We obliged, backing up two steps.
“I touched his bed when I first came in this morning,” Angel Robichou admitted with concern.
“That’s okay, Angel,” the sheriff explained with a sad smile, “you’re Roger’s mother, we’d expect to find your prints here.”
He turned to an upended chair, a small, scarred wood desk leaning unevenly, collection of empty beer cans beautifying the rumpled scatter rug. “Does Roger’s room always look like this, ma’am? I mean, is he generally neat or messy?”
Roger’s mother looked about the room as if seeing if for the first time. “Well…neater than this, certainly, until I can get to it.”
The handsome sheriff nodded. “And this is exactly how you found it--what time did you say?”
“Somewhere after eight o’clock.”
“This morning.”
She nodded, eyes remembering. “I made pancakes, blueberry, his favorite, came in to rouse him.”
The sheriff nodded, pocketing his notebook, but I knew he was double checking the time with her. “And he came in late last night, is that right?”
“Around two in the morning.”
“You saw him come in?”
“I heard him.”
“Heard him.”
“It was Roger, I know the way my own son sounds.”
The sheriff nodded at nothing. “Woke you, did he?”
“Yes. Well…I don’t sleep all that well anyway these days.”
“Oh? Why’s that, Angel?”
The gray head shook slowly. “Haven’t slept straight through in, oh…near twenty years. Not since…you know…”
Amy. Her missing daughter.
“I understand. You want to get Doc Hanson to give you some sleeping tablets,” he smiled reassurance, held the smile as he turned to the doorway and saw Katie standing beside me in the hall.
“And you didn’t hear anything else last night? No ruckus or nothin’, no sound of breaking glass?”
“No.”
He looked over at Mr. Robichou.
“Me, I sleep like the dead.”
The sheriff smiled neighborly. “Well, that’s fine, Dean.”
He cocked back his shiny-billed cap, exposing a rakish crop of black bangs, puffed out his ruddy cheeks and cased the small room again, hands poked on his service belt, making it creak.
“What about enemies? Roger have any you folks know of?”
“Enemies? In town, you mean?”
“In town, out of town. Anyone you feel might have cause to do him harm?’
The Robichous looked at each other emptily, shook their heads slowly.
Angel added softly: “Roger’s a good boy.”
Her husband grunted reproachfully. “Thirty-five years old, Angel. And he ain’t no boy!”
He shuffled disgusted feet, looked up at the sheriff with unabashed disapproval and some humiliation. “Thirty-five and still living with his parents…” and shook his head at the floor.
The sheriff smiled, took another look at the broken window. “Well, it’s tough times out there, Dean.” He bent to the jagged glass, the beads of red. “Funny you wouldn’t hear the breaking of window glass in the middle of the night though…”
“Not above them bullfrogs, Cormac,” Dean muttered.
Sheriff Cormac turned to the couple again. Smiled in a moment. “I reckon.”
Dean Robichou sighed. “Also, it may…it could be the window was already broken.”
The sheriff waited.
“Broken before last night, I mean,” Dean said. “We don’t come back here to Roger’s room that often. He likes his privacy.”
“Your wife just said she came in this morning to fetch him for breakfast.”
“But not usually,” the little gray mouse answered, “Roger’s usually up before we are, down at the dock.”
“The dock?”
“Getting the crayin’ boat ready.”
“’Crayin’? Katie asked beside me.
“Crayfishin’,” the sheriff told her, using the excuse to look Katie over again. “River past here used to be good fishin’ until Katrina. The Robichous use it now to comb up and down for antiques.”
Dean nodded. “All fished out.”
“How’s the antique business these days, Dean?” from the sheriff.
Robichou shrugged roundly. “Like usual. Terrible.”
The sheriff smiled his movie star smile, turning it briefly on Katie.
Then he took out his cell phone and snapped several pictures of the room’s interior, some close ones of the busted window. “Need to get some equipment out of the patrol car, grab some samples of that blood.” He pressed close next to Katie’s side passing in the hall, winked. “We don’t have them fancy forensic team out here like on the TV!”
Katie smiled obligingly, all Sheriff Cormack needed to linger again, return his own killer smile.
“Law enforcement’s kind of one-man job in Manchac! What is it you say you folks do?”
“Paranormal investigators,” I said flatly behind him, expecting a derisive laugh or at least a dismissive grunt. But he just kept smiling at Katie until he turned to leave.
When he was gone, Angel Robichou approached me. “You look parched, Mr. Bledsoe. Can I get you a glass of iced tea?”
It must have showed in my face.
I thought she’d never ask.
NINE
A glass of delicious iced tea.
Without question the best of my life.
Followed by four more.
“My goodness!” from a flattered Angel Robichou.
I slurped them up on the back porch and even the mosquitoes didn’t seem as bothersome. Maybe it was something Angel put in the tea. Or maybe the mosquitos didn’t mix well with the fireflies, which were beginning to gather above the backyard’s evening mist in their mating dance to provide the night’s entertainment.
The cat was entranced.
I don’t think Garbanzo had ever been outside long enough to see a robin, much less a glowing host of magical glowworms, and the backyard and swamp was a winking universe of them as deep and far as the eye could see. Between that and the incredible iced tea I think I finally began to relax in Manchac for the first time since our arrival.
It was actually Katie’s idea to repair to the back porch, though she maneuvered it so cleverly that it appeared to be Angel’s idea--or was it Dean’s?—I think only Katie was really sure.
We sat there over drinks and directionless, no-particular conversation that I knew was also being orchestrated by Katie. She was putting the Robichous at their ease, letting them warm up to us and especially to her. And Katie had that thing about her…anyone could warm up to her if she wanted them to—allowed them to—I was finding. She was very good at it, but probably that was because there was a natural warmth to her that was spontaneous and real. A genuineness that put all guard quickly down, all swords sheathed. The way some girls flirt, only different. She wasn’t so much opening herself up as she was opening you up. Fascinating. Magical, really. And the eldritch fire of the glowworms and whispering Spanish moss only accented the effect. Angel, clearly a once-handsome woman and aging Southern Belle, you’d have thought would be onto it, had mastered the sweet and guileless smile, relaxed and non-threatening posture herself, but before long the entire back porch held the comfortable warmth and trust of old friends gathered, and if Angel was suspicious she hid it well.
Not until then, long after the handsome sheriff had departed and the cooler night was full upon us, did Katie lead the conversation to why we’d been invited to Manchac.
“Did she look like you, your daughter?” she asked gently.
She spoke to Angel but Dean beat his wife to the punch. “Yes. Very much.”
Angel shook her head firmly, not concealing a small smile. “No. Much prettier. By far. It was little Amy we should have named ‘Angel.’ For that’s what she was, one of God’s fair, delicate creatures, with a smile to melt your heart.”
And Dean repeated, “Yes,” but this time mixed with a soft sigh.
“Do you have children, Miss Bracken?” Angel inquired.
Katie may have attempted a wistful smile that didn’t come, finally shook her head. “No.”
“You couldn’t really know then,” Angel nodded without malice, looking down at her hands, fingers frozen over the long needle she’d been crocheting absently with, pale fingers on automatic.
“That’s lovely,” Katie said, “is it going to be a shawl?”
Angel looked down at her lap as if discovering the red and green yarn for the first time. After a moment she said, “No.”
Silence then.
Only the distant and not-so-distant frogs. The occasional tinkle of a dog collar as one of Dean’s innocuous hounds levered a back leg to scratch his haunches.
I felt suddenly uncomfortable. Angel Robichou was going to tell us nothing about her daughter, I could feel it, was going to dismiss the whole idea of contacting Katie and politely ask us to leave now. I think Katie sensed it too.
“How long have you been seeing her?” Katie asked abruptly, and my head turned so fast it sent a lance of pain up my neck. No, Katie, that is so clearly not the right approach! And you just gained her confidence, had a rapport!
“Angel--?”
Angel looked up slowly from the needles into Katie’s soft eyes, the expected revulsion nowhere on the sunbaked features. “How long?”
Angel licked her pinched lips once, eyes growing moist almost instantly, as if willed by something within. “Last couple of months now…”
Dean’s rocker squeaked resentment as he sat forward stiffly. “’Taint true! Ain’t nobody seen my child since the day she was taken! Honey, what’s wrong with you?”
Angel put down her needles carefully. “I think these people can help us, Dean, I do.”
“After twenty-odd years? Huh! Sweet woman, you got to let this go! Feed these nice folks some supper, pay them for their gasoline and concern and send them back home to whatever it is they really belong.”
“This is what we do,” Katie said firmly. “Your wife knows it, Mr. Robichou, even if you don’t. But I think maybe it’s more a case of ‘won’t’ than ‘don’t,’ am I right? May I see her now, please?”
Dean Robichou looked completely at sea. “Who?”
“Amy.”
“You some kind of conjure-freak or something?” tanned face pinking now with anger.
“You know I’m not, Dean. She’s in the small dresser drawer by the bed. I’d like very much to see her, please.”
“Why? To what purpose?”
Katie regarded him calmly, gray eyes taking all the pink from his face. “For me.”
And I thought she was going to ask “for the daughter I never had”, theatrical as it might sound—thought the older couple thought so too—but she didn’t.
Angel was on her feet, crocheting placed neatly aside. “It’s this way…”
Dean caught my arm as his wife turned away. “She’s a good sweet human being,” he begged, standing, “why do you want to hurt her now?” And I wasn’t sure if he was referring to mother or daughter or perhaps both.
But Angel paused, not turning, said, “Dean,” quietly but firmly and nothing more, then touched Katie’s shoulder lightly and led us to the screen door. “This way, Miss Bracken.”
“Katie.”
Angel stiffened beside her, eyes growing round. “What did you say?”
Katie smiled gently. “My name is Katie.”
The color crept back into Mrs. Robichou’s face. She nodded. “Of course,” and then she continued on into the house.
“I thought you said ‘Amy,’” she’d been about to say. Truthfully it sounded a little that way to me as well.
* * *
Amy’s room was like stepping through a portal into another dimension.
To begin with, it was immaculate, rich with the smell of lemon oil: the little bed neatly made, duvet plump and inviting, lacy pillow arranged dead center and with care. The children’s bookshelf was antique (and probably valuable), but polished to a deep mahogany luster, all the books and toys neatly stacked and dusted. The little hooked rug looked recently vacuumed, the dresser and table spotless, the walls freshly painted an eggshell white that positively glowed compared to the dreary yellow wallpaper throughout the house. The little cut glass jewelry box on the French provincial vanity gleamed with a stainless silver trim.
Angel moved around the small bed almost reverently, opened the small, single drawer of the vanity and withdrew the only age-touched thing in the entire room: a glossy, hard shell photo album, well-kept but with dog-eared pages worn from much—probably daily--handling.
She opened it with proud reverence for Katie, but reluctantly allowed it to be taken from her hands.
What can I say about the photos of little Amy?
Her parents had said it all with one word. Here was the true angel of the family.
There were adorable newborn photos, heart-melting five-year-old snaps, and a suddenly blank, black album page that was the most soul-stirring part of all—the abrupt demarcation of a life—and the too many unfilled pages beyond it.
Sweet blonde, blue-eyed, just slightly, endearingly gap-toothed Amy. Eight pages of her, one for each year of her too-short life.
Katie turned the pages slowly with reverent interest, but also with, what seemed to me, peering over her shoulder from behind, a vague detachment. Not that she didn’t find the rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes aglow with guileless charm—that would have been impossible for the most calloused heart—but almost as if, as she flipped the pages, she was hurriedly disappointed, as if she’d expected more. She kept turning pages back, staring forward again; was there some picture missing in the childhood album, one Katie herself had seen somewhere before? It wasn’t the grainy newspaper clipping; that was there on the last page, probably because whoever officiated over the crime at the time had asked for the most recent shot. Still, Katie seemed to take less time with the album than I’d have warranted. Maybe just too heartbreaking? It was a sad, too-quickly ended journey for me. And Katie was clearly as moved by the pale eyes and flawless skin, the optimistic innocence, as anyone. It was more as if that last page, when she got to it, didn’t resonate the same way with her. For me it was the end. But for Katie, I felt, it was more like a beginning…or, perhaps, an epilogue missing.
After a minute Katie nodded at the pages without touching them, looked up at Angel and asked confidently, “Where’s Amy?”
Dean, a few feet behind me, started angrily, frowned at Katie, then turned and glared at me with that same this-some-kind-of-joke? look behind his eyes. I shot it right back at him: I had no idea what was going on.
But Angel did.
She closed the album softly, replaced it, slid the little drawer closed and turned to give Katie a long searching look that was neither really that long or all that searching. What she sought she must have found in the other woman’s eyes because Katie said nothing more.
Angel finally glanced quickly at her husband, turned back to the vanity table and lifted the glass top of the silver-hinged jewel box.
There were a couple of children’s plastic rings inside and what looked like an antique broach but nothing more. Angel shut the lid softly again. “I’m sorry, she’s not here right now.”
I could feel Dean’s angry impatience pressing the air against me like a malignant pulse. He opened his mouth to say something but Katie cut him off.
“Where is she?”
“She ain’t nowhere!” from a bristling Dean, “That stuff is all hogwash, Angel!”
Angel didn’t even look at him, just stared wearily at the little jewel box. “You know it isn’t, Dean, you’ve seen it yoursel—“
“I seen nothin! Nothin! Yer the one sees everthin’!”
Angel, suddenly brittle, leaned wearily against the little vanity, head turned slightly to Katie. “He’s seen it.”
�
�I know he has,” Katie said softly, and placed her palm gently on the woman’s thin back.
I was completely lost.
Until I called up the memory of the grainy newspaper photo with greater clarity…and the little gold chain and large antique locket around Amy’s neck. Around it in every photo, now that I thought about it.
“I’m tired…” Angel whispered.
“Yes,” Katie murmured softly and her hand slid reassuringly down the woman’s back to the base of her spine. I saw the fingers of her hand flex inward gently…then harder, then she took Angel’s left shoulder in her free hand and pressed deeper still, increased the pressure until the Robichou woman’s back bowed and her breasts lifted and she brought up an unbidden, grateful sigh.
Katie smiled. “That better?”
Mrs. Robichou nodded with lidded eyes.
It was at that delicately intimate moment my stomach took its opportunity to go into a long gurgly growl that was as loud as it was embarrassing.
Angel straightened abruptly under Katie’s palm and for an instance’s terror I thought I’d offended her. “Oh, my goodness!” she glanced at her wristwatch. “It’s nearly seven, where are my manners? Would anyone like another drink before I start dinner?”
I sagged relief. “Really, Mrs. Robichou—“
“Please call me Angel.”
“—really, Angel, thank you, but we couldn’t—“
“How gracious of you…” Katie smiled warmly, giving me a quick look, “…we’d love to!”
TEN
Dinner was delicious.
No, dinner was divine. Orgasmic.
Ever had real southern cooking? I’m not talking about the canned hash that passes for jambalaya at the local Costco grocery aisle, I’m talking about the way someone who’s grown up eating it, tasting it, smelling it--the way that someone fixes it. Without doubt the food of the gods.
If I’d begun to feel relaxed and sated after the iced tea, I was now bursting at the seams with all the vitality of a beached whale. I wanted to just nod off and die right there at Angel’s little kitchen table with the plastic, checkerboard tablecloth.
FEVER DREAMS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery Page 8