Thursday and Friday evenings George sometimes spends at the Jefferson Parish Library main branch on West Napoleon Avenue researching and checking out books. At present he is studying the British Captain James Cook. Although his main love is studying about the history of New Orleans and America, right now he is indulging his other history love and studying about the adventures of the famous sea captain. He also loves to study the history of life on earth, philosophy, and art, but he has not studied these subjects for about a year. He spends the next several days reading the books he has checked out. On Sunday he decides to take a break. At first he just drives along Lakeshore Drive, but then decides to go to the Caf du Monde in the French Quarter for some coffee and donuts.

George finds an excellent parking place just off Decatur Street on Ursuline Avenue behind an old battered Mustang. He walks the three blocks to the beignet shop and waits in line for a table. He does not mind waiting. This is one of his favorite haunts; the wait is worth it. After being seated, he is sitting in the open-air restaurant enjoying his beignets and coffee when two prostitutes sit at the table next to him, although the taller one is dressed more conservatively than normal for a prostitute. He is immediately disgusted. He tries as much as possible to ignore them, but fails. Their conversation intrudes into his thoughts. He curses them for ruining his afternoon.

"Whores should not be allowed to visit this historic restaurant," he says to himself as he finally gets up to leave.

Putting the two women behind him, he walks though Jackson Square, pausing at the statue of the famous general and admiring the balconies of the Pontalba, the architecture of the Presbytere and Calbido and St. Louis Cathedral. How anyone can condemn New Orleans is beyond him. He loves studying the history of New Orleans.

'Don't they realize that by studying the history of New Orleans one can learn a large portion of the history of the United States?' George reminisces to himself. 'Thomas Jefferson thought that nothing but ignorant, barbarians lived here. He hated New Orleans and called the city a 'natural and habitual enemy.' But, George continues talking to himself, 'Jefferson was smart enough to realize the economic importance of the Isle of Orleans to the fledgling nation. What Jefferson did not fully realize was that back in 1803, there were only two cities in all the United States where one could hear the opera and one of those was New Orleans, the fifth largest city of the nation at that time. Barbarians do not listen to the opera.

George continues through the Place d'Armes, as he knows Jackson Square was at one time called, and up Pirates Alley next to St. Louis Cathedral, where legend has it the Privateer Jean Lafitte is alleged to have sold his booty. He turns right on Royal Street and begins to slowly meander down the street back to his car.

"Mister, Mister," Sandra calls to George as she is trying to catch up with him.

At the sound of a strange voice George turns around to see who is calling him. It's one of those whores who were sitting at the table next to him at the beignet shop. He is disgusted all over again.

"What does she want," he says to himself.

"You forgot this at your table," she says to him as she hands him a book about the Adventures of Captain Cook. "I saw you walking through Jackson Square and thought I would return it to you. I almost missed you. I had to ask one of the artists that gather around the square if he had seen anybody with a purple shirt on and he said that you watched him draw for a few minutes and then walked up Pirates Alley."

George is dumfounded. He does not know how to respond to such generosity from a prostitute. He has always considered them to be the maggots of society. He mumbles a quiet 'thank you.'

"Sure, hope you have a nice day," Sandra answers him with a smile on her face.

"Yeah you to," he manages to mutter. Then he turns around and heads for his car on Decatur Street.

Sandra watches him walk away for a minute thinking about the strange response she got from him. Then she shrugs her shoulders and begins to walk down Royal Street herself toward her Mustang which is also parked on Decatur Street.

As George walks toward his car he becomes angry with himself for forgetting his library book on the restaurant table. He becomes even angrier when he thinks that he is now in debt to a whore for saving it for him. Suddenly he stops and listens to the footsteps on the pavement behind him. He turns slightly and looks over his shoulder. It is the whore. She's following him; she is about a half a block behind him. He turns back around and continues toward his car.

"What does that bitch want, a reward?" he says to himself and continues on, slightly picking up his pace.

When he gets to Decatur he turns right, keeping watch over his shoulder for the young woman. He unlocks his car door and stands next to the open door. He watches for her to appear at the corner. When she does, she turns right and jaywalks across the street and heads straight toward him. George begins to believe that she wants a date with him. "Why is she after me?" George asks himself. "None of those other prostitutes approached me this way."

The bottle of ether is on his console along with a handkerchief. He decides to teach this whore a lesson. No whore is going to accost him and get away with it. He reaches inside of the car and pours some ether on the rag.

When she gets abreast of his car, she is again smiling. "Nice car you have there mister. Better than my old beat up one there in front of yours," she says to him.

But George does not hear her. He is too incensed by his thoughts that she wants a date with him. He grabs her at the back of the neck and holds the ether soaked rag to her face. She struggles, but within seconds she is asleep. He lays her down in the back seat of his car.

He immediately heads for Orleans Avenue and gets on Interstate 10 just past Louis Armstrong Park. As he drives past the Superdome on his left, his thoughts turn to this woman once he gets her chained up inside the punishment room. For her insolence he intends to spoon feed her oatmeal so that he can keep her alive longer and beat her more.

"Yes," he says to himself. "I'll give her oatmeal just like mother used to give me when she would chain me up. That ought to teach her not to approach me for a date. I'll even make her use the chamber pot."

Driving down the Interstate, George continues to visualize on how he is going to really torture his victim for intruding in on his life; how he is going to beat her and brand her. He wants this one to suffer as he did as a child.

But he didn't hold the ether filled rag on her face long enough. On the way back to Metairie she wakes up, just as they are approaching the Causeway Boulevard exit of Interstate 10. She is groggy but she knows something is wrong. Something is very wrong. She is lying down in the back seat of a strange car and the man whose book she returned is driving. She remembers telling him something about how nice his car was and then him holding a foul-smelling rag to her face. Then nothing.

"Well," she says to herself. "I'm not going to wait around and find out what he's up to." She slowly takes off one of her shoes.

George is lost in his own thoughts and does not notice what she is doing. Sandra hits him on the side of his head. George is caught totally off guard. He loses control of the car. It flips upside down, landing in the neutral ground of the expressway. George is killed instantly. Sandra is shaken up but not hurt. She crawls out the shattered rear window and stands next to the auto.

Almost immediately several cars pull up near the upturned vehicle. One man approaches Sandra. Another man begins to direct traffic.

"Are you all right," he has his arm around her. "Do you need an ambulance? Sit over here on the grass until help arrives."

"I'm OK. That man tried to kidnap me," she answers him pointing toward the upturned auto. She is still groggy from the ether.

"What?" the man asks as he guides her to a spot on the grass away from the auto.

"I was going to my car in the French Quarter and he put something on my face and the next thing I know I'm here."

"Excuse me sir," a young woman in a police uniform says to the man helping Sandra. She has just arrived on the scene; her partner is checking on George. "I'm a police officer with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's office. Can you tell me what happened Ma'am?" The siren of an ambulance can be heard approaching.

"Yeah, like I told that other guy. I was going to my car in the French Quarter and suddenly this guy puts this foul smelling rag on my face. I heard him say something about killing prostitutes. Then I blacked out. When I wake up, I'm lying in the back seat of his car. So I hit him with my shoe. Then the car flipped."

"He put a rag laced in ether on your face. I can smell it."

"He called me a prostitute and said he was going to kill me."

"You just sit here for now, Ma'am," the female police officer answers her. "An ambulance is on its way. When it gets here have them give you some oxygen." Then she goes over to the upturned Toyota. "How's he?" she asks her partner.

"He didn't make it. Here, I got his driver's license."

"Yeah, well according to the woman, he tried to kidnap her. Called her a prostitute and said he was going to kill her. I'm wondering if he's the Rapist or not, only she ain't dressed like any prostitute I've ever seen.

"Hey! My aunt Casey is working that case," her partner exclaims. She's a New Orleans detective. Want me to give her a call?"

"Why not? Maybe she can sort this mess out."



Dave and Darlene are lying in bed. They are both naked, having just finished making love. He is lying on his back. She is leaning on her left elbow looking down on him and running her hand up and down his chest. He is caressing her right nipple with his left hand.

"That was right smart of you to pack the girls off to your mother's for the afternoon," he says to her.

"Yeah, well I figured you needed a break from all those prostitutes you been hanging around lately. Tell me; am I better than they are?"

"Well, I don't know, babe. I ain't never been to bed with a prostitute." He rises up and smacks her on her ass.

"Will you leave my ass alone?"

"Never." He kisses her between the breasts and then on the neck.

"You like smacking me on my ass don't you?"

"I wouldn't do it if you didn't like it so much," he answers her. Then he kisses her openmouthed on the lips.

In the middle of the kiss the doorbell rings.

Darlene breaks the kiss. "Ignore it," she says. "It's probably George wanting a piece of cake or something. I want another piece of you." She kisses him again and runs her hand through his pubic hair, clutching his member.

The doorbell rings a second time. They both ignore it. Darlene crawls on top of Dave, straddling his hips. She presses her sex into his. By now Dave is again erect. He grabs her left nipple with his right thumb and index finger, pinching it, as he sucks her right areola. Darlene moans.

The doorbell rings a third time; this time it's accompanied with a loud pounding on the door.

"That's not George. One of us better go answer it," Dave says in frustration.

"I'll do it. You stay right there." She delicately grabs his erect penis and kisses him on its head; she licks some pre-cum from its opening. "I'll be right back just as soon as I tell whoever it is that they interrupted a great fuck."

Darlene wraps a robe around her and goes to the front door. When she opens it, she is surprised to see Lt. Casey.

"Oh hi, Erica. Come on in. What can I do for you?"

"I've been trying to get Y'all on the phone for an hour now. But I keep getting a busy signal and Dave's cell keeps sending me to voice mail."

"Sorry. Dave and I were sort of busy. He took the phone off the hook and put his cell on vibrate." Darlene bites her lower lip and gives Erica a mischievous smile.

"Was that sex fiend of a husband of yours coming on to you again, darling?"

"Actually it was more like me coming on to him this time."

"Well sorry to bother you, but I got to see him right away. I think we may have gotten the serial killer."

"What?" Darlene asks incredulously. "Let me go get him. Sit down. I'll be right back."

A few minutes later Dave enters the living room. Darlene is following behind him.

"Hey Erica," Dave says to his partner as he enters into the living room tying the cords of his robe around his waist. "Darlene tells me you caught the rapist."

"You know sex isn't the only thing in life," she says to him in a sardonic but playful tone. "You should be taking your wife to see some of the sites of the city, like the Audubon Zoo, the Aquarium of the Americas, the New Orleans Museum of Art, or just to ride the Carousel in City Park. It's one of only a couple left in the whole country you know. Instead of bothering your poor wife and all, Y'all should be out enjoying the sunshine on a beautiful day like today."

"Yeah, well he likes my ass," Darlene interjects. Then she smacks her husband on his ass. "Can I get you some coffee or anything?"

"No thank you, darling. I'm not going to tell you what he thinks about mine."

"I can only imagine." Darlene puts her arm around Dave's waist, hugging him.

"Erica, you didn't come here to tell me how to spend my afternoons or to talk about my wife's ass."

"No, I came to talk to you about your neighbor, George Hoover. How much do you know about him?"

"Not much. We play chess every Wednesday evening. He keeps to himself mostly. What's he got to do with the serial killer?"

"He was killed this afternoon in an auto accident on the I-10, near the Causeway."

"What? George. What happened?

"He had a young woman with him in the car."

"Was she hurt?" Darlene interrupts.

"No, she's all right. She's saying that he threatened to kill her, called her a prostitute. He apparently kidnapped her after putting an ether soaked rag to her face and knocking her out. I believe that he was taking her back to his house at the time of the accident."

"I don't believe this. You're telling me that my next door neighbor, mild-mannered George Hoover, is a serial killer. I play chess with the man every Wednesday for crying out loud."

"It takes all kinds Dave. Anyway, I got a couple of Jefferson Parish policemen outside. We're waiting on a warrant to search his house now."

"Yeah, well if he is the rapist and he was taking her to his house to torture her, then there'll be a ton of evidence in there to prove it."

"And we'll have solved the case," Casey adds.



Three weeks later

"Dave, here's the forensics report on the evidence gotten from George's house. You're not going to believe this." Casey drops a large manila envelope on his desk.

"Don't tell me George isn't the killer."

"No, he's our man alright. But you remember that old whip with the brass handle, the one that was falling apart."

"What about it?"

"The blood on it was George's and the blood in the crevasses on the brass handle; we don't know who that belongs to. The lab says that it's probably his mother's because it is such a close match to his."

"Think maybe that's where the scars on his back and buttocks came from?" Dave asks his partner. "Maybe his mother beat him or something?"

"I don't know. But then whatever happened to his mother?"

"Maybe he turned on her after she beat him one day," Dave speculates an answer. "Maybe he killed her too and then dumped her body somewhere."

But before Lt. Casey can respond, the phone rings on Dave's desk. "Homicide, Pierce," he answers it. A pause, he winks at Lt. Casey. "Hi babe, how's your ass?"