Cold Blood (51 page)

Ruby looked up at her mother as she felt the child’s pulse, and it was as if this was the first time in many years she had really seen hernot overweight and irritating, but almost regal, someone to be admired, and it made Ruby feel humble and ashamed. She couldn’t stop the tears filling her eyes. Edith kissed the top of her daughter’s head and caught the tear that trickled down her cheek on her finger. For a second it was a shining clear crystal.

“They don’t come for tears, Ruby, just your love and a little of your strength. Mine’s fading now, but…”

“I’m strong, Mama, I’m strong.”

Even Ruby’s voice had changed; it seemed quieter, more melodious.

Edith nodded.

“I know you are, Ruby. You purify your heart, because maybe you are stronger than you know.”

Lorraine was silent on the drive to Elizabeth Caley’s home. Francois had tried to make conversation, but, receiving no reply, fell silent, watching her through the rearview mirror. She clutched a bottle inside a brown paper bag. He’d seen her go to open it on two occasions, and then stop. She acted like a woman who had just got bad news. She had, and it took all her self-control not to go and confront Robert Caley there and then, but even more not to take a drink. She had to find further proof of Robert Caley’s guilt. Yet again, he was their number one suspect, and this time she would not allow herself to be sidestepped by her emotions. She wanted to nail him.

Lorraine stood in the hall at Elizabeth Caley’s mansion. Juda Salina came slowly down the sweeping staircase. She was as tired out as her sister had been.

“Well, she almost did it for real this time. They beer*an’ pumped it all out of her, and now she’s sleeping like a baby.”

Lorraine waited until Juda reached the bottom step.

“It’d be a pity if your golden goose died, wouldn’t it?”

she saiBparcastically.

Juda gave her a scathing look.

“I earned wery cent I ever made from her, Mrs. Pagebelieve me, I earned it.”

Missy brought them some tea in the double parlor and then left them. Juda sipped her tea; she seemed truly exhausted and her thick makeup had run on her big, round face.

“I never thought I’d be seeing you again.”

“Why?”

Lorraine asked.

“No reason,”

Juda said, and then smiled to herself.

“Powers dimming, get confused and too tired nowadays. Anyone close to you with the initial L?”

“No.”

“That’s good. I had a bad premonition about someone, I thought maybe it was you.”

Lorraine shrugged.

“Well, as you can see, Mrs. Salina, I am fine. Where is Robert Caley?”

“I dunno, maybe at his hotel, maybe not. I left messages but he never came here, so I guess he really don’t care anymore.” “About Elizabeth?”

“Uh-huh, she thought maybe he’d come, you know, if I said she was in a real bad way, but I guess she done it once too often.”

Juda clasped the arms of her chair.

“You know, Mrs. Page, it may be hard to believe, but Mrs. Caley is one sweet woman. Just, she got demons inside her. I’ve tried to help her for twenty years but they get so strong she just goes crazy and sometimes she frightens even me. Maybe she should let out who she really is, but she won’t, she keeps it hidden away, so she has to use anything that’ll ease the pain, anything that’ll stop the demons.”

Lorraine stared.

“You keep them alive, Juda, don’t you? I know about her, I know she is too scared to admit she’s got black blood, but I can’t believe that is all there is to it!”

Juda smiled.

“Oh, you been talking to Fryer, he’s the only one that knows. I’m right, huh? You been to see Fryer Jones?”

Lorraine nodded.

“He told me that he knew, but I don’t know if he was aware that Anna Louise was not Robert Caley’s child.”

“Oh, he knows. But, Mrs. Page, maybe half of what he said was just him piecing things together. Old Fryer likes to be in on things, always hated not knowing.”

“Were you, or are you, blackmailing Mrs. Caley about her past?”

Juda laughed softly, closing her eyes.

“No, Mrs. Page, I wasn’t doing nothing like that, I wouldn’t stoop so low.”

Lorraine half raised an eyebrow; if Ruby could contemplate getting money out of Robert Caley, she was damned sure that Juda or Edith had shown her the ropes.

“You don’t believe me?”

“No, Mrs. Salina, I don’t. What I have seen is your apartment and limoare you telling me that fancy address on Doheny Drive is paid for from your business?”

Juda stared at Lorraine.

“She pays me, I admit that, and she pays me well, but it’s not the way you think.”

“What is it, then, Juda?”

Juda sighed and looked away.

“Mrs. Caley was hexed, a long time ago. Because she played Marie Laveau in that movie she got to believe, and as a believer she needed me. That’s all I ever been to her, someone she could talk to, someone who knew her secrets and could soothe her fears. She is a woman who is very fearful.”

“That’s it? Elizabeth Caley was fearful, of what?”

Juda shrugged her big shoulders, refusing to look at Lorraine.

“What about Anna Louise Caley, Juda?”

Juda sipped her tea.

“She was obsessed with her father, nothing more to be said, she wanted him to herself.”

“Did he want her in a sexual way?”

Juda smiled, shaking her head.

“No, honey, the girl was just infatuated. He is a real handsome man, and a nice strong body to him, and Anna was just going through a stage in her young life. But she kept on coming to me, begging me to help her, wanting love powders and herbs and grisgris bags. I just let the child talk.”

“Did you give them to her?”

Juda looked away.

“I have to earn a living, but I never encouraged the girl, always told her that no good would come of it, that it wasn’t natural for a girl to dote like that on her father.”

“But he wasn’t her real father, and you knew it. Did you tell her?”

Juda shook her head.

“No, ma’am, the child didn’t know, that was a big secret we all kept close. Mrs. Page, all I could do was tell her not to go after something that was unobtainable, but she was kind of crazy, you know. Asking for potions, things she’d been reading about, anything that would make him respond as a man to her. You got to remember Anna Louise spent a lot of time here in New Orleans when she was a little one, she was often at this place by herself for months. The help was black, she had a sharp mind, she took everythin’ in, a real inquisitive little girl she was.”

Juda sighed, and closed her eyes.

“I told her over and over what she wanted was bad business and only evil would come of it, but you know, she kind of liked that. There was a side to that girl, a’bad side. I hate to speak of it now, but there could be a look to her face that was meanspirited and bad. She was spoiled, used to getting anything she wanted, but the one thing she couldn’t get was her o\B”father on top of her! It was sick all right.”

W

“What do you think happened to her?”

Juda opened her eyes and stared hard at Lorraine.

“If I knew, honey, I’d be in line for that one million dollars you are trying to get.”

“How do you know about that?”

Juda sucked in her breath.

“Honey, there is little connected with Miss Elizabeth Seal that I don’t know about. Truth is, all I know is that child is dead, an’ she’s been dead a long, long while.”

“Like eleven months?”

Juda nodded.

“Yes, she’s been gone a long time, I don’t get any feeling that she is alive, so now you know. But I got to earn a living, I got a big family to feed, and sometimes it helped Mrs. Caley to have something to hope for.”

“Even if it was a lie?”

Lorraine asked coldly.

“I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her I felt no feelings, no heart, because I knew she’d start up those bad drugs again. All I did was try and keep her steady.”

COLD BLOOD

Lorraine rubbed her head.

“So let me ask you again, what do you think happened to Anna Louise?”

“They didn’t bring me down here until she’d been gone awhile. By then it was too late, I got no response.”

“What about Ruby?”

Juda gave a tight-lipped smile, and suddenly Lorraine could feel that she was very tense.

“Well, Ruby is Ruby. She’s my niece. Why you ask me about Ruby?”

“She worked for Tilda Brown’s family.”

“Mmm, mmm, she did. In fact, I got her the job. Anna Louise told me her friend was needing a maid, so I rang Edith, and Ruby called by their house. Be about three years ago. Work is hard to come by around here, a lot of unemployment.”

“But Tilda Brown came to you, didn’t she? With Anna Louise?”

Juda pursed her lips, the deep shiny lipstick running up the lines around her mouth like cracks in baked red earth.

“Once or twice, I read the tarot cards, looked in her hand, but nothing serious. They was just young teenagers, it was harmless, and they paid me fifty dollars!”

“Did Tilda believe, like Anna Louise, Juda? I mean, they were close friends, they may have thought it was fun, or interesting. Did they both come to see you together always?”

Juda sighed.

“One time Miss Brown booked an appointment by herself, encouraged by Anna Louise, I think. If anything, little Tilda seemed frightened, and when I next saw Anna Louise I said to her not to weave stories, that she was giving her friend nightmares. You got to understand, Tilda was born in these parts too, she would have been brought up by black servants, and children hear things, get things distorted.”

Lorraine was tick-ticking again. She got to her feet and started to pace up and down.

“What kind of nightmares?”

“Oh, she couldn’t sleep in the dark, silly things. She asked if somebody hexed you what you should do about it, that kind of thing.”

“Who was hexing her?”

“I don’t know. When I asked her she said she’d been reading some book, that’s all.”

“Did Anna Louise ask you to make something special for her, Juda?”

“Yes, I told you, love stuff.”

“Not a death doll? A voodoo doll in the image of Tilda?”

Juda gasped, and clenched her hands.

“No, no, and I would not play with that kind of thing, Mrs. Page. I would not be a part of it, no matter what money was offered.”

LYNDA LA P L A N T E

“Really? No matter what money? Anna Louise was rich, she could have offered a lot, couldn’t she?”

Juda stood up angrily, planting her big fat feet wide apart.

“I don’t have to sit here listenin’ to you saying that stuff. I would never, so help me God, abuse what powers I have, not for a child, not for anyone. I don’t play with darkness because if I do, I got to go into it toomaybe you don’t or can’t understand what I am, but it’s not a gift I would wish on anyone, it’s a vocation. I help people I don’t play with fire.”

Lorraine raised her eyebrows.

“You sure about that, Juda? I mean, you don’t seem to be doing too badly. How about your sister? These powers you are supposed to have, do they weigh heavy on her?”

“You joke on, honey, we don’t expect you whites ever to understand. When you do come to us, it’s not for good, or for helping others. It’s not for spreading joy or healing or loving, but for evil. That’s the only time you people want to believe, when you want something from us, and it’s been that way for centuries.”

Lorraine laughed softly.

“Come on, it’s not us wringing the neck of chickens and drinking blood. Or was it newborn babies they used to slaughter for their joyful ‘love thy neighbor’ ceremonies?”

Juda pursed her lips, her whole face as shiny as her lipstick, her blue eyeshadow running into a smudge from her black mascaraed false eyelashes.

“You won’t make me angry enough to say something that’ll go against me, Mrs. Page, because I have done nothing.”

“What? Don’t kid me, you have withheldBpidence, Juda. You have stated to me, and to the police, that Anna Louisr did not visit you, nor did her friend Tilda Brown. You have also been blackmailing Elizabeth Caley for years. You say you haven’t, but I don’t believe you. But right now all I am trying to do is find out what the fuck happened to Anna Louise Caley, because I think she made thisl And I think she gave it to Tilda Brown.”

Lorraine took out the voodoo doll wrapped in the hotel towel and thrust it at Juda. The big woman’s large melonlike breasts heaved as she slowly unrolled the towel on a side table, her breath rasped and Lorraine saw that her black wig had shifted slightly, and her own short fuzzy gray hair showed through. Juda was drenched in perspiration, her curls wet around the nape of her neck and across her forehead. There was a dark V down the back of her dress, the underarms of her dress were damp, and her ankles were swollen, her feet puffy in her tight pumps. Lorraine watched as Juda looked over the doll, noted how she too sniffed it as she had seen Fryer Jones do, then pushed it away.

“This is not made by a professional voodoo practitioner: it’s more likely to be a conjure ball here than a doll if someone wanted to do bad work. This is an amateur thing, disgusting. The pin’s just a dressmaker’s pin too, not the right kind. Whoever made this didn’t know what they were doing.”

Juda flipped over the towel, covering the doll.

“I didn’t make this thing, Mrs. Page, and I honestly don’t know anyone who would. I’m getting old now, like Edith, we get real tired doing trances and rituals. They’re all taken over by the young, me and Edith are tired old women now.”

“What about Ruby? Does she have the powers, as you say you have?”

Juda chuckled.

“I say I have them, Mrs. Page, and if you get off your high horse you kind of know I have them, and you are just that little bit scared yourself. Took a long time, Mrs. Page, but you are beginning to believe.”

“No, Mrs. Salina, I am not.”

Juda shook her head, took out a paper tissue from a pocket and dabbed around her mouth.

“I don’t care either way, but maybe you should ask my golden goose, as you rudely describe Mrs. Caley, whether I am blackmailing her or not. You ask her, honey.”

“Perhaps I will.”