Toe to Toe

by Deborah LeBlanc

  “And you didn’t see her in de house?”

  “No. Not even a glimpse.”

  “Hmm.”

  About that time Nonie heard sirens in the distance. They grew louder quickly and within minutes she heard the crunch of gravel in the front driveway.

  Fezzo went to the side gate of the privacy fence, opened it, and signaled for whoever had showed up to come this way. He stepped back and Nonie saw Sheriff Buchanan hurry into the backyard. Right behind him was Nate Lopez.

  “What’s going on here?” Buchanan asked.

  “Looks like we got us a dead body,” Fezzo said, and pointed to the mound with two feet sticking up from it. “And I think Clara here’s got a broke nose.”

  “The ambulance is on its way,” Nate said.

  “Now y’all start from the beginning and tell me what happened,” Buchanan said.

  Nonie nodded at Fezzo, signaling for him to take the lead.

  Fezzo filled Buchanan in on the reason they were at Clara’s, about Anna Mae having gone missing, and Clara wanting them to help search for clues. To his credit, Fezzo left out the part about the slamming cabinet doors and didn’t let on that Guy had been the one who’d told Nonie that Anna Mae was dead. He mentioned that just as they were getting ready to leave, they realized that the one place they hadn’t checked was the backyard. They decided to investigate it and discovered the concrete mound, which Clara claimed she knew nothing about, and she’d welcomed their help getting rid of it.

  “Check in the shed for a trowel,” Buchanan told Nate, then he went over to the mound, took a handkerchief out of his back pocket, and used it to move the feet from side to side.

  “Got one,” Nate said, hurrying back to Buchanan with a trowel in hand.

  Buchanan took several pictures of the mound and feet with his camera phone. “Let’s work the rest of the concrete and dirt off the body,” Buchanan said, then asked Fezzo to step back.

  Everyone stood quietly by as more of the legs attached to the feet were revealed. As they watched, a voice suddenly boomed in Nonie’s left ear.

  “Now they gonna catch that bastard!”

  Nonie jumped and jerked her head in the direction of the voice. Looming behind her, bigger than life was Tiana Lewis. She stood with her hands on her hips and a look of fury on her face.

  “That woman died, and the man who killed her, he’s not going to get away with it. Not like they did with me, my boy and my man. No siree, not this time. I’m going to make sure of that!”

  Unable to talk to Tiana and find out how she’d gotten here or what she was doing here made Nonie feel like her brain would explode. She had Guy, Helen, and now Tiana all in the backyard along with the sheriff, Nate, Clara and Uncle Fezzo. It felt like some macabre nightmare she couldn’t wake from.

  When they had the bottom half of Anna Mae uncovered, Nonie heard the ambulance sirens coming down a nearby highway.

  “Ambulance is here,” Nate said, lifting his head. “Mr. Broussard, would you mind going out front and leading the paramedics back here?”

  “Not a problem,” Fezzo said, then went off to the side gate once more.

  Clara was still moaning and moving her head from side to side when Fezzo reappeared in the backyard with two paramedics carrying a collapsible gurney following close behind. They looked from Clara to the bent legs now exposed.

  Buchanan, who was on his knees, trowel in hand, looked up at the paramedics and motioned toward Clara with his chin. “Take her to the hospital and have her checked out.”

  The paramedics went over to Clara, removed her from Nonie’s left, and one took her blood pressure while the other one checked the responsiveness of her pupils. Clara moaned louder. After checking her over thoroughly, they soon lifted her onto the gurney and wheeled her out of the backyard.

  Before they made it out of the gate, Buchanan called after them. “Send backup, another unit and send for the coroner.”

  “Yes, sir,” one of the paramedics said, then both wheeled Clara through the gate and out of sight.

  A gust of wind kicked up suddenly, sending bits of dirt and small chips of concrete tumbling across the lawn. Nonie got to her feet and went over to Fezzo. Now that Clara was gone, she could speak a bit more freely.

  “Do you think that’s really Anna Mae?” she whispered to Fezzo.

  “Dat’s a question I should ask you,” he whispered back. “You don’t see her anywhere?”

  “No. I haven’t seen her since we got here.”

  “Then how did you know she was back here?”

  “I told you. Guy’s the one who told me.”

  Fezzo shook his head and looked back over to where the sheriff and Nate were still carefully moving dirt away from the body.

  The concrete had covered the top of a hole, which they were about a foot into at the moment. It looked as if someone had dug the hole, dropped Anna Mae into it headfirst, then realized too late that the hole wasn’t deep enough. Instead of pulling her back out and digging deeper, they evidently considered it a better idea to cover what was exposed with leftover dirt and concrete.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Buchanan finally tossed the trowel to one side and Nate the shovel. They both leaned over the hole and took hold of the body and started to lift it up. Inch by inch more of the body came into view, and after one huge heave and pull, Anna Mae Turner’s face suddenly appeared. Buchanan and Nate laid her gently on the ground.

  Anna Mae’s face and hair were covered with dirt, and the pants suit she wore, which Nonie recognized as the same one she’d worn to Dover’s funeral, had turned a putrid brown color. How anyone could just dump a body in a hole that way was beyond Nonie’s comprehension. It felt worse than wrong. It felt evil.

  Seeing a dead person wasn’t something new to Nonie but seeing one that had been treated with such disrespect made her stomach roil with nausea. She turned away and put her head against her uncle’s shoulder.

  Fezzo smoothed Nonie’s hair with a hand. “It’ll be okay, mon petite. It’ll be okay.”

  “She won’t be okay, Uncle Fezzo. I can’t believe somebody killed her.”

  “Dere’s all kinds of people in dis world. Some good, some bad. Dat’s why you always got to be careful. That’s why nonc worries about you whenever you go somewhere. You just never know what people gonna do dese days.”

  With Anna Mae lying prone on the ground, except for her legs, which Buchanan seemed unable to straighten, Nate took off his deputy’s jacket and laid it over her face.

  About that time, the smoky gray sky gave way to drizzle. Nonie couldn’t bear to look at the woman. Dead, dirty, now being rained on. She heard sirens in the distance and let out a sigh of relief. The second ambulance was on its way to pick up Anna Mae.

  “Uncle Fezzo, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go into Clara’s and help myself to a glass of water,” Nonie said.

  “You bes’ ask de sheriff if dat’s okay first,” Fezzo said.

  “Sheriff Buchanan,” Nonie called out. “Is it all right if I go into Ms. Clara’s for a drink of water?”

  The sheriff shook his head. “Sorry, Nonie, no can do. All of this is a crime scene now, and we can’t afford to have anything disturbed. We’ll have to cordon off the yard, as well. “

  Suddenly, Tiana Lewis appeared right beside Buchanan. “Oh, no you not. This here ain’t no crime scene. Look in the hole stupid. Look in the hole.”

  Buchanan frowned and looked from left to right. “Did y’all hear anything?”

  Fezzo shook his head.

  “Uh, no,” Nonie lied.

  “Probably a neighbor’s dog.” Buchanan said. “Whatever.”

  Fezzo patted Nonie’s shoulder. “Take the car and head back to you house. There’s no reason you gotta stay and watch all dis. I’ll get a ride back wit’ de Sheriff.” He dug into the front pocket of his slacks.

  “We came in my car,” Nonie said, figuring he was hunting for car keys.

  “Dat’s right. Okay, den. Be caref
ul, huh?”

  “I will.”

  “Hold up a minute, Nonie,” Buchanan said. “I need you to stick around for a bit longer. I have some more questions to ask you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Tell him to look in the hole,” Tiana insisted, this time right in Nonie’s left ear. “The hole. They got to go back and look in the hole. They can’t let that bastard get away with it.” She stormed over to the mounds of dirt and pointed adamantly at one spot. “Here.”

  Nonie was about to ask the sheriff for permission to look in the hole when she noticed he was talking on the radio that was attached to his shoulder pad.

  She turned to Nate. “Do you mind if I take a look in the hole?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, crime scene. Don’t want it disturbed anymore than it already has been.”

  Nonie thought fast while Tiana continued to bust her chops about somebody looking in the hole where Anna Mae had been dumped. “Would you mind looking in the hole or around it for me? When I started moving away some of the concrete I had a bracelet on. Now it’s gone. I’m afraid it might be in that pile of dirt you have over there or in the hole.”

  Fezzo looked at Nonie like she’d just farted loudly in church, but he didn’t say a word.

  “I hate to bother you about it,” Nonie continued. “But that bracelet was pretty important to me. Would you mind taking a peek? It might have fallen inside the hole while you were digging.”

  Nate shook his head. “I don’t know. Sheriff isn’t going to like that.”

  “Please,” Nonie said.

  “Just go look in the damn hole yourself,” Tiana barked in her ear. “What’s the matter with you, girl. It’s right there in your face. All you’ve got to do is walk over there and get it. Better to say you sorry than ask that white boy for permission.”

  Nonie sighed. “Please?” she said again.

  The drizzle soon turned into fat droplets, and Buchanan covered his radio with a hand and said to Nate, “Go to the car and get a blanket so we can cover the body.”

  Nate nodded, and when Buchanan turned back to his radio and walked off a couple of feet, Nate mouthed to Nonie, “Sorry.”

  When Nate left to get the blanket as ordered and with Buchanan busy on his radio, Nonie felt Tiana give her a little shove on her back.

  “Go now,” Tiana said. “You blind, girl? Nobody’s lookin’. So go already.”

  Nonie sighed, then held a finger up against her lips, motioning to Fezzo to stay quiet. Holding her breath, she inched her way closer to the hole. Concrete and dirt lay in piles along the perimeter of the hole, she glanced over the pile and looked into the hole. She didn’t see anything but dirt.

  Just then she heard Buchanan say, “You need to step back, Nonie. We can’t have you disturbing the crime scene.”

  Nonie held up a hand. “Oh, I’m sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean to—” In that moment, Nonie caught a glimpse of something shiny stuck in a pile of dirt near the top of the hole, right where Tiana had indicated. “Sheriff, you might want to come check this out. I see something in the dirt over here.” Nonie pointed to the shiny object and waited for Buchanan to make his way to it.

  When Buchanan reached the area she pointed to, he frowned, leaned over and plucked a pen out of his shirt pocket and used it to pull something out of the dirt. It was a ring. An LSU class ring.

  “What the hell?” Buchanan said.

  About that time Nate had returned with a blanket. He removed his jacket from Anna Mae’s face, then recovered her face and body with the blanket.

  “Nate, grab me an evidence bag, will you?” Buchanan called out to him.

  Nate hurried back out of the yard again and returned a moment later with what looked like a clear, plastic sandwich bag. He held it open, and Buchanan tilted his pencil towards the opening, and the ring plopped into the bag.

  “Do you mind if I take a look at that?” Nonie asked. She’d seen a ring like that before, only she couldn’t remember where. The sight of it haunted her even more than Guy, Helen and Tiana put together.

  “Woot, they got it,” Tiana yelled. “They gonna get that bastard now! In your eye, you lowlife. They’s gonna be comin’ for you for sure!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  As Sheriff Buchanan and Nate poked around in the dirt for more evidence, Nonie said to Buchanan, “Sheriff, I’ve got to run out to my car and grab a couple of things if that’s all right.” It was the only excuse she could think of to get away so she could talk to Guy, Helen and Tiana to find out what they knew.

  Buchanan looked up from his digging. “Sure. Just don’t go anywhere until I have a chance to talk with you again.”

  “No problem. I’ll be right back.”

  With that, Nonie signaled to Fezzo. “I won’t be long,” she assured him.

  He gave her a questioning look, but remained silent.

  Grabbing her keys from the front pocket of her slacks, Nonie hurried out of the side gate and walked around the house, unlocked the Acura and slipped into the driver’s seat. As expected, Guy, Helen and Tiana followed her inside. Guy suddenly appeared sitting shotgun and Helen and Tiana had taken over the backseat.

  Tiana clapped her hands and gave a loud whoop. “Now they gonna get it. The man that killed that woman is gonna get his what for. I may not have been able to get to those sumabitches who took me, my man and my boy, but this one’s not going to get away. My job is done!”

  Nonie turned to look at Tiana. “What are you talking about?”

  “The ring they found? The one that wore that ring is the man who killed that woman. All they have to do is find the man. They’ll see then. They’ll see.”

  “Do you know who did it?” Nonie asked. “Did you see him kill her? How did you find us? How did you get here?”

  “You gots a lot of questions. I didn’t have to find you because I followed him when you left my house.” She pointed to Guy. “I figured if you could see me and him then maybe you could help me find who killed me and my family.”

  “But Tiana, that was so long ago, those people are more than likely all dead by now,” Nonie said.

  “Yeah, I know that now. But I liked getting out of my house. You house is nicer than mine.”

  Nonie frowned. “I never saw you in my apartment.”

  Tiana chuckled. “I know. I was hiding the whole time. Made myself go poof. That way nobody can sees me, but I can sees them.”

  Nonie looked over at Guy and Helen. “Did either of you see her?”

  Both shook their head.

  “Can you teach me that trick?” Helen asked. “To go poof so nobody, not even Nonie can see me?”

  “What I look like?” Tiana asked with a scowl. “A secret teller? That’s all my business.”

  “What about the other stuff?” Nonie asked, still confused as to how she never knew Tiana had been at her house. The killer? The ring? Do you know who did it? Did you see him kill her?”

  “No, but I just know. I knows it was the man who wore that ring. I seen it in the hole. And something inside of me said it’s a match. The man who wore that ring is the man who did the murder. So now my job here is done.”

  “What do you mean?” Nonie asked.

  “I found me a murderer, so my jobs done here. It wasn’t the ones who killed me and my man and boy, but it’s a murderer just the same.”

  “What are you going to do now, Tiana?” Guy asked.

  “Me? It’s been a long time on this earth by myself, waiting to get me some revenge. Like your woman said, the men that killed me and my family might all be dead by now because it was so long ago. They probably getting their due paid somewhere else. But at least I was able to settle somebody else’s business.” She looked at Nonie. “Thank you for giving me that chance. Thank you for finding me. Now I can go find that light and go home to my boy and my man.”

  “But what about the plantation?” Nonie asked. “Are you going to leave there now?”

  “Oh, I’ll hang around a little bit longe
r. I owe you one. Your man here tells me that there’s some people with some machines like y’all had when you came to the plantation the first time, and they need to get pictures and stuff. I’ll give them a good scare just for you, so it’ll look good on your name. So that your word would be good. That way when you tell them a place has a ghost they gonna believe you. But once I’m done with that, I’m gonna find me that light and go home. Thank you Nonie Broussard for helping Tiana Lewis. I owe you, and for that I’ll stick around. I was the only one in there, so if they go and I’m not there, they not gonna get nothing on their machines.”

  “Talking about being the only one in there,” Nonie said. “Were you the one who pushed me down the stairs?”

  Tiana gave her a sheepish look. “Yeah, that was me. If I don’t knows somebody and they snooping around my house, I get mad. I didn’t want to hurt you, no. Just give you a little scare so you would leave.” Tiana yawned. “I’m gonna go back to my house now and wait for them people with the machines. Then I’m gonna go home. See my man and my boy.”

  Nonie was about to tell Tiana that there was no need for her to stick around. That if she knew it was time for her to seek the light, she should go now in order to be with her family. Before she could say anything, however, Tiana blipped out of sight.

  “Now isn’t that something?” Helen said from the backseat. “Look at what you did. Your gift gave somebody resolution and hope. Not only Tiana, but Anna Mae, too.”

  “What do you mean?” Nonie asked.

  “We saw her,” Guy said. “Remember, I told you Anna Mae was the one banging the cabinet doors.”

  “That’s right,” Helen said. “Now because of you, they found Anna Mae’s body, and she was able to have peace enough to go to the light.”

  Guy nodded. “We saw her go to it. Remember that gust of wind in the backyard earlier before it started to rain? That was her crossing over. And that was all because of you. You’re the hero of the day.”

  Nonie sat dumbstruck. “Oh, I’m no hero. You and Helen told me Anna Mae was dead and told me not to get involved.”

  “Yes, dear, we did, but fortunately, you didn’t listen to us,” Helen said. “And look at all the good that came out of it.”