New Orleans Noir (15 page)

Obviously, he reasoned, Charlie had been driving away from his house in the hours just before Katrina made landfall. Too late, really, to be evacuating if the wind had already grown strong enough to tear away tree limbs. Sonny wondered now if the older van had failed mechanically. Stranding not just Charlie, but his entire family. Delayed for some unknown reason, they would have hurriedly piled into the Cadillac with the storm breaking all around them. Then, still within sight of their home, a tree limb had crashed to the pavement, blocking their way. Charlie was middle-aged, extremely fit, and one of the most determined people Sonny knew. Instead of turning around and taking the slightly longer route to Michoud Boulevard and Chef Menteur Highway, Charlie would likely have hurried from his car, intent on pulling the branch out of his way.

Suddenly, Sonny found significance in the power lines dangling in the water. The city’s electricity was still on when Katrina made landfall. If Charlie hadn’t noticed a live wire making contact with the wet ground nearby or if a power line tore loose just as he stepped from the car …

Charlie would have been electrocuted.

And if there were passengers …

Now Sonny was imagining a car full of victims. People he cared about. Charlie’s five-year-old twins, Magdalene and Michael. Agnes, who was three and nearly as tall as her brother and sister. They would have been strapped into their car seats. And Nga. A kind woman who had moved in with her son-in-law after his wife died. To help with the children.

Maybe she’d tried to help Charlie during the storm.

Sonny’s stomach twisted with dread as he pictured all of those bodies inside the car. Or floating somewhere nearby. Bloated after days in the water. He shook his head, thinking that this was too much to ask of any man. That nothing—not even the war—had prepared him to face this horror alone.

That’s when Sonny began praying to the Virgin again.

Not to the statue on the roof of the car, but to the sainted ancestor who had once been a flesh-and-blood woman. A woman who had remained quietly and steadfastly brave in the most horrific of circumstances.

“Please, give me courage,” he said aloud.

Then, without giving himself an opportunity to lose his nerve, he went below the water again.

He couldn’t see well enough to search the car from the outside. So Sonny crawled into the front seat, felt around for a body in the passenger seat. No one. He left the car, stood long enough to drag in another lungful of humid air, then resumed. Quickly, he ran his hand along its frame and located the rear door handle. Locked. So he went in again through the open driver’s side door, struggling to hold his breath as he leaned between the bucket seats. Real leather, Charlie had told him—not really bragging, simply pleased. Sonny kept his eyes open, seeking small shadows, his outstretched arms moving through the water that filled the rear compartment, bracing himself for the moment he would feel a small body.

He found nothing. After thanking the Blessed Virgin for his courage, Sonny decided that Nga and the children must have evacuated in the van after all. Maybe only Charlie had been delayed. The jewelry store he owned was no more than two miles away. It was possible that Charlie had spent too much time securing the store, then foolishly returned home for one last look or to fetch one last possession. That was when fate must have dealt him an unexpected and lethal blow.

It took Sonny only a moment to decide that he owed it to his friend—to his friend’s family—to secure the body until it could be claimed and properly buried. It took a little longer to figure out how, exactly, that could be done. In the end, he decided to return Charlie to the Pham house. There, he would find some dry place to lay the body, say a final prayer for his friend, and then turn his back. Walk away. Return to his own high-and-dry attic—to the now almost irrelevant task of moving the statue—until the water receded and civilization returned to Village de l’Est. Then he would contact the authorities and make sure that Charlie’s family was notified and his body taken care of.

It didn’t seem like enough, but that was all he could think to do.

He grabbed a handful of Charlie’s sodden shirt, ignored the unnatural coolness of the flesh below the fabric, and waded down the center of Calais Street, towing the body behind him. He guided it up the front walk that led to the Phams’ big white house with its wraparound porch and pretty green shutters. Once on the porch, Sonny was left standing in water that was little more than calf deep. His friend’s body, no longer anchored by Sonny’s grip or buoyed by several feet of water, rested on the porch floor with the water nearly covering it.

The door was locked, but Sonny knew to tip back one of the terra cotta lions to retrieve the extra key. He unlocked the door, bent back down to take hold of Charlie, and dragged him inside. Left him stretched out on the tiled foyer floor as, more from habit than necessity, Sonny closed the door behind them. Time spent in his own devastated home had prepared him for the sight of Charlie’s. Except for the children’s toys floating in the water.

Almost angrily, he grabbed Charlie’s shirt again, grunting just a little as he slid the sodden weight across the foyer and into the flooded living room.

He heard Nga gasp as he came through the entryway. Heard her gasp and then let out a sound that lay somewhere between a sob and an abruptly muffled wail. With his eyes, Sonny searched for the source of the painful sound, saw her sitting halfway up the staircase to the second floor, illuminated by the light coming in through a broken window.

She was dressed, as was her custom, in a traditional
ao dai.
Her flowing black trousers were topped by a fitted gray-and-white patterned overdress whose long front and back panels were slit to the thigh. Sonny recalled how Tam—who was short and round—had always been good-naturedly jealous of Nga’s beauty. But now Nga’s large brown eyes and bow-shaped lips were stretched wide with shock. Her long, glossy hair—which Sonny had never seen except wrapped tightly in a bun—was caught in a limp braid. And there was nothing graceful in the way she moved down the stairs.

She hauled herself into a standing position, then leaned a slim shoulder against the wall as one of her delicate hands dragged reluctantly along the railing. When she drew closer, Sonny could see that there were dark circles beneath her eyes. And that her right cheek was bruised and swollen.

When she reached the body, Nga took Sonny’s outstretched hand and used it briefly for support as she knelt in the water beside her son-in-law. She ran her hand lightly over Charlie’s face, then sketched a cross in the center of his forehead with her fingers.

“I knew,” she murmured in Vietnamese, her eyes still on Charlie. “He was a good father, a dutiful son-in-law. When he didn’t come back, I knew that he had to be dead. Or terribly injured.” Then she switched to English as she looked up at Sonny. “Where did you find him?”

Her voice remained calm despite the anguish that touched her face. Though she and Sonny usually conversed in Vietnamese, Sonny understood that concentrating on an adopted language—no matter how well she spoke it—made it easier for Nga to control her emotions.

He matched the language and tried to match her calm. Despite his desire to find out why she was still in New Orleans, he quickly explained what he’d seen and how he thought Charlie had died.

“It would have been a quick death,” he said finally, hoping to give her some comfort.

To his surprise, Nga had another concern altogether.

“Which direction was the car facing?” she asked.

Though Sonny wondered if shock had compelled her to focus on such a triviality, he answered her question.

“Then he didn’t make it to the store,” Nga said flatly. At that, her voice broke, and she pressed her hand to her mouth again. But even as she muffled a sob, her eyes widened and Sonny saw something he interpreted as relief touch her features. “Unless …”

She scrambled to her feet.

“We must search the car,” she said, her voice suddenly stronger. “You told me where you found it, but perhaps the floodwater turned the car around. Maybe Charlie was
returning
from the store.”

Almost before she finished speaking, Sonny was shaking his head against such foolish hope. But, suddenly energetic, Nga ignored his reaction, abandoning her son-in-law’s body to rush through the foyer to the front door. She made it as far as the porch steps before Sonny was able to catch up with her. He grabbed her wrist, stopped her from plunging forward into the deeper water.

“Let me go!” she cried.

Sonny ignored her attempts to pull free, ignored the small fist pummeling his chest.

“Stop it, Nga!” he demanded, fearful that grief had driven her to madness. “Charlie is dead. Now you must think about the children. Are they upstairs?”

Abruptly, she stopped struggling and, for a moment, stared at him. As if surprised by his question. Then she spoke.

“They are gone. Held for ransom. They took them on Sunday.”

At that, Sonny released Nga’s trapped wrist, and he knew that his face reflected his shock.

Absentmindedly, she rubbed her arm as she continued speaking, seemingly oblivious to the water soaking her slacks and lapping above the hem of her dress.

“The children were already in their car seats. Waiting to leave. Charlie and I were in the house, grabbing just a few more things. We came outside in time to see two men in our van, backing it out of the driveway. And another in a car in front of the house. All wearing masks. The man driving the car shouted at us in Vietnamese. ‘Stay by the phone! No police or the children die!’

“Magdalene and Michael and little Agnes were crying, screaming in the backseat. Charlie begged the men to please, please give the children back. That he would pay now. Whatever they asked.”

Nga stopped speaking, stared out in the direction of the street. In the direction, Sonny suspected, that the kidnappers had taken. He watched as she pressed her eyes shut long enough to trap the tears that threatened her cheeks.

“It was hot,” she murmured in Vietnamese. “So I’d left the motor running, the air-conditioning on to keep the children cool. If I’d just kept the key in my pocket …”

“You couldn’t have known,” he replied in Vietnamese, shaking his head. “Blame them, not yourself.” And then he asked in English: “What did you and Charlie do?”

Nga took a deep breath, let out a trembling sigh, then spoke again: “We waited for hours, until after dark. And I was certain that they had already killed the children. But Charlie said no, that such a gang wanted money, not the attention of the police. So if they murdered—” Nga shook her head, as if to push the thought away. “Charlie told me that the waiting was just to make sure we would pay without hesitating. He said they must have planned this, that the evacuation just gave them an opportunity—a time when we would be vulnerable and the police would be too busy to help.”

“And then the kidnappers phoned,” Sonny said, his tone making it a statement. “And Charlie went out into the storm, trying to get to the store.”

Nga nodded.

“They told him to empty the safe at the store, to bring all the money and jewelry back to the house. They promised to come for it the next day. If the ransom was enough, he would get his children back.”

But like so many in New Orleans, Sonny thought, the kidnappers hadn’t anticipated the strength of the hurricane. Or the depth of the flooding.

“Have they returned?”

She nodded, briefly touching the bruise on her cheek with a trembling hand. And Sonny cursed himself for noticing at such an inappropriate moment that the nails on her long and graceful fingers were painted a delicate pink.

“Not on Monday,” she said, “but yesterday. Just before sunset. Long after I judged my entire family dead. Only one man came. He pounded on the door until I opened it and asked for the money and jewelry from the store. That’s when I told him that I thought the storm had killed Charlie. I begged him to return my grandchildren.”

“How did he get here?” Sonny asked. “Did he walk? Was his clothing wet?”

She nodded. And Sonny thought to himself that the kidnappers could not be too far away.

“He demanded the combination for the safe,” Nga continued. “He said that they would go themselves to get what was owed them. I swear, I would have given it to him had I known it. But the store is Charlie’s business, not mine. When I told him that, he struck me. Called me a useless old woman. Then he said that everyone knew the Phams were wealthy and that we’d installed an alarm on our house to protect our valuables. I told him it was just for protection, for me and the children. Nothing more. But he didn’t believe me. He gave me a day to gather up my valuables. And then …”

Nga’s face crumpled and tears began streaming down her cheeks. Sonny opened his arms to her and she pushed her face into his shoulder, sobbing out the rest of the story.

“He said that they would bring the children back with them before sunset. That they would drown them in front of me if what I had to offer was not enough.”

Sonny held her, letting her cry, knowing that her natural reserve would soon have her straightening in his arms, stepping away from him. And when that happened … He shook his head just a little, pushing away another stab of sorrow.

A moment later, she did just what he’d expected. And then she walked past him, back through the foyer.

Sonny followed her, saw her hesitate as she caught sight of Charlie’s body, then watched her straighten her spine and lift her chin. She walked to the base of the staircase. Kept her back to Sonny as she shook her head, laughed a little. It was a sound untouched by humor.

“These … thugs would be disappointed to know that Charlie grew up more American than Vietnamese. He believes …
believed
… in banks. That’s where our money is kept. And most of the jewelry we own is in a safe deposit box. But still, there were a few things around the house.” She glanced over her shoulder at Sonny. “Shall I show you what I have?”

Sonny nodded, then watched as she walked back up the carpeted stairs. Just past the landing, Nga bent to pick up a bundle tucked in the shadow of a step. Sonny saw that it was a lace-trimmed pillowcase.