Plunder: A Faye Longchamp Mystery #7 (Faye Longchamp Series)

by Evans, Mary Anna

  “Because the things you find are like treasure, and you don’t want to waste them on candy bars or movie tickets.” Faye stated this as if it were fact and not a question. It was the way she would have felt in Amande’s shoes.

  Amande didn’t contradict her. She just nodded once and groped further back in the drawer.

  “This is where I keep the good stuff…” She opened a protective folder and showed them dozens of coins minted during the first half of the twentieth century. “They’re beat up and not worth much now. But they’re all silver. I figure they’re only going to be worth more and more. I’m thinking I can sell them to buy my books when I go to college.

  Reaching so far back into the drawer that Faye heard her hand bump its back, Amande drew out a small wooden box and opened it. Inside, cradled in yet more snowy cotton, rested two very old chunks of silver. And “chunk” was the right word. The objects were vaguely disk-shaped, at best. Faye only recognized what they were because she’d seen very old coins before.

  The irregular shapes of the blackened and corroded silver chunks were typical of coinage from the early days of Spain’s invasion of the Americas. Silver had been formed into cylindrical rods, then sliced into rounds. The image always made Faye think of slice-and-bake cookies.

  The images stamped into the front and back of these disks had often been equally crude. With a magnifier and some cleaning solution, Faye would have had a fighting chance to pinpoint the age of Amande’s coins, but she didn’t offer. She had the feeling that Amande would prefer to do it herself, even if it took her a lot of time and effort to learn how.

  “I found these when I was a little girl,” Amande said. She held up one of the coins. “I found this one underwater near an island beach, just after the tide went out. This one—” She held up the other one. “I found it buried nearby.”

  Faye was impressed that the girl could tell the two coins apart. They’d look like identical twins to most amateurs. Amande had picked up on the subtle differences in size and weight, possibly without even thinking about it.

  “I remember the day I found them. Grandmère had taken me on a picnic to a little island somewhere out in Barataria Bay. She says she doesn’t remember which one. I wish she did, but it only makes sense that she wouldn’t remember one picnic from a hundred others. I guess. It was years ago, and for a long time I didn’t realize what I had.”

  “The sextant came from right where we were walking today. It was just a couple of years ago, so I knew enough by then to understand what a cool thing I was looking at,” she said, holding it up to the light. “When I saw what I had, it set me on fire to find more. Ever since then, I’ve walked the shoreline around here every day, and I’ve found all this silver money,” she gestured toward the folder, “but I’ve never seen anything like the sextant or like either of these.” She held the oldest coins out. “Do you think they’re worth anything? I need college money.”

  Faye took them, handing one to Joe. He had the sharpest vision of anyone she knew. If there was an identifying mark on either coin that was visible without magnification, he would be able to see it. Several minutes spent holding them up to the light and squinting convinced both Faye and Joe that there was nothing to see. Amande spent all those minutes detailing her plan for finishing her education.

  “I left school last year, when I found out that the online school would let me take more advanced placement classes than my brick-and-mortar school would allow.” She waved her hands at Faye and Joe like she was trying to catch their attention. They were listening while they worked, but they must not have looked like it to Amande.

  “Those AP classes are important! Every one I take earns me college credit. No tuition. No dormitory bill, because I’m living right here. Free books, even. Look.”

  She grasped Faye by the elbow and dragged her over to her desk, where a basket of old potsherds held down a stack of papers and photos. Pulling a piece of notebook paper covered in handwriting from the pile, she laid it on her desk beside the computer and smoothed a hand across all those words.

  “This is my schedule for the rest of high school, including summer classes. I’ve signed up for every AP course that the online school will let me take, even the ones that sound really boring. I actually signed up for AP Accounting.” She said “accounting” as if the word tasted bad. “It won’t be much use to me as a historian or archaeologist, but it’ll give me credit toward my bachelor’s degree. I figure I can get almost halfway there by taking AP courses. To get the rest of my degree, I’ll just have to figure something out. I can get a job. I ought to qualify for some grants, and maybe I can borrow some money. Or sell a kidney.”

  “Keep your kidneys. You’re smart enough to find a better way to pay for your education than that.” Faye took the paper. “You’ll be glad you took accounting if you wind up being a consultant like me. Our business has to file taxes and make payroll and bid jobs all the time, and I never learned any of that stuff.”

  “She made me take accounting so I could do it for her,” Joe said, still fingering the old stone tools.

  Faye didn’t even look up. “Somebody had to take it. Might as well be you.”

  “You won’t like it when I cut your salary.”

  Faye punched him on the arm, but she still didn’t look up from Amande’s planned school schedule. She read it. She thought about it a minute. Then she read it again, before asking, “Are you sure you want to do this? When do you plan to sleep?”

  For the first time, Faye saw teenaged rebellion on the girl’s face. “Maybe you’ve always had the money to do the things that were important to you, but…”

  “No. I haven’t. I was thirty-five before I had the money to finish my bachelor’s degree. I wish I’d had this kind of opportunity, and my hat’s off to you for going after it.”

  Faye resisted the urge to add, “Just don’t forget to enjoy being sixteen,” because she figured Amande wouldn’t listen. She didn’t seem to be the kind of girl who got wrapped up in proms and cheerleading squads, anyway.

  Amande took the paper. The rebellious expression was gone. “It took you that long to finish your first degree, and you still went for your PhD? Was it worth it?”

  Faye nodded silently, then she went back to studying Amande’s ambitious plan for her own schooling, trying to decide whether it was merely ill-conceived or whether it was actually suicidal.

  Chapter Five

  Miranda pulled a bottle of rum out of the sideboard behind her. Faye heard the seal break as the old woman twisted off the bottle’s cap, a good indicator that the rum was less likely to be doctored with voodoo boneyard dust than, say, this cup of tea she was sipping. This did not make her feel any better about drinking anything in Miranda’s creepy presence that could cloud her judgment.

  The old woman had interrupted Joe and Faye and Amande as they rifled through the girl’s treasures, sticking her head through the door and saying simply, “Come.” And they’d come, without questioning her and without dragging their feet.

  Why? Amande was accustomed to obeying Miranda’s curt orders, but Joe and Faye were of legal age, and then some. They didn’t have to do what they were told, but people like Miranda got their way because they understood that most people avoided confrontations whenever possible.

  Everyone crowded once more around the little table, which was now spread with a pretty tablecloth and lit with candles. Miranda sloshed some rum in her tea, then did the same to Dauphine’s, without asking her permission. Next, she offered the bottle around the table and Joe poured a splash in his cup.

  Faye got the sense that he was more than ready for a little stress relief, but she put her hand over her own cup. “Somebody’s gotta be sober if Michael wakes up in the middle of the night.” An ounce of rum wasn’t going to render Faye unfit for motherhood, but Faye didn’t like being impaired, even a little, when Miranda was around.

  “You come here to learn about the history of this place?” Miranda looked around like a woman
who was thrilled to have a captive audience who had never heard her old stories. “Well, know that the ground is never firm beneath you in this here wet land. But there is power at Head of Passes, where the Mississippi breaks up and flows willy-nilly to the sea. Power flows down the river and empties the heart of the land. Power and riches. Why else would the pirates call this place home?”

  She cocked her head and paused, as if she were preaching to converts who were expected to sing a chorus of “Amen.” Faye, Joe, Dauphine, and Amande disappointed her, but Michael took his pacifier out of his mouth and burbled softly. Miranda seemed to think this was good enough.

  “Jean Lafitte his own self built his lair nearby, on Grand Terre, at the mouth of Barataria Bay. And other pirates. And murderers and thieves and slaves, yes. Let me tell you about the pirate Gola George, stolen from Africa by slavers. It took ten men, no…twelve men…to get George on that slave ship, and you’d best believe that George hurt those men, every one.”

  She held out the rum bottle, intending to top off Joe’s teacup, but he took it from her hand and poured himself a polite drizzle. Faye found that she had unconsciously assumed Dauphine’s pose, legs crossed tight and teacup hugged to her chest, with one hand draped over the cup’s rim.

  “By the time the slave ship was two days at sea, Gola George had made friends with the sailor who fed the Africans stored below decks. This sailor, with the name of Henry, was young, but he was as smart as George was strong. He owed the ship’s captain nothing—hated him, in truth—because the captain had ordered him kidnapped from the docks where he worked. He’d told his men to steal Henry, specially, because he knew the boy could read and write and add, and he needed someone to help him manage the ship’s affairs. Someplace in England it was, though I never knew exactly where Henry come from. Henry never saw the place or his people again, not in his long life. It weren’t hard for Gola George and his whisperings to sway Henry into mutiny.”

  Michael was standing beneath the table, clamped between Joe’s legs, but he wanted to be wandering loose around the room. His rebellious bleat interrupted Miranda’s story. Amande reached over and clasped Michael around the chest, wordlessly asking Joe if it was okay to take him. Joe nodded and handed the baby over.

  The world-weary set of Amande’s shoulders and the angle of her head said, just as clearly as if she’d said it out loud, “I’ve heard all your stories ten thousand times.”

  She took Michael out on deck and, as she went, a cool breeze drifted in, carrying Amande’s words. “Let’s go out and look at the moon! Would you like that, little boy? Here, give me that pacifier. You don’t need it…”

  And the door closed, cutting off Amande’s baby-pleasing monologue.

  How long had they been cooped up on this little boat? It must be nearly sundown. Maybe Amande and Michael could see the moon out there. Faye wished she could think of a graceful way to join them.

  Miranda never faltered when Amande left. The woman hardly drew a breath as the old tale tumbled out of her, uncontrolled. Faye was impressed, in spite of herself. She’d heard many people tell stories, but not so many of them were true storytellers. Miranda had that gift, and it showed in the changing timbre of her voice and in the melodic shape of her sentences. She knew when to pause and wait for her audience to lean forward, wanting more. And she knew when to make them stop waiting. Like any artist, she knew when to deliver the goods.

  “When the open ocean was behind them and America wasn’t nothing but a dark line across the water in front of them, they struck. Henry, the scrawny little sailor in charge of keeping the slaves alive, held power over the whole ship, ‘cause he held the keys. He unlocked the shackles of the biggest prisoners, knowing full well that they planned to kill the men he’d worked beside for years. George, who spoke the men’s language, told the other prisoners to wait for his word. One short hour after he give it, the blood of every white man aboard except young Henry flowed across that ship’s deck.”

  Faye was intrigued by Miranda’s story in spite of herself, but she had no idea how long the woman was planning to talk. She didn’t intend to spend the whole night listening to stories and fending off offerings of rum. She decided to pretend that she thought Henry’s mutiny was the end of Miranda’s story, when she knew full well that the old woman wanted to tell them every last thing that happened to Henry and Gola George, for the rest of their lives.

  Making eye contact with Joe and Dauphine, she rose and signaled to Joe that it was time to make their escape. When the scream came, she was just beginning the ritual words of parting drummed into her by her mother and grandmother.

  “Thank you so much for inviting us. The tea was just lovely. We—”

  Amande’s scream pierced the houseboat’s seaworthy walls. It rattled Faye’s heart in her chest. This was no adolescent silliness.

  Picturing a baby gone overboard, Faye was out the door in a breath, leaving a broken teacup on the floor behind her. Joe moved just as quickly.

  They arrived on deck to find a happy Michael, his chubby fingers tightly laced through Amande’s curls. Amande, on the other hand, was stooped over the boat’s gunwale, staring down at the water.

  The upturned face of a corpse stared back.

  Miranda shrieked at the sight of it, and her masterful presence evaporated in the face of death.

  “My son! My son…my Hebert…” She put one foot on the lower railing that encircled the houseboat, as if to scale it like a ladder. Her heavy shoe clanked on the metal rail, and the sound reverberated. “He needs me. Look! Look how bad he needs his maman.”

  Joe caught her around the waist, keeping her from throwing herself into the water with her son’s corpse. In the same motion, he gently pushed Amande and Michael back, away from the railing. “You can’t help him, ma’am. Look. Faye’s calling 911. Help will come. You just stay where you are.”

  The old woman struggled, but she was no match for Joe, who kept murmuring, “You can’t help him. He’s not in any pain. You need to stay with Amande. She needs you.”

  Miranda never stopped trying to throw herself into the water, but there was no way for her to overcome Joe. She just kept flailing at him with her old lady hands, and he just kept taking her slaps and punches, quietly repeating, “You can’t help him, but Amande needs you.”

  ***

  Faye parted the curtains of their rented cabin’s kitchen window and used her binoculars to look outside. It wasn’t the first time she’d watched as a murder investigation was launched.

  She had stayed at the scene long enough to be interviewed by the deputy so, while everyone had been asked to stay well away, she’d still seen more of the retrieval of Hebert’s body than she would have liked. She saw the terrible wounds on the big man’s back, so she knew that he hadn’t drowned. And those wounds didn’t look like they’d been gnawed on by fish, so she knew that he hadn’t been dead long. But she’d known that already.

  Faye had seen a body fished out of the Matanzas River after days in the water. Hebert’s face had still looked…human. He’d been strangely pale for a burly man who had likely spent big chunks of time with no roof over his head, but the grievous wounds on his back explained that his pallor was due to blood loss. Hebert’s corpse had belonged to a big burly man whose life had bled out of him, but it didn’t belong to a man who had bobbed in the water, dead, long enough for the flesh to lose its turgor and begin to decay.

  Her interview had passed quickly. There were plenty of witnesses to account for her whereabouts all day. The deputy had asked her a few simple questions.

  What did she remember about the minutes surrounding the actual discovery of Hebert’s body?

  How did the people around her behave when the body was first discovered? Miranda, Amande, Dauphine, Joe…was there anything odd about their behavior?

  Did she remember seeing anyone else? Maybe a fisherman had been sitting on a nearby boat or some drunks had emerged from the marina store with a fresh case of beer? No?

&nbs
p; Once she’d satisfied the investigator that she’d seen nothing important and that she’d never met the dead man and that she’d had no idea he even existed until he floated into view, she was free to go. She’d given Amande a good-bye hug, gathered Michael and his diaper bag, and retreated to the cabin. A murder scene was no place for a baby. It was also no place for a young girl, but she wasn’t responsible for the girl.

  For the first half hour, she’d thought Joe and Dauphine would come walking in the door at any time, but she’d thought wrong. Surely their testimony was no different from hers. Why should their interrogation take longer?

  As she sat alone in a tiny and flimsily built cabin, listening to the quiet night, she came to realize why her interview had been so perfunctory. Hebert had stood a foot taller than five-foot-nothing Faye, and he had weighed nearly three times as much as her hundred pounds. It was physically impossible for Faye to be the killer, or at least it was physically unreasonable. Joe, on the other hand, was more than big enough to have done Hebert harm. Dauphine’s two hundred pounds of mambo concealed enough muscle to take on Hebert, though her odds would have been better if she’d caught him by surprise. Faye couldn’t imagine that they were serious suspects, but she understood why they rated more careful investigation than she did. It was just too bad that she couldn’t force her imagination to stop right there.

  As the sound of Michael’s soft and rhythmic breaths filled the cabin, Faye found herself imagining the kind of person who was capable of knifing a big streetwise man to death. Since she knew that this person was neither Joe nor Dauphine, she was left to spend her evening hours with an imaginary killer.

  That killer was somewhere near. The good condition of Hebert’s body made this clear. He…She?…could be creeping stealthily through the marsh behind her cabin, looking for a safe and dry place to hide. As Faye waited for Joe and Dauphine to come invade her aloneness, she listened for the sploosh of a fleeing foot in the mud or the telltale scratching of a pick attacking her door’s lock.