I need a favor, Josh typed. He couldn’t be too specific, not on this cell. He made a mental note to buy a throwaway.
The reply was almost instant.
Anything you need.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Aurora’s return to the place of her birth had been strangely serene. Her nerves, usually strung as tight as guitar strings, had unwound on the plane ride, and driving the hour and a half to Cooper’s Bayou, she had even rolled down the windows of the steaming rental car and hummed along to the morose strains of an unfamiliar country song on the radio. For once she was like all the people in the other cars on the road—just trying to get home.
Shiny strip malls and car lots gave way to swampland, the road ahead of her thinned to a one-lane strand winding through the bayou, brimming with earth-colored water. In the passenger seat, the keys to the house on the bayou anchored the fluttering road map from the rental car company, the location of her hometown outlined in a red circle.
It was only now, two miles from the turnoff for Cooper’s Bayou, that the reality of where she was going began to settle around Aurora’s shoulders. She’d been vague when requesting the time off from work, telling them she had to settle some affairs for her grandfather. Now she wished she’d confided in someone. She was the person people turned to at work to make death notifications, to handle the unbearable things that nobody else wanted to do, and now here she was, falling apart on a country road. She was stronger than this. She knew it, and Papa had known it too. He had entrusted her with this task. There had to be a reason.
Aurora searched her memory for the day she’d left here in Papa’s peach-colored Buick. She remembered the stifling interior of the car, the bugs clinging to the window. Nana had stroked her hair and drawn hearts and smiley faces on her back with her index finger, one of Aurora’s favorite games to play with her mother. She remembered the pink satin suitcase at her feet with the wheels covered in sparkling stars. She’d thought they were going on a vacation, that they’d be back and she would tell Mama and Daddy all about the adventures she’d had.
It was only later, when they had been in Connecticut a couple of months, that she realized that day in the car was the moment that everything had changed, and that everything in her old life was lost to her forever. Papa had sat on the edge of her bed in the guest room in the unfamiliar Connecticut house and told her that Mama was in heaven and that Daddy was a terrible man who had hurt Mama, and God had somehow delivered Aurora from that night. The same God who had spared her life had taken everything else away with no reason, no explanation. What kind of God could let that happen? She would never understand it.
The last turnoff, according to Luna’s directions, was little more than a dirt road leading directly into the bayou. The rental GPS was useless in the tangle of roads. She was going to have to find her own way into town later. She pulled off on the shoulder and stared at the map. She had to be close.
Aurora threw the car into reverse, and with a turn of her head, caught sight of the house. It was set off the road at an angle, as though turning a shoulder to her, its shuttered windows facing the bayou. Aurora pulled into the driveway and cut the engine, stepping outside into the slickness of the late afternoon humidity. The last of the sun’s long fingers grazed the bayou’s surface, the last slice of light hovering on the horizon, outlining the husks of half-sunken cypress trees. Aurora was a city girl and never had been much for nature, but there was something about this landscape that commanded her attention in a way that was more than a little unnerving.
Aurora turned back towards the house. Nobody had lived here for twenty years, and yet it glowed, emanating warmth. Four freshly painted white columns supported a delicate latticed porch like upturned palms. Papa had built this place with his own hands, for his wife, for his children. Wings beat in Aurora’s chest, her spine hardening. This was where she was supposed to have grown up. This should have been her home.
She climbed the steps slowly, drawing her fingers across the polished wood railing. A kiddie pool was wedged in one corner of the porch, one of the cheap plastic ones, translucent with age. It seemed out of place on the otherwise pristine porch. From this vantage point, Aurora could see something rippling the surface of the water. She moved closer.
It took her a moment to identify what they were; four black shapes arrayed in a diamond at the pool’s warped plastic bottom. Alligators. Baby ones, it appeared, each one no longer than her forearm. Aurora knelt by the pool’s edge and dipped a hand in the water, running her index finger along the ridges of one of the tiny prehistoric bodies.
“Dadgummit, they sure are cute, ain’t they?”
The voice behind her had the same sugared drawl as Papa. The man crouched next to her, his sun-battered face next to her own. He looked to be somewhere in his seventies with a thick beard and an Army-fatigue-colored fishing hat.
“They’re so tiny—it’s amazing.”
“Jefferson Gibbs,” he said, grasping her hand. “And you must be Aurora.” He scooped up one of the baby gators and held it aloft, like an offering. “I’ve been looking after these little fellas since your family left. Didn’t have the heart to just release the little fellas. You remember the gators? I remember when you were just a teeny little thing, your papa used to put you in here with the gators. Man, your mama didn’t like that one little bit. But you was just as happy as a puppy with two tails.” He grinned.
Papa had put her in a pool with alligators? It seemed so cavalier, so unlike him. “I never knew that,” she said. “Wasn’t he scared? Wasn’t I scared?”
“Nah,” Jefferson said. “Gators, they’re easy to predict. It’s people you got to watch out for.” This statement hung in the air between them, and Aurora held out her palms so that Jefferson could place the baby gator across them. She marveled in the perfection of it, the scales etched in miniature on the curve of the animal’s back.
“Your grandpappy,” Jefferson said in a reverent tone, “he was the alligator nuisance man. Nobody in this county knew more about gators than him. He taught me everything I know about ’em.”
“The alligator what?”
“He was the alligator nuisance man for Cooper County. Anybody had a problem with gators, they called your grandpappy, and he’d come out. Wouldn’t shoot ’em, no, not unless they hurt somebody. He’d truss ’em up and relocate ’em.”
Aurora searched her memory for any mention of alligators. Papa had always worn a suit and tie to his job at the bank, but insisted on pairing it with snakeskin boots. “Guess I’m still a country boy at heart,” he used to tease when she asked him about it.
“I guess he never mentioned it when I was growing up.” She lowered the gator down to the water’s surface and watched it submerge in one smooth motion.
Jefferson shrugged. “Not much work for an alligator man up north, I guess.” He laughed, but averted his gaze, as though afraid he had said too much. “Well, I’d better let you get settled. The house should be stocked with everything you need. I do hope you’ll let me know if there’s anything you need, Miss Aurora.”
“Thank you so much. I guess I need to find my way to the courthouse to file some papers about the house.”
Jefferson nodded. “I would start at the police station. They handle all manner of stuff down there, records and deeds and whatnot. It’s right in the middle of town. You can’t miss it.”
“Great.”
“I’ll let you get settled, then.” He gave her a salute and started down the steps.
“I’m sorry—Jefferson?”
He turned.
“Did you know my mother?”
“For true,” he said softly. “Raylene was prettier than all the stars in the sky.” The grief was written in bold strokes across his face. Her mother had meant something to Jefferson Gibbs. “For her to leave this earth that way—it wasn’t right. And your grandpappy, he never gave up trying to find out what really happened to her.”
Something fluttered in Aurora’s chest.
“What do you mean?” The story was simple. Aurora’s father had strangled her mother on the shores of the bayou, then disappeared into the night, leaving Aurora on the steps of a local store. In her presence, they’d never mentioned her father. When she pressed Papa for details, he’d told her Wade was an evil man who’d killed her mother in a fit of rage. She’d never questioned the story, and to her knowledge, neither had he.
“Hunter came down here, every couple of months or so. Said it was to take care of the house, but I know different. He was working on something. He told me last time he was in town, he says, ‘Jefferson, I’m getting close to finding out what happened that night on the bayou.’”
“I don’t understand. The case is closed. We know what happened.” Even while she spoke, the pieces were falling together in her mind. The fishing trips before he’d gotten sick. ‘The fishing was good, just the catching was bad,’ he’d joked when he’d returned to the house empty-handed. Papa had been here. All this time, she’d thought he’d put her mother out of his mind, but he’d been coming here, trying to figure out what had happened to his only daughter that night on the bayou. She should have been stunned, she should have felt betrayed somehow—but she felt none of those things. Papa had always been her hero, her defender, the person she turned to for help. Knowing that he’d been the same for her mother, even after her death, just made her feel that he was the man she had known all along.
“Do you know what he thought? What he was working on?” The questions tumbled in her brain.
Jefferson shook his head and gestured towards the set of keys in Aurora’s right hand. “It’s not for me to know,” he said. “You take care, now, Miss Aurora. Call if you need anything at all.” He plodded back down the steps and then paused, turning back once again. “I left everything the way it was,” he said, “just like your granddaddy told me to.”
“Thank you.” She wasn’t sure what he meant, but she nodded in gratitude. “Thank you for everything.”
Aurora twisted the key and pushed the heavy door open. She flipped the light switch and then covered her mouth, grasping the elbow of a stately armoire to steady herself.
Crucifixes covered every available wall space. Silver and gold, plastic and wooden, large and small, they stretched in uneven rows around the length of the great room, floor to ceiling. Papa had been religious, but the sheer number of them suggested a fervor that Aurora had never experienced from him.
More unnerving were the objects that seemed significant but foreign to Aurora. The side tables, desk, and dining room table were littered with them; tiny jars and vases, some filled with liquid, others clear; bundles of sticks and rolled-up paper tied with string, and rows of bags, cinched at the top.
Aurora jumped at the sound of her cell phone, trilling somewhere in the depths of her bag. A familiar name flashed on the screen. Luna Riley. She picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Aurora. Just wanted to check in with you and see that you made it down there in one piece. Everything okay?”
Aurora turned away from the mantel, where a felt doll crowned in purple feathers leered at her. “It’s not what I expected.”
“Is everything all right?”
“There’s just a lot of—well, I don’t know how to describe it. He has these bags everywhere. They’re kind of like sachets, tied with ribbon.” She knew she sounded insane, but miraculously, Luna Riley hummed in agreement on the other end of the phone.
“Gris-gris,” Luna said.
“What?”
“That’s what the bags are called. They’re for luck. Good fortune. It’s nothing bad, Aurora. I promise. Your grandfather and people like him who grew up on the bayou, it’s just a part of life for them to have those. Like a talisman.”
“Do you know anything about why he’d have these jars? And pieces of paper with string?” Aurora perched on the edge of the satiny yellow sofa. Beside her, the waxy, bubbled remains of several violet candles dotted the windowsill.
“I’m not an expert in that stuff, so I’m not sure,” Luna admitted. “There’s somebody in town who is, though—you can be sure of that. I’ll let you settle in. Mr. Beaumont, that attorney I mentioned, is expecting your call.”
“Terrific, thanks.” Aurora ended the call. Shadows had begun to creep across the ceiling. She walked from room to room, flipping every switch, drenching the house in light. What had Papa been doing with these religious objects? Aurora had assumed that Jefferson meant Papa was reviewing her mother’s case, looking through old files, but the truth appeared to be something more supernatural.
She put the kettle on, the purr of the stove reassuring. Her grandfather grinned at her from a picture magnet on the refrigerator, one of those plastic ones you buy at a gift shop. World’s Sweetest Grandpa! the frame in the shape of chocolate bars proclaimed. Tears of recognition sprang to Aurora’s eyes. Papa must have brought it down here on one of his trips back to the bayou. She had bought this for him on their sixth-grade class trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania. The man in the photo was the grandpa she loved, stalwart and solid, a man who handled everything in his stride. It was hard to picture him lighting these candles, tying the bags of gris-gris, summoning the daughter that was never coming back.
Aurora leaned against the counter. For as long as she could remember, she had felt her own sense of responsibility. Be a good girl, be kind, be the best you can be. She’d had to do it because Raylene could not, because her mother’s death had to mean something. She had to save people because if she didn’t, what was left? The other part of herself. She was Wade Atchison’s child too. He’d killed her mother and spared her. What your daddy did casts a long shadow.
Maybe Papa had stumbled across a dark truth that he could not handle. Maybe that was up to Aurora.
There was nobody else to do it. She was the only one left.
CHAPTER NINE
“They ain’t critter bones. I told you, Doc. I knew it. I was right. Wasn’t I, though?” Zeke Crumpler demanded.
Slowly, in a way that he hoped conveyed the annoyance he felt, James brought himself to a standing position and turned away from the duffel bag and its grim contents.
Zeke Crumpler hovered nearby. Everyone in town had hoped that age would settle the Crumplers, maybe smooth out some of the rough edges, but that had turned out to be overly optimistic. Zeke and the older generation, now no longer able to participate in the petty crimes of their youth, continued to cause trouble by poking into everyone else’s business, running illegal poker games out of the Sunny Land Rest Home, and terrorizing anyone who dared to complain about the herd of barking dogs or incessant four-wheelers on their property outside town. Barred from his brother’s autopsy, Zeke had once called James “a pansy-ass, real light in the loafers.” It had been a long time ago, but then again, it wasn’t the kind of thing you forgot.
“I’m going to need you to step back, Zeke,” James said. He drew his handkerchief across his forehead, an instant sheen of new sweat rising in its wake. Summer in Cooper’s Bayou was getting more brutal with each passing year. Days like this, he wished for more help in the field, but explaining everything to the tech was more trouble than it was worth, so these things had to be borne alone.
James knelt back down. According to Zeke, the neon pink duffel bag had just shown up on the shore, and he’d opened it up to find the bones tucked inside. It was a dubious tale at best, but it was all they had to go on. James surveyed the shoreline. Someone could have tossed it from a boat, or the bayou itself could have deposited it on the beach. James’s father had told him stories as a kid about the magical things hiding in the bayou; skeletons of pirate ships and sea creatures. Bayou’s dark and deep, he’d tell James, but even the bayou can’t keep a secret forever.
He would have to call the police department, maybe find the name of the forensic anthropologist that he’d spoken with at the medical conference last year. The list of procedures stretched ahead of him, but for now, one fact crowded out all the rest.
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br /> It was a child.
He was pretty sure, given the size of the remains. James imagined the forensic artist who would press clay around the skull to re-create the face. Bayou John Doe, or Bayou Jane Doe. It had to be done, but James hated that it would become a sensational news story instead of being treated with quiet reverence as the tragedy it was. Death investigation was the telling of a personal story, not for public consumption, in his view.
James surveyed the area around the body. Whoever had left the bag had done so on a small curve of beach outside Baboon Jack’s, Cooper’s Bayou’s kiddie arcade. James had attended two of his nephews’ birthdays here. WHERE KIDS RUN WILD! proclaimed the sign, and in James’s experience, it was true. He recalled the cavernous interior, a maze of blinking video games, yellow plastic slides, and a noise level unmatched by anything he had ever experienced. He was grateful that none of the kids inside had witnessed the discovery.
“How long you think this will take, Doc?” The proprietor of Baboon Jack’s, a humorless middle-aged man named Walter Coggins, hovered over him. “We’ve got a zombie dodgeball tournament in about half an hour.”
“This is a possible crime scene, Walter,” James told him. “I’ve got to call in the troops. Crime lab, police. You probably need to start shutting it down for the day.”
“Aw, hell, Doc. You gotta be kidding me.” Walter raked a hand through the greasy tendrils of his comb-over. “What am I gonna tell these parents? And I ain’t gonna get my money back on these zombies.”
“It’s a potential crime scene,” James repeated and extracted his cell phone from his pocket, turning away from Walter.
Mary Earl, the dispatcher, answered on the third ring.
“Hello there, darlin’.” Her pleasantries always caught him off guard. He’d said to Rush that they needed to answer the phone in a more professional manner over there, but the truth was, he liked hearing the words, even though he never knew what to say back.
The Evidence Room: A Mystery Page 5