Heart of Lies

by Jill Marie Landis

  “Why ever not?”

  “We had one,” Maddie said, feigning a serious expression, “but a gator ate it.”

  That, she thought, should keep Miss Perkins from wandering off anytime soon.

  At Penelope’s insistence, Maddie brushed out the child’s hair and tried to restyle the crushed curls. She replaced a decorative silver comb in the shape of a bow tangled in the long strands.

  “I had two of those,” Penelope informed her. “Did you steal one? Those little sparkles are real diamonds.”

  Maddie looked at the finely wrought piece. “I did not steal the other one. You probably lost it on the road somewhere.”

  Penelope folded her arms, clearly angry. “That comb was worth a lot of money.”

  “I’m sure,” Maddie agreed. “But I don’t have it.”

  “One of those big brutes probably took it.”

  Brutes? Maddie thought. It was a perfect description of the twins. She bit back a smile. “Has anyone ever told you to mind your tongue or it will get you in trouble?” she asked.

  “My papa likes me to speak my mind. He says standing up for myself will get me far in life.”

  Maddie pondered that as she continued fighting Penelope’s hair.

  “Nanny does my hair better,” Penelope noted, “but I suppose this will have to do.”

  “Indeed,” Maddie agreed. “I’m sure you’re used to far better. You have a grand house, do you?” Maddie twisted up another lock of the child’s thick hair.

  “Oh, very grand. One day I heard Papa tell someone he stole it, but when I reminded him stealing is a sin, he explained he didn’t actually steal it. He meant that he was able to buy Langetree Plantation by paying the back taxes. Before that he and Mama and I lived in New York. Did you know that saying you stole something can be a figure of speech?”

  “I do now.” Maddie wanted to add that there had been carpetbaggers getting things for a steal all over the South since the war. Mr. Perkins was not the only one getting a whole lot for practically nothing.

  “Sometimes Papa says he got it for a song. Can you imagine getting something for a song? How silly.”

  Silly? Dexter had always bragged that Maddie was his little golden songbird. She had earned them quite a bit of coin singing on street corners until he gave her other, more important duties. Her own childhood had been nothing like little Miss Perkins’s; that much was certain.

  “You’d be real pretty if you had a nice gown on and fixed up your hair some,” Penelope decided.

  Maddie looked down at her navy serge dress, one of the few articles of clothing she owned. There wasn’t a hint of adornment on it. Nothing she owned was what Penelope Perkins would consider “nice.”

  Penelope looked over her shoulder at Maddie. Her violet eyes widened, sparkling with unshed tears, yet she raised her heart-shaped face in defiance and looked Maddie straight in the eyes. “When exactly did you say I would get to leave?”

  “I didn’t,” Maddie reminded her. She took a deep breath and wondered how long she had before the twins returned.

  CHAPTER 4

  Long before noon the next day, Tom was up and out of his apartment. He bought a newspaper from a young vendor on the nearest corner, then caught a hansom cab to the New Orleans Police French Quarter Precinct. Except for a growth of dark stubble, he appeared nothing more than a well-dressed man out for a stroll.

  It wasn’t long before he was seated in the office of Detective Frank Morgan of the metropolitan police. In America’s most cosmopolitan city, where trouble simmered like a pot of gumbo, Frank Morgan was a man who spent day and night fighting a losing battle against crime. He wore the expression of a man overworked and underpaid.

  Morgan sat back when Tom walked in and smiled. He studied Tom for a moment. “I was just going to have someone get me some coffee from the cart across the street. Would you like one? Had anything to eat yet this morning?”

  “No food, please. Coffee sounds good.”

  Hot café au lait from a street vendor. Tom welcomed the thought but doubted it would soothe him. Closeted in the silence of Morgan’s office, he hoped he wasn’t wasting precious time chasing his tail.

  Frank stepped out and spoke to one of his men. He was back in no time and sat down behind his desk again.

  “Coffee will be here momentarily,” he promised. “What can I do for you, Tom? Been a while since we’ve worked together.”

  “You ever hear of a Dexter Grande?”

  “A little, but I’ve no idea how much is true. He was supposedly the mastermind behind a gang of child thieves for almost thirty years. He was elusive as smoke, which should have been impossible for a man who reportedly had up to twenty children of all ages working for him, but somehow he managed.”

  “So it’s true.”

  “He called them his tribe. They were a well-trained band of pickpockets, hotel cat burglars, and sneak thieves. They considered Dexter their father and were completely loyal to him. They ran the streets like stray cats and were just as elusive. Impossible to catch and because of their ages, impossible to convict.”

  “They weren’t all his, were they?”

  “Some may have been. They all used the name Grande.”

  “How is it no one really knows much about him?”

  “This city has had more to deal with than petty thievery over the past twenty years. An informant we had claimed they were mostly orphans attracted by the promise of shelter, hot meals, and a place to call home.”

  “Is the tribe still operating?”

  “Not that I know of. Grande died around two years ago.”

  The coffee arrived. The man who brought it needed to talk to Morgan. Once again the detective stepped out of his office, leaving Tom alone with his thoughts. He inhaled the scent of the café au lait before he took a sip.

  Dexter Grande’s tribe was just one more New Orleans legend in a long history of Kaintuck river men, pirates, cutthroats, and killers who mingled in a city perfumed by magnolias and the pungent musk of the swamps. The city’s violent and colorful past was part of its mystique. The need for law and order was what kept him here.

  Frank Morgan was back looking even more harried. “Why are you so interested in Grande?”

  Tom quickly outlined his search for Megan Lane and said that more than one source had told him about Grande collecting children. “I thought you might have a lead for me,” Tom admitted. “I have a feeling the missionary I spoke to, the former tribe member, knew more than she’d say about the Lane woman.”

  “You think a missionary would lie?”

  “No, but I think she may have evaded the truth. She admitted there were so many children there over the years it would be hard to know.”

  “My hunch is you’ll never find her.” Frank finished his coffee and started shuffling through the paperwork on his desk. Tom knew the man needed to get back to work. “When you walked in here I thought maybe you’d been hired for the Perkins’s case.” Frank picked up a sheet of paper covered with his handwritten scrawl. “This is a report on a kidnapping that happened a few days ago. Figured the father would have hired private help by now, seeing as how we’re notoriously overwhelmed around here.”

  “A kidnapping.” Tom’s gut spiraled.

  During his training before the war, Tom had worked with a seasoned agent to solve the kidnapping of a wealthy congressman’s son. The man was a Northerner who’d come South for the very purpose of being voted into office during the Reconstruction. A ransom was demanded, yet before Tom and his partner uncovered a single lead, the child had turned up dead. Though they eventually tracked down the murderers, he was still haunted by the case.

  Allan Pinkerton himself had come down to New Orleans to convince Tom not to resign, but as far as assuaging Tom’s guilt—no one but God could forgive him. Tom still hadn’t forgiven himself.

  “What have you got to go on? Anything?” Tom wanted to know.

  “The child and her nanny were traveling together in a family
coach when two armed and masked men rode up and demanded that the driver stop. They asked for money and ended up taking the child. The nanny said they looked a lot alike. She thought they might have been brothers.”

  Tom felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

  “They looked alike?”

  Morgan lowered the page and looked at Tom. “Yeah. Why?”

  “You ever hear of the Grande twins?”

  Frank’s gaze was suddenly riveted on him. “Grande twins.”

  “Yeah. You heard of them?”

  “No. Do you know where they are?” Frank’s gaze shifted back to the paper and then to Tom.

  “No. I was only interested because I hoped they might lead me to an older woman connected to the tribe. A woman named Anita Russo. The missionary told me the twins might know where to find her. She said if the Grandes are around, they’re probably dangerous.”

  “How old are they?”

  “No idea. You have anything solid on this kidnapping?”

  “Nothing. Unfortunately, I’ve got far more to worry about than one missing child. Unless she turns up dead, I can’t spare more than a couple of men to do the footwork. I’m trying to keep a lid on a lit powder keg here.”

  “If I find the Grande twins for you, you can haul them in for questioning on the kidnapping. All I want is a chance to get some information that might help me solve my own case.”

  “Always happy to let you make my job easier. There’ll be a big reward posted for the girl in tomorrow’s paper. If they turn out to be the kidnappers, you can collect the reward and we can close a case for a change.”

  “The minute I find the Grande twins, if I find them, I’ll contact you for backup. Can I count on you to do the same?” Tom asked.

  Frank stood and Tom got to his feet. “Of course.” They shook hands to seal the bargain. “Just don’t try to bring them in alone.”

  “Don’t worry. I want them alive.”

  “So does the child’s father.”

  “Take care of yourself, Frank.”

  “Heed some of that advice for yourself.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The pirogue slid across the top of the opaque water, the silence around its occupants broken only by an occasional splash from the long, forked pole Maddie used to propel the dugout craft. The sky above the bayou was cloudless and deep blue, the morning full of the promise of pleasant fall weather. Intent upon keeping the pirogue balanced and running true, she kept her gaze upon the water ahead of her.

  When she was first learning, it had taken weeks before she felt confident maneuvering the craft. But she’d realized early on that if she was going to move freely about the swamp, she would have to become expert at poling.

  She glanced down at the child seated cross-legged near the bow. When Penelope started trailing her fingertips in the water, Maddie nearly lost her balance.

  “Penelope!”

  The girl jerked her hand out of the water and crossed her arms in a silent pout. Maddie’s gaze strayed to the water’s edge where tall reeds met the lime-green duckweed floating on the surface. A huge alligator lazed in the sun watching them glide slowly by through slitted eyes.

  The child had been in Maddie’s care for two days. Long enough for her to come to a decision about both her future and the girl’s. One that wasn’t going to please Terrance in the least.

  When she had nearly reached her destination, Maddie turned toward an opening to a second narrow channel cutting through the maze of waterways. She stopped poling to scout a cabin a few yards away.

  “It’s hot out here,” Penelope groused. “I need a drink of water in the worst way. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.”

  “Hush,” Maddie whispered.

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “But …”

  “Hush, now. You’ll get that water directly, but for now just enjoy the sights.”

  Penelope whispered back. “Sights? You call weeds and muddy water something to see? It’s very boring out here. I’m sick of wearing the same clothes every day and sick to death of the bayou.”

  Maddie tried to ignore her. Across the water, the cabin door opened and a woman in her late sixties with thick salt-and-pepper hair walked out onto the dock and pulled up a crab trap. The woman dumped the contents into a bucket, then dropped the trap back into the water. She placed her hands on the small of her back and stretched, gazing around for a few seconds before she walked back inside.

  Maddie righted the pole again, planted the fork deep into the swamp, and backed the pirogue out into the main channel. Not five minutes later they had reached the dock in front of the cabin.

  “What are we doing here?” Penelope wanted to know.

  “I’m going to visit a friend. She’ll give you a drink of water.”

  Penelope eyed the place suspiciously. “Are those men here?”

  “No.”

  They reached the pilings and Maddie called out, “Hooey! Anybody home?”

  She called out twice more before the door opened and Anita Russo stepped out, wiping her hands on the stained apron over her mismatched skirt and blouse. She looked down at Maddie.

  “Well, look who’s here.” Her smile faded when she saw the child. “What are you up to, Madeline?”

  “Ha!” Penelope shouted, pointing at Maddie. “Your name is Madeline!”

  For two days Maddie had refused to tell Penelope her name. The less the child could tell the authorities later, the better.

  “What’s going on?” Anita demanded.

  “I’ll explain later,” Maddie said.

  “May I have a drink of water?” Penelope asked. “I’m really thirsty.”

  The woman looked to Maddie, who nodded.

  “'Course you can. Let me help you climb out of there, and you can come in and set a spell. If I’d known you were comin', I’d have done you up some flat cakes.”

  “Maybe you could do me some up right now. I’m thirsty and starving,” Penelope assured her.

  They went inside and as soon as she’d had a glass of water, Penelope turned her attention to a balding old coon dog lying in the corner. She asked permission to pet the dog and, once it was given, knelt down beside the old hound and began to chatter as if the dog understood every word.

  Anita gathered up the makings for flat cakes, then walked back to the table and leaned toward Maddie.

  “You want to tell me what’s goin’ on?” she whispered.

  Maddie had known Anita Russo for as long as she could remember. The self-taught healer with a knowledge of herbs and potions had cared for the tribe’s children as if they were her own. It was Anita who had delivered both of Maddie’s children. It was Anita who had held her tight and rocked her as she mourned them. Anita was the closest thing to a mother Maddie could recall.

  Maddie leaned an elbow against the table. She shook her head and rested it on her hand. “The twins brought that child home two nights ago,” she said.

  “Oh, no. I’m afraid to ask why.”

  “Terrance is hoping to collect a reward for her. Either that or he’ll demand a ransom.” She shrugged. “He may not give her back at all. He might even start a new tribe.”

  Anita made no comment as she poured herself a cup of coffee thick as oil and sat down across from Maddie. She watched Penelope pull the dog’s ears up and attempt to tie them together. The dog’s tongue lolled out of the side of its mouth.

  “She’s a beauty, that one,” Anita observed.

  Maddie nodded. “I can’t let him do this, Anita. I’m through with that life for good.”

  She believed it was over, but the kidnapping had complicated things. She knew without a doubt that if she ever wanted a life free and clear of the past, she was going to have to walk away from the twins and start over. What she didn’t know was how to accomplish that without a penny to her name.

  “Changing your life would be like trying to shake your own shadow.” Anita fell silent and watched
Maddie, waiting for her to go on.

  Maddie hadn’t realized how age was catching up to her mentor. She had always imagined that Anita would be there to give aid and advice. But seeing her now with her stooped shoulders and face lined with the tracks of time, Maddie realized with sorrow that Anita would not be there for her forever.

  Maddie forced her thoughts back to the little girl across the room. She lowered her voice to a hushed whisper.

  “I can’t do this, ‘Nita. Look at that child. She’s not like the others. She’s from money. I hear it in every word she says. Her folks have the wealth and power to move heaven and earth to get her back. I have a bad feeling about this one. You always told me not to ignore what my heart says.”

  “If you came for advice —”

  Penelope turned their way. The old woman paused and then rose stiffly, walked over to the dry sink against the wall, and dug into a pan to retrieve a stale biscuit. She held it out to Penelope. “That old hound loves these. Give her this.”

  The child ran across the room, grabbed the biscuit, and went back to sit on the filthy floor beside the dog. Anita returned to the table.

  “What will you do with her?”

  “I was hoping I could leave her here until I can take her back home. I’m afraid the twins will come back late today. At the latest, tomorrow. When they do, I’ll convince them she ran off and lead them on a wild-goose chase. Once they leave, I’ll take her back.”

  “I’m not up to keeping a child around here. I’m not as spry as I used to be.”

  “If I took off with her right now, they’d track me down. If you take her, I can stall them until they leave again.”

  “They could be back already. If they find you gone, they’ll figure you’re either here or at the trading post and come looking for you.”

  Maddie shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with me bringing her along on a social call, is there?”

  “Terrance don’t have your gentle heart, Maddie. He’ll have my hide if he finds out I double-crossed him,” Anita said. “He’ll have yours, too, if you go against him. How you gonna keep him from killing you?”