by Hester Young
One thing’s for sure: I can’t sleep. I flip on the lights and power up my laptop, figuring I might as well do some work. That’s when I notice the clock on my bedside table: 4:17.
When she said one more day, she meant to the minute.
12.
First stop in tracking down the dying girl: Evangeline’s kitchen. Chicory’s not small, but Leeann strikes me as the kind who knows people. I head over before breakfast and am instantly met with the smell of brewing coffee and Leeann’s megawatt smile.
“Just in time!” She looks up from watering a pot of rosemary. “I’m fixin’ to fry us up some beignets this morning. You had beignets before?”
“I don’t think so. Are those a Louisiana thing?”
“Mm-hmm. You fry ’em up, sprinkle powdered sugar on top.” Her eyes roll up in her head. “Little piece a heaven.”
“So they’re basically just fried dough? Like a funnel cake?”
“Oh no. Betta. You’ll see. I got some chilled dough in the fridge all ready to go.” As she scurries about the kitchen gathering up her premade dough, powdered sugar, and cookware, I take the opportunity to pick her brain.
“Hey, so somebody told me a sad story about this sick little girl,” I say. “She’s local, a redhead. I think it was cancer. She lost all her hair. I was thinking I’d like to help, but I forget her name.” I wander over to the herb cart and pinch off a chive to chew on as I wait for Leeann to identify my mystery child.
“Cancer, huh?” She dumps an insane amount of vegetable oil into the fryer. “Could be Lila Monroe. She died last year, left behind a whole house of chilren.”
“No, this was a kid.” I grope for more information, but there’s not much to offer. “She’s been through chemo, but it sounds like she just took a turn for the worse.”
Leeann sprinkles flour on a cutting board. “Sick kids break my heart. I dunno what I’d do if ma baby got sick.” She rolls the dough out until it’s thin and begins cutting squares. “You know, Dr. Pinaro’s girl got sick a few years back. There was a church benefit, I rememba. Don’t recall if it was cancer. But I know they still got nurses goin’ ova the house.”
That would explain why the girl was in a bedroom, not a hospital. Maybe she’s in some kind of hospice program.
“Does Dr. Pinaro have a practice here in town?” I ask. “Where could I find him?”
Leeann laughs and drops pieces of dough in the sizzling oil. “Not that kinda docta. An’ Dr. Pinaro’s a lady. The superintendent of schools.”
“How old’s her daughter?”
“Gosh, I dunno. Ten? Twelve?”
The age sounds about right. There’s just one more thing. I’m not sure it matters, but the girl in my vision told me to speak to her dad, not her mom. “Is Dr. Pinaro married?”
“I think so,” Leeann says, eyeing the beignets, “but it’s kinda confusin’. She’s one a dem never took her husband’s name.”
As another one of those who never took her husband’s name, I like Dr. Pinaro already. I didn’t figure you’d find any maiden-namers around Chicory, but superintendent of schools? Not too shabby. I press Leeann for more details but get nothing. She doesn’t remember anything about the husband or where they live or even what Dr. Pinaro’s first name is. I’m itching to go track her down, but for PR reasons I stick around long enough to eat some beignets.
As anticipated, they taste no different than fried dough, but I sing their praises for a full two minutes and Leeann nearly bursts with pride.
• • •
GIVEN DR. PINARO’S JOB in the public sector, I don’t expect her to be hard to locate. Straight off, I find a photo of her on the town’s web page: Dr. Justine Pinaro, a handsome woman, fiftyish, with short auburn hair. The red hair seems promising.
I call the superintendent’s office, but the secretary informs me that Dr. Pinaro is on a leave of absence and they don’t share employee information. No phone numbers for her online. She could have an unlisted number, or a number listed under her husband’s name, or no landline at all. No e-mail addresses beyond her work e-mail, which bounces back with an automated reply. I search for her on various social networking sites, but she has no visible accounts. Archives from the local newspaper contain more than a dozen articles that include her name, but her comments on district decisions reveal nothing personal.
I need an address or phone number, or at least the name of her husband. What if Justine Pinaro isn’t even the mom I’m looking for?
I try a people-finder website that searches public records. A Justine Pinaro does show up. Forty-nine years old; previous residences in Maylee, Georgia, and Eunice, Louisiana; relatives in Wyoming. To access any more information, I have to pay a fifty-dollar sign-up fee. Right as I’m breaking out my credit card, my computer freezes. When I reboot, I get an OBJECT CANNOT BE FOUND error message. Every subsequent reboot yields the same result.
“Goddamn it!” If I had a sledgehammer, my laptop would now be lying in mangled pieces.
I try to use my phone, but I’m barely getting a signal, and after fifteen minutes, the site still won’t load. I head up to the house to beg Internet access off Jules.
The office door is closed. I knock lightly and press my ear to the door. He’s in there, speaking in a tone that clearly indicates he’s upset, but the only words I can make out are “too damn busy.”
“Lookin’ for Mista Sicard?”
I whirl around and see the housekeeper, Paulette, watching me intently, one hand resting on her pregnant belly.
“I just need the Internet for a few minutes. My computer’s down.”
Paulette’s face is entirely unreadable. “Mista Sicard’s takin’ a personal call. Could be a bit.”
He must be fighting with Andre.
“You don’t have Wi-Fi in your cottage, do you, Paulette?” I ask. “I’m in a bind here.”
She shakes her head, and I’m not sure that she knows what Wi-Fi is.
I start over. “Listen, I need to get in touch with the superintendent of schools.”
Paulette doesn’t blink an eye or question me further; working for the Deveau family has taught her that much. “Aks Deacon ’bout it,” she suggests. “His daughta works ova dere.”
“At the superintendent’s office?”
She nods, still poker-faced, like this is not an amazing and lucky coincidence.
“Okay, so—where do I find Deacon?” I seem to recall that he is one of the older employees Leeann mentioned, but I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen him.
“He’s night security. Gets in at eight.”
Eight is later than I’d like, but it’s a lead and I have until roughly four a.m. if I’m to understand the girl in my vision and help her. I thank Paulette and hope that she doesn’t spread around the fact that I listen outside doors. There’s just one more thing I have to ask her while I know Jules is safely occupied.
“Is Hettie upstairs?” I’m hoping I can sneak in to talk to her, but Paulette’s report is not encouraging.
“She sleepin’ now. Nurse said she had a rough mornin’. Prob’ly all dem guests dis weekend. Every time she see her daughtas, I swear she take a turn for da worse.” She raises her hand to her mouth, realizing that last part could be construed as a complaint about her employers.
I smile. “I hear Sydney and Brigitte have that effect on people.”
Paulette drops her eyes. “I betta go pass da mop.”
• • •
AFTER DEPOSITING MY COMPUTER at a repair shop, I have nothing to do with my day but work. I break out a stack of legal pads, hole up in the cottage, and write the old-fashioned way. For hours, I immerse myself in the story of the Deveau family, trying to draw a picture of their lifestyle, set the scene. Eventually it gets dark and my hand gets a cramp, but I pace the room, brainstorm, work out the book’s structure.
At
eight o’clock, I go searching for Deacon. I find him walking along the side of the house with a giant high-powered flashlight. He has the kind of wild white hair that tends to connote genius or lunacy, and I’m not sure anyone can successfully evoke Einstein while patrolling the grounds of a century-and-a-half-old Southern plantation at night. He casts his beam in my direction, momentarily blinding me, and looks me over. Evidently I pass inspection, because he quickly lowers his flashlight, the caution on his pink and jowly face giving way to cheer. “Evenin’, ma’am! Cold nuff fo’ ya?”
In my winter jacket, it’s actually not bad. “Deacon, right?” I ask, and he nods. “I’m Charlotte. I heard you might be able to help me. I’m trying to track down Dr. Pinaro, the superintendent of schools. Paulette told me your daughter works at that office.”
He puffs up at the mention of his daughter. “Yeah, Prissy been workin’ dere, oh, ten year maybe. She smart one, dat. But she workin’ for Mr. Robicheaux now.” He scratches the corner of his eye with a dirty fingernail. “Dr. Pinaro had to leave on account of ’er li’l girl.”
His accent is so thick I have to concentrate to keep up. “Do you happen to know where Dr. Pinaro lives? Or maybe have her phone number?”
“Ah bet Prissy do. Ah can call ’er, if ya lak.” He pulls out a cell phone and punches at some glowing buttons with a knotty finger, but I’m out of luck. The line just keeps on ringing. “She prob’ly puttin’ da chilren to bed,” Deacon tells me. “It some kinda ’mergency?”
“It’s about Dr. Pinaro’s daughter.”
“Ah, Didi. Dat po’ li’l ting.”
At the sound of the girl’s name, I get goose bumps. “Yeah, Didi. Little redhead, right?”
He nods vigorously. “Dem folks been tru hell and back gettin’ ’er treatment. Evertime dey tink she got a prayer, dat cancer come on back.”
This has to be the right girl. I rack my brain for some other tactic. “You don’t know the name of Dr. Pinaro’s husband, do you? Maybe his number is listed.”
“You could try ’im at work,” Deacon suggests. “He wit da sheriff’s department, Ah tink.”
As soon as he says the word “sheriff,” I understand. Why this girl came to me. Why she asked me to tell her father, not her mom. Why Detective Minot looked so thin, so haggard. You didn’t choose me at random, did you, Didi? I remember Minot’s computer, the photograph of the healthy little red-haired girl bouncing about the screen, and I realize with a pang how long ago that photo must have been taken.
“Remy Minot,” I murmur, “that’s Dr. Pinaro’s husband?”
“Minot, dat’s right.” He thinks it over. “Yep, Remy.”
“Then I’ve already got his number. Thanks, Deacon!” I sprint back to the cottage, wondering how I will tackle my next challenge: relaying Didi’s message without sounding certifiable.
• • •
I SIT CROSS-LEGGED on the bed, Detective Minot’s business card in front of me. I’m not afraid of being wrong. I’m afraid of being right. Afraid of knowing this is real, that I can never be normal again.
When he answers, I say it like I’ve rehearsed it in my head. “This is Charlotte Cates. We met yesterday morning.”
He takes a second to place me. “Oh, Miss Cates. Everything okay?” I can’t tell if he’s at work or at home.
“I have something I need to tell you. Not about the Deveau case. Something personal.”
“Personal?” He sounds guarded, like I’m about to ask him on a date.
I spit it out as fast as I can. “I know this sounds crazy, but I think I have a message for you. From your daughter.” I grab a fistful of blanket and hold my breath.
There’s a silence and then he says flatly, “My daughter’s been unconscious for two days. She’s not giving anyone any messages.”
I can sense he’s about to hang up. “Wait.” I hold the image of Didi in my mind, her bald head and bony shoulder. “Detective Minot, I need to tell you this. If not for you, then for me. Because I know what it’s like to lose a child.”
“If this is some speech about accepting Christ as my savior, you can save it. I don’t care if Justine put you up to it. The whole bunch of you can take your—”
“No, no,” I interrupt, “it’s not a God thing. I’m the last person who’d preach at you.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I know it’s nuts, but I had a dream. About Didi.” I rush to get it out before he can end the call. “She told me a time, four sixteen a.m. Tomorrow. She thought—well, that you and your wife would want to be there.” I can’t bring myself to say when she dies. “Look, I know it’s just a dream, maybe it means nothing. But my son died. And I wasn’t there for him when it happened.” I can barely hold it together after that. “He died in a hospital, in a room full of strangers, without his mom. I would give anything to have been there. So even if it’s a long shot . . .”
“I don’t know how you heard about my daughter, but I’ll tell you right now I’ve got no interest in ‘heavenly visions.’ Not yours or anyone else’s.”
“I understand.” I try to swallow my disappointment, but really, what’s the point of seeing things if I can’t change them? “I apologize for bothering you. Sometimes my dreams are . . . pretty accurate. I just wouldn’t have felt right, not saying anything.”
“Well, you said it.” He sounds more tired than mad now. “And, Miss Cates?” His tone softens somewhat. “I’m sorry about your son.”
Too choked up to manage a simple thank-you, I hang up. Wrap my arms around a pillow. Bury my face in it.
13.
One advantage of insomnia is that you get to see a lot of sunrises. Standing on the banks of the bayou the next morning, I try to focus on the spectacular scenery instead of dwelling on my failures. A thin layer of mist hovers above the water like breath. For these few minutes, I let myself enjoy the retreating shadows, the golden light. Day is unyielding. It always comes. A comforting or an exhausting thought, depending on my mood, which is currently trending toward melancholy.
When a call comes from an unknown number, my first panicked thought is of Grandma’s assisted-living facility. Something’s happened. I never should’ve come here, it’s too far, she’s too old, how will I—
But it’s Detective Minot, and his news isn’t really news at all. “Didi’s gone,” he says. “I don’t know how you knew, but it was this morning. Four sixteen.”
“I’m sorry.” I lean back against a tree, feeling guilty at the brief surge of relief his words bring me. “Were you with her?”
“Yeah. After we hung up last night, I told my wife about your call. She insisted we stay up. Just in case.” His voice is surprisingly steady for someone whose daughter just died, but then he’s probably been bracing himself for months, dreading and preparing for this day. “We knew she didn’t have a lot of time left,” he says. “The nurses told us she’d probably never regain consciousness. But . . . four sixteen. She stopped breathing that exact minute.”
The bayou and sky seem to glow, both suffused with the same dusty orange. Behind me, Evangeline is quiet. Except for Detective Minot’s voice in my ear, I feel like the only person left living. “I hope being with Didi at the end brought you and your wife . . . I don’t know. Some peace.”
“We were holding her hands,” he says. “We were all three there when she came into this world, and all three together when she left it.” His voice cracks, and I think how peculiar it is that I should be privy to this man’s grief.
“You should go,” I say gently. “Go be with your wife.”
“I will. But I had to ask you.” He takes a second to formulate the thought. “See, I haven’t believed in God in a long time, Miss Cates. Maybe it’s my job, seeing what people do to other people. To kids, even. And some of it’s Didi, of course, watching her sick for three years. But from what I’ve seen, there’s no one out there manni
ng the store.”
I wait for the question. Across the bayou, I see a flash of white. A bird. A big one, wading at the edge of the water.
“You said you had a dream about Didi. Well, Justine thinks it was God’s message to me. To renew my faith. Yesterday I would’ve told you that was horseshit, but . . . I’ve got no other explanation. So I want to know what you think.”
I never expected to land in the middle of a bereaved couple’s religious debate. I’ve never attributed my dreams to God, but I don’t have any better answers for Detective Minot. And maybe it doesn’t matter. This man has watched his daughter fight a losing battle for three years, and now she’s dead. Won’t faith feel better than skepticism?
“I don’t know where my dreams come from,” I tell him. “But maybe your wife is right.”
“You’ve had others?”
“Just a few. They started after my son died.”
“But you see things? In the future?” He seems somewhere between intrigued and freaked out.
“Not always the future. Sometimes it’s already happened.” The white bird dips its head in the water.
“Like what kinds of things?” Detective Minot wants to know.
“They’re always bad and they’re always kids.” So far he sounds like he believes me, so I plunge ahead and hope for the best. “I wasn’t being totally straight with you the other day when I told you why I came to Chicory. It wasn’t the book that brought me here. It was Gabriel.”
The bird lifts its head suddenly and gazes at me across the water. I swear it’s listening as I lay bare my secret.
“I saw him,” I say. “I saw Gabriel Deveau.”
• • •
I DON’T KNOW EXACTLY what kind of response I was expecting, but Detective Minot’s long, noisy exhale is not it. I wait.