The Devil's Laughter

by William W. Johnstone

  “Back window. I busted it. Car’s parked around behind the building. Meet me back there. I gotta get out of here. Smell’s makin’ me sick.”

  They met Ray at the broken window. He crawled out and took several deep breaths. “Tough in there, boy. Damn, but it’s rough.”

  Link looked at the sawed-off riot gun in Ray’s hand. It would be loaded up full with three-inch magnum rounds, probably double-ought buckshot. Ray was taking no chances.

  “Ray Ingalls, Anne Brooks. She’s the new vet in town.”

  “Ma’am,” Ray said. “Sorry we have to meet under such . . . odd conditions.”

  “That’s all right, Sheriff. I had ghosts in my house all night long.”

  Ray looked at her very strangely, not sure how to respond to that.

  “She moved into the old Garrison place,” Link explained.

  Ray shook his head. “Things just get weirder and weirder” he said.

  “Did you locate the source of the smell?” Link asked.

  “Yeah. But not what it is. This place has steel doors and my pry-bar wouldn’t come close to opening the damn thing.”

  “I’ve got a sledge hammer in my pickup,” Link said. “You and Anne stay here. I’ll pull around and we’ll find out what’s going on here.”

  “I’m not all that sure I want to look inside that room,” Ray said. “I know I got to; but I don’t want to.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Link said.

  Ray had cut his hand and ripped his jacket crawling through the narrow broken window; they were industrial windows, the muntins and sashbars made of metal, so Link hammered at the outside steel door and finally busted it open. The door yawned inward. The shadows that greeted them from the interior were not at all inviting.

  “Gross,” Anne said as the smell became stronger.

  Ray clicked on his flashlight and stepped inside, taking the lead. “Be careful,” he told them. “There’s all sorts of crap littering the floor.”

  “Wait a minute!” Anne said as the beam of light touched an object on the floor. “Sheriff, that’s a human bone!” She knelt down beside the gray, dust-covered bone. “Part of a foot,” she said, standing up and brushing the cobwebs from her jeans.

  “What the hell have we stumbled into?” Ray asked.

  “And what are we going to find behind that door?” Link questioned.

  “You two wait right here,” Ray said. “I’m calling in for Gerard.”

  “If it’s all the same,” Anne said, “we’ll walk outside with you.”

  Ray tried a smile. “I don’t blame you one bit.”

  The sheriff called in on their tach frequency, a very high band that ordinary scanners could not pick up. Gerard highballed it out, arriving sooner than anyone expected. Tom Halbert was with him.

  The deputies took a sniff and grimaced. “Dead rotting meat,” Gerard said.

  “Yeah,” Ray agreed. “It’s coming from a room near the back. Steel door. Like every damn door in this place, it seems like. We’re gonna have to hammer out the dead bolt.”

  Link handed the sledge hammer to Tom. He smiled. “You’re younger, my friend. Have a go at it.”

  “And take a deep breath of fresh air while you can,” Anne said after being introduced all around.

  “You want to stay out here, Anne?” Gerard suggested. “It’s probably going to get pretty grim in there.”

  “Not a chance,” she told him firmly. “I’m spooked enough already.”

  “She bought the old Garrison place.” Ray said.

  “Is that supposed to mean something?” Tom asked.

  “Tell you later,” the sheriff said. “Let’s go beat that door in.”

  They ventured into the gloom, on their way to the locked door, the smell growing more intense with each careful step.

  “This place is eerie,” Tom said.

  “Somebody else agrees with me,” Anne said.

  It didn’t take Tom long, with a twelve-pound sledge and a lot of muscle, to hammer out the dead bolt. The horrible smell struck them full force from the windowless room. Ray lifted his flashlight.

  Anne screamed, and Tom lost his just-eaten lunch.

  The rotting, maggot-covered body of a man hung naked from a meat hook. Ray grunted and turned his head as the smell very nearly sickened him to the point of echoing Tom’s reaction.

  Link took the flashlight and shone the beam onto the man’s chest. When he spoke, his voice was flat and emotionless. “Looks like somebody cut out his heart.”

  Chapter 6

  Anne was badly shaken. It was with no small amount of relief on Tom’s part when Link asked him to lead her back outside.

  “You want me to call the Troop?” Tom asked.

  “Not yet. Stand by. I’ll give you a holler. And, Tom? Nearly everybody tosses their cookies first time they come up on something like this. Damn sure isn’t anything to be ashamed of. I know fine cops that have been working for years and they still do it every time they see it. So don’t sweat it. Get her out of here.”

  “I’ll get the camera,” Gerard said, and followed Anne and Tom outside.

  Ray looked at Link. “Didn’t seem to shake you up much.”

  “You ever seen what Central American death squads leave behind them, Ray? Or what happens to a man when electrical charges are hooked on his testicles, a metal rod is shoved up his ass, and the juice is turned on? Or what happens to a young woman when she doesn’t cooperate and then is stripped naked and tossed into a room filled with mentally deranged men?”

  “Jesus Christ, no!”

  “I have.”

  Ray stared at him. “Couldn’t you guys have stopped it?”

  “We stopped it a lot of times. The liberal press enjoys pointing out our failures. But we can’t brag about our successes.” He pointed to the man hanging from a meat hook. “Dead two . . . three weeks, Ray?”

  “I’d say so. It’s been awfully cool. That slowed it down some. Why would they want his heart?”

  “To eat, probably.”

  That did it. Ray turned his head and vomited on the floor. “Goddamn you, Link!” He straightened up and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “It’s common practice in devil worship. Appeasing the Dark One, or calling him out, or whatever. I’ve done several articles on devil worship. Many covens are quite harmless. Many more are very dangerous. I think we’ve got a very dangerous one in this parish. And so does Gerard.”

  “I hear my name mentioned?” the chief deputy asked, walking up with the 35mm, flash attached.

  “You know what he said?” Ray asked, pointing at Link. “He said they probably cut out this poor guy’s heart to eat!”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. Think back, Ray. Over the years. All the incidents we’ve had with cattle and horses mutilated. And not ten drops of blood found around the carcasses.”

  “Well, what the hell are they doing with the damn blood? Drinking it?”

  Gerard looked at Link. “Probably,” Link told him.

  “DearGodJesusinHeaven,” the sheriff said. “I been behind a badge for twenty years. Nothing like this has ever happened to any sheriff that I know of.”

  “Several hundred thousand people disappear every year in this nation, Ray,” Link said, while Gerard began taking pictures from every angle. “Our figures show that about three percent of them are professional whacks....”

  “Professional what?”

  “Assassinations. Probably a good one hundred thousand of those other people are never heard from again. They just vanish forever. How many of them are taken into cults and used like this” – he pointed to the meat-hooked man – “is anybody’s guess.”

  “Did you ever kill anybody on the orders of the CIA, Link?”

  “It’s against Agency policy to engage in assassination, Ray. Relax your mind on that – although an agent will use deadly force if he’s pushed into it.”

  “Wonderful,” the sheriff said. “These
cells of Satan worshipers – that’s not right – they’re called covens, aren’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many missing people a year end up like this poor bastard, Link? In your opinion.”

  “About ten thousand.”

  Gerard stopped taking pictures and looked at Link. Ray’s mouth dropped open. “Ten fucking thousand!” he yelled. “How many of these . . . ah, covens do we have around the nation?”

  “About one hundred and seventy-five thousand.”

  “Are you serious?” Ray practically screamed the words.

  “Yes. That’s one for every town and village in the fifty states and God knows how many in the larger cities.”

  “Where the hell did you get those numbers, Link?”

  “From the FBI.”

  “I’m afraid he’s right,” Special Agent Cliff Sweeney told the sheriff.

  “Well, why the hell didn’t I know that?” Ray demanded. “Why the hell isn’t something being done about it? I feel like a goddamned idiot!”

  Link had taken Anne back to her house and then went home to check on his critters. Gerard and Tom were still at the old plant, along with Louisiana State Police investigators. Special Agent Sweeney – from the Shreveport office of the FBI – had just stopped in for a cup of coffee on his way back home.

  “Settle down, Ray,” Cliff told him. “Ray, articles have been in the National Sheriff magazine, we’ve sent out material on it, the justice department has sent out material, encyclopedias have dealt extensively on the subject, hundreds of independently written articles have appeared in magazines for years . . .”

  Ray held up his hand. “Okay, Cliff. Okay. I get the point. Not enough of us take it seriously, right?”

  “Your words, Ray. Did you really commission Lincoln Donovan, Ray?”

  “Yes. He’s a longtime friend of mine. He’s a good man.”

  “He also spent years in the Pickle Factory,” the Bureau man said with a grimace.

  “The what?” Ray leaned forward.

  “The CIA.”

  “Oh, and what do they call you guys?”

  “The Cabbage Patch Kids,” the Bureau man said tightly.

  Ray grinned. “That’s funny, Cliff.”

  “Yeah. Very amusing. About as amusing as worshiping the devil.”

  Before Ray could respond, his secretary buzzed him. “Gerard just called in, Sheriff. They have a name on the subject found out at Romaire. We’re running it now.”

  “Thanks, Sally.”

  “I’ll stick around, Ray,” Cliff said. “See what develops. Use your phone?”

  “Sure.” Ray stood up and shoved his chair back. “I’ve got to go to the john. Sit here and use this phone.” He really didn’t have to go to the bathroom; he just wanted to get clear of his office before Cliff got on his religion kick. The Bureau man was a born-again Christian who took his newly rediscovered faith very, very seriously. Sometimes to the point of driving other people up the wall with it. He also had absolutely no sense of humor. None whatsoever.

  Ray was also a decent Christian man who attended church whenever possible. But for Ray, religion was a private matter between himself and God.

  Cliff was also very nearly a fanatic on law and order and doing everything right by the book, never deviating from it. It had been said that Cliff Sweeney could clear a room faster than a case of mumps.

  Ray waited for the computer come-back on the name of the deceased. It came in very quickly. The young man had been reported missing from his parents’ home in Butte, Montana several months back. Last seen in the company of two men and one woman, traveling in a van with Louisiana plates. Tag number unknown. The police in Montana listed it as kidnapping.

  Ray took the computer sheet back to his office and handed it to Cliff. The Bureau man nodded his head. “All right. We’re in it. Let’s go see the body. You told Gerard to leave it in place?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Very distasteful business,” Cliff said.

  “Stinks, too,” Ray said dryly.

  The Bureau man glanced at him. Ray kept his expression bland. “No point in duplicating efforts,” Cliff said. “We’ll take my car.”

  Wonderful, Ray thought.

  Link saw to his animals, then drove up the road to Anne’s place. She had invited him over for a drink. Billy and Betsy were delightful kids, but it was dislike at first sight between Link and Chris. The seventeen-year-old was sullen and bad-mannered and had a mean look in his eyes. Link didn’t trust him and would have been uneasy turning his back on the young man.

  Chris left the room shortly after Link made his appearance.

  “Going to do your homework?” Anne called to his back.

  “Not damn likely,” the boy replied. He slammed the door to his bedroom. Heavy metal music drifted out to the den.

  Anne turned her head, but not before Link saw the tears in her eyes.

  Billy and Betsy were in their rooms, doing homework.

  “No good clear through,” Anne said, wiping her eyes with a tissue. “Never has been. He was a mean, vicious child and he’s a mean, vicious, dangerous young man. It’s a terrible thing for a parent to have to admit. I’ve tried to get him straightened out so many ways. But it’s hopeless. I don’t trust him, and I don’t like him.” She fixed her eyes on Link. “Tell me the truth if I ask you a question?”

  “Even if it hurts?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right.”

  “Your first impression of Chris?”

  “He’s a sneaky little punk. I wouldn’t want to turn my back on him.”

  She smiled, but there was a bitterness to it. “Thank you. The few other men I’ve allowed in my life since my husband was killed always wanted to whitewash Chris. You know the lines. ’Oh, he’ll grow out of it. He’s basically a good boy.’ Drivel after drivel. Are you always this blunt, Link?”

  “Usually. Turns off a lot of folks.”

  “Not me. I want the truth from people. Let me fix you a drink.”

  “Whiskey and water, please.”

  “Same way I drink it.” She walked to the liquor cabinet and unlocked it. “I have to keep it locked. Chris will steal it all if I don’t.”

  “Has he seen psychiatrists?”

  “A lot of them. The only one I felt was telling me the truth said that the first time he talked with Chris he wanted to jerk the boy up and beat the shit out of him. He said Chris is a pathological liar and is more than likely a sociopath. That makes me uneasy at times.”

  “Now that is one shrink I believe I could get to like. Most of them make excuses for punks and crap-heads in general.”

  “Not this one. He was a street punk in his youth and says it’s easy to break out of it. He said those that don’t just won’t. Period. He says some people are born with the bad seed in them. And the best thing for them and society is a bullet in the head.”

  Link laughed out loud. “I know I like this fellow.” He took the drink she held out for him and sat down in an easy chair. “Has Chris ever tried to harm you?”

  “Not . . . really. After my husband was killed, and I saw that our criminal justice system doesn’t give a damn for the rights of those of us who obey the law and pay the taxes, and I moved to L.A., I joined a club out there and learned how to shoot. I have a .22 pistol, a 20-gauge shotgun, and a Beretta .380. Just like yours. I am proficient with all my weapons.”

  Which meant, Link thought, that she was very, very good with the guns.

  Anne added, “Chris knows that I can and will shoot anybody who tries to hurt Billy, Betsy, me, or any of my patients. He’s just a little bit afraid of me. But I’ll tell you this, Link: I’m weary of having to lock up my purse, the car keys, my liquor, what jewelry I have . . . anything of value. If I don’t, Chris will steal it and sell it or hock it for dope or booze money. I’m at wit’s end with him.” She stared at him. “You’re too damn easy to talk to, Link.”

  “I listen, Anne. That’s something most people do
n’t do.” The music became suddenly very loud.

  Anne stood up, her face angry. “I’ll be right back and then we’ll have supper.” She marched down the hall and hammered on Chris’s door. “Turn it down, Chris. Right now.”

  “Go to hell!” he yelled at her. “And get off my goddamn back.”

  “That’s all, boy,” Link muttered. He walked across the room and reached the hallway just in time to see the door being jerked open and Anne shoved hard against the wall. Chris stepped out and smacked her on the side of the jaw. The woman’s eyes rolled back and she crumpled bonelessly to the carpet, blood leaking from one side of her mouth.

  Billy and Betsy stood in their open bedroom doors, eyes wide with shock and fear.

  Chris grinned at Link. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a switchblade knife, popping it open. “Come on, pops,” he taunted Link. “You wanna little taste of this . . . come get it.”

  Link thought of just hauling out his pocket pistol and shooting the creep. But that might not set too well with his mother.

  He reached into the hall bathroom and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around his left arm and hand. “Okay, punk,” Link told him. “Let’s see how good you are.”

  Chapter 7

  Chris backed up as Link advanced. Billy and Betsy ran to their mother.

  “Don’t try to move her,” Link told them, his eyes fixed on Chris and the knife. “Just stay with her.”

  “Hurt him bad and then get him out of this house, Mr. Link,” ten-year-old Betsy said. “All he does is steal things and make mother cry.”

  “Shut your mouth, you little bitch!” Chris yelled at her.

  “If I had a gun, I’d shoot you myself!” Billy told his brother.

  “When I get through with this old dude here,” Chris told him, “I’m gonna cut your balls off.”

  “Well, stand still, punk,” Link told him. “You can’t back up much further, unless you plan on making a new door in that wall.”

  Chris stopped, holding the knife in front of him. Link had a suspicion the kid had used that knife before. He was holding it just right.