“Poor kid,” Cormac murmured behind us, sipping his own coffee.
Katie opened another file, tipped the contents into her palm: a crudely drawn map, presumably of the ransom drop-off point.
She turned it toward me, then held it up to Cormac, still looming behind her. “Do you know what this is?”
The sheriff took the paper, studied it a moment. “Not sure about these box shapes here, maybe they’re not there anymore, but this here double line looks like the swamp bridge.”
“Where does the bridge go?”
“Carries Interstate 55 over the Manchac Swamp. Over fifteen miles long, I think.”
“Twenty-two miles,” Jimmy Olson said behind us, arm slung over his chair, shiny rimless glasses watching us. “Twenty-two point eighty, to be exact. One of the longest bridges in the world over water. Represents one-third of the highway’s approximately 66 miles in Louisiana. Opened in ’78, I think…or ’79.”
We were all looking at him, but Cormac kept accessing the young man a moment after Katie and I returned to the files.
Katie picked up a newspaper clipping: a grainy, slightly out-of-focus snapshot of an uncooperative old man with sunken eyes and skin either black or very deeply tanned and a snarl that showed missing teeth below a startling shock of snow white hair. “Who’s this man?” craning back to Cormac.
“Mama Grace.”
I glanced at the photo. A weathered hag looked back.
Katie’s eyes met mine an instant, darted back to Cormac behind her. “Lived out in the swamp by herself back then?”
“Still does,” the sheriff nodded, “far’s I know. How’d you hear tell?”
“Angel Robichou. She…”
I pressed my knee urgently against hers under the desk.
“…mentioned her.”
Cormac nodded, sipping. “Cajun. Supposed to psychic or something. Nutty ole bat.”
“But she’s in Amy’s file. Someone must have contacted her during the case. Your father?”
Cormac shrugged. “You’d have to ask him.”
Katie stuck the photo back in the file. “Sheriff Cormac, why was the FBI never called into the case? Kidnapping is a federal offense.”
“I really don’t know. You’d have to ask my old man.”
“Where can we find your father?” I said.
“St. Louis Cemetery.”
Katie frowned. “That’s Louisiana, I take it, not Missouri?”
“Yep.”
“He works there now?”
“Lives there. Daddy died of a heart attack when he was just fifty. Too much of Mamma’s good fried chicken, I reckon.”
Past Cormac’s Sam Browne belt I thought I noticed Deputy Jimmy pausing a moment at his computer. Maybe not.
“Anything else I can help you folks with? Got to meet with some people who might have information on Roger.”
Katie folded the files neatly, placed them on top of the carton. “Thank you, Sheriff, you’ve been very helpful.”
‘My pleasure. Wish I had more time to stay and chat! You folks going to be in town a few days, are you?”
“Just a few,” I told him.
“Welcome to drop in on us anytime!”
Katie put out her hand to shake. “About Roger—“
“Still nothing concrete enough to talk about, like I said.”
Katie nodded, taking the cat from me. “But you must have some suppositions. Do you think he was kidnapped from his bedroom the same way Amy was?”
Cormac laughed. Turned to look at Jimmy, who turned around and smiled.
The sheriff ruffled Garbanzo’s head good-naturedly. “Roger’s a hophead. Always in trouble. Even as a kid. Into this big deal or that, none of which turned out very big. Ran with a rough crowd, though.”
Cormac saw Kate stalling at the door. “The blood on the broken window glass—“
“Having it analyzed over to Shreveport. Problem is, even if they weren’t already backed-up it could take several weeks to get properly analyzed. Roger will probably turn up with a broken nose by then, courtesy of some drug dealer he’ll fib was just a barroom fight.”
“I see. Well, thanks again for everything, Sheriff.”
“Life sorts itself out. Jest takes a tad longer down here on the bayou!”
“Thanks for the coffee,” I waved.
“Anytime, folks!”
In the car, Katie said: “’Life sorts itself out.’”
“Yeah.” I started the engine, “Sheriff Optimist.” I looked over at her. “You’re not happy.”
“No?”
“You’re frowning.”
“It’s the sun.”
“Sun’s over there. What’s on your mind, Katie Bracken?”
She pulled in a sigh, lifting her breasts; I know, I watched, both of them. “Thinking about a map.”
I pulled into near-empty Main Street. “The Swamp Bridge?”
“Map of Louisiana.”
I glanced at her. “What about it?”
“Nothing probably. Only it’s funny they’d send Roger’s blood sample to Shreveport…”
“Why funny?”
“Shreveport’s clear across the state. New Orleans’s has a good DNA lab and it’s just down the lake.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
We passed a rust-encrusted Ford pickup with four flat tires, so corroded and downcast it looked grown into the sandy shoulder. “So. Where to now?”
“Search me. Clouds are breaking up. Might be a nice day for a little boat tour through the bayou.”
“Little boat tour, huh?”
“Through the bayou.”
“The one with all the mosquitoes and snakes?”
“Um-hm.”
“Sounds great. Very…restful. Possibly even permanently restful…”
“Is that a ‘yes.’?”
“The only thing on God’s Earth right now that sounds more repulsive to me than a boat ride through that stinking, bug-infested bog is the idea of finding a crazy old voodoo witch at the other end of it.”
She kept a very straight face. “Oh, I forgot all about the Voodoo Lady.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What was her name again?”
“Vampira.”
“’Mandy’?…’Marcie’? “
“Mama Grace, I believe.”
“I knew you’d remember!” she pointed. “Pull over, there’s a boat rental place on the corner…”
THIRTEEN
“Do you rent boats here?”
“That’s what the sign says, lady.”
A whisky voiced Cajun-French accent thick as the tan lines on his fiftyish face, wisps of greasy hair poking below both temples of his dirty yacht cap; thick and impatient in the patiently-impatient way only a southern Lower Louisianan can manage, and giving us more of his broad, red-striped T-shirt back than his sunbaked scowl, the owner of the boat rental place gave us his back as he wrestled mooring rope about a stain-weeping dock cleat.
It was a small dock, no more than twenty feet across, spoked with even narrower weathered slips, a tiny office bisecting the line of rental scuffs and skiffs rocking easily on oil-rainbowed waters. Clearly a tourist trap whose proprietor was just as clearly weary of tourists.
“How much?” I inquired companionably.
The fire-plug in the striped shirt and white clam diggers yanked a final grunt at the cleat and pushed himself straight, becoming more compactly beefy in the process, thick-fingered hands hanging apishly loose as if daring confrontation. “Well, now, that depends on the craft. And how long you’ll be wantin’ her.”
Katie and I looked out at the rows of bobbing “craft”, mostly 18-foot vertical bow fishing skiffs and 10-foot dinghies with crusty inboard Evinrudes or loosely fluffing sails. In between was the occasional squat, flat-bottomed fanboat, aircraft props or car engines mounted behind big rusty cage fans.
“…and where yer bound,” the fireplug added, squinting renewed interest now that he’d spotted
Katie’s tight white shorts and halter behind me. He nodded gapped teeth, smelling money.
“Why is that germane?” I asked.
The fireplug turned back to me slowly, squinted me up and down one-eyed like Popeye accessing a new kind of insect. “Why is it what?”
“Because it depends on the swamp’s topography, right?” Katie smiled ingratiatingly, coming light and trim down the boardwalk.
The fireplug opened both eyes now. “Well, now that’s fer sure, little lady! You headin’ through a mangrove forest or down a wide, clean river? Cap’n McKenzie at yer service!”
Katie returned a helpless maiden look. “We’re not really sure, truthfully. Appreciate some solid directions from an experienced seaman. Maybe even a private guide if you do that sort of thing.”
“Lady, we do everthin’ here at McKenzie Rentals, private and otherwise! Best dang prices on the levee! Guide to where?”
Katie shaded the dancing glare from her grey eyes with a slim palm. “Actually, all we have is a name. Are you acquainted with a woman the locals call ‘Mama Grace’? At least I think that’s her name.”
The beefy grin went sour. “What you want with her?”
None of your fat ass business, I thought. “Just to talk,” Katie said.
The fireplug’s disappointment was palpable. “Aw, hell, she way to hell and gone from here. Lives in a damn mangrove swamp, cypress knees up to yer armpits. Need an airboat for that, extra can of gas, and even that might not get you through. Middle of freakin’ nowhere. You don’t want no part of that, trust me. How about a nice tour of the harbor?”
Katie placed her hands on her hips in a way that made her shorts twist one way, her breasts the other. Something about the pose made me simultaneously angry and hungry. “Would you take us?”
Cap’n McKenzie, attention flitting from Katie’s rack and her navel, back and forth, blinked awake and squinted again. “Us? Him too?”
“Me too, Captain.”
“What fer, ballast?”
And before his laugh could build strength I cut in: “That’s funny, that’s great, I saw the movie too. You interested in serving as guide or not, assuming these things actually float.”
“I don’t mess with that voodoo crap. Even if I did, can’t recall the last time anyone saw the old witch, knew she was still alive. You want a nice tour around the bayou and orchid fields is what you want.”
“No, we want Mama Grace,” I told him.
He spit a boil of snot at the oil water beside me, turned and shook his head all the way back to the little office-shack with the alligator jaws pegged over the door. “Don’t mess with that hoodoo shit,” he muttered, “and I sure ain’t about to send two New Yorker lubbers into the marshes with one of my expensive airboats.”
“We’re from Texas!” Katie called, but only got the broad striped back.
We looked at each other, turned and headed back up the dock for the short hill, the curb and the Blackbird waiting behind it.
“So which is it?” I said.
“Which is what?”
“’Voodoo’ or ‘hoodoo’?”
She smirked. “Little of both, I’d guess.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Voodoo’s a religion—mostly Catholic now, actually—hoodoo’s a group of magical practices. They overlap a bit, both have origins in West and Central Africa. Much more than that I cannot tell.”
“Sworn to secrecy, huh? I thought Voodoo was Haitian.”
“Yeah, that too.”
“Hey, mon!” a high voice called down the way, “you and the missus lookin’ for some sure-nuf gris-gris?”
A handsome young black boy of maybe fifteen, with curly-to-wavy black hair, squatted barefoot at the edge of the dock in frayed jean shorts. Elbows on knees, he was paying out a length of fishing line with just his lighter-toned palms as he craned back to look at us.
“Thanks,” I waved, “not into drugs!”
Katie caught my arm, “They’re not drugs.” She turned to the squatting boy, who had already shrugged and gone back to his fishing. “Dime store gris-gris or the real thing?”
The boy craned around again. “Dime store?”
“You know, tourist.”
“Ah, tour-ris!” his accent not quite Creole but foreign enough, beyond our shores maybe; Haitian? “No, no. This genuine juju! De real tang!”
“And you sell it?” from Katie. “You follow hoodoo?”
“Me? Oh, hell no, lady, no way, I good Christian! You say before you lookin’ for de Mama Grace? I know where she be! Take you there, good price!”
I smelled scam. And from her barely concealed expression, I thought Katie did to.
“I thought Mama Grace practiced Voodoo.”
The handsome head bobbed, followed by a blinding white killer smile. “Overtop, like you say!”
“Overlap.”
“Dots it!” Good-looking kid, latter day Sabu.
Katie turned to squint at me a moment, turned back to the boy. “You don’t sound quite Cajun. Are you local?”
The boy wiggled a flat hand at the air. “Soam French, liddle Acadia, soam Haitian. Mostly Dahomeyan Vodun.”
“Where’s that?” I said.
“West Africa,” from Katie. “Can you really take us to Mama Grace?”
“Oh, yes. Very much fast! Good price! Gare-an-tee!” He grinned even wider, pointed over the oil sheen at a loosely moored, paint-peeling skiff. It appeared barely buoyant.
“Looks like it could use a paint job,” Katie told him.
“Oh, yes, doing thet tomorrow!”
“Manana,” I said.
“Dot’s it!”
“Your boat’s got water in her bow.”
“Jos bilge! From de rain!”
“How long a trip?” from Katie.
“Not long. Two hour?”
“How much?” from me.
The boy held up three fingers.
“What’s that?” Katie asked.
“Hon-red! American!”
“Forget it,” I said, and took Katie’s arm. “He’s scamming us.”
“No scam! Git you dare, bring you back one piece! Vvvvery dan-ger-ous, mon! I give bargain prize! You check ‘round!”
I glanced back at the skiff: two lopsided oars playing host to dragonflies. “Rowing?”
“No-no! Use motor. Outboard! Three hon-red! Pluz gaz!”
“Where’s the motor?” from Katie.
The kid grinned pridefully, pointed to the little office shack. “Rent!”
I rolled my eyes.
“One hundred,” from Katie.
The kid nodded vigorously. “Two sev-van-ty five.”
“One-fifty,” from Katie.
And it went on like that for a while.
* * *
The kid never stopped smiling after that, steering the noisy Evinrude with those glaring white teeth exposed, the outboard barely seen under a swirling skein of blue oil fumes even after we were several miles out in the swamp.
Katie and I sat forward near the bumping, wooden bow, shoes sloshed with bilge even though the kid had bailed it out before we’d left the dock.
“This boat is leaking!” I yelled above the engine whine, wind in my face, at least keeping off the mosquitoes.
“All boats leak,” Katie called back, her own hair bannering, “a little!”
“Uh-huh! What’s gris-gris?”
“Voodoo amulet!” she said. “West African, originally. Juju. Black magic fetish! Usually a small leather bag containing ritual objects—roots, herbs, stones! Charms!”
“For?”
“Warding off evil spirits, bad luck! Or to pu ta black magic spell on a victim!”
“Great!”
“Also a potent form of contraception!”
“Really?” I perked up. “Is there a patent on this, or is it an open market item?”
“Stick to writing, Elliot!”
“Yeah,” I nodded, “the way my ass is sticking to this wo
od seat! Do you think he’ll shoot us before or after he rapes us and throws us in the swamp?”
“He’s a kid, Elliot!”
“Got two hundred bucks out of you!”
Something jarred the speeding boat under us; a quick bump that went clear through my spine.
I gripped the gunwales in terror. “What was that?”
“Gator!” the boy at the throttle smiled through a tornado of blue fumes.
I looked dubiously at Katie, who was staring hard over the side at the flat, rushing water.
“Nice!” I leaned toward her. “Leaky boat, dumped in the swamp and now Louis is back!”
She looked at my expression, suddenly burbled a laugh. “You forgot ‘rape,’” she called back.
“No, I didn’t!”
* * *
Mama Grace didn’t live in the swamp. She lived in a forest.
A mangrove forest of cypress and other swamp trees surrounded by an even thicker jungle of underwater plants and branches; it was either a miracle the boy steered the boat and growling outboard through them or he was just awfully good at his job. Or awfully familiar.
The old woman’s home wasn’t even visible when the kid finally cut the engine and pulled to the end of two canted pilings and a rickety parade of weathered, cracked and bowed planks that I assumed was a dock. A sort of dock that trailed and finally disappeared into the deep shadows of yet another tangle of mangrove forest. One look at the make-shift planks and pilings and I was certain it would be safer to swim the rest of the way, even with Louis’s brother patrolling the area.
The boy tied up the wobbly little skiff and started bailing again immediately. I looked down in horror to find we were already half-scuttled.
“Not to worry! You go ahead! Boat all bailed when you get back!” he ordered in uncomfortably low tones and pulled over the extra can of gasoline to refill the motor.
“You can come too if you like,” Katie told him.
He shook his head firmly without looking up from his bailing can. “No-no! Fine here! You go! I be wait-in!”
I just managed to help Katie from the rocking craft without tipping us both over the side. “And if he doesn’t wait?” I whispered.
FEVER DREAMS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery Page 12