by Chiah Wilder
Hidden in the bushes, he looked at the old wooden house and wondered if Madame had seen how his mother was going to die in her tea leaves. He waited, his senses all on high alert, but except for the nocturnal sounds of nature, nothing was amiss. He looked at the time—twenty minutes past nine o’clock. Maybe this is someone playing a joke on me. Deciding to give it ten more minutes, he kept his vigil. Then he saw a figure dart from behind the house and approach the cypress tree. The figure’s head moved right and left as though searching for him. He slowly walked out of the brush and came around the house from behind.
“You looking for me?” Rock said in a deep voice.
The figure yelped and then came closer, and he realized it was a woman dressed in black leggings and a long black tunic. Her black hair was pulled up in a high ponytail. She looked to be a little older than him. “Do I know you?” he asked.
“Let’s go inside,” she said in a low voice, her head constantly turning as she looked all around her. He followed her inside. Instead of turning on the lights, she lit a kerosene lamp, the flame dancing as it created long shadows over the wood floorboards. The flickering light illuminated their features, and the woman motioned for Rock to take a seat.
He sat down. “You going to tell me who the hell you are and what the fuck’s going on? Why did you wanna meet me?”
She spread her hands out on the table. “I’m Madame Vincennes’s great-granddaughter. My name’s Tessa.” Her blue eyes bored into his. “You’re sitting on the chair my great-mawmaw was murdered in.”
“What the fuck?” Rock jumped up.
“Mawmaw was killed a few days ago.” Her voice hitched. “She was strangled. The killer used his bare hands.”
Madame Vincennes is dead—killed? This is some crazy shit. How the hell does this involve me? “I’m sorry ‘bout that, but I still don’t know why the hell you wanted to meet with me. Did Madame send me the mojo bag?”
Tessa nodded.
“And you sent me the second note, the one saying my dad didn’t kill my maman.”
She nodded again. “Mawmaw asked me to send it because her handwriting was too shaky.” She looked at the windows, then lowered her voice. “She saw who killed your ma, and it wasn’t your pa. She swore it was two men, but she only really saw one. She got a good look at him, and he saw her. She ran as fast as she could hoping he didn’t recognize her, but everyone in the parish knew her.”
Is this for fuckin’ real? Pa is innocent? “Why was she in our neighborhood that night?”
“She had to perform a healing for your neighbors a few doors down. Their daughter was very ill with the fever. After she finished, she began to walk home and came to your house. She felt an evil presence surrounding it. At least that’s how she told it to me. Anyway, she went up to it and was going to make sure your parents were okay. She always liked your ma. When she got up to the porch, she heard loud voices, moaning, and a gut-wrenching cry. She ran in and that’s when she saw a tall man with a knife stabbing your ma. Your pa was on the floor, crying and jabbering. The man looked at her, and she told me he had the devil in him. He was pure evil. When she told me that, it gave me the chills. I’m getting them again just telling you.”
“Why didn’t she call the police? Why did she let my maman be gutted like a pig?”
“Don’t blame her. Your ma was already gone when she got there. Her eyes were flat. The next day the tall man found my mawmaw, and he threatened to kill her children and their children. He told her she must never talk. And she didn’t for years, but it always ate at her.”
Rock sat there in silence, trying to make sense of the information he’d just been given. If his dad hadn’t killed his mother, who did? Who was this tall man Madame had seen that night? He’d have to find him and tear him apart with his bare hands. “Did your grandma get paid to keep her mouth shut?”
She nodded then added hastily, “It wasn’t like you think. She had to help the family. We were born poor, and she did her best to help all of us out as best she could. She had a bad dream a couple months ago and you were in it. She saw an evil force trying to swallow you up whole, and your ma was there trying to protect you but she wasn’t strong enough. Anyway, it scared the daylights outta Mawmaw and she felt that it was your ma telling her to give you some protection and to tell you the truth about your pa. It killed her that you hated your pa for something he didn’t do.” She pursed her lips. “And now she got killed for telling you.”
Rock’s gaze locked with hers. “How’d the killer find out she told?”
Tessa shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s like evil always knows when something is comin’ to destroy it. I met with you tonight to tell you the truth. That’s what she would have wanted me to do. I’m also telling you to be careful. The evilness that destroyed your ma wants you.”
Silence fell between them, the spitting of the wick in the kerosene lamp the only sound in the small house. After a long while, Rock stood up. “Thanks for telling me. I’m sorry Madame had to die, but I promise you I’ll find the fuckin’ sonofabitch who killed her and my ma. Where do you live?”
“Not so far from here.”
“I’ll walk you home.”
“Thanks for the offer but I drove. I parked a few blocks away.”
“I’ll walk you to your car, then. I want to make sure you weren’t followed.”
She extinguished the kerosene lamp and darkness engulfed the house. They walked quietly to her car and he watched her drive away until he couldn’t see her anymore. Then he went back to his sister’s car and headed home.
* * *
Rock slipped through the back door and went downstairs. He didn’t want Isa asking him a lot of questions, and he had to be sure the information Tessa had given him was true before he told his siblings. His gut told him it was. Why would anyone want to kill an old lady who didn’t have anything but concoctions of herbs, bones, and oils? He quietly went into the bedroom and stripped down to his boxers. Watching Clotille’s body as it moved up and down with her steady breathing, he pulled back the covers and slid in next to her. She stirred slightly and he flung his arm over her waist, pressing close to her. Vanilla mixed with sandalwood wisped around him and he kissed the top of her head. She craned her neck and smiled, her eyes sleep-filled.
“I’m glad you’re back. How’d it go?” she asked in a soft voice.
“Fuckin’ intense.” He squeezed her gently.
“I tried to wait up for you but I fell asleep.”
“That’s okay, chérie. I’m fuckin’ tired.”
She pushed back into him, not leaving any space between their bodies. “I love being in your arms.”
“And I love holding you, chérie.”
He held her until she fell back asleep. For a long time, Rock stared at the surrounding darkness as he attempted to make sense of what the hell was going on. A couple months ago, life had been so much simpler. Now it was all kinds of complicated.
Simpler is way the fuck better.
Then sleep overtook him, and the tumble of thoughts was put to rest until morning.
Chapter Eighteen
The gloom of the day reflected the mood of the four siblings as they sat in the waiting room of the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Isa twisted her purse strap over and over around her fingers, Lille fooled around with her phone, Henri kept glancing at the large wall clock, and Rock stared stone-faced at the concrete walls. Being at the prison brought back rough memories; he never thought he’d see the inside of this hellhole again. Their father’s impending death brought them together as they waited to see him at the medical department on site.
After a twenty-minute wait, a corrections officer told them to follow him. Inside the treatment center, they passed by rooms housing ill inmates, who were chained to a bed, overseen by bored prison guards idling away their time with TV and card games.
The officer stopped in front of a room on the east side of the building. Normally it would’ve received a lot of sunshine, but
that day the sun was blocked by gray, dense clouds that carpeted the sky. “He’s in here. You only got thirty minutes with him.”
Rock held back and let his siblings go in front of him. Since he’d entered the medical facility, a cold clamminess had settled into his bones. For so long he’d hated his father for killing his mother, and he didn’t know how to change that.
“Pa, can you hear me? We’ve come to see you. It’s me, Lille, Henri, and Roche,” Isa said. Rock entered the room and saw her bending over their dad, who was hooked up to beeping monitors with tubes of fluid flowing into his veins.
“Roche?” his father said in a hoarse, low voice. Isa stroked their dad’s cheek and looked at Rock.
He walked over to the side of the bed. His father had aged so much since he’d last seen him: gray hair, deep wrinkles, hollow cheeks. Due to his illness, lesions dotted his face and his eyelids were swollen. Fuck, he’s lost so damn much weight. Rock’s stomach dropped. “Hey, Pa.” His dad’s bony hand reached out for his and he grasped it, surprised at how cold it was.
Lille and Henri came close to the bed, each of them rubbing their hands over their father’s arms or legs. Isa sniffled and turned to the nightstand to retrieve a tissue. Henri sighed and shook his head while Lille brushed a tear from her eye.
Pa isn’t gonna make it. This fucking sucks. Being in an outlaw club, Rock had seen his share of death, but looking at his dad dying and chained to the bed, broke his heart. For so long he’d hated this man, but now, knowing the truth, he felt sorry for him. The truth didn’t negate that his dad was a mean sonofabitch to him, his siblings, and his beloved mother, but he didn’t deserve to be punished for a crime he didn’t commit while the killers roamed free.
Rock turned to his siblings. “Say your peace with Pa and then get the fuck out. I wanna be alone with him for a few minutes.”
“To upset him?” Henri said. “I don’t think so.”
“Henri’s right,” Isa chimed in. “He’s too sick, and I don’t want you unleashing on him. This isn’t the time nor the place, Roche.”
He glared at them. “It’s Rock,” he gritted. “And I’m not going to upset him. I wouldn’t have fuckin’ come if I was going to do that. I wanna be alone with him. Fuckin’ deal with it and get the hell out.” He stood back, his arms crossed over his chest.
Henri shook his head again, then went over and whispered something Rock couldn’t hear in their pa’s ear. Isa and Lille followed suit, and then they filed out of the room.
Rock waited a few minutes before he approached the bed again. His father’s dull eyes peeked out from red, puffy lids, following Rock’s movements. He bent down low, his hand covering his dad’s, and said in a hushed voice, “I just learned you didn’t kill Maman. I hated you for years thinking you took her life, took her away from me, but I know better now.” His father raised his eyebrows and a trickle of wetness leaked from his eyes. “I wanted you to know that. I wasted time hating you, and you wasted years doing time for something you never did. I’m fuckin’ sorry about that, Pa. Fuckin’ sorry.” His father squeezed his hand weakly. “I’m gonna tell the others, but not until I find out who killed Maman and set you up. I promise you one thing: When I find them, I’m going to fuckin’ kill ‘em.”
“Merci, mon fils. Merci.” His father breathed heavily as though talking had taken all his strength.
“You better wrap it up. Your time’s almost over,” the corrections officer said.
Rock stroked his father’s cheek, then went out into the hallway and said to his siblings, “I’m done. If you want to say something more to him, go on.” They shuffled back into the room.
Almost an hour later, as they drove back to Lafayette in silence, Isa received the call that their father had died. She burst into tears, Henri sucked in his breath, Lille moaned, and Rock narrowed his eyes and stared straight ahead, his stomach in hard knots.
I’m going to make good on my promise to you, Pa. I’m gonna fuckin’ destroy the bastards.
* * *
“I ordered an autopsy to be done,” Isa said the following morning.
“Why?”
“Because I want to see why Pa died. I saw him two weeks before and he looked great. He wasn’t that old, and I want to see what took him down.”
A few days later, Isa leaned against the kitchen counter. “Pa was poisoned.”
Rock set his beer down. “What the fuck?”
“The autopsy report came in. It said he was filled with arsenic. Someone in the prison poisoned him. The prison officials are treating it as a crime and have turned it over to the police. Who would want to murder him?”
“When you’re inside, every day is a fuckin’ battlefield. I saw inmates get killed because another guy didn’t like the way they walked on a particular day. Crazy shit happens.” The killers wanted to make sure another loose end was tied up. Motherfuckers! They paid someone on the inside to kill the old man.
“What a sad end to a tragic chain of events. At least now we can have the funeral. This is so awful. I hope they find out who did this and punish him.”
Rock nodded. Don’t worry, Isa. I’ll find out, and I’ll fuckin’ make sure they’re punished.
* * *
Rock’s phone vibrated against his thigh and he grinned when he saw Bones’s name. “Hey, dude, what’s up?”
“Not much except a group of us is here. We’re staying at the Devil’s Legions’ clubhouse. Fuck, it was a long ride.”
“What the hell? What’re you doing in Lafayette?”
“We got a lot of shit to tell you. Get your ass over to the clubhouse ‘cause Hawk’s called an emergency church. We’ll see you in fifteen minutes. One more thing. I’m sorry about your old man, bro. That fuckin’ blows. I know you hated him and all, but fuck, it still sucks.”
Rock hesitated, then said, “Yeah, it fuckin’ sucks ass. See you soon.”
He quickly pulled his jeans on and smacked Clotille’s bare ass as she watched him dress, her elbow propped on the mattress and her head in her hand. “What’s up?”
“Some Insurgents came into town, and Hawk’s calling an emergency church.” He yanked on his boots and strode over to her, kissing her shoulder. “I’m just glad they didn’t call while we were fucking.” He winked at her.
“When will you be back?”
“I don’t know. I’ll call you. Why don’t you go swimming with Isa and the kids?”
She shrugged. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll find something to do. I just worry about you, that’s all.”
He walked back over to her, fisted her hair, and pulled her head back, kissing her deeply. “That’s sweet, chérie. Gotta go,” he said against her lips. He picked up his keys and left the room.
It seemed surreal to be in church with only a handful of brothers in a clubhouse that wasn’t the Insurgents’. After expressing the brotherhood’s condolences for the death of his father, Hawk and the others caught Rock up to speed about the dealings of the Gypsy Riders and Frederick Blair. When he heard the asshole’s name, his blood boiled. He then told the brothers about learning his father hadn’t killed his mother, the murder of his father, and the fuckface’s company owning a lot of the land in the bayou, most notably his mother’s.
“I got this gnawing feeling in my gut that the rich fuck’s the one who killed my mother. I bet the other guy was a Gypsy Fiend.” He pounded on the table.
“Could be. I admit something’s not right here. The first thing we gotta do is meet with the Gypsy Fiends’ prez. Dogface, the president of the Devil’s Legions, said he could arrange it.” Hawk tipped his chair back. “The important thing is we gotta stop the sale of the arms to the Demon Riders. The rich fuck isn’t going to give the Fiends a percentage of the profits in the sale of the weapons. We’ve since learned that they are buying the weapons through providing services to him like security at the casinos, extortion, roughing up some enemies, and a bunch of other shit. I’m pretty sure the Gypsy asses would like to have a lot of cash, an
d we can make this deal worth their time. We gotta play it cool, like this is strictly about business and not anything personal with the Demon Riders.”
For the next two hours, the Insurgents talked about the execution of their plan and what they’d do if it backfired. After church was done they went into the main room of the Devil’s Legions’ clubhouse and met up with Dogface and some of the other members. The Devil’s Legions didn’t have as many members as the Insurgents, but they had a good relationship with the Gypsy Fiends, which the Insurgents were counting on to change the direction of the arms deal with their rival club.
Rock and Bones meandered to the pool tables to play a game with two Devil’s Legions brothers. In that moment of camaraderie, Rock forgot about all the family drama and lost himself in the brotherhood.
* * *
Clotille sat on the big cushy chair in the screened-in back porch, the ceiling fans cooling her off. She was engrossed in a romance novel when her phone rang. Her heart leapt; she’d been waiting to hear from Rock for the past few hours, and she’d been so worried. She grabbed her phone and said breathlessly, “Rock, I’ve been waiting for your call.”
“It’s a pity I’m not the Neanderthal,” Frederick’s crisp voice said. “I don’t think I ever heard such excitement in your voice for me.”
“What do you want, Frederick?”
“You.”
She exhaled loudly. “It’s over. I don’t get why you don’t understand that.”
“Because I never lose.”
“This isn’t a game.”
“You’re wrong about that, pet. This is very much a game, and I’ve just raised the stakes.”
“What does that mean?” she said, her heart thumping.
“You’ll find out soon enough. Of course, the game can stop if you just come home like a nice pet.”
“I know you can find another woman, a better one who is totally into your lifestyle. Believe me, you’ll be happier with someone who wants what you have to give her.”