Cold Bullets and Hot Babes. Arlette Lees

the bed.

      Women! They were the cause of all his problems. Any fool could see that. First Charleen goes and gets knocked up. That was damn inconsiderate. Then Suzette sinks his truck and tells him to hit the road with only the clothes on his back. He slapped her a couple times in the face before he left the room...not so hard as he’d hit a man...I mean, he wasn’t a monster...just enough to punish her for all the trouble she’d caused.

      He rummaged through her purse and cleaned out her wallet. He heard something again. Suzette sobbed quietly from the bedroom but that wasn’t it. He walked slowly to the back of the house and turned on the deck lights. Nobody out there. No raccoons wandering about. He stepped outside. Frogs croaked in the darkness beyond the circle of light. He slapped a mosquito on his neck. There was an occasional splash as fish jumped among the reeds.

      He walked to the edge of the deck and looked down. For some inexplicable reason he thought of the voodoo woman and her curse. You’d have to be a real hayseed to believe in that superstitious crap. Then again, he had to admit his nerves were a bit on edge.

      Tap. Tap. Tap. He laughed out loud. There was a kid’s white ball floating among the pilings. He shrugged off the tension. Then the ball rolled over and it didn’t look so much like a ball anymore. The skulls mouth was open wide as if it wanted to go on screaming until Louisiana seceded from the union. One pale ice blue eye remained lodged in the socket. It stared right into Jeeter’s face.

      Jeet screamed all the way to the truck. He’d run the gamut of redbones, losing a pant leg and both of his shoes and sustaining various abrasions and contusions.

      The moment Suzette heard the truck rip out of the yard she strained against the handcuff and with her free hand grabbed the cordless phone she kept under the edge of the bed. She punched in the number of the sheriff’s department and broke into sobs when DuBois picked up.

      Étienne flew over the wrecked road to Bayou Sang. His deputies intercepted Jeeter just before he turned onto the interstate. They hauled him into the station kicking and screaming and babbling about voodoo curses and a skull with a blue eye afloat in Blood Bayou.

      “Pierre never was quite right in the head,” said Deputy LaRoque.

      “The booze finally fried his brain,” said Deputy Chevalier.

      Étienne found Suzette bruised, battered, and half-naked. The dog was curled up next to her shoulder. He wagged his tail when he saw the sheriff. The scene was self-explanatory, implying something vicious and incestuous. The sweet Suzette did nothing to correct the misconception. He released her from the cuff, took her in his arms and held her close to his chest.

      “Pierre’s gone crazy as a coon,” she whispered.

      “He’s always been crazy as a coon. Don’t you think it’s time we tied the knot so I can take care of you?”

      * * * *

      The prisoner swore up and down that he was not Pierre Marquet. He was Jeeter Tate and his wife just won the California lotto. He’d never eaten a crawdad in his life. He didn’t speak French. He said he’d driven to Louisiana in a truck he couldn’t locate and had identity papers he could not find. The deputies laughed their asses off.

      Suzette was brought into the station to give a statement. “I’ve been living in terror for over a month,” she said. “One night Pierre got drunk and attacked me. When Uncle Rémy came to my defense there was a terrible fight. Rémy knocked out two of Pierre’s teeth...just look for yourself...at that point Pierre grabbed his shotgun and killed my uncle. He threw his body to the alligators. When I threatened to tell Étienne what had happened, he went nuts. He can make up any name he wants, but what other man has eyes like his?”

      The D.A. heard every word from his chair in the corner.

      “As absurd as it seems, let’s give this man every opportunity to clear his name before he gets what’s coming to him. Fly that woman out from California and we’ll listen to what she has to say.”

      Jeeter breathed a sigh of relief. Suzette shifted nervously in her chair.

      Charleen Tate walked into the interrogation room two days later. She looked like a million bucks in her pink Chanel suit and triple strand of pearls. Awaiting her arrival were Sheriff DuBois, Suzette, the D.A. and Jeeter.

      “Baby doll,” said Jeeter when she looked his way. “I’m so glad you came to clear things up.”

      “Well,” said Étienne, “is this your husband?”

      “I’ve never seen this man before in my life,” she said.

      “CHARLEEN! It’s me, Jeeter, the father of those sweet baby boys.”

      Everyone in the room burst out laughing.

      “Believe me, Sheriff,” she said. “when you win the lotto every Tom, Dick and Harry crawls out of the woodwork.”

      The D.A. extended his hand. “So sorry to have inconvenienced you Mrs. Tate. I think we now have all the evidence we need.”

      As she left the room she looked at Suzette and winked.

      Out on Blood Bayou the moon turned the water to silver. Two skulls floated side by side downstream.