The priest stopped speaking. Cheyenne heard discordant sounds as the musicians one by one stopped playing and turned to look at her.
“Cheyenne, Cheyenne,” her mom said, turning to her and clutching her shoulders, eyes wide with surprise, worry and confusion. “Cheyenne, that’s just Mr. Lassiter, the substitute teacher and musician, honey, he’s not a—”
“He is—he’s a monster. He seduced Janine—he had her meet up with him. She didn’t want anyone to know. She had a thing for him, and you should have seen the way he looked at her! Mom, he killed her. Stop him, stop him!”
Lassiter, with his flashing dark eyes and a sexy brown lock of hair over his forehead, stared down the aisle between the tombs, gaze hard on Cheyenne. Then he pointed at her and mouthed the words, “You’re dead!”
But he was seen, and the trombone player set down his instrument and went after Lassiter.
The musician, one Jimmy Mercury, was tall and handsome—and built like an ebony battleship. He shouted something to the guitar player next to him, another tall man, maybe eighteen or nineteen, blond and built like a brick house. Lassiter began to run, but he was no match for Jimmy, who had once played as a linebacker for Louisiana State—and now had him trapped with the sandy-haired young man already past him and doubling back to see that he didn’t escape.
Lassiter went down hard. The musicians held him with knees on his back.
Soon the sound of sirens blared through the cemetery, all but shaking marble angels and cherubs.
Once the police were there, chaos reigned in the middle of funeral, as other young people who had been friends with Janine stepped forward, shouting accusations.
Ryan Lassiter protested all the while. There was no physical evidence—not there, not then. This was hysteria, he claimed. But for his own safety, the police assured him, they were taking him in. They would get to the bottom of it.
Cheyenne didn’t really know the outcome that night; her parents called one of their friends—a fellow who had retired from the FBI just a year earlier—and he came over to keep an eye on her if Lassiter got out.
Her father had been a hunter in his younger days; he still had his shotgun.
Cheyenne didn’t see her cousin or Christian again that day; they had disappeared in the melee.
It wasn’t until the next morning—when she was barely awake—that her mother came to sit by her, eyes filled concern once again.
“Cheyenne, they got a search warrant and a warrant for Lassiter’s DNA and...you were right, he was a killer, he killed all those young women... He killed our beautiful Janine. The DNA isn’t back yet, they told me, but they’re sure they’ll get matches. He confessed! He confessed! And...oh, my God, Cheyenne, he was holding another girl. They were able to get to her before...before he killed her. She was locked away, out in a storage shed. He—he would have killed her. He’d already sent her ‘living’ picture to the police. How—how did you just see him there, in the cemetery...and know it was him?”
Cheyenne carefully hid any expression from her mother. “I—I had heard kids talking. All the girls thought he was fine, cool...sexy. Janine wouldn’t have gone with just anyone, but I know that she did think he was an amazing poet and...” She paused, smiling, yet with the sting of tears in her eyes. “It was almost as if Janine was there with me...right there, in the cemetery. And, Mom, I couldn’t let him get away with it.”
Her mother accepted her words.
Ryan Lassiter was tried for all six murders.
He received the death sentence, and began his long route for appeals.
The years went by. When Cheyenne was eighteen and about to leave New Iberia, Iberia Parish, Louisiana, for the big city of New Orleans and an education at Loyola, she went back for a final visit to the cemetery, and the family tomb.
The surname Dumas was chiseled into the arch at the top; it was Cheyenne’s mother’s maiden name. When Cheyenne’s time came, she would have a place waiting for her here, too. Her dad was what they called English, even though he was a mix of Irish, British and more—all American. Her mom had been born in Cajun country and was Cajun to the bone.
Cheyenne loved her heritage, her hometown, but she was ready to move on. And while home would only be about two and half hours away, she felt that she was leaving. And she had to say goodbye to Janine.
She stood by the tomb, her hand upon it, and spoke softly. “I’m heading out this afternoon, moving into my dorm. The big city—well, however big a city NOLA might be. Janine, I’ll never know how, but...you did it. You got that man into prison. The cops had DNA and fingerprints, but even though Lassiter was substitute teaching, he’d managed to submit other fingerprints than his own into the system, so he wasn’t flagged that way. Because of you—and Christian—he was caught. I have a scholarship—I’m going to major in forensics and criminology. I want to help others—and stop others from dying.” She hesitated. Her cousin had been gone for five years now; she still felt overwhelming sadness when she was in the graveyard. “Like you did!” she said softly.
She nearly jumped a mile high when she felt a touch on her shoulder.
Janine was there, still so beautiful, her eyes alive and dark and flashing. And Christian was at her side—standing just slightly behind her, as Janine rather liked others to be.
“You’re still here!” Cheyenne whispered.
Janine smiled, slipping one of her ethereal arms around Christian. “No, no, no—we’re not still here. We don’t hang around in the cemetery—there are many, many better places to be!”
“Especially at Halloween,” Christian said. “So much fun to scare the bejesus out of people at the haunted houses.”
“He’s still such a child,” Janine said, rolling her eyes in mock horror, but with deep affection in her voice. “We go all over.”
“We’re here today for you,” Christian explained. “The living apparently think that the dead hang around in cemeteries and graveyards. I mean, seriously?”
“Am I really seeing you?” Cheyenne whispered.
Janine laughed softly. Cheyenne felt spectral arms around her, as gentle as a whisper of air. “Cousin, I am here, and I am somehow ridiculously free. I’ve got Christian and...the thing is, we don’t know exactly why we’re still here.”
“We just want you to know that we’re watching over you—when we’re not at some big social event that Janine just has to attend!” Christian said.
Janine bopped him on the shoulder, and then her face became sad and serious as she said, “I’ll be there if you need me, Cheyenne. Oh, Cheyenne—remember Maw-Maw?”
Janine was referring to their grandmother, gone now for a good decade.
“Of course,” Cheyenne said.
“She always said someone would have the clairsentience in the family. It’s you—and it’s strong in you. You gave me justice. I will be there for you!”
“We’ll be there,” Christian corrected.
They faded away, and Cheyenne stood alone in the old cemetery, amid the rows of tombs and marble angels, St. Michaels and weeping Madonna statues.
Night was beginning to fall. In the distance, she could see the old plantation house, high up on its hill, well maintained but still haunting in the looming dark with its columns, cupola and Victorian gingerbread balconies. To an unfamiliar observer, the very house could seem dark and evil.
But the house was not frightening to Cheyenne, nor were the darkness or rising mist—or the rows upon rows of tombs that graced the cemetery.
It was not the dead who threatened the innocent.
It was the evil in certain human beings who were very much alive.
Copyright © 2019 by Heather Graham Pozzessere
ISBN-13: 9781488053702
Tangled Threat & Suspicious
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Copyright © 2019 by Heather Graham Pozzessere
Suspicious
Copyright © 2005 by Heather Graham Pozzessere
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