Voodoo on Bayou Lafonte

by Susan C. Muller

  His mother had enjoyed that day so much. She’d whistled and clapped, laughing the whole time. Only a year later pneumonia had taken her away from him. The doctor had claimed it was the cigarettes. He knew better. Fucking swamp air, full of mold and mildew and God knows what else. You didn’t have to be on the ground for the swamp to kill you. Just breathing would do the job.

  “Sure, I remember that show. The one where three or four of you sang and danced? You guys were robbed. Who won that thing? Some boy who played the guitar out of tune?”

  “Yeah, he’s the principal’s son.” She shrugged and laughed.

  A flame of hope lit in his chest. Things were looking up. Sherri Lynn seemed happy to talk to them. They might actually get somewhere this time.

  She glanced at him and down again. “I was sorry to hear about your mother. She was a nice lady. She took Adrienne and me for ice cream a couple of times. She said I should go ahead and have all the sprinkles I wanted.”

  “Thanks, Sherri Lynn. That was a sweet thing to say.” How many times had he been back since his mother died? Not that often once he and Marc had closed the estate and sold the house. Finding a place to stay when he visited was awkward. Who was he kidding? It plain hurt too much.

  Gabby sat next to the girl on the concrete block steps. “You heard that Adrienne was missing, didn’t you?”

  “I only found out this morning, but I woulda’ called you right away if I had any notion where she was.”

  Remy squatted in front of her. “We know that. You’ve been a good friend to Adrienne. We’re just trying to figure out what’s been going on with her lately. Have you noticed a change in her over the last few months? Does she have any new friends? Anyone that makes you uncomfortable?”

  Sherri Lynn scuffed a line in the dirt with her bare foot. “Adrienne and me, we was still friends and all, but it was harder this year.”

  Remy forced his voice whisper soft. “Why is that?”

  She scuffed at the dirt some more and didn’t look at him. “Margaux and Claudine. Something happened and they got mad at Adrienne. And if they saw me talking to her, well, I just talked to her when we was alone.”

  Pain and shock flashed across Gabby’s face. She obviously hadn’t known. What else had Adrienne hidden from her?

  “You had dinner with us on Christmas Eve, and I took you both to the movies last month.” Gabby’s voice was tight, her words clipped.

  “The movie was all the way over in Lafonte. And Margaux and Claudine are cheerleaders. They were at a basketball game. They wouldn’t have known. Adrienne understood. We talked about it and she was okay with it. Anyways, she was friends with Evie by then.”

  The oldest boy was chasing the two little ones and throwing pebbles at them. One missed and hit Remy’s car with a loud ping.

  “You stop that, Henri. Mama’s gonna whip your butt if you mess up Mr. Steinberg’s nice car. You wanna chunk rocks, go do it in the bayou. And take the rest of the kids with you.”

  The boys started down a worn path behind the trailer. But one of the girls stopped and whispered in Sherri Lynn’s ear, never talking her eyes off Remy.

  “Don’t worry.” She planted a kiss on top of her sister’s head. “Mr. Steinberg is a police officer. He’s allowed to carry a gun.”

  Shit. Was his piece visible when he squatted down? Had Claudine or her father seen the weapon? Cheap-ass shirt didn’t have a tail long enough, but it was too damn hot to wear a jacket.

  Remy stood and removed his badge from his belt for the little girl to see. She ran her finger over the raised lettering and stared at him with enormous eyes, then spun on one foot and scooted down the path after her brothers without a word.

  Sherri Lynn smiled as she watched the spot where her sister disappeared. “Willow don’t talk much, but she sees everything.”

  Gabby glared at him with daggers in her eyes. “Did you need to bring that thing? You’ll scare the kids.”

  What kind of question was that? Damn right he needed to bring it. If she got that upset about his regulation weapon, she’d shit a brick if she knew about his back-up piece.

  “I read that police officers were considered on duty at all times and were supposed to be armed. Is that right, Mr. Steinberg?” Sherri Lynn gazed up at him with emerald green eyes.

  “Absolutely. You’re a smart girl to know that.” Of course, crossing a state line had changed things a little.

  “Me and Adrienne decided. We want to join the FBI.”

  He glanced at Gabby. Another thing she didn’t know. Where had she been this last year? Where had he been for the last couple of years?

  “You get your college degree and call me,” he said. “I’ll give you a recommendation.”

  Sherri Lynn’s eyes lit up, and Remy felt a stab of guilt. How likely was this girl to make it through college? No. That was unfair. He’d managed. One class at a time, over too many years, but he’d graduated from college and so could Sherri Lynn.

  Remy squatted back down in front of her. “What happened between Adrienne and the two girls? Did they fight over something?”

  “Sort of. Margaux was always a little jealous of Adrienne. When some boy she liked asked Adrienne out instead of her, she decided to get even. She made Claudine set her up with her stepbrother, Danny Cryer. He’s a couple of years older and got kicked out of Tulane.”

  Gabby’s head shot up. “Wait a minute. I didn’t know he got kicked out. I thought he was back for Thanksgiving.”

  “No, ma’am. He got kicked out. Drugs. Plus, he’s deep into all that dark voodoo stuff which makes him just plain weird. Now he works for his father.”

  Remy could barely speak through gritted teeth. “What happened?”

  “Margaux told him Adrienne had a big crush on him and that she was kind of easy. I don’t know what happened exactly, but she showed up at my house and spent the night. Danny spread nasty rumors about her for a while, but all that’s sort of blown over by now.”

  Disbelief coated Gabby’s face. “Why didn’t she tell me? She even went to the prom with those girls.”

  “She knew you’d tell her father, and she worried he’d do something that would make everything worse.”

  Yeah, something like break his fucking neck.

  Sherri Lynn twisted toward Gabby. “She didn’t actually go to the prom with us. She met us there. She rode with Jean-Paul Dupre.”

  Chapter 6

  Gabby unlocked the front door and stepped inside. Silence filled the empty house like a physical presence. Remy passed her and she could almost feel the disapproval radiating off him. How could it not? She was a total failure as a mother.

  She’d wasted years blaming him for everything that had gone wrong in her life. Had she discouraged Remy from contact with his own daughter? She’d certainly made it difficult, yet he’d managed without her approval. And she was the one who’d looked away just when Adrienne needed her the most.

  Had she been so busy she’d left Adrienne with no one to talk to about her problems? She could still feel the pain at being the subject of the dreaded rumor mill. But she’d had Remy to lean on when the stories of her pregnancy swept through school.

  Adrienne had faced the ostracism alone.

  She’d never be able to make it up to Adrienne or Remy. No wonder he hated her.

  Remy took a deep breath and twisted her direction. Steeling herself, she waited for his condemnation.

  “I have to apologize to you, Gabby. I thought a few phone calls, an occasional email, made me a father. It didn’t. I left you with all the hard work. I let you both down. When we get Adrienne back, I promise to do a better job.”

  Shock made it impossible for her to speak. Every time she thought she had him figured out, he surprised her.

  Had he said that just to make her
feel better? She studied his face. No, he meant it. And that made her feel worse.

  “Until then, we have to concentrate on finding Adrienne.” His phone rang and he reached into his pocket as he stepped out to the porch.

  What didn’t he want her to hear? At a loss, she busied herself fixing them something to drink. She was standing in the kitchen making tea when footsteps sounded on the pine plank floor.

  “Let me put the phone on ‘speaker’, Ruben. Adrienne’s mother, Gabby, needs to be in on everything.” Remy fumbled with the cell phone and held it between them.

  “Of course. I’m so sorry to hear about your daughter, Mrs. Steinberg. I’ll do anything I can to help. I’m ready to jump in the car and head your direction whenever Remy wants.”

  The man spoke in a deep rumble. Was he the one Remy called Poncho Grande?

  “I appreciate that,” Remy said. “And I may call you yet, but at the moment, you’re more help to me where you are.”

  Gabby’s breath caught as Remy parked a hip against Grand-mère’s old kitchen table, just like he used to when he lived there.

  “What have you learned about the phone?” Remy asked.

  “Not much, I’m afraid. It’s just a burner. Sorry, Mrs. Steinberg. That means it was purchased pre-loaded with minutes from a place that doesn’t keep records. In this case, the Dollar Store on Cypress Street.”

  Her heart sank. She’d been sure that phone would be the key. She leaned forward. “It’s Gabby, Ruben. What about the cell tower? Is that something you can trace? They do it on NCIS all the time, but that’s TV.”

  Ruben chuckled. “It can be done, if you pull the right strings. Fortunately, for some crazy reason, our boss likes Remy. He pulled every string he could find, but there’s only one cell tower in that immediate area. The call did come from your town, but that’s as close as we can get.”

  Remy sighed. “Thanks, man. You’ve been a big help. What do you hear from Adam? Anything happening on that front?”

  “Not yet. If Jillian doesn’t go into labor by the end of the week, the doc’s going to induce. But don’t you even think about that. It’s all been decided. Jillian told Adam to get his butt to Louisiana and not worry about her, she feels fine. She’s going to come to our house and Tessa is going to take care of her. If she goes into labor, we’ll get Adam home in time.”

  Gabby turned her head. How could all these people, whose names she’d never heard before yesterday, be so willing to sacrifice for her and Adrienne?

  The answer came back almost immediately. Because they cared about Remy.

  Remy, the guy she’d worked so hard to stop caring about all these years.

  Remy watched Gabby fuss around the kitchen, making tea and wiping the Formica countertop. Was she avoiding him?

  He cleared his throat. “The guy on the phone, he called Adrienne ‘Annie.’ Have you ever heard anyone call her that?”

  Gabby set a mug in front of him and pivoted to put the tea canister away, right next to the old cookie jar that had lived there for years. The lid to the canister snapped shut, breaking the silence. “For a little while in middle school she wanted to be called that, but the nickname never caught on and she let it drop.”

  He gripped the mug with both hands and stared at the emblem on the front. Le Beau Chateau. He and Gabby had stolen it from the hotel on their honeymoon. Gabby’s eyes had sparkled when she saw him bury the cup in their suitcase. He’d given her a wink and whispered, “Not a night I ever want to forget.”

  And he hadn’t. Not for one minute.

  He couldn’t deal with those memories right now. Now was for Adrienne.

  Remy blinked twice trying to bring himself back to the present. So this guy wasn’t a new friend of Adrienne’s. He’d known her for years.

  “Could it have been that Jean-Paul who drove her to the prom?”

  Gabby sighed and faced him, wiping her hands on a cup towel, possibly the only new thing in the entire house. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I’ve heard his voice since it changed five years ago.”

  “If she’d made up with Margaux and Claudine and was meeting them at the dance, why do you suppose Adrienne didn’t ride with them?”

  “Sherri Lynn’s dress was a hand-me-down, and from what Adrienne told me it was as fluffy as one of those antebellum hoop skirts. Claudine’s Honda isn’t that big, so maybe there wasn’t room.”

  He tried to look into Gabby’s eyes, but she avoided his gaze. Yep, definitely hiding something. He could live with her not trusting him, but this was their daughter. “If that’s all it was, why didn’t she say so and have Jean-Paul come in the house?”

  Gabby plopped into the chair beside him and hid her face in her hands. “Oh, Remy, it’s all my fault. His mother and I don’t like each other very much and Adrienne probably thought I’d take it out on him.”

  Shit. How many other things was Gabby keeping from him? Didn’t he have enough to worry about with potential leads being evasive? Now he had to contend with his ex-wife doing the same thing?

  “Come on, Gabby. Spill. Don’t make me dig for every nugget of information like I’m looking for a lost ring in the drainpipe.”

  Gabby lifted her head and squared her shoulders. “Jean-Paul’s mom has had a wild hair up her ass about me since we were sixteen years old. She made a nasty comment behind my back one too many times, and I called her on it. In public. We haven’t spoken since. Besides, she got into that dark voodoo and I don’t think she’d be a good influence on Adrienne.”

  What the hell?

  “That’s the second time I’ve heard the term dark voodoo. I thought voodoo was supposed to be a good thing. Prayers for someone’s health or to help them through a hard time. At least that’s what your grand-mère taught me.”

  How many times had he watched Grand-mère kneel and pray in front of an altar with miniature dolls—what had she called them, poppets?—fashioned in hers and Gabby’s images? She’d anointed them with holy water and consecrated oils. When she’d added his poppet to the collection, he’d been deeply touched. The day she’d found out Gabby was pregnant, she’d made a tiny poppet the size of a peanut to represent the unborn infant and immediately began blessing and praying for their child. The voodoo she’d practiced could never be called dark.

  A wave of self-recrimination washed over him. Why hadn’t he gone to Grand-mère’s funeral? That old woman had loved him and treated him like a son. And he understood better than anyone how much Gabby depended on her grandmother after losing her parents at only six-years-old.

  He jerked as the answer slapped him in the face. Guilt.

  He’d been married to Cindy by that time and she threw a fit whenever he headed for Louisiana. He’d let the trip to Grand-mère’s funeral go in order to avoid a fight. Of course, Cindy had thrown a fit no matter what he did, so he might as well have gone.

  “That’s the way voodoo was practiced when Grand-mère was High Priestess. After my parents died and I came to live with her, she gave up her role to take care of me. Now a weird old man is High Priest, and he’s turned the practice of voodoo into something dark and evil. Most of the community has died or just drifted away, but he keeps those who still follow in line with threats and blackmail.”

  “And people put up with this?” His tea was still too hot to drink, so he eased the mug back onto the table, twisting the handle to avoid the logo. Gabby had owned it so long she probably didn’t notice any more, but the sight of those words brought up too many memories for him.

  “For some reason,” Gabby continued, oblivious to his inner turmoil, “he seems to have a lot of money, and he helps the poor, which we seem to have more than our share of. Have you looked around this town? Things were bad when you lived here. Now it’s almost a ghost town.”

  How could he not have noticed that? “You’re rig
ht. I don’t think I’ve seen a man between the ages of twenty and sixty since I’ve been here. Except maybe Don Cryer. Where did they all go?”

  “Anybody worth their salt left town to look for work.” She glanced at him and flushed.

  Yep, no point in saying ‘I told you so.’ She knows.

  “At one time it was the Jiffy Stop or Jiffy Lube. Now Jiffy Lube has moved to Lafonte. Even the restaurants and mini marts are family owned and employ only relatives. In October I got an offer for a better job with a bookkeeping service on the far side of Lafonte. I hated to take it because I have go in earlier and get home later, but I was never going to get a raise where I’d worked for the last ten years. Besides, I thought with Adrienne involved in so many after school activities, it wouldn’t matter.”

  The area had never been rich, but at one time people knew how to live off the land. His dad’s company had sent him down here to look for oil, but that hadn’t worked out. The only thing he’d found was his mother. “Anybody still make their living in the swamp?”

  “Don Cryer ran most of the old men off and the young kids aren’t interested. Especially after a couple of the old swamp rats disappeared or met a gruesome end. I keep hearing wild stories of swamp devils and spirits that don’t want humans to intrude on their sacred grounds, but I think the gators are just getting bigger and smarter.”

  The idea of bigger, smarter gators sent a shiver down his spine. Even small, dumb ones were the stuff of nightmares. He knew that for a fact.

  As a child, how many times had he woken in a sweat, sure his tangle of sheets was a gator about to fasten those ferocious jaws around him?

  Enough of this. He could get all the background information in the world, and he still wouldn’t find Adrienne while sitting here drinking—he took a sniff—blackberry tea next to Gabby.

  “I’m going to head over to the sheriff’s station. Adrienne’s been gone longer now, so they might take it more seriously.”