Fuck at night.
Fuzzy Wuzzy is the bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy put it there.
What? What? What?
Blood. Blood. Blood.
You are the bloodmaker.
They make it so.
I am bloody.
All the blood.
I am here.
We are there.
There is much blood everywhere.
I don’t want to be here.
Take me away.
Get the baby.
Lies. Lies. Lies.
The blood?
To say the truth.
I have to remember.
Hack Chop, hack chop, hack chop.
Find her, find her, why?
Take me back.
Don’t like it.
You go back, when you
Hack, hack, hack.
I will not forget.
I am not done.
They lie.
They die.
Not I.
Not I.
It is dark in my eyes.
I am inside a whale.
Remember the chop, chop, chop.
They say lies.
Where my eyes?
What’s that sound in my ears?
Is someone coming?
A cop to chop?
36
Miraculously, the GPS knew exactly where Nurse Fugate’s house was located and, in a pleasant lady voice, told Alexa which streets to take, where she was to turn, and in what direction, and even gave her the exact distances between those turns. It was a thirty-minute trip, which was longer than it should have taken, due to the heavy traffic on the bridge over the river caused by a wave of citizens who’d decided to flee the hurricane, which the radio announcer explained was gathering frightening strength over the warm Gulf waters.
If the hurricane did turn from its projected course, didn’t force water over the levees, or lost focus on the way there, and didn’t have the wind left to blow down houses, no one in the city would ever again lend the weatherman their ears. Since the skies were clear and it was hot, humid, and still, it was hard to believe the latest reports predicting an end-time hurricane. The announcer mentioned that there would almost certainly be a mandatory evacuation. What Alexa noticed he didn’t say was that the city would be making modes of transportation available to those residents who had no cars or other vehicles to carry them to safety. He did interview a resident of a housing project who said she would stay because her “check” wasn’t going to arrive before the storm, so she had no choice. That made Alexa feel both sad and angry. She wondered why the President didn’t get the Air Force to send a fleet of C-5As to haul out all the poor and helpless.
Seconds before she arrived, Alexa called the nurse’s number to see if anyone was home, and was disappointed when a machine answered-using a generic message, in what sounded like an electronic voice that came with the unit. She didn’t leave a message, in case the nurse was monitoring the calls-not answering the ones she wasn’t in a mood to take or when the caller ID showed a name and number she didn’t recognize.
Dorothy Fugate’s address corresponded to a single-story, vinyl-sided Victorian on a quiet street in Algiers Pointe near the Mississippi River. Alexa studied the gingerbread facade as she cut off her engine. She had the uneasy sensation of being watched, and when she turned to look at the house across the street, a curtain seemed to be moving gently-as if someone had drawn it back in order to peer out and then released it. But maybe it was a trick of light, a gust of wind moving through the interior of the brick home.
Its sharp points like piranha teeth, a picket fence whose white paint was chalking defended the Fugate yard from potential invasions. Behind the fence, the sheltering oak trees had leeched nutrients from the soil, leaving large areas of the grounds bare.
All Alexa knew about Nurse Fugate was that she had been the top nurse in the ward where Sibby Danielson had been last kept. Alexa wasn’t sure how she was going to find out what the nurse knew. She decided that she would play it by ear, hoping to surprise Fugate, and that her badge would work the magic it had in similar situations. Alexa would push some buttons, read the woman’s body language, interpret facial expressions, and look for tells while she interviewed her, to see if she could figure out what Fugate was afraid of, using her fears to get her to tell what she knew about Sibby Danielson’s exodus from the violent ward.
Alexa gathered her will, buttoned her blazer, strode to the gate, and, opening it, let herself into the yard, the gate slamming shut behind her with a loud metallic click. Climbing the front steps, she looked at the wicker swing hanging from the ceiling at one end of the porch. She twisted the knob to ring the antique doorbell that was built into the door. Taking a deep breath, she rang it again.
No one answered.
Forming a makeshift visor with her hands, Alexa peered through the beveled glass panel set in the door. Judging by what little she could see, it appeared there was no one at home. She knocked harder, using her knuckles against the wood. Then, when that still didn’t raise anybody, she tapped at the glass, using the tip of her car key for a sharper noise and listened for footsteps.
Maybe Nurse Fugate had joined the trek of refugees from the approaching hurricane. Were it not for Gary West, Alexa herself would certainly have been back in D.C. by now, monitoring the storm from the safety of her apartment.
She tried the doorknob and, finding it unlocked, opened it a few inches. One thing was certain: The nurse wouldn’t have left the city with her home unlocked.
The shade from the oak trees made the interior gloomy, and Alexa immediately noticed the weak antiseptic odor of bleach and the smell of something decaying. A fly that must have come in with her buzzed past her and headed down the hallway toward the rear of the house.
“Hello? Anybody home?” Her voice echoed through the house. “Ms. Fugate, your front door is open.”
Several styles of antique furniture were arranged to view the fireplace, which held an arrangement of fifty or sixty long-stem silk roses spraying out from a low Chinese vase in the unfortunate shape of a spittoon.
A lifeless oil painting of a sunrise on a bayou hung over the mantel, and prints Alexa thought were titled Pinky and Blue Boy, by a painter named Gainsborough, in golden frilly frames were positioned with prominence over a marble-topped side table.
Bills and catalogs, lying on the floor in front of the mail slot, were positioned in such a way that no two pieces were facedown or overlapping each other. It was as though someone had moved them around in order to read the envelopes without lifting them. Not wanting to surprise anyone, Alexa slammed the door loudly enough to be heard in the rear of the house.
A mantel clock trapped within a glass globe chimed twice.
From the rear of the house there was the distinctive creaking of floorboards. Alexa’s unease surged and her empty stomach growled. Old houses made settling noises, she reminded herself, but she doubted that was what she’d heard.
What if Sibby was here-in this house? The thought of coming face-to-face with a murderous psychopath was a sobering one. Alexa was capable of defending herself against conventional attacks, but she’d never dealt with a cleaver-swinging lunatic, and she wished she had backup.
“Ms. Fugate?” she called loudly. “Ms. Fugate? Is anybody home? FBI.” Part of her was tempted to open the door and go back outside. The dusky house seemed to hold a malevolent presence, but she was determined, and not about to turn tail. Besides, she was armed with a Glock. 40, more than a match for any man or woman. A bullet doesn’t distinguish between whether its target is sane or bubble-blowing crazy.
Alexa unbuttoned her purse, removed her Glock, pulled the slide back firmly, and slid it forward slowly so the shell went silently into the chamber, before returning it to her purse, leaving the flap open so she could get to it rapidly. Though technically the Glock couldn’t fire a chambered round unless the trigger was pulled, she always left her chamber empty unless she needed it armed. Arming the weapon was a pull of the receiver and a release away. And besides, when sobering was required, the sound of that receiver slamming shut had the same effect as the warning buzz of a rattlesnake.