Voodoo River (1995) (20 page)

I said, "It's okay, Edith. You were a child. You were scared."

She nodded, but she didn't look at us, and the tears came harder. "He went out after Leon and he shot him. Just like that." A whisper.

Jodi said, "My God."

Edith wiped at her eyes, smearing the tears and her mascara and the mucus running from her nose. She gave a weak smile. "I must look like such a fool. I'm sorry."

Jodi said, "No."

Edith was getting control of herself. "Would you come back to my house? I could make coffee. There's so much more I'd like to tell you."

Jodi looked uncomfortable. "I really don't think I can." She looked at me like she wanted me to say something, like maybe we had someplace to go and I should check my watch and get her away from there.

Edith's eyes grew panicky. "You have three sisters, did you know that? I could show you their pictures." Pleading.

Jodi said, "I'm sorry. I have to get back to Los Angeles."

Edith shook her head and her face seemed to close and grow fearful. She said, "I didn't want to tell. I have cursed myself every day for it, but I just wasn't strong enough to save him." She put her face in her hands. "I want you to know that I would have kept you if I could. I want you to know that I've wondered about you, and prayed for you. God forgive me, I wasn't strong enough to save either one of you. Please forgive me for that. Please please please forgive me." Her shoulders heaved and she turned away and put her hands on the rail and wept.

The old man on the bench opened his eyes and sat up and looked at us. He said, "What in hell's going on over there?"

I leaned toward him. "Shut up or I'll kick your ass."

The old man untied the little dog and hurried away. I was blinking fast. Dust in the air. Damn dust is something.

Jodi said, "Edith?"

Edith shook her head.

Jodi said, "Edith, I forgive you."

Edith shook her head again, and her body trembled.

Jodi looked at me, and I said, "Whatever you want."

Jodi pursed her lips and blew a stream of air and stared at the rough board deck of the gazebo. She said, "Edith, I need to know one more thing. Did you love my father?"

Edith answered in a voice so small that we could barely hear her. Maybe we imagined it, hearing only what we wanted to hear. She said, "Oh, God, yes. I loved him so. God, how I loved him."

Jodi went to Edith and put her hands on her shoulders, and said, "Maybe we could stay for a little while, after all."

The two of them stood like that, Edith crying, Jodi patting her shoulder, together in the heat of the day.

Chapter
21

W e drove to Edith Boudreaux's house, parked in the drive, then went inside so that she could share her life with her long-lost daughter. It was a nice house, furnished in Early American and smelling faintly of Pine-Sol. Everything was clean the way a home can be clean only after the children are older and have moved out. A grandfather clock stood in the entry, and a Yamaha piano was against the wall just inside the door. A cluster of family photographs sprouted on top of the Yamaha. Edith and Jodi moved together ahead of me, and there seemed a careful distance between them, each overly polite, each watchful and uncertain. Jodi said, "You have a lovely home."

"Thank you."

"Have you lived here for very long?"

"Oh, yes. Almost fifteen years, now." You see? Like that.

I sat in a wing chair at the end of the couch as they moved around the room examining the artifacts of Edith's life, as if we had stumbled upon a long-sealed chamber beneath the great pyramid. This is my husband, Jo-el. This is when we were married. These are our daughters. Pictures of the three grown daughters were spotted around the living room and hanging on the walls. Red-letter stuff: the graduation, the marriage. That's Sissy, our oldest; she has two boys. That's Joana and Rick, they live in New Orleans. Barb's the baby, she's at LSU. Jodi followed Edith from picture to picture with her hands clasped behind her back, unwilling to touch anything. She didn't seem particularly happy to be there, but maybe it was just me.

After a little bit of that, Edith said, "Would you like coffee? Coffee won't take but a minute." Nervous, and anxious to please.

Jodi looked at me, and I said, "That would be very nice. Thank you."

When Edith was gone, I lowered my voice. "How are you doing?"

Jodi made a little shrug. "It feels creepy."

"We can leave whenever you want."

She shook her head. "I'm here. I might as well learn whatever I can learn."

"Sure."

"I won't be coming back."

I spread my hands.

Jodi frowned. "Well, I can't very well be rude."

"Absolutely not."

When Edith came back with the coffee, Jodi was looking at the pictures on the piano. Edith had bypassed the Yamaha before, and didn't seem thrilled when she saw Jodi over there. Jodi said, "Are these your brothers and sisters?"

Edith poured the coffee, then handed me a small plate with three pecan pralines. I hadn't had pralines in years. She said, "Some of them." Not looking that way.

Jodi said, "Show me who's who."

Edith made a little frown as she joined Jodi at the pictures. "This is my mother, standing with my aunt. That's Jo-el when he was a boy. And these are my brothers and sisters. That's m. I was sixteen."

Jodi nodded and leaned closer to the pictures. "Which one is your father?"

Edith seemed to pull herself in. "I don't keep a picture of my father here."

"Elvis says you take care of him."

"Yes, that's true."

Jodi stared at Edith for a moment, then looked back at the pictures. "How do you and they live with it?"

Edith started to speak, stopped, then found some words. "Families keep secrets. We've never once spoken of it in all this time. My brother Nick was closest to my age. He was twelve, but he's dead. Sara was ten, and the others even younger. I don't know if they know or not."

Jodi made a whistling sound through her teeth. "He murdered a child and he got away with it. Just like that."

Edith crossed her arms again, as she had at the gazebo. "A man named Duplasus was the sheriff back then. He came to the house, and my father told him exactly what happened and why." She pulled her arms tighter, protection from the cold. "I'm sure Mr. Duplasus felt that my father's rage was justifiable, a white girl being ruined by a colored."

Jodi said, "Jesus Christ."

Edith came back to the couch. "Yes. Well. Things like this used to be called crimes of passion. Would you like more coffee, Mr. Cole?"

"Yes, ma'am. That would be nice."

Jodi turned away from the piano and stood in the center of Edith's living room. "You could've said something. You still can." She looked at me. "There's no statute of limitation on murder, is there?"

"Nope."

Edith said, "My father is eighty-six years old. He's incontinent and he talks to himself, and much of the time he's incoherent. I care for him now in ways that he doesn't always like, but I'm the only one to do it." She shook her head. "I'm not as angry as I used to be. Leon's been gone a very long while."

Jodi's jaw worked.

Edith made a little shrug, and seemed profoundly tired. "It's just the way we feel about it. I guess that's why we have this trouble."

I said, "Milt."

Edith looked at me. "My, but you must be a good detective."

Jodi said, "Who's Milt?"

Edith looked at her. "He didn't tell you what's going on?"

Jodi was frowning. "What didn't you tell me?"

Edie said, "Some of the same people who were blackmailing you are blackmailing us, too."

Jodi looked at me. "What?"

I said, "I told you what was relevant to you. Edith's business is Edith's business."

"Jesus Christ, but you're a tight-lipped sonofabitch."

I shrugged. "Privacy is my middle name." Jodi wanted me to fill her in and Edith said it was all right with her. I said, "Rebenack was working for a man named Milt Rossier. As near as I can figure it, Rebenack uncovered Leon Williams's murder and sold it to Rossier so that Rossier would have leverage over Edith's husband. Rebenack double-crossed Rossier by going behind his back to blackmail you. Rebenack thought he was being sharp, but that brought me into it and focused attention on Rossier." I looked at Edith. "You know Rebenack is dead."

She looked confused."No. Jo-el hasn't said anything."

Jodi said, "Jesus Christ. Is everything in this family a secret?"

I said, "After Lucy Chenier and I came to see you, Rossier's goon picked me up and brought me out to the crawfish farm. There's no way that Rossier would've known that I came to see you unless your husband told him. Rebenack was out there, too. Rossier wanted to know why I was digging around, and he became upset when I told him that Rebenack was putting the twist on Jodi. He didn't know that, and I suspect he killed Rebenack because of it."

Edith shook her head. "Jo-el wouldn't murder anyone. I don't believe that."

I shrugged.

Edith put down her coffee cup and said, "I told Joel that thirty-six years is enough lying. I said that I didn't want him to do anything wrong, and he said what was he supposed to do, go arrest my father?" She shook her head again and rubbed at her eyes. "This is a nightmare."

I looked at Jodi Taylor. "Sound familiar?"

"What?"

"You didn't want to pay extortion, either."

Jodi pursed her lips, then leaned toward Edith. "Can't your husband do something?"

"He wants to, but he doesn't know what. This is killing him." The skin around her eyes and mouth was tight, and showing the strain.

Jodi said, "I think it's killing both of you."

A car turned into the drive and Edith went to the door. "That will be Jo-el. I want you to meet him."

The front door opened and Sheriff Jo-el Boudreaux walked in, campaign hat in one hand, a rolled copy of Sports Illustrated in the other, looking the way you look when you're calling it quits after a long day. He stopped when he saw us, and said, "What's going on here?" Calm and reasonable, like you walk in every day to see a detective and a TV star sitting in your living room. Only not. His eyes flicked to Jodi, then came to me, and the calm look was the kind guys get when their hearts are pounding, but they know they've got to cover. Every cop I ever knew could get that look.

Edith stood. "Jo-el, this young lady is named Jodi Taylor." She wet her lips. "She's my daughter."

Jodi stood and offered her hand. "Hello, Mr. Bou-dreaux."

Edith said, "She's the one on TV, Jo-el, She's the little girl I gave away."

Jo-el Boudreaux took Jodi's hand without apparent feeling, shaking his head and making out as if all of this was sort of benignly confusing. "I don't understand, hon. Your mother gave away a baby." Like she had made a mistake recalling which day she'd gone to the market.

"We don't have to pretend, Jo-el." Edith put a hand on his arm. "They know. Those people were blackmailing her, too, just like they're doing to us."

Jo-el's eyes got wide and he wet his lips and his eyes flicked nervous and frantic. One minute you're coming home to take it easy with the new Sports Illustrated, the next you're watching your life go down the toilet. "No one's blackmailing us."

I said, "We're not going to hurt you, Jo-el. It's okay."

Sheriff Jo-el Boudreaux waved the Sports Illustrated at me. "I don't know what you think you've dug up, but we don't want any part of it." He squared himself toward me, making himself large and threatening. Cop technique. "I think you should leave."

Edith jerked at his arm. "You stop that! We need to talk about this. We need to start dealing with this."

Jo-el was frantic now and didn't know what to do. He said, "There's nothing to deal with, Edie. Do you understand me? There's nothing to talk about here, and they should leave."

Edith's voice grew harder. Insistent. "I want to know what's going on. I want to know if you're involved in a murder."

Jo-el Boudreaux's left eye ticked twice, and he took a single step toward me and I stood. Edith was pulling at his arm, her face red. I said, "I saw you with Milt Rossier. We know about Leon Williams and Edith's father. Rebenack was extorting Jodi and her studio, and Rossier is extorting you."

Boudreaux's eye ticked again and he shook his head. "No."

Edith said, "He says that Rossier killed that redheaded man. Do you know about tliat? Are you covering up for him?"

Boudreaux blinked hard, and he looked at his wife. "You know better than that." He squinted at me to stop the blinking. "If I knew who murdered Jimmie Ray Rebenack I would make an arrest. Maybe you did it. Maybe I should take you in for questioning."

I said, "Sure. That would look good in the local papers."

He shook his head again, and now the eye was ticking madly, like a moth caught in a jar. "I don't know what Edie's been saying to you, but she's been confused. She's not making sense."