Toe to Toe

by Deborah LeBlanc

  Guy signaled for her to come over. She shook her head slightly, indicating that she couldn’t.

  “Mah, it stopped just like dat,” Fezzo said. “Dat’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen to my whole life.”

  “I’m really scared to stay here by myself,” Clara said. “But I don’t have anywhere else to go. With Anna Mae gone and this weird stuff happening in the house—”

  “You mean dis has happened before to you?” Fezzo asked.

  “Yes,” Clara said. “I talked to Nonie about it when I went to the funeral home. I wanted y’all to come here to see if you might pick up a clue I might have missed regarding Anna Mae’s disappearance, but I also wanted to see if anything weird would happen while y’all were here. For a while, I thought it was just me losing my mind.”

  Fezzo frowned at Nonie. “You should have warned me dat this kind of stuff might was gonna happen.”

  “I didn’t know it was going to, Uncle Fezzo,” Nonie said. “Clara was so desperate for help in finding Anna Mae, hoping we’d pick up a clue or something that I agreed we’d come. I wasn’t expecting all of this.”

  Clara chimed in. “It’s not her fault. I asked Nonie not to tell you about the weird stuff going on here because I didn’t want you to think I was crazy.”

  Fezzo’s brows knitted together. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’m scare or nothin’, but this is something completely different than looking for clues about Anna Mae. I don’t blame you for not wantin’ to stay to you house. I wouldn’t want to stay, me, neither if this was happening to my house.”

  A tear slid down Clara’s cheek, and that one tear seemed to be the catalyst for a floodgate of sobs to open, tears she’d probably held in check for some time. Between sobs, she hiccupped. “I-I don’t-don’t know what to do. I-I don’t know-know where to go. I can’t take this anymore.”

  “How long dis has been going on?” Fezzo asked.

  “A day, day and a half maybe,” Clara said, then sniffled. “Since the funeral. I don’t know how long ago that was. I’m losing track of time. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. I’m worried about Anna Mae, all this stuff going on in my house. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

  “Can’t you go to your sister’s?” Nonie asked. “Doesn’t she live in Ville Platte?”

  Clara shook her head. “She’s got a husband and two teenagers. She’s got enough on her plate. She doesn’t need to be dealing with me.”

  “I tell you what,” Fezzo said. “You come wit’ me. I’m going to talk to T-boy, you know, my brother dat owns the funeral home? They got a nice big house wit’ a extra bedroom. I’ll talk to dem about you stayin’ wit’ dem a couple of days ’til we can figure out what’s going on here.”

  Clara put a hand over her heart. “Oh, no, really. I wouldn’t want to impose. I couldn’t.”

  “Don’t worry yourself,” Fezzo said. “I’m gonna talk to my brother. It’ll be fine.”

  Nonie looked at Fezzo like he had broccoli growing out of his nose. Her mother, Rita, taking in Clara Grubbs for two days wasn’t going to happen without a hissy fit being thrown somewhere.

  To stave off an impending family feud, Nonie jumped in. “Ms. Clara you can stay with me. I live down on Norman Circle, ten minutes from the funeral home. You can have my bedroom and I’ll bunk on the couch.”

  “Oh, no,” Clara said, wringing her hands. “There’s no way I’m going to put you out like that. You having to sleep on your own couch? That’s just not right.”

  Fezzo blew out a breath. “Mah, the only other thing I can think of is for you to go to Lafayette and get a hotel room. There’s no hotels in Clay Point, but you already know dat.”

  Clara nodded enthusiastically. “That’s a good idea. A hotel. I’ll go to a hotel for a couple of days, make phone calls to other family members to see if anyone’s heard from Anna Mae. And I’ll call the priest, too. The one at St. Anthony’s. Ask him to come bless the house.” She blew out a sigh of relief. “Tomorrow maybe. I’ll do that tomorrow when I’m feeling a little bit better.”

  “Now you talkin’,” Fezzo said.

  “I’ve got to pack some clothes, though. Things to bring to Lafayette.” She looked at Fezzo with doe-like eyes. “Would you please follow me . . . you know, just in case something else goes crazy? I don’t want to be back there by myself.”

  “Maybe it would be bes’ if Nonie went wit’ you since you packing girl stuff,” Fezzo said.

  Nonie, still stealing glances over at Guy and Helen who seemed to be conspiring about something, said to Fezzo, “If you don’t mind, would you please go with Ms. Clara and just stand in the doorway of her bedroom while she packs. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Fezzo looked at Nonie, and after a long pause, he said, “Okay, den, I’m gonna stand guard at de door while you pack. Then I’ll take you to the hotel myself.”

  “Thank you so much,” Clara said, relief washing over her face.

  “No problem,” Fezzo said, then followed Clara down the hall to her bedroom. He glanced over his shoulder at Nonie once and frowned.

  Nonie knew her uncle had at least twenty questions he wanted to ask her. He probably sensed there was something going on that she couldn’t talk about in front of Clara so he’d played along.

  As soon as they were out of sight, Nonie marched into the living room and confronted Guy and Helen.

  “What are the two of you doing?” she whispered. “We’ve got enough problems over here. Didn’t you just see what happened in Clara’s kitchen?”

  “Hello, dear,” Helen said and smiled as if she hadn’t heard a word Nonie had just said.

  “Yeah, we saw,” Guy said. “And we know who did it. We know why it’s happening. You don’t need to be here. You’re going to wind up in a lot more crap than you bargained for if you don’t leave.”

  “What are you talking about?” Nonie demanded.

  “You okay, mon petite?” Fezzo called from the back room.

  “Fine, Uncle Fezzo,” Nonie called back. She turned her attention back to Guy and Helen and lowered her voice a notch. “Both of you need to go. I can’t afford for Clara and Uncle Fezzo to see me talking to you.”

  “Honey, you need to leave this house,” Helen said to Nonie. “You don’t need to get involved in this.”

  “Involved in what? Anna Mae? Whatever or whoever’s slamming cabinet doors that I can’t see?”

  “Yes,” Guy and Helen said in unison.

  “Well, which one is it?” Nonie asked, frustrated.

  “Both,” Guy said. “We saw who was slamming those doors.”

  When he didn’t comment further, Nonie wanted to tap him in the gut with a fist. “Stop playing games, will you? Who was it? What’s the big secret?”

  “Nonie you really couldn’t see who was slamming those doors?” Guy asked in a whisper.

  “I already told you I couldn’t. What are you talking about? And why are you whispering? Nobody can hear you but me and Helen.”

  Guy cleared his throat. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said loudly. “They can’t hear us.”

  Helen held a hand out to Nonie. “Dear, you really should leave this house. This isn’t a place you want to be.”

  “I know,” Nonie said. “Both of you have already told me that, but you’re not telling me why.”

  “Because police will get involved,” Guy said matter-of-factly. “And then you’re going to get tangled up in an ugly mess.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just trust me. When Fezzo and Clara leave, you need to make sure you leave with them,” Guy said. “In fact, you should go now.”

  “Why dammit?” Nonie said. “You’re not giving me anything to work with here except warnings that make no sense.”

  “You want sense?” Guy said. “Here’s some sense for you. The person who’s slamming those cabinet doors . . . is Anna Mae Turner. She’s not missing, Nonie. She’s dead.”

  “What?” Nonie said a little too loudly.


  Guy nodded. “Check the backyard, you’ll see.”

  “Yes,” Helen chimed in. “The backyard.”

  “Nonie Marie, you okay?” Uncle Fezzo called out again.

  Nonie heard footsteps hurrying down the hallway toward her. Within a minute, Clara and Fezzo appeared in the living room, Clara’s face ashen.

  “What’s wrong?” Fezzo asked Nonie.

  “Nothing, why?”

  “We heard you yell, ‘What?’ just a minute ago,” Clara said. “Scared the heck out of me.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Nonie said, trying to keep her eyes away from Guy and Helen who were gesturing for her to get out of the house. “Just thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was nothing.”

  Nonie gave Fezzo a fleeting glance, then said to Clara. “Ms. Clara since we’re still here, do you mind if we take a look at your backyard? That’s the only place we didn’t look for clues to Anna Mae’s disappearance.”

  “I haven’t been back there in weeks,” Clara said. “What with my quilting and me having to run the bingo hall on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights, I haven’t had a chance to take care of anything back there. I’m sure the lawn will look horrid. Anna Mae isn’t one to sit out in the sun much less take to yard work. Her skin is too sensitive for that.”

  “Do you mind if we take a look before we leave?”

  “Be my guest,” Clara said. “Just excuse the mess if there is one back there.”

  Clara pointed to a door to the left of her stove. “You can get to the backyard from there.”

  Nonie followed Clara’s direction and went to the white wooden door. She opened it and found herself stepping down onto a small patio with two lawn chairs and a wooden table that held two ceramic cherubs. Surrounding the patio, and setting it apart from the rest of the backyard, were large gray stones placed neatly in a row. Beyond the patio was the backyard, which was maybe fifty by a hundred feet and surrounded by a white privacy fence. Two pecan trees stood at the back corners of the property.Between the trees was a clothesline stretched between two metal poles. Clothes pins hung from the line like small beige claws. All of it was back-dropped by clouds rolling in from the west, turning the afternoon sky a smoky gray. It added to the eeriness of the place.

  Nonie spotted a garden hose wound to a hose reel attached to the back of the house and a small metal shed about ten feet away. A mound of cement sat a couple feet from the shed. It rose about a foot off the ground and was about three feet in circumference. It was light gray save for the section nearest the ground, which was a much darker shade of gray. A ceramic blue jay sat on top of the mound.

  Clara and Fezzo were standing behind her when Guy and Helen suddenly appeared near the cement mound. A chill ran through Nonie, and it had nothing to do with the temperature. She sensed trouble on its way.

  Guy pointed to the cement mound. “She’s in there.”

  Nonie felt her mouth drop open.

  Fezzo, who was still standing behind Nonie asked, “Mah, Clara, why you got some cement sitting on the ground like dat? Did you tap a well there?”

  Nonie turned around in time to see Clara shrug.

  “I’ve never seen it before,” Clara said. “I don’t know what that is. Anna Mae liked to sculpt and work with ceramics, but I’ve never seen her work with concrete. It looks horrible there. Who would have done such a thing?”

  Nonie walked over to the concrete and moved her hand across the mound. The top section was hard, but as her fingers moved closer to the ground they came back tacky, where the cement had not quite dried.

  Nonie turned to Clara. “Do you have a shovel?”

  “A shovel?” Clara said, seemingly taken aback by the question. “I-I think there’s one in the shed.”

  Nonie gave Fezzo a look that said, “Just play along, okay,” and hoped he caught on.

  “Uncle Fezzo, would you mind getting that shovel from the shed? Maybe we can help flatten this out for Ms. Clara so it doesn’t look so bad. Would you like that, Ms. Clara?”

  “Oh, yes, but . . . I mean I wouldn’t want you to go through all that trouble. I can hire somebody to come and take care of it. I’m-I’m so embarrassed. It looks horrible just sitting there, like I don’t even care about my own lawn.”

  “No need. It shouldn’t be that big a job,” Nonie said. She stuck a finger into the doughy part of the concrete. “See? Not all of it has dried yet. If you wait much longer, though, you’ll need to get someone in here with a jackhammer to break it apart. We can take care of it now while it’s still curing.”

  Fezzo came out of the shed with a shovel. “I can take care of dat if you want me to,” he told Clara.

  “Well . . . yes, thank you. Y’all have done so much already.”

  “No problems at all,” Fezzo said.

  Suddenly Guy started waving his arms out in front of him and mouthed, “No, no!” Evidently forgetting that no one could hear him but Nonie.

  Nonie looked at him quizzically.

  “Don’t let him start digging,” Guy said. “You can’t let Clara see what’s under there.”

  By this time, Fezzo was already teasing the shovel blade around the base of the mound.

  “Uncle Fezzo, maybe we should wait,” Nonie said quickly.

  Not looking up at her, Fezzo said, “No, you was right. If we wait, this concrete’s gonna be too hard to handle wit’ just a shovel. Clara’s gonna wind up havin’ to get someone in here to bus’ it up with a sledgehammer. With everything Clara’s going through, we can at least give the poor woman some peace of mind about her backyard.”

  With that, Fezzo took the ceramic bird off the mound and handed it to Clara, then he started chipping away at the ridge of concrete where dry met wet. Before long, he was able to get a thin layer of concrete off of the top. Nonie saw Fezzo suddenly shiver, and he turned to her. “You. . . uh, you see anything strange about dat concrete other than the concrete?”

  “What are you talking about, Mr. Broussard?” Clara asked.

  “No, not yet,” Nonie said. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go any deeper. I think we should leave it as is.”

  Fezzo looked at her and pursed his lips. “Nah,” he said. “Sometimes there’s a reason for stuff like this. You know, concrete on the ground where there’s not supposed to be concrete on the ground. I think we need to find out what it is.” With a nod of his head, he continued to dig, only slower this time, much more carefully. He gave one grunt and a large chunk of the hardened concrete fell over to the side of the mound.

  Two gasps rang out. The first one came from Clara, the second from Fezzo. One moment they’d been looking at a mound of concrete, and now they were staring at two human feet. They were crossed at the ankle so that the tops of the feet faced each other and rested toe to toe.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus of all dat’s holy,” Fezzo said, and took a step back.

  Suddenly Clara let out a scream that could be heard to the next parish. Nonie hurried to her side.

  “Oh, dear, oh, dear,” Helen said. “What a mess this is going to be.”

  Guy shouted, “I told you to leave it alone, Nonie Marie, didn’t I? I told you not to get involved. Now look at what you did!”

  “You stop being so mean to her,” Helen snapped at Guy. “Can’t you see the poor dear was just trying to help that woman?”

  “Help her?” Guy said, furious. “Who’s going to help Nonie now?”

  Nonie took Clara by the shoulders and turned her toward the house. “Ms. Clara, why don’t you go inside and call Sheriff Buchanan. Tell him what we found and have him send someone over right away. Can you do that?”

  “It can’t be,” Clara said, and broke away from Nonie’s grasp and turned back to the concrete mound. Visibly shaking, she took a step closer to the mound. “C-can you m-move some of the dirt a-away from the f-feet so I can see th-the toenails?” she asked Fezzo. She started to sob. “I-I j-just need to s-see the toe-toenails. Please?”

  Looki
ng about as reluctant as a grave robber shoveling into a grave at high-noon, Fezzo did as she asked. He leaned over, brushed dirt and concrete chips away from the feet, then pulled one foot slightly away from the other so the toenails could be plainly seen. Bright pink painted toenails.

  “Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God,” Clara said, then clapped a hand to her mouth before dropping to the ground face-first in a dead faint.

  Nonie grabbed her cell phone out of her back pocket and tossed it to Fezzo. “Call Sheriff Buchanan while I see about Ms. Clara.”

  Fezzo caught the phone and immediately started to dial.

  Nonie dropped to her knees, rolled Clara over and put her head in her lap. She patted her cheek gently. “Ms. Clara? Ms. Clara, are you okay?” To Nonie, the question sounded stupid. Clara didn’t look okay. The woman’s nose was twisted at an odd angle, and blood covered her face. She’d obviously broken her nose.

  Clara’s eyelids fluttered open then squeezed shut, and she started to mumble. “No, it can’t. It can’t.”

  “You might want to tell Buchanan to send an ambulance,” Nonie said to Fezzo. “It looks like Clara broke her nose when she fell.”

  “Now you’ve gone and done it,” Guy said. “The police are going to get involved and who’s going to be in the thick of it? You, that’s who.”

  Nonie wanted to yell at Guy to shut up, or even better to kiss her ass, but she was stuck, unable to say a word with Clara in her lap.

  When Fezzo finished his call to Buchanan, he hung up the phone and brought it over to Nonie. He looked down at Clara who was moaning and moving her head from side to side.

  “No . . . it’s . . . no . . . it’s . . .” Clara mumbled.

  “Mon petite,” Fezzo said to Nonie. “What made you want to come into the backyard like dat? Did you see something?”

  Nonie looked up at her uncle reluctantly and nodded. Hoping that Clara wouldn’t hear her much less understand what she was saying, she whispered to Fezzo, “Guy told me. He told me that Anna Mae was dead. He said she was the one slamming the cabinet doors, probably to get someone’s attention.”