by G A Chase
“It’s all they allow in here. Some documents we can get photocopied, but most of the information we’re looking for is too delicate.” She gave him an appraising stare. “Maybe it’d be best if you just looked over my shoulder.”
It was all he could do to keep from making a snarky response. But the truth was that he didn’t really want to be responsible for handling something of historical significance. “What did she find?”
“Mostly newspaper articles. Apparently, the baron was very involved in high society, so his name pops up each time there was some big event. She thinks there are some old photographs of the Malveaux mansion and maybe even some of the family. Sitting here is like waiting for Santa Claus.”
“More like Mrs. Claus.” Though really he saw it as closer to waiting on some elementary school teacher to show him how badly he’d messed up.
He had a momentary urge to rush up and help the old curator as she struggled toward their table carrying a mammoth ledger filled with brittle yellow newspapers. But the prospect of damaging either the woman or the documents kept him riveted in place.
She set the huge book in front of Kendell. “Take your time. I do trust you, dear, but these are older than most of the documents you usually request. Handle them carefully.”
Kendell looked up like a little girl just entrusted with her mother’s diamond necklace. “I will.”
The old woman gave him the hint of a hard stare as she returned to her desk. He realized how out of his depth he was as Kendell put on a pair of white cotton gloves. Carefully, she opened the front cover to reveal a paper from July 10, 1843. The yellowed page, though undoubtedly historic, didn’t look especially informative.
“Are we going to have to go through every page?” The best he’d ever been able to manage with the Sunday paper was the cartoons.
“No, Edith said the date we’re looking for is August 2.” Kendell continued to turn each page with reverence.
“That’d be, like, a quarter of the way through the ledger. Why not just flip to that section?”
She gave him a look of exasperation. “First of all, because we might miss something important. Secondly, because that’s not how to handle old paper.”
For a moment, he thought she was going to tell him to sit at the table and draw her a pretty picture while she did her research. He decided it’d be best to just look over her shoulder in silence.
According to the clock above the door, it took Kendell fourteen minutes to reach the page in question. And once there, they found that the obituary for Serephine Malveaux only occupied a single paragraph. For a family as famous as the baron’s, very little was said about the passing of his “beloved daughter.” Even the cause of death had been ignored.
“Looks like he got to the reporter.” Kendell ran her cotton-covered finger over the notification.
“Why do you say that?”
She moved to the next column. “Look at the other obituaries. They all list some horrible form of death. Serephine’s is filled with glowing remembrances but no facts. Even back then, I suspect suicide wasn’t something a powerful family would want broadcast.”
For someone who hadn’t studied history, she had a remarkable way of seeing behind the cover story. It was a skill he’d never really mastered even as an archeology student. “It’s still not proof that what I saw was real.”
“True, but it’s also not a repudiation. I’ll have Edith get us those photographs.” She squinted at him. “Don’t touch anything.”
“Yes, Mom.” He watched her as she walked down the line of tables. Sexy library-loving nerd.
He sat in the seat she’d vacated to read the rest of the page that lay open. Serephine’s mother and father had given heartfelt, if not a little flowery, proclamations of their bereavement. The words looked overly polished for parents who’d just lost their daughter. Perhaps Kendell was right. If the girl had committed suicide, the family would have been careful in what they said. Her brother, Antoine-Caliste Malveaux, however, was only quoted as saying, “Rest easy, sweet Sere. I will never forget.” Myles wrote the words down in Kendell’s notebook.
“You haven’t been touching that newspaper have you?”
“No, ma’am.” He turned to see Kendell smiling down at him. “That wasn’t nice.”
She failed to contain her giggle. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist.”
The curator had an easier time with the book of family photographs. “We’re in luck. This album dates from 1902, so I originally missed it. The second half is from the family Laurette, but the first half is all Malveaux, dating back to the early 1800s. There’s no explanation for the change of family, but after the War Between the States, people used whatever they could find to display photographs. There’s a sizable missing period of time that corresponds to the war. Often those pictures were kept in a separate album or removed entirely.”
Of the possible explanations, a marriage between the Malveaux and Laurette families seemed the most plausible to Myles, though he also jotted down that adoption, war buddies, and extended family inheritance were possible reasons for the mixed family photo album.
Kendell opened the engraved leather cover. A faded photograph of a mansion with live oaks on either side filled the front page. If it weren’t for the out-of-focus horse-drawn trolley that blurred the lower right edge of the picture, he would have thought the house was on a plantation. The inscription at the bottom of the page read, “Malveaux Estate on Saint Charles, 1821”
As she slowly flipped the pages, he got the pictorial representation of a youth born to privilege. Archibald Baptiste Malveaux had the smug countenance of young man who’d never known economic suffering. For the first handful of pages, his parents, who looked so old they could have passed as his grandparents, were constantly photographed with Archibald between them. By the time they disappeared from the pictures, the young aristocrat had already been joined by a lovely woman who appeared slightly uncomfortable in the trappings of her husband’s wealth. Myles had to remind himself not to read too much into the pictures.
The couple only appeared alone together for a couple of pages before a baby filled the woman’s arms. Her expensive necklaces and flowing gowns were quickly replaced by more utilitarian attire. As their son, Antoine-Caliste, grew, he managed a more unpretentious though no less intense countenance than his father. Though it was clear his mother doted on Antoine, Archibald continued his cold stare of command.
Myles guessed Antoine to be just shy of his teenage years when a baby girl joined the family. Even the cold facial expressions of Archibald—now simply referred to as “the baron”—softened as he rested his hand on his wife’s shoulder. His eyes no longer bore into the camera but instead rested on the child in her mother’s arms.
As the girl outgrew her mother’s lap, she took her place in front of her gangly brother, standing between their parents. Other than young Serephine, it appeared the family didn’t care much for each other. With each new page of the album, Antoine’s posture appeared more reserved, his arms crossed, and he gave no notice of his parents. If Myles hadn’t known better, he would have thought the boy had been edited into the pictures.
“He’s quite striking.” Kendell had stopped turning the pages.
“The baron? He kind of looks like an asshole to me.”
She pointed at a picture without touching it. “No. Antoine. There’s a soulful pain in his eyes. He must be in his midteens here, but his expressions are much more mature. It’s like he’s carrying a heavy emotional burden.”
Myles leaned in for a better look. From the youth’s muscle tone and stance, he clearly knew how to handle himself, but he never smiled for any of the pictures. Myles reminded himself that smiling for the camera wasn’t the norm in the 1800s. “I think that’s just the way people posed back then.”
Kendell frowned at him. “I’m well aware of how people presented themselves for portraits. In some ways, their stoicism makes it easier to read what they were thinking. There’s no
pretend happiness to mask their eyes. Look at the difference between father and son. They have the same features, but you can tell what they’re thinking is very different.”
He did his best to see what she meant, but he couldn’t empirically conclude that the impression was just what she wanted to see. “Turn the page. Maybe we can tell more about him as he grows up.”
But the next dozen pages were only frayed edges where the paper had been torn. Kendell ran her gloved finger over the soft, uneven edges. “This must be the Civil War years. I wonder if they tore them out because Antoine served in the Confederate army or if it was because he died and they didn’t want to be reminded. Someone must have suffered a lot to try and remove the memories that way.”
This time, he could see her point. It would have been easier to just take out the pictures, or if they’d really wanted the whole pages removed, a knife or scissors would have done a cleaner job. From the torn edges, it looked more like someone had pulled them out in a fit of rage. “They probably wouldn’t have told us much anyway. In those last photographs, Serephine looked pretty close to the age I imagined her while holding the tool.”
Kendell leaned back in the chair to face him. “Do you think that’s why the pages were ripped out? Her suicide had to be difficult on the family. Even if they stuck together after her death, their relationships were probably strained. It’d be easy to imagine that at some point something else went wrong. Maybe the baron and his wife divorced, and whoever tore at these pages concluded Serephine’s death was the beginning of their woes.”
“Sounds a little overly sentimental to me. Turn to the next section. I can’t help but believe there’s some connection between the Malveaux family and the Laurettes.”
Pictures of the Laurette family weren’t as posed as the Malveaux portraits. Post-Civil War photography had a more realistic nature, or at least, that was the case for the Laurette family. The first few pictures almost looked randomly compiled. What people there were in the images were engaged in either surveying property or doing their daily tasks. Though not as wealthy as the Malveauxs, the Laurette photographs still displayed a family investing in rebuilding New Orleans.
It took Kendell flipping through five pages before they found the first image of Anthony Laurette, the founding member of Laurette and Associates Architecture. Myles immediately noticed why the man had been missing from earlier photographs. His scraggly beard insufficiently hid an ugly scar that ran from his forehead, under an eye patch, and down below his left ear. Myles had difficulty guessing the man’s age. His hair was still dark in the yellowed photos, but from his stooped posture, he easily could have been approaching middle age.
Myles lost sight of the picture when Kendell grabbed her magnifying glass and dove into the album.
“I was looking at that.”
“Hush a minute. There’s something familiar about this guy.”
He’d seen enough Civil War photographs to know every one of those soldiers looked both eerily familiar and completely foreign at the same time.
She leaned back into her chair and scowled. “I must be suffering from your affliction of not knowing what’s real and what I’m imagining.”
“What do you think you saw?”
She handed him the magnifying glass. “Look at his good eye. Nothing else, just the eye. And don’t touch the photograph.”
“I know. You’ve told me enough times. I’ll be careful of the damn precious historical treasures.”
In spite of his promise, he found it difficult to lean in without touching the oversized album. “He’s only got one eye, so any comparison would be a challenge. But I assume you’re going to tell me he’s got similar features to Antoine Malveaux. It’s not unlikely that they were related. After all, this album does have pictures of both families.”
Carefully, Kendell turned the pages back to the final image of the Malveaux family. “I don’t think they’re related. I think they’re the same person. I wasn’t looking at the shape of his eye but that look of intensity. Imagine this young man going through the Civil War and coming out the other end as the beaten soldier.”
Looking at only the right eye, Myles had to really squint to make anything out of the family photograph. “That’s a real stretch, Kendell. Why would he change his name? If he wanted to change his identity, the last place he’d go after the war would be to New Orleans where his father was so well known.”
“All I’m saying is look at his eyes.”
He had her flip back to Anthony Laurette and tried to imagine him being only ten years older than the teenaged Antoine. War, especially that one, did leave marks on people that went much further than skin deep. “Let’s keep going through the album. Maybe we’ll see some other indication.”
But the farther Kendell flipped through the historical reference, the less Mr. Laurette, the famous architect who stood proudly in front of so many Garden District mansions, resembled the gangly son of the baron Malveaux.
9
Though Kendell often got talked into attending the big Mardi Gras parades, it was the smaller ones that took place a good month before Fat Tuesday that she truly enjoyed. She wandered around the staging park for the Krewe of Barkus, looking at all the participants. Cheesecake kept close to her side as Kendell pushed the old bicycle with the front basket. Her pretty girl always stood a little straighter after a wash and haircut. This year’s theme was Dogs in Entertainment. Even though not the correct breed or hair color, Cheesecake would make the perfect Toto with Kendell playing the supporting role of Dorothy.
Being part of the parade allowed them access to the Barkus pre-pawty, where everyone gathered to enjoy the spectacle before the official parade through the French Quarter. Cheesecake had her unique way of greeting and expressing her appreciation for her fellow dogs’ costumes. She barked playfully at a small dog and his companion dressed up as a box of Cracker Jacks. Astro and his Jetson family received a howl of delight. The Bat Hound decked out in cape and mask elicited a growl of suspicion. Cheesecake warmed up when instead of a powerful Batman, the dog’s accomplice turned out to be a Batgirl not much younger than Kendell. The sight of Cujo, however, made Cheesecake pull Kendell to the other side of the park.
There never was much order to the Barkus parade, but Kendell did her best to find a spot with her fellow on-screen characters. The best she could manage was a mother and daughter with a shaggy dog they insisted on calling Paul Anka and a small pug dog with his companion wearing an all-black suit and dark glasses. Even starting at the back of the line, Kendell knew she’d have to pedal the bike slowly to avoid rushing to the front of the slow-moving procession.
From behind, she saw Bat Hound join the ranks of Blue Dog, Underdog, and Scooby Doo. As was nearly always the case with these parades, the nearest thing to being organized was waiting for the organizers to open the gates.
Revelers lined the route, cheering on every dog and their human attendant. Kendell reached forward to pet Cheesecake, who rode proudly in the bike’s basket. Other dogs would have to walk the streets, getting their paws dirty in the drinks people carelessly spilled. Cheesecake rode above the random attention from the ill-behaved crowd and unruly breeds. Though not the queen of the parade, she gazed on her admirers with regal appreciation.
As the loud procession rounded the corner to Chartres Street, what little discipline the parade had attempted broke down. A little girl dressed as Lisa Simpson lost control of her puppy dressed as Santa’s Little Helper. The athletic dog took off after a larger, shaggy dog being escorted by an old man in a white lab coat and crazy white hair. The large dog nearly ran into Kendell. Her only warning was the man’s yell of, “Einstein!”
Kendell managed to reach down and grab the leather leash that snaked along beside her bike. Cheesecake barked her displeasure at the undignified manner in which some dogs insisted on participating in what was clearly her parade. Fortunately, the fracas didn’t last long as the people lining the street were only too happy to distract the u
nruly dogs from their misadventure.
The old man dressed as Doc Brown took the leash from Kendell. “Thanks for rescuing my dog. I’m afraid he gets spooked by so much attention.”
Even under the crazy wig that fell in the man’s face, Kendell recognized the penetrating deep-blue eyes. “Professor Yates?”
The man’s laugh confirmed her suspicion. “No one has called me that for some time. Which class did I make you suffer through?”
“The Transfer of Human Energy into Inanimate Objects.”
Regaining control of his dog proved easier than persuading the creature to return to the parade. The big guy seemed far too intent on getting attention from the girl, who’d once again reined in her jumpy brown mutt. It took Professor Yates pulling a dog treat out from his pocket to bribe Einstein back into the procession. “I remember that class. I only taught it a couple of times—never could get it accepted into a college curriculum. Have you been keeping up with your research?”
Kendell wanted to tell him everything she and Myles had been up to, but a parade didn’t seem the ideal location for a chat. “Would it surprise you to find that I had?”
“Not at all. People attract what they want to learn. If you found that class in spite of all the institution’s attempts at squashing it, other means of understanding would likely follow.”
His odd way of talking forced her to pay attention. Cheesecake, however, began barking at her fellow canines, who clearly weren’t taking the parade seriously enough for her tastes. Defecating on the route was just bad form. “I think I’d better get her ahead of some of these less-well-behaved marchers.”
He reached under his lab coat and pulled out a business card. “I don’t want to interrupt your fun. You can find me around Jackson Square most weekends.”
As he hurried off under the tug of his big dog, she had a quick look at the card, which read, “Scientific Psychic Readings.”