Fever Moon Page 10

  “Is he hurt bad? Did the letter say?”

  The letter hadn’t specified Justin’s wounds, which was what had troubled Chula. “I’m not sure. But he’s alive and he’ll be home in a few weeks.”

  “Do you think I should call his mother?”

  Tapping her lips with a finger, Chula considered. “I’d wait. You don’t want to appear too eager. Mothers are so protective of their sons.” She grinned. “Then again, you have a good job. You’re quite a catch!”

  Claudia laughed. “I can’t thank you enough for the job. It’s the best feeling in the world to be able to buy a bit of meat when it’s available, and bread. My mama is proud of me, even if I’m twenty-two and unmarried.”

  “You were the most qualified applicant, Claudia. I’m glad you got the job, but I didn’t play favorites. You got it because you deserved it.”

  Color touched Claudia’s cheeks. “Some of the people in town have been …”

  “Cruel?” Chula lifted a shoulder. “They’re jealous. Times are hard and your paycheck is steady. Some folks think a steady paycheck is a man’s prerogative. A qualified woman should step out of line and make room for a man, even if he can’t read.”

  “They say ugly things about us. About you.”

  “That’s unfortunate.” Chula locked the cash drawer. “My mama taught me that sticks and stones are dangerous, but words won’t damage any of my bones.” She sighed. The day was finally over. She wasn’t looking forward to the “gentleman caller” as her mother insisted on referring to John LeDeux, but she was ready to get away from the post office. All day long people had come in wanting to talk about Henri Bastion’s death. As the day had faded, the stories have gotten more vivid and exaggerated. Before she’d locked the front door, Chula had heard that Adele was found with Henri’s beating heart in her hand and his liver in her mouth. Ridiculous!

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Baker. Have fun tonight. Take him to the dance hall and dance blisters on your feet.”

  “Thank you for the suggestion, Claudia.”

  Chula turned off the lights and slipped through the door, re-locking it behind her. She’d walked to work, a half mile down a street lined with quiet homes that had once been immaculately maintained. Now, even the residential neighborhoods were showing the strain of the war. Paint wasn’t to be had, building supplies almost nonexistent. Everything was rationed. The president was urging everyone to sacrifice for the cause, but faith—in the cause and in the president—was wavering. People could sacrifice only so much, and as more and more families lost sons and brothers and husbands … it would take years for such wounds to heal.

  Anger heated her cheeks as she walked. Men died for the stupidest of reasons. This great war was about money. Freedom and peace might be the fringe benefits, but it had grown out of greed. The young men who went to war believed in liberty and justice, but the old men who waged these wars had no such illusions. They had greed and a lack of regard for the cannon fodder they sent to their deaths. This war, like others before it, was about lining the pockets of the rich with gold. History had been her major in college, and she’d seen quickly enough that all wars were fought for economic reasons.

  She walked up the broad front steps of her mother’s home and stopped in front of the beveled glass door, trying to shake off her anger. She’d agreed to dinner with John LeDeux because it pleased her mother. LeDeux was a professor at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He was doing research in Iberia Parish, and her mother had been wildly excited at the idea of introducing him to Chula. Chula was not so enthused.

  She opened the door and stepped into the house feeling a swift hunger pang at the mouthwatering odor of roasting pork. Maizy was the finest cook in southeast Louisiana. Though many things were hard to find, the Baker family had plenty to eat. The swamp could be bountiful if one knew where to look, and Maizy had connections.

  Her mother met her at the foot of the stairs. “Chula, Dr. LeDeux will be here in fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “Just this once couldn’t you have come home on time?”

  It was a familiar complaint of her mother, who admired Chula for having such an important job, but it also fretted her that someone, or something, controlled Chula’s time more than she did.

  “I’ll be ready. What is it that Dr. LeDeux teaches?”

  “Biology or botany or something along those lines.”

  “And how did you meet him?” Chula pulled off one boot and then the other as she walked upstairs.

  “I haven’t actually met him. Mary Margaret Castalette gave him my name and number and said I might be helpful in arranging some trips into the swamps. I think Mary Margaret was being clever because she knows I have a connection with Clifton Hebert, the star swamp man.” Mrs. Baker arched her eyebrows. “She is scandalized that Clifton keeps my liquor cabinet stocked.”

  Chula’s laughter was appreciative. “I’m sure you take great delight in telling her how much you enjoy your toddy.”

  “Of course.”

  Picking up her boots, Chula climbed the stairs. “I’ll be dressed and ready when Dr. LeDeux gets here.”

  “Wear something pretty. It might surprise you to discover you’ve some feminine impulses under that tough veneer.”

  “Oh, la, and maybe I could muster up a swoon while I’m at it.” Laughter floated down the stairs as Chula closed her bedroom door.

  She didn’t have time for a bath, but the Baker house, thanks to her paycheck, was equipped with hot running water and indoor plumbing. She used the second-floor bath to quickly wash and change into a dark blue dress with short sleeves and a tucked waist that showed her figure to advantage. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy looking feminine, but her life required her to look efficient. She took her chestnut hair down from the prim bun and shook it free on her shoulders. Touching a bit of liner and mascara to her eyes, she put on lipstick and hurried downstairs just as the doorbell chimed. John LeDeux was a punctual man.

  Maizy let him in while Chula chipped ice for drinks and cast surreptitious glances at her mother, who’d struck a pose of elegant patience on the sofa. Thomasina Baker enjoyed putting on the dog, and Chula loved watching her do it. It was like a mini-production of the local theater group that her mother directed. Artful posing, sharp dialogue, fun.

  Chula made sure to keep her back to the door as she heard footsteps approaching the living room. She mixed a drink for her mother and herself and turned with them in hand. As her gaze met John LeDeux’s, she stumbled slightly, a drink sloshing over the fingers of her hand.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Baker.” He nodded at Thomasina. “Miss Baker.” He gave Chula a smile and a nod. “Thank you for inviting me into your home. It’s a rare pleasure to be able to sit at table with a family.”

  “Have a seat, Dr. LeDeux. Chula, would you do the honors?”

  He took a seat in a club chair beside Thomasina.

  “Would you care for a cocktail?” Chula asked.

  “Anything on the rocks,” he said.

  Chula filled a glass with ice and poured bourbon over it. She handed it to him, taking in his suit. It fit him well, yet he didn’t have the dry, sunless look she associated with academics. His fair skin was lightly tanned, his hair touched with golden highlights.

  “Mother says you’re a teacher at LSU, but she failed to say what you teach.”

  “I’m a social anthropologist. What brings me to New Iberia is the recent events involving a murder.”

  Chula could see the intelligence in the man’s eyes. Surely he wasn’t here to investigate a superstitious bunch of gossip. “Your interest is the murder, or the talk about the loup-garou?’

  “The latter. I’m working on a book that examines the effect of local legend on social dynamic.”

  “Mob mentality is a dangerous thing to play with, Dr. LeDeux. Surely you don’t intend to investigate superstitious gossip?”

  “Chula, darling, your blue stockings are showing.�
� Mrs. Baker waved Chula to sit down. “Maizy has made some canapés. I think Dr. LeDeux will find them far more appetizing than your probing.”

  “Not at all, Mrs. Baker. It’s stimulating to find someone willing to discuss the value of local folklore. And please, call me John.”

  “What’s the premise of your book, John?” Chula asked as she took a small pastry from the tray Maizy passed.

  “Basically that monsters and bogeymen are a healthy part of the psyche of a community. It’s a balance of dark and light.”

  Chula sat on the arm of the sofa beside her mother and sipped her bourbon. “Healthy?”

  “Parents repeat the old legends to frighten their children, to keep them safe. These legends are developed with a specific result in mind. Take the loup-garou, for example. The goal is to keep young children from wandering into the swamps and getting lost or hurt by the wildlife. Am I correct?”

  “To a point.” Chula caught the smile of victory on her mother’s face and realized she’d played right into Thomasina’s matchmaking plot. Her mother had sought out a man who was Chula’s equal. A man who would give her tit for tat in a debate and wasn’t put off by her strong opinions.

  John leaned forward. “These legends and stories were created to serve a need, but when they exceed the bounds of that need, the delicate balance is destroyed.”

  “And terrible tragedy can result.” Chula took his glass for a refill.

  “Yes. In my research, when the balance is tipped, tragedy is the end result. The Salem witch trials is a prime example.” His fingers closed over hers as he took the glass. “I’m here in New Iberia to study that process.”

  Chula swallowed, unable to look away from his penetrating gaze. “I hope there’s nothing to study. Adele Hebert is not a loup-garou, and the sooner that foolishness is stopped, the better for Iberia Parish.”

  “The problem with hysteria is that it can’t be easily dispelled. Though it may be whipped up out of thin air, it becomes difficult to disperse.” John waved the canapé tray away. “The power of the myth or legend is so strong that logical thinking is useless. The young girls who testified at the witch trials fed on each other’s emotions. I wouldn’t be surprised one bit if more sightings of a loup-garou aren’t reported. If that begins to happen, the parish is in for some dangerous times.”

  The sun hovered in the tops of the tree casting orange and fuchsia fingers over the western horizon. Against the violent sky, Adele Hebert’s house stood in stark silhouette. Raymond walked up the two wooden steps and across the gallery to the front door. It opened with a twist of the knob.

  When he stepped inside, he understood why Adele had felt no compulsion to lock up. The one-room house was sparsely furnished. A table and two chairs, a chifforobe, and a pallet on the floor took up the left side of the room. In the back was a potbellied stove and kitchen shelves. To the right, beside a cold and empty fireplace, was a bassinet. The cradle was fashioned from cypress, handmade with grooves and pegs, a beautiful piece of work, and hung with yellow draperies and ribbons. It was the only thing of beauty in the house, which was immaculate. Though Raymond schooled himself to feel nothing, he couldn’t stop the image of Adele, cradling her dying children, that rushed into his mind. Such suffering shouldn’t be allowed. Perhaps she had chosen insanity over the pain of reality, but that still didn’t make her a killer.

  Raymond went to the chifforobe. Two dresses and a nightgown hung from pegs, and underclothes were folded in a neat stack. He took the clothes out and put them in a pile. Adele needed something to wear. A pair of shoes, dusty but in good condition, were added to the things he meant to take her.

  He moved on to the kitchen. The shelves were bare. Glass containers used for staples sparkled in a shaft of sunlight, empty, washed. Someone had come in and cleaned the place thoroughly, but who and why? Raymond had turned up no friends of Adele. She was a loner. Her only living sister suffered from embarrassment of her peculiar family. It didn’t stand to reason that Bernadette, who lived miles away, had come to clean the house. But someone had. Perhaps to erase the traces of something Adele had been given to eat?

  Raymond went to the bassinet, his steps slow and reluctant. He could almost taste the grief in that corner of the room, but he forced himself to move forward. Clifton Hebert’s name was carved in the wood, and Raymond was surprised that the swamp man had made this for his sister. Clifton had acted as if Adele were far removed from his affections, but the cradle belied that. The cradle was evidence of a bond between brother and sister. He’d spent hours creating a work of art for Adele’s babies.

  Inside the bassinet were stuffed animals, homemade from calico and flour sacks and stuffed with sweet grasses from the swamps. A floppy dog with button eyes, and a tatter of red cloth for a tongue, was tucked beneath a handmade quilt. Raymond examined the dog and gently put it back in the cradle.

  There was nothing in the house to help Adele. Nothing. The disappointment was bitter. He’d hoped to find something that might explain Adele’s bizarre behavior. If Adele had stumbled on something tainted—or if someone had given her poison—there was no trace of it in the house. In a way, though, the immaculate condition of the house was evidence. Just nothing he could use in a court of law. He picked up the clothes and left.

  Night had fallen by the time he got back to town, and the streets of New Iberia were dark. In some of the homes lights burned, but the town had begun to settle for the night. Raymond pulled up at the sheriff’s office and got out.

  Pinkney Stole sat on a bench outside the office, and Raymond joined him. Raymond offered the old man a Camel as he shook one from his pack for himself.

  “Sheriff Joe was shore pissed that you took the prisoner off.” Pinkney puffed smoke into the still night.

  “He’ll live.”

  “Question is, will she? She looked dead to me.”

  Pinkney acted dumb, but he wasn’t. Raymond exhaled a blue fog of smoke. “I don’t know. In some ways it would simplify things if she didn’t.”

  “That gal didn’t kill Henri Bastion, did she?”

  Raymond considered the best way to answer. He decided on the truth. “No.”

  “Then who did?”

  “If I had an answer for that, I’d be out making an arrest.”

  “How come that gal thinks she’s possessed?”

  “Pinkney, you’ve got the right questions. The problem is I don’t have any answers.” He tossed his butt into the street. How had Adele become possessed of such a delusion? Was the family crazy—some defect that led to mental problems?

  “Folks is spooked by all that talk of loup-garous”

  “Folks are stupid.” Raymond shook out two more cigarettes. “You had any supper?”

  “No, sir. Sheriff Joe didn’t bring none by for me.”

  Half the time Joe forgot that Pinkney had no food or money. Raymond took a dollar from his billfold and handed it to the older man. “When you go to Estella’s, keep an ear out to see what folks are saying.”

  “Big Ethel’ll splash it all around.”

  Raymond nodded. “See what she’s saying, what folks are talking. Maybe ask about Henri Bastion and what he was up to. I’ve heard a few things but no one wants to speak out.”

  “Folks scared of Henri Bastion. He’d as soon beat a man to death as spit on him.”

  “I haven’t found a single person who mourns his death.” That in itself was disturbing. More disturbing was that whoever had killed Henri was still free and roaming the parish. Raymond pulled another dollar from his billfold. “Bring me a catfish po-boy.”

  “You got it, Mr. Raymond. I’ll be back.”

  Pinkney left and Raymond sat back watching the occasional car that passed. Two couples walked by, hand in hand, on the way to the movie theater. On weeknights movies only cost a nickel, and sometimes Raymond slipped into the back seats and let the Hollywood images remind him of his naïve dreams of romance and love. Now, he often left before the show was over.

  A m
ovie would be a nice diversion, but it would be a nickel wasted. Raymond couldn’t get his mind off Adele Hebert. He’d talked to most of the principals and had found nothing to prove or disprove that Adele was the murderer. She’d be tried for Henri Bastion’s murder at the next session of court. Unless she died.

  What he had learned about Adele gave him a picture of the fabric of her life. No one had been able to give her an alibi for the night of Henri’s murder. Adele lived alone. Since the death of her children, her behavior had been erratic. She’d been seen at night, by Doc and others, paddling down the Teche or sometimes walking aimlessly about town. Not a single person had lifted a hand to help her. Most knew her as the sister of Rosa Hebert, the suicide who claimed to suffer the stigmata. According to local gossip, Adele had been tainted by her sister’s life, as if either sainthood or insanity could rub off.

  At the sound of footsteps approaching, Raymond was pulled from his thoughts. Pinkney sat down and handed him a hot sandwich on the fresh, crusty bread that Estella baked each Wednesday.

  “Any interesting talk?” Raymond asked as he peeled back the linen napkin and bit into the sandwich spiced with horseradish and hot sauce.

  “That place be buzzin’!” Pinkney picked his teeth with a toothpick. “I sat in the kitchen with Ethel, and she said all the Negroes ‘fraid to go out at night. They lightin’ fires and sittin’ up with guns, waitin’ for the loup-garou to come and try to git the young-uns.”

  Raymond took another bite of the sandwich. Pinkney did best when he was simply allowed to talk. If Joe Como could ever learn that, he’d find Pinkney an invaluable resource.

  “Big Ethel said that yesterday they was two men in the restaurant talkin’

  ‘bout Henri Bastion and how he got what he deserved.”

  “Did she know the men?”

  “No, she didn’t. But they was sittin’ with Praytor Bless.”

  Raymond took another bite. Praytor Bless, like Veedal Lawrence, was a healthy man, yet he’d never served as a soldier. Rumor was that he had a leaky heart, but Raymond had seen him hauling huge cypress trees out of the swamp for a pier. Praytor looked to be hale enough, though he’d never cut himself free of his mama’s apron strings. Francine Bless controlled the pocketbook.