Enigma of the Heart

by Wynette Davis

“Someone cut your brake line, Taffy,” Nina said rubbing her hand along Taffy’s leg under the sheet. “Someone tried to…” Nina swallowed and tried again. “Someone tried to hurt you. That will not happen. I will not stand by and let that happen. He needs to know everything.”

  Taffy stared over at Lester. She nodded, and proceeded to tell Lester everything. Her fight with Lou Pearl over the house. Her visit to Monice’s house and their reaction to her. She told him about her mother and father leaving Mandeville and why. She told him about how both families had disowned their children, and how they felt about her now. Then she told Lester about Lou Pearl coming to the house a few days before.

  “Lou Pearl’s pissed about losing the house, but I doubt she would try to do anything like this,” Taffy said to him.

  “Taffy,” Lester said smiling over at her. “I’ve been a cop for almost twenty years. In those twenty years, I’ve never tried to understand what people would do given the chance. I’ll check some things out and get back to you. We might only be dealing with some stupid prank by kids thinking it would be funny when you couldn’t stop. They might have only thought you would be around town and run into a dumpster. We’ll see.” He gave her another smile, giving one to Nina before he left.

  Taffy sat staring at Nina with her arms crossed under her bosom. Nina stared back at her with stone resilience. “He needed to know everything. You have no idea what I felt hearing you were in the hospital, Taffy. I thought I was going to come in here and see you all…”

  Taffy’s tense expression crumbled at seeing Nina’s fear. “Oh, Nina. I’m sorry.”

  “I thought you were gone,” Nina said as the tears started to fall down her cheeks. “I can’t have that, Taffy. You might not be my sister by blood, but you are my sister.”

  The nurse came around the curtain. “All right, you,” she said as she started to unhook some of the bags from poles and hook them onto the poles on the gurney she’d pushed in with her. “We’re going to keep you overnight for observation. Doctor Wilcox wants to make sure that nasty bump on your head is just a bump,” she said smiling.

  “Oh, should I go and get her admitted?” Nina asked.

  “No, no. We did all that when she came in.” The nurse waited for Taffy to scoot over to the gurney. The nurse handed Taffy a bag that held all of her clothes and her shoes. “We’re just going to take her up to the third floor if you want to follow us.”

  “Nina, you don’t have to stay,” Taffy said.

  “Shut up,” Nina said walking behind the gurney. “Can you give her something to go to sleep?”

  “Oh, no,” the nurse said pushing the gurney toward the elevator doors. “Not with the possibility of a concussion.”

  “Can I have something?” Nina said which had the nurse smiling at her uneasily. If the nurse knew Nina, she would have known she wasn’t joking.

  By the next morning, it was all on the news how two women had prevented a car driven by Trisha Thibodeaux from being in a horrific accident on Belleview Road. Apparently, a reporter from the local press was present at the hospital. They’d heard the entire story as Taffy recounted what had happened to Doctor Wilcox. The two women, Jaycee and Margo Halifax, became reluctant heroines. Once the Charleston press got wind of the story, TV crews showed up on their doorstep asking for interviews. But they repeated again and again that they were just happy to have been there at the right time. They continually said that they were not heroines and that they were just happy to have been able to help Trisha Thibodeaux and wished her well. But they also didn’t turn down the new truck given to them from a local dealership to replace the one that had been damaged by their heroic act.

  TV crews came to the hospital wanting to interview Taffy, but she turned them down. She was grateful to be alive, but she was not about to blow things out of proportion. She did give a statement to a reporter thanking the Halifax women, and all of the care she received from the nurses and doctors at Mandeville General. Apparently, it was a slow news day.

  She wasn’t surprised when Jean-Michel showed up at her hospital room door. He didn’t look pleased at all. More than likely because she hadn’t called him about what happened.

  “Hi,” she said softly.

  He slowly walked closer to her. “You didn’t call me.”

  “I know and I’m sorry. Things were just…”

  “Shhh,” he said, taking her into his arms. “You are okay. That is all that matters.” He continued to hold her and she let him. “Are you ready to go home?”

  “Yes. Nina’s supposed to come and get me, but she’s late again.”

  “No. I saw her downstairs and told her I would be taking you home.”

  “I hate calling that motel room home.”

  “Then don’t,” Jean-Michel said smiling down at her.

  Taffy smiled brightly. “It’s finished?”

  “Not quite, but the upstairs is finished. And thanks to Thalia you have a bed and some furniture. As long as you don’t mind workers waking you up at seven, it’s ready for you.”

  “Yes,” she said happily. “After I get my things from the motel, I’d be very happy if you’d take me home.”

  They walked out together with Jean-Michel handling her like she was a piece of fine china. He held her hand, intermittingly bringing it to his lips to lay a soft kiss on along her knuckles. And after he took her to the house, she had thought he would take her upstairs and to the bed that Thalia had graciously put in the room. But he hadn’t. He’d kissed her softly after putting her to bed, and left her alone. It was the most touching thing she could remember anyone doing for her. She tried to push what she was feeling aside. She had just been in an accident. Anyone would have done the same. Wouldn’t they?

  Chapter 10

  Lester pulled the police car in front of the house. He could feel the eyes staring at him from inquisitive neighbors. He sat in the car looking out at the house, and silently grimacing inside at the chore he had come to do. The Rischardes and the Milieu’s had a history. Not a good history, but that wasn’t why Lester was there.

  He sighed heavily and got out of the car. He smiled over at the kids playing in the street, as he put his hat on, and walked through the chain link gate. Once on the front porch, he rang the bell.

  The door opened, as a round black woman looked out at him with stone-faced resignation. “Sheriff Milieu. Fancy seeing you here. Come in, I suppose,” she said turning her back to him, and walking back into the house.

  Lester took his hat off, as he followed Monice into her living room. “I need to ask you some questions, Monice.”

  “This got something to do with Frankie’s boy?” Monice sat down on her sofa, lighting the cigarette she held in her hand.

  Lester sat in the chair next to her. “No. Monice, I understand you had a conversation with Trisha Thibodeaux recently. She told you about Wilma?”

  Monice took a long draw from her cigarette, nodding to Lester. “Mmmm, hmmm,” she said to him. “Seems I fucked up, Lester. Again.”

  “You know she wants to have a relationship with her grandmother, Monice. All you have to do is—”

  “Stay out of this, Lester.” Monice narrowed her eyes at him. “Me and you got history. And I appreciate all you’ve done for me in the past. But this,” she said waving her hand in front of her. “This ain’t none of your business.”

  “The thing is,” he said to her. “It is my business. Seems someone tried to hurt Taffy the other night. It looks like her brake line was cut.”

  Monice stared over at Lester, the cigarette all but forgotten. “Is she all right? Is she hurt?”

  Lester knew then that Monice had nothing to do with what happened to Taffy. Her worry was genuine.

  “She hit her head on the steering wheel,” he said. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it on the TV.”

  “I ain’t had it on for a while.” Monice sighed heavily. “I had things to think about.”

  Monice sat silently, fingering the cigarette in the a
shtray in front of her. “I pushed my baby away from me, Lester,” she said, glancing up at him. “I pushed her away and now she’s dead. She died without knowing I loved her. She died without knowing I was sorry for what I done, Lester. The woman I’ve been…” She got up and walked over to the heavily draped window and opened them. “I can’t be her no more.”

  “You’ve changed your life before, Monice.” Lester stared over at her. “If that’s what you want, nothing’s stopping you.”

  “I need to tell her what happened with me and her mama.”

  Lester only nodded. “All of it?”

  Monice nodded to him. “She was hurt, Lester. Somebody cut her brake line and she got hurt. Now, I should have been there with that baby. I’m her grandmother, Lester. I should have been there, but…” She walked back to sit on the sofa. “I need to change my life and the way I’ve been living. There’s been too many secrets choking me. This family. I want to look after my Wilma’s baby, Lester. I owe her that.”

  “You hear anything about what’s happened, you give me a call,” Lester said standing up. “Don’t try to handle it yourself, Monice. Don’t try and have your connections deal with things. Let me deal with it. Legally.”

  Lester left the house, leaving Monice sitting alone on the sofa with her cigarette smoke and haze. Whoever wanted to do harm to Taffy, it wasn’t Monice. He never actually thought it would have been. Monice was many things, but she was not the type to do harm to others. Intentionally, at least.

  He started the car and took a deep breath. The Rischardes might not have had anything to do with the tampering, but the Thibodeauxs were another story.

  Half an hour later, Lester pulled up to the front of the Thibodeaux house in Charleston. The house itself was on a beautiful tree-lined street, with well-manicured lawns, and homes that showed pride of ownership. That is except for the Thibodeaux house. They might as well be living in a trailer park by the railroad tracks.

  The house was a large colonial, with balustrades on the front and an inviting expanse of lawn. That is, it would have been inviting if not for the old, rusted, and dirty cars littering the lawn. The garbage cans had been left by the curb, apparently being used on the spot, overflowing to the brim. There were sheets covering the windows instead of curtains or blinds. The floral designs could be seen from the street.

  It seemed to Lester that Lou Pearl had relocated only to destroy another beautiful home, as she had done on Thoroughgood Street. He reluctantly walked up to the door, but noticed the gathering of spider webs over the entrance. He knew then that they greeted their guests at the back door or through the attached garage.

  The screen door at the back was held to the doorjamb with a wire hanger. He tentatively knocked on the wood frame beside it. “Anybody home!”

  “Who’s asking?” a female voice said from inside. Lou Pearl appeared at the door, popping her gum as usual. “Sheriff Milieu, humph,” she said glaring at him. “Now, I’ve got to wonder why you’ve come all the way to Charleston to my house. Come on in, if you’re going to.”

  Lester opened the screen as much as it was willing to open, and followed Lou Pearl into the house. He’d entered into what should have been the back sunporch but was being used as a sort of storage area for boxes and bags of who knew what. Lou Pearl seemed to be suffering from some type of hoarding problem. Either that or she was stocking up to survive the zombie apocalypse.

  “You come here to kick me out of my house again?” asked Lou Pearl.

  “I’ve never kicked you out of anywhere, Lou Pearl,” Lester said looking around where he was walking, so he wouldn’t accidentally step on something. “You had to vacate the house by legal ruling. It’s called a foreclosure.”

  “Legal ruling my ass.” Lou Pearl heaved her wide girth into a nearby chair. “My house was stolen by that col—that black girl.”

  “Your granddaughter,” Lester said staring over at her. He wanted to challenge her in some way to deny the fact that Taffy was her granddaughter. He wanted her to give him a reason to put her under suspicion.

  Lou Pearl only stared at him with unfazed determination. “Do you know that the Thibodeaux family can trace their bloodline all the way back to the War Between the States?” said Lou Pearl.

  “The Civil War,” Lester corrected her.

  “The fuckin’ War Between the fuckin’ States! I know what I mean. Wouldn’t no goddamn civil nothin’ about it. The point is our blood is pure. There ain’t no trace of some black up in it. And there ain’t never gonna be, neither.”

  Lester grimaced both outwardly and inwardly. He could get into a discussion over race with Lou Pearl, but that wasn’t the reason he came to see her. “That’s fine and dandy, Lou Pearl, but—”

  “Mrs. Thibodeaux,” she said to him with a raised eyebrow. “You ain’t my friend, and you for damn sure ain’t my family, so you call me Mrs. Thibodeaux.”

  There was a commotion coming from the front of the house. Lester looked up to see DePaul come into the room. DePaul glanced over at Lester and then quickly down at the floor.

  “You know my boy, DePaul, don’t you Sheriff?” Lou Pearl said with a smile. She seemed to be proud of the man that walked in to stand by her. Lester didn’t see a man at all. DePaul wore a snug fitting T-shirt that barely covered his growing girth, showing his unattractive hairy belly to the world. It was stained and dirty, which didn’t seem to faze DePaul. He stood by Lou Pearl’s chair as if he were sentry to the queen.

  He and DePaul had a history. He’d arrested him several times for peeping in the windows of some of the locals in Mandeville, hanging out near the high school track field when the girls were out for PE, and mainly general mayhem around town. Each and every time the charges were dismissed due to the Thibodeaux influence on the judicial system in Mandeville. But Lester continued to keep his eye out on DePaul. The man looked seedy and creepy. Some of the women around Mandeville had lodged complaints on him for following them. DePaul was known to follow women in stores, as they walked home, and to stare at them like a hawk pinning its quarry. He had no way to prove it, but he would put his money on DePaul and his weirdness having something to do with Taffy’s accident. He’d been a nuisance before, but if he had anything to do with the cut brake lines, he’d crossed the line into dangerous.

  “DePaul,” said Lester in a type of greeting. “Are you keeping away from the high school track field?”

  DePaul’s ferret eyes darted around the room. “I ain’t been to no track field!”

  “You leave him be, Sheriff,” Lou Pearl warned him. “Those charges were dropped.”

  “Yes,” Lester said keeping his attention on DePaul. “I know they were. All of them, apparently. Even his damn speeding tickets were wiped from the books.”

  Lou Pearl smiled superiorly at Lester. “Yes, they were. Cuz my boy was innocent of them all. Now, why are you here?”

  Lester wanted to get the hell out of the house as soon as possible. There was a stench he couldn’t place assaulting his nostrils. It could have been DePaul, or it could have been something that had died in the house and found a corner to decay in.

  “I assume y’all heard about the accident involving Trisha Thibodeaux?”

  “She ain’t no Thibodeaux!” Lou Pearl shouted.

  “She ain’t,” echoed DePaul.

  Lester took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Regardless of what you want to call her or believe, Mrs. Thibodeaux, she is the daughter of your son, Andre.”

  “She’s the daughter of that mongrel Wilma Rischarde, who tried to pass that girl off as a Thibodeaux and got my boy to marry her under false pretenses!”

  “False!” said DePaul.

  Lester chuckled under his breath. He stared over at Lou Pearl. “I would think you would be the last person to throw dirt onto someone’s bloodline. From what I know…Hell,” he said with a smile. “From what everyone knows, you married your first cousin. The son of your uncle? Your mother’s brother? Am I correct? From what I know,�
� he said with more emphasis as he stood, not wanting to stay any longer in the house. He would keep an eye out on the Thibodeauxs, though. “Your entire familial line is so intermixed with each other, some of the Thibodeauxs are what people call touched.” He stared over at DePaul.

  Lou Pearl was popping her gum so rapidly she could have bit her tongue and not noticed until the blood ran down her chin. “It’s what was done to make sure the blood was pure! Our blood is pure!”

  “Pure!” mimicked DePaul.

  Lester walked over to stare at DePaul who quickly shifted his gaze down to the floor. “Have you been tampering with anyone’s brake lines, DePaul? Do any of your stained and filthy shirts have brake fluid on them? I would love to take a look at some of your shirts, DePaul. We both know they haven’t been washed. That’s not something you do on a regular basis is it? Wash?”

  “You leave him alone, Sheriff!” Lou Pearl shouted in defense of her son.

  DePaul slowly shook his head at Lester. “You make sure you don’t. I’m going to keep an eye out on you, DePaul.” Lester nodded his head over at Lou Pearl. “Y’all have a good day,” he said leaving out the back door the way he’d come in.

  Something was going on there, he thought, walking back to his cruiser. He didn’t know what, but something had his hairs standing on end. He quickly made his way back to Mandeville and home to take a shower. He felt as though he needed it.

  Chapter 11

  The house was almost completed, but she still had to pick out the finishes that would be in the bathrooms, her tub, the draw pulls in the kitchen, and the pavers she wanted in the backyard. Jean-Michel agreed to go with her into Charleston and help her pick out what she liked. It was the first time they had gone shopping together, but she reminded herself that it was only a professional trip. But professional or otherwise, she was having fun.

  They’d had good conversation. They ate lunch at a café he took her to. He made her laugh. It was nice. She even allowed him to take hold of her hand as they strolled down the street together.