"Could I see your license and registration, Miss?" She resisted the urge to remind him that it was she who'd asked for help, that it was she who was the potential victim, and gave him what he asked for; and then she explained her presence in Louisiana when he read her out-of-state identification: She was doing research for a book on precedent-setting cases in Louisiana and Georgia. She explained that she'd spent the day in the archives at the Federal Court in Baton Rouge, and she showed him her D.C. identification, as well. He was particularly impressed to learn that she was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States. He suggested that the business with the pick-up was an isolated incident. "Some of these ol' boys get carried away now and again. Too much heat and beer, and here you come—pretty Black lady with Georgia tags—and the stupid overtakes 'em. If it'd make you rest easier, I'll tail you back to your hotel."
"There's no need for that, Officer. You're probably right, and I feel much calmer now." Especially since all the while she was talking to him, she was imagining herself talking to Tommy and Jake. She accepted the return of her license and registration and the trooper's wishes for a safe and pleasant stay in Louisiana. She started the car and inched along the shoulder until she found enough of a break in the traffic flow to enter the interstate. She saw no further evidence of a white Chevy pick-up and the trooper tailed her until she exited the expressway.
CHAPTER NINE
Jake Graham was worried about Carole Ann Gibson. She'd been gone almost a week and he'd heard nothing from her. He hadn't really expected her to check in every day as he'd asked; she was too much her own person for that, and he knew it. Still, he had expected to hear from her by now, and it was only the habitual caution, honed by long years of detective work, that prevented him from calling her, for he had the number to her cellular phone. He didn't want to call her and risk having the ringing of a secret telephone interrupt—or worse—whatever she was doing. The phone was her protection, her secret weapon. She was out there on her own and that phone was her only back-up. And that's what worried him. No detective worked alone. Nobody seeking information probed and pried without back-up close at hand, especially in foreign, hostile territory. And Carole Ann Gibson was in: Over her head, hostile territory, danger. With no back-up. He pounded his useless legs and cursed and worried.
Not that he doubted the woman's ability to take care of herself. Jake Graham harbored no illusions about the capabilities of strong Black women. He'd been surrounded by them all his life: His grandmothers, his mother, his sisters, his wife. All of them tough and smart and resourceful and hard-headed. But Jake Graham also had observed these women closely enough, over a long enough period of time, to have better sense than to equate strength of purpose and character with invincibility. Carole Ann Gibson was vulnerable. On several fronts. And he had withheld information from her, information that perhaps she could fashion into armor, if not a weapon; information that could hurt her if she confronted it and didn't know understand what it was.
Technically, what was floating around in Jake's head, trying to take shape, was not information as much as it was speculation and extrapolation. Hunches. Puzzle pieces that fit no as of yet discernable pattern. But they would fit, in time, this he knew. For instance, he knew it was significant that the man who'd shot Al Crandall in the back had first cursed him a foreign language before he shot him. That's what his informant had told him. He'd heard the man clearly, and he'd concluded it was a curse by the tone of the man's voice. "I know when a son of a bitch calls another son of a bitch a mother fucker and it don't matter what language it's in," was how the informant had explained himself, and that was good enough for Jake Graham.
He'd also accepted his informant's belief that the man who shot Al Crandall was a Southern white man. If you'd been born in the South, as Jake's homeless informant had been, you recognized and understood that all white people did not look alike, any more than all Black people looked alike, and the man who'd shot Al Crandall was a Southern white man. "Even though he cussed him foreign, it was still from down home. They look a certain way and they sound a certain way. You know what I'm sayin?'" And Jake had known. Had known that what the homeless man saw and heard was relevant and crucial. He just didn't know what to do with it. Didn't know how to use it to help. In fact, he couldn't do anything to help, and his frustration over that fact was increasing every hour of every day. He'd become such a pain in the ass to his wife that she'd threatened to go visit her sister down in Virginia and leave him home alone. Of course he'd told her to go ahead, terrified that she would. But deep within, they both knew better. They'd walked each other through too much misery and trouble during their twenty-four years together to stop now. So, he'd struggled to contain his worry about Carole Ann Gibson, and when that didn't work, he'd told his wife the whole story. The first time he'd ever told her the intimate details of a case. And then they both worried about Carole Ann Gibson.
So it was with a smile and a kiss that she brought him the phone in the middle of his dinner—and the middle of an Orioles game—and the information that it was Carole Ann Gibson on the line.
"Are you OK?" he asked without preamble.
It was not, she knew, a yes or no question, so she didn't respond to it in that manner. Instead, she told him everything that had transpired since she arrived in Louisiana, without embellishment or adornment, leaving him to his own assessment and interpretations. He said nothing until she was finished, and then he told her about his eyewitness' description of the man who'd shot Al Crandall, and it was her turn for silence. She stretched it out for a while before asking,
"So it could have been Leland who killed Al and not Larry? Why? And what's the connection between Leland and Larry?"
"You gotta believe they're blood related," Jake mused.
"Why would Larry lie in his Bar entry?"
"People do it all the time." The shrug in Jake's voice carried long distance. "And nobody checks unless or until there's a problem."
"That Bar listing's not new," Carole Ann said, thought wrinkling her brow, “and if Larry wanted to conceal his connection to Leland, why not change his name instead of his place of birth? Unless he figured that Devereaux is so common a name that it didn't matter."
"That might have been a part of it, but I don't think that it was all of it."
"I don't, either. I think it's got to do with whatever Parish Petroleum is. That's what worried Al: He said he couldn't unravel the pieces."
"Yeah. But if Parish Petroleum is dealing dirty, how come they brought Crandall into it? Why didn't Devereaux just handle it himself if they were cooking up something crooked?" Jake Graham never ceased to marvel at the number of criminal enterprises that had come unraveled as the result of the "too many cooks spoil the broth" theory.
"I don't know, Jake. Doesn't make sense to me, either. And here's another interesting question: If Larry's doing the legal dirty work, what's Leland got to do with it? Remember Eldon said nobody would go looking for Lafayette for fear of pissing off Leland?" And something began to take shape and form in Carole Ann's suspicion. "How bored are you, Jake?"
"I'm so bored it ain't even fun any more killing the Duke of Earl."
"Then consider yourself rescued," Carole Ann said, laughing at the memory of Jake "killing" his cat with a water gun before the feline could have bird for lunch. And she outlined an investigative venture that would keep him busy for several days unless he could enlist Tommy’s computer skills.
"Good thinking," he growled, sounding less like the concerned father and more like Jake Graham the hard-assed homicide detective. "Glad the heat down there isn't frying your brain cells."
"Like D.C. is any cooler," she growled right back, and smiled to herself when she heard him chuckle.
"So, what are you gonna be doing?" he asked.
"Finding out who Larry Devereaux is, where he's from, and why he's working so hard to hide the truth," she said. And after she promised to check in with Jake in seventy-two hours—sooner
in an emergency—she hung up the phone and took stock.
The fear she'd experienced earlier was gone. Her mind and emotions were clarified. She felt calm and focused and ready to work. More importantly, she understood clearly what her mission was, and she was buoyed by the knowledge that Jake could and would help. As she assessed her feelings, Carole Ann realized that the largest single source of her discomfort and anxiety was her sense of aloneness. Even though they were in D.C., Cleo's response yesterday and Jake's response today, provided a soothing balm of comfort. She was not alone. And, as she thought about it, she realized that Jake actually had paid her a compliment. "Good thinking," he'd growled at her.
Carole Ann sat down at the desk with her notes and turned on her computer. She entered the password and opened Al's no-longer secret file. Re-reading the list of names, she now was able to attach understanding to some of the entries. The list of names that had meant nothing to her before she now saw included the names of the three boys who had drowned under mysterious circumstances; Lil Gailliard's name and number; and Parish Legal Services. She had purchased three maps which she now spread out on the floor. With her notes in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other, she got down on her knees and searched for something in the maps that would connect with something in Al's notes or in her own notes. Searched the areas of Assumption Parish, of St. James Parish, of St. Martin Parish, of St. Mary Parish. Searched until she found, in Assumption, the bayou where three swamp babies had drowned after having talked with Al Crandall; until she found, in St. Martin, a tiny tributary of some larger water called the Poule Creek. The Chicken Creek. Chicken Shit Creek? She scrambled on her knees to the table and grabbed at the pile of tourist material. Something was playing around at the edges of consciousness and it was more than the low-down strains of "St. James Infirmary Blues." It was the St. Mary Parish Museum.
Carole Ann took Highway 90 south out of New Orleans. She left before dawn, making certain that she wasn't followed, and didn't stop until she reached Houma, an hour away. She felt as if she were driving into the bottom of the sea. She knew, from having studied the map the night before, that she could, quite literally, drive directly into the Gulf of Mexico, buts she just hadn't imagine how that would feel. She'd grown up on the ocean; water was not a new experience. Yet, there was something about this water...something about this land...that felt enveloping and enclosing. In California, the ocean was "out there." Even when one was in it, surfing or swimming, or on it, boating and fishing, it felt distant and cold. This water, these swamps and bayous that were not yet the Gulf, felt immediate and intimate.
Comfortable that she hadn't been followed, she left the main road and followed the tourist signs to a likely place for coffee and breakfast. Since Houma was home to renowned antebellum plantations and over-booked tours of the magnificent, mysterious swamps, she didn't expect to have trouble finding food. She was not disappointed. She drove up to and parked in front of a place called Sadie's just as a young woman was turning around the red and white sign from "CLOSED" to "OPEN" and unlocking the front door. She was the palest person Carole Ann had seen since arriving in Louisiana—with light blond hair and almost translucent skin, she looked as if she'd never spent a moment in the sun; as if she'd been dropped by accident from the moon into the bayou. Carole Ann sat watching until the young woman noticed her and, with a smile a nod of her head, beckoned her to enter.
The dining room was empty when Carole Ann entered, so she took a seat in the front window, providing a panoramic view of the street. She heard movement and turned to see not the pale girl, but a gingerbread-brown woman who was so old as to defy speculation about her age. She was dressed as if from another time: Red and white checked bandana tied around her head and white apron covering a dress of the same checked material as the head wrap. She wore no shoes and walked with a regal majesty that was awesome to behold. She was not very tall—certainly not as tall as Carole Ann—and reed-thin. While Carole Ann observed her, the woman loaded a woven straw tray with a cup and saucer, napkin-wrapped silver, a goblet of water, a pot of coffee, a pitcher of cream, and a bowl of sugar. Then, as if by virtue of magic, a basket of some kind of steaming hot bread appeared in the window behind the counter and the old woman picked up both tray and basket and crossed briskly to Carole Ann's table.
"Mornin', Cher," the old woman said in a young girl's lilting voice, and bestowed upon her a smile that felt to Carole Ann very much like a blessing.
"Good morning," Carole Ann replied, and struggled to think of something to say, some way to open conversation with this woman she wasn't even certain was real on some level she didn't fully understand.
"You sight seein' today?" the old woman asked as she transferred the items from her tray to the table, relieving Carole Ann of some of her anxiety.
"Yes, Ma'am," Carole Ann replied, surprised at the southernism that eased from her mouth as if she'd been born to it, “and I must say, I'm already overwhelmed and the sun's barely up."
The old woman nodded, the smile gone, and poured coffee. "This place'll take you if you ain't careful. This a powerful place, you know."
"I know," Carole Ann said quietly. "I can feel it." And she could, though she hadn't know what she was feeling until the old woman spoke the words, "but I can't tell what kind of power it is."
"What you mean, Cher?" the old woman asked after a beat.
"There are many kinds of power. Good and bad power. Power that helps and power that wounds and destroys. All of it is strong and I feel it here, but I don't know what kind it is."
"Eat your beignet, Cher. They just come from th' oven. I be back with a menu for you." And she departed, head high, spine erect, arms straight at her sides, bare feet making no sound on the worn-smooth wooden floor, leaving Carole Ann to wonder who she was as she took a sip of the best coffee she'd ever tasted. The thing called "been-yay" was so sinfully rich and delicious that she was prepared to accept any explanation for the mysterious old woman and the incredible food, natural or supernatural—Voudoun included—and for whatever she encountered here in Houma and for the rest of the day. She took her map from her purse, along with the tourist brochure, and was so engrossed that she wasn't aware that the old woman had returned and was studying the map over her shoulder.
"I'm going to St. Mary Parish," Carole Ann said, "to the museum. Do you know it?"
"Oh, yes, Cher, I know everything 'bout here. St. Mary Parish. Terrebonne Parish. Lafourche Parish." She looked down at the map again. Then she looked directly at Carole Ann. "St. Martin and Assumption, too. I know everything. What it is you want to know?" she asked in her quiet voice, as she offered Carole Ann the menu.
Carole Ann studied the hand-lettered page, aware of the nearness of the old woman who stood silently beside her, aware of the futility of closing the map with its highlighted orange areas. "Do you know about Chicken Shit Creek? Do you know about some people named Devereaux? Do you know about plants and factories that make people so sick they die?"
"I think you like the seafood omelet, Cher." The old woman took the menu from her hand and walked away, graceful and stately. But it was the young blond girl who refilled her coffee cup and served the omelet to her and brought her a basket of fresh beignet and wrote out her check and collected her money. The old woman was invisible until Carole Ann made her way through to the rear of the now-full cafe in search of the ladies' room. And when she opened the door, she came face to face with her.
"You go to the St. Mary Museum, Cher, and when you come back this way, make sure to visit the Terrebonne Museum. At two o'clock this afternoon."
Carole Ann drove the forty miles from Houma to Franklin tangled in her own emotions, buffeted by conflicting messages and warning signals from her brain. Never before in her life had she entrusted herself to so many strangers. Never before in her life had such trust been necessary. But, as constantly reminded by Tommy and Jake, she was on her own now, operating without back-up. Her fear told her she didn't know how to do that. Nor did
she know how to trust, to say nothing of trusting strangers. Yet, that's all she'd done since arriving in Louisiana: She had trusted Warren Fourchette and Lillian Gailliard and Eldon and Merle Warmsley, and now, here she was, poised to trust an old woman who looked like a plantation slave, for certainly Carole Ann would be at the Terrebonne Museum at two o'clock as instructed.
But didn't that mean, she asked herself in the on-going dialogue, that she was, in fact, trusting herself, trusting her own good judgment? And in reality, didn't she have back-up? After all, she'd called Jake, she'd called Cleo, and they'd provided help, and because they had, she now had two potential suspects in Al's murder. But what you have isn't really information, her skeptic self warned. What you have is speculation and pieces that don't fit any puzzle, and a head full of hunches. Sure, she could awaken Cleo in the middle of the night and play clue games but the reality was that Cleo was however many miles away Washington was, living another life that had nothing to do with this one. Cleo was in another world. And so, now, was Carole Ann.
In another world and time; in a time a place that had she been born, she'd have been a slave. And here she was behaving like a tourist, gaping at plantation manors and rice fields in which her ancestors may have toiled, planning to meet an old woman, a stranger whose name she didn't even know, an old woman dressed as a slave. She laughed out loud at a sign announcing the annual Catfish and Petroleum Festival, giving meaning to the phrase, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Then she saw the road sign indicating that New Iberia was but twenty miles ahead. New Iberia where, according to Al's notes, Eldon Warmsley lived.
Carole Ann toured the St. Mary Parish Museum and took a walking tour and an open-bus tour and hired a taxi to drive her around and found no evidence of death and destruction caused by Parish Petroleum or any other source. She questioned the taxi driver, a sixty-year old native of the town; the tour guides; the shopkeepers along the main street; people fishing along the bayou banks; a police officer; a postal employee. Of course environmental pollution was something they knew about; after all, they lived in Louisiana, and occasionally oily air and water and dead fish were part of the price paid for successful industry. And successful industry is what puts paychecks in pockets; environmental pollution, on the other hand, is what puts people on the unemployment line. Sure they'd heard of Parish Petroleum. You live in Louisiana long enough you hear about all the big oil companies. But hear anything specific? Anything negative? Nope. Not a word.
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