by C. L. Bevill
And it was going to be her grave.
The second thing she discovered was much worse. It was already someone else’s grave.
Mignon let out a shriek of horror when she saw the decomposed face of her mother’s corpse. Garlande Thibeaux and Luc St. Michel hadn’t gone very far at all. The flashlight fell from her hand and went out when it hit the dirt beside her.
After a moment Mignon retrieved the mini-mag. The cistern hadn’t been used for decades, and it certainly wasn’t in use in 1975. Ruff had water delivered to the five-hundred-gallon tank beside the house, instead of using the antiquated cistern. Looking at the walls, she could see large cracks radiating up the sides, as well as piles of cement that had fallen to the bottom over the years.
The two bodies were nearly skeletons; only a bit of flesh and clothing remained. Garlande’s red hair was vivid under the flashlight’s dim beam, and Luc’s blonde hair was just as bright as if it had been washed that very day. Two skeletal grins flashed at her silently. There was a twinkle of gold as she saw the saint’s medallion still hanging around Luc’s neck, and if Mignon had gotten close enough to turn it over she knew she would see her mother’s initials on the back. This was the same necklace that Luc had grabbed back from Eleanor, the one he obviously had treasured. They would be together eternally, their figures mingled together in death.
Mignon closed her eyes and turned toward Eugenie, trying to repress a surge of nausea. Jourdain had removed the cement cap and pushed them both in. Mignon must have fallen onto Eugenie’s body. It was the only reason she didn’t have a dozen broken bones from the fifteen-foot drop into the bottom of the tank.
Mignon waved the flashlight around and surveyed her situation. Fifteen feet of sheer cement walls with nothing to grip onto. The bottom had once been full of water, which had evaporated slowly, leaving a layer of silt. Once a windlass had towered over the tank to pull the water out with a tin bucket, but the windlass was long gone, and Jourdain must have heaved the cement cap back on top of the hole. Not that it mattered, because there was nothing for her to perch on in order to try to push it off. Even the large cracks in the walls provided no place to hold on to.
Mignon turned off the flashlight to save the batteries. She knew that she was stuck and laughed inanely, the sound echoing back at her ruthlessly. The air was dank in the cistern, dank and chilly. She would die of exposure before she died of thirst.
Life’s little ironies were coming back to haunt her. She lay inside a tank devised to hold water, but would have none. She had come back to LaValle seeking answers and had found every one of her questions resolved, but there would be no one to tell. She had faced her mother’s murderer, only to have the woman inadvertently save her own life.
Did Miner Poteet hear the gunshots? Wouldn’t he come to investigate?
If he had been home. If his hearing aid had been in. If his granddaughter hadn’t taken him to church. If. If. If.
Mignon began to scream. She screamed until her voice grew hoarse and then she screamed some more.
She turned on the flashlight again and stared at the walls of the cistern, studying the random cracks that crisscrossed the walls. Heat and the shifting earth had caused many, and the age of the cement had caused some more. Mignon thought that if she could collapse one side of the cistern she might be able to crawl or dig her way out. On the other hand, she might be buried alive. Standing up awkwardly and holding her side, she followed the system of cracks up the walls with the tiny flashlight, looking for the ones that were the deepest and the most pervasive.
One ran almost the entire length of one wall and was a foot wide at the bottom. Mignon aimed her foot and kicked it like she would kick a door open. There was a dull thud as her foot made contact. The wall rippled just a bit and cement dust floated down around her, but the movement caused a wave of agony to undulate down her side. She grimaced and aimed another kick at the wall, this time harder. The wall groaned. A chunk the size of a fist bounced off her arm. She looked up and thought that the cap might have shifted a bit. She kicked a third time, her foot landing flat up against the wall, all of her weight behind it, and the wall shuddered. The crack widened and bits of debris rained down.
But she’d caused the bleeding in her side to start again, and a trickle of blood dripped down her flesh. The world shifted around her as if everything was off kilter and she knew she was moments away from fainting. Mignon rested against the wall farthest away from the crack and turned the flashlight off. She would let the bleeding stop and then try again. The wall would be forced to collapse if only she kept at it.
After a while she slipped into unconsciousness, and words were whispered into her ears.
“Three blind mice, see how they run! They all ran after the farmer’s wife. She cut off their tails with a carving knife. Did you ever see such a sight in your life, as three blind mice?”
It was her mother’s wondrous voice, a heady voice full of life and love. A smile crossed Mignon’s lips in the blackness. She had never believed that she would remember as much as she had about her mother. She could smell her mother’s distinctive perfume in her nostrils, the smell of lemons and posies, mixed with the unique scent of a grown woman. There was also the scent of bleach and cookie dough, along with other odors, all things she associated with Mama. And if it were possible, a cool hand soothed her forehead, gently reassuring her.
Her eyes opened with snap. Was it possible? Her breath came in frightened gasps and seemed to burn in her chest. She fumbled for the flashlight. The light went on immediately. She half expected to see someone sitting beside her, reaching out to her with ghostly fingers, touching her.
But there was no one there. Mignon was alone in the dark pit.
“It was my imagination,” she told herself, simply to hear the sound of her own voice.
However, there was a faint, lingering scent of lemon and musk. It tantalized her nostrils and then it was gone. Mignon swung the flashlight around but knew that she was alone. There wasn’t even a breeze in this grave. There was nothing here but her and three dead people. And if she started thinking about that, she would be screaming again, and it wouldn’t be for help.
The flashlight flickered. Mignon looked at it solemnly and turned it off once more.
It was hard to tell how much time had passed. It might have been hours or days. She dozed and she woke. She screamed for help sporadically. She listened for signs that people were above her, perhaps searching for her. She kicked at the side of the wall several times, but she was getting weak and wanted to reserve her strength. Even Geraud St. Michel would have been a welcome face above her in the hole that led to freedom.
There was another period of unconsciousness, in which she wasn’t asleep but she wasn’t awake either. She knew that she was going to die in this place, alone and undiscovered, with so much to tell. Then that throaty voice whispered to her again, undulating in and out of her conscious mind like a serpentine creature. “Mignon, chère, be brave, my darling one. There was an old woman, lived under a hill; and if she’s not gone, she lives there still …”
Mignon sat up and air ripped through her mouth in a soundless gasp. Someone was in this place with her! Someone was here! And God help her if she didn’t know exactly who it was.
She suddenly realized that she was still holding Eugenie’s bracelet, the one that Jourdain had searched for high and low, because it was so unique it could be traced back to Eleanor St. Michel. The same bracelet that she told Jourdain she’d left with Eleanor. He was a clever man and would have thought to ensure that it was true. Once he found out that it was not, he would be back for it.
The cement cap began to move above her. There was a low grunt of exertion as someone levered it away from the top of the cistern. The piece of cement fell heavily on the ground next to the top of the tank and the walls shook, shedding cement like a snake’s skin, some pieces larger than Mignon’s head. She realized suddenly that it was on the verge of folding in on itself. Light exploded int
o the tank and Mignon blinked awkwardly. She didn’t know how long she had been down here, but it seemed like forever. There was a dark shape in the opening above her, someone who stared down at her silently.
For a long moment, she thought that it was her mother’s ghostly form, coming to rescue her beloved daughter. Then Mignon regained her senses and knew that it was Jourdain. His gray hair, brown eyes, and almost saturnine features gazed down at Mignon broodingly. She sat as still as a corpse and kept her eyes cracked open just a bit.
After another moment Mignon could see that he was still holding her Beretta in one of his hands. “Mignon?” he said.
Mignon didn’t budge. If he wanted the bracelet, he would have to climb down in this pit to yank it from her hands. Then she remembered the pepper spray in her purse. If he had to find a way down to her, then she could use the same way up, if only she could disable him for a minute. If he thought she was dead, he might be careless.
“Mignon,” Jourdain said again. “I’m going to fire a round into your leg to see if you’re faking.” The safety on her Beretta clicked loudly. He chambered a round and Mignon almost gasped out for him not to shoot her again. She forced herself to maintain her pose, slumped against the wall. Since she’d obviously moved sometime since he’d dropped her in the cistern, he must have realized that she had been alive for a while. His only question would be, Is she still alive now?
Her eyelids drifted shut. She didn’t want to see him aiming that pistol at her body, a bullet ready to tear a bloody path into her cringing flesh. Moments passed and he abruptly sighed. A change in the pattern of the light above her told her that he was no longer crouched at the opening to the cistern. Mignon cautiously opened her eyes. Jourdain was gone and the cap was still open. She knew he would be back in seconds. She fumbled for her purse and found the pepper spray, tucking it into her hand after taking the safety off with her thumb, and resumed her position against the wall.
Jourdain let down a rope, wriggling down it like an athlete, one foot expertly hooked within it. He swung to the floor and dust whirled about him, pieces of cement crumbling away as his body contacted the walls.
For a moment Mignon couldn’t tell what was happening. She could feel Jourdain standing still, staring at her. Her eyes were barely open and she could only see a blurred shape. “Mignon?” he said.
She knew he stood about five feet away from her, well within range of the pepper spray, but she had to be certain. There wouldn’t be a second chance. Her heart thundered in her chest, pounding like a herd of wild horses roaring across the plains.
He muttered to himself and looked around the floor of the cistern. His eyes caught the glitter of her clutch and he quickly plucked it up in his hands. The gun was tucked under his arm as he tore through the contents of the tiny purse. He snarled as he threw it away, disappointed in his search. Jourdain stood still for another moment and then took a step toward her.
Mignon’s right hand clutched the pepper spray. The bracelet was in her left hand. He took another step and she shuddered.
Jourdain knelt at her side and pulled at her left arm. Her entire body shifted, as if he had moved an inert form and it moved helplessly, in tandem with his persistent pulling. Mignon brought her right hand around and sprayed him directly in the face.
He shrieked and began to strike aimlessly at her with the gun as his other hand scratched helplessly at his tortured eyes. The flaying gun connected with her arm and the pepper spray went flying. Mignon would have scrambled for the Beretta, but he wouldn’t be under the influence of the spray forever. Any second he would start shooting just to see if he could get lucky while he was temporarily blinded. She clambered for the rope and found it as Jourdain rubbed anxiously at his eyes, keening and groaning as if red-hot pokers had been forced into each.
Mignon yanked herself upward. Without thinking, the bracelet went into her mouth, the ends dangling out like pieces of spaghetti a child hasn’t finished. She was weak from blood loss, but she forced herself to put hand over hand and pull herself to the top, propelling her muscles up the short distance that represented the difference between death and the freedom of the world above her. She felt her flesh rip and blood flowing down her side, and prayed that she wouldn’t bleed to death before she could find help. One leg hooked over the edge of the cistern’s opening and the pain lessened as her body weight shifted to the side of the orifice. She yanked herself up and rolled away from the hole.
Twisting herself around, she pulled the rope up behind her. Once, twice, three times she yanked on the rope, dragging it out of the cistern’s opening, praying that she would be swift enough to trap Jourdain in the same pit that would have been her grave.
Jourdain yelled as he grasped the bottom of the rope, yanking it back. Mignon was flung head over heels toward the edge of the cistern, and came about a heartbeat away from being pulled back into the well. Her head hung over the edge and she stared down into the square patch of light where Jourdain stood, covered with dust, only his head visible in the clouds created by debris melting away from the ancient cistern walls. With his hands on the rope, his face twisted as he looked up at her and saw the bracelet dangling from the sides of her mouth. His eyes were bloodshot and tearing badly, but he blinked frantically as he fought not to let her out of his sight. One hand let go of the rope and aimed the Beretta at her.
Mignon shrieked as she scrambled backwards. The resulting gunshot didn’t come close to her. She looked around frantically and saw that Jourdain had tied the other end of the rope to her oak tree. She realized that it would be futile to try to untie the dozen knots before he could climb up. If she’d had a knife, she might have been able to saw through it. Instead, Mignon ran.
Her mind sought some clear path to follow that would lead her away from the madness enveloping Jourdain. He was determined and he was armed with her own weapon. She knew that he wouldn’t have left the keys in her car, or even have left her car there for the sheriff to find later. Jourdain couldn’t risk someone searching the farmhouse or its land until he’d had a chance to fill in the cistern with cement. She didn’t waste time heading for his car. The second most obvious choice was Miner Poteet’s farmhouse, where he might protect her or at least call the sheriff’s department.
But instead, Mignon went into the dark woods. She didn’t dare risk endangering her kind, elderly neighbor or his granddaughter. It was full daylight, late in the afternoon, but the forest was like a canopy which kept the sun’s light from entering its domain. It was silent, as if the animals knew that a life-and-death struggle was underway. She looked back once and saw Jourdain’s head popping out of the cistern’s opening, his reddened eyes searching for her. He was furious, and Mignon knew that if he caught her now she would surely be dead long before her body ever went back into the cistern.
Chapter Twenty-four
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26
The king was in his countinghouse
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlor
Eating bread and honey;
The maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes,
Along came a blackbird,
And snipped off her nose.
SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE
JOHN HENRY SAT AT his desk ruminating over what had happened the night before. He’d been up half the night with deputies searching the St. Michel mansion and checking over Eleanor’s insurance lists to compare what items might have been stolen.
The only thing missing was a tray of Georgian silver that was later discovered in the kitchen, where a maid had left it while in the process of polishing each piece. Disgusted with himself, John Henry had returned with his deputies to the station to talk with a state attorney about the alleged crimes that had been committed. Then Eleanor St. Michel showed up at three A.M. insisting that her son had changed his mind about the complaint and was withdrawing it.
The state attorney, the same man with whom John Henry had discussed a deal concern
ing Ruelle Fanchon, had not been pleased. Nightmares of lawsuits against the sheriff’s department and the State of Louisiana danced in his head like sugarplums. He even accused John Henry of being prejudiced in both cases. “You’ve got to be kidding,” the attorney had yelled over the phone. “You don’t have any proof that the three committed a crime other than lying to Eleanor St. Michel about their connections. And on the other hand, you want to offer a deal concerning a soon-to-be-convicted felon and two murders that no one is sure ever happened. You don’t have bodies. You don’t have a murder scene. You don’t even know if it’s human blood at that … old shack. Jesus Christ, John Henry, I’ve never seen you jump the gun like this. Call me when you have something worth talking about.”
The metal box sat in the middle of his desk and John Henry glowered at it. The money had been returned to Eleanor. He was angry. Angry at himself. Angry at Mignon. He couldn’t understand why she would want to steal it. Sure, $200,000 seemed like a lot of money. But there were three players, maybe more. There were payoffs to be made. There were incidentals. Research. Plane tickets. Rental cars. The private detective. The list went on. The money wouldn’t go very far when all of that was added in.
John Henry had grumbled most of the morning and afternoon away, yelling at his secretary, barking at the deputies, and staring at that damn metal box. Then it came to him, and he almost fell over in his chair. And the hell of it was, if he had been in Mignon’s shoes he might have tried something similar himself.
He wanted to yell out, “Why didn’t she trust me?” but he already knew the answer to the question. John Henry just didn’t like it much.
He grabbed the phone and started dialing the number for the bed and breakfast when his secretary stuck her head into his office. “Miz St. Michel’s on line four, Sheriff,” she said. “Says it’s urgent.”