"Voodoo River" - читать интересную книгу автора (Crais Robert)

CHAPTER 4

O f the seven names on the list, four lived in town and three lived in the outlying area. I decided to speak with the townies first, then work my way out. Mr. Parks had recommended that I start with Mrs. Claire Fontenot who, as the widowed owner of a little five and dime just across the square, was the closest. He said that she was one of God's Finest Women. I took that to mean that she was kind and caring and probably easy to manipulate. Son of like Mr. Albert Parks. As I walked over I thought that maybe I should just cut out this manipulation business and proclaim for all the world who I worked for and what I was after. If I did, I would probably feel much better about myself. Of course, Jodi Taylor probably wouldn't, but there you go. Her privacy would be violated and her confidence breached, but what's that when compared to feeling good about oneself? Elvis Cole, detective for the nineties, comforts his inner child.

Going into Fontenot's Five amp; Dime was like stepping backward in time. Cardboard cutout ads for things like Carter's Little Liver Pills and Brylcreem – a little dab'll do ya! – and Dr. Tichnor's Antiseptic were taped and retaped to the door and the windows, filling the same spaces that they had filled when they were first put up forty years ago. Some of the cutouts were so faded that they were impossible to read.

An overweight girl in her late teens sat on a stool behind the counter reading a copy of Allure. She looked up when I entered.

"Hi. Is Mrs. Fontenot in?"

The girl called out, "Miss Claire," and a stately woman in her early sixties appeared in the aisle, holding a box of Hallmark cards. I said, "Mrs. Fontenot, my name is Elvis Cole. I believe Mr. Parks over at the library might've phoned."

She looked me up and down as if she viewed me with caution. "That's right."

"May I have a few minutes?"

She viewed me some more, and then she put down the box of cards and led me to the rear of the store. She seemed rigid when she moved, as if her body were clenched. "Mr. Parks told me that you want to know something about a baby that was given up for adoption." She arched an eyebrow when she said it, clearly suspicious of the practice and disapproving.

"That's right. Somewhere around the time that Max was born." She had delivered a son, Max Andrew, sixteen days before Jodi Taylor's birth.

'Tm afraid I don't know anything about that. I kept all my children, believe you me." Daring me to deny it. When she spoke, she kept both hands folded together between her breasts, as if she were praying. Maybe you did that when you were one of God's finest.

"Not one of your children, Mrs. Fontenot. Another woman's child. Maybe you knew her, or maybe you just heard gossip."

The eyebrow arched again. "I don't gossip."

I said, "Ville Platte is a small town. Unwed pregnancies happen, but they would be rare, and babies given for adoption would be still more rare. Maybe one of your girlfriends at the time mentioned it. Maybe one of your aunts. Something like that."

"Absolutely not. In my day, that type of thing wasn't tolerated the way it is now, and we would never have discussed it." She clutched her hands tighter and raised both eyebrows, giving me All-knowing. "Now, people don't care about this kind of thing. People do whatever they want. That's why we're in this fix."

I said, "Onward Christian soldiers."

She frowned at me. "What?"

I thanked her for her time and left. One up, one down. Six more to go.

Evelyn Maggio lived alone on the second floor of a duplex that she maintained six blocks south of the five and dime. Her duplex was a big white clapboard monster set high on brick piers in case of flood. Evelyn Maggio herself was a vital woman in her late fifties, twice married and twice divorced, with tiny teeth and too much makeup. She showed me the teeth when she let me in and latched onto my arm and said, "My, but you're a good-lookin' fella." Her words were long and drawn out, sort of like Elly May Clampett. She smelled of bourbon.

I was with her for almost forty minutes and in that time she called me "sugar" eleven times and drank three cups of coffee. She drank it royale. She put out a little tray of Nabisco Sugar Wafers and told me that the very best way to eat them was to dip them in the coffee, but to watch because they could get too soggy and would fall apart. She put her hand on my arm and said, "No one likes a limp sugar wafer, honey, especially not lil' ol' me." She seemed disappointed that it wasn't what I wanted to hear, and, when it became clear that she knew nothing about a child being given to the state, she seemed even more disappointed when I left. I took two of the sugar wafers with me. I was disappointed, too.

I spent the next twenty-two minutes with Mrs. C. Thomas Berteaux. She was seventy-two years old, rail thin, and insisted upon calling me Jeffrey. She was quite certain that I had visited her home before, and when I told her that this was my first time in Ville Platte, she asked if I was sure. I said I was. She said she was certain that I had asked her about this adoption business before. I asked if she remembered her answer, and she said, "Why, of course, Jeffrey, don't you? I didn't remember anything then, and I don't now."

She smiled pleasantly when she said it and I smiled pleasantly in return. I used her phone to call Mrs. Francine Lyons, who said she'd be happy to see me, but that she was on her way out and could I call later. I said that I could, but then she volunteered diat Mr. Parks had mentioned something about a child given for adoption and that she just didn't know anything about that, though, as she'd said, she'd be happy to see me later in the day. I told her diat that wouldn't be necessary and scratched her off my list. You either remember or you don't. Mrs. C. Thomas Berteaux, watching from her chair, said, "What's the matter, Jeffrey? You look disappointed."

I said, "Some days are more difficult than others, Mrs. Berteaux."

She nodded sagely. "Yes, Jeffrey. I know that to be true. However, I might suggest that you speak with Mrs. Martha Guidry."

"Yes?" Martha Guidry wasn't on my list.

"Martha was a midwife at that time and, if I remember correctly, quite a well-known busybody. Martha may know." Then she looked thoughtful. "Of course, Martha may be dead."

I let myself out.

Four up, four down, and nary a shred of evidence to show for it. I had three more women to see, and, if the results were the same, it was back to the drawing board. Not good. The key to all this seemed to be the sealed state documents. Maybe I should stop trying to investigate my way to Jodi Taylor's medical history and concentrate on unsealing those documents. I could shoulder my way into the appropriate state agency, pistol whip a couple of civil servants, and force them to hand over the documents. Of course, this method might get me shot or imprisoned, but wasn't that better than questioning women who called me Jeffrey? Of course, thirty-six-year-old documents would probably be buried under thirty-six years of more recent documents in an obscure state building long forgotten by any living person. You'd need Indiana Jones just to find the place.

I decided to think about it over lunch.

The Pig Stand was a white cinder block building with handwritten signs telling you what they offered and a couple of windows to order the food. The people on the sidewalk were mostly thin guys with crêpey skin and women with pale skin and loose upper arms from eating too much deep-fried food. Everybody was drinking Dixie beer and eating off paper plates and laughing a lot. Guess if you stand around eating barbecued ribs in this kind of heat you had to have a sense of humor.

An enormously wide black woman with brilliant white teeth looked out of the order window at me and said, "Take ya awdah, please?"

I said, "Do you have boudin?" I had wanted to try boudin for years.

She grinned. "Honey, we gots the best boudin in Evangeline Parish."

"That's not what they say in Mamou."

She laughed. "Those fools in Mamou don' know nuthin' 'bout no boudin! Honey, you try some'a this, you won't be goin' back to no Mamou! This magic boudin! It be good for what ails you!"

"Okay. How about a couple of links of boudin, a beef rib with a little extra sauce, some dirty rice, and a Dixie."

She nodded, pleased. "That'll fix you up jes' fine." "What makes you think I need fixing?" She leaned toward me and touched a couple of fingers beneath her eye. "Dottie got the magic eye. Dottie know." Her eyes were smiling when she shouted the order into the kitchen, and I smiled with her. It wasn't just the food around here that gave comfort.

Passing cars would beep their horns and diners would wave at the cars and the people in the cars would wave back, sort of like everybody knew everybody else. While I was waiting, a sparkling new white Mustang rag-top cruised past, top up, giving everybody the once-over and revving his engine. The Mustang circled the block, and when he came back around an older guy widi a thick French accent yelled something I couldn't understand and the Mustang speeded up. Guess the older guy didn't like all the engine-revving.

A couple of minutes later, Dottie called me back to the window and handed out my order on a coarse paper plate with enough napkins to insulate a house. I carried the food to the street, set the Dixie on the curb, then went to work on the food. The boudin were plump and juicy, and when you bit into them they were filled with rice and pork and cayenne and onions and celery. Even in the heat, steam came from the sausage and it burned the inside of my mouth. I had some of the dirty rice, and then some of the beef rib. The dirty rice was heavy and glutinous and rich with chicken livers. The rib was tender and the sauce chunky with onion and garlic. The tastes w ere strong and salty and wonderful, and pretty soon I was feeling eager to dive back into the case. Even if it meant being called Jeffrey.

The black woman looked out of her little window and asked, "Whatchu say 'bout dat boudin now?"

I said, "Tell me the truth, Dottie. This isn't really Ville Platte, is it? We're all dead and this is Heaven."

She grinned wider and nodded, satisfied. "Dottie say it'll fix you up. Dottie know." She touched her cheek beneath her left eye and then she laughed and turned away.

At ten minutes after two, I used a pay phone at an Exxon station to call the last two women on my list. Virginia LaMert wasn't home, and Charleen Jorgen-son said that she'd be happy to see me.

Charleen Jorgenson and her second husband, Lloyd, lived in a double trailer two miles outside of Ville Platte on Bayou des Cannes. The double trailer sat upon cement block piers and looked sort of ratty and overgrown. A small flat-bottomed boat rested on a couple of sawhorses in the backyard, and a blue tick hound slept in a tight knot in the shade thrown by the boat. They had a little drive made out of the crushed oyster shells, and when I pulled up, the oyster shells made a loud crunching sound and the blue tick hound charged at my car, barking and standing on its back legs to try to bite through the window. An old guy in his seventies came out on the step yelling, "Heah naow! Heah naow!" and threw a pop bottle at the dog. That would be Lloyd. The bottle missed the dog and hit the Taurus's left front fender. Lloyd said, "Uh-oh," and looked chagrined. Good thing it was a rental.

Charleen Jorgenson told me that she wished she could help, but she just didn't remember anything like I was asking.

I said, "Think hard, Mrs. Jorgenson. Are you sure?"

She sipped her coffee and nodded. "Oh, yes. I thought about it when that other fellow was here."

"What other fellow?"

"Another young man was here a few months ago. He said he was trying to find his sister."

I said, "Do tell."

"He wasn't very nice and he didn't stay long."

"Were you able to help him find his sister?"

"I would've been happy to, but I just couldn't help him. He became very abusive. Lloyd like to threw a fit." She nodded her head toward Lloyd, as if one of Lloyd's fits was quite a spectacle. Lloyd, sitting in a heavy chair that had been covered with a bedspread, had fallen asleep as we talked. She said, "You're trying to find some kind of organ donor, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am. A marrow donor."

She shook her head. "That is so sad."

"Mrs. Jorgenson, this guy who was here, was his name Jeffrey?"

She had more of the coffee, thinking. "Well, maybe. He had red hair, all piled up on his head and oily." She made a sour face. "I remember that." "Ah." "I've never been comfortable with a red-haired person.

People say the damnedest things, don't they?

I left Charleen Jorgenson's home at twenty-five minutes after four that afternoon and stopped at a bait and tackle shop on the road leading back to town. They had a pay phone on the wall under a huge sign that said LIVE WORMS. I tried calling Mrs. C. Thomas Berteaux to ask if Jeffrey's hair had been red, but I got no answer. Probably out. I tried Virginia LaMert again, but also got no answer. Virginia LaMert was the last name on my list, and if she didn't come through it was drawing-board time. I called Information and asked them if they had a listing for Martha Guidry. They did. I dialed Martha Guidry's number and, as I listened to her phone ring, the same white Mustang I'd seen at the Pig Stand turned into the parking lot and disappeared behind the bait shop.

Martha Guidry answered on the sixth ring. "Hello?"

I identified myself and told her that Mrs. C. Thomas Berteaux had suggested I call. I said that I was trying to find someone who was born in the area thirty-six years ago, and I asked if I might pay a visit. She said that would be fine. She told me her address and gave me directions and said that, as old as she was, if I didn't hurry she might be dead before I arrived. I was going to like Martha Guidry just fine.

I hung up and stood at the phone, waiting. A blue Ford pickup pulled in and a young guy with a scraggly beard went into the bait shop. An older man came out of the shop with a brown bag and got into a Chevy Caprice. The young guy came out with a Budweiser Tall Boy and hopped back into his truck. The Mustang didn't return.

I climbed back into my car and followed the directions toward Martha Guidry's house. Maybe this business with the Mustang was my imagination, like the heat.

I had gone maybe three-quarters of a mile when the Mustang swung around a Kleinpeter Dairy milk truck and eased in behind me. He came up so close that I could see the driver in my rearview mirror. He had a scoop-cut pompadour maybe six inches high and long nasty sideburns carved down into points so sharp you could cut yourself.

And he had red hair.