Leroy looked truly terrified now as his whole body shook with fear.
King maneuvered her away from the truck.Then he met Shay’s gaze.“Yeah, my queen is one to be reckoned with if you go too far.”King then added, “And you can take those other dumbasses with you.We got three of the four of Soleman’s firestarters.Then Dale and his boys.”King growled.“It stinks like the devil’s own around here.”He stared at Leroy then at the couple as well.“You can take all the lowlife trash away from here.”
Shay nodded.“I’ll be more than happy to do just that.”Then he paused and looked at Maudie.“I also need one more thing.From Bethy...a blood test.We need to determine whether or not the body we found is her mother’s.I know it’s going to be hard for her but we need it to make the charges stick like white on rice.I don’t know why she turned on him but I can about imagine.If she figured out what he was doing, I would hope she wanted nothing to do with it, but we may never know now.”
Maudie sighed as she nodded at Shay.“I need to tell you something and you can do what you need to with it.I think you best be aware of Leroy’s brother, Jude Matteo.He might seem right and true as the Senator he was voted for but I think there’s a snake under those suits he wears.I’ve seen him a time or two and his eyes gave me the shivers.I’d seen his wife once too and I could almost feel the evil coming from her soul.”Shaking her head, Maudie shivered again.“I took a trip with King a few weeks ago and we saw them on the street in New Orleans.They were just strolling down the sidewalk like they were king and queen.They both had an aura about them that was pulsing black.It followed them down the street like a bad smell.I couldn’t, no Ididn’tget too close because I could feel the evil.I didn’t say a word but we came home that night and I was unsettled for days.”
King frowned.“That was why?Because you saw them on the streets?You didn’t say a word.”
Maudie ran her hands over her arms like she felt cold and nodded.“I couldn’t even think about what I’d seen for days.Mind you I knew what people would say if I told anyone, so I kept my mouth shut and tried to shake off those feelings but it took days before I could.”
Shay shook his head.“Maudie, you are the only person I know who would be right with just a feeling.And if you felt pure evil pulsing off people, then I would have listened.”
“I would too bae, those feelings you get have true meaning to everyone who knows you.I would have listened,” King added.
Boomer nodded, as did Colt and every one of the Hogans.
“Maudie, I think we all would have listened to you,” Sonny said.“You wouldn’t ever steer us wrong.I mean Leroy has never been one of the favorite people living here.He kept himself and his daughter away from all of us and now we know there had been a dark reason for that.”Sonny shook his head.
Maudie seemed to hesitate then she spoke, “Then you all aren’t gonna like what I tell you next...Dere’s more coming at us.I’m not sure when, but it will.So, it’s not over, not yet.”
King snorted.“No, it ain’t.One of Chester’s men said that this wouldn’t be over until the fat lady sang.I’m just not sure if he referred to Leroy and the other two?”
Shay nodded.“I agree with this warning.So, you all need to stay on the look out for anything odd.”He then scoffed.“What the hell am I saying?Odd is par for the course here in the swamps.”
“Weh, Mr.Shay.True dat...true dat.”Maudie nodded her head.
A week later...
Shay walked down the hall and using his own keycard he opened the door to the cell area.He had brought the whole gang of miscreants here.This place was a secret bank of cells with armed guards.A special unit that no one knew about.He walked over to the cell that housed Leroy Matthias or rather, Leroy Matteo.He glared at the man sitting on the cot.
Leroy looked up and he looked like hell warmed over.Tried, baggy eyes and a pallor he hadn’t had before.“What the hell do you want now?You gonna end this circus and let us all go?”
Shay hoped it had been as bad for this man, as Maudie and Bethy had hoped.It looked like good ole Leroy had gotten no sleep for days.He sure hoped so.Shay snorted.“Let you go?That’s just not gonna happen, Mr.Matteo.”
Leroy growled and rushed to the bars.He looked even worse close up.Like he’d aged overnight.His hands gripped the steel between them and he shouted, “My last name is Matthias, not Matteo!”
Shay smirked at him.“Your name is Matteo because that’s the name you were born with.Your fingerprints also confirm that.You called yourself Matthias but you never changed your name through legal means, so you are still Leroy Matteo.”Shay stepped back and began going through the papers in his hands.“Also, I have your birth certificate and it reads as Matteo too.It also lists your brother, Jude Marcus Matteo also born to the same parents listed on your certificate.I’m here to tell you several things.The first one being we know the signature of your bombs.They led us to your first strike twenty-three years ago when you blew up a yacht and killed four people.You killed that Senator, his wife and two young children, then like the snake you are, you found yourself a hole, crawled inside and tried to hide.You moved into the swamp, taking your pregnant wife and you lived there under a name that never belonged to you.Your wife, Althea gave you a daughter and you both raised her together until she was ten years old, then we think that was when Althea found out what you did for years.She found the bombs you had hidden, didn’t she?”
Leroy scowled but he didn’t say anything.
Shay just nodded.“Yeah, we know all about that fight the two of you had.Bethy found her diary the morning you dragged her mother out into the swamp and came back alone.She was so scared of you she hid her mom’s words for the next twelve years.She never even read them; she was so afraid of you.Then when she was seventeen, almost eighteen she fell in love and again, you flew into a rage.You told her she had been promised to a man that was waiting for her to grow up.Was that man Soleman Porter?”
From the cell next to Leroy, Louise Matteo gasped and glared at Leroy.“You dirty nasty man!”
Leroy just glared at her then he looked back at Shay.“Bethy was gonna be my way into Porters’ group.All she had to do was behave herself and she’d be living the good life by now.Then she got with that Hogan bastard and he took her good life away cause he couldn’t keep it in his pants.Then she had his kid and everything went to hell.”
Shay glared at him as he ignored his inane rant.“We found something else while we were collecting the bombs you made.”
“And what was that?”Leroy growled back.
“We found your wife.”Shay growled.“Or rather what was left of her.”
Louise froze and turned her head to glare at him, then she asked, “What do you mean what was left of her?”
“We found her bones buried by the first bombs,” Shay told her.“The ones that were leaking into the soil.The ones that were so unstable that we had to bury them in cement rather than try and move them.”
Louise didn’t care about the bombs as she gasped.“She’s dead?”
