A Savage Wisdom

by Norman German

  “Miss Bienville. I have only one requirement of you.”

  “Yes, sir. Anything.”

  “Find something.”

  “Oh,” I smiled. “I will.” I turned to go.

  “And tell me what you find.”

  “I will.” I stepped around the partition and halted.

  “Mr. Sonnier,” I said over the wall.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Miss Bienvenu, not Bienville.” I waited for a few seconds. I heard the slow, purposeful scratching of his pencil on paper.

  * * *

  The most interesting items in the box were Sonnier’s notes taken at the execution scene and his article that City Editor Jim Mead canned. Scrawled in red over the typed manuscript were the words “Yellow Journalism.” The spiked rejection was held together by a rusty paper clip. In the margins, Mead had tersely written words like “hearsay,” “innuendo,” “fact?” From the article, I could see Sonnier had been onto something, though he couldn’t fill the gaps between his inferences with concrete evidence. Thinking an objective observer from twenty years’ distance might see something he had been too close to notice, I turned to Sonnier’s personal notes. Using his own method of shorthand, Sonnier chronicled the movements of the dozen or so legal, clerical, and medical witnesses to the event: their names, functions, and placement around the chair—signing the register, taking position, cinching straps, connecting electrodes, the deadly command, the death-check, the body’s removal.

  His one blind spot was atmosphere. Rank, fact. Location, fact. Description, fact. Fact-fact-fact. To him, the participants weren’t people. They were chess pieces. That’s the trained reporter in him, I thought. Or the man in him. A woman might have seen with different eyes. I reread the sheets. The care with which Toni Jo’s pantleg was pinned high so as not to touch the electrode and catch fire. A nice detail. It wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t recorded it.

  “What’s this?” I said aloud. L. Deer kneels to secure TJ’s arms with straps. He coughs. Stands. Tries to clear his throat. Hasty exit. Queasy young dpty. Short commands. Gum taken. Condemned is ready. Final statements? ”Give my baby a good home.” She begins to yell. Other officials shout. Chaos. Her life stops in mid-sentence.

  “Yell.” “Shout.” “Chaos.” What had actually occurred was at odds with the official report of the execution: “Henry is Silent, Calm to the End.” Something else was peculiar, though. Lambert Deer left the scene! That’s the crucial event Sonnier missed. Perhaps he was writing too fast to pay attention to what it meant. I couldn’t prove it. But I knew it. That meant I knew something no one else knew, not even Sonnier, who saw but didn’t have the right eyes to see. After jotting down Sonnier’s words verbatim, I returned the box, asking his forgiveness for not finding anything consequential.

  “There’s a word for this,” I said. “When you engage in fruitless research, what’s it called?”

  “Water-hauling?” Sonnier suggested.

  “Right,” I said. “I made a water haul.”

  I next saw Lamb near the end of May. He had been at the capitol for a week. He phoned midday Friday, asking me to meet him at the Sheriff’s Headquarters at five o’clock. I had neither the time nor the presumption to ask him why.

  At five, I had been waiting for fifteen minutes on the east bank of the ship channel under the Jean Lafitte bridge.

  In one unbroken motion, the Mayor stepped from his chauffeured car, took my arm, and sashayed me down the plank of an idling Coast Guard cutter whose deckhand had already freed its ropes. That’s the way it was with Lamb: a call, quick instructions, an unusual setting. Instant romance. We sat in deck chairs drinking Cokes atop the pilot house as the vessel made for the coast at midspeed. Lambert Deer was not a drinking man. We talked and laughed. Threw bread to argumentative seagulls. Two hours later, we came into Calcasieu Pass at Cameron against an incoming tide, blackfolk precarious on the jetties, pointing their poles at the water as if casting a sure bet. The boat slowed in the current, cut its engines by half. We passed through the rocky straits into the open Gulf and stood, steadied by rails against the slow-rolling swells, in fading light the color of a trout’s back. It was like nothing I had ever felt. Expansive and clean. Lambert Deer had a flair for the dramatic. He executed a long kiss.

  We always had wonderful times when he came into town after being hauled around the state with his entourage of underlings, men and priests fueled by money and prayer.

  The cutter bobbed in the current for a few minutes, turning slowly, like a compass needle, until, aimed for home, the throttle growled to life and shot us upriver into the growing darkness. In the yellow-lighted cabin, we talked of the future, the governor’s mansion. Ambition, opportunity, and change. A new day. At that moment, I lost all heart to spoil his visionary world with my soiled discovery. It had to be tonight, though. I promised myself.

  * * *

  Three hours later, in a porch swing on the veranda of his ranch house, June bugs thumping against the screen with a familiar, domestic sound, everything else having been said, I took the first step of a thousand-mile journey.

  “I did some snooping while you were gone,” I said into the darkness that reeked of cattle and after-shave.

  “That right?” He was rocking the swing gently, toes wiggling beneath his socks. “And you found a dead rat in the cistern.” We rocked three times before I answered.

  “You always do when you go looking.”

  “Sometimes it’s better not to look.”

  “Cal Sonnier loaned me his notes on the Henry execution.” The swing stopped—one, two—then resumed.

  “Interesting stuff?” he ventured.

  “Sketchy,” I said. “Sketchy, but revealing. Between the lines, you know.” The swing moved as he nodded. “Sonnier attributed the Deputy Sheriff’s retreat before the execution to his being green, a beginner at violent endings.” I waited for a response and moved on. “But that didn’t make sense. The drama of the scene begged for another interpretation. A young deputy would follow through, don’t you think?”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Out of duty, the necessity to learn,” I said. “You know. Pride, fear of embarrassment. A dozen other reasons. No. A good deputy would never have left the scene.”

  “Unless?”

  “Unless he were emotionally involved with the condemned.” I waited a long while. He wasn’t going to help me the rest of the way. I took a deep breath. “He would stay to see an ordinary prisoner executed, but not a woman he was having an affair with.”

  After a long while, he offered, “The mother of his child.” The swing stopped. The quiet, high-pitched whine of silence filled my ears.

  “Something like that,” I said. Lamb stood up and walked through the yellow rectangle of light leading to his kitchen. I heard the sound of ice tumbling into a glass.

  Chapter 23

  July–November 1, 1963

  Throughout the summer, Lamb and I saw each other as time allowed. He was still mayor, with duties to catch up on when he returned from speech-making forays around the state. If we talked in the headquarters building, it always seemed as though Monsignor LeBlanc was watching us. It gave me the creeps, and finally I mentioned it to Lamb. We had been racing horses around his property and paused to let them catch their breath.

  “I know,” he said. “He’s been poking around, telling me to be careful about appearances. He means well. He probably thinks of it as good moral advice instead of prying into something that’s none of his business.”

  “I understand, but why does he look at me like that?” I stopped to secure a barrette that had shaken loose. “He acts like I’m raining on his birthday party.” Lamb sidled up next to me. He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

  “Sorry,” he said. “There’s more. The fact is, he suggested we break away from each other.” I glared at Lamb to show my anger at LeBlanc. Lamb tried to recover my lost favor. “Just until the election is over.”

  “
I don’t understand. Why does he hang around, anyway? What do you need him for?” Restless to run again, his horse shook its head up and down and made a snuffling noise.

  “He can pull a lot of Catholic votes my way.” His horse walked ahead, and I spurred mine to catch up. “Fact is, Leigh, I need him.”

  “And?”

  “We’ll just have to be more careful about appearances around headquarters.”

  * * *

  We weren’t careful enough. In late September, 1963, the first primary less than two months away, Monsignor LeBlanc took me aside and after a few pleasantries smoothly suggested Lamb’s success in the race might be jeopardized if too many constituents discovered he was seeing a young girl.

  “As far as I can tell,” I warmly replied, “we’re both adults.”

  “True,” LeBlanc said, “but this is an election and voters are fickle. Take Kennedy. Now he may or may not be having liaisons with Marilyn Monroe, but come time to pull levers next fall, you can bet your last dollar he’s going to lose some votes over that deal, whether it’s fact or fiction. You see, Leigh, it’s appearances that matter when you’re in the public eye, just as much as realities.”

  “That’s a joke,” I said. “The difference is that Kennedy’s married, and I’m no movie star. Not by a long shot.” Monsignor LeBlanc looked at me with solicitous calm for a few seconds. He was good at that particular expression. He had practiced it his entire life.

  “Think about it,” he said. “Will you, Leigh? It’s important.”

  I nodded yes just to get rid of him.

  * * *

  For the next several weeks, LeBlanc smiled congenially when our paths crossed. I didn’t trust him. He was being kind to me out of some ulterior motive, buttering me up for the kill. In mid-October, LeBlanc approached me again. I knew something was up because his putty-skin looked moist, like he was nervous. He started casually.

  “Leigh, your older sister—Maureen, isn’t that her name? Did you know she was adopted?”

  Furious, I spoke hotly to him. “That’s not true. Why are you being so mean?”

  LeBlanc gestured for me to keep my voice down.

  “It is true,” he said.

  I tried to whisper, but my words came out as hisses. “Maureen and I look just alike. People are always saying so, and we both look like Mother. Our front teeth cross like hers. If you think this lie has something to do with the election, why don’t you come out and say it?”

  “Leigh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He rubbed his hands together. “You’re right, Leigh. There’s more to this than I’m letting out. But I must swear you to secrecy. Believe me, Leigh. You must tell no one.”

  Now we were getting down to it. There was urgency in his voice, the kind you can’t fake. I reminded myself that he was, after all, a priest.

  “Okay, then. What is it?”

  “No one, Leigh. Not your sister, not Lamb.” His dark eyes locked on me soberly. “Leigh. Not anyone.”

  “All right,” I said. “Just say it.”

  “Maureen is the daughter of Toni Jo Henry.”

  The floor dropped beneath me. “Oh, God.” I closed my eyes. My stomach clenched, and I could feel blood racing through my body. When I opened my eyes, the periphery of the room went dark. “This is ridiculous,” I said. “I don’t believe you. Even if it’s true, I’m not going to stop seeing Lamb. Even if it’s true, no one has to know.”

  “If I know, there must be others who know.”

  “How do you know?” The Monsignor looked at me without replying. “How do you know?”

  “Other people know, too. Take my word for it, Leigh. And they might use you to expose Deer at a crucial time in the campaign.”

  * * *

  Toward the end of the second week in November, when the first primary was gathering steam, Monsignor LeBlanc said he wanted to confer with me after work. He was waiting for me on the sidewalk outside the door, mouthing an unlit cigar.

  “Come with me.” That was all he said as he turned. We walked around the block to the whitewashed brick convent, then up a narrow flight of stairs to a small, dim room. LeBlanc knocked gently on the partially open door and stepped into the room with a reverence I found refreshing. He shut the door behind us and waited a few moments.

  “Leigh, I’d like you to meet someone very special. This is Sister Mary Catherine. The nun appeared to be fashioning rosaries out of thin leather strips, tying knots without looking at the artifacts. “She’s. . . . Well, she’s quite aged. She taught at Sacred Heart Academy for more years than I’ve been alive.” LeBlanc chuckled.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you,” I said. I stepped toward her and reached out my hand. In spite of her loose-fitting habit, I could tell she was a frail woman.

  “Oh,” the Monsignor interrupted. “I forgot to mention that Sister Mary Catherine took a vow of silence over twenty years ago. It’s not mandatory in her order, but when her eyes began to fail, she decided to mute her voice as well.”

  The Sister had been writing on a notepad, which she handed me after LeBlanc’s explanation. The words, though neatly shaped, flowed across the page heedless of the lines:

  I am pleased to know you, but sorry to meet you under these circumstances.

  Then, separated from the first message by a thick line, in a darker, more urgent hand,

  You are not who you think you are.

  I looked at the Monsignor blankly and shrugged my shoulders.

  “Sister?” he said. The nun acted on his cue. Without moving from her chair, she reached for a small cedar box on the table by her bed and produced from it a black page filled with white type. LeBlanc took the sheet from her and relayed it to me. I read the document, my heart surging at my unfinished name: Leigh Ann ____________. It was a birth certificate. My parents kept our birth certificates in a fireproof strongbox, and I had seen mine only a few times, but I noticed that this one had been altered.

  “What does this mean?” I pointed to the word after “Father”—“Unknown.”

  “I thought it would be best if you saw it yourself.”

  “I don’t understand. Is this genuine?”

  “Yes. In fact, it’s the original. You see, Leigh, like your sister, you’re also adopted.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. I looked at the black sheet and mechanically read it again. Attending Physician: Dr. Silvers. I had never paid attention to that line. Now, I recognized him as the doctor at Toni Jo Henry’s execution.

  “And Bobby?” I said. “What about him?”

  “No, he’s your mother and father’s real child. They thought they couldn’t have children. They had Bobby only after adopting you and Maureen. A happy accident.”

  After recovering a bit, I said, “Then that explains why Mo and I are so close together in age. I had always wondered about that.”

  “Yes and no. Look at the date on the certificate.”

  “Nineteen forty-two.” I thought I had been born in 1943. That meant I was twenty-one, not twenty. My head felt light. I pressed on my temples to try to focus. “This is all so confusing.”

  “When you were adopted as a one-year-old, a new birth certificate was drafted as if you had just been born when your parents adopted you.”

  “Can they do that? Who did that? Isn’t that illegal?” Monsignor LeBlanc’s face remained expressionless. I was actually older than my big sister. It was all too much to take in at once. Dizzy, I sat down on the mattress and held onto the metal bars at the foot of the bed. “What’s this got to do with me and Lamb? Maureen’s all the way across the state. You’re being unfair to me.” I finally broke. I cried uncontrollably. Every new statement was a crushing weight. I had to lash out at something. “None of this makes sense. I can still be with Lamb. No one ever has to know any of these things.”

  “Leigh, listen to me. I tried to keep you from seeing Lambert the best way I knew. I really did. But you wouldn’t give in. And now you have to know everything.” Monsignor LeBlanc too
k a deep breath. He pulled a soiled handkerchief from his pocket and swabbed his brow. “It’s not Maureen, Leigh. Toni Jo Henry is your mother.”

  Like an electric shock, a scalding horror shot through my entire body. “Then. . . .”

  “You see now why you must stop seeing the Mayor.”

  Rapidly, I tried to put the sequence together. In jail, Toni Jo Henry had a child by Lamb Deer. It was a girl, who was put up for adoption, and I was that child.

  That meant I had to be—. Sister Mary Catherine emitted a rusty sound, like an engine trying to start after a long winter of disuse. The old nun looked at me desperately, her head shaking with age, and pointed at me with a gnarled finger. She swallowed and then croaked, “He’s your father!”

  My senses cleared in an instant. “That’s a lie! That’s a God-damn lie!” I had never used such words in my life. LeBlanc and the Sister stared at me, the nun with eyes that seemed to know a great deal more than they could see. Their silence was their reply, and I knew it meant they were telling the truth. The room began to tilt and slowly spin. “I don’t believe you,” I said weakly. Still, they said nothing. I put my hand over my mouth. “I’m going to be sick.” Monsignor LeBlanc reached under the bed and produced a chamber pot. The muscles in my stomach contracted, but there was nothing for them to give up. I heaved several times. Finally, two clear, slippery ropes of sour bile drained from my mouth into the pail.