Homemade Sin (39 page)

Jones gave Bella a slight nod and mouthed; “I'll do what I can.” He swung his arm over Dickerson's shoulders and led him out toward the beach.

“Dick.” Jones squeezed the other deputy's shoulder. “Do we have to take her in? There's no law against having a drunk man in your hotel room. If there was, half of the spring break crowd would be in jail. So she has a pet rooster, what crime has she committed? And besides, this is the woman I love and I haven't seen her in a long time. I'd like to take the rest of the day off and catch up.”

“What about the indecent exposure?” Dickerson said. “She was naked on the beach. And you heard the manager, unless we take her to the station he's going to call the sheriff and cause a stink. We're going to have to take her down to the station, but I'll only charge her with disturbing the peace. You can pay her fine and she'll be out in an hour.”

Jones and Dickenson stepped back into the room. “You're going to have to come with us, Miss,” Deputy Dickerson said as he placed his hand on Bella's shoulder.

“Don't worry,” said Jones. “I'll have you out in an hour and we can talk.”

“You better be planning on doing more than talking. An hour? I can't wait that long. How about a conjugal visit in your police car?”

As Cutter and Dee Dee left Clint's room and walked toward the bar they met an intense man carrying a duffle bag coming toward them. Cowpie the clown nodded as they passed. He was a clown on a mission.

Cowpie checked behind him to make sure the people were out of sight before he ducked into the little alcove that held the vending machines. Stepping behind the ice machine he opened his duffle bag and removed his clown suit. He slipped on the orange jumper with large purple spots and a row of white puff balls that ran up the front like buttons. He grinned to himself as he smeared his face with white grease paint and painted red lines around his mouth and eyebrows. Finally, he pulled out a red rubber ball and attached it to his nose.

He was determined to scare the hell out of Clint this time.

Clint was feeling a lot better as he sat up in bed. He watched through the window as the ghost of an alabaster moon swung low, setting over McPherson Bayou. He felt good. Better than he had in a long time. Strong. He could feel the blood coursing through his veins, his sinewy muscles flexing. He ran his tongue over his teeth and felt sharp points. It felt like his canines had doubled in length. He reached up to open the window and noticed that a tuft of black hair had sprouted on the back of his hand. As Clint stared at the almost transparent, bewitching moon he felt the urge to howl. He ripped open his shirt, popping buttons across the room and revealing a thick mat of fur.

Baring his teeth, he drew back and sent a long, harrowing howl moonward.

“What the hell was that?” Dee Dee said to Cutter as she dug through the vials and potions she had dumped from Hussey's doctor bag onto her bed.

“Sounded like a wolf,” Cutter said “A big one.”

“There aren't any wolves in St. Petersburg. I can't find anything that looks like Mambo powder,” she said. “It's not here.”

“Shit,” Cutter said. “I have to pay Tony what I owe him or he is going to have my legs broken.”

Dee Dee stepped back from the pile of vials and then moved toward Hussey's closet. “Hey, there's a backpack in the closet, maybe she has something in there.”

Dee Dee emptied the contents of the backpack onto the bed, adding another layer of colorful vials of potions and powders to the current pile.

“Borko!” said Cutter, picking up a vial of deep purple powder and reading the label. “I remember Hussey saying once that Borko is zombie powder. This must be the right stuff, and it's the right color.”

Dee Dee snatched the vial from Cutter's hand and slipped it into her pocket. “OK, let's go make another zombie,” she said. “I'm not sure what we gave the cowboy before, but I'm pretty sure, whatever it was, it wasn't zombie powder.”

The door to Clint's room flew open and Cowpie, in full clown regalia, burst into the room, arms spread wide to embrace Clint's terror. When he saw the clown, Clint bared his teeth, a menacing growl bubbling up from deep inside his chest. Cowpie stood paralyzed. This was not the way it was supposed to happen. He was supposed to burst in and scare Clint shitless but instead there was a huge, snarling, growling wolf-like monster hunched on all fours on Clint's bed

Clint, snapping his powerful jaws, his mouth dripping ropy strings of saliva through his razor sharp fangs, leaped toward the clown, blood in his eyes. Cowpie screamed and bolted from the room with Clint, the werewolf, bounding after him on all fours. Tearing past Cutter and Dee Dee, Cowpie knocked Cutter into the wall as he sprinted toward the stairway. Dee Dee managed to step out of the way and press herself up against the wall as the clown ran past, screaming. Hot on the clown's heels, Dee Dee gawped at what looked like an enormous wolf, snapping at the clown's backside.

When Dee Dee and Cutter arrived at Clint's room they found it empty except for a shirt ripped to pieces on the floor.

“Uh oh,” Dee Dee said as they surveyed the empty room. “Do you think that was Clint chasing the clown?” she said.

Cutter picked up the vial of powder that sat on the dresser. “Oh yeah, I remember what Loup Garou means now,” he said. “It means werewolf.”

Bella was explaining to Jones, in graphic detail, what she had in mind for him when she got him alone as he pulled his cruiser into the parking lot of the police station. Jones was considering whether to turn the cruiser around and head straight to his apartment or jump into the back seat and ravish her on the spot, when his radio crackled to life. “Please repeat that,” Jones spoke into the microphone, his libido placed on hold. “That's what I thought you said.” Jones shook his head. “It just keeps getting crazier and crazier doesn't it?” he told the dispatcher.

As Jones opened the rear door to let Bella out, Dickerson's voice crackled through the radio. “Jones, did you hear that?”

“I heard.” Jones sniggered as he pressed the button on his microphone. “A werewolf chasing a clown down the beach? You gotta be kidding me.”

“The chief wants to see you as soon as possible,” Dickerson said, “I'll check out the werewolf. Probably just a big dog anyway,”

“It's always something,” Jones said, shaking his head. “This town keeps getting weirder every day.”

As Jones escorted Bella past the front desk, the desk sergeant handed him a pink inter-office memo. Jones scanned the memo which confirmed that the chief wanted to see him as soon as he got back; he took Bella to a bench beside the desk. “I have to go talk to the boss. The desk sergeant will take you down to the lock-up. As soon as I can, I'll get you out.”

“Jane,” Jones said, turning to the desk sergeant. “Would you mind taking this young lady down to processing?”

“Charge?” said the desk sergeant.

“Disturbing the peace. I'll meet you down there in a few minutes with a release order.”

Bella grabbed Jones's butt, a lusty look in her eye, as he walked away. “Make it quick. We got a date.”

“What was the deal on the body on the beach?” the sheriff said, “another homeless person?”

“No, it was false alarm,” Jones said. “The girl was just sleeping naked on the beach, but she's going to be booked for disturbing the peace. Probably be out in an hour. Why do you want to see me?” He dropped into a chair across from the sheriff.

“I got a call from the Tampa hospital,” the sheriff said. “The boxer's going to be alright, he came out of the coma a few minutes ago. He sat up in bed and asked for breakfast. There don't seem to be any complications, except that the doctor said he no longer shows any signs of OCD. I didn't even know he had OCD.”

Jones thought of the voodoo doll he had found on the dresser in Bella's hotel room. Before he had pulled the pin from its stomach, he had noticed the doll was wearing white boxer trunks and had a patch of blond hair glued to its head. “What color is Dutch's hair?” he said. “Was he fighting in white trunks?”