I
GRIPPING HER PURSE TIGHTLY, she turned towards the center of the cemetery and walked slowly down the gravel paths between the rows of crypts in the direction of her home. The only sound was the soft crunch of her steps on the footpath. Moss draped trees stood silently among the tombs with their long tendrils hanging down like raggedy, torn curtains. Inky blackness surrounded her like a liquid, and the ever present graves provided a chilling reminder that death was permanent.
Clouds were playing tag with the moon, and legions of leaping shadows chased each other across the stones of the dead like silent, dark phantoms. They were flying, swooping, darting in and out between the crypts and monuments. It reminded her of chasing the kittens in the spooky, old barn on the farm. She had found them all just by softly saying, "Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty. Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty."
As she passed a large obelisk, he came at her from behind. She struggled in a frantic attempt to retain her balance as he pulled her into the deeper darkness between the tombs. "Don't scream," he snarled in her ear. His nails were long and dug into her face. A reminder of how the kittens had scratched her.
She wrestled against his strength, and the dark shadows became her friend as her hand slipped into her purse. Then just as she had done with the kittens, she struck him once, twice and a third time before his grip loosened enough for her to turn and face him.
He reached towards his side as she stuck the long ice pick in the center of his chest, then his stomach. "Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon," she sang as she continued to stab him. She remembered singing nursery rhymes to drown out the plaintive mewing of the kittens when she had stabbed and killed them on the farm.
He bent over and she stabbed him again and again between his neck and shoulder. As he fell forward, she backed away, then knelt down smiling and continued to stab him in time to the rhyme until he quit moving.
"Mother told me to kill all the kittens. It's what's best for them," she whispered softly in his ear. She wiped the ice pick on his clothes and stood to survey the scene. She picked up her purse, checked its contents, and slipped in the ice pick before walking away. Fifteen minutes later she was in her house getting ready for bed, smiling.
Two days later, a small article on the back page of The Times-Picayune stated, "Yesterday morning Jessie Barrett, a caretaker, discovered an unidentified body of a man in Metairie Cemetery. The victim had multiple stab wounds about the torso, was white, five feet nine, approximately 145 pounds, wore a dark brown jacket, and blue jeans. Police are canvassing the area for witnesses, and anyone who may have known the man. Detective Ray Charbonnet of the New Orleans Police Department is heading up the investigation." With no leads to go on, Charbonnet quickly pushed aside the case.
"Hey Denise, give me another - will you?"
