The Cajun Clown

There was something fishy about this whole mess.

         Alec Maldrone pushed the screen door open, a small rug catching under it.  The house was dead silent, amplified by the croaking sounds of the bayou behind him.  Cattails tapped on the pilings under the house like ghosts of the swamp requesting entrance from below. 

         The living room was lit by the headlights of the squad car in the muddy yard.  The doorway and halls leading to the rest of the house were black as ink.  Alec slipped the flashlight off his belt and flicked it to life, running a beam of pale yellow across the walls and floor of the room.  A coffee table was knocked on its side, and the roll-top desk in the corner had its drawer pulled out, its contents dumped on the floor.

         The call at the station had been a strange one.  Meredith Parker, waitress at the Gator Bowl on Route 5, had called asking for Alec.  She needed him to come by.  He knew the girl, but not well.  He practically lived in the Gator Bowl, eating lunch there three times a week.  She’d always said hi when he came in, and if he had her table, she’d make sure he got everything he ordered without a fuss.  There were few perks of being sheriff in a half-submerged Louisiana town.  Decent pay wasn’t one of them, but a little respect did come your way every now and then.  But why this girl wanted him at her house this time of night, that was something that just didn’t click.

         The hallway that led to the kitchen was narrow, like most of the little shotgun houses on the bayou.  Everything in the house fed off the hall.  It was like a vein running through the house.  When a storm came through these parts, that vein fed bayou water into every room of the house.  Holding the flashlight up to the walls, Alec could see the watermark, waist-high, just below the wainscoting.  The frames nailed to the walls above held pictures of people who seemed to be smirking down, defiantly living above the waterline, just like people had in this house for generations.  The last picture was of Meredith, her arms on the shoulders of two other girls at the Gator Bowl, all of them in their white aprons and paper hats.

         A crashing sound rang out from the kitchen.  Alec slammed his back against the wall, knocking the group picture off its nail and sending it sliding down, past the waterline and onto the floor.  Keeping the light pointed at the kitchen doorway, he unlatched the cover on his holster and pulled his gun.

         “Meredith?” he called out.  “It’s Sheriff Maldrone.  You home?”

         There was a skittering across the hardwood floor.  Alec pulled himself flatter against the wall and aimed his light and gun to the floor.  Glowing, beady eyes stared back up at him from the floor and a possum hissed under the glare of the light.  Alec swept at the creature with his foot, and the animal peeled off down the hall toward the open screen door. 

         A bead of sweat escaped from under the wide brimmed hat on his head, and Alec pulled it off, smearing the next few drops away with his forearm.  He stepped into the kitchen and saw a wide brimmed pot on the floor, spaghetti sauce spattered across the counter.  Little red paw prints ran from the puddle of sauce into the hall.  But the room didn’t smell like Italian food, it smelled like something rotting.  The unique smell of rot that only the humidity of the bayou could carry on it.

         Alec turned back to the hallway, the floorboards creaking under his weight as he scanned the doors with his light for the bedroom.  He passed a bathroom and a linen closet before he reached the last door at the end of the hall.  Bedrooms were always at the back of these houses.  Always at the end of the line.  The last door was the only one pulled shut.

         “Ms. Parker, are you in there?”  Alec tapped on the door with the barrel of his flashlight.  The door swung open slowly.

         Outside the back of the house, the moon shone over the bayou, reflecting off the water and filling the room with silvery light.  The room was glowing, like a supernatural home for the spirits of the swamp.  A candle light was flickering from inside the bathroom at the back of the room.  Alec took a step forward, scanning again with his light, the yellow bleeding into the silver to create a golden beam.

             The beam landed on the bathroom door, partially closed, and revealed bright red lettering across the antique white paint.  Alec read the wording aloud.

         “I’ve done it again.  There’s nothing to do.  Just clean up this mess, I’m coming for you.”

         The Cajun Clown.  Alec pushed the door open, understanding that it was too late.

         Meredith Parker was floating in the tub, her golden hair sprayed over the back of the tub, streaked purple.  A can of cotton candy-colored spray paint lay on the floor, just as it always did.  Bright red lipstick was smeared all around her mouth in a grotesque smile. 

         Alec Maldrone had been chasing this killer for the past three years.  Every time he’d struck, Alec got a little closer.  Now the Clown was toying with him.  He was getting as much thrill from the kill as he was the chase.  And he’d picked a victim that Alec knew.  Now it was a game for him, and he wanted Maldrone sitting across the chessboard from him.

         A gust of wind flipped up the curtains of the bedroom window.  Alec ran to the window, hanging his head outside.  Just under the low hanging branch of a sycamore tree, a ripple reflected in the water, a couple of dozen feet from the house.

         Alec mounted the windowsill.  This game wasn’t over tonight. 



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