She threw open her door and slid out, slamming the door behind her. Before she got her keys out of her purse, however, Manseur rolled down his window. “Hey, Keen!”
Alexa turned.
Manseur had a smile on his face. “You’re serious about this?”
Alexa raised an eyebrow.
“While you’re running around stirring up a Mississippi shit-storm, I’ll see if I can get Cooley to work faster on identifying those prints, and I’ll go through the phone records if they’re in yet. You call me if you have anything to tell me. We need prints on Casey and Gary West for comparisons.”
“You’re going to keep working this?”
“You can bet that frown I am. I just wanted to see exactly how serious you were. If I go and get my ass fired, I want to know somebody is going to be standing beside me in the unemployment line.”
He winked at her.
She smiled, wanting to slap and hug him at the same time.
“You find out anything, call me and fill me in,” he said. “And if you need my help at any point, you’ll get it. You need a map to that Fugate nurse’s house?”
Alexa found the keys to her car in her purse, and said, “If the GPS fails, I can probably smell my way to it.”
35
The car.
Wind and rain.
It is dark in my eyes.
The dark talks.
I am dark.
You do the chop now.
Cut here and there and everywhere.
Why the winds?
Cuts everywhere.
Look they lie here.
My belly.
Not the baby.
No chops.
Yes chops.
The cop.
Chop a cop.
Sibhon!..Sibhon!..Sibhon!
I am Dibbly, dubbly, do-do Sibby Dibby.
Mommy love you, yes she do.
For the fucker man says to do.
I am Sibhon…what?
You are the bloody one.
You are twenty-one.
He says to fuck.
Fuck yes.
Fuck is good.
Fuck is right.
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
