Free Judas Burning by Carolyn Haines Page B

logic. The two of them would sit under the oaks and drink a few beers and talk through the disappearance of the two girls.
    J.D. walked through the trees. The place was quiet. Camille’s car was by the house, and he could see Eustace’s boat at the landing and his old truck parked behind a shed. Eustace had to be there.
    “Lots of excitement, J.D.” Eustace’s voice came from the direction of a lightning-blasted tree trunk.
    “How’s it going, Eustace?” he said when the fisherman walked out from behind the tree. Blood covered Eustace’s oversized hands. A glistening hunk of blood-soaked skin hung from the pliers he carried.
    “Did you find the bodies?”
    J.D. didn’t answer immediately. “So you think they’re dead?”
    “That’s the talk all along the river. Two girls missing. Have the draglines brought anything up?” Eustace looked up toward the camp, where Camille walked out, sat down on the top step, and lit a cigarette.
    “Not yet.” J.D. concentrated on Eustace’s face as his friend watched Camille.
    Eustace wiped one hand on his filthy shirt. “Any idea what happened?”
    J.D. noticed the bruises and scraped knuckles on Eustace’s right hand as he leaned a hip against the SUV. Since Camille Holbert had driven her Mercedes SL500 out of her rich daddy’s driveway and into the swamp and parked it beside Eustace’s camp, the fisherman hadn’t invited him inside. Today would be no different. “Like you said, some folks think they drowned.” Eustace knew the swamps better than any man alive; he was up and down the river several times a day, and he was observant. “You didn’t see the girls, did your
    “No.” Eustace motioned for the sheriff to follow him. “You want to talk, I’ve got to finish this fish. A man’s comin’ by for thirty pounds, cleaned and skinned.”
    J.D. followed him, noting that his limp was more pronounced than usual. J.D. looked back at the redhead smoking on the steps. She was a good thirty-five, maybe forty, years younger than Eustace. She looked like a child.
    There had been wild talk about Camille. Her name had been linked with a host of younger men, boys really, but as far as J.D. knew, none of them had ever confirmed the gossip. When she left a man, she sealed his lips, and that was a talent in a town where counting notches was a public competition.
    Eustace pointed to a picnic table with benches beneath an open-air shed. J.D. took a seat while Eustace finished pulling the skin off a five-pound catfish he’d nailed to a board. J.D. looked away at the sound of the skin tearing free.
    “Have you seen anything unusual on the river?” he asked.
    Eustace shook his head. “I was up the Chickasawhay almost to Leakesville. Anybody coulda come and gone.” He paused to wipe his sweaty forehead with his arm. “I’m not surprised they’re gone. My bet is, if they aren’t dead, they ran off with somebody. They’ll be home when they finish scratching their itch.”
    Eustace picked up a net and went to the vat where the artesian water bubbled. Struggling briefly, he pulled up another catfish. The creature thrashed coming out of the water, its gray sides slick, scaleless. Eustace lowered it to the concrete floor beside J.D.’s boot. Stepping on the net to pin the fish in place, he lifted a baseball bat and brought it down with a smack on the fish’s head. The fish stilled.
    Careful not to touch the whiskers, Eustace freed the fish from the net and picked it up. Selecting a huge nail, he drove it through the fish’s head and hung it on the board.
    Eustace worked smoothly, quickly, with an efficiency of movement that J.D. admired. The knife flicked below the head, and Eustace began to peel the skin off with pliers.
    When he finally spoke, it was to ask a question. “Why didn’t those girls’ folks start hunting before now? If it’d been my girls, I’d have been out on the river yesterday.”
    J.D. looked at the dusty toes of his boots. “Angie Salter has been