Fever Moon Read online

  “No matter what he had, he always wanted more,” Chula said. “Listen, John has to go back to Baton Rouge today, but he’ll be back on the weekend. Why don’t you plan on having dinner with us Saturday night? I’ll invite Raymond, too.”

  Florence looked to see if Chula was joshing her. An invitation to the Baker home for dinner was not a social event; it was a political statement. Chula’s generosity would cost her in the town. “It might not be a good idea for me to come,” Florence said. “Lots of people don’t think I should socialize with—”

  “Lots of people let Henri and Praytor walk around town, doing business, intimidating people all over the place. You know what, I say lots of people can kiss my ass.”

  Chula’s wide smile drew a matching one from Florence. “That’s bold talk, but you’ll pay for the rest of your life.”

  “I’m not so sure I’m staying here.”

  Florence felt a chill touch her. Only that morning she’d decided to leave New Iberia. “Where will you go?”

  “I’m not sure.” Chula kissed Sarah’s head. “Somewhere safe for this little one.”

  Florence understood then that Chula had no intention of giving the child back to Marguerite. She nodded her agreement with that decision. “You’re educated. You can go anywhere.”

  Chula nodded. “It’ll break my mother’s heart, but I think she already knows. I can’t imagine belonging anywhere else. But talking with John has shown me that I don’t really belong here, anyway. I grew up here. I live here. But I don’t belong.”

  Chula didn’t have to explain it. Florence understood. Sometimes tragedy damaged a person’s roots so deeply that they could never take hold again.

  “Come to dinner,” Chula urged.

  “Okay.” Florence was still reluctant. “Be sure Raymond knows you’ve invited me.”

  “I’ll tell him the plan.” Chula lifted Sarah off the counter and to the floor. “Now I’d better get to work. I’ve got mail to sort.” She was about to swing around with the child when the bell over the door rang.

  Florence stepped back from the counter and turned to leave. She inhaled sharply. The ghost of Adele Hebert walked into the post office. It took only a few seconds for Florence to recognize Bernadette Matthews, Adele’s sister, but she was so startled she took two involuntary steps back from the approaching woman.

  The three women looked at each other in uncomfortable silence that was broken by the sound of Sarah Bastion wetting the floor.

  27

  SUNLIGHT flashed through the trees, blinding Raymond and then dissipating as he hit another stretch of road with dense foliage. The world of shadow and the world of light. He’d been caught between, in limbo, but events had forced him through to the other side.

  John rode in the passenger seat, quiet and thoughtful. Raymond appreciated the other man’s patience, his control.

  “What did you want to talk about?” Raymond finally asked. They were almost to the site where Praytor’s body had been found. John hadn’t complained about the breakneck speed, but Raymond slowed the car. He had no idea what he hoped to find there. He’d searched the area twice already. There had to be something that linked Praytor and Henri to their killer.

  John cleared his throat. “I heard some talk in the café this morning. Folks blame you for this. They think you’ve been cursed by the loup-garou. They think Adele Hebert put a spell on you, and you set her free.”

  Raymond considered ignoring this, but he found himself answering. There was something about John, his willingness to listen, his easy confidence. “Adele is a contradiction. In all this time, I still don’t know who she is. Her sister calls her a whore, yet a convicted murderer tells me she’s a saint.”

  “Which is it?” John asked.

  Raymond remembered Armand Dugas’s words—that a person who impugned Adele had something to gain from it. “I’d come closer to believing the convict. He had nothing to—” He stopped. Bernadette had certainly gone a long way to paint Adele in the worst light. Because of childhood jealousies? Raymond slowed the car. What did Bernadette have to gain? That was the answer he should be seeking.

  “What’s wrong?” John shifted so that he leaned against the passenger door.

  “Probably nothing.” Raymond searched the woods that had once again closed around the car. “It’s just strange that Adele’s sister seems to want Adele charged with murder. Both Bernadette and Praytor seemed determined that Adele would pay for Henri’s death. I was wondering why.”

  “That’s peculiar.”

  Raymond turned off the heater in the car. The hot air was annoying. “Bernadette gains nothing that I can tell. Neither Adele nor Bernadette benefits from Henri’s death. Only Marguerite benefits, financially. I would’ve said Praytor Bless might benefit, but he’s dead. I’d begun to believe Praytor was behind this.”

  Sunlight dappled the front seat, and John shifted again to block the light from his eyes. “Both Henri and Praytor are killed by the loup-garou, and the town wants to blame it on a half-starved woman who’s delirious with fever. It’s so much easier for all of us if something evil is out there because then we don’t have to look at how capable we are of violent acts, of murder. And worse.”

  Raymond’s fingers clutched the steering wheel. He drove through a canopy of trees and then into sunlight that almost blinded him. The scent of pine, so clean and pungent, filled the car, and from far away he heard the cry of a hawk. “What are you saying, John? Say it plain.”

  John sat forward, surprised at Raymond’s tone. “The belief that each of us contains the primitive, the wild. The duality. The wolf within. It’s part of my reason for wanting to write the book.”

  Raymond could feel the sweat beading on his upper lip even though the air coming in the open window was crisp. “Tell me about your book.”

  “It’s a blend of psychiatry and anthropology. The human animal creates myth and legend to explain the duality of our nature. We’re both domesticated and primitive. It’s the eternal struggle. In religious terms, it would be good versus evil. The werewolf legends are just examples where the primitive side has won. We recognize ourselves in the wolf, and it terrifies us.”

  The dream image of Adele, cast in the carrion glow of the moon, came back to Raymond. She was alluring, exciting. And primitive. Raymond reached into his jacket pocket for his cigarettes. His fingers found the crust of bread the priest had given him and the purple cloth of grass that he’d stuffed in his pocket when he left Doc’s house.

  He grabbed the pack and matches. He lit a cigarette and tipped the pack toward John, forcing his brain to slow and think. He thought of Antoine, and how his brother’s death had changed him. He’d killed and killed and killed, a primitive creature savaging all who got close. He’d still be killing if he hadn’t been wounded. The government had given him medals for his actions, but Raymond knew he’d not acted out of bravery or nobility. He’d killed out of pain. The wolf had taken over, and Raymond knew he could never afford to let that happen again.

  John lit a cigarette, his brow furrowed. He spoke slowly. “Raymond, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  Raymond touched his right ear. When he looked at his fingers, they were covered in blood. “I know Adele didn’t kill either of those men. I can’t prove it, and I can’t explain how a woman so sick she couldn’t hold up her own head is running wild through the town. Adele is not a loup-garou, and if I can’t prove that, she’s going to be shot on sight like a mad dog.”

  John pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it. “I wish there was something I could do to help.”

  Raymond wiped the blood from his jaw and steered the car around a sharp curve. “What I have to figure out is who would want to pin this on Adele. I’m positive someone is giving her something, but I just can’t prove it.”

  “What would they give her?” John leaned forward, the cigarette dangling from his fingers.

  “I thoug
ht I had it figured out.” Raymond pulled the bread and the bundled grass from his pocket and put them on the seat. “This is what I need to have examined at the university. Maybe someone there can tell me what that is.”

  John studied the bread before he unwrapped the purple cloth. Raymond drove for what seemed like a mile before John spoke.

  “Whatever this grass is, there’s some of it in this bread.”

  Raymond kept driving for a moment. “I thought it was the same, too, but I don’t know what it is.” He began to slow.

  “It would take someone with a microscope and more knowledge of botany than I possess to be able to say for positive.”

  “Can you find that person for me? If I can figure out what she was given, I might be able to find out who gave it to her.”

  John carefully rewrapped the two items. “Raymond, I can’t tell you the who, but I may know how. The werewolf legend comes from French history.” John threw his butt out the window. “Between 1520 and 1630 there were over thirty thousand werewolf trials in France alone. Seemingly normal people were afflicted with behavior attributed to lycanthropy. They had tremendous strength.”

  “I appreciate the history lesson, but—”

  John held up his hand. “Just listen. Many of the residents of these isolated villages were near starvation. A type of mold, ergot, infected the rye. This mold is a hallucinogen. The person under the influence develops delusions and what’s been described as superhuman strength. They ate bread tainted with—”

  Raymond slowed the car to a stop. He turned to John, a terrible suspicion beginning to grow. “Where does that mold grow?”

  “I haven’t researched it, but probably almost anywhere there’s a damp climate.”

  Raymond cut the wheel sharply, sending the car bumping into the ditch on the opposite side of the road. He spun the steering wheel again and punched the gas. The patrol car straightened and hit a stretch of washboard that jarred both men almost off the seat.

  John righted himself. “I gather our plans have changed.”

  “I know part of what happened now.” Raymond pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The car bounced over the rutted road. “And you’re going to help me figure out the rest.”

  Sarah Bastion’s shrill screams echoed off the beaded lumber walls of the post office. Chula tried to cradle the child in her arms, but Sarah fought her with surprising strength. Flight seemed to be her only thought, and she was determined to escape.

  “Can I help you?” Florence asked, her hand on the drop-down countertop.

  “No.” Chula wrapped her arms around the little girl and picked her up. “Excuse me.” She carried Sarah into the back of the post office where the bags of mail remained to be sorted. She had no idea what to do for the child, how to help her, or what had caused such a fit. One moment Sarah had been clinging to her skirt, seemingly content, and the next she’d been hysterical.

  “Sarah,” she said softly, “it’s okay.” Chula gave up trying to pry Sarah’s fingers loose and simply held her tightly. “You’re safe with me. What’s wrong?”

  The screams stopped and gradually the crying lessened. Chula rocked her back and forth gently, humming softly against her hair that smelled of Ivory soap.

  Bernadette’s voice came clearly into the back room. “That child needs a spankin’. Whip some manners into her. Always pokin’ into folks’ bidness, spyin’ and whinin’.”

  Chula gritted her teeth. The Bastion children had seen enough brutality to last a lifetime. If Chula had her way, Sarah would never have a hand raised to her again.

  “The little girl’s life has been tough lately.” Florence lazily drawled the words. “If a whipping would do any good, I might just try to pound some compassion into you.”

  Bernadette’s voice was bitter. “I came here to get my mail, not be smart-lipped by a whore.”

  Chula peeked around the doorjamb. The last thing New Iberia needed now was a fistfight between two women, and Florence looked ready to snatch Bernadette bald-headed. She turned her attention back to the child.

  “Sarah, I have to go out there.” Chula felt as if she were battering the child. Sarah was in such a state that she was almost rigid. “I’ll be right back.”

  Chula walked to the door.

  “Please!”

  The one-word cry was electric. It bounced over the hardwood floors and struck Chula like a spear. She turned back to look at Sarah. The little girl stood with her hands clenched at her side, her eyes burning.

  “Don’t leave me!” Sarah ran to Chula and threw her arms around her legs and held on. “Don’t leave me! Please don’t leave me!”

  Chula balanced against the doorjamb. She couldn’t move her legs. The child held her in a viselike grip. At the counter Florence and Bernadette were watching. Florence bit her lip in sympathy, and Bernadette looked as if she’d been dipped in flour.

  “She can talk.” Florence’s smile stretched wide.

  Bernadette ran out of the post office. The bell jangled as the door slammed with enough force to rattle the glass panes.

  “What devil got under her skirt?” Florence asked, humor in her voice.

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. Florence, can I press you into working the counter?” Chula lifted the child with her. “The mail is sorted alphabetically. Just go through until you find the name.”

  Chula strode to the back door of the post office and stepped out into the cool November air. She and Claudia had set two overturned Coca-Cola crates under a cypress tree. She carried Sarah there and eased her down.

  “Now that I know you can talk, you’re going to have to tell me some things.” She kept her voice easy but firm. “Do you know where your mother went, Sarah?”

  The little girl shook her head. “Don’t come back.”

  Chula wasn’t certain if Sarah was saying her mother wouldn’t come back or that she didn’t want her to. What had terrified Chula was Bernadette Matthews. Sarah was afraid of almost everything, but Chula had seen her wet herself twice. Once when Clifton Hebert and his dogs came out of the woods and again when Bernadette had shown up at the post office.

  She grasped Sarah’s hands and pulled them free of her skirt so that she could kneel and face the little girl. “Sarah, I’ll do everything in my power so that you can stay with me. I’ll fight to keep you, and I won’t let anyone else hurt you.”

  Sarah’s grip loosened.

  “Why are you so afraid of Mrs. Matthews?”

  Sarah frowned. Her gaze focused beyond Chula to the back door of the post office. “Adele.” She said the name softly and began to pull away.

  “Oh, Sarah!” Chula pulled her close and held her, rubbing her back and kissing the top of her head. “I’m so sorry for all the bad things. I’m so sorry.” She took the child’s hand. “You’re going to be safe, Sarah. I won’t ever let another person hurt you.” She tightened her grip for a moment on the child’s hand. “No one will harm you again.”

  Sarah pulled her hand free of Chula’s. “Adele!” She ran toward the alley beside the post office.

  Chula started to follow and stopped. Adele stood in the alley. Her torn clothing revealed limbs that were painfully thin. Long red scratches covered her legs and arms, and her face was gaunt. Her dark eyes, almost hidden by the tangle of her thick black curls, were focused on Sarah Bastion.

  “No! Sarah!” Chula made a dive for the child, scooped her up, and ran toward home.

  28

  THE patrol car flew along the roads. Raymond held the wheel, fighting the sandy road and the sense that time was slipping away from him. Things had begun to shift into focus. There was only one person in town with a direct connection to France. While the Acadians all came from French blood, it was diluted, mixed. But the Mandeville blood was pure, and he knew this because Marguerite Mandeville Bastion made it a point for everyone to know. Marguerite was the person in the parish most likely to know of the ergot fungus and the gruesome history of the hallucinogen. Marguerite would benefit
most from Henri’s death. But it wasn’t Marguerite who fed the fungus to Adele. That had to be Bernadette, who was living above her means with her man gone. The two women had conspired together—Marguerite to be rid of Henri and get his money, and Bernadette to punish Adele.

  In his mind Raymond walked through Adele’s house, taking in again the smell of strong cleaner. She’d been sick with fever. Her babies had died, and she’d buried them herself in the swamp beside her dead sister. Adele had been obsessed with grief and death, yet her home was immaculate.

  John leaned against the car door, seemingly relaxed. He didn’t ask, waiting instead for Raymond to reveal whatever he chose.

  “I searched Adele’s home,” Raymond said. “I went through everything. There wasn’t food of any kind in the house.”

  John picked up the cigarettes from the seat. He had to lean over and protect the match to get a light. Leaning back against the seat, he gave Raymond his full attention. “What are you thinking?”

  “Adele has no friends, and Bernadette hates her. The person who cleaned her house was removing evidence.”

  Raymond navigated a sharp turn, almost losing the car in a deep pocket of sand. When he was straight again, he asked, “What happened to the people who ate the fungus? Did it wear off while they were in prison?” He could keep Adele safe—away from Bernadette and everyone else—until she came to her senses.

  John drew on the cigarette and tapped the ash out the window. “At that time, there weren’t trials, like now. The people accused were executed. Hanged and burned at the stake.”

  Raymond pushed the accelerator to the floor. “We have to find Marguerite. Now.”

  Michael checked to be sure his collar was crisp and straight. Throughout the night and early morning, he’d come to one conclusion. Being a hero was every bit as good as he’d dreamed. He’d found Peat Moss—stumbled upon her, actually—and he’d told everyone the truth of how it happened. Yet he was viewed as the man who’d saved a child from the jaws of the loup-garou. The aura of fame that he’d craved for so long had been settled upon his head by happenstance. God did work in mysterious ways.