Dead On the Bayou

by June Shaw

  I was so sorry to see the last slivers of chicken break apart and slide off Mrs. Viatar’s fork and splash into the gravy. When I gave her a smile and a nod, she shared a tiny smile back, and keeping me in view, slid her empty fork into her mouth. I cringed. She pulled the tines out of her mouth and looked at that fork with a frown. Since we shouldn’t be talking to her now, Eve and I scurried out of the dining hall before I lifted the elder’s food and fed it to her.

  “Maybe she would have spoken with us,” I told Eve.

  “And maybe she would have thrown up her meal in the process.” She pointed toward a door with Administrator on the plaque above it.

  Eve knocked with polite taps. Seconds later the door opened.

  “Yes? May I help you?” A petite person wearing a long dress that swept the floor, she looked from one to the other of us with a smile. “Are you looking for your mother?”

  “No, we know she went gambling,” Eve said, and the lady in charge’s smile widened. She didn’t invite us into her office. “What we want is to know about Adrienne Viatar. What’s the name of her grandson who comes to visit her often?”

  Her forehead crimped. “I can’t give you that information. It’s in our privacy laws.”

  I stepped closer. “But I met him outside, and he told me she was in here. After I left, I realized he and I didn’t exchange names.”

  She tightened her lips. “I’m sorry. Maybe you’ll get to see him again.” Behind her, a phone rang in her office. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get that.”

  Before she shut the door all the way, I noticed something interesting. The staff member behind the sign-in counter left that area and walked toward a door marked Ladies down the hall.

  “Come see,” I told Eve and bustled to that counter. Visitors were supposed to sign in on that thick leather-bound binder every time they came, writing their names and the dates and who they came to visit. Eve and I never did anymore, but I hoped some people in Mrs. Viatar’s family did.

  Excitement built as I flipped through recent pages. Our newfound friend that we had almost just gotten to meet had her name written four times in the last two weeks. How many more times had people come to visit her and done like us, not signing?

  Enthusiasm raising my heartbeat, I pulled a small pad from my purse and not finding my pen, used the attractive white long-tailed one standing in its holder to jot down the names of each of her visitors and the date they were here.

  Eve shoved my hand away and shut the binder. I was ready to give her a harsh retort but heard footsteps approaching behind before I noticed her head tilt in that direction. I pushed the items I held into my purse and walked with my twin toward the front door.

  “I don’t have a pen. Excuse me,” the woman who’d passed by us called to someone. “I don’t see the pen we usually use to sign in. Did it fall back there?”

  Eve and I glanced at each other and rushed out the door. I was the one who felt like a thief.

  “I’m starving,” Eve said. “Let’s go eat somewhere, and we can check out your list. Maybe it can lead us to a killer so we can prove it wasn’t us or Dave.”

  Chapter 9

  Eve and I chose to eat in Swamp Rat’s Diner, a charming place that squatted partway over a bayou as though it might slide in. Lively swamp pop music and an inviting aroma of boiled and fried seafood called to me the second I opened the door of my truck. Cajun jokes in frames on the cypress walls and under glass on the tables entertained guests, along with photographs of swamp scenes and the ten-foot long locally caught and stuffed alligator that greeted everyone who came inside. I was pleased that we’d chosen this place since we always delighted in the food and atmosphere.

  Today, though, the memories struck first of being in a similar place, although it was a place that normally didn’t serve meals. The memory that flashed was of going inside Dave’s rustic camp with a similar style and a gator swimming outside.

  Eve and I exchanged greetings with people we knew slightly but didn’t want to stop to talk with since we wanted to get busy with my names. We sat beside each other in a booth so we could study the list together. Knowing the menu well, we placed our orders without needing to look at one. Then I pulled out my pad and the pen I’d stolen. No, I borrowed it, I reminded myself, and forgot to put it back, but next time I would return it.

  “This woman visited her twice in the last two weeks,” Eve said, pointing to Jessica Nelson, the first name I’d copied. “And this man went a couple of times.” Pleased, I looked at Eve. “I’ll bet he’s the one I talked to in their parking lot.”

  “And other people probably do like us and don’t sign in at all.”

  “I didn’t get to check most of the recent pages.”

  A nice-looking young man with a smile brought us our silverware and soft drinks along with frosted glasses in case we wanted to pour our drinks into them. “Your food won’t be long,” he said.

  “Yum. I’m really hungry,” Eve told me.

  I saw servers carrying meals to tables and booths, and realized how empty my stomach felt. “Okay, I think what we should do after we eat is try to find contact info for the people who visited Mrs. Viatar.”

  Eve eyed me. “And then?”

  “And then we can call them or go over or something.” Out loud, my suggestions didn’t sound foolproof. “What do you think?”

  “I think my oyster po’boy is heading for me. That’s all that matters right now.”

  “Right.” My order was aimed at me, too, and we should think better after we were full.

  She gave me a couple of delicious crunchy fried oysters from her sandwich with the crusty bread, and I shared my sweet potato fries and shrimp jambalaya. Lots of tasty seafood and seasonings went into the rice dish. Afterward, we shared a slice of creamy pecan pie with a flaky crust. Both stuffed, we paid for our meals and left nice tips. I waddled out behind my sister.

  “Let’s go to my house to check out the people on the list. It would feel creepy and cloud my thoughts if Royce was outside next to yours.” Getting no argument, I drove to my place. There, we did online searches for the names, didn’t find any of them listed locally, and didn’t want to pay for advanced searches that might not even yield information we were looking for. Since I had received two phonebooks from different companies within the last couple of years, Eve and I sat at my dining room table with the list of visitors’ names between us. Each of us took one book and had paper and pens.

  “These are usually slightly different,” I said, “so why don’t we both look up each of the names.”

  We skimmed and double-skimmed our pages with the female name. We glanced at each other at the same time and didn’t write anything.

  “Let’s check out the other towns around here, too,” Eve suggested.

  Because of my dyslexia, I need to concentrate to find words I wanted in the correct order, and it took me longer to figure some out. Eve, I noticed, had glanced at the list of names between us and started a new search from the beginning of her phonebook. I looked at her, and she patted my arm to let me know it was all right. I shouldn’t be concerned. I had been bothered during most of my school years when almost everyone else in class finished work before me, but I surely wasn’t worried with Eve.

  She’d finished going through all the towns in her book again before I did mine. “The woman might be married and listed under their husband’s names,” she said.

  “Or she might have an unlisted number or no landline.”

  Eve touched the name of the male I had copied. “Maybe we’ll get lucky with this fellow, Andrew Primeaux.”

  “I hope he’s the one I talked to. He sure didn’t seem to care for Mrs. Wilburn.”

  It took no time for her to reach the P’s, so I waited and watched. Her finger slid right through the earliest listings that began with that letter. It stopped at Price, Dave. Eve’s eyes crinkled with sadness that I knew matched mine. “He’s got to be all right,” she
said.

  “I know.” My throat tightened. She looked at me, and I knew sadness showed in my face.

  “They can’t charge him with anything just because she was found in his camp, but they’ll sure be trying to.”

  We stared at each other, both with unhappy eyes. “I’d like to call him to see how he’s doing,” I said.

  “I know. Me, too, but he told me he’s got a lot of work to catch up on right now. Let’s not bother him. I’m sure he’ll call when he can take time for a longer talk.”

  The phone book gave his number but not his address. We wanted to make sure his address didn’t become the parish jail.

  “Oh, look, there.” I set my index finger on Primeaux, Andrew.

  “Okay, now what are we going to do with this information? Do you want to call him? Maybe offer your sympathy for his aunt’s passing?” She held her phone out to me.

  I started to punch in numbers. When I got halfway through, I pressed Off. “I don’t know if this is the man I saw outside the manor.”

  “Then let’s go see if he is.” Eve was on her feet.

  I wrote the name and address on a slip of paper, double-checked what I copied, and stood.

  I knew where Raccoon Road was and didn’t take long to drive to his neighborhood. It sat in the middle of the older section of town where most houses were wooden and painted white with two-foot brick footings lifting them off the ground. Nearby a large Catholic church offered forgiveness, an elementary school tossed out knowledge, and old public swimming pool provided years of fun in the summer for countless people who grew up around here. I glanced at Eve, while she did the same to me, both of us with our lips lifted at the corners, probably enjoying pleasant memories from these places. I recalled the smell of chlorine that made my nostrils tighten even before I stepped out to the apron of the large rectangular pool and then the feel of buoyancy as I lay on my back, stretched my arms out, used my feet to push myself off the side, and then for the first time, floated. Amazing.

  I felt my lip corners drop with one recollection from that church. I’d made my first communion there, an exciting time for us young children. But right after I received the blessed host for the first time and tried to regain moisture to my mouth so I would swallow but not chew it, I heard the boy behind me gag. He coughed and made a chocking sound, and I turned around just in time to see him throw up the blessed bread. It had touched the back of his throat that caused his gagging instinct, he told our religion class later, but that sound and the vomit smell came back to me these many years later.

  So did the negative experiences from that school I drove past. One of the few two-story brick buildings in town, a couple of its rooms with dark-paneled walls taunted me even now. Those early teachers gave me little leeway for completing my work slower than most. Of course, they didn’t know of my problem. My parents had no idea why one of their twins performed worse in classes than the other and whose self-esteem dropped because she couldn’t do any better. It would take a while for all of us to learn from my favorite teacher who figured out what slowed me down in classes. She let us know the condition wasn’t my fault, and extra assistance and studying would help me keep up. We discovered that many brilliant people had also been born with dyslexia and that twins often shared the same condition, but my sister and I did not.

  “That’s it.” She pointed to the house ahead. Wiry grass was way past due for a cutting. The person inside it probably didn’t own a weed whacker, or possibly something like an illness kept him from knocking down those weeds growing all around his house. The screen on one front window was busted, and large patches of mildew tainted the white paint. Eve and I figured this was the house owned by a man, the one who’d visited at the manor within the last two weeks. He mustn’t have a wife who would be after him to take care of those things.

  What would I say to him, I wondered when Eve stepped out of my truck and stood beside it, waiting for me to join her? Suppose he was the wrong person?

  The side of his house held a narrow driveway with no garage or carport. The only thing it held was a new shiny maroon truck that looked out of place at this faded residence.

  Before I lost my courage, I hurried up the three steps to the postage-stamp-size front porch. With Eve coming beside me, I pressed the doorbell near the screen door that covered the inner wooden one. The loud bell buzzed only once inside and then the front door was pulled open. A girl of about sixteen stared at Eve and then me and then Eve and then me before she cracked the slightest grin, making her appear more pleasant and two years younger than she had seconds before.

  “Y’all both look the same,” she said through the screen door with a voice that sounded much older than a young teen’s. “I’ve never seen identical twins that look so much alike as y’all do.”

  With a pleasant smile, I leaned closer to the door. “Have you seen many identical twins?”

  Her headshake made the tip of her blond ponytail swat her face. “You’re just the second pair.”

  “I’m Sunny, and this is my sister Eve.”

  She gave us a spread-fingered little wave through the screen blurred with heavy dust. “Hey, y’all. I’m Jessica.”

  That was one of the names of Adrienne Viatar’s recent visitors, although there had been no last name written.

  I peered beyond her into the living room that wore an orange shag carpet from the seventies and hoped to see the man from outside the manor, but didn’t see anyone. “Is your father here?”

  She tilted her head. “My father?” Her pale eyebrows wrinkled when she frowned.

  Eve and I looked at each other. Had this girl’s father died? Was I wrong to come here?

  “Who’s that?” a man bellowed from a back room. “Some religious fanaticals? Just tell ’em you’re spiritual enough and not interested in whatever they’re selling.” He stamped into the room behind the teen.

  “That’s him,” I told Eve.

  The girl glanced back. “Oh, you wanted my uncle.”

  Eve and I exchanged a look of apprehension. We’d both heard stories of uncles who lived with kids. None of those stories were pleasant.

  “Yes?” His single word to us sounded like a bark. “What do you want?”

  I wanted to grab that young woman and take her far away from him. I wanted—

  In once swift action, he popped the lock on the screen door, shoved the door open, and squeezed my arm.

  Chapter 10

  “Let me go!” I ordered and yanked my forearm away.

  “Oh.” He sounded calmer. “You’re the one from the manor.”

  “Leave her alone.” Eve shoved the screen door back against him.

  He checked out her face. “Or maybe you are.” He swung his head back and forth while he examined us, forehead wrinkling while he determined we looked alike.

  I lifted my chin. “I spoke with you.”

  “Oh.” His forehead smoothed. “You asked me about my aunt.”

  “I did. And that’s why we’re here.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was you.” His tone sounded sincere. “Please come in.” He gave a gentle push to open the screen door wider.

  My gaze swung to Eve. The invitation from the male who lived here was the reason we came out to his place. Now that we were greeted so roughly, I wasn’t sure we should go inside. The uncertainty in my sister’s eyes mirrored mine.

  I looked at the teen who now stood behind the man she called her uncle and knew we needed to go in, maybe to protect her. Maybe to lead to certain proof that neither we nor Dave Price murdered Eve’s neighbor.

  “Thank you,” I said to the fellow holding the door open and walked inside. Eve stepped in behind me.

  The girl’s grin and eyes let us know she was pleased that we were here. “Y’all sit down.” She swung her arm out to indicate that we were to take the sofa with a faded orange floral print and sagging center. “I can get y’all some coffee. Or would you want some tea? I can
make y’all some.”

  “Neither, thanks,” Eve said and looked at me, letting me make the decision of whether or not we should stay.

  “Thanks for the offer. I don’t want anything to drink either.” I took a seat on the sofa. It sank a little but was surprisingly comfortable. Eve sat with me.

  While our host and hostess took upholstered chairs with faded patterns that matched the larger piece we sat on, I used the moment to glance around. The gold drapes looked heavy. The size of the television that was the focal point of the room let me know that if our host liked baseball, he would have a difficult time seeing a batted ball on that screen. Maybe what surprised me most was even though the flooring and window covering seemed to have been here since the house was built, none of it carried a stuffy smell. The room actually smelled fresh, ultra clean. Maybe the girl sprayed air freshener right before she answered the door. Possibly, they just kept the insides cleaner than the yard.

  “My name is Sunny Taylor,” I said.

  “And of course I’m her sister,” Eve said as though finishing my sentence.

  “Hey. That’s cute.” The teen gave us her small windshield-wiper wave.

  “And I am Andrew Primeaux,” the man in the room said.

  “Yes, we met,” I told him.

  “I didn’t remember that we’d exchanged names.” He tapped the side of his head. With a small smile, he added, “I’m so forgetful.”

  The girl leaned toward him, although he sat diagonally across the room from her. “No, you’re not.” She spoke almost protectively.

  “Well, I forgot that.”

  “Mr. Primeaux,” I said, regaining his attention, “the reason we came today was to give you our condolences. We are so sorry your aunt passed away.”

  Wearing a sorrowful face with pulled-down lip corners, Eve nodded.

  The girl in the room didn’t change her expression. Her eyes swung toward her uncle and remained steady as though she were waiting to see his reaction to my words.