by C. L. Bevill
By the time Mignon stood up, Linda had vanished.
Mignon glanced down at the coffee table in front of her. It had been painted a pristine white sometime recently. Judging by the flaking on the sides, this was the most recent in a culmination of coats of paint to give the table new life. She bent slightly to run her fingers over the top and felt the dents and abrasions of a hundred girls’ actions. There were words that had been scratched into the surface. There were curses and admonitions as well as limericks that Mignon almost found a smile at rediscovering.
Mignon brought her fingers up to her face. The paint was tacky. They probably had to paint these things once a month, with all the troubles a dozen girls could get into around here.
“I’m sorry, Miss Thibeaux,” said Sister Helena from the doorway. “It’s just that we’ve gotten so many calls about Dara Honore’s services. Her rosary is tomorrow and the funeral is Monday and I don’t believe her parents have a phone in order to organize anything. So it’s been Father William and Miss Fairchild, who is one of our volunteers, who’ve done most of the arrangements.” She frowned. “I don’t know where the money is going to come from.”
“The Honores are poor, then,” Mignon concluded.
“Very poor,” Sister Helena agreed.
Mignon had her checkbook in the car. “I’ll pay for the funeral.”
“Oh, but…” Sister Helena lips went flat. “The family won’t accept charity.”
“Then they’ll accept a fait accompli.” Mignon knew there was an opportunity here. She could ask questions of the family to find out more about Sister Helena and Father William, and if they think the two might be responsible for Dara’s death. Did the sister have some terrible secret to hide as Linda had implied, or was it the fevered imagination of a teenager who was hurting over the death of her cousin?
Linda seemed to be caught in a web of teenage anxiety. On one hand, she disliked her cousin for her methods. On the other hand, she wanted to help ferret out the killer in the only way she could, by talking to someone that she felt could aid in the investigation process. There seemed to be a million questions that led to even more questions.
Mignon didn’t know the answers, but oh, how she wanted to find out.
Chapter Ten
Monday, March 10th
A cannibal king with a big nose ring fell in love with a dusty maiden.
And every night by the pale moonlight off to the lake he waded.
He hugged and kissed his pretty little miss under the bamboo tree.
And every night by the pale moonlight sounds like this to me…
Carumph *kiss* *kiss*, Carumph *kiss* *kiss*, Carumph ah dee la dee la de da.
- Children’s hand-clapping rhyme
Mignon did not attend Dara Honore’s rosary at the chapel at Blessed Heart. She knew what she felt about religion in general, and she couldn’t bring herself to force her skeptical presence upon Dara’s grieving family and friends. Furthermore and most telling, she didn’t want to look into the faces of a dozen girls and shudder with the shocking force of memories that she had thought long since put behind her. She hadn’t quite realized the impact of her childhood, the childhood she’d endured after Ruff had abandoned her and before she had been rescued by Nehemiah Trent, her adopted father.
However, the funeral was to be at a small cemetery near where the family lived. Sister Helena had imparted the information with a set of concise directions on a Xeroxed sheet of paper. The students at Blessed Heart would attend only the rosary. Monday was a school day and they would not be permitted at the burial, except Linda, who was related.
Dressed in a dark skirt suit, Mignon found that it was one of those many isolated tiny cemeteries that dotted the back roads of rural Louisiana. It was a lonely place, where the lands for a mile in any direction had been cleared for farming, and the fields stretched out endlessly as a green set of crops began to burst out of dirt clods. Inside the confines of a rusting chain metal fence, only the trees that grew inside were left to shelter those who had passed on and had then been buried in this desolate graveyard. There were stone markers and dozens of concave lines in the ground that revealed the final positions of the dead.
Multiple cars were already parked along the dirt road as she parked her Ford at the rear of them. With a start of trepidation, she recognized John Henry’s truck. He hadn’t called her all weekend long. Not talking to him for more than a day was unusual. Apparently, he was that angry with her, and in the back of Mignon’s mind, she couldn’t blame him. She hadn’t called him either, but then she didn’t know what she could have said to him to make things right.
There was a pale green awning set up beside the grave. A row of chairs had been positioned underneath it for the family members and was half full with waiting people. Other clusters of people congregated in loose groups as they spoke together in low tones. The coffin was waiting, seemingly isolated as it sat on some unseen mechanism over the open grave. A mass of flowers of every conceivable color were piled along one side, the blooms towered above the lonesome casket.
As Mignon got out of her SUV, several heads turned to look at her from the cemetery. One was John Henry, and his discerning gaze burned into hers from a hundred feet away. She froze for a second and then mentally chastised herself. It’s just John Henry. Realization of what she was thinking made her shiver. It’s just the man who makes me feel like…like what?
Another set of cars pulled up behind hers. Most of them were older and speckled with rust. The people that climbed out of them were dressed in second hand suits or their most decent shirts and skirts. They held rosary beads in their hands, and they murmured to each other in hushed tones.
Mignon had paused near the gates and couldn’t help staring. Abrupt comprehension made her rude. They were Creoles. All around her. Their skin ranged from golden brown to burnished russet. Their hair was generally darker, ranging from brown to black. Eyes stared at her that were brown, black, and hazel. But their features were not African American as she would have imagined. Like Dara and Linda, they had high, defined cheekbones and fine features. Most of them were striking. Some of them were beautiful. And many of them looked oddly at her.
Mignon felt herself staring and deliberately broke her gaze. Then there was a sudden heat that blossomed in the middle of her back, and she knew John Henry had silently stepped up behind her.
“Mignon,” he said.
Mignon hesitated. Then she turned to him. He was wearing the same suit that he had worn to her mother’s funeral. Black and tailored to fit his powerful frame, it looked very good on him. He held his favorite felt Stetson in his hands. One hand shot out to her elbow and prevented her from taking a step backwards. “Someone right behind you,” he said softly.
The group passed behind her and went toward the grave where the remainder was gathering. Mignon meant to introduce herself to Dara’s parents and perhaps ask some more questions, but doing that in this place, at this time, shamed her, and she felt as though she had committed some grievous deed.
She concentrated on John Henry for the moment. “You look very handsome, John Henry,” Mignon said inanely. “I always liked that suit.”
John Henry’s eyes widened in surprise. His gaze swept over her figure, and inside, he admitted that he always thought she was beautiful whether she was wearing a suit or nothing at all. “I’m not sure what I expected you to say, Mignon. But that wasn’t it.”
Glancing down at his hand on her arm, Mignon said, “I didn’t mean what I said before.”
His head went around them once as if he were searching for something to say. For an instant, Mignon bit the inside of her lip because she was afraid of what he would say. Instead, a low husky laugh came out of his mouth. “What is it about cemeteries and our relationship?” Then he looked sternly down into her face. “Although God knows I should be angry with you, for what you implied and for being here at all.”
“I don’t—” she started, and he put a warning finger up to h
er lips.
“Tell me no lies,” he said. His face was deadly serious. “Do what you have to do, Mignon, but remember we have something together. I don’t know what it is.”
“You called it a relationship,” she whispered. It was the first time he’d used the word. She certainly hadn’t. In the months they’d been together, they hadn’t spoken about the future. They only made plans for the days to come. They hadn’t discussed where it was going or where they wanted it to go. Mignon didn’t want it to shatter like a dropped snow globe by naming it. And now she had managed to crack the glass.
Mignon suddenly saw herself as a perverted Lady of Justice. Typically the scales would be in one hand and the sword in the other, while the lady looked on with blindfold in place. But in one of Mignon’s hands was their “relationship,” a budding flower about to burst open in elegant beauty. In the other hand was the secret of Dara’s death. She had been murdered, and in the moments that Mignon had spoken with Tomas Clovis, she had become certain that he had not been responsible. The scale was starting to tip perilously.
John Henry nodded. “We have to talk, don’t we?”
“There’s something I need to tell you about Dara Honore.” As soon as Mignon said the words she saw his face go blank. It hadn’t been the right thing to say, but she could hardly keep it to herself. She had left Investigator Caraby six messages, and he hadn’t called back.
“What is it?” he bit out.
“There was paint under my nails when I got home to clean up. From her body.”
John Henry nodded, but his face was still so infuriatingly void of expression. “We know about the paint. The evidence people took samples of it.”
“I put it in an envelope in case you needed it.” Mignon stared at a point past John Henry’s shoulder. She could see that he was suddenly seething with anger over what she was saying. He didn’t want her to have anything to do with Dara Honore and her death. As a matter of fact, he didn’t want her there at that very point in time. “And there’s something else.”
John Henry took a deep breath. He took a moment to scan the growing group of people at the graveside, and then his gaze went back to hers. He dropped his hand away from her elbow and brought it up to her face, turning it so that she had to look him in the face. “What have you been doing?” He tried to keep the accusatory note out of his voice, but the taint was still there.
“Sister Helena asked me to come to the school just as Father William said,” Mignon said defensively. She had a perfectly good reason for being there, even if John Henry didn’t approve.
Grunting with censure, John Henry moved his shoulders agitatedly. “Go on.”
“One of the girls said that Sister Helena had fought with Dara the night she was killed.”
“How do you know when—” John Henry bit the words off as soon as he realized he was just confirming something she had guessed or had overheard. “We know about the argument.”
Mignon opened her mouth with surprise. “You know?”
“The sister told us,” John Henry gritted. “You don’t have the monopoly on information, Madam Poirot.”
A surge of anger started to swell in Mignon. He could be as pigheaded as the most obstinate man alive. The part Linda had mentioned about Dara keeping things from people and stashing it away in another place slipped out of her mind. “We still going to talk then since I don’t have the monopoly?”
John Henry smiled grimly. “Oh God yes, we’re going to talk. You’re not wiggling out of this one that easily.”
Mignon jerked her head out of his grasp and stepped around him. She was too mad to say anything else. Let him stew in his own juices for a while, she thought irritably. As she stepped toward the grave, she almost ran smack into Investigator Simon Caraby. She snapped, “You don’t return phone calls.”
Caraby shrugged. His eyes were coldly inquisitive. “I already knew about the paint. I also knew about the disagreement between the sister and the young woman.” He stepped directly in her path as she tried to walk around him, and Mignon was beginning to regret having come to the funeral at all. “Where did you get that information about the sister?”
“You’re a detective,” she said primly, deliberately avoiding him. “You figure it out.”
Mignon quickly worked her way over to the graveside. She purposely stood away from the groups of people congregated there and tried not looking at anyone in particular. She wanted to avoid staring at the Creoles. Their features were so remarkable and striking that it instantly drew her artistic nature out, even while she mentally churned from John Henry’s words. Desperate to think about something else, she couldn’t prevent herself from gazing at their lovely countenances. She was trying to imagine what they would look like on canvas. Normally she didn’t do portraits, but the faces that surrounded her were out of the ordinary.
As a matter of fact, the history of the Creoles of Cane River and the surrounding area was fascinating. Mignon had gone to the Northwestern University library the day before and read up on some of them. Of course, they were a diverse group of their own. Reticent and selective, they had learned to keep to themselves. Trust wasn’t an ingrained trait and for a very good reason. Although freed for hundreds of years, they had been treated badly by the majority. And in some cases, they had also been treated poorly by African Americans. Neither white nor black, they were Creoles. They had evolved on their own. One book called them the forgotten people. Like Mary Catherine had. And only now could Mignon understand the phrase.
The Creoles could not be well defined. In the broadest sense, Mignon discovered, the word could refer to a vast variety of cultures. Spanish, African, Caucasian, and Caribbean influences had intermixed in a pot. But what was different was that in rural Louisiana it was also French and Indian influences that had united into the blend. What was Creole in New Orleans wasn’t Creole in St. Germaine Parish. As a matter of fact, it was amazingly different. The Creoles of the parish lived in groups, sometimes in enclaves. They were fiercely loyal.
Had Garlande Thibeaux nee Dubeaux been considered disloyal for marrying one outside of the families that made up the enclaves? With her vivid red hair and her pale green eyes, Mignon knew that she had been considered beautiful, so beautiful she had attracted the attentions of many men in the parish. Although Ruff Thibeaux had been of French descent, he hadn’t been Creole.
There were so many questions that Mignon’s head tumbled with them. In trying to understand the culture that her own mother had come from, Mignon was also trying to understand Dara Honore’s culture. The two were twisted up like a set of wickedly tied knots. She would tug on one and end up with the end of the other.
A hand gently touched her shoulder. She looked up and saw Robert Dubeaux dressed in his navy uniform, a swatch of ribbons on one breast made the black jacket all the more handsome. He smiled genially at her, but there was sadness there, as well. “I thought you might come today,” he said. “I figured you could use a friendly face.” His voice lowered. “These folks, they be more friendly-like when they know you one of the family.”
“I’m related to the Honores?” she asked with surprise evident in her voice. Over Robert’s shoulder she could see that John Henry had turned away from Caraby and was staring at her. His face had settled into that blank expression that she had suddenly decided she hated. John Henry was trying to figure out who she was speaking with and for what reason.
Robert’s handsome face twisted a little with an unnamed emotion. He awkwardly brushed a large hand through his short hair. “I dint know you’d found little Miss Dara, of course, when I talked with you last week. How could I? But she be one of the family. One of the many families. There’s a bunch of ‘em. Somewhere up the line we all be relatives, real distant like, though. Maybe some of us even descended from Coincoin herself.”
“Coincoin?” Mignon repeated.
“Marie Thérèse Coincoin.” Robert suddenly looked away from Mignon and saw that the priest had arrived. Conversations had c
eased, and the darkly grim people were gathering closer to the graveside as they waited for the services to begin. “Mam likes to tell that story. Maybe at the fais do-do. They were going to have it Sat’day, but that would be right sacrilegious to Dara, so we have it next Friday. You tell your man ‘bout it?”
“I told him,” she said, a note of bitterness seeping out. What Mignon didn’t say was that she wasn’t sure whether or not John Henry would come with her. They weren’t having a good time with their so-called “relationship” at the moment.
“Oh, don’t worry, chère,” Robert said perceptively with an acute glance over his shoulder at John Henry. “He’ll come around. After all, did you know Roque is a fine old French name? I’m betting our boy over there be a little bit black himself. Hee-hee-hee.”
Robert wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder and guided her toward the graveside. She didn’t see John Henry’s eyebrows narrow at the action.
As they waited for the priest who was a man Mignon did not recognize, she let her eyes roam around the group of people who also stood there. Father William had appeared, dressed in a suit with a white collar that denoted his status as a priest. By his side was Linda Terrebonne. She wore the school’s standard uniform of black skirt with a white shirt and stared at the ground just in front of the coffin. There were fully two dozen people Mignon did not know, people who she now recognized as Creoles. They waited patiently, and the gentle color of their skin was illuminated by the light of a clear blue morning.
A pair sat next to the grave. A woman wept into a handkerchief while her husband patted her shoulder. Mignon became aware that these two must be Dara’s parents. Both appeared to be in their mid-thirties, and she was stricken by the fact that they weren’t much older than herself. The mother dabbed at her eyes and muttered something at her husband, and he barked something at a ten-year-old child sitting behind them. The child started and then tucked his shirt into his pants. Some of their other children sat beside them, a brood that ranged from a toddler to another teenager a few years younger than Dara. Dara, Mignon became aware, must have been their oldest.