouth. He set it down and busied himself with the Tabasco sauce. After a moment, he said, “Touch. My associates don't understand why I associate with you. Perhaps I shouldn't tell you this, but they call you the ‘Corporate Whore.’”

  “How charming.”

  “Perhaps one out of a hundred understands me when I say that a thoughtful and articulate adversary is more educational than an army who thinks as you do. The other ninety-nine give me a blank look and ask whether it's time to go chain ourselves to another nuclear facility.”

  Larabeth poked at her food for so long that Guillaume, uncharacteristically tentative, asked, “Have I said the wrong thing?”

  “No,” she said, pausing again. “I was just thinking. Somebody else just referred to me as a worthy adversary. I've been getting crank calls from some weirdo. I think he broke into my house, or hired someone to do it, and I think he had something to do with those strange animal killings. Maybe he chose fifty targets that he considered worthy adversaries. He calls himself Babykiller. You haven't heard from him, have you?”