Ciji Ware (44 page)

“There’s a
lot
of water round here, sugar pie,” he repeated. “Stick with me.”

Corlis shut the car door and heard rustling in the tall grass nearby. “There aren’t any
alligators
around here, are there?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“Oh… just a few,” King replied in an offhand manner, “but don’t worry… they’re busy chasing the water moccasins.”

“Snakes!” She shuddered. “You’re joking, right?” she asked, ignoring his proffered hand and instead swiftly making for the elevated wooden porch. She was thankful that King immediately appeared by her side to turn the front doorknob, allowing a speedy entrance into the one-bedroom abode.

Once inside, Corlis gazed around the cozy cabin’s updated interior. Two sturdy dark brown leather club chairs faced a stone fireplace nearly large enough for a man to stand in. Glass-and-brass hurricane oil lamps stood on the rustic wooden coffee table, as well as on the surface of a round calico-skirted table surrounded by four straight-backed chairs.

“Wow…” she breathed appreciatively. “This place looks like Ralph Lauren slept here!”

“Is that good, or is that bad?” King asked with mock solemnity.

“In my book, it’s very good and
very
tasteful. Who did your decorating?”

“Yours truly.”

“Double wow.”

Surveying the well-appointed cabin, Corlis felt another pang of conscience about having accepted King’s invitation to spend the night at Bayou Lacombe so they’d be on time for the funeral early the next morning. From the quilt-covered double bedstead in the next room, to the bottle of wine King pulled from a canvas satchel he’d retrieved from his car, the situation right
now
smacked neither of business—nor of a mission of mercy for a friend in need.

“Dibs on the sofa!” she said, laughing nervously as she tossed her overnight bag onto a forest-green couch sporting lavishly plump down pillows and a burgundy-colored lap robe made of plush bouclé. At least she could make it plain that their sleeping arrangements would be separate. “I’m a foot shorter than you, so you deserve to sleep in the bed.” King gazed at her from across the room. He smiled but didn’t respond. “After the week we’ve both had,” she added lamely, “I’m bushed, aren’t you?”

King nodded as he slowly walked across the cabin in her direction. “Actually… I am.”

And with that he leaned down and kissed her lightly on her forehead. Then he put a hand in the middle of her lower back and propelled her into the bedroom.

“However… the lady gets the bed.”

“But, King—”

He walked into the adjacent bathroom, closed the door, and began brushing his teeth. He reappeared shortly and said, “Just give a holler if any alligators come knocking at your window, okay, Ace?” Then he quietly shut the door behind him, leaving her safely to her own devices.

Corlis couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “I’ll holler, all right! Thanks.” Then she remembered that she had told him nothing about the menacing phone call to WJAZ made earlier that evening by Grover Jeffries and Lafayette Marchand. She started for the door but thought better of it. Best to leave things just as they were. She’d fill him in on all that unpleasantness on their way to the funeral, she thought, reaching for her toothbrush tucked inside her cosmetics kit.

And after tomorrow, just as Zamora decrees—there can be no more private contact between King and me until the fate of the Selwyn buildings is decided.

Chapter 19

April 18

Coffee?” inquired a deep voice.

Corlis raised her head from beneath her pillow and peered up at King with sleep-dazed eyes.

“Huh?” she asked, rolling onto her back. She carefully tucked the bedsheet and quilt under her arms for modesty’s sake. Then she propped herself against the wooden headboard. “How was the couch?”

“Fine. Careful, sugar…” he cautioned with an amused smile. “It’s scalding hot.”

“How long have you been up?” she asked, brushing her hair from her face before accepting his proffered mug of very black coffee. King was dressed in navy blue suit pants and white dress shirt but had not yet donned his tie and jacket. His dark brown hair was wet and slicked back, giving him the appearance of a hip, freshly laundered model right out of
GQ
.

“Awhile…” he replied. “This should give you a kick-start—pure caffeine, no sugar, no milk. We’re due at the church in half an hour.”

She glanced at a handsome brass alarm clock on the bedside table.

“I
never
sleep this late!” she protested. She glanced out the window doubtfully, catching sight only of pine boughs pierced with golden shafts of light. “Especially when there’re alligators and water moccasins lurking about.”

“They’re having their morning snooze at the bottom of the swamp,” he teased. Then he reminded her gently, “Look, you worked hard last week. Don’t you ever take time off to cool your jets, Ace?”

“Hmmmm,” was all Corlis murmured as she took a sip of the deliciously robust coffee. Alligators or not—she knew why she had slept in peaceful bliss. It had been comforting merely to know that King was in the next room.

Easy, now, McCullough! Just picture lawyer Glimp and get a move on!

Within twenty minutes she had showered, dressed, and headed out the door. During the short drive to the church, there seemed no right moment on this sun-splashed Saturday to bring up the stern edict laid down by her boss. And before she knew it, King was easing the Jaguar to a halt between a rusted pickup truck and a dented sedan. In the center of the field stood a white clapboard church sorely in need of a fresh coat of paint. A long hearse was parked at the foot of the wooden stairs, poised to transport the casket to a cemetery. From inside the small church, Corlis could hear sonorous organ music.

At the top of the stairs, King cradled her elbow and guided her inside the cool confines of the building. An enormous black man in his late forties, neatly attired in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie, waved in greeting. Nodding in their direction, he excused himself from a cluster of mourners and strode to their side.

“Did my brother James tell you you’ll be number three pallbearer, walkin’ between him and me?” the man inquired.

King nodded and swiftly introduced Corlis to Emelie’s second son, Tyrone. She was acutely aware that she and King were the only white people in the entire church. “We have seats saved for you up front,” Tyrone explained with a friendly smile. “King, you sit on the aisle, so’s you can get out again when we take Mama to the cemetery after the service, all right?”

“Sure thing, Tyrone,” King assured him.

A stocky, gray-haired figure in his late sixties suddenly materialized by their side.

“Well… well… King Duvallon,” the man said with an unpleasant edge of irony. “Observin’ how we black folks bury our dead?”

“My condolences about Emelie,” King replied, as if the man had greeted him cordially.

“Tyrone says she was doing mighty poorly for a long while… so I guess you could call it a blessin’,” he said with a slight shrug of his padded shoulders. “Won’t you introduce me to your friend?” he added, casting a cool, appraising glance at Corlis.

“Meet Corlis McCullough,” King said, tight-lipped now. “Corlis, this is the Honorable Mr. Edgar Dumas, Emelie’s brother-in-law, and the next president of the New Orleans City Council.”

Corlis was perfectly aware of the identity of Edgar Dumas and wished only that she could disappear through a trapdoor in the cypress-planked floor. According to WJAZ’s assignment editor, last election Dumas was rumored to have received handsome campaign contributions from the checkbook of none other than Grover Jeffries. Would she
never
learn a crucial truth about this city?

In New Orleans, everyone’s related, stupid!

For a brief moment Edgar Dumas’s eyes widened with recognition, then narrowed as he scrutinized King’s companion. “Why, what an
unexpected
pleasure,” he said softly, “to meet such a pretty lady in person. I thought your three-part TV series on the Selwyn buildings this week just fascinatin’, Miz McCullough.”

“Thank you,” Corlis murmured.
Why hadn’t King warned her Edgar Dumas might be here?
she demanded silently. Perhaps he had been too upset yesterday by the news of Emelie’s sudden demise to think clearly—just as she hadn’t been thinking too clearly herself! Automatically she extended her right hand to the councilman, and reluctantly he shook it. “Good to see you
in person
,
Councilman,” she countered with deliberate emphasis, “though I’m sorry it’s under such sad circumstances.”

“Sure looks like you had some mighty good sources on that documentary,” Dumas declared with a glance at King.

“Well…” she replied slowly while her mind spun in several directions at once. “I just hope the television pieces shed some new light on the subject.”

“Oh… they did, indeed,” Dumas replied. “It was certainly interestin’ to be enlightened about what’s ’sposed to be black folks’ history—by a white woman,” he said coolly. “And a Yankee to boot.” Dumas was smiling like a water moccasin, coiled and ready to strike.

“I’m a westerner, Mr. Dumas,” she corrected him more sharply than she intended. “Born and bred in California, with ancestors who lived in New Orleans once upon a time. I hope you can agree that the LaCroixs and the Fouchés on my TV series told the viewers their
own
story.”

“Folks have always claimed their granddaddies were somethin’ more than they probably were,” he replied peevishly.

Corlis met Edgar Dumas’s gaze unwaveringly. “As a matter of fact,” she countered evenly, “your sister-in-law, Emelie, is also part of the tale I’m trying to unravel. I’m interested in looking into the ways in which the lives of ordinary people like her are profoundly affected by political and economic decisions to demolish historic buildings.” She deliberately arched an eyebrow. “I understand that Mrs. Dumas was unwillingly displaced from her home when you voted with the majority on the city council to tear down her block to make way for the bankrupt Good Times Shopping Plaza.”

“She was recompensed and signed a waiver. Everything was perfectly legal,” Dumas snapped. “So, I suggest you get your facts straight, Miz McCullough!”

“She was a seventy-eight-year-old woman, Mr. Dumas. My sources tell me she was pressured and coerced to sign,” she stated flatly. “And losing that little Creole cottage she’d lived in all her life literally broke her heart.”

“She made a perfectly fine home with her son,” Dumas retorted with some heat.

Corlis smiled sweetly into the snake’s eyes, daring him to strike again. “All the same, it must have been a stressful change for her at her advanced age—since she wanted to hold on to her house… wanted to
die
in it, I’m told she said. Isn’t it true that she suffered from acute heart congestion?”

Dumas’s bullying, belligerent attitude turned into one of mild alarm. After all, the man knew the dangers of bad publicity. He glared at King and countered swiftly, “Now, Miz McCullough, surely you don’t accuse me of causin’ the death of my own sister-in-law.”

“I’m not accusing anyone of anything,” Corlis replied dispassionately. “I’m merely attending Mrs. Dumas’s funeral as a means of trying to see all sides to this complicated story.”

Wheels within wheels…

“Is that so?” Dumas replied skeptically.

“Absolutely,” Corlis said as another idea for a television piece began to take root in her mind. “I’m interested in exploring how a city balances its need for progress—the necessity of having a firm economic base and high employment—with its desire to preserve the unique history of a venerable old city like New Orleans, which—by its very age and antiquity—is a magnet for lucrative tourism.”

Edgar Dumas pursed his lips and nodded halfhearted agreement. Corlis sought his gaze and refused to look away. “I’ve been fascinated to learn how the city’s history involves families—black
and
white—with all their entanglements going back generations,” she continued steadily. “And then, of course, there are the hundreds of beautiful old buildings, along with musical and culinary culture, that attract millions of visitors that don’t just come to the Big Easy to drink beer in the Bourbon Street bars, am I right?”

“I’ve always supported the tourist industry,” Dumas asserted, flustered. “I was one of the first to support those gamblin’ boats to tie up—”

“Well, then,” Corlis hastened to add, “don’t you agree that historic properties like Emelie’s little house, as well as the beautiful Greek Revival row houses encased behind the Selwyn three-story screens that Grover Jeffries wants to tear down—not to mention those darling paddle-wheel steamers
you’ve
championed that the tourists love so much—comprise the many-sided issues that WJAZ wants to lay before the public? That’s certainly a big part of why
I’m
here today,” she finished, a little breathless.