“By now everyone knows a doctor’s in town.” Aaron undid the parking brake. “Get some rest, Doc Laveau. You’re going to need it.”
“I don’t understand.”
Aaron turned, his right arm over the seat, his head twisted back, and pressed on the gas pedal.
“Hey.” Marie jumped back from the car. “Hey,” she repeated, her hand raised high, seeking acknowledgment that he’d heard her. Understood.
No response. His car, like his brother’s truck, had moved in reverse, then executed a three-point turn.
The red taillights bobbled with each crunch of gravel. The police siren was silent; but the searchlight sprayed the landscape with moving spirals of blood red light.
As much as Nana had lightened her soul, Aaron had dampened it.
Nana was sleeping, raspy air moving through her lungs. El was by her bed, glowing like a luminescent butterfly.
Beau snored. Amazing, even the dog was comfortable with ghosts.
Marie swayed, adrenaline rushing out of her like air from a balloon.
There were two cots, each with sleeping bags. Without undressing, or washing her face, she slipped inside one. It felt good to lie down. Didn’t matter that she was overly warm. Didn’t matter that her legs were bound inside the bag. Nothing mattered but lying down, letting go.
Shadows flickered across the wood-beam ceiling. Embers blew orange in the fireplace.
Sweat broke out on her face, behind her neck, in the valley between her breasts. It dawned on her, during summer, Aaron and Deet must’ve slept atop the sleeping bags for extra cushioning. Yet she couldn’t wiggle her body out of the bag. She felt trapped, unable to move.
Random images flitted through her mind: the ax handle; the pool of blood; the mother and child.
Her body was shutting down. Aaron would identify the bodies. Collect clues. Strange, he didn’t seem worried about locating the house and the bodies.
She was in free fall, falling toward a river of death, a slick, black pool. She tried to catch herself, grip a ledge, but there wasn’t one. Flames burst upward, randomly, intermittently.
Her fall accelerated. She cried out. Her body slammed into muddy, tarlike water; she sank, ooze clogging her lungs.
Rewind.
She was falling again, her arms flailing, her fingers trying to grip a ledge. Her larynx constricted. She couldn’t scream.
She woke.
Marie shuddered, feeling cold travel throughout her body. Falling was often a prelude to deeper sleep. Her brain was trying to release anxieties, solve problems. But she hadn’t gone deep enough.
Disoriented, she focused on the concrete. She was alive. In Nana’s house. The oxygen machine whirred and clicked, rhythmically forcing air through tubes, sounding, oddly, breathless. Startling light pierced her mind.
Aaron said, “Mother and child murdered”—how did he know?
All she’d said was that a family had been murdered. She didn’t say “mother and child.” Yet, if you saw the crime or crime scene, you couldn’t help focusing on the woman and girl child. Had Aaron seen it? Known about it? Even Deet had said, “That family.” He’d said, “I wasn’t talking about that family.”
She was missing connections. Clues.
She felt a weight pushing her backward. Down. Sleep. She fought to stay awake. She should be better than this—she was acting like an amateur. Parks, if he was here, would fuss: “Facts, Marie. Collect hard evidence.”
She tried to rise.
Something lulled, tugging her deeper.
She looked across at Nana. She was still sleeping, wasn’t she?
Inside the sleeping bag, she smelled musk and burnt wood.
How did she end up in the middle of nowhere with a dying woman? Without a car, exhausted and hurt. Hungry, and nauseous from moonshine.
A hand pressed against her chest, a curtain fell inside her mind, shielding her from—what? Her strength drained.
Moonshine. How ironic. Nothing but darkness and the reflected light of stars, millions of years ago dead.
She slept. Hundreds of black tentacles, like snakes, wriggled across the underside of her eyelids. Moving inside her body, in sinews, in blood, leaving trails beneath her skin.
THREE
DELAIRE
MORNING
Marie jerked awake, disoriented. She heard bees—thousands of bees, like a hive exploding, outraged by fire and smoke.
In her mind, like a child’s flip book, she saw again the images of the murdered family.
Her clothes were sticky, damp with sweat. Dried blood, crusty brown, coated her pants and shirt.
El was gone.
She unzipped the sleeping bag, probed her ankle. The swelling was down. Nana’s heart monitor pulsed a steady rhythm, a white wave spiking up, then down.
Beau was looking at her; his tennis ball head propped on Nana’s knee. Like her, he probably needed to pee.
Wincing, Marie rose. In daylight, she could see neglect. Dust on the table. Spider webs with dead wasps. Dirty pans in the sink. Only the area surrounding Nana’s bed was clean.
She heard bees again. The humming muted, then, rising high, higher and louder into the air.
She walked gingerly toward the window.
A small crowd—at least thirty black and brown men and women were in the yard, staring, facing the house. Their humming was repetitive, unnerving, like a tragic Gullah chant. It was a sound first voiced in slavery, a reverberating moan from deep, back in their throats.
Beau leaped off the bed, padded across the floor, and scratched at the closed door. Marie opened it, and the sound, and the light from the rising sun, washed over her.
The unifying hum ended as if on cue. Women wore Sunday-best hats with bows, pink and green ribbons, lace and silk flowers. Their shifts, though, were plain, frayed. Men wore clean belted pants and white shirts dulled from overwashing. Several stood erect, like deacons, in old-fashioned three-piece suits.
They reminded her of her band of followers in New Orleans. The poor, the uninsured. They were mainly elders who remembered the traditions of the drum, remembered tales of African shamans who healed with roots, spells, and ancestor prayers.
A man, bushy browed, hat in hand, looking as ancient as Nana, stepped forward. “Heard there was a doctor.”
Deet, rounding from the side of the house, appeared, like an apparition. “Baylor’s out shrimping. Said to say hi. I think you’ll be needing this.” He held out a brown leather bag. “Aaron should be back soon. Take it. He’ll be back real soon.”
“Deet.” Her uneasiness returned. She didn’t trust the brothers. She should have gone back to the crime scene.
“Here. Look.” He snapped the brass lock. Inside were medical supplies.
“Where’d you get these?” Gauze, syringes, wipes. Aspirin, peroxide, benadryl.
“Did your ghost stay with Nana?” Deet’s expression was smooth, without guile.
“Most of the time, Deet. The ghost stayed most of the time. Nana’s fine.”
He grinned, then pushed the bag into her hands. “There’s a thermometer. That thing for listening to hearts.”
“Stethoscope.”
“Everything you need for doctoring.”
“Deet, I can’t practice here.”
“We need you,” said the man. He looked like an Ibo with his high forehead and arched cheekbones. He had the inherent dignity of an African king, but his body was thin, malnourished.
“I’m Nate.”
Marie stepped off the porch, and as she did so, the small crowd edged closer.
Most of them were old, on the far side of sixty. Some, with yellowing skin; one, with a misshapen back; another, with a draining, red, infected eye. Another carried a tree limb turned into a cane, his trousers cut above his knee, his calf bandaged. Still another had a lopsided neck. A tumor? She guessed that anyone able-bodied, like Baylor, was working at sea.
Everyone looked at her, expectant.
She felt she was in
the Third World. The nineteenth century. As if the DeLaire plantation had never closed.
“We need you, Dr. Laveau,” said Nate.
There was a cascade of “amens,” some grunting assents, some shouts of “hey’ya,” while others nodded. Still others made the sign of the cross. A woman’s voice called, “Speak the truth.” Another responded, “You were sent, Maman Laveau. Sent to us here.”
Faces, trusting, yearning, were all upturned, toward her.
Sunlight was hurting her eyes. Her body and soul ached. She needed to know if Aaron had found clues to solve the crime.
A gray-haired woman, the side of her face marked with possible cancerous moles, clasped her hand. “Help us.”
Marie exhaled, reminding herself to be in the moment. She was a doctor. So heal. “I’ll do what I can,” she murmured.
The woman squealed and clapped her hands.
The crowd parted, hands pushing forward a girl, her hair in tight, interlocking braids. Marie guessed she was six, maybe seven months’ pregnant. There was no gold band on her finger.
Beau barked.
“I’ll do my best.”
The pregnant teen was at the front of the line, and, amazingly, the others seemed to order themselves behind her, the sickest first, as if they had their own intuitive sense of triage.
“I’ll get Nana,” blurted Deet. “She’ll want to see this.”
Marie set the medical bag on the steps, pulled out the stethoscope. “What’s your name?”
“Brenda.”
“Let me listen to your heart. The baby’s, too.”
The girl’s heart raced like a rabbit’s.
“Take a deep breath. You need to relax. It’s best for the baby.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The baby’s heart was strong, but slightly slower than the mother’s. It should have been reversed—the mother’s heartbeat slow and steady, the baby’s fast, like a galloping horse.
“Are you taking vitamins?”
The girl’s eyes remained wide, awestruck. “You’re pretty.”
“You should get to the nearest clinic. You need vitamins. Especially folic acid, the B vitamins. You need regular care.”
“Clinic is fifty miles away.”
“How old are you?”
“Fourteen.”
Marie’s heart constricted. In the city, at Charity, unwed pregnant teens were a familiar story. The world was askew with pregnant, underage girls. Was the sex consensual? Or was it rape, abuse?
“Is your mother here?”
The girl didn’t answer. Her hands traced circles on her stomach.
“Is Brenda’s mother here?”
None of the women in the yard spoke.
Marie didn’t understand it. Was the girl’s mother dead? How could any mother leave her daughter? She could never leave Marie-Claire. All the women in the yard were postmenopausal. Possible grandmothers. Yet none claimed Brenda as direct kin.
“I drink cod-liver oil every morning,” piped Brenda, eager to please.
Marie smiled at her. “Good. Don’t miss a day. Eat plenty of vegetables, fruit, and eggs. An extra teaspoon of cod-liver oil if you’re ever faint. It’s a good home remedy.”
Cod-liver oil had fat-soluble A and D, and EPA and DHA fatty acids. Still, the girl was underage. Unmarried. A lot of complications could arise: preterm labor, anemia, preeclampsia, hypertension, and low birth weight.
“Whom do you live with?”
“Nobody,” said Nate, stepping forward. “We all take care of her.”
Marie wanted to argue, shame him that inadequate health care wasn’t proper care for a pregnant teen, but she didn’t want to scare the girl. She needed to do a pelvic. But she couldn’t do an internal exam in a public yard.
Brenda had a dusting of freckles on her nose. A face filled with a teen’s hopeful joy.
Marie said softly, gently, “Prenatal care is important for a healthy baby. You need to go to a clinic.”
Brenda bobbed her head. But Marie could tell she was just trying not to be rude. She wouldn’t go anywhere. In DeLaire, Brenda would birth the baby as best she could.
Marie watched Nate move back into line. Nana’s neighbors, her parishioners, offered no other advice or explanation. They looked at the yard’s dirt as if it were gold.
“Sit, Brenda. Rest,” she said.
Brenda sat on the porch steps, holding her belly, murmuring over and over, “Maman Laveau’s going to birth my baby. Nana said so. Nana said so.”
Marie doctored, but she couldn’t heal or adequately help. Her resources were too few—cotton pads, antiseptic cream, smelling salts.
The community waited patiently, as if outdoor doctoring was the most normal thing in the world.
Peter’s eyes were red, and nearly closed with pus. Esther’s blood pressure was 160/115. The doctor’s bag didn’t have any eyewash, antibiotics, or diuretics.
Next was “Tommy. Just plain Tommy.” He was a ruddy-colored man with open wounds and abscesses on his legs and feet.
“Diabetes. You need hospital care.”
“Can’t you just fix it, Maman Marie?”
“You mean with spirits instead of medicine? It doesn’t always work that way—on demand. The loas also want us to care for ourselves.”
Tommy sneered as if he disbelieved her.
“I’m telling the truth. Faith healing isn’t a justification for not seeing a doctor.”
“Things are different here. Here, our country, we follow older ways.”
“I can’t help you.”
Disappointed, Tommy staggered away.
Marie shouted at the followers, “Christianity, voodoo. In both, God, the gods, help those who help themselves.”
Murmurs of dissent rippled through the crowd.
From the porch, Nana called out, her voice reed thin, “This here be Marie Laveau. What isn’t healed now will be healed tonight in a ceremony.”
Shocked, Marie looked back at Nana, standing on the porch, clinging to Deet’s arm. In his left hand, Deet held a cigarette. Beau sat on the bottom step.
There won’t be any ceremony!” she wanted to shout, but she felt bad about denying Nana in front of her community. She felt DeLaire was like the world beyond the looking glass, where up was down and down was up.
An elder stepped forward, and as if it was the most natural act in the world, she opened her shirt to show a lump, like a golf ball, inside her otherwise shrunken breast.
Surgery was the only option.
“Your name?” Marie whispered.
“Luella.”
“You must see a specialist,” Marie said. “Come to Charity Hospital in New Orleans. I’ll see that you’re well cared for.”
“I’ll stay right here,” Luella said, smiling angelically. “Nana’s done good with her herbs and such, but she says you’re the best. The greatest Voodoo Queen. Nothing you can’t do.”
“That’s not true, Luella. All of you, listen to me. For serious ills, you need to come to Charity. I can return, but many of you still need hospital care.”
“No—a ceremony,” demanded Nate. “Nana says you’ll heal.”
The mole-faced woman stroked Marie’s arm, saying, “We believe in you. I believe.”
Nana was sitting, smiling and swaying, in the porch rocker.
Marie looked back at the small crowd. Too-serene faces stared at her with simplistic faith. Faith that she could fix any wound.
Marie felt as if she’d stumbled into a mad world. A backwoods world with a raw belief in voodoo. Yes, miracles happened, like faith healing in Christianity. The blind saw; the crippled walked. Voodoo had its miracles, too. But faith wasn’t a substitute for medicine.
She was nearing the end of the line. The “patients” she’d seen congregated around Nana and on the porch. She realized that, except for Brenda, they all had serious, life-threatening ills. The “less serious” were really those who were stable but dying.
A fiftyish man, his throat scarred
, said, “Cancer. Years back, spent some time in the hospital. Now I come to you. Nana told us you were coming. Told us there’s nothing you can’t do.” His voice was barely above a whisper.
“You need to go back to the hospital. See your doctor.”
“Don’t have a doctor. After Vietnam, spent time in a hospital. Didn’t do me much good.”
She was startled. The survival rate for throat cancer was in years, not decades.
The veteran patted Marie’s hand as if he was comforting her. “I’ll come tonight. Me and Tommy.”
“I won’t be here tonight.”
“ ’Course you will. Nana said a ceremony. A healing.”
He squeezed her hand and went to the porch to sit beside Nana.
Marie did her best to counsel those with abnormal growths, with fluid-filled lungs and impaired breathing. Cancer flourished—lung, breast, blood, and skin. Most of the villagers claimed they’d been diagnosed. By whom? Nana’s absent doctor?
When she insisted that a clinic or hospital visit was necessary, each patient responded, “I’ll be here tonight.”
“I won’t,” she began repeating, over and over. “I’ve got to get back to the city.”
Everyone disbelieved her. Nodded as if she were crazy.
Nana preened on the porch. Amazingly, she was enjoying herself. Her head and hair bobbing, her blind eyes darting. The dying faith healer was exultant, presiding over a mainly dying flock. It didn’t make sense.
Finishing her bare-bones exams, the villagers began humming again. This time the sound was jubilant, as if acknowledging that Nana’s promise had been fulfilled.
There was a call and shout: “Maman Laveau,” “Dr. Laveau,” “Marie Laveau.”
Deet kept exclaiming, “Nana knew. She prophesied. Nana knew.”
A juba began, a ritualized ring circle, an African call and response. Old bodies danced in Nana’s yard—hands slapping knees, chests, and thighs; feet stomping; spinning bodies like dervishes. Brenda clapped her hands, her big belly swaying. Nate, arms upraised, shuffled with grace.
Everyone was celebrating, and all Marie could see was poverty’s worst ills and she, a doctor, without the ability to heal.
Nana, her blind eyes open, was enthralled, seeing what only she could see.
The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy Page 45