“You shouldn’t have come out here alone, Marie.”
“I know.” She peered into the darkness. East, down that road, were the baby’s people.
Marie faced forward when Reneaux turned onto Highway 51.
And, strangely enough, that made them her people, too.
A stranger’s soul can be made whole.
For a voodooienne to heal herself, it requires the most extraordinary care.
—The Voodoo Companion, 1865
ou should’ve been a vet.”
“Thought about it.” They were in her apartment; the dog, sedated on her bed. She’d have to throw away the covering; she’d never be able to rid it of the swamp smell, the mud and dried blood. She’d set the bone, cleaned the gnash on the dog’s foreleg, and wrapped it in gauze.
“Want to bathe him?”
“Later. In the kitchen, there’s a small tub and rags. We can wipe him down for now, get the bulk of the dirt off.”
“Why didn’t you?” Reneaux asked.
“What?”
“Become a vet?”
“Don’t know, really.” Marie stroked the dog. Eyelids fluttering, his paws clawed the air. Was he dreaming? Remembering being scared, chased onto the road? And he had been chased, just as she’d been. “You going to get that soap?”
“Yeah. Will do, Chérie.”
“Don’t call me that.” “Chérie.” She could see Jacques grinning, impish, his shirt flying in the humid air.
“Not even a southern ‘honey chile’?”
“No.”
“Northern women sure are tough. Or is it just northern doctors?”
“Neither. Just me.”
“Right.” Reneaux looked at her, sitting rigid, on the bed, her hand sliding over the dog’s ribs.
“Formality. I’ve got it. Doctor Levant. Maybe the rare, colloquial, ‘Hey, Doc.’ I’ll remember that. Keep the pecking order straight. Never no mind what we’ve been through together.”
“We’ve haven’t been through anything.”
“Sure. Didn’t almost get killed together. Didn’t rescue you and a dog. Didn’t have a dog leak blood on my jacket, in my car.”
“The car isn’t yours. Police property.”
“Who says?”
Marie shook her head. Reneaux wasn’t a big man but he seemed big. Filling up the space in her head, getting beneath her skin, making her feel in the wrong. “I should’ve been a vet.”
“Yeah. Spend all day talking with the animals, no? They’d understand you good.”
“Water. Soap. Please, Reneaux.”
He walked toward the kitchen. “Only going ’cause you said ‘please,’” he shouted over his back. Then he kept walking, muttering, “Southerners respect good manners. Please. Thank you. But no ‘honey chile.’ No ‘chérie’ for northern women. No getting too close.”
Marie smiled. Reneaux exasperated her yet made her laugh. She tugged burrs from the dog’s fur. She’d have to get his coat shaved. Given the city’s heat and humidity, she thought the dog probably wouldn’t mind. Bald-headed. Bald-legged. Puff balls of fur behind its ears.
Marie didn’t know why she’d become a doctor. A healer, she’d always been that. Birds, mice, crickets, even snakes, she brought home to their two-story walk-up. Her mother never seemed to mind.
Her foster parents did. They beat it out of her. “Creatures remain outdoors.” And what couldn’t hop, skip, or run, they drowned. Floating creatures in a plastic bucket. She’d be left to bury them in dirt.
But that didn’t explain her switch to people. Didn’t explain why she filled out one application and left the other one blank. She could be in Virginia, doing her residency on horses, small animals, creatures with scales, shells, and wings.
People were messy, complicated. They talked back, were unpredictable. Hit a dog, it would either go belly-up or fight. When the struggle was over, it was over. People held grudges, memories.
“Here.”
“Thanks.”
“He’s coming round.”
She’d hurt a dog. An accident, not malice. Still—amazingly, the dog had trusted her enough to allow her to carry him out of the swamp.
A cool nose nudged her hand. “Hey there,” murmured Marie.
The dog had velvet eyes. They were veiled with pain, drugs; nonetheless, the smooth brown contrasted with the steel-black fur. Eyes shut, with some weight on him the dog would look menacing. His eyes open, you’d have to believe some gentle soul had come back from the dead, reincarnated into the light. He licked her palm.
Marie wiped her eyes. She didn’t know what was the matter with her; part of her just wanted to sit and cry. Bury her face in the animal’s fur and cry for a mother and memories she’d never known. Ten to eighteen—no mother to explain blood between her legs, no mother to explain love, boys, surviving in school. Feeling ugly, too fat, gangly like a colt. No mother to see the beauty in her.
She squeezed water from her rag. “This won’t hurt.” The dog closed its eyes and went limp. She wiped along the dog’s spine. Fur, dried leaves, burrs, and tarlike mud clung to the rag. Smaller wounds, punctures the diameter of a pen or penknife, scars an inch or two long. Someone had tortured the dog, not enough to kill, but enough to hurt.
“Let me help.” With the dog in the middle, she and Reneaux stroked the animal clean. He lay, paws up, belly exposed. Utterly trusting.
“I’m sorry. You helped both of us. Me. Dog.”
“Never no mind.” Reneaux kept wiping, dipping the rag in water, squeezing out dirt, stroking the dog calm.
“Don’t know why you annoy me.”
“My mother says the same thing. Says I drive her crazy. But she loves me. ‘Her big ole baby boy,’ no?” He slapped his thigh. Startled, the dog jerked onto its side, its head up.
Marie giggled at the image of Reneaux, an overgrown infant, tough and bawling. “You love her. A lot.”
“Sure ’nough.” Then he patted the dog. “Ssssh. Don’t mind me.”
“Any brothers? Sisters?”
“A brother once. He’s dead now.” Reneaux stopped moving and Marie marveled again at how he seemed like a stop-motion character. Hand poised midair above the dog, head bowed, his entire body was preternaturally still.
“You didn’t ask.” He moved rhythmically again, stroking the dog.
“What?”
“For details. Usually everyone wants details.”
“Not me. Death is private.” She blinked and saw her mother stretched as if sleeping on the kitchen floor. She pointed at the dog. “What should we call him?”
“We? He’s your dog.”
“I’m not certain my lease allows a dog.”
“You’ll have to move, then.”
“Very funny. Dog. Let’s just call him ‘Dog.’” The animal nuzzled her hand.
“He likes it. Dog.” Reneaux scratched his head. “Dog? Didn’t you tell me not to say that?”
“This is different. This is a dog. A good dog. A kind dog. ‘Kind Dog.’ That’s it. I’ll call him Kind Dog. Remember the picture books? Tiny. No bigger than the palm of your hand. There were dozens of them—Ant and Bee. Ant and Bee and the Rainbow. One, Two, Three with Ant and Bee. They had a friend, Kind Dog. They gave Kind Dog a birthday party. Party hats, balloons, a cake made from bones. My mother used to read them. Read me stories from all over the world. Eloise. Ananzi. Peter Rabbit. But the stories she told from her childhood were best.” Marie could hear her mother’s voice, soft and sweet, telling tales of yellow moons, hanging moss, and the clicking of cicadas. Telling tales of a woman powerful enough to hold Death at bay:
“Marie, child, she could touch a child’s brow, and lift the fever right up into her hand. Once a man near death, chest aching, lungs choking on fluid, called for the Virgin, but it was ‘She who Worships the Old and the New’ who told him, ‘Hush, go to sleep,’ and when he woke, his fever was gone, his lungs clear.”
But her mother didn’t tell the tales often—only on special o
ccasions, when she was morose, tired of the harsh winters. When she mourned for southern heat and languid nights. Or when there was not enough to eat, and distracting tales were needed to fill them up. Marie doubted the stories were true. More like legends, folktales.
“They called her, call her Queen. Queen—”
“—what?”
Her mother wouldn’t tell.
Reneaux was staring at her, as if she were crazy, out of her mind.
She said harshly, “Policemen don’t say ‘dog.’”
“Right,” he drawled. “Not tough enough.”
The dog whimpered.
“You smoke?”
“No.”
“Gauloises?” He lifted the blue pack off the nightstand.
“A friend’s,” she said, bothered she’d hadn’t thrown the package away.
“Maybe this belongs to the dead man? I mean, the dead boy. Jacques’s?” His hand grazed the pillow and Marie knew he was seeing her and Jacques in bed together.
She flushed.
“Must be interesting, robbing the cradle.”
“Why should you care?”
“I don’t.”
But she could tell the thought of her and Jacques bothered Reneaux. Just as it bothered her that she’d asked him if he cared.
“It’s none of your business,” she said flatly.
“’Cept for the murder part.” He was drawling again: Deep South. His fingers plucked at the plastic.
“I should’ve thrown them away. I don’t smoke. I don’t know why I kept them.”
“Good thing you did. Look here.” He’d gently torn the plastic wrapper and, beneath it, the blue cover. Between the cover and the foil was a match cover. “‘Une goutte de sang noir. Le sang se manifestera.’ Means ‘One drop of black blood. Blood will out.’ And a cross. Like the markings on the bodies, but more distinct.”
She saw Jacques dead. Saw a man’s thumb, marking, like a priest, Jacques’s forehead. An upside-down cross. Then, an S, hanging over the horizontal line.
Reneaux flipped the cover over. Red letters on a black background: Breezy’s.
“That’s where the bust-up was?”
“Yes.” Where the baby’s mother died, Marie thought. Where Jacques died.
“Right. Got a plastic bag? Might be fingerprints.”
“There’s an envelope in the drawer.”
He slid the match cover into a blue envelope and licked it shut.
“You’ll tell me why you went to the DeLaCroix’s?”
“Detective time again?”
“Doc, I mean, Doctor Levant—I need to know.”
“You already know. You, DuLac, and El lied to me. You knew the baby’s family and said nothing.”
“Any other reason?”
Marie arched forward. The dog barked. “Am I a suspect?”
“No. But the DeLaCroixs own Breezy’s.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You slept with the dead boy—”
“—fucked. Why not say it? I fucked the dead boy.”
Reneaux checked off points with his pen. “—became attached to the baby.”
Marie was furious. “Is loving a crime? You, El, and DuLac did worse. Never telling me about the baby’s family. Never telling Social Services. Antoinette.” She clutched his pen and pad. “Never telling me that her family had to have known that their—what?—daughter, granddaughter, sister, niece—died in the family bar. You didn’t even tell me. Didn’t even give me a chance to prove abandonment. I could’ve done it. Saved that child.”
“I’m doing my job.”
“Out,” she ordered. Jacques flashed before her. He was grinning, clutching his shoes. “Out.” Dog hopped off the bed, hobbled down, three-legged.
“My baby’s gone.”
“It’s not your child.”
“Don’t tell me anything, Reneaux. You, DuLac, El put that baby in foster care.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“How do you know? Can you guarantee it? Get out.” She threw his jacket at him. She wanted to scream, rip at his hair. It’d been too much, all of it, her dreams, losing the baby, hurting a dog, being scared.
Reneaux walked toward the bedroom door; the dog, head high, sniffed at him as he passed by.
“I didn’t lie,” Reneaux whispered.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
Reneaux looked at her straight on. “Lots of coincidences, Doctor Levant. Too many. By rights, you should be a suspect. Investigated. But DuLac—no, you convinced me that you’re special. You’ve got the gift.”
“I don’t believe in magic.”
“Not even haints? Hauntings?”
He knew, knew about her dreams. Knees buckling, she rested her hand on the dog’s head. Thick, blunt, warm, it helped steady her.
“Marie, don’t go after the DeLaCroixs without a police escort.”
“Like you? How could I ever trust you?”
He winced, made a half turn and started walking.
She kept still until she heard the apartment door click shut. “Good dog,” she said patting the animal’s head. “Kind Dog.” He was faithful and true.
“Stay,” she said to the dog and, remarkably, he did.
She went onto the balcony, but didn’t turn on the fake gas lamps.
The street was crowded, bodies weaving, snaking through the streets. Only in New Orleans did day seem like night and night, day.
Reneaux’s ’88 Cadillac looked woeful. It was black with dents in its side, its back bumper missing. The convertible hood was patched with gray tarp.
Reneaux walked down the landing steps. His jacket was on, zipped, collar up—never mind the blood, the dirt and heat. He looked more like a thief than a cop. A street hood, they’d say in Chicago. Here, in Louisiana, they’d say, “Trouble man,” as in, “That man be trouble, mean trouble, make trouble.” A man not to be messed with.
Marie stepped back into the shadows. Watching Reneaux, she felt a welling sadness. She liked when he spoke her name. He said it like nobody else, no French accent, just a quick emphasis on the first syllable. The rest of her name caught up by the wind.
“Reneaux,” she whispered. She wanted him to turn around like Jacques had and call, “Chérie.”
Reneaux turned, peered straight into the darkness, as if he knew exactly where she stood on the balcony.
She held her breath.
“Lock the door, Marie. Lock your front door.”
Her breath rushed in short bursts. She stumbled backward into her apartment. Kind Dog watched her, then hobbled after her as she raced to the front room, turned the lock and drew the bolt and chain. Three locks. The prior tenants must have felt they needed them. Did she?
She looked down at the dog. “You should be resting.” She lifted the gangly mutt like it was a baby. “You smell. My room smells. My bed smells.”
The dog panted, laid its head down on the pillow like it was a person.
Marie threw a spare sheet on the other half of the bed. She didn’t turn out the lights. Didn’t change her clothes. She just lay there, hearing an upbeat strain of jazz and voices (some cursing, shouting; others chattering excitedly). An engine was gunning, and a car squealed away from the curb. “Bastard. Cochon,” a woman screamed. Then, laughter.
Marie lay knowing the darkness outside was coming in, lifting the curtains with a breeze, casting shapes on the wooden floor. She was scared. Just beyond the window, she felt someone, something was out there, stalking her. It was the same feeling she had in the swamp.
“Dog,” she thought. “Dog.” He was watching her, his eyes bright, fully alert.
“Hey.” She tickled his ear. “We’ll look out for each other.” She inched closer to Dog, wrapping her arm over him like he was a newborn baby. She felt his steady heartbeat, listened to his breath. She kept the nightstand lamp on.
They both went to sleep; the moon soared higher. New Orleans came alive, just outside, beneath her balcony. Lovers, gamblers, thieves, musici
ans mingled and lied.
For the first time in a long time, Marie didn’t dream.
he woke up starved. Limbs heavy, mouth dry, crust in her eyes, she felt as though she were waking from the dead. Kind Dog was still stretched on the bed, watching her. “Hey, don’t be giving me the creeps.”
Dog licked her cheek. Why did anyone believe animals were dumb?
“You need to pee?”
Kind Dog sat up and Marie, clothes wrinkled, hair plastered flat, helped the dog off the bed. “Come on.” They took the elevator instead of the stairs. Outside, on the steps, Marie smelled honeysuckle, and she felt such longing, she doubled over, cramped, heart contracting, trying to catch her breath. Dog whimpered beside her. She exhaled. “Let’s go.”
She walked, Dog hobbled across the street. It was a misty dawn, quiet like the morning when Jacques had left.
Kind Dog did his business. A drunk walked by. “Clean it up. There’s a fine,” he slurred.
“Right. Thanks.” Kind Dog barked. Marie found some tissue in her back pocket. Almost like caring for a child. Someone else depending on her for food; going outdoors, being cleaned up; vaccinated, being safe and warm.
She watched Kind Dog roll on the thin strip of lawn, snorting, sniffing. Even a broken leg couldn’t quash his playfulness. Marie smiled. When had she decided to keep him? Probably when she named him. She swayed. Her hand gripped the tree. There was the whiff of honeysuckle again. It rose all about her—as the heat rose, in humid waves, from the concrete. Baby Doe. The longing didn’t go away.
Then she knew, without knowing how she knew, that her mother had lived here. Her mother had said, “South. Down South. I come from down South.” But it was here. Marie was sure of it. Louisiana. New Orleans. Honeysuckle was triggering memories. Leading her back to the baby. Straggling revelers ogled her and the dog like they were caged in the zoo.
She’d been distracted by the swamp, Kind Dog. Been distracted by her dreams and fears. She looked around. Early morn, folks were already carrying beer in plastic cups. An acne-scarred girl strummed a banjo. A woman wrapped in gauze and plastic beads waved a sign, TAROT. A man, like the Tin Man’s evil twin, stood still as a statue in a silver jumpsuit, silver boots with silver-painted face, arms, and hands. Living in the Quarter wasn’t normal. Mixture of saint and sinner. Descendants from both slaves and masters. Spanish conquerors. French rulers. Canadian refugees. American barbarians. African and Caribbean. Blacks and coloreds. The stew blended exotic, corrupt, decadent. Even honeysuckle wasn’t native; the Japanese had carted it in on ships.
The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy Page 26