Against advice from the dead and my own better judgment, I snapped open the lid. Inside the tin box there were three documents. The first one appeared to be an article from a very old newspaper. I read it slowly.
“Anonymous parties are seeking the last known location of the possible son of Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, known as ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton. LaMothe was born into a Creole community in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana. He became Ferdinand Morton by Anglicizing the name of his stepfather, Mouton, and took up the nickname ‘Jelly Roll’ as a piano player in the Storyville district where he invented jazz in 1902. His ‘Jelly Roll Blues’ was the first jazz composition ever published, in 1915. His parents were never married. He himself had several children out of wedlock, but our concern is with one of his sons, the musician called T-Bone Morton, a major, though little-known exponent of the Sidney Bechet style of soprano saxophone playing. T-Bone (no Christian name is known) lived for a time in Paris where he served well in WWI and subsequently became a minor Parisian celebrity in the hot jazz scene of the early 1920s. He returned to America after the death of his wife, said to be the radical daughter of the winemaking family Simard, with their infant daughter. After some trouble in a Chicago dance hall, reportedly at a King Oliver concert, T-Bone Morton and his daughter disappeared. No further record of T-Bone Morton or his daughter can be found at the present time. Any person or persons with information as to their whereabouts should contact Edwin Cross at the Clayton Tribune.”
The second document was a letter dated 1937.
Dear Mr. Newcomb,
Thank you for your interest. It was not generally the custom of this hospital to keep records concerning the prostitutes some twenty years ago, but you are in luck. The person about whom you inquire was called Eulalie Echo, but happily for your search, was in fact the daughter of the prominent New Orleans business family Zatarain from Gretna in the Parish of Jefferson. They sent a rather sizeable money contribution to the hospital and the woman was treated here as a normal patient. She did indeed have a son, named Chester in our records, though no birth certificate survives. You may wish to know that the mother was a drunkard and that the baby suffered some brain damage. The patient was prescribed cocaine by her attending physician to help with the drinking problem. I pray this information suffices, as it is the entirety of our knowledge on the subject.
The letter was signed by a hospital administrator.
The final bit of gold was a wrinkled black-and-white photograph. It was a picture of a beautiful young woman, dressed for church, standing in front of a 1930-something maroon Hudson Terraplane, the kind with a waterfall front grill—a fairly expensive automobile for our part of the world in those days. On the back, in my mother’s handwriting, it said “Birdie, 1943.” Our house, my house, was in the background.
I strained to remember any hint of a conversation or a speech from my mother that might have been hidden somewhere in the locked box of my own familial recollections. Nothing came to me, but it seemed obvious that these things had been hidden with a purpose, and that I had been told about them sometime in my childhood. The fact that I had proof for Andrews, only moments after I had vowed to procure same, was a bit too eerie for scrutiny, I thought.
So, instead, I simply put everything in the box, closed it, clutched it to my chest, replaced the floorboard, and got to my feet.
As soon as I stood, I felt a wave of exhaustion threaten to knock me back down to the floor. I had a moment of panic, afraid that I would fall asleep again and somehow forget what I’d just found. I thought it would be a good idea, then, for me to bang the tin box hard on the back of my hand. It really hurt, and I made a very strange sound.
Apparently it awakened Andrews, and he called out from downstairs.
“What the hell are you doing up there?” he wanted to know. “And shut up while you’re doing it!”
“I found something,” I answered him. “Come up here, would you?”
“No!”
“Andrews, seriously, I found something important. Proof of everything.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Everything?” he said.
“Well, not everything in the world,” I admitted, staggering unsteadily out of my mother’s room. “But proof of some of the things we’ve been talking about.”
I made it out of my mother’s room and into the hallway a few steps toward the top of the stairs. I could see that Andrews was sitting up, rubbing his face, trying to wake up. How long had I been sitting in my mother’s room, I wondered. It seemed like minutes, but Andrews had been deeply asleep.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he mumbled, “and/or I don’t believe you. Plus, what the hell time is it?”
I had no idea what time it was.
“Fever?” Andrews said as he stood up. “Are you still there?”
“Sorry,” I answered. “Right here.”
“That’s it.” He stumbled toward the stairs. “Time for you to go to bed!”
“No—hold on.” I made it to the first step at the top of the stairs and sat down, my head still a bit fuzzy. The knuckles of my left hand where I’d banged it were red and beginning to swell.
Andrews finally saw me and got up the stairs in three or four great leaping steps. It was very touching, I thought.
“Look.” I held up the box.
“What did you do to your hand?”
“In this box,” I went on, “I have proof of T-Bone Morton, Chester, and someone named or called ‘Birdie.’”
“What?” He glared. “You need to put some ice on that hand.”
“No,” I protested drowsily, “but this box—”
“I see your little box—wait, is this the thing you were going on about in the hospital? The one that was stolen?”
“No,” I told him. “This is another tin box. It has buried treasure.”
“You had this hidden up in your room all the time? You really are a genuinely troubled individual. Dangerously twisted.”
“I did not have this in my room,” I whined. “I found it up in my mother’s. Under the floorboards. Like ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’”
“Oh. Okay.” He reached down and took my arm. “Let’s get you to bed now. You’ve had a big day.”
“Don’t you want to see this stuff?” I nearly shoved the tin box into his face.
“It’ll keep,” he said patiently. “You really want some sleep now. Come on.”
“You don’t take this seriously,” I realized as he was pulling me to my feet. “You think this is something fabricated.”
I pulled my arm away from his grasp and staggered backward.
“What the hell?” he growled.
“Come on into my mother’s room,” I insisted, my voice a bit higher than I wanted it to be. “I’ll show you the loose floorboards.”
“Do you honestly expect me to believe that you just sauntered up here tonight and miraculously found evidence of your deeply troubled ruminations just like that?”
I turned quickly to go back into my mother’s room, lost my balance, and collapsed onto the hallway floor.
“That’s it for you, buckaroo,” Andrews said, completely out of patience. “You’re getting into bed now or I’m calling Lucinda.”
I struggled to stand, couldn’t quite figure out where I was or what I was holding in my hand, and then everything went black.
21.
When I came to, it was morning. It was early, the sun was barely up, and it had snowed quite a bit during the night. Like most early spring snowstorms, it wouldn’t last. The sun would rise, the snow would melt, and crocus and jonquil bulbs would all be happier. But the first look out my window was cold and white.
I heard voices downstairs, and after considering that Andrews might, indeed, be talking to himself, I recognized that the other voice was Lucinda’s. She sounded very angry. I thought, then, that staying in bed and pretending to sleep might be my best option. But after a minute more, I decided that I had to rise and take my medicin
e.
I sniffed, ran my hand through my hair, and sat up. I was still in my clothes from the day before, including boots. I got to my feet and was suddenly very eager to brush my teeth.
Alas, the second my boots hit the floor Andrews and Lucinda had stopped talking.
A moment of silence was followed by a bellowing voice.
“Fever Devilin, you get your be-hind down here! I need to kick it all the way to Memphis!” Lucinda’s voice—though quite loud and genuinely angry—was still music to my ears.
I shifted my weight, tested my legs, and launched myself out of my room. All things considered, everything went smoothly. I made it down the stairs and into the kitchen without a single hitch.
The kitchen was warm. The countertops took on the gold of the early morning sun, and a kind of haze hung in the air of the room, doubtless from the cooking oil Andrews had used to fry his eggs. He was seated in front of an empty plate, a generous gathering of paper towels tucked into the collar of his sweatshirt. Lucinda sat in front of a glass of orange juice, turning it distractedly. She was dressed for work, in her hospital whites.
“It snowed last night,” I said, delighted, headed toward the espresso machine.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Andrews, clearly, was in no mood for my brighter side.
“I’m working on having you arrested.” Lucinda was so mad at me that she wouldn’t look up from her glass.
I rested against the kitchen counter and really took them in. Both were simmering, and I certainly understood why.
“Look,” I began softly, “I know that you’re both worried about me.”
“Not me,” Andrews interrupted. “I think you’re an idiot.”
“And I’m just mad,” Lucinda chimed in.
“Yes,” I conceded, “but what’s at the root of all that discomfort? You’re concerned about my health. And rightly so. But if I could just say this: I wouldn’t be the person that I am if I just wanted to loll about the house not caring what happened to me. I mean, can either of you honestly say that I’m the sort of person who would do that? Would I ever just let Skidmore handle it; not want to get involved? No matter who had been shot in my house? And the fact that, well, I was the one who was shot in my house, can you possibly imagine that I would just say, ‘All right, fine, let the sheriff handle this, I’ll just knit and watch PBS?’ Seriously? Have you met me?”
Andrews pinched his lips together. They were thin, and then they disappeared altogether. “He does have a point,” he admitted softly after a moment.
Lucinda finally looked up at me. “Is it too late for me to get out of this relationship?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
“Okay, then.” She stood. “I’m going to work.”
She downed her juice and headed for the sink with her glass, but I managed to catch hold of her arm. “You understand that I really … appreciate your concern, right?”
“Damn it, Fever,” she said softly.
I leaned close and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll take that as a yes. And?”
“What?” She looked down.
“I love you.”
She sighed.
“This is a—I’m living in a brave new world, then,” Andrews stammered. “Last night Dr. Devilin was rambling on about race in America. This morning he says those three little words that I, frankly, didn’t think he knew how to say. Strange days indeed.”
I was still staring at Lucinda. “I don’t say it often enough. But you know it’s always there.”
“I know.” She nodded.
A very difficult silence reigned in the kitchen for far too long before Andrews saved the day.
“So. What the hell was it that you think you found last night?” he wanted to know.
“You didn’t look?” I couldn’t believe it.
“At what?” Lucinda asked.
“He claims to have found something in his mother’s room last night,” Andrews explained. “But when he fell down, I lost interest in his fantasies.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t look at what I found. Where’s the tin?”
“The tin box?” Lucinda asked. “You found it?”
“It’s another tin box,” Andrews said, rolling his eyes, “that magically appeared in his mother’s room, under the floorboards.”
“Like ‘The Tell-Tale Heart,’” I mumbled. “Did I say that last night?”
“It’s probably still on the floor up there,” Andrews sniffed. “I really didn’t want to play any reindeer games last night. I was tired, I was irritated, and I didn’t believe a word of what he said. And then he passed out.”
I headed out of the kitchen and up the stairs. “Wait until you see this stuff.”
“I have to go to work,” Lucinda called after me.
“No,” I insisted. “Just wait a minute. Just—you have to see this.”
I took two or three steps at a time, landed at the top of the stairs, and saw the red-rimmed tin sitting there, as if it had been waiting patiently just for me. Then I had a sudden, prickly feeling that it had been waiting for me for a couple of decades. I drastically reduced my pace. I seemed to pick up the box in slow motion. There, sitting on the floor beside the tin, was my mother, dressed in her black dress, arms folded, frowning.
“I heard a preacher on the radio this morning,” she told me. “He said that if God had wanted the races to live together, He would have made us all the same color.”
Then she started laughing so much that I thought she might choke.
“You showed me this box after you told me about that,” I whispered. “When I was eleven.”
She nodded.
“You showed me where it was hidden.” I stared, but it was getting harder to see her.
She nodded.
“Why didn’t I remember until now?”
And she was gone.
I squeezed my eyes shut. The vaguest possible hint of Unforgettable perfume hung in the air.
“Fever?” Lucinda called. “Are you talking to us?”
I reached down and retrieved the tin. “What?”
“Are you talking to yourself up there?” Andrews yelled.
I stared for a moment at the place where I had seen my mother sitting.
“Yes,” I answered him after a moment.
* * *
God bless her, Lucinda called into the hospital after she’d taken a quick look at the contents of the red tin. She only allowed that she’d be a half an hour late, but at least it gave me time to get a few things clear in my mind. I didn’t always have to say things out loud before they became real, but I did then.
I splayed the three items on the kitchen table, facing Andrews and Lucinda.
“This first one,” I began, haltingly, “the photograph of ‘Birdie,’ is jogging something uncomfortable from my childhood. I remember my parents arguing about money left to us by my great-grandmother. My father didn’t want anything to do with the inheritance, though he never told me why. The argument was their worst, the angriest words I ever heard between my parents. My father won. I remember my mother calling the woman Birdie. And I also recall—I think I recall—riding in this Hudson Terraplane. I think the woman in this photo is my great-grandmother.”
They were silent, so I plunged ahead.
“This letter,” I went on, tapping the hospital stationery, “is certainly proof that a man named or called Chester Morton was born in New Orleans in 1902.”
Andrews couldn’t resist that one. “So he couldn’t, really, have been the one who tried to kill you three months ago, or took potshots at you very recently busting out the window of your truck.”
“What?” Lucinda almost stood up. “Someone shot at you?”
“Did I forget to mention that?” Andrews answered sheepishly.
“Could I make my point,” I insisted.
“No!” She stood. “You cannot make any more points with me! I’m calling Skidmore.”
She shot to the phone and dialed before I could even
get to my feet.
“Nice work, Sherlock,” I mumbled to Andrews.
“Yeah,” he admitted, “I probably shouldn’t have.…”
He trailed off as Lucinda began shouting into the phone.
“Somebody shot Fever again!”
“No they didn’t,” I called out. “I’m fine. They shot my truck.”
“Yes he got out of the house!” she went on, ignoring me. “Because Dr. Winton Andrews is worthless.”
“Hey,” Andrews protested.
“You do something about this right now, Skidmore Needle, I know where you live!” She slammed the phone down.
Lucinda spun around and glared at us. If we’d been two shiny apples, we would have withered and turned black.
“I’m actually glad you called the sheriff,” I said calmly. “I’d like to show him this new information. And discuss the implications thereof.”
“I’d like to discuss your implications,” she snapped.
“You have to sit down and let me connect these dots for you,” I pleaded, “and all of this will make more sense.”
“Look, old chum,” Andrews interrupted. “I’m afraid I’m on Lucinda’s side in this. And not just because she’s a nurse and knows eighty-seven ways to kill a man.”
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