Katie’s eyes softened, drifted away.
“I realize you’ve spent considerable time and money comin’ down here—“
“We came because Angel Robichou asked for our help,” Katie said. “It’s not about time or money.”
Cormac nodded. “No, it ain’t. It’s about the little girl. And I know you folks’ hearts are in the right place. Also know it’s neither my jurisdiction nor my personal business. Just tryin’ to explain the way things are here.”
Katie stared at the swamp, said nothing. And I couldn’t think of anything to add.
I guided her into the car, shut the door and walked around to the driver’s side. “We appreciate it, Sheriff. All of it. Will take it under advisement, thanks,” and I got in.
I waved at my rearview as we pulled away.
Maybe Cormac didn’t notice; he didn’t wave back.
* * *
On the way back to the motel, Katie sat staring out her side window silently, chin in hand, propped by her elbow on the Blackbird’s window paneling.
“Well--?” I offered at length, a tad nervous. I’d never seen her this way.
“Well,” she sighed, “I’d say that was a polite request for us to get the hell out of Dodge.”
We sped past lawn placards of the sheriff beaming confidently at us from house fronts rich and poor. “Maybe he’s just trying to look out for his parish.”
“He’s not a priest, Elliot.”
“Tangipahoa Parish, I mean.”
She sighed. “I know what you mean. And what Sheriff Cormac is looking out for is his election to state representative next week.”
“That all? I thought maybe he was waiting for that fan-boat to blow your skirt up past your curvy thighs…”
“I’m wearing shorts.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean. And Sheriff Cormac is a married man who might miss me when I’m gone, but who’s not about to pinch anyone’s thigh this close to election. Rock the fan-boat, as it were. He’s too ambitious. Too ambitious for this town if you ask me.”
“You think?”
“I think he’s trying his damnedest to buy his way out of it politically. Running just as fast as he can from what he considers overly-humble, underachieved beginnings.”
“And politics are his only ticket, huh?”
“What would you do in his shoes?”
She sighed again, heavier, ran a weary hand through her tousled burnished hair. “Oh hell, I don’t know, Elliot. Maybe he’s right. Or his subtle implications are, anyway. Maybe we should ‘cut bait’, leave these poor people alone. What have we really accomplished here aside from mucking around in other people’s lives?”
“You just said—rather impressively, I thought--that Angel Robichou wouldn’t want that.’
“Dean wants it.”
“And he holds sway over his wife?”
She shook her head in the heel of her palm. “I don’t know. I don’t know what Angel wants, truthfully, not sure she knows. In any case, she can’t have her child back…neither one of them can. I grieve for her, of course, but what am I supposed to do?”
“For whom?”
She turned her head and gave me a sharp look. “For Angel and Dean, of course!”
I nodded slowly. “Oh. I thought maybe you were talking about Amy...”
Katie frowned at me, turned away quickly, propped her elbow on the panel once more.
I thought she wasn’t going to speak again; we were nearly to the motel.
“I’m afraid, Elliot…”
I started. “You? Afraid? Of what?”
“Of that damn gold locket that keep playing musical chairs. Of…believing so much in it.”
“Believing in something scares you?”
“Not being able to help does. Not being able to pull this off.”
“You just need more time.”
“Tomorrow’s your last day.”
I was quiet a moment. “Are you asking me to stay?”
When she didn’t answer, I said: “No, you couldn’t do that. You’re a good woman. What you want is for me to ask you if I can stay.”
“And you can’t. Because you’re a good man.”
I thought about it. “I don’t know…would a good man leave you alone in a town of angry Cajuns, crazy old witches and salivating cops?”
“Handsome salivating cops.”
“Huh! Big Louis with a tin badge.”
She chuckled. “It isn’t just the case, you know, I’d miss your own handsome face, your screwy sense of humor, your…”
“Plethora of phobias?”
“I adore your phobias. You’re pretty adorable all ‘round sometimes when you’re not wearing that stick up your ass.”
“Keep talking, Those damp shorts of yours are wearing me down.”
We pulled into the motel lot at dusk under an incredible Bloody Mary sky.
I parked my poor unwashed Thunderbird in a space approximately equidistant between our two cabins, opened the door, grabbed the cat cage and turned as Katie was climbing out.
“Neither of us has eaten all day,” I said. “How about we take a quick shower and grab some dinner? Someplace dark and quiet that doesn’t have seafood on the menu.”
She nodded, hair falling in her face, brushing it back over her ear. She looked very small and vulnerable there in the just-coming-on glow of motel neon. “Sounds nice.”
I consulted my watch. “Meet you back here in twenty minutes! No. That doesn’t sound very chivalrous—I’ll knock on your door in twenty minutes, how’s that?”
She waved a weary hand. “It’s a date.” Started away, then hesitated on the sidewalk.
“What is it?”
“You know what I’d really kill for right now, Elliot?”
“A drink?”
“You are psychic! But I’m too tired and filthy to go out again without a bath...”
“I’ve got a brand new bottle of Old Granddad in my room…”
She affected mock shock. “You piker, you’ve been holding out on me!”
“I thought you didn’t drink, dulls the channeling mind and all that.”
She swung toward me gratefully. “Exactly what my channeling mind wants at the moment!”
I grinned and caught her arm, led her to my roost, inserted the key, trying to remember where I’d left the bourbon. On the nightstand, I thought.
I pushed open the door, found the lights already on. Fiancée Rita was seated on the bed, helping herself to the bottle.
“Finally!” she purred, arching a brow at Katie. “And it looks like we’ll need a third glass!”
SEVENTEEN
We were walking by the swamp.
Well, not the swamp, but a narrow estuary channeling from the main branch behind the motel.
It was a nice night for hot and humid Manchac, the fireflies were performing their arabesques, the frogs were all in good voice, the nearly-full moon was riding a low scud of cloud, promising no more rain, at least until daylight. There were the mosquitoes, of course. How could I forget them? Wouldn’t want to hurt the little bastards’ feelings. Wouldn’t mind setting the entire swamp afire and listening to their little screams as they curled black and dropped from the sky like pellets of black blood, but wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings.
Rita dug in her purse, handed me a small bottle of repellent. “I came loaded for bear.”
She hadn’t really; her summer dress was longish as were her sleeves, which offered protection there, but they were far too cloyingly heavy for the weather, evening or day, and her perfume would only attract more insects. In short, she looked jarringly out-of-place here in the bayou sticks, radiating a polished, citified aura I’d taken for granted back home and been blind to. She also looked pretty damn gorgeous. And eerily calm under the circumstances.
She’d brought her motel glass of bourbon with her out here to the back lot wilds; maybe she wasn’t as confident as she looked. Maybe she was tryi
ng to attract more than insects with the perfume—attract them to me. I couldn’t tell in the darkness. Had the feeling I’d not be able to tell any better in blazing sunlight.
“Nice of you to bring along my cat, at least.”
“I thought you’d prefer it to leaving him in a shelter.”
Rita made a rueful sound. “Is this your way of saying you were actually thinking of me in there somewhere during this whole…scheme?”
“It isn’t a scheme, Rita.”
“Oh. Sorry. What shall we call it? You’re a bit too young for mid-life crisis. A bit too old for adolescent puppy love. She is pretty, admittedly, in an earthy kind of way. I was beginning to like her up to now. Too horribly bright for you, though, I think, and at the same time possibly psychotic. Is that the attraction? Is she one of those manic-depressive women all men think can be brought down earth in the right hands? I’ve heard the sex is great with bi-polars, I mean, clearly it is—both your clothes are still damp.”
“We got caught in the rain.”
“What sort of rain?”
“What?”
“And to think I was beginning to warm to her, during that one brief meeting, blithely convinced she had your best interests at heart. Did she ever cure you of your phobias or are you still sleeping on that one? I suppose my not suspecting something right away makes me either very naïve or even a little stupid.”
“It makes you neither. We aren’t sleeping together, Rita.”
“Just running away together and sleeping in the same motel.”
“The same motel, not the same bed. She has her own room. This is purely a field exercise.”
“Define ‘exercise’. Define ‘field’, while you’re at it.”
“I was coming home tomorrow, Rita.”
“Of course you were, darling. Look. Let’s forego the schoolboy fibs about hooky. You’re a writer and far too good at double extenders. I’m your fiancée, not your mother. I think. Clearly she’s managed to do what I could not, burrow through your obsessive-compulsive veneer and anal retentive rigidity. Or are ‘anal’ and ‘rigidity’ redundant in this case? Is that how she did it, kinky sex?”
“Did what?”
“Released the real Elliot Bledsoe from his provincial womb.”
“There’s an image.”
“Please tell me you’ve had six or eight really furnace-hot young coeds over the years, I mean, it would be tragic to end a marriage over only one rather drab lover.”
“Engagement, not marriage, and it’s not ended, tragic or otherwise. You think Katie’s drab?”
“Well, certainly not right out of the latest Paris collection. But hey, if you’ve got the legs, flaunt ‘em, right? Still, she’s obviously had some magical effect on you, eroded some of the usual…”
“The usual what?”
Rita shrugged, sipping. “…natty conservatism. Your hair’s not even parted now, for godsake.”
“I told you, the rain…”
“Oh for chrissake, Elliot, why are we dancing around this? She dragged you away from your home and school for a long weekend tryst! You could have saved time and money fucking her right on campus with no one the wiser, especially me. And please, spare me the last-bachelor-fling-before-marriage bullshit. You’ve clearly had second thoughts for some time. Ever occur to you to discuss them with me?”
“Sound like you’ve got it—and me—all worked out, Rita.”
She made an astonished face. “She dragged you across two freaking states in Memorial Day traffic to some bog-infested gothic armpit to play Sheena of the Jungle or Streetcar Named Desire or whatever the hell you’re doing here! I’d have to be a moron not to figure it out!”
I turned to her, took her by the arms. “Rita, this is stupid—“
She slapped me.
I let go of her arms.
“Look. I’m going to explain to you in clear declarative sentences exactly what happened between Katie Bracken and me. And when. You can believe me or not.”
“And if I don’t, then I’m not the one worthy of trust, is that it? I’d have expected something more inventive from you, dearest.”
“Just shut up and listen.”
So I explained.
From the beginning, the first time I’d laid eyes on Katie, until we walked into the motel together that night. The only things I left out were my adolescent movie and my visions of the little girl. Even I wasn’t sure what that was about yet. But I did tell her about Amy. And about Roger and about their parents and how—however insane the rest of it might sound—I was convinced something happened twenty years ago that remains unresolved and that during my time in Manchac I’d become emotionally involved with that little girl, even connected to her somehow, and I’d like very much to stick around a while longer and discover the reasons why, preternaturally paranormal or otherwise.
When I was finished, Rita stood still a long moment, turned away from me, facing the swamp, drink in hand but mostly untouched.
Finally she turned to me. “Elliot, look at me. What do you see?”
“A beautiful, intelligent woman, as always.”
“Thank you. Let’s put it another way—what don’t you see?”
It took me a moment. Until she held out empty arms. The cat!
She’d taken Garbanzo from his cage at the motel, hugged and squeezed and kissed him and brought him along with us for our walk. I looked quickly around us. “Where is he?”
“Leapt from my arms the moment we left the motel and back into the arms of your Voodoo lady! My cat!”
I blinked. “Who told you about her?”
“About who?”
“The Voodoo lady.”
She backed away. Then she came forward quickly, placed a palm on my brow. “Shit! You’ve got a fever! What has she given you?”
“Who?”
“The Voodoo lady!”
“Mama Grace?”
“Who--?”
I grabbed her arms again. “Rita, this is ridiculous! You’re exhausted from the long drive! I mean for godsake, you think the damn cat could change allegiances in two days?”
“You did!”
I sighed. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying you’ve either lost your mind from fever or your new girlfriend is a sorceress! What are you saying, Elliot? And when is she planning on going back to her coven?”
“Witches have covens, Rita, not sorceresses.”
“Fine! Voodoo then!”
“No, no, it’s Mama Grace who’s into Voodoo. She’s a whole other woman.”
She stepped back again. “So you’re having affairs with two different women down here?”
“No, Rita, just Katie. I mean, I’m not having an affair with her, I’m working with her. Mama Grace is just someone…on the side.”
“On the side.”
“We need to start over—“
“You need to see a doctor!” She felt my brow again. “What is it, the flu?”
I sighed. “It’s probably just the swamp root and shoat piss…”
“The what?”
“Mama Grace made us—never mind. Look, there’s no affair here, Rita. I’m coming back.”
“Back where?”
“Home, of course! Austin!”
“When?”
Whenever I goddamn feel like it!
The thought rose unbidden in my mind, surprising even me. It wasn’t like me to be so arrogantly unfeeling. Maybe I did catch a fever. At least there was enough of my mind left to keep my mouth shut.
“When do you want me to?” I asked my fiancée, and felt myself bridle again immediately; I did sound like I was addressing my mother!
“When you want to, Elliot.”
I felt suddenly impatience and exhaustion in equal parts.
“Look at you.” She shook her head, arms crossed stiffly. “She’s even got that tidy mind second guessing itself…”
“She’s got nothing of the sort! You don’t know me as well as you think, Rita,”
came spilling from my evil mouth.
She nodded. “Obviously.” And I sensed tears behind it.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Sounded like a simple, declarative sentence to me.”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing simple about any of this. Look, I explained the situation down here at length, does it for chirssake sound simple?”
“Truthfully?”
I waited.
“It all sounds a bit sophomorically naive, darling.”
I sighed, nodding. “You must know I’m aware of that. It sounds like a lot of things, none of them the least like me. But there it is. What am I supposed to do?”
“What do you want to do?”
“Leave! Get the hell out of Petticoat Junction here and back to my students! I miss them!”
“Do you?”
“Yes!”
She looked at me. “Not the familiarity and safe everyday reassurance of what’s coming next? You don’t miss that Elliot, at all?”
“I…”
“And how long before you feel again the tug and romance of your next wild adventure? Maybe the Swiss Alps this time, or Borneo! Or the Left Bank with some little French hottie. Admit it. You’re bored with teaching, Elliot! I’ve known it for some time.”
“Have you? And yet you’re all ready and eager to marry a man bored with his career, bored with his life, bored with his—
“Fiancée?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She turned away, rubbing at her arms as if from a sudden chill. “I thought—I hoped--that in a year or so—maybe a child or so—we could travel together, see some new places. You could write that new book you’ve been talking about.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets, regarded the swamp darkly. “We won’t have the money for traveling until I get tenure, meaning when I’m too old to care, and that ‘new book’ has been waiting to happen so long it’s become an old book. An out-of-touch book, on the salad days of screenwriting for a studio system that doesn’t really exist anymore.”
Rita was quiet for a moment. “The question is, does Katie Bracken really exist? What happened to the confident, pragmatic young man I fell in love with?”
FEVER DREAMS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery Page 17