Boogie House: A Rolson McKane Mystery

by T. Blake Braddy

  "Jesus."

  My former boss smiled mirthlessly and squirmed in his chair. I think he might have known the man. "That got a lot of mudslinging going in this town, and it went on for a while. The preacher man, he wasn't able to prove self-defense and he went away. Quit being a preacher altogether and ended up provoking a white supremacist into stabbing him to death in the workyard. Got him right in the forehead."

  "I see what you're getting at," I said.

  "I'm not sure he did it by accident," he said. "Which makes me worry about you, Rol. It reminds me of that story about the preacher man for a reason. You keep saying that tracking down Laveau's killer is the right thing to do, but I'm not sure if you're trying to convince me, the town, or yourself, or - and I think this more likely - if you're using this as an excuse to self-destruct."

  "Trust me, I'm not." It didn’t come out the right way. I didn’t say anything else, because I didn’t want anything I said to remind him of his daughter.

  He blew out a long, dissatisfied breath. "I have nothing to threaten you with except jail. Which I will enforce. I catch you peeking at something you have no business peeking at, and your future will be quite grim, son. I'm telling you now to just quit it, because you're only going to get hurt. Everybody's going to get hurt. Everything will change, and all that will be left in the midst of it will be pain and disappointment."

  "I think I realize that."

  "Well, then, I hope you listen to me."

  I thought about throwing it back in his face, telling him that it was his investigation, but decided against it. D.L. was a good man, but he was still a small-town cop. Looking at the way he was starting to slouch forward made me sad in a way I couldn’t really deal with. He’d always tried to be a good man, which made him a better cop, so I left it alone.

  Maybe I’m not so unbiased, in the end.

  * * *

  As I made my way back outside, I caught up with Ronald Bullen. He was walking to his cruiser, and he tensed up as I approached. "I'm not in the mood, McKane," he said, shaking his head. "Shouldn’t you be looking for something at the bottom of a pint of Beam?"

  "Give me just a minute, Ron."

  "You're a walking insult. Here we are, trying to get this case solved, and you go behind our backs, behind the back of the man who used to be your father-in-law, in order to settle some business between you and Janita Laveau. The fuck makes you think I want to talk to you?"

  "Because I know your brother's back in town."

  He slowed his wobbly gait just enough for me to catch up. "So," he said. He was sweating from the heat, the armpits of his shirt boasting wretched dark circles.

  "So I know H.W. doesn't come back in town unless he's in some kind of trouble. Maybe a warrant out on him, maybe not. Either way, if it comes out he's hiding from something, I still have enough pull with D.L. to get him hauled in."

  "He's all grown up now. He can handle the consequences for whatever he's done."

  A battered pickup truck rumbled by, and the old timer behind the wheel waved. Bullen waved back. I said, "He isn't hard to find. Big as he is, I'm surprised he hasn't been found yet."

  "Get to the point, McKane."

  "H.W.'s awfully violent. If he's skipping out on an assault charge, or battery, he's looking at a serious stint this time around. He's your brother. All you've got to do is give me five minutes. Help me out. I know you don't like Leland Brickmeyer and his ilk half as much as you have to say you do."

  He scratched at his stubble.

  "I'll tell you what we know so far,” he said. “Laveau was kidnapped and held in the Boogie House for a few days, maybe a week. He was tied up. Wounds on the wrists, chest, and feet corroborate that. The ropes were cut away postmortem."

  "Any sign of them?"

  He shook his head. "No physical evidence. Place is as dry of evidence as any I've ever seen. Whoever did this knew what he was doing. That's about it."

  "I'm a little surprised you're telling me all of this."

  He wiped one side of his mouth. "I'm still a cop. I want to see the fuckers who wailed on that poor black kid caught as much as you do."

  "Uh-huh," I replied.

  "And, personally," he said, leaning in conspiratorially, "I'm kind of on the same boat with you about Brickmeyer. I think the rich cocksucker's hiding something."

  I was surprised to see a member of the Lumber Junction Leland Brickmeyer Police Department speak so candidly and openly against the man with the deep pockets. "Really?" I said. "That's not the conclusion I've drawn so far."

  "He's been lying through his capped teeth. Investigators asked him if he ever met Emmitt Laveau, he says no way. Says he only found out who the kid was after the body was found. By you."

  "And he met Emmitt Laveau before?"

  "Damn straight, he has. Brickmeyer slipped up. Said he didn't know Emmitt Laveau from Adam, and I know for a fact he's lying. He met Laveau at a dinner the Brickmeyers threw last year. A banquet for star teachers, something like that."

  "Teachers?"

  "The Laveau boy taught special ed at the high school."

  I was skeptical. "That's not really a big deal, though. It's not like the guy caught him banging a secretary."

  Bullen squinted, staring over my shoulder. "Yeah, but with a guy so committed to sculpting his image, don't you think he would cover his ass by saying he might have met the guy? Now he's on the record for a lie. That'll come back to bite him, I guarantee."

  "All right, Bullen," I said. "Thanks for the info. I'll keep you posted."

  "Don't bother," he said. He watched me cross the road and get into the Oldsmobile, leaning against his cruiser until I was well down the street. I threw one hand out of the open window in an ironic wave, and he returned it in his own distinct way, with a single finger.

  * * *

  Unlike the Brickmeyers, the Laveaus weren't a historically well-known group around town. The few of them who lived in the Junction kept to themselves. That was pretty much true for Janita and her family until Emmitt's death. Now, each of them had become a local curiosity, and I even found myself in a state of anticipation at meeting her uncle. He didn't go out in public very much, and from what Janita had told me, he was very old and very strange. A week ago that might have meant something, but now I felt I could handle strange. As long as he didn’t start appearing to me in dreams, I thought I could handle it.

  I had never been to Janita's house before, but like most other residences in the Junction, it wasn't very hard to find. I live in an infinitely small town, just six thousand people in the entire county, and with a knowledgeable giver of directions, finding even a remote destination can be a cinch. We're not talking Deliverance, necessarily, but some homes have been plopped down in quite backwoods locations.

  Janita lived in a small, ranch-style home off a dirt road I don't believe I'd ever traveled but one that seemed familiar nonetheless. I recognized her car in the driveway and pulled in just behind it.

  I knocked and stepped back and stood with my fingers laced together while I waited, trying to ignore the smell of pepper in the air.

  The door opened, and an impossibly old man stood in its wake. His skin was a rich brown, and though he hunched, the years - however many he had lived through - had been kind to him. He was thin and muscular and his eyes darted around sharply as he sized me up. He wore a dingy old thermal undershirt and creased black slacks. A smell of something burning wafted from within the house, but the man did not seem to notice. He reminded me of a gator waiting for a tourist to be thrown from the air boat.

  "You the boy almost killed my 'Nita," he said finally. When he smiled that curious, mischievous smile, he looked a bit like John Lee Hooker.

  One of his eyelids lowered. His accent, however mild, placed him as being from somewhere else. French Louisiana, maybe. I didn't know the Laveaus very well, but I knew Janita had lived here for a long time, long enough, certainly, for any trace of an accent to wear off. The proof lay with Janita herself, whose mi
ddle Georgia drawl sounded nothing like the Cajun-ish accent of her uncle.

  "Is she here?"

  His eyes never left mine. "Nope."

  I couldn't help but glance back at the car in the drive. "She's not?"

  "That car, it's a piece of junk. Enh," he said, waving an arm. "She rode with a friend to work today. She got too much to do to be out harassing people in the middle of the day."

  "Neither of us has that luxury, I guess," I said.

  "I don't come knocking on your door. First, you come on into dreams and you think, 'Oh, that is not enough for me. I must also make my presence known in the waking world.' Is that what you thought?"

  We stood in the doorway for a minute. Finally, he said, "I reckon you want in. You gonna poke around in little Emmitt's room. That what you won't move for?"

  "Is there anything in there that might help the investigation?"

  "No. Isn’t nothing but the residue of that boy’s soul in there. It ain’t easy to live with, I tell you that much."

  I hoped for him to say something else, but he didn't. He was waiting on me again. I sighed. "Maybe I could talk to you, then. Get a sense of the dec...of Emmitt. I don't even have to come inside for that. It's a pretty day. We can stand on the porch and chat. Will that make you uncomfortable?"

  "Very well. Go ahead, then."

  "Did Emmitt have a girlfriend I could talk to? Somebody he dated?"

  The old man's mouth widened, revealing unusually white and straight teeth. He laughed, and it was uproarious. Still laughing, he said, "No."

  He barely opened his mouth, and yet his laughter uncannily filled my head.

  "Do you know something that I don't, mister, uh-"

  "Kweku. It's an odd name, I know, but it is a family name. 'Nita, she the only one matters, and she call me Kweku. Or Uncle K. It's an old name, like me. An old fellow. Name as old as speakin' itself. And no, I don't know nothing you all don't."

  "I was under the impression that coming out here would answer a whole lot of questions. That’s the way your niece made it out to be."

  Mrs. Laveau had told me in no uncertain terms that this man was bordering on telepathic. Staring at him, a muscular, stoop-shouldered artifact, made me think perhaps she might be exaggerating.

  “‘Nita, she gets the rum in her, and she goes running off at the mouth. That is what she is good at.”

  “Oh.”

  "I know plenty. And so do you. You're just going through motions to convince yourself you're right. Or that you’re not right. You think asking a bunch of white folks where they been is going to give you the answer. You already know the truth ain’t with them white folks."

  "But if proper legal action isn't taken, he walks. No retribution whatsoever. He goes scot-free. No one wins."

  "To punish the guilty, you need no court. This man, Brickmeyer, is as guilty a person as I have ever seen. He makes my stomach turn when I see him smiling on the television or in the newspaper. He is hiding something very grave, and personally I do not care if there is evidence whatsoever."

  "Even if he's not guilty?"

  He beat one hand against his chest and then pointed a long finger at mine. "What do your instincts say?"

  "I try to go by the evidence."

  "But it is not evidence that enlightens you. The real answers rise out of your dreams. Out of your soul. A man needs nothing else to be true and right in this world, or any other."

  "Dreams aren’t real."

  He smiled condescendingly. "What is reality, McKane? Is it everything we see around us? Is that reality, the things we see and feel?

  "I think so."

  "What about being drunk, young man? If a man changes the way he sees the world, then is that still reality?"

  "I don't know. I can trust the world is still there, and other people can verify it. That’s enough for me."

  "Everything you need to solve my grandnephew's murder is not in the physical world. It is why so many crimes, so many murders, go unsolved. People lean too heavily on what is in front of them."

  "What do you suggest I do?" I asked. "Go down to the station and tell them my dreams are trying to tell me who killed Emmitt Laveau?"

  "Their minds are closed, also. They inhabit only one side of life, their experiences. They solve crimes based on the past, and the past, all of history, is nothing but chained-up prisoners. You need to step outside of that view. This crime, it deals not only with the past but with the present also."

  I didn’t know quite how to answer.

  The ghost of a shrug passed across the old man's shoulders. He said, "There is an old story that is passed down in my family, of the people who first encountered white men. These white men, hundreds of years ago, they sailed into the port near my family's village, and they began to pluck the strongest men and women out of the town, like petals from a flower. They were ruthless men, and they did not accept rebellion in any form, would punish severely any person who dared to disrespect them."

  "Uh-huh. Well, Uncle K, I-"

  "When the men - there were never any women - when they did not get what they wanted, they would torture the people of the village. Once, they took an elderly man and dug out his eyes with the edge of a sword and made him eat them raw in front of the entire town. All they wanted was alcohol, which we did not have."

  "You say 'we' like you were there."

  The old man jiggled with self-contained laughter. "The same blood runs through me as run through them. I talk like I am with them all the time. Forgive me. Where was I. Ah, yes. Soon it came to be that hurting the old and infirm did nothing for their cause. The people had grown smart to their ways and would send the elderly and the strongest people out into the woods when we saw the ships trying to dock. But that did not deter them. They took to the children."

  I leaned against the doorway.

  "This is before they forced Jesus upon us, even. Since we lay near the ocean, they didn't mind dragging helpless, crying children to the edge of the water and holding them under. In the beginning, it was to make sure they sent people for the slave ships, to carry them across to America. Then, it was just for their amusement. Sometimes there would be as many as ten bodies floating in the water at a time, and the men on the ship would not allow us to bring them back in order to clean and bury them. They made sure the bodies floated away, or else they tied stones to the children's feet so they would sink."

  "That’s horrible."

  "One day, a ship dropped anchor in the distance and the boats came, but this time it was different. These men, they were afraid. They landed their small boats and then immediately threatened us - my people - with death if we did not help them."

  "Why?"

  "They were wild-eyed, crazed. Said that we had sent some children out there to terrify them, to make horrible sounds and to beat on the hull of the ship. We had done no such thing. But then we heard it ourselves, the sound of the children's voices and the cracking of wood. The men watched the ship sink before their eyes."

  "What happened then?"

  "The white men learned what it is like to be treated equally. Even now, the village of my ancestors celebrates this day, even if the ships did not stop coming."

  "And what about the children?"

  "What about the children?"

  "What explained what happened?"

  "Sometimes there is no explanation,." he said. “Or else it is...”

  He trailed off and waved one hand, as if to say the answer was out in the air somewhere.

  A breeze passed through, bringing a chill to the base of my neck. I shivered. Uncle K said, "Maybe that Brickmeyer got somebody casting spells our way. Come inside and I'll give you something." The old man chuckled and then said, "My niece, she convinced me to keep this business to myself. I told her, okay, I would. But I am not a patient man, Rolson McKane. I see things I don't intend to. Les Invisibles. All the spirits, they come to me, like Jesus seeing the faces of the unborn from the cross. It's a curse I shoulder, and the only way, in my m
ind, to rid myself is to deal with this problem. She don’t want me to handle it. I’m old, she says."

  "I figured you would shrink his head or something," I said. "She couldn't stop you from doing that, could she?"

  He stared at me contemptuously. "That's an old myth," he said, leading me into the small, dark home. I followed him into a room full of recovered spear heads and bleached animal bones. "Those are people in South America. Not Africa. Understand?"

  I nodded.

  "You're not that stupid. I hope." He shuffled through some jars filled halfway with powder, moving this and that in and out of the way, looking for something in particular. I waited behind him, eyeballing the knickknacks.

  Scanning the shelves, I saw something that made my heart seize up. An upside-down framed picture of Leland Brickmeyer leaning against the wall.

  Laveau returned with a foul-smelling concoction and told me to drink it. I obeyed out of both curiosity and obedience. Already, he seemed to hold a strange sway over me.

  I gave it a shot, but I couldn't down the whole thing. When I tried to bring the cup from my lips, he pressed two fingers under the base and raised it so I had to finish every drop.

  "What was that?" I asked, fighting off the urge to gag. It tasted like the inside of a tree trunk dredged up from the bottom of a swamp.

  He gave me a mock glum expression. "You are a sick man, Rolson McKane. Very sick. I see it all over you, inside you. This, this is a cure-all. Lord knows you could use it."

  I thought he was having one over on me.

  "Is that what the powders and herbs tell you?"

  "It don't take a medicine man to see what’s wrong with you. It just takes a pair of eyes worth lookin' through, and I can tell there's something wrong with you."

  "Well, thanks for that."

  "Welcome. It ain't a secret. The troubles you're having, they work like evidence. But seeing you, my word, if that don't beat all I've seen."

  "I think that's enough."

  "Indeed. Just know that the sickness, you carry it with you everywhere. If you don't get it under control, it will infect everyone you know, everyone you love. Your problem is that everyone else you know is blind enough that they can’t see how fouled up with a curse you are.”