The Book of the Unwinding

by J. D. Horn

  “Lucy,” Fleur said, her voice gracious yet firm.

  “Oh, sorry,” she addressed the waiter. “Thank you.”

  “You’re very welcome, miss.”

  Remy hesitated, like he was waiting for the waiter to help him. Lucy smiled and nodded at the chair, a signal for him to sit. He flashed a self-conscious grin before taking his seat.

  Lisette still couldn’t decide if Fleur’s choice of restaurants came from a desire to offer them the best, or to keep them off-kilter. No, Lisette decided, looking at the sincere enjoyment on the woman’s face. Fleur Marin almost-ex-Endicott thought everybody lived this way.

  The first waiter returned, this time with a bottle of white. Fleur faced Lisette. “I’ve requested the charred oysters as a starter, so I hope you won’t mind switching to the Chablis when they arrive. The tannins in the red. Well, you understand.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” Lisette said, with a wide smile. Oysters and Chablis. They were moving into familiar territory. She now understood the moment of silent inquiry that had passed between Fleur and their waiter. They’d made a faux pas by insisting on the Cabernet-Merlot rather than the proffered Chablis. Lisette gave Manon a cautious, though accusatory, side glance. It’d been Michael who pushed for the red, so at least the first fancy restaurant misstep hadn’t been Lisette’s.

  The waiter filled Fleur’s glass, even as Fleur held her hand over Lucy’s. Fleur leaned in toward Lisette. “I promised Lucy she could have one glass with dinner, provided that you and Isadore agreed it would be okay for Remy, too.” Remy looked at her with expectant eyes.

  “One. I repeat. One.”

  Fleur nodded at the waiter, who poured for Lucy. Lisette glanced over at Manon to catch her expression. Lisette was surprised to see that Manon’s own glass of red wine was now only half full; Michael’s was full. She was about to comment on it, but Remy caught her attention. He was leaning forward on his seat, excited. “Did you all hear about the ‘Doll House’?”

  Silent glances and shaking heads all around. Even Lucy gave a slight shrug. “Man, where have you been?” His voice resounded with excitement. Lucy gave him a quick warning look, and he lowered his voice. “It’s been all over the news this afternoon.” He looked at them like they’d never heard of Christmas. “Some mortician has been using taxidermy to turn dead bodies into dolls, but the creepiest part is maybe not all of them came to him dead. He may have killed some of the people himself.”

  “What?” Lucy said, her face scrunching up with disgust, or maybe disgusted fascination. “Why?”

  “News said he must be crazy.” He yanked out his phone and started to search, Lisette reckoned, for the story.

  Well, if the news is calling him crazy, he must be white, Lisette thought. Whenever a white man did something horrible, they always called him disturbed and started discussing his motivations. A black man does something horrible, and well, he did it because that’s what black men do. “How terrible,” Lisette said, repackaging her thoughts for mass consumption.

  Fleur leaned forward and turned toward Remy. “What a dreadful story.” She gestured toward his phone. “Not at the table. Off. We’re here to enjoy each other.” She looked at Lisette. “How about everyone under the age of, shall we say”—she paused, seeming to do a calculation of some sort—“thirty-five, has to turn their cells off until after dessert?”

  Lucy turned on her mother with a toss of her hair. “Why not those over—you so wish—thirty-five?”

  “We’re mature enough to control our impulses.” Fleur looked around the table. “Come on. Come on.”

  Lucy growled and rolled her eyes, but dug out her phone and powered it down. She turned to Remy. “Come on. You, too. This is your fault. You and your macabre small talk.” He slid his phone over to her, letting her do the honors.

  “Manon, Michael?” Fleur said. “Come on, you two, time to set a good example for your juniors.”

  Manon made a sour face, but obeyed. Fleur doggedly focused on Michael, a silent tilt of her head both a question and a demand. “Not me,” he said with a chuckle. “Turned thirty-five in July.” Lisette felt her jaw drop. She would’ve guessed ten years younger.

  Fleur straightened, her eyebrows rising with surprise.

  “I’ve got ID if you want me to prove it.”

  “No, no. I believe you. It’s only . . . Well, nothing.” She smiled with benevolence at Michael and Manon. “You two make such an adorable couple,” Fleur said, addressing Manon and Michael. “How long have you been seeing each other?”

  Lisette laughed. “They’re just friends. They’re not together that way.”

  “Oh, I’m so embarrassed,” Fleur said, her face flushing. “I’d assumed . . .” She placed her hand over her heart. “Mea culpa.” She took a sip of her wine. “Topic change to cover for my gaffe.” She leaned in, laying her hand over Lisette’s. “I hope you don’t mind a little shop talk, Lisette.”

  “Shop talk?”

  “Of a sort. I was chatting with Daniel today.” She focused on Manon and Michael and waved away any questions. “He’s an old family friend.” Looked like she wasn’t ready to address the origins of the family’s manufactured domestic, at least not in public. “We were discussing a point about New Orleans, something I thought you might know a thing or two about.”

  “I know a little bit about a lot of things,” Lisette said, her tone betraying the caution she felt, “and a lot about a few, so shoot.”

  Fleur leaned back and touched the stem of her wineglass. She lowered her eyes, looking sheepish. Something told Lisette her reticence was only for show. The woman was fishing for something. “Well, it’s nonsense really,” she said as her amused, sparkling eyes jumped up and pinned Lisette to her chair, “but Daniel was saying local legend has it there are seven gates, actual physical gates right here in New Orleans that link this world to . . . well, I don’t know . . . an underworld of some type.”

  Lisette jolted. This was way too much of a coincidence. Bells and whistles and dire warnings from her father about getting involved with the Marin family sounded all at once. Lisette reached for her glass, only to find waiter number four clearing it from the table. She was lost in a sea of expectant silence. Even the kids were paying attention. Lisette examined the table like a chessboard, calculating her move.

  “I believe your friend was speaking of the Gates of Guinee,” Lisette said, trying to sound cool. She settled on a way to both tell the truth and offer a bit of misdirection. She forced a—she hoped—not too fake smile onto her face. “Sure, there are those who believe that they are actual portals, and even some who believe they’re all right here in the area.” That part was true. The stealthy waiter slipped in and placed a glass of Chablis before her. She grasped it and took a sip. She set the glass down, making a tiny mmm sound and flashing Fleur an appreciative smile. “Others hold that the gates are a metaphor for the seven days after death, the time it takes for the soul to understand itself as being separate from the body it vacated.” That part was true, too. Her sole lie was one of omission. Lisette had never believed in literal gateways, but after Papa Legba brought her the map this morning, she wasn’t so sure anymore. She’d begun to wonder if they might not somehow be both real and allegorical at the same time.

  Two of the waiters returned with the promised trays of oysters.

  “Oh,” Manon said and pushed back from the table with such force Lisette’s wine sloshed in its glass. Lisette reached out to right it before it could topple. “Excuse me,” Manon said, her face turning gray. “I’m sorry. Ladies’ room?” she asked the waiter as she rushed past him.

  “By the kitchen,” he replied, but Manon had already shot like a bullet in the direction he’d gestured.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into that girl,” Lisette said, rising. “I’ll go see if she’s all right.”

  “No, Mama.” Remy raised his hand and waved her down. “You sit back down. She’s okay.”

  Lisette hovered over her
seat. “How could you know that?”

  “Almost two years,” Michael said, apropos of nothing. Lisette realized he was talking to Fleur, even though his eyes were fixed on her. “We’ve been together almost two years.”

  Lisette fell back onto her seat.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Perrault,” Michael said. “We’ve been looking for the right time, and the right way, to tell you. I’m afraid this is neither, though at least now you know.”

  Lisette gaped at him, unsure of what to say.

  “I love Manon,” he said. “We love each other.”

  Lisette turned to Remy. “You knew about this?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Two words confirming his betrayal but offering as little information as possible.

  “How long have you known?”

  He shifted in his seat, lowering his eyes. “Going on two . . .”

  “Two what?” she prompted, her words coming out sharp and angry even to her own ears.

  He looked up, his brow furrowed by guilt. “Going on two years.”

  They sat in silence for a bit. Lisette couldn’t hazard how long. She was too busy replaying various moments in her head that should’ve—but hadn’t—given her a clue.

  Manon returned to the room and seemed to pick up on the situation in a flash.

  “She knows,” Michael said all the same.

  “I can tell she knows. Look at the vinegar face she’s making.” She stood, hands on hips, facing Lisette down.

  “Goodness,” Fleur said, with a nervous titter. “I seem to have stuck my foot in it . . .”

  “This,” Lisette snapped, “is not about you.” Fleur raised both hands in mock surrender.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Manon said, circling the table to her seat.

  “I’d like to talk about it now,” Lisette said, even though she didn’t really want to. Her dander was up, and she was already imagining how Isadore would react to this news. “How could you not share this with me? Your own mama.”

  “I tried to,” Manon said, as Michael rose to help her back into her chair. “About a hundred times. You didn’t want to know. You’d already jumped to your own conclusions.” She looked up to Michael. “She thinks you’re gay. I let her, ’cause it was just easier that way.”

  The phone in Fleur’s purse began to buzz, but she didn’t touch it.

  Michael looked around the table with a blank expression. “No, not gay. Just well-groomed.”

  Lucy gave a tinny laugh. “Then maybe you could give Hugo some pointers. He is gay and still a total slob.” Lucy took the temperature of the table and then lowered her eyes. “Sorry. Trying to bring a little levity to the situation.”

  Fleur turned to Lucy. “Perhaps we should give the Perraults a moment?” Her phone started up again.

  “We don’t need a moment,” Lisette said as one and one came together to make three. Manon had switched her full wineglass with Michael’s half-empty one. They’d finally come clean about the relationship. Her girl was pregnant. And pregnant by a man fourteen years . . . fourteen years . . . her senior. She was jumping from college graduation straight into a baby shower. “It’s gonna take a hell of a lot longer than that.”

  Fleur’s phone stopped buzzing and started beeping.

  “Someone seems to want you real bad,” Lisette said, the words coming out in a growl. “You should probably see to it.”

  Fleur nodded as she reached for her purse. Lisette realized Fleur was happy to have something to do other than squirm in the face of the Perrault family drama. She looked at her phone, thumbing down the screen even as the alerts kept beeping. She rocked back in her seat.

  Lucy looked at her mom. “What is it? Is there something wrong?” A pause. “Is it Dad?”

  “No, dear, it isn’t your father. It’s Daniel. He says the police are at Nicholas’s house. He needs us to come.”

  “The police? Why?”

  Fleur glanced around the table, her eyes resting on Remy. “Your Doll House?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Where is it?”

  “Right here in New Orleans,” he said, sounding confused. “Freret or maybe Uptown. Somewhere around there. Not too far from Précieux Sang.”

  Fleur grasped the edge of the table. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Come on, Lucy. We have to go.”

  “Not until you tell me what’s happened.”

  Fleur’s brow furrowed as she focused on her daughter. She seemed to be struggling to find the words. “It’s only . . . They’ve found your aunt Astrid.”

  FOURTEEN

  Most days Nathalie didn’t drink alone, but hell.

  The pub had a patio where people could bring their dogs, so she took a seat there, wanting to live . . . what was the word she’d picked up from the fellow she drove to the airport last week? Vicariously.

  Nathalie wanted a dog. She wanted one bad. She used to think she wanted a dog and a cat, but the last couple of days had put her right off cats. At least for a while. But a dog, that was a go. Once she got her employment situation worked out, assuming she didn’t end up in St. Gabriel on death row for murdering Frank Demagnan and defiling his corpse, she’d go get herself one. Go to the pound and pick up the goofiest, most muttsy dog she could find.

  Maybe she’d leave her second-floor walk-up with its prime view of Odd Fellows Rest Cemetery and find a little house with a bit of a yard for the dog to run in. Even a bit across Highway 10, she’d seen you could rent a sweet single shotgun in Dixon, one with a small yard, for less than what she was paying now. She could maybe even get a better deal if she offered to help the owner fix it up and handle small repairs. She was good at that kind of thing.

  A large-screen TV was playing a hockey game, and a trio of guys shouted at the screen. Nathalie had taken a seat behind them, next to a couple with a frisky yellow Lab puppy that was now doing its darnedest to reach her. He’d woven his leash around the legs of his peoples’ chairs like macramé, but was straining on the last six inches of line he had left. His mom turned to see what he was fussing over, and smiled at her before bending over to undo the tangles in the pup’s leash.

  Nathalie began to see herself with a feisty pup—no, she knew herself, she’d find the grayest muzzle to take home with her. It was her daydream, though, so why the hell not take one of each?

  Nathalie began to see herself in that cottage, sitting in a lawn chair in the yard with a beer in one hand, throwing her dogs’ tennis ball with the other. The pup would chase it, then drop it in front of the old guy so he didn’t feel left out.

  Someone else suddenly entered her daydream. Golden sunlight backlit Alice Marin’s chestnut hair like a halo as she came down the back steps to join her in the yard.

  Gonna stop that one right there, Nathalie checked herself.

  After she’d fled the mortuary, Nathalie had spent a long time looking at Alice’s photo, at first wondering if perhaps she was wrong and the innocent face could belong to a murderer, but then posing simple questions about Alice and her life. What type of ice cream did she prefer? What did her voice sound like? How did her hair smell? It started out as an innocent-enough activity—a good way to distract herself from the image of Frank struggling into the room, already dead, but not quite dead enough. All too soon, though, Nathalie’s imagination began crafting answers to those questions. She had created an Alice, but the Alice she’d envisaged wasn’t the real one. She had to face up to that. On the bright side, at least she’d called it right on the question of murderer or not murderer.

  Nathalie had done this before, building a fantasy about a woman based on nothing more than a few cursory impressions, disregarding the warning signals her intuition and common sense might wave before her eyes. Half the women she’d fallen for over the years had been unavailable on some level or another; with the other half, she’d fantasized her way into loving women who didn’t even really exist. This Alice Marin was both. Unavailable and the perfect blank, if beautiful, screen for Nathalie to project her fancies
onto.

  Nathalie had had enough of loving someone who wasn’t there. And while she’d enjoyed far more than her fair share of strange, she still didn’t know what to make of this talk of “liminal”—that word would cost you a twenty—dimensions. This “gravity of rightful destiny”—she heard the words in that Daniel fellow’s sincere, though a shade too desperate not to be creepy, voice. That gravity thing was nothing more than invitation to heartbreak . . . hers.

  She had her own issues. Even now, New Orleans’s finest were probably swarming all over Zombie Frank’s study, picking up her prints, strands of her hair, even fibers from the damn borrowed suit pants she was still wearing. That brought her back full circle to the reason she’d come to this pub in the first place: to pull herself together before that visit to the police she’d been putting off, in the hope that if she relaxed a bit, inspiration for a plausible story—it helped, she realized, if she didn’t think of it as a lie—would strike.

  “Ma’am?” A voice pulled Nathalie back. A young guy. Her waiter, standing right in front of her. “You doin’ all right today?” She realized he’d been trying to get her attention for a while. The few stray thoughts leaking out of him told her he wasn’t just being polite. He thought there might be something wrong with her.

  She smiled to reassure him, then noticed the couple with the puppy had gone. In fact, at the moment, she was the only customer left on the patio. “I’m . . . sorry,” she said, pulling herself together, looking for a quick excuse to offer the guy so she wouldn’t draw more attention to herself. “I’ve been having a bit of a day.” She pointed at her temple and twirled her finger. “Left me feeling a little dingue.” Yes. I’m crazy, but normal crazy. Not the kind of nuts you’re worried about. She hoped he’d drop it, but no. She heard the buzz in his brain before the words formed.