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Jacob stood between the dirty white sheers, and watched BJ trot across the back yard, blond curls bouncing with each footfall. The light of a Long Night Moon cast an eerie pallor on the limbs of the old moss gatherer.
She yanked open one of the barn doors. Turned her head and looked up at him.
He ran out of his parent’s bedroom, down the stairs, and out the back door. Didn’t stop running until he reached the inside of the barn.
Lamplight?
He made his way toward the center, constantly looking all around him.
Where’d she go?
BJ revealed her hiding place, a wide wooden support column beneath the loft. She held a handgun behind her back, a duplicate of Bernie’s gun she’d purchased at a gun show in Baton Rouge. She gripped the front of the wig and slowly peeled it off her head, freeing long spiral curls. Let the hairpiece fall to the floor in a silent heap.
Jacob came a little closer to her, his mouth agape. “Bérénice? Is it really you?” He slapped his forehead. “Holy cow, how stupid of me. BJ. Bérénice Jacquette. The sense of familiarity. I get it.” It had been a long time since they’d been together. He couldn’t believe how much she looked like Mama. At the moment, he was happy to see the only family he had left in the world.
“Good job, Sherlock. Or is it Schein?” Her voice was low and cold.
“Happy birthday, I think. What are you now? Twenty-seven?” The look on her face was unchanged. He massaged his neck. Oh shit. His face grew warm when a vision of dirty-flirty emails hit him. He licked his lips. I didn’t know it was my half-sister.
“I thought I knew why you were here,” he said, “but now I’m not so sure.”
“I struggled to be free of my dreadful past, but people kept pulling me back. Edgar Allan Poe said it best when he said ‘I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down’. I’d had enough of looking over my shoulder and feeling ill at ease. So one by one the deed was done. Bones to dust, revenge is just, eh?”
“I’m confused,” he said. “Are you telling me you’re a murderer? Damn, girl. Are you the serial killer the city’s hunting for?”
“Maybe.” A blasé shrug.
Everything that had happened since the day he returned to his family’s farm and found the skull and bones by the—
Jacob sucked in his breath. “You killed our papa?”
“Correction: I killed your papa, who killed mine.”
“And Kelly? You came in the house while we were sleeping and, and....” He fought back gruesome images of locusts and wild honey and empty eye sockets. “Why her?”
“She had no right having sex in Mama’s bed. No right to worm her way into our lives.”
“Jeebus, Bérénice. The woman named Sue that was found in an alley, was that your doing?”
“I sensed she was going to be a problem for me somewhere along the way since you tried to meet her. I waited in the alley. Pretended to cry. Told her my dog ran in there. He’s hurt, and I don’t have my cell phone to call for help. Long story short, she fell for it. Literally.”
“And the hooker? Her, too?”
“Seeing that garbage with you disgusted me.”
“Please don’t tell me you killed the cop, the young rookie.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
“Good lord,” he said quietly. “You killed them all.”
“Yes,” she said as evenly as possible. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
She stepped forward. Jacob instinctively took two steps back.
“You never knew about the horrific things that were done to me when I was little,” she said. “I’m sure Virgil never told you. I wasn’t his, therefore, I didn’t exist. Just so you know, I took special delight in getting rid of Uncle Jessup and the missus.”
Her eyes seemed to glaze over with the memory.
“I walked right into their cabin by the swamp, one night. Living in the middle of nowhere, I reckoned they assumed locking their doors wasn’t necessary. I administered a majick powder containing fresh remains of poisonous toads, nettles, and a number of other ingredients along with a potent toxin found in the organs of pufferfish. Tore their clothes off. Went outside. Uncle Jessup hadn’t unhooked the flatbed trailer from his pickup truck from when he went to a lumber store a few days before and bought roofing material. I backed up the truck and trailer close to the door. Dragged them out of the cabin, one at a time, then up the ramp of the flatbed where I put them on top of leftover shingles and tarpaper. They were paralyzed but completely aware. I drove backward to the bald cypress tree, forty feet from the cabin. The same tree where Uncle Jessup hung me one stormy afternoon, and made me fight for my life until I agreed to let him have his way with me. Unsure how long they’d be in a vegetative state, I bound their wrists with zip ties. Pressed a wide piece of duct tape over their mouth in case anyone was in hearing distance. Each stared unblinking as I tightened a noose around their neck, slung the loose end over the branch then tied it to the trailer. I drove forward. Uncle Jessup and the missus were whisked off the flatbed, towed across the ground and halfway up the tree. They hung there, as stiff and still as Mama’s old white sheers, slowly choking to death. I wasn’t satisfied. I went to the kitchen and found what I needed. I slashed the bottoms of their feet with a soup can lid I dug out of the trash, for all the times they made me eat cold and greasy soup right out of the can. I used garden shears on Uncle Jessup to cut off the thing that offended me. Standing on the flatbed, I pitched chunks of raw meat in the water, and some on the bloody ground beneath their feet. A gator rose to the surface. Then three more. I slowly backed up the truck again, just enough to lower them closer to the wide mouths of the ravenous creatures. Turned off the motor. Got in my own car, and drove away. When I returned some time later, I had proof positive Uncle Jessup was half the man I always knew he was.”
Bérénice threw her head back and cackled witchlike.
“Then you planted your little souvenirs on me.”
“I see you found the little reminder of your own guilt.” Her features hardened. “What did you expect? It was your fault as much as Mama’s for why I was treated so badly. I, I kind of looked up to you, Bernie, but you wanted nothing to do with me. You never came to my rescue. Would you run into a burning building to save me now that we’re together again?” He looked down. “I didn’t think so. If you had acted like a big brother and protected me I wouldn’t have been sent to live with Uncle Jessup in the first place. I wouldn’t have been whipped with a leather strap, dragged by my hair across the yard, then locked in the old firewood bin with wood roaches where I stayed for three days without food or water. I wouldn’t have been stripped naked and forced to kneel on coarse grained salt and peppercorns on the kitchen floor, for hours on end, while the missus read verse after verse from the Bible. Or slapped upside the head if I screamed when she splashed rubbing alcohol on my sores and cuts. Most of all, that smarmy bastard wouldn’t have raped me over and over again! Those two got off easy, just like your papa did.”
“Why in the hell would I have ever wanted to rescue you? When all you’ve ever done is hurt me? And don’t call me Bernie. I despise that name. It’s Jacob,” he shouted at her.
Detective Lucas Cantin entered the barn. Aimed his gun at Donovan.
Wild-eyed, Jacob looked from Cantin to BJ to Cantin. “Shoot her,” he screeched. “Kill the crazy bitch. She’s a murderer.”
BJ shot Cantin.
“Shit!” Jacob fumbled with his jacket, hell-bent on moving it out of the way in order to grasp the butt of his pistol. No sooner had he pointed the gun in her direction than she shot him in the forehead. His gun discharged. The bullet whizzed by, narrowly missing her.
She debated about firing another round into Cantin.
Ran to Jacob and switched guns. Returned to her place.
Gary Northcutt rushed in.
BJ hid the gun behind her back. Burst out crying. “Oh my god, I am so happy to see you,” she wailed. “It was awful. Officer Wentzel was about to kill me. Your partner ran in just in time and shot him. Wentzel’s gun went off. The bullet went wild and hit Cantin.”
Gary knelt down beside Lucas. Slid an arm under his shoulders to lift him up, then cupped a hand over the side of his neck to stem the flow of blood gushing out of the bullet hole.
Lucas saw BJ. His body tensed. “Murrr-derrr.” He raised a shaky hand and pointed a finger at her. His eyes stretching wide, blood gurgling in his throat.
BJ glared at him. Glimpsed at Northcutt to see if he was figuring out what Cantin was trying so hard to tell him. She tightened her grip on the gun, came a little closer.
“Murrr-derrr.” Lucas grasped Gary’s jacket sleeve, he pleaded with his eyes. “Murrduh....” He let go of his last breath, his arm falling to his side.
“I know, Lucas. BJ was almost murdered. Thank you for saving her life.” He wrapped his arms around his partner, held him close.
BJ’s lip curled. She remembered the small gris-gris bag she mailed to Northcutt’s home. The red flannel bag tied with a silver pentagram on a black straw rope holds a secret. Good juju? Or bad, bad mojo? Only time will tell. His fate lies in whether or not he opens the bag.