All Saints' Secrets (Saints Mystery Series Book 2)

by Nicole Loughan

  Terry drove at length this time and did not stop for over an hour by my estimate. When the truck stopped I was still soaking wet from the water sloshing in the back, and I was getting cold. I heard Terry get out of the truck and slam the door. I thought he was going to come let me out. Instead I heard him say, “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” the other voice said. It was familiar but I couldn’t place it.

  “Why are you looking for me?” Terry asked.

  “I wanted to make sure you didn’t leave town without me, gator boy,” the other voice said.

  “I wouldn’t do that. We had a deal,” Terry said.

  Then I heard a slamming sound on the side of the truck and the other man said, “Where have you been all day? And the answer better be damn good because if it’s not, I’m going to kill you.”

  I heard Terry breathlessly say, “I got the money. I told you I could get the money and I got it. It’s in the front.”

  I heard the other man stomp to the front of the truck and then when he came out he said, “It’s in a purse. Whose purse is that, Terry?”

  Terry said, “Shit.” Then the man stomped to the back of the truck and lifted the gate.

  “Terry, you brought me a present.”

  That time I heard his voice clear as a bell, and I knew it was Stepwald.

  My back was to him, but I could hear and feel him jump up into the truck behind me. He was much bigger than Terry, and I could feel the difference when the truck gave way. He walked behind me and set his shoe on my ribs.

  “My old hillbilly friend, Fanchon. You are so much improved from where I left you. You won’t fare so well this time, I am sorry to tell you,” he said, and I felt his shoe leave my rib. Before I knew it, he stomped his foot where it just was, and I heard a crack reverberate through my chest. I let out a muffled scream.

  Terry said nervously, “I want to go. Can we just go? We shouldn’t be wasting time with anymore bullshit.”

  “No, no, no,” Stepwald said. “I have been waiting on this one. And if I don’t do what I live for, why live?”

  Terry said, “What you do is damn wasteful.”

  Stepwald put his one good hand under my back and his stumped hand with a hook on it under my legs. He carried me out of the truck, and I could see we were way out in swamp country. There were thick trees around us, the ground was wet, and the water of the swamp was just a few paces away from a big garage made of white sheet metal. I thought I had seen the backside of the garage before, but I couldn’t be sure. If I was right, we weren’t far off from my family home.

  Stepwald carried me, and Terry walked behind him holding my purse stuffed with loose money. I could see him looking down and shaking his head.

  Once in the garage Stepwald sat me in a chair and asked Thibodeax, “Do you want this one before I waste her, as you call it? I need to get something from the house for her, a present for old time’s sake.” My guess was it was the alligator tooth sword he used to kill Josephine.

  Terry said, “Thanks, but I’ve already had this one.” I jumped out of the chair, but with my legs bound only managed to get up and land on my side. I started screaming from behind my rag. If he could have heard me he would have heard, “No you haven’t, you lying asshole.”

  Stepwald laughed at me and said, “I guess Fanchon doesn’t know you two have been intimate.”

  Stepwald bent to my face again and listened to me cursing through the rag. “Give me one of those pills, Thibodeax,” he said. “Even with one leg this one might be stronger than you, and I am not losing her again.”

  Terry held out a little white pill, Stepwald took it, pulled down the rag on my face and stuffed it into my mouth. He held his hand over my lips while I screamed and thrashed my head struggling for breath. It started to dissolve quickly, but I put as much of it in front of my teeth as I could and when he let his hand off I got some of it out.

  Stepwald left me then with Thibodeax who looked terrified about what to do with me. I stared him down from my position on the floor. He started moving the money from my purse to a duffle bag while he talked.

  “You’re probably wondering if I was telling the truth,” he said. “I’m sorry to tell you I am. I am a sick man, and I know it. Hardly a girl around school that missed me, ‘cept of course Josephine. She was too careful. Never let her guard down. And damned if she wasn’t the one I wanted most.”

  I tried to talk through the rag to ask when I let my guard down, but it came out as mumbles. It seemed he knew what I meant and said, “Same way I always do, Fanchon. I help my friends, and then I help myself.”

  I had only ever been with one man or boy really. So, I knew exactly who it would have been and said, “Damn you Jori.”

  I said it clear enough through the rag that Thibodeax knew what I said.

  He was still transferring bills and not looking at me when he added, “Jori don’t know, just like Jimmy din’t know. I drug those boys too, just not as much. I know from those cop shows if you have sex wit a man you was gonna have sex wit they can’t tell if somebody else had you too, as long as you careful, and I am.”

  I felt ashamed. I had prided myself on being relatively chaste. I didn’t sleep around, and I dated Jori for a year before I let him lay a hand on me. I knew Banyan seven months before he almost laid a hand on me.

  I heard a noise outside and turned my head to the door. Terry did too, and he looked scared.

  “I’m sorry about all this, Fanchon. I never meant to get you killed, and I really never meant to get Josephine killed. But this guy he came down a few years back to get an alligator. I say, ‘Sure man, you pay enough, I get you an alligator.’ Den he follows me and watches me. This guy knows what I do, and he been lordin’ it over me all de time. He tells me he likes de picture of the Cajun Queen I keep in my house. He said he wants to find her. He say it fate she in New York and he from New York. I never wanted what he did for any of you.”

  I muffled an expletive at him. He continued trying to explain what happened with panic in his voice. “I been trying to get him to leave. I feed him, and I give him a truck, but he just won’t go. I don’t want to help him, but he knows too much. He threatened to tell all I done. I suppose it will all be out now the police have seen Lisette. All I can do is go, Fan. I’m sorry. I gotta go.”

  My head was starting to get fuzzy, but I was not losing all sense. Then I remembered all of the white pills I had been taking from the nurses at the hospital. They started losing their effect weeks ago. Whatever drug Thibodeax had was close enough to my drug that it wasn’t working as well as it should. I started to play it up and acted like I was going to tip over. Thibodeax lunged forward to catch me before I hit the ground. His legs were near my legs, and I took the opportunity to kick my legs under his and knock his feet out from under him. He landed hard on his shoulder, with his back to me. I could see a knife tucked in behind his shirt. I bent down to get it with my tied up hands. I quickly wedged it between my thighs and found it was sharp enough to cut through my rope in one pass. Terry got his bearings and rolled away from me. He reached for his knife. When he realized I had it he jumped up and ran for the bag of money and straight to the truck. I still had the knife and loosened my legs and then tucked the knife under my belt. I pushed up with my arms and put as much weight as I could onto my good leg.

  I was free. I turned and reached for the chair behind me. I held to the back of it, using it like a walker. I hobbled as fast as I could to the door when I heard a scream in the distance and ripping noises. The scream turned to a low gurgle, and I knew Stepwald had just killed Terry Thibodeax.

  When I had made my way to the door of the garage, I could see Jason walking towards it. I knew there was no fair fight between him and I, so I was going to do my best to surprise him. I turned off the lights and went over to the table where I knew my purse was. I grabbed it, slung it over my shoulder and reached in. My fingers found their way to what I was looking for. I wrapped them tightly around t
he tiny glass bottle, pulled my arm all the way back and concentrated hard on where Jason’s head was about to be.

  He opened the door slowly, and I could see his outline, complete with dripping alligator tooth sword in one hand and a hook on the other. He reached over to flick on the light and the moment I saw him I let the hot sauce fly. It hit him square in the forehead shattering on impact and dousing his face and eyes in red. He screamed and reached his hands up to his face to try to dig it out of his eyes. He was not used to the hook enough, because he hooked himself at the corner of his eye. When he pulled it away I couldn’t stand to look. I turned my head and kept flinging bottles in his direction. When I finally dared to look back I saw I had hit him in the arms, the head, and a few made it to the wall. He was still trying to get his hook out of his face and left a fresh gash when he pulled. When I was out of sauces I pulled out the knife, but Jason was running out of steam. He had hit himself too many times and I was sure the sauce blinded him or the hook in the eye did him in.

  He dropped to the floor not long after he had relieved himself of one of his eyeballs entirely, and I was too disgusted to check the damage further. I scanned the garage to see if there was another way out, other than over Stepwald. There was a window at the back of the room, but I was sure it was too high for me to climb.

  I made a few steps to it, when I heard Stepwald’s breathing steady. He sat up when I started moving, and while both eyes were closed and his face was covered in blood, he still seemed to be looking for me. “You still here?” he said and reached out in front of him. I did not think I could make it past him without him hearing the scrape of my chair. I decided to try for the window. I moved, hobble slide, hobble slide, to the back window and when I got there I stood up on the chair using my good leg. I saw that below the window was a few feet of land then swamp. The fall from the window would be just a few feet. I turned to check on Stepwald who was up and moving his arms in front of him and slowly walking towards me.

  I pushed open the sliding glass and pulled with my arms as hard as I could to lift myself like a gymnast on the pommel horse. My newly strengthened arms amazed me, and I said a quick thank you to Abolina. I remembered when Madame Claire told me that the Chabert girls were watching over me, and I thought this must be what she meant. I got up and over the window and was lowering myself down the other side when Stepwald reached out and grabbed the one hand still holding onto the sill. He dug his nails into the back of my hand to try to keep me, but when I let go of the sill my hand slid easily away, leaving only a tiny bit of my skin under his nails. He tried to reach out from the window, but I was already on the ground hopping with my good leg to get around the garage. To my surprise, Jason bounded through the window in a quick jump and was on the ground only a few feet from me. He threw out his good arm to try to grab me. The air from it was too close for comfort.

  Even without his vision he wasn’t giving up. He was one step away when I looked to the water, and for the second time in my life I choose to take my chances with the alligators before I took them with Jason Stepwald. I jumped in and started a back float towards what I hoped was my parent’s house. Jason trudged into the water but the crickets and toads took on my cause and covered my sounds with their noises. He had no idea which way I had gone.

  The Lady in the Water

  I floated for a long while, and the swamp was as peaceful as ever. A full moon was out and followed me as I floated under the treetops. I laid on my back and lifted my arms over my head using them to propel me slowly down the river. I felt a stitch in one side when I pulled so I kept it slow and easy. A little green snake startled me when it slid across my shin, but he just stopped for a moment to look at me then moved on. I did likewise for him. I even passed the occasional alligator, but other than turning their heads as I passed, they left me alone. I knew in quick order that I was not far from my family home.

  I never felt safe going there, but right then I had no choice. I couldn’t wait to get to the police to tell them what happened to Lisette. I felt better about the world knowing Jimmy wasn’t a rapist and that Terry was. It all made sense. Then I stopped to think about that. If Lisette was an accident then why did somebody kill the tweed man? I drifted along and thought of the girl in the water. She had been coming in and out of my dreams when I was on painkillers. I closed my eyes and thought of her, with the slight buzz I had going from what Stepwald shoved in my mouth, and I started to see her. She was faded, but nearer to me than she had been. “Are you Fanchon?” I asked her and she nodded her head. “Were you always me? Were you showing me now?” She turned her head back and forth to say no. “Am I still in danger?” She nodded. “What do I do?” I asked her, and she did not answer. She started to fade away again. I yelled to her, “I don’t understand what you mean by wrong time.”

  I was sobering up and without the haze of the pills she was gone. When I checked back in to my surroundings they were unchanged. The same crickets and bullfrogs were still croaking and chirping.

  I made it to my family property at long last, and I floated right up to the porch of my parents’ house. Their home was small and black; the walls and floors were the black color that untreated wood took on after years of abuse from the elements. The roof was a rusted red tin. It was the type of place that if you saw it you would hope nobody lived there. It looked like a dreary place to rest your head, and it was, but that night it was my salvation.

  I pulled myself onto the porch and lay on my belly there for a long while. After I caught my breath, I pulled myself over to a rocking chair and got up to a sitting position. I sat there still groggy trying to get the energy I needed to go in. I took in my status. I had a minor head injury, and I was soaking wet, but I was still in one piece and to my surprise had managed not to put weight on my bad leg. How’s that for following doctor’s orders?

  I sat on the porch for a long while being quiet, trying to calm myself from the fright. Finally, I stood up and hopped over to the door. I gave it a soft knock and waited. Rivet came to the door and swung it open with vigor. When he saw it was me, he looked startled.

  “Jesus, Fanchon. What happened to you? Everybody has been out looking for you.” He held out his hand and for the first time in a long time my skin touched my father’s. It was cold, and I could feel every bone and tendon as he moved. He guided me into the kitchen. It was dark and could be mistaken for something out of the colonial era. They still used a wood burning potbelly stove, and the cabinets were dark knotted wood. The shoddy construction left small cracks in the floor through which parts of the swamp were visible. It was a makeshift house and a crude home. I sat at one of the chairs by the dining table and saw that the clutter had piled up in the home since the last time I had been there. The place was littered with newspaper and trash.

  “Where’s Mom?” I asked.

  “She’s in her room. She’s been taking to it a lot lately,” he said.

  “Should we tell her I’m here? Hasn’t she been worried?” He held his finger to her lips. “Not just now. She’s not having a good day.”

  He stood up and started for the phone on the wall. I noticed he was walking with a limp and making slow progress to the phone.

  “Are you okay, Dad?” I asked, genuinely concerned.

  I got up and made my way to him, using the wall as a guide. When I reached the opening for the living room I saw that there were piles upon piles of paper in there too. On the mantle in the living room I noticed the picture of Josephine and I at the plantation framed and hung.

  “Dad?” I said. “Where did you get that photo?”

  “What photo, cher?” he said lifting the phone off of the receiver.

  I pointed to the living room. “The one over the mantle piece.”

  He closed his eyes and sat the phone back on the receiver. “I’m sorry, Fanchon.”

  “Sorry for what, Dad? Where did that picture come from?”

  I was still standing awkwardly a few steps from him holding onto the wall for support
. He took my hand and guided me back to the table.

  “There is something your mother and I have been meaning to tell you, girl, and we better get it out now before the police come.”

  “I know the tweed man had that picture, Dad. How did you get it?”

  He held his finger up to his lips again and shushed me. “Your momma needs her rest.”

  He took off his hat, and I could see that he had lost all but a few wisps of white hair. “We never told you the truth about all this because we did not want to ruin your life. It all started with Helene. When you were kids you and Helene were friendly girls and played together while your mother did wash for the Baxter’s. The day Helene died the two of you were playing by the river. Your momma was on the hill hanging the sheets and saw the two of you in the water, playing. She said she looked away for a time and when she checked back, Helene was in the water and you were holding her down. She ran to you and reached into the water to pull Helene out. She said by the time she did, Helene had stopped breathing and her lips were blue.”

  I closed my eyes and started to remember.

  I saw the woman from my dream. Then I realized I had seen her before as a child. I finally understood what she meant about the wrong time. My mind was mixing her with Lisette. When I took away the vision of Lisette I saw a child in the water. My momma was holding the girl with the green dress and dark hair over the water. My mother was looking down at her, whispering something sweet and brushing the little girls’ hair out of her face.

  “After your mother saw what happened to the girl, she heard Mrs. Baxter calling from the house. Your momma was afraid of what would happen if they knew you had drowned Helene so she set her back in the water. She pushed her down river before anybody took notice.”

  I remembered my mother laying the girl in the water and waving to her as she floated away. I was standing with her and saw her face covered in tears. She held me tight to her leg and told me to be quiet.