Rougarou II Read online

  Rougarou II

  By

  Judith Ann McDowell

  World Castle Publishing

  http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  World Castle Publishing

  Pensacola, Florida

  Copyright © Judith Ann McDowell 2011

  ISBN: 9781937593117

  Library of Congress Catalogue Number 2011937311

  First Edition 2010

  Second Edition World Castle Publishing October 27, 2011

  http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

  Licensing Notes

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

  Cover Art: Karen Fuller

  Editor: Beth Price

  Prologue

  Viewed from afar, the three-story white house surrounded by lush green lawn and secured by black, wrought-iron fencing, gives the appearance of warm serenity. Up close dark energy uncurling from its shadows allows one to glimpse a far more sinister portrayal.

  The house, known throughout the parish as the Hindel Mansion, harbors a dark secret: A secret reaching back centuries for its strength.

  Townspeople say stories surrounding the mansion, of hauntings and monsters killing young children are but a ruse to draw in the young and simple-minded. The bayou people do not say anything. They know far better than most the far-reaches of the unknown are better left alone and they remain steadfast in their silence of a night the mansion was forced to give up one of its strongest evils. Evil, as the good people of Saint Anthony Parish are about to learn, has little mercy on those who destroy one of its own.

  When the soul is surrounded by darkness

  It is easy to lead the weak

  On a downward spiral

  It is when the soul is touched by light

  One can perceive the real face of evil

  Chapter One

  Donavan Hays looked up to see someone he had hoped never to see again. He laid his pen down on a stack of papers, pushed back his chair to get to his feet as a deputy tapped on his door.

  “Lieutenant Hays,” the man jabbed a thumb in the direction of the visitor, “there’s someone here to see you.”

  “Thanks, Jamison, I see him.” Donavan walked past him.

  “Lieutenant Hays.” The man did not hold out his hand. He stood watching Donavan as he moved towards him.

  “Mr. Hindel. Someone in the department isn’t doing their job. I’m supposed to get a heads-up when a convicted felon comes back into the country. And for sure about one who spent a year locked away in a mental institution for slaughtering an entire family; or, at least most of them.” He didn’t bother to disguise the contempt slipping into his voice. “Then, I guess money has a way of quieting normal police-protocol.” Donavan smiled into the face staring back at him. “Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Hindel?”

  The young man standing before him looked very pale; with light green eyes and lashes so long Donavan wondered if they could be false. His thick, dark hair curled about his white shirt collar and the thin material of his black suit fit his small frame so well it had to have been tailor-made.

  “I didn’t come here to swap pleasantries, Lieutenant Hays.” He drew a slender hand down the length of his blue silk tie. A fastidious gesture not missed by Donavan.

  “All right, then suppose you tell me why you are here.” Donavan seated himself on the edge of a desk, folded his arms across his thick chest to stare over at the man.

  “I came here to let everyone in the sheriff’s department know I have returned to my home. Hopefully, that will deter anyone from inventing a reason to come onto my property. If anyone should come onto my property, now that it is known I am back, I will not hesitate to file trespassing charges and if needed, harassment charges.” His full mouth curled into a sneer. “Do we understand each other, Lieutenant?”

  “Well…well…well! Do my eyes deceive me or is it my old friend Master Lawrence Hindel, returned to the county of the crime?”

  Donavan turned to see his partner, Jack Olivier’, dressed in a light blue, short-sleeved dress shirt, dark blue tie and black jeans. Jack swaggered towards them carrying two cups of coffee in Styrofoam cups, along with a filled paper bag.

  Jack set the cups and bag down on the desk then stepped back, a sardonic grin covering his boyish face. “You shoulda let us know about your return, Lawrence. That way we coulda thrown a kickin’-your-ass-back-outta-the-parish party.” Donavan pushed himself off the desk to move between his partner and the angry man clenching his fists. “Now, Jack, is that any way to greet Mr. Hindel after he came all the way from England to tell us he’s back?”

  Jack walked around Donavan to seat himself behind the desk. Pulling the sack closer, he withdrew a strawberry- filled Danish. “House’s been empty for almost a year, Hindel. Why the return all of a sudden?”

  “Mr. Olivier’, may I remind you, I don’t have to answer to you or anyone in this department about my movements?” He took a step closer to the desk.

  “You may not remind me of anything. I’ll take care of any remindin’ that’s needed. Remember, you’re still a certified nut case! And, I might add, someone the department’s duty-bound to keep an eye on.” Jack wiped his mouth on a paper napkin, threw it back down in front of him. “You may, however, address me as Detective Olivier’, though!” He tossed a bold-lettered nameplate across the desk.

  Lawrence looked down at the etched insignia. “My, my,” he raised steepled hands to his poised lips, “the department must be in dire need of new blood if they took you back, Jack. Last I heard-you got thrown off the force for losing your mind when a certain lady, who will remain nameless, tossed you aside.” A gleam of pleasure lit up his light-colored eyes as flushes of anger crept up Jack’s face. “People who live in glass houses…well, I’m sure you know the rest.” He leaned his hands on the desk, peered into Jack’s hostile face.

  Too late, he realized his mistake as Jack grabbed his expensive silk tie to pull him the rest of the way across the desk. “You gender-flawed little bitch!” Jack shoved back his chair, pushed the wide knot higher up the tie making Hindel gasp for breath. “If you wanna stay half-ass healthy, you’ll keep your disgustin’ little dick the hell outta my way!” He flung the man backward away from him.

  As Hindel got up off the floor, Jack balled his fists.

  Donavan turned the panting man in the direction of the door. “I think it would be a good idea if you left! Now, Mr. Hindel.”

  “Leave?” He shook Donavan’s hand from his shoulder. “I want him arrested for assault!” He pointed a finger at Jack, his pouty lips curving with righteous anger as he saw a look of caustic humor slipping into Jack’s unwavering stare. “You saw what he did to me!” Lawrence smoothed out his rumpled suit-coat as best he could, righted his tie.

  Jack picked up the fallen chair, hung his black denim suit-coat over the back to walk around the desk. “In all honesty, do you think anyone ‘round here’s gonna listen to you, Lawrence?” The name dripped from his lips. “After what you did to the Rawlins family?” Jack shook his head, a wry smile splitting the corners of his mouth. “Jonathan Hindel bought your way outta that hospital. Naw,” Jack held up a hand as Lawrence drew in his breath, “don’t bother to deny it. It’s already a forgone-know. The important thing you need to keep in mind is your daddy can’t come to your rescue anymore, Lawrence. Thanks to Lieutenant
Hays and me.” Jack tried to hold onto his anger as Hindel gazed up at the ceiling. “I see that little piece of info didn’t cause you any undue pain. That tells me all you cared about’s the ole man’s money. Which you got, I’ll give you that. But! One thing you don’t have is his pull with the names in the county. And that,” Jack poked a finger in Lawrence’s chest, “is what you had goin’ for ya!”

  A sharp glimmer of fear leaped into Lawrence’s eyes as he backed away out of Jack’s reach.

  “That’s a good boy,” Jack nodded his dark brown head, “now; just keep backin’ right on out the door. And, Lawrence,” Jack edged closer, “a piece of advice? I’d stay as close to home as I could.” He cocked his head, smiled a slight smile. “Accidents have a way of happnin’ in the bayous. Never know when a stray bullet or a hungry gator might come lookin’ for ya.”

  As the door to the station closed behind the man already moving down the steps, Jack turned to find Donavan watching him. “What?”

  “Jack, I know how you feel about Hindel.” Donavan mopped agitated hands over his depleted hairline, drawing them all the way down the thick, brown hair on the sides and back of his head. “I feel the same. As do most of the people in this county. But you can’t go around manhandling people just because you have a strong aversion to them. Myself, I don’t care what you do to the little puke.” The nostrils of his hawkish nose flared with distaste. “The heads of the department don’t care. However, when you do it right under their noses they have to, at least, act like they care.”

  “Sorry.” With a sheepish grin he walked back over to his desk, picked up the paper bag. “I brought you a Danish.”

  Donavan accepted the roll, his hooded, dark brown eyes lingering a moment longer on the man grinning at him, then picked up the cup filled with coffee. “Let’s go into my office.” He glanced around the room to see how many of the deputies had witnessed the scene and glimpsing but a few heads still turned in their direction, nodded across the room. “I’d feel better talking behind a closed door.”

  Jack pulled a chair over close to the desk, laid his roll and coffee down in front of him. “Is this gonna take long, Lieutenant Hays?” He pinched off a small portion of the roll, popped it into his mouth, then drew his fingers down the leg of his jeans. “I hate gettin’ my ass chewed on an empty stomach.”

  “No one’s planning on chewing your ass, Jack, so get serious.” Donavan cut short the smile rising to his mouth as he stripped off his light brown suit-coat to hang it on the back of the chair. “We neither one of us have any great liking for Lawrence Hindel.” He bit off a piece of the Danish, allowed the smile to slip back in. “There is one thing you need to keep in mind, though.” He chewed for a moment then swallowed. “Now that Lawrence is heir to the Hindel fortune, the city bigwigs are going to be thinking of ways to get their greedy little hands in his pockets.”

  Jack licked his fingers, picked up the cup of coffee. “Sounds like the “dance and bob” is startin’ all over again.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Donavan reached into the bag for a napkin.

  “Don’t play stupid, Donavan.” He walked over to the small water-cooler, stuck his hands beneath the tap and pushed the button. “I’m talkin’ ‘bout the same shit Jonathan Hindel used to pull. The ole “I’ll put a little jingle in your pocket then drop my drawers while you kneel an’ pucker routine.” Jack turned the crank on the paper-towel machine and when no towel came forth, ran his damp hands down the seat of his pants.

  “Lawrence will never have the clout with the county, his father did.” Donavan righted his dark brown tie then pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his short-sleeved white shirt. “You told him that much yourself.”

  “Yeah, I did. But I didn’t mean it.” Jack flicked his lighter held it beneath the cigarette Donavan had poised between his lips, leaned in close as smoke curled into the air.

  “Then why did you say it?” Donavan inhaled then blew the smoke in the opposite direction.

  With a sour look Jack plopped back down in his chair, propped his booted-feet upon the desk.

  Donavan glanced at the plain, black cowboy boots then down at his own brown dress shoes and shook his head.

  “I said it because, even though I still don’t have any likin’ for Lawrence Hindel and never will have, I still have to wonder. After what we learned, ‘bout his father, I’m not so sure he did kill the Rawlins family. Hindel’s a whacked little prick, but Jonathan turned out to be the real piece of work.” His gaze lingered on the cigarette Donavan held between his fingers.

  The black, leather chair squawked its displeasure as Donavan repositioned his weight trying to ignore the obvious look of yearning on Jack’s face. “At the time, it seemed pretty obvious we had the right man for the killings, but after everything came to light about Jonathan, I’m not sure he did it either.” Cursing beneath his breath, he brushed away the fallen cigarette ash from his light-brown suit pants.

  “If that’s true then we helped put an innocent man in a mental institution.” Jack drummed his fingers on the desk. “That don’t set well with me.” He bent forward inhaling the smoke Donavan expelled into the air.

  “If you’re going to quit, breathing other peoples smoke isn’t the way to go about it.”

  “Cut me a break here, Donavan!” Jack shot an angry scowl across the desk. “At least I’m tryin’.”

  “I don’t want to quit.”

  “Well goddamn it neither do I!” His feet hit the floor rolling the chair backward and slapping his head hard, against the wall. “I don’t know why I agreed to stop in the first damn place!” He rubbed the back of his head, then smoothed his hair back into place.

  Taking pity on him, Donavan shook a cigarette out of the pack, tossed it across the desk. “If you don’t tell, I won’t.”

  A long sigh of relief drifted from his throat as Jack reached for the cigarette putting it between his lips. As he flicked the lighter though, he flipped the top closed to throw it and the wanted cigarette down on the desk. “I made a promise. I’m not that fuckin’ weak!”

  Donavan tried to hold back the smile slipping onto his face, then gave up the struggle. “I could offer not to smoke in front of you, but we both know, I am that weak.”

  “How come Barb didn’t make you quit smokin’ when she got pregnant with Jenny? Or more to the point, why didn’t you do it on your own?” Jack went back to drumming his fingers on the desk.

  Donavan laughed outright. “She knew it wouldn’t do her any good to even-broach the subject. With the job I got,” he jabbed a thumb against his chest, “smoking is the one thing keeping me sane and she knows it! Try that one on her.”

  Jack rolled the theory around in his mind then dropped it. “That little ploy wouldn’t get me to first base. Seelah would pick up on it in a heartbeat!”

  “That’s what comes of having a psychic for a wife, Jack. You can’t get away with the things a normal husband can.”

  “Yeah, I know.” His head bobbed with each movement Donavan made in stubbing out the finished cigarette.

  “Tell me something.” Donavan glanced over at him. “Would you rather have your old life back again?”

  Jack propped his feet back upon the desk, leaned back in his chair and lacing his fingers together placed them behind his head. As an image of the tiny woman he now called his wife moved into his thoughts, he relaxed, allowing his mind a glimpse into the past.

  The first time he had seen Seelah he had mistaken her for a teenager. With her five-foot stature and tiny-boned frame, he thought her to be a friend of Donavan’s young daughter, Jenny. But when she turned out to be a twenty-eight-year-old woman, he looked at her with a different eye. A different eye, but not much else. At the time, he was trying to rise above a failed relationship with a woman who had shattered his life and almost his mind.

  Tall, slender and beautiful, with her light brown skin and dark green eyes, Chandra filled his every waking moment for almost two years. Until the ni
ght she told him goodbye.

  Jack went from a happy man to one who gave up on life. His job with the sheriff’s department, his self-esteem and everyone and everything flew out of his mind and into a bottle of both pills and alcohol. He woke later in a hospital to find everything gone. He resigned from the sheriff’s department knowing if he didn’t they would resign him. Broke, sick and all but out of his mind he had turned to the one person he felt he could trust not to turn on him. Donavan had not disappointed him.

  Jack turned now, looking at the man sitting across from him and with a growing lump beginning to form in his throat, he smiled. “Never in a million years would I ever want to return to that time in my life.”

  “That’s what I thought. So, do you still want a cigarette or are you going to tough it out?”

  “What kinda question is that? I’m gonna be a father!” The stern look spreading across his face lost its severity as a look of pride took over. “My son’s gonna have a father who’s got his shit together!”

  ***

  Jack pulled the Chevy Blazer into the driveway of his modest, three-bedroom house sitting on a large and impressive corner lot and switched off the engine. The moment his feet touched the ground the weight of the day slipped from his shoulders.

  Rich aromas wafted out to him putting a bounce in his step as he made his way up the sidewalk. He stopped mid-way up the walk and bending down plucked a weed poking its head from the row of pansies edging the lawn to toss it across the yard before continuing on his way to the house.

  Busy in the kitchen, Seelah heard the door slam outside and she pulled off her apron hanging it on the small peg beside the stove. Fluffing her short, dark brown hair, she hurried towards the door.

  Jack caught her in the archway between the kitchen and living room to swing her up in his arms grinning as she squealed her pleasure.

  “How’s the most beautiful mother in the whole wide world?” He captured her full mouth with his cutting off the happy answer forming on her lips.