Depth Perception

  DEPTH PERCEPTION

  "Let the dead Past bury its dead."

  --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  A Psalm of Life

  Chapter 1

  Nick Bastille stepped off the Greyhound bus, hefted the duffel onto his shoulder, and pulled in a deep breath of air that reeked of stagnant water, sun-baked foliage, and day-old armadillo road kill. He'd been breathing free air for three hours and fourteen minutes, and no matter how badly it stank, he still couldn't get enough into his lungs.

  The October sun beat down on him like a hot cast iron skillet as he started down the narrow stretch of asphalt. His shirt clung wetly to his back, but he barely noticed the Louisiana heat mingling with the stench of his own sweat. Returning to Bellerose after eighteen years was like entering a time warp and traveling back in time.

  The gas station out on Parish Road 53 still had only one full-service pump that didn't accept credit cards. Old man Pelletier still grew cotton and sugarcane and drove that rusty old John Deere tractor. The shotgun shacks that sprang out of the mud like cattails on the south side of town were still just a nail or two away from sliding into the black water of the bayou with the alligators and water moccasins.

  But while the town of Bellerose hadn't changed, its wayward son had. Eighteen years ago an ambitious and idealistic Nick had left this muddy little hellhole for the dazzle of New Orleans and the promise of a better life. At seventeen, he'd been on a mission to conquer the world and willing to take on any army to do it. He might have been born the son of a cotton farmer, but Fate had cursed him with a proclivity for big dreams. He'd been just enough of a gambler to pursue those dreams with the blind ambition of a reckless fool.

  But Nick had soon learned that Fate was a fickle bitch with a penchant for cruelty and little compassion for ambitious young fools. He'd learned that dreams didn't come without a price. That hard work and a willingness to go the distance weren't always enough. That love was a fallacy and trust was an illusion believed only by those who were too naive to see the truth.

  In the end his dream had cost him six years of his life. Six hellish years that had ripped the last of his humanity from his soul. It should have bothered him that he was no longer even human enough to mourn its loss. But he'd long since stopped grieving over things that could never be resurrected.

  Now, Bellerose's farm boy-turned-restaurateur had nothing to his name but the clothes on his back and a hundred dollars in the pockets of his prison-issue trousers. Standing in the hot Louisiana sun with the smell of swamp mud in his nostrils and a thousand regrets in his heart, he found the irony as black and endless as the bayou itself.

  At the edge of town, where the cattails and alligator grass met the crushed-shell road, he stopped outside the not-so-august portals of The Blue Gator, Bellerose's only drinking establishment. Eighteen years ago, the place had been an escape from the endless work of the farm and the heavy hand of his father. A place to dream and dazzle the pretty women who drove in from all over rural St. Tammany Parish. Back then, the one-story clapboard structure hadn't seemed quite so derelict.

  But The Blue Gator was as dilapidated as a place could be and still be standing. The front porch drooped like a swayback nag. The weathered wood was as warped and gray as sun bleached bones. The neon Beer on Tap sign looked incongruous behind the smeared glass of the single ancient window.

  It was the kind of place that wouldn't last a week in New Orleans, where the health inspectors made it their mission in life to hassle restaurant and bar owners, and maybe even make a little cash on the side from the ones who could afford to avoid the aggravation of citations. But The Blue Gator was exactly the kind of place that wouldn't think twice about hiring an ex-con.

  Holding that thought, Nick swung open the door and entered the dimly lit interior. The bar reeked of spilled whiskey, old cigarette smoke, and the musty redolence of rotting wood. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the semidarkness, and he was surprised by the quick jolt of familiarity. The same dented jukebox huddled against the wall next to the men's room door. A battered pool table sat at the rear of the room, its green felt surface scarred by decades of misuse and cigarette burns. Mike Pequinot, a man he'd gone to high school with a lifetime ago, stood behind the bar with a broom in his hand. Pequinot was an ex-biker with a fondness for Harley-Davidsons, blondes in black leather, and Saturday night specials-as long as the serial number was filed off. He'd lost a leg in a motorcycle accident right before Nick left for New Orleans. He'd never bothered with a prosthesis, but it didn't look like the missing limb had slowed him down.

  Pequinot stopped sweeping and looked at Nick. "Mais, gardez dont sa." Well, just look at that. He said the words in fluent Cajun French. "If it ain't my favorite con."

  "Ex-con," Nick corrected and walked to the bar. "II n'a in bon boute." It's been a good while.

  "When did you get sprung?"

  "Cet avant midi." This morning.

  Leaning on the broom, Pequinot turned and snagged two shot glasses and a bottle of dark rum from the shelf. The good stuff he saved for special occasions. He set the glasses on the bar and proceeded to break the seal and pour.

  "I've been saving this for you, Nicky." Pequinot's biceps were the size of cypress trunks and just as hard. His brown hair was receding slightly, but he'd slicked it back and pulled it into a neat ponytail that reached halfway down his back. He wore a black leather vest with silver studs, faded blue jeans with a big silver buckle, and a steel-toed biker boot.

  "Welcome back to bumfuck, my man." He slid a shot glass to Nick. "This one's on the house."

  Nick looked down at the glass. "I'm on parole, Mike."

  "Fuck the Louisiana Department of Corrections. I sure as hell ain't going to tell them."

  Nick didn't mention that he would be driving down to New Orleans to piss in a cup once a week for the next five years. But he knew that by the time next week rolled around, the alcohol would be long gone from his system, so he picked up the glass. ''To new beginnings."

  "And old friends." Pequinot downed the double in one swallow.

  Nick did the same, shuddering when the rum burned all the way to his belly. He watched a heavyset woman in tight jeans and a black halter top feed quarters into the jukebox. An instant later, an old Stevie Ray Vaughan song blared from mammoth speakers situated on either side of the bar.

  ''That your wife?" Nick asked.

  "Rita." Pequinot refilled his glass. "We tied the knot last year. She's mean as a hornet but keeps me out of trouble."

  Not wanting to get into the subject of wives and trouble, Nick didn't comment. "You seen Dutch around?" he asked, referring to his father.

  "He doesn't come in much anymore. I saw him at the diner last week." Pequinot grimaced. "Damn shame about the Alzheimer's."

  "Knowing Dutch, I imagine he's taking it pretty hard."

  Pequinot shot him a questioning look. "He keep in touch with you? Drive up to see you?"

  Nick shook his head. "I told him not to," he lied.

  Stevie Ray Vaughan yielded to a lively zydeco number and, with the alcohol beginning to hum through his veins and the music pounding in his ears, the place didn't seem quite so derelict, his life not quite so bleak.

  "I see that ex-wife of yours around plenty, though,"

  Because Nick didn't want to talk about Tanya, he shrugged. "We're divorced."

  "Never should have married that one, Nicky. Pretty and crazy. That's a bad combination."

  "Yeah, well, you know what they say about hindsight."

  Nick considered himself an expert on the subject.

  "Divorcing you like that. It's a fucked up thing to do to a guy when he's doin' time."

  Because the divorce had had nothing to do with his being incarcerated, Nick looke
d away. "It was a mutual thing, Mike.”

  Nick had spent four years of his life married to Tanya Chantal. Back then, she'd been a pretty farm girl caught up in an abusive family. Like some lovesick fool, Nick had rushed in to save her. The consummate rescuer, he'd fought for her and won. In the end, he'd confused lust with love, and it had cost him more than he could ever have imagined.

  "She's in here just about every night, getting shit-faced and handing it out to whoever wants it. I swear to Christ, I'd rather stick my dick in a Tasmanian devil. She's fucking nuts. Been on a downward spiral ever since—" Pequinot cut his words short, looked down at the scarred surface of the bar. "Le Bon Dieu mait la main." God help.

  Nick tried not to react, but he felt the recoil deep inside. He tried to cover it by sliding his glass across the bar for a refill. But his hand was shaking.

  It had been two years since Nick's son drowned, but the grief still cut. Some days it cut so deep, he thought he might just bleed out and die.

  "Look," Pequinot began, refilling his glass, "six years is a long time for a man to be without a woman. I can set you up. On the house for you…”

  Though the idea of sex appealed greatly, Nick figured the last thing he needed in his life was a woman. Especially a hooker--on the house or not. He was smart enough to know when he was better off alone, and this just happened to be one of those times.

  "I was actually wondering about the job, Mike. I saw the Help Wanted sign out front." He rolled. his shoulder. "I thought I might apply . . .”

  Pequinot looked amused. "This dump's a far cry from that highfalutin place you had yourself down in the Big Easy."

  "Highfalutin is overrated." Nick grinned, but it felt tight on his face, as if his facial muscles no longer remembered how. "Alcohol's the same no matter what kind of glass you serve it in."

  "You want the job, it's yours."

  Relief shuddered through Nick. Once upon a time he would have laughed at the notion of working in a dive like The Blue Gator. Funny what a little desperation did to a man's pride. "Thanks..."

  Pequinot waved off his gratitude. "I figured you'd want to spend some time getting the farm back into shape. I hear Dutch has pretty much let everything go to shit.”

  "I'll work the farm during the day." Nick finished the last of the rum and picked up his duffel. "Spend my nights here."

  "Ain't you going to ask me how much the job pays?"

  Nick shook his head. "It doesn't matter. When do I start?"

  "How about tomorrow night? We do a good business on Fridays. Shift at the mill ends at four o'clock. Guys come in thirsty. I'll need you till we close at one A.M."

  "I'II be here."

  Pequinot stuck out his hand. 'Welcome home, Nicky."

  Nick shook the other man's hand. ''Thanks,'' he said and wished like hell he could say he was glad to be back.

  # # #

  Nat Jennings was going to have to stop for gas. The Mustang had been running on fumes for the last twenty miles. She'd planned on stopping at the Citgo station on the highway only to find the windows boarded up, the pumps gone, and knee-high weeds sticking out of the concrete. Now, unless she wanted to backtrack all the way to the interstate, she was going to have to fill up in Bellerose.

  "So much for anonymity," she muttered as she drove slowly down Main Street, past the courthouse on the square, Boudreaux's Corner Drug Store, and Jenny Lee's Five and Dime.

  She tried hard not to notice the double takes and shocked expressions of the people who recognized her. But then she'd known before ever coming back that the upstanding citizens of Bellerose had long memories when it came to murder.

  Ray's Sunoco was located on the bayou side of town. The service station had only one pump and hadn't yet made the technological quantum leap of accepting credit cards. Nat slid out of the car, careful to keep her back to the highway, and pumped the gas in record time.

  Once the tank was full, she grabbed her purse and went inside to pay. A teenage boy wearing a dirty work shirt and a sour expression sat behind the counter, eyeing her with unconcealed curiosity. A pregnant woman in a bright green maternity top was eyeballing the candy bar display.

  Nat smiled at the boy. "Take a check?"

  “’Slong as you have a driver's license."

  Tugging her checkbook from her bag, she crossed to the counter.

  "Sixteen fifty-three," he said.

  Nat began making out the check. She could hear the low hum of the RC Cola machine out front. The hiss of the occasional car as it passed on the highway. Behind the counter, wooden shelves with peeling white paint displayed cans of l0W40 motor oil and filters and various sizes of engine belts. One of the cans was rattling, blending with the buzz of a fly trapped against the window.

  The dizziness struck her like a sledgehammer. Too late she realized the buzzing wasn't from the soda machine or the can of oil or even the fly in the window. The high-frequency hum was inside her head, as powerful as a jet engine, the vibrations jolting her body all the way to her bones. Dread and alarm coiled inside her as the warm shock of energy penetrated her brain. Sensations and thoughts and images flew at her in dark, undulating waves.

  Dear God; not now, was all she could think.

  She tried to finish writing the check, but her hand fumbled the pen. Her arms drooped as if they were paralyzed. It was a terrifying sensation to be trapped inside her own body and unable to control her limbs. She was aware of her left hand grappling for the pen. Her nails cutting into her palm. Her knuckles going white as .her hand. swept across the check.

  "Lady, are you okay?"

  She heard the words as if from a great distance. Vaguely, she was aware of the boy looking at her strangely, She wanted to answer, to reassure him that she was fine. But the breath had been sucked from her lungs. Words and thoughts tumbled disjointedly inside her head. She tried to focus, but his face kept fading in and out of her vision.

  An instant later her legs buckled. Her knees hit the floor with a hollow thump!

  "Oh, good Lord!"

  Nat heard alarm in the pregnant woman's voice. She heard the shuffle of shoes against the floor. Felt a gentle hand against her shoulder. "Honey, are you all right?"

  Slowly, she became aware of cool wood against her cheek. She was lying on her side, still gripping the pen. She wanted to get up, but she was dizzy and disoriented and an inch away from throwing up all over the woman's Nikes.

  "Ma'am, are you sick?" came the boy's voice.

  Bracing her hand against the floor, Nat pushed herself to a sitting position and shoved her hair from her face. "I'm okay," she heard herself say.

  Her checkbook lay on the floor next to her. She picked it up, saw that her hand was trembling violently.

  "You need me to call Doc Ratcliffe for you?" the woman asked.

  Nat shook her head. "I'm fine. Really, I just ... got a little dizzy."

  Shaken and embarrassed, she rose unsteadily to her feet and brushed at her jeans. The vibrations had quieted, but her thoughts remained fuzzy and disjointed. She felt as if she'd just stumbled off some wild amusement park ride and had yet to regain her equilibrium. She glanced at the boy behind the counter to see him staring fixedly at the check, his expression perplexed.

  "What's that?" he asked.

  bad man take ricky. kill again. hurry.

  Gasping, Nat snatched the check off the counter. "Nothing," she muttered.

  The woman shot her a wary look. "It said something about killing."

  Unwilling to explain--not sure she could, even if she knew what to say--Nat shook her head. "I just ... must have gotten confused for a second. right before I blacked out." She tried to smile, but was too shaken to manage. "I have epilepsy."

  "Oh." But the woman didn't look appeased.

  Nat knew it the instant the woman recognized her. Her eyes widened, then she took a step back, as if she'd ventured too close to something dangerous. "You're Nat Jennings."

  Sliding the ruined check into the pocket of her jeans,
Nat began writing a second one. She had wanted anonymity for her return home. She should have known that was the one luxury she would never have in a town the size of Bellerose.

  "That's right," she said.

  The clerk and the pregnant woman exchanged - startled looks. Nat did her best to ignore them, but her hand was shaking when she tore off the check and handed it to the clerk. “Thanks for the gas."

  "If I'da known who you was, I never would have let you pump here," the clerk muttered.

  "Yeah, well, it's too late to' do anything about it now." Nat started toward the door.

  "Bitch," he said to her back.

  Nat felt the word as keenly as if he'd thrown a rock at her. She'd known her return would be met with hostility, but she wasn't going to let that keep her from doing what she'd come here to do. She'd waited three unbearable years for this moment.

  Once in her car, she pulled the note from her pocket and read it again.

  bad man take ricky. kill again. hurry.

  A chill passed through her as she studied the child-like scrawl. Aside from seeing that justice was done, there was nothing she could do for the ones who were already gone. Nat knew all too well that the dead could not be resurrected. But if she could prevent the death of a single child, whatever she faced in the coming days would be worth it.

  Staring at the note, she set a trembling finger beneath the words.

  kill again.

  "Not if I can help it, you son of a bitch," she whispered and jammed the car into gear.

  Chapter 2

  Melted asphalt stuck to the soles of Nick's boots like hot chewing gum as he made his way down the narrow road toward his father's farm. Stopping at the mailbox, he let the sight of the ancient live oaks and sweet gums arching over the white gravel lane sink into his brain. Growing up, he'd never seen the farm as anything except an endless hellhole of backbreaking work and a combat zone for him and his father to do battle. Now, even though the place was by no stretch of the imagination picturesque, there was a primal beauty in the way the hundred-year-old farm embraced the land.