Feeling around the sides of the building, Josh’s fingers finally caught the sharp edges of broken wood where the door had given way after the last big storm. Samba had taped an ancient blue tarp over the hole, and it flexed and crackled in the slight breeze. The recent rain made it slimy to the touch, like a rotting banana peel. With little effort, Josh tugged one corner free and ducked inside.
“Hold it right there.”
Josh froze in a squatting position on the floor, eyes scanning the dimly lit room for the source of the warning. The dusty end of what looked like an old-fashioned rifle was pointed at him. The owner of the weapon took a step towards him out of the darkness.
“Josh?” Samba lowered the weapon, wiping the brow with the hem of his tie-dyed shirt. “Christ on a bike, you scared me.”
“I scared you?” Josh slowly stood up, his heart still slamming against his ribs. “I thought you were going to shoot me with … what the hell is that thing?”
Samba admired the rusted weapon, turning it over in his hands like a new present. “I just grabbed it from the weapons aisle when I heard scuffling outside.” He thrust it towards Josh in a careless arc. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”
Josh put a protective hand on the barrel and slowly lowered it. “Samba, is that thing loaded?”
“Who knows?” Samba shrugged. “It scared you, didn’t it?” He beamed at Josh. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here! I always love company.” He walked to his desk and grabbed a yellowing stack of takeout menus from one of the piles and thrust them in Josh’s direction. “Do you think the El Cap still delivers this late?”
Josh looked at Samba, bewildered. “What are you doing here this late?”
Samba chuckled. “That young lady, the one who was here earlier. She called me, told me she’d spoken to you about requesting some information on her mother’s case. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Josh had logged the request in his notebook when Aurora had called, figuring he’d get to it in the morning. How could there be something so urgent about a case twenty years cold?
“Sure,” he said. “I wasn’t doing anything else, so I figured I’d come down.” Samba had probably guessed at the real reason, but Josh wasn’t going to let him know that he was right.
“Same here,” Samba echoed. “She seemed like a nice gal, too. Reminds me of my wife. I always had a thing for tall brunettes.”
He led Josh towards the middle of the room, where a white cardboard box sat alone in the center of the metal folding table. It looked just like the boxes Josh opened every day at work, except this one wouldn’t contain fallout from an anonymous crime; this one held the broken pieces of Aurora’s past. Earlier today he had opened his own box, held the plastic container that had a coil of his brother’s DNA. The thought of strangers opening this box, of reducing him from a person Josh loved to a series of tags and numbers, sickened him. And now he stood ready to unseal the horrors of what had happened to Aurora, throwing light on all the darkness she had survived, violating the memory of her mother. There was something sacrilegious about it, and he hesitated in front of the box, his fingers instead brushing the edge of the table.
“I don’t know, Samba,” Josh said. “This is—I don’t know. Private. Maybe we should wait for her.”
“She asked us to, Josh. It’s our job to help.”
He lifted out the first file folder.
Inside was a single eight-by-ten photograph, one of those posed portraits that families get for their annual Christmas card, everyone standing stiffly in front of a cheap blue-sky background. Aurora’s father, Wade, clearly not at ease in a collared shirt, stood behind her mother, Raylene, a sweet-faced woman with puffy white-blond bangs and pink-frosted lips. And in front of Raylene, snug in the circle of her arms, a little girl with pigtails and one of those unabashed kid smiles a mile wide. Aurora.
Samba held a corner of the picture and whistled under his breath. “Geez. She was just a baby,” he said, shaking his head. He flipped through the police report underneath. “Four years old.”
A kid, just like he had been. Josh swallowed. Aurora had been a small child, helpless and innocent, while Josh had been a few years older. Old enough to understand what was going on. Old enough to have done something about it, and yet, he hadn’t.
For the next hour, Josh and Samba stood at the table, thumbing through the pages in the file folders. Samba squinted over his glasses, reading parts of the police report out loud.
“This guy Wade was a real prince,” he muttered. “He takes Aurora and her mom out on the water for an evening on the bayou. Late that night, the cops find Aurora at the mini-mart by herself and her mom laid out on the shore, strangled. The dad took off.” He shook his head. “I gotta tell you, I’m not sure what she’s looking to find here, other than a real sad story.”
“So they never found her father? He never tried to find her or contact anyone or anything?”
“Nope. I guess he’s still out there.”
Josh thought of Aurora, tall and lean, wound tight like a runner on the starting blocks. She could run; she was strong. Her father must haunt her, the way the Shadow Man haunted him. But the Shadow Man was behind bars; Wade Atchison could be anywhere. He imagined Wade, living on the run all these years. By now he could be anything—a homeless man melting into a doorway, an office guy in a suit waiting for a knock on the door. Josh wondered if Wade ever thought about finding Aurora. The idea brought a chill with it. Wade had spared her life that night on the bayou. Would she be so lucky if they met again?
Samba put down the stack of papers and let out a dramatic sigh. “I don’t know about you, Josh, but I’m sta-ar-ving,” he said, stretching the word out as far as it would go. “I’m going to give the El Cap a ring-a-ling, see if they’re still open. You up for a fried grouper sandwich?”
“Absolutely.”
“You know what, maybe we can swing by Aurora’s too, bring her copies of the file.”
“So the evidence room delivers?”
“Sure, why not?” Samba said with a shrug. “You wanna give her a call?”
Aurora answered on the first ring, something breathless in her voice.
“Hey, Aurora. Hope I’m not bothering you—it’s Josh Hudson. Samba and I were wondering if you wanted us to deliver the copies of your file. If it’s too late, we can definitely come tomorrow or whatever works for you.”
“No, tonight’s great,” she said. There was relief in her voice. Well, Josh couldn’t blame her for wanting company out at the Broussard place. It had to be creepy as hell, coming from a big city to a lone house on the edge of the bayou.
“Great,” Josh said. “We’re on our way.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Have you ever saved somebody’s life?”
Samba twisted in the passenger seat, his question hitting Josh’s right temple as sure as a bullet. In the semidarkness, Samba’s quizzical face glowed like a round moon. Josh propelled the Jeep, trembling and shimmying, down the causeway and through the slinging sheets of gray rain. All around them, the bayou churned, greedy fingers of water reaching over the guardrails and grabbing at their tires. It was a matter of time before they closed the road. People around here knew you couldn’t hold back the bayou for long.
“Well? Have you?” Samba persisted.
“Never,” Josh replied. Samba’s question summoned a memory of Jesse, of a closed stall door, a moment for courage that could never come again. “Why, you think this is a life-saving situation? You think she’s in danger?”
“I don’t know, but I bet she’s scared to be back in town. I mean, her pop let her go all those years ago when she was a kid. Maybe she’s afraid Wade’ll come back.”
“After this long? What for? That doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t have to make sense. Fear doesn’t make sense. She’s probably been looking over her shoulder her whole life, know what I mean?”
Josh knew. He eased down on the accelerator. It
was getting harder and harder to see through the rain; the road in front of him was now reduced to a scramble of shimmering dots. Josh searched for landmarks. A smear of bright blinking yellow on their right had to be Crabby Jim’s, a fried-fish restaurant known for its seven-dollar buffet. That meant the turnoff was around the next curve.
“Anyway, I think your answer is a bunch of baloney,” Samba said.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Baloney. I’m sure you’ve saved somebody’s life before. You probably just don’t know it.”
“I think I’d remember something like that.” The back end of the Jeep glided into a slow fishtail, and Josh gripped the steering wheel, bringing the car back under his control. “Why, have you?”
Samba shrugged, his tone casual. “A few times.”
“A few times? So in addition to being a singer, guitar player—”
“Ukulele player,” Samba corrected.
“Sorry, a ukulele player, and a tamer of feral cats, you’re also—what, an EMT? Volunteer firefighter?”
“There’s more than one way of saving a person, Josh.” Samba patted Josh’s hand on the steering wheel. He gestured towards the turn. “This is it.”
Josh swung the Jeep onto the dirt road. The abandoned houses down here were so choked with kudzu it looked as though they were floating in a fuzzy green sea. Aurora’s house sat at the bayou’s edge, twinkling in the darkness.
She opened the door when they pulled up the drive, backlit by the living room. She wore the same shorts and T-shirt that she’d had on earlier, but something about her looked more vulnerable now; childlike even.
“Hi, guys.” Samba was right—she did look glad to see them. She ushered them into an immaculate sitting room, where she had laid out coffee.
“Hey, Aurora!” Samba held the greasy sandwich bag aloft. “Bet you haven’t tried a fried grouper sandwich yet.”
“You’re right about that.”
“Well, you are in for a treat. It’s from the El Cap, this place downtown. Real spicy, but I bet you can handle it. It’s like being kicked in the face, but, you know, in a good way.”
Aurora and Josh exchanged a smile. “Come on in,” she said.
Josh had never been inside the Broussard home, but everybody knew the alligator man’s house, with the magnolia trees and the yard that dipped towards the bayou. Inside, the place was tidy, as though someone had scrubbed every surface. It smelled of gardenia and lemon leaves.
“Everything okay, Aurora?”
“Sure. I mean, sort of. I just got this creepy phone call. It was probably just kids being stupid, but it just kind of threw me off balance. Let me get some plates for the sandwiches.” She headed back to the kitchen.
Josh followed. “What did the caller say?”
“Go back to where you came from, or you’ll be sorry, just like your mama.” It had rattled her, that was for sure.
“Kids, probably,” Josh said. “There’s not much to do out here except get into trouble.” He wasn’t convinced, but he hoped she could not hear that in his voice.
“Hey, check this out,” Samba said. A felt doll leaned against the windowsill behind the couch, covered in gold pins and tied with an orange ribbon. “Aurora, you know what this is, doncha?”
Aurora and Josh emerged from the kitchen with the plates. “I’m not really sure,” Aurora frowned. “My grandpa had some—strange stuff like that around here.”
“It’s a juju,” Samba explained. “Lucky, for protection. People like stuff like that around here. I have some. Crucifixes too. You never know what works, so I guess I’m just hedging my bets.”
Something in Aurora’s face told Josh to change the subject, so he held up the files. “So, we’ve got the file here,” Josh told her. “Police reports, evidence log, the whole thing.”
“Thank you so much,” she said.
Samba patted her knee. “Sometimes it’s tough,” he said, “seeing everything again. Just take things one at a time. Go slow. Maybe we can even sort through things for you. Is there something you were looking to find? You said it was important.”
She hesitated, looking between Josh and Samba, sizing them up. “I have some questions. I should probably take them to the police—but I just don’t know.”
“Atta girl,” Samba said. “You can’t always trust the cops. It’s best to stick with the evidence, plain and true.”
“What are your questions?” Josh could see that she wanted to tell them, could see the story rising through her. She opened a drawer in the stately varnished desk in one corner of the room and brought out a file.
“It looks like my grandfather was starting to look into the case on his own,” she said. “There’s some stuff here in the house, but it seems pretty incomplete. I don’t really know what to make of it.”
“Did they ever run the samples for DNA?” Josh thought about the backlog, the rows and rows of sample kits. Back in 1989, it was still a relatively new thing.
Aurora shook her head. “It looks like my grandfather requested it when he asked them to reopen the case, but they denied it. Said the sample was too degraded because it hadn’t been preserved properly so there was no chance anyway.”
Samba made a humphing sound. “Well, that’s a bunch of hogwash,” he said. “I’m a stickler for preserving things the right way. And I log every request. Nobody has asked about those samples. I’d remember.”
“Can you look at this stuff? I mean, are you authorized or whatever?”
Samba chuckled. “I’m not law enforcement, not technically. To work in the evidence room, you’ve just got to have a GED and pass a background check. But I’ve seen a lot in my time there. And I can tell you, Aurora, that cops make mistakes. People jump to conclusions sometimes, instead of looking for the truth.”
Josh watched the color drain from Aurora’s face, like someone was pulling a white curtain across her features. He was willing to bet she’d always been running from this moment, the same way he was. Sometimes Josh thought he was destined to meet a bad end, that he was just running out a length of rope, and one day he’d reach the end and be snapped back to the day of the attack, some kind of evil waiting there for him to finish what the Shadow Man had started. There were certain things you couldn’t outrun.
“I think I know someone who can help us,” Josh said. Doc Mason at the morgue would help them put the pieces together. He’d have autopsy records that the evidence room didn’t have.
“Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
“Sure. We can head over there in the morning, if you want.” Josh’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
“You know what, guys, I’m gonna take a walk around the outside of the house, make sure everything’s secure. Can’t hurt, right?”
He pushed open the door and stepped out onto the porch. Outside, the rain had given way to a cloudless night, and below him the bayou sparkled, barely a ripple on its creamy surface, no hint of the choppy water of less than an hour before. He answered the phone.
“Pea?”
“Bonjour, Josh,” she trilled, the Southern accent still crowding out the French one.
Josh steadied himself against the railing. “Did you get any more information? About Liana?” He was willing to pay drug dealers, play ball with anyone. Whatever it took.
Pea laughed, a velvety sound. “Well, of course. I always follow through on my promises. I just need some funds.”
“How much?”
“Well, now, I don’t like to talk about money right away,” Pea purred. “I was raised better than that. I was just making sure you hadn’t changed your mind. You didn’t call me back after we last spoke. I was feeling a little—rejected.”
Josh turned away from the bayou. Through Aurora’s front window, he could see Samba and Aurora sharing the remains of the sandwich, their two heads close together. He ached to be like them, to be able to confide in them about who he was, about Liana, about Jesse, about how the attack had made him a stranger in his own life.
He wanted to tell Samba that he was right; there was more than one way of saving a person’s life, but there was also more than one way of taking it.
“Josh? Hello?” Pea spoke again, the lushness in her voice replaced by impatience.
“I’m sure,” he said. “Just text me what you need.” He hung up.
Josh flicked on the outside light, illuminating the pale rows of hibiscus that stretched across the yard. There was no place to hide a car out here; if you wanted to sneak up to the house, you’d have to pick your way through the tall grass that obscured the path down to the bayou.
He completed a perimeter sweep of the house and was reaching for the light when he saw them.
Footprints.
They were fresh. Someone had trampled a few of the flowers in their hurry to get down to the bayou. Something orange glimmered on the outside sill. Josh moved to get a closer look. A small flannel bag was overturned, and a fine orange powder was spread across the sill. Josh bent closer. He would have known the smell anywhere; it was part of his mother’s chicken marinade. Cayenne pepper.
Josh heard the sound of it then; the whisper of a rope being unwound, a skiff slipping onto the water.
“Hey! Wait!” He skidded down the path. The exterior lights shone only as far as the edge of the yard, and beyond that was only the black maw of the bayou. He could hear paddling, but he couldn’t see a damn thing. There was no way to catch them.
Josh turned back to the house. He could hear the sound of laughter, of Samba putting Aurora at ease. Now he was going to be the one to have to tell her.
Someone was out here.
Someone was watching.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Charlsie the voodoo woman was also the proprietor of the local pharmacy.
Aurora was learning not to be surprised at this kind of information; after all, in Cooper’s Bayou, everyone seemed to have more than one job. She wondered what Josh Hudson’s other job was, since he’d told her he wasn’t a cop. She’d wanted to ask him more about this, but something in his face had stopped the question. Everyone was allowed to have secrets, she reminded herself. She thought about Mike. He’d texted her a few times since her trip down south. They were sweet little missives like Everything okay? It wasn’t the kind of question that could be answered over text; she could not even imagine what she would write back to him. Insane family—voodoo and murder! Drinks next week?
The Evidence Room: A Mystery Page 9