Cold Bullets and Hot Babes: Dark Crime Stories Read Online Free

exist.”
    The redbones alerted to the row. They were growling deep in their throats. Their toenails clicked as they paced back and forth on the porch. And there was something else. A more subtle sound. He stopped and listened. It stopped. It had been a soft thumping, a tap, tap, tap, the kind of noise a boat makes when it knocks against the dock.
    Suzette’s chest rose and fell beneath his weight. Her breasts strained against the delicate fabric of her dress. The frightened fawn look was back but now it angered him. He ripped the bodice of her dress down to the waist. Let her go juking in that, he thought spitefully. He stopped breathing. There it was again, coming from the direction of the deck. Tap. Tap. Tap. Every time he concentrated on it, it stopped.
    He reached out to touch the girl’s bare breast. The dog nailed him good, bit his thumb to the bone. That little son-of-a-bitch. He threw a lamp but by the time it hit the wall the dog was far under 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