Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
G enesis…
It was after midnight when I got to leave the hospital. I didn’t feel like cooking, but I was starving, so I hit a drive-thru on the way home.
Keying my way into the back door, I set my crap down and called out for my kitty baby, who, of course, didn’t come or answer. Which wasn’t unusual, but for the fact I could have sworn he didn’t go out when I’d left that morning.
I sighed and set my food on the counter as I breezed by the kitchen to the front door. I might as well check the mail and call my Charlie boy in for his supper from the front, which is usually where he came from when I did get home.
The smell hit me just as soon as I opened the front door. I tried not to gag on the coppery tang of blood in the air and tried not to panic too hard when I saw it.
Zip tied to my front gate was a cat, bloody, gutted, the intestines strung along the wrought iron fence like some demented Mardi Gras swag.
It was worse, though, because on each finial of the gate, three to either side, little kittens’ heads were thrust upon them, like their little heads were on pikes.
“ Brrrr row ?” I jumped as Charlie wound his way around my legs, and I bent down, snatching him up and slamming the door on the macabre scene.
I tossed him into my bedroom and shut the door, shaking with a mixture of horror and relief that he was okay, that the tabby and white cat on the fence wasn’t him. It was the mamma kitty to those poor little kittens which were at least four weeks or better and likely still nursing.
I didn’t need to hazard any guesses at who did it.
I picked up the phone to call the police, but hesitated with good reason. I mean, I wasn’t hurt. The poor cats… but I wasn’t entirely sure that they would consider this “something happening.”
I went back to the kitchen and picked up the card with its torn corner off the counter, and with shaking fingers pressed the numbers.
I stared at the screen for a long minute before I pressed the icon on it to put the call through. It took forever for it to start ringing.
I swallowed hard and almost chickened out when there was a click and a deep masculine, “Hello?”
I froze for a moment and wasn’t entirely sure what to say, when I heard him clear his throat and say, “You got a wrong number or something?—”
“No! I don’t,” I blurted. “You might not remember me, but I remember you. You, um, gave me your card around three years ago, in the emergency department. I was one of the doctors the night they brought you in. Do you remember me?”
“I’ll be damned,” he said after several long heartbeats of silence. “Of course I remember you,” he said. “This mean you got a problem?”
“Yeah, um, a big one. Not sure it’s something I should explain over the phone,” I said.
“Say no more. Gimme a place to meet you.”
“Um, can you come now?” I asked.
“Sure thing. Where to?”
I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, “This is going to sound crazy, but I think it’s better if you see it and then I explain.” I rattled off my address.
“Garden District,” he said. “Swanky digs. That your place?”
“Yes,” I said, and he said to me, “Be there inside the hour.”
And just like that, there was nothing. The line went dead.
“Oh, Genesis, what did you just do?” I asked myself. “What did you just do?”
I swallowed again and went to the kitchen, plugged in my phone, and tossed my waiting fast-food dinner right into the trash.
I poured a glass of wine, went to the panel, and reengaged the alarm.
Sure, I’d locked my doors, but the added layer of the alarm being set helped almost as much as the sips of wine at soothing my shattered nerves.
I sat in the chair by the front window and tried to watch for a biker pulling up without looking at my front gate and the mutilated cats on it. I didn’t want to leave them like that, but I wanted this man to believe me, because it didn’t feel like anyone did.
I heard him before I saw him, and practically pressed my nose to the glass, breathless with anticipation. He pulled up to the curb in front of my place and cut the engine.
He’d changed. A lot. I knew it was him, though. I remembered. He was a strawberry blond, bordering on straight ginger. His beard back then held the same white streak that it had now. The same kind of white streak that someone might say the person who had it was damn near frightened to death.
I went to the front panel and suspended the alarm, stepping carefully out onto the front stoop, hugging myself as though to ward off a chill, even though it was in the eighties and humid, even this late at night.
He stood in front of my gate, his blue eyes troubled, and I said, “I didn’t want to leave them like this, but I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
“Got any gloves?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Get ‘em for me, and a trash bag. Then go back in the house.”
He sounded calm, but firm, and I knew the type. I wordlessly went back into my home and into the kitchen, pulling the dish gloves out from under the kitchen sink that I used when I cleaned, and one of the white kitchen trash bags off the roll.
I went back out to him and handed them over the fence, well away from the cats.
“Go back in the house. I’ll knock four times with intention as soon as I’m done.”
“Thanks,” I said softly, and I went back inside.
I waited at my kitchen counter and finished my glass of wine, pouring myself another and the rest of what was in the bottle into a second glass.
I didn’t know what he drank, but I figured that it would be welcome after such a grim task.
Four distinct hard knocks hit my front door a little while later, and I went to it, opening up.
“It’s done,” he said. “Used your front hose to wash it down as best I could, but it’s dark and a pain in the ass to see, so it might need it again in the light of day.”
“Come in,” I said and stood aside. He stepped into my front room, and I shut the door behind us, locking it and resetting the alarm on the panel.
“Who did it?” he asked, and I sniffed, trying not to cry.
“That’s a long story,” I said.
“I ain’t got nowhere else to be until you tell it,” he said.
I pursed my lips, rubbing them together, and nodded.
“Genesis Bordelon.” I held out my hand, and he raised an eyebrow but reached out his own.
“Chain—”
“Saw,” I said, the last in unison with him, and his other eyebrow joined the first in an expression of surprise.
“No, I remember,” I said softly.
His grasp on my hand was gentle.
“I remember you, too,” he said gruffly, but gently. “Never did get your name, though.”
“Well,” I said, taking in a deep breath. “Now you have it.”
He nodded, and I took back my hand from his warm, calloused one.
“So,” he said after we sized each other up in silence for a moment, and with a cheeky grin, he asked me, “What’s up, Doc?”
I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help myself, and I wandered over to the kitchen and picked up both glasses of wine. I brought him his and held it out.
“Thank you, kindly,” he said. “But I need to know why I’m here and what’s with the cats?”
“Please, come sit,” I said as we went over to the couch. He sat down, and I took a seat on the other end, taking a sip of my wine and setting the glass on the edge of the coffee table.
I let out a long-suffering sigh and said, “Where to even begin?”
“How about at the beginning?” he asked and took a sip out of his own glass. He made a face like it wasn’t half bad and took another sip.
“First, how much do you know about NOLA Mass Gen and how it operates?”
“I don’t know shit about fuck,” he answered, and again, it made me laugh.
“Fair,” I said, and I gave him the rundown about the rotating schedules and how I rotated out of the ER quarterly. About the Palliative Care ward, and how I discovered what Belmar was doing.
“Then he bounced?” he asked.
“After a fashion,” I said. “He’s in the wind, alright, but then I started getting flowers and notes.”
“You got ‘em?” he asked.
“The notes?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” I got up, went to the kitchen, and pulled them out of the same junk drawer that I’d kept Chainsaw’s card in, including the latest one that’d come with the roses.
I went back into the living room and handed them over. He said, “Give ‘em to me in the order you received them.”
“Okay.” I went through them and handed him the first one, then the next, and the next, and the next until we’d been through them all.
“You went to the cops?” he asked.
“Several times over,” I said. “They basically told me that they couldn’t do anything until he actually did something.”
“I’d say the dead cats are certainly something…” he said.
“I figured all the people he killed in the hospital would have been enough, but silly me, I guess.”
“Why’d you hang onto my card?” he asked me. “Especially after all this time?”
I licked my lips and told him the truth. “My dad was in the life.”
“Was he now?” he asked. “Why didn’t you call him?”
“My dad and his brothers are all in poor health and aging. They’re all retired, if there is such a thing, from things. I didn’t want to risk any of them.”
“You’re a good girl,” he said thoughtfully, and I had to snort at that.
“I’m no angel,” I said. “I called you, knowing what would happen, didn’t I?”
“Eh, to a serial killer, I think your scales are still tipped toward good over bad for that.”
“Maybe, but who am I to be judge, jury, and executioner?” I asked.
“Deep breath, beautiful,” he said. “We’re not here for existential and moral quandaries. I’m here because you called and I told you, if you ever needed someone taken care of, I’d take care of it. I meant it.”
“Why?” I asked, wide-eyed, and he held my gaze with his.
“Because you took care of me,” he said, and plucked at the heavy cross-stitching at one of his shoulders.
I cocked my head and asked, “Same one?”
“You know it,” he said.
I smiled faintly at that.H
“Dad’s club cuts were all made out of denim. Old jean jackets with the sleeves cut off.”
“Old-school, yeah.” Je nodded knowingly and grinned. “What was his club’s name?”
“Disciples of Sin,” I said shyly. There was a sort of silent and eternal dick-measuring contest between local clubs.
I’d seen it time and time again, growing up.
It was like a pack of mean girls. The guys would be all polite to each other’s faces, but mad shit would be talked behind backs and closed doors.
I half expected the laugh, but I didn’t expect the kind, “Yeah, okay – small outfit from the top of the boot. A bunch of late Vietnam vets, right?”
I smiled at that and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Okay, I get your reasoning,” he said. “I’m glad you called. I’m going to need you to write down everything you know about this guy. Try and get a picture of him, if you can. I want everything I can get my hands on.”
“Okay,” I said. “Some of that might be tricky to get my hands on, but I’ll do my best. The hospital and HR are touchy about it for obvious reasons, and personnel files are restricted. I’ll see what I can do on that, but it may take some time.”
He nodded slowly and said, “In the meantime, I’ll be giving you a ride to and from work. Do you got a guestroom?”
“No, sorry,” I said, shaking my head. It was just a one-bedroom tiny house, and I was paying a mint to be in it. I mean, it was the Garden District.
“Okay, couch it is,” he said.
“You’re going to stay here?” I asked a little wide-eyed.
“Yeah, for the time being,” he said. “Until I can be sure the problem is taken care of. Not going to lie, the club is in the middle of… a whole thing right now. You know how that goes.”
“Yes,” I said with a wry smile. I didn’t honestly know how I felt about the whole him staying here… but… thinking about it? I nodded slowly. “Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “Seriously. You saved my ass. It’s my turn to return the favor.”
I shook my head. “I was just doing my job,” I said.
“Nah, you did more than that. You work tomorrow?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m off the next two days.”
“Got any big plans?” he asked.
“No, not really… Just, um, catching up on laundry and some sleep.”
“Yeah, well, you best get that load or whatever going now,” he said. “You’re with me when you’re off work, and I have a few things to do tomorrow. Let’s see about changing up your routine as much as possible. Routine is like catnip to a psychopath. We don’t wanna make things easy for him.”
I nodded carefully. “You’re not allergic to cats, are you?” I asked.
He smiled, and it made his blue eyes kind. He shook his head and said, “No.”
“I feel like I was really lucky Charlie was inside.” I broke a little then. “I didn’t realize it until I opened the door and found… that. ”
“I assume Charlie’s your cat?” he asked. I nodded and couldn’t say anything past the growing lump in my throat. “Yeah, well, he’s an indoor kitty from here on out. Go get him, beautiful. I think you need the kitty snuggles.”
I nodded and got up, going to the bedroom. When I opened the door, Charlie looked up from where he was loafed on the bed, like, what’s going on, Mom? That’s when I cracked. I went and sat down on the bed and picked up my boy, ruffling my hands through his soft fur as he started to purr.
I let myself have a short little cry and felt better, but didn’t really know what to do or where to go from here.
I hadn’t expected Chainsaw to stay.