One Blood (48 page)

“
If you move,” he growled, “I’m gonna blow your mother’s head off.”

“
No,” Kris whispered.

The gun flipped out of Randy’s hand. One second, Kris was standing next to Lincoln; the next, he stood behind Randy.

“
Let her go,” Kris commanded.

Randy’s arms flew up and Coral dropped to the ground. His body did a 180-degree turn until he faced his son. Lincoln saw how much he was straining to regain control over his body.

“
Wow, Dad,” Kris greeted his father. “Hate sure has made you ugly.”

“
You don’t scare me,” Randy said.

“
You don’t have enough sense to be scared, Dad. But don’t worry, where you’re going, they will put that fear back in you.”

“
Not. Going. Anywhere.”

Kris looked at Lincoln and shrugged as if to say,
“See what I have to deal with?”

“
When you started this all those years ago, you had to know it would end this way, right, Dad? I mean, you have been a one-man wrecking ball for over forty years. Doesn’t it get old? The lies? The money? The power?”

Randy glared back at Kris. “Never,” he spat.

“
Oh well, you clearly can’t be helped,” Kris said. “So I’m going to take you back to a time before all this. Back when you should have taken your own miserable life.”

Confusion wrapped Randy’s face and was abruptly replaced by horror. Lincoln saw stripes of blood begin to soak through Randy’s shirt. They resembled knife slashes and Randy screamed with each new slash. His features began to change.

Lincoln watched the man regress backward through the years. His hair returned, his face lost its lines, and his frame diminished until he looked like the boy Kris had once been. The younger he became, the more bloody slashes appeared on his clothes until his shirt and pants were blood-soaked messes. In moments, Randy was a teenager again.

He fell to his knees in so much pain he couldn’t even scream.

“
And to think, this is just a small portion of the pain you’ve caused others,” Kris remarked. “Imagine if I turned up the volume.”

“
No-no-no please don’t…please,” Randy blabbered.

“
You have to choose, Dad,” Kris said. The revolver appeared in his hand. “You can come with me.” He looked at the portal in the tree’s center. “Or you can end your own life.”

“
You know my choice,” Randy answered.

“
Yes,” Kristopher replied, putting the gun to Randy’s temple. “I knew you’d take the easy way out. Lucky for me you already tried and failed to kill yourself today, so come on, let’s see what we’ve got behind door number two.”

Randy howled as Kris lifted him over his head and threw him into the portal. Once it absorbed him, the doorway contracted, sucking the tree away with it.

“
See you on the other side, Link,” Kris said, fading away as well. “Make the most of the time you’ve got left.”

Then he was gone.

* * * * *

EPILOGUE

One Year Later

Angola, LA

Lincoln Baker’s life story lay between the pages of a scrapbook, thrown carelessly under the cot of his windowless Death Row cell. He hadn’t looked at it since Moses brought it to him after the trial. He’d been too busy preparing to die. Lincoln had thought he was running out of firsts; however, the past twelve months had proven him wrong.

* * * * *

Lincoln made his way to where the tree had stood and found Karen Lafitte lying on the ground, with her eyes open and unseeing. He thought her dead until she blinked for the first time in minutes. Lincoln helped her over to where Brandon was just waking up. Coral remained unconscious.

Once the four of them were huddled together, the sun rose, casting a kaleidoscope of color across the hurricane-ravaged landscape formerly known as Lake City. Lincoln had seen plenty of sunrises in his life, but none even came close to rivaling the breathtaking beauty he witnessed the morning after Isaac’s landing.

* * * * *

Lincoln spent a few days in a Baton Rouge hospital to heal his many wounds, once they were able to get out of the city.

The police escort helped.

Despite Brandon’s protests, Lincoln had gone to the Lake City PD and unspooled a stunning confession of his kidnapping of Karen Lafitte and his direct role in the murders that ravaged the city. But no matter how much they bullied and badgered him, Lincoln wouldn’t cop to the disappearance of Governor Lafitte, the destruction of the Lafitte estate, or offer an explanation for Coral Lafitte’s vegetative state. The poor woman never recovered from the events of that night and had to be placed in assisted living.

All charges against Brandon were dropped.

* * * * *

The media was out of control.

Headlines like,
“The Monster Within the Monster,”
shocked the nation’s collective consciousness. Countless stories were written about the flawed justice system. New legislation was proposed that would allow violent criminals seventeen and younger to be executed. The president expressed his sorrow for the victims of Hurricane Isaac in one breath, and condemned Lincoln Baker in the next. Karen was poked and prodded like a lab rat as her parents were upheld as tragic victims of a madman. Reporters embarrassed themselves trying to get the exclusive. Psychiatrists begged Lincoln to donate his brain to science so they could isolate the black insanity gene.

Through it all, Lincoln declined to comment and stoically awaited trial.

* * * * *

Another circus pitched its big top outside of the institution formerly known as the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Ninety-five percent of the prison population died during the storm. The warden disappeared, and with him went any explanation of this utter disregard for human life. For weeks afterwards, little to no news was reported regarding the mass deaths at Angola. Not until Jhonnette Deveaux and Moses Mouton emerged from the wreckage as two innocents, amazingly spared. It wasn’t long before the powers that be tried to shut Jhonnette and Moses up. But the damage was already done.

* * * * *

Louisiana was in shambles.

With Randy Lafitte missing, opportunistic scavengers such as Bill Edwards vied for his post. The media cast Edwards as a hero, despite his shady past.

They were that desperate for leadership.

Polls taken a month after Hurricane Isaac indicated Edwards would be the frontrunner in the upcoming emergency gubernatorial election. But that all changed after Lincoln’s trial.

* * * * *

Lincoln fasted and prayed from sun up, until sundown in preparation for the trial.

He marched calmly into the courtroom as uneasy murmurs rose from the peanut gallery. He didn’t
look
like a crazed, murderous, criminal mastermind. The prosecution, armed with Lincoln’s confession, assumed this would be an open and shut trial.

That all changed the moment Lincoln was asked to enter his plea. The headlines that evening said it all,
“Lincoln Baker: Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity?”

Politicians blustered, pundits raged, and late night TV personalities joked.

Then the defense began its case.

There had been more public memorials, eulogies, and declarations of Randy Lafitte’s greatness and contributions than Lady Diana had after her untimely death. But there had been little to no examination of the facts. Lincoln’s defense doled those facts out in deliberate and excruciating detail during the trial.

They told of a ruthless killer who’d eliminated everyone that ever got in his way, including his father Joseph, Walter Simmons, and far worse, his own son Kristopher. Even the atrocities at Angola were linked to him. Lafitte went from Gandhi to Hitler in the course of a few days testimony. Bill Edwards’ tight association to Lafitte was the flame that exploded his political aspirations.

* * * * *

Before the defense rested, Lincoln asked to address the court.

“
Your Honor,” Lincoln began. “I would like to change my plea.”

The judge frowned. “Mr. Baker, do not toy with my court. This is highly irregular. On what grounds are you changing your plea?”

“
Well, Your Honor, it’s true that I was on the insane side when I did all those terrible things. But the truth is…I’ve been insane a lot longer than that. I’ve been insane ever since I was separated from my birth mother. I was insane when I started banging when I was nine years old. I was insane when I killed all those people that day at Simmons Park. I was insane sitting on twenty-three hour lockdown with nothing to keep me company but my own insane life story—”

“
Mr. Baker, if you have a point, please get to it. My patience is wearing thin.”

Lincoln found Moses’ eyes in the courtroom and gave him a subtle nod. “Yes sir, Your Honor. My point is…someone as crazy as me doesn’t deserve to live. Even if I was pushed into this by Randy Lafitte. It doesn’t excuse the life I’ve lived, and the lives I’ve taken. So, I’m changing my plea to guilty. Guilty of letting my past corrupt my future. Guilty of playing the victim while I victimized others—mostly my own people. Guilty of not forgiving anyone who ever hurt me. I stand here before you, guilty of all this and more. It’s time for me to be the example I always should have been.”

And that’s all he would say until the day of his execution arrived.

After that speech, Lincoln thought they would have drug him into the street for an old-fashioned Louisiana lynching. But that didn’t happen. It seemed it was nearly impossible to kill someone who
wanted
to die in this country.

He became everyone’s pet cause.

Liberals lobbied for clemency. Right-wingers hired assassins. Christians elected him as the false prophet signaling the end-times. Satanists, for once, agreed.

* * * * *

Lincoln ordered a feast of crawfish, potatoes, and corn for his last meal. Everyone he cared about came to see him off. Moses, Brandon, Jhonnette, and even Karen Lafitte showed up.They ate and talked.

Brandon and Karen spoke of starting college in a few weeks. Seeing them together gave Lincoln hope. Brandon had accepted a basketball scholarship at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida and Karen would be attending Florida State right up the street.

Jhonnette independently published Malcolm Wright’s memoirs and started her own fictionalized book about the Curse of the Weeping Cypress, Walter Simmons’ murder, the Simmons Park Massacre, Karen Lafitte’s kidnapping, and the subsequent events. She called it,
One Blood
.

“
But in my version,” she said, choking up, “the hero goes free.”

With only twenty minutes left, Jhonnette, Brandon, and Karen took turns hugging and kissing Lincoln goodbye.

“
I wish we could have met under different circumstances,” he said to Jhonnette. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. You would have made me a better man.”

With tears in her eyes, Jhonnette gave him one last squeeze and then left the room without looking back.

Lincoln turned to Brandon, his tears flowing freely now. “Little man, well, you ain’t so little now. You are gonna be great. I’ve known it since I first laid eyes on you. But you got to let go of your anger. If you don’t, you might end up…like me.”

Brandon looked down at the ground.

“
Look at me, Brandon.”

Brandon complied.

“
You know I love you, right?”

“
I know,” Brandon replied.

“
Good. Now I want you to go out there and show the world what you’re made of. I want you to go after your dreams and don’t let nothing stop you, aight?”

“
I will,” Brandon replied through his sobs.

“
You got a good woman here,” Lincoln said, turning to Karen. “And you are her only family now.”

Karen flinched.

“
Don’t let nothing ever separate ya’ll. Not these ignorant bigots out here who don’t understand what you got between you, not anybody. Can ya’ll do that?”

They both nodded.

“
Okay. I love ya’ll.”

Brandon hugged him fiercely and then let him go. Taking Karen’s hand, they walked to the door.

Karen stopped and turned around. “Lincoln?”

“
Yeah?”

“
I want you to know that I don’t hate you. None of this was your fault. Everything is gonna be alright now, okay?”

Lincoln nodded his thanks as they left the room.

After he collected himself, he looked at the only father he’d ever known. He was glad they had this time alone together, here at the end.