FEVER DREAMS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery

by April Campbell Jones

  “We understand,” from Katie, “and respect his privacy.”

  “Warn’t all that private, I guess, what with the sheriff and his deputy and the Medical Examiner and Dan Simmons the funeral director standing about. Still, I wish you all had been there…”

  Something was coming, something left unsaid; I could feel it like a light pressure building between us and the Robichou woman. Maybe good, maybe bad, I couldn’t say.

  “He looked mostly asleep,” she went on in what I was becoming convinced was a needy ramble, “even his color was good, considering. They had him on this cold, steel table, naked as a jay. I kept wanting to cover him, not out of embarrassment, but because that shiny table looked…so cold.”

  Katie gave me a sudden, nervous glance.

  “I seemed to be the only one there who noticed his hand. The others were looking at his eyes, his mouth, jotting notes, but I kept being drawn back to his hand.”

  “His hand?” from Katie.

  “It was more a fist. Even showed white knuckles while the rest of him was a kind of grey…’lividity’ I think the ME called it. Anyhow, while the others were busy jotting , I took Roger’s fist in my hand and opened it…had to practically pry the fingers apart, would you believe? Strange. I know rigor hadn’t set in yet.”

  She brought her own fist from behind her dress, held it up, opened the fingers. The gold locket winked bright shards.

  Katie blinked. “I don’t understand…” but I knew she did understand. We both did.

  “She gave him her locket,” Angel choked, “before he passed. Or maybe after, I don’t know.” She looked up at me with genuine consternation. “Now, why would she do that?”

  She’s gone, I thought. Angel Robichou has finally slipped round the bend, over the edge.

  Ever the pragmatic one, Katie took the locket from the woman’s hand and held it, as if to prove to herself it was the real one. “Your son was holding this?”

  “Like he never wanted to let go. What do you suppose it means?”

  I could sense Katie deliberately avoiding eye contact with me—as though any sudden movement out of the ordinary would shatter Mrs. Robichou on the spot. “Angel, did your husband see this? The other men there?”

  Angel shook her head. “Just me. And after I had it in my hand it was too late, of course.”

  Katie looked up. “Too late?”

  “They’d think I put it there, made the whole thing up. Gone crazy with grief or something.”

  The irony descended on the two sophisticated out-of-towners like an anvil.

  “So no one else knows it was in Roger’s hand, is that right?” Katie asked.

  “Not until this moment,” Angel nodded. Then turned to me. “Mr. Bledsoe—Elliot, we’re going to be shy one pallbearer at Roger’s funeral, it turns out. I’d be honored if you’d consent to serve…”

  I was caught completely off-guard, mind still on the locket. “Uh…would Dean be okay with that, do you think?”

  “Dean will be okay with anything I ask him right now.”

  I nodded warily, glanced at Katie. “Then sure, of course.”

  “Good. I’m so glad. The funeral is tomorrow afternoon at two--the Robichou Cemetery. It’s just a few miles out of town as the crow flies, but here’s a little map in case.” She handed me a scrap of hand-drawn paper.

  “Fine,” I nodded and caught Katie’s gray eyes giving me an admiring look. It went right through my chest. We’d been puzzling over our next step here in Manchac before Rita came; now we had a reason to be someplace. Someplace where prospective interviewees would be conveniently present as well, people we’d been wanting to meet.

  Angel turned to her truck. “I have to hurry off now, I’m afraid. Dean’s found an old attic full of antiques down river and if we don’t get there quick—well, rain or shine, those in the antique business have sparse time to grieve. Thank you both again.”

  Angel hesitated, then turned and kissed Katie on the cheek. Katie pecked her back with a warm smile; strangers don’t get kissed much in these parts, one felt, especially in public.

  We stood together on the motel sidewalk until the rumbling truck was safely out of earshot.

  I turned to Miss Bracken. “So! She’s mad as a March hare, right?”

  “She’s gone, that’s the important thing.”

  I frowned down at her. “I’m not with you.”

  “Angel and husband Dean will be downriver collecting antiques all afternoon. That will leave their house empty. As in unguarded? I’ve been thinking we should pay Roger’s room a little visit, snoop around, now that he won’t be returning.”

  “Snoop for--?”

  “Whatever we find. Maybe nothing. Maybe a journal or something if we’re lucky.”

  “That would be very lucky. And very dangerous right now, sweetie.”

  She nodded. “I knew you’d like it. So. Are you, or aren’t you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Still with me on this thing?”

  I smiled. “Only if you buy breakfast. My card’s missing.”

  She made a rueful sound. “’I was never without you, Katie’---would have been nice.”

  “I was never without you, Katie.”

  She pushed me toward my car. “Without the coaching next time.”

  * * *

  “See, I told you,” Katie beamed, easing through first the screen, then the storm door on the Robichous’ front porch, “it’s the sticks, Elliot, nobody keeps his house locked around here!”

  The first thing that hit me was the smell.

  Nostrils flared, I took hold of Katie’s arm from behind, sniffed the air a couple of times. “What is that?”

  It was dark inside--all the shades and rattan blinds down--and she froze, thinking I’d spotted something. I sniffed louder.

  Katie lifted her chin, sniffed herself. “Mildew?”

  “That not mildew, I know how mildew smells by now. Maybe this isn’t such a hot idea, Katie. It is a B and E, you know. That means Breaking and Entering.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Gee, really? Heard that on TV all by yourself? And we’re friends of the owners, by the way, with no intent to harm, so it isn’t technically illegal entry.”

  “I’ll remember that next time at Dean Owen’s house. He has this baseball signed by Babe Ruth.”

  She pulled from me, started across the darkened living room amid the towers of antiques. “This is exactly how we first came into the Robichous’ house.”

  “Except they were home at the time. Jesus, would you look at all this stuff! Such a nice woman, such a lousy housekeeper.”

  “Maybe it’s Dean’s job to clean the house.”

  “That would explain it--what is that smell?”

  “Just must, I guess. Musty old antiques. Place could use a can of Glade here and there.”

  “It’s not must. It smells like…the swamp.”

  Katie gasped, sniffed the air again showily. “My God, Elliot, you’re right! Yet, how can that be? Do you suppose they live near a swamp?”

  “I’ve changed my mind, I’m no longer with you. Good luck. I’ll be in the car.”

  “Bye. Sure and write now!”

  “I’m telling you something is rotten in Manchac.”

  “You did shower, right?”

  “Fine, make fun, but there’s something familiar about that odor…”

  “Quit thinking with your nose and use your eyes. Where’s that hallway to Roger’s room, I can’t see a damn thing in here.”

  “It’s just an idea, but we could try the lights.”

  “So anybody passing by in a car would be sure to see the burglars in the Robichou place, that what you mean?”

  “Nobody passes by this place. Beside my classic ’57 Thunderbird is parked right out--”

  “Sh! Listen!”

  “No more screwing around, huh?”

  “I’m not! You didn’t hear that?”

  I stood still, listened. “Hear what?”

&n
bsp; “In between your constant nattering--a kind of dragging noise…”

  “’Dragging’?”

  Katie squinted into the dim interior. “We should have brought flashlights,” she whispered, “I knew we should! There! Did you hear it that time?”

  I listened. “No.”

  “…like a…a scrapping sound…”

  “I thought it was a dragging sound, now it’s scraping?”

  She turned a tight circle, head tilted, straining. “The acoustics in this place stink!”

  “This place stinks period.”

  “…sounded like…I don’t know, somebody dragging something across the floor?”

  “Like a dead body?”

  “Try just for once to help, please? Here’s the hallway. Okay, now was Roger’s room before or after Amy’s?”

  “After. On the left, I think.”

  We felt our way down the hallway. “Place is like a mausoleum,” Katie whispered.

  “See all you want of those tomorrow, I expect. They bury the deceased above ground in Louisiana, you know. Because of the marshy soil.”

  “That’s baloney, it’s because of tradition.”

  “No, really, the wet soil. Sometimes, in a bad storm like Katrina, the mausoleums flood, fill up and even burst apart along with the coffins. The dead wash away in streams, sometimes toward town. Rotting bodies have been known to turn up in people’s backyards--”

  “Elliot! Knock it off, huh? I studied medicine at Brown! There isn’t much I’m squeamish about-- there! Did you hear it that time?”

  I froze. “Maybe...”

  “Maybe. Could you be a little bit more ambiguous?”

  “I think I heard something, wait a second…”

  We listened a moment, inert as statues. My heart was racing now. I wondered if Katie’s heart was racing too. I almost hoped so. On Katie it would somehow be endearing. Vulnerable. She could use a little vulnerability inside that high wall of assertion. Look good on her.

  Then I heard it again. A kind of dragging….

  “Did you—?“

  “Yes.”

  I felt her hand touch my chest in the darkness, heard her thick, clicking swallow. “Which way? Down the hall or toward the front?”

  I thought about it. “Toward the front, I think.”

  “Really? I thought it sounded more from the—“

  “We need to split up!”

  “What?”

  “Split up! Now!”

  “Are you nuts!” She actually did sound a little vulnerable that time.

  “Katie, if someone’s in here with us we’re trapped in this narrow hallway—no escape route. You go down to Roger’s room and wait by the door! I’ll check out the front of the house! Understand?”

  “Wait, are you sure—“

  “I’m sure! If you see something weird, yell. Yell like hell.”

  I patted her shoulder and started back down the black hallway, feeling my way along with my fingers…that weird smell I couldn’t quite place never leaving my eight sinus cavities.

  I came back into the living room, crept silently around the big bronze statues and brass tubas and piles of other indefinable junk.

  Then I heard the bellow.

  Then Katie’s scream.

  I charged back down the hall—slammed into her fleeing figure full force, almost knocking us both out.

  “What the hell--?”

  She dug the heels of her hands into my chest, pushed me backward urgently. “Oh, Christ, Run! Christ on a crutch, run!”

  “What is it? Was it Amy?”

  She kept shoving me backward, warm breath on my neck, gasping. “Run! Just run!”

  She pushed past, dragging me after her, tripping, flailing, bouncing off the narrow hall.

  “Katie, what is it?”

  I heard the dragging noise grow louder as it came behind us down the hall, turned to look. Two agate red eyes caught the glow of something from in front of us. The monster’s bellow rocked the narrow walls. Big Louis.

  “Shit!”

  I grabbed Katie around the waist and pulled her into my arms and launched us blindly into the living room.

  Straight into the flashlight beam of Deputy Jimmy Olson.

  And his shiny black .38.

  NINETEEN

  The deputy fired twice in rapid order, the sound knocking against the living room walls like a hammer.

  Then he took Katie’s arm and pushed her gently toward the front door. “Outside, please.” He sounded amazingly calm.

  I stood there stupidly, ears still ringing from the rounds, cordite filling my nostrils, the big gator’s teeth sinking into my right leg, tearing it off in a fountain of blood. That last part only in my head, actually.

  Deputy Olson waved his service revolver after Katie. “You too, please, Elliot.”

  I didn’t argue.

  Hurried along smartly by the third shot behind me.

  It was so bright outside after the gloomy house I could hardly find Katie in the glare. She was standing in the front drive staring at the shiny Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Dept. patrol car parked next to my now less-than-shiny classic Thunderbird.

  She squinted apology as I came up. “Oops.”

  I looked her up and down quickly, made sure she wasn’t bleeding anywhere. “Oops?”

  “You were right—we should have parked somewhere down the street.”

  I glanced back reproachfully at the house. “Dean Robichou must have asked Olson to check on the place while they were out antiquing. I should have thought of that.”

  “We both should have. It was my nervy idea to break into the place. I only have one question—“

  “Did the gator crawl into the house on his own?”

  “Or was he put there to guard it?”

  “How do you entice a three-ton alligator to guard your estate while you’re out and about?”

  “Like this,” Deputy Olson said from the porch.

  He was standing there with a live chicken kicking in one hand, holding the screen door open for the alligator with the other. Big Louis came lumbering into bright sunlight with the jaded air of someone who owns the place.

  Olson let go of the door and led the big reptile down the porch steps, down and around the side of the house and toward the big swamp. He didn’t toss the flapping chicken to the big pink maw until Louis was well submerged.

  Katie turned to me with admiration. “He does that very well.”

  “Done it before, I think.”

  She leaned closer. “So what now? Do we cut and run and become the Outlaws of Sherwood Swamp, or stick around and risk arrest? Think quick, Elliot, he’s coming back.”

  Deputy Jimmy trudged around the side of the house, gun still dangling from his hand.

  I watched him a moment, leaned toward Katie. “Stick around, I think.”

  The deputy strode over unhurriedly, almost didn’t seem to notice us until he was there. “You folks still here? Huh. Interesting.”

  “Is it?” I asked.

  “Is to me. Shows you’re smart.”

  “Are we?”

  “Running from the law’s always futile.” He turned to Katie. “Right, Miss Bracken?”

  Katie studied him with a narrowing look. “Something about the cadence of your voice…”

  The deputy waited.

  Katie, lit, snapped her fingers suddenly. “Jimmy Cagney!”

  Olson hooked his thumbs in his belt.

  Katie frowned. “Edward G. Robinson?”

  Olson shifted his stance, as if insulted.

  “Jack Webb,” I said. “Dragnet. I loved that show.”

  Olson appraised me challengingly. “First season, or that color crap from the 60’s with partner Harry Morgan?”

  “First. Pilot episode. ‘The Human Bomb.’”

  “Year?”

  “December 16, 1951.”

  “A sponsor?”

  “Chesterfield.”

  “Webb’s partner?”

  “
Ben Romero.”

  “Played by?”

  “Barton Yarborough.”

  “Not bad, Bledsoe.”

  “I try, copper. Little young to remember the ‘50’s, aren’t you?”

  “Ever hear of a little thing called The Nostalgia Channel, mister?”

  “Thursday nights, ten o’clock.”

  “Sponsor?”

  Katie waved her hand between us. “Excuse me, fellas, but are you going to arrest us, Deputy Olson?”

  Jimmy Olson turned the gun on her. “I’m going to shoot you...”

  She stared him down.

  “…unless you promise not to bring up the Superman thing again.”

  Katie rolled her eyes. “You followed us, didn’t you?”

  Olson holstered his piece. “Oh, yeah.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Only got two things to do on my job, feed files into that damn computer and run patrol twice a day, and you all seem like the most interesting people in town to follow at the moment.”

  “You think so?” from Katie.

  “I do. We don’t get many B&E’s round here.”

  “It’s not really breaking-and-entering if the door’s unlocked, is it?”

  “Afraid it is, ma’am. Technically, anyway. Where I come from. And I’m pretty sure where Sheriff Cormac comes from. We’ll have to do something about that…”

  “About what?”

  But Olson was already striding back to the front porch.

  Katie and I exchanged glances and followed in his wake.

  “I don’t get it,” I said, catching up to him, “you fired three times at that thing, I heard it.”

  Olson made a scoffing sound as he ascended the weathered stairs. “Hell, you couldn’t kill that gator with artillery. Besides, I only fired blanks.”

  “Blanks? Why are you carrying blanks? If I might ask?”

  “Because he’s been out here alone before, isn’t that right, Deputy?” Katie said.

  Olson grinned, yanked a red kerchief from his uniform’s back pocket and began rubbing down the screen door knob and then the storm door’s.

  “And, live rounds might have left a dead gator and bullet holes in the Robichous’ lovely yellow wallpaper.”