Crimson Bayou

by C. L. Bevill

  It seemed unlikely, but anyone who had heard the rumors about Mignon’s asking questions might have jumped to the same conclusion. Mignon had been taken by Tomas and then been kept overnight in the bayou. She had been returned the next day, apparently unharmed. She hadn’t told anyone what had happened, except John Henry and that had been bare bones. But the people in the area weren’t stupid by any means. The ones who knew Dara best, and Mignon suspected that included her murderer, would know about her possessions. Somebody might have wanted something in that bag so badly that they had killed for it.

  Her parents? A former boyfriend like Robert? Sister Helena who wanted the photograph? Linda who is embarrassed by the childish letter of affection that she had never given to Father William?

  Noel and Apolline Honore could be eliminated because they couldn’t have been in two places at the same time. Noel hadn’t had time before coming out to the enclave to trash her house. But the rest of the suspects were wide open.

  Mignon stepped into the house and Robert said, “Let me go in first, Mignon.”

  She allowed him past and trailed behind him as he went methodically through the house. “I heard tell this place be haunted, Mignon,” he said after passing though her bedroom. He peered into the armoire and decided that no one was concealed under the bed.

  “By nothing but memories now,” Mignon said, grateful that Robert was speaking to her again. If he noticed the hesitation between the words memories and now, he didn’t say anything about it but merely moved onto the next room.

  “Ain’t nothing here,” he said, stopping in her living room.

  Mignon looked around her. The house was in disarray, but it seemed to be select disarray. Drawers were pulled out in the kitchen and contents dumped on the floor. Cupboards were open. Pots and pans were spilled out onto the floor. The countertops were clear because someone had swiped them clean with their hands and arms. Paintings had been yanked off the walls. Damage was limited to that which had been breakable. It didn’t appear as though someone had been destructive but rather that they had been searching.

  Her eyes were drawn unerringly to the Ben Franklin stove. The doors were shut and the latch was in place. The unknown person had missed its quarry, and she didn’t dare open it up while Robert was there.

  “Looks like someone was looking for your jewelry or some such thing,” Robert said curiously. “Only broke your dishes.”

  It was the culmination of a trying day. Mignon wanted to throw herself down on one of the comfortable chairs of the living room and cry with frustration. But the chairs were overturned and the cushions ripped open.

  Robert moved around behind her, and suddenly, she heard him talking into what was obviously a phone. “Yep. This here is Mignon Thibeaux’s place. It done be broken into. You better tell…”

  “No!” Mignon cried and spun around. The flashlight was sitting on a coffee table, and the shotgun was propped against the wall. Robert was holding his cell phone and looking at her if she’d gone stark raving mad. The last thing she wanted was a visit by John Henry.

  “I…uh…” Robert said. “Tell you what. I give you a call back later, no?” Then he punched the disconnect button and stared at Mignon. “What the hell?”

  “John Henry is already really mad at me,” Mignon said awkwardly. She was calculating possibilities in her mind. If Robert had wanted her dead, then he would have simply left her in the bayous or to the dogs. He’d probably had dozens of opportunities. Even if he had murdered Dara, he probably only wanted Mignon to stop her intrusive line of questioning to all concerned parties. She wasn’t sure if she should be relieved by that line of reasoning or not. It all relied on whether or not Robert was the actual murderer.

  That isn’t it, she thought abruptly. It really comes down to trusting someone I don’t really know. Her gut instinct told her that if Robert was a murderer, then she was Simon Cowell in a mellow mood.

  “You didn’t, did you?” she said.

  “I didn’t what?” Robert said flatly.

  “You didn’t kill Dara,” she said, and it was a certainty rather than a question.

  Robert’s expression was morosely grim. He studied her with brown eyes that seemed as deep as bottomless pools. But he didn’t say anything.

  “She was the girl you had your eye on.” Mignon knew she had to clear the air with him. “She was the one you were waiting for. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Robert nodded once, a curt assent that revealed he wasn’t happy with the topic.

  “You said she was as sweet as the day is long,” Mignon suddenly remembered his words. It had been in the middle of a conversation where he’d been laughingly teasing her about her relationship with John Henry.

  “She was,” Robert whispered. He looked around him and righted one of her gliders. The cushions were ruined, but it didn’t stop him from motioning at her to sit down. “You look all tuckered out, Mignon. You want to hear the tale, then you should have just asked me.”

  Mignon sat down and watched while he did the same to the other chair. He sat down and looked at the rag rug that had been pushed or kicked to the side of the room. “This ain’t so bad. Don’t look like they took much.”

  “About Dara,” Mignon prompted.

  “A good girl that,” Robert said fondly. “Full of fire. Righteousness. You know?”

  “I’m beginning to learn,” Mignon said. The conflicting views of Dara were so contradictory in her mind that it was hard what to believe in. The principled Dara fought for control of Mignon’s mental image of the girl with the bigoted Dara. Who will win?

  And were Robert’s memories of a girl he fancied himself in love with tainted with rose-colored glasses?

  “But she didn’t return your feelings,” Mignon said.

  “No,” he said shortly. “No, I reckon not, now. I didn’t know before she was found dead that she had taken up with Tomas Clovis. Mam didn’t tell me about it in her letters.” He paused. “I reckon she dint want to upset me none. I mean, fellas get a crush on all kinds of gals. Don’t mean nothing.”

  “Unless the girl ends up dead,” Mignon said.

  “She was too young for me,” Robert said brusquely. “I wanted to wait. But I guess that gal wasn’t the kind to wait on me. But you got to understand. Weren’t no words between us. I only went out with her twice. Dara needed to grow up before I came back and I have two years left in the Navy and I ain’t even mentioning how long it will take me to finish college.”

  He wasn’t mentioning Thereze’s lingering illness and how it would impact his plans. He was her only son, and Robert had clearly demonstrated his devotion to her. Whatever money he was making from his part-time job was going to his mother’s medical care. Mignon didn’t doubt that, even though Leelah Prudhomme had stated that most of Thereze’s medical insurance covered the debt, the remainder was certainly more than the average person could easily pay.

  “And you said you didn’t care,” Mignon reminded him gently.

  “I said that,” he admitted. “I lied. You ain’t no teenage miss, Mignon. You know what a man will say. If I say the pain ain’t there, maybe I less likely to feel it, oui?”

  “Tell me about Dara,” Mignon said. “Tell me what she was like.”

  Robert smiled tenderly. “Full of hope. Bright and shining with it. She was like me. She wanted a real place for her babies. Someplace that ain’t subject to the whim of Mother Nature. She wanted it to be a place where it don’t make no never mind about what your parents be.”

  Mignon stuck on the last phrase. It sounded almost exactly like what Tomas had said. Dara had wanted to go to a place without racism, an idolized location where bigotry didn’t exist, a place that didn’t really exist. But Dara was dead, and there was no one there to tell her that her dream was a fallacy.

  Robert talked about some of Dara’s dreams. She had seemingly impacted far more on him than the reverse. He had been besotted by the young woman, but it wasn’t a lust for her looks but rather an admira
tion of her spirit and determination to make better for herself.

  Not ten minutes later, John Henry exploded into the living room with his service pistol out and pointed at the ground. Caraby was right behind him, with his weapon also directed downward.

  Mignon and Robert both stared at the pair with interested eyes.

  John Henry put the pistol into its holster with an angry movement as his eyes consumed the chaos. “Now what, Mignon?” he said, and Robert chuckled at the irate tone.

  Chapter Twenty–four

  Monday, March 17th

  Little Red Riding Hood,

  Went to the wood,

  And in the deep dark wood,

  She met a W-O-L-F.

  - Children’s jump rope rhyme

  Mignon’s eyes were on Simon Caraby as he calmly replaced his gun into a shoulder holster underneath his jacket. His black eyes scanned the room as if he were seeking out potential criminals hiding in the woodwork. After apparently deciding that perpetrators were lacking and in the midst of the grim silence that followed John Henry’s irritated question, Caraby commented, “Looks like a tornado went through here.”

  “I guess y’all want to talk to me,” Robert said and leaned back in the glider. He crossed his legs and put his hands behind his head as if relaxing at a picnic on a sunny day.

  John Henry walked through the house while Caraby waited in the living room cum kitchen with Mignon and Robert. They could clearly hear John Henry’s boots clomping as he methodically investigated every nook and cranny of the house. The door to the causeway that led to the bathhouse slammed shut as he went to check the area.

  Caraby studied Robert with a chillingly cold expression on his face. “What makes you say that, Mr. Dubeaux?”

  “Oh hey, Simon, you know my mam, don’t feel like you have to mess about with formalities. You called me Bob when you was in high school, and I was in elementary school.”

  Mignon noticed that Caraby didn’t appear to be particularly pleased that Robert had divulged that information. A ticking muscle jumped in his cheek.

  Robert went on, “But I prefer Robert now. Sounds a whole lot better than Bob. Bob Dole, you know. Bob Dylan. Billy Bob Thornton. Bob Barker. There be a whole bunch of old white men named Bob about. Some of ‘em dead, too.” He paused and said to Mignon, “Monsieur Simon used to help me with my mathematics. I ain’t no mathematician whiz, me. All them squiggly lines and such used to give me a headache. I thought my brain would done pop outta of my skull like someone shooting a shotgun at a melon. I got an ‘A’ in high school algebra thanks to this here fella.” He briefly pointed at Caraby and returned his hand to its position resting behind his head.

  Mignon took that in with great interest. Previously, she would have thought that Caraby was older than he appeared. Robert had unconsciously revealed that the investigator was in his late twenties, a little younger than she was, and the fact surprised her. The lines in his startling face weighed on his flesh giving him the manifestation of maturity. A wealth of experience showed in his face like badges of war. It made her ask a silent question, What makes a man so cold and aged at the same time?

  “What makes you say that we’re looking for you?” Caraby repeated calmly.

  “Well, my flesh and blood cousin over here thinks I mighta had something to do with Dara, so I reckon she might have gotten that from you all. Even though everyone thinks that boy, Tomas, be the one you got your eye upon. Especially since you done arrested him and now you cain’t seem to put your hands on him once again. And he be taking other gals right out from under the sheriff’s very nose.” Robert took one arm down and leisurely scratched at his smooth cheek. “Of course, I’m betting you would have gotten around to me sooner or later. Just to cover them bases.” He thought about it. “But the more I think about it, the more I be thinking that you don’t believe that Tomas is the one who did that terr’ble thing to Dara. So it must be some other boy she knew.” He made a noise under his breath. “Huh. I kind of liked Tomas. Tough as nails that one. Glad to know he ain’t be going to Angola anytime soon.”

  “We haven’t eliminated any suspects yet,” Caraby stated unemotionally.

  “And what about all this?” Robert waved his hand around Mignon’s house and then put it back behind his head. “Don’t look like they took nothing to me, but I ain’t seen nothing but the kitchen before. So ifin that’s the case, then they trying to mess with Mignon. I reckon it’s on account of her big mouth.” He considered. “This and the thing about her car, and well, ain’t no one can set wild dogs on a gal on account of the fact that they be wild.”

  Mignon would have shushed Robert, but it was too late.

  “Wild dogs?” John Henry repeated from the doorway. “And what about her car?”

  •

  Jesus Christ, I’m going to have to lock her cute ass up again, John Henry contemplated seriously. Mignon was attracting danger to her like a magnet. She was like Daphne on Scooby Doo. The thought of wild dogs was bad enough; he knew that Mignon was clever and capable enough to escape them in most cases. But it was like a horrid repeat of what went on only months before. Flattened tires and a broken window on her car to warn her away? And this. Her house appeared as though it had been turned upside-down.

  Mignon sat quietly in one of her gliders without the torn cushions and looked for all the world as if she had been thrown into the bayou. “Did you fall in?” he asked finally.

  Robert laughed again. “No, she did not. Jumped right in. Took one of them hounds with her to boot. On account it was trying to chew off her ankle.”

  “That’s not exactly—,” Mignon said and severed her words when John Henry started toward her. He swiftly bent and checked her ankles. He saw the ripped material and ensured that her flesh wasn’t torn, feeling a wave of relief when no wound presented itself to his intent gaze. Then, instead of gently replacing the foot to the floor, he dropped it as if it were on fire.

  Saturday had been bad enough. Today was twice as worse. One of the emergency line operators had called in with a report of an abbreviated call from the Thibeaux residence. Since the operator was a local resident, she was perfectly aware of who was dating whom, and John Henry had been immediately notified.

  John Henry had caught Simon Caraby in the parking lot and dragged him along for assistance. He’d had visions of another individual attempting to trap Mignon in a dank pit along with the ghosts of the past, like some inconsequential thing that could be so easily concealed.

  But here she was, appearing frazzled and nothing else. She smelled of bayou muck and looked as exhausted as someone who just finished an Ironman triathlon. The bruise on her cheekbone from Saturday was turning green, and he imagined it would be gone quickly.

  All John Henry could think about was how mad he was with her at that moment. She was deliberately putting herself at risk, and for what? To discover the identity of a murderer of the girl whose body she had coincidentally found.

  Trying to understand Mignon’s motivation was like trying to capture an elusive rainbow in his fist. He could see it. He could address all the different colors. But when he reached for it, it was gone as surely as if it had never been there.

  Somehow John Henry knew that he had to reign in his anger and try to comprehend why she was doing this. She had felt an instant connection to Dara Honore. Dara had been in the same position as Mignon had been when she growing up. Seemingly abandoned, Dara had been in the foster care of Blessed Heart and given Mignon’s experiences, her first thought was to look at the school itself. But John Henry already had a damn good idea that neither Father William nor Sister Helena was responsible for the girl’s death. No, their only crime was not making sure that the children were snug in their beds all night long.

  Furthermore, Mignon had discovered that her mother had been a Creole like the murdered girl, giving her another connection that he knew she must feel deeply. She made herself available at the school like a novice on amateur night and probably had alienated both
the priest and the sister. She had put herself on a footing of being the one that people were talking about. The entire town of La Valle had seen her as a heroine for going up against the St. Michels. The Creoles of the area, once they had understood that she was one of them, had lionized her. The manner in which she had interjected herself had caused the kidnapping. Tomas Clovis wanted to tell her something because she was the one he thought nobly capable of bringing the real murderer to ground. She hadn’t told him what it was that Tomas had shared with her, but he knew he could pry it out of her. Mignon wasn’t one to deliberately impede a police investigation. Not true, his inner self protested, but that was an altogether different situation and had such a unique beginning that she wouldn’t hold back this time. Would she?

  And if she gets herself killed in the process, well, John Henry paused in his thoughts to bitterly decry that horrendous possibility, well, the, that’s just another step in Mignon’s canonization, isn’t it?

  The thought brought another series of thoughts to him. So what am I having the bigger problem with here? That she’s interfering or that she might get hurt or, God forbid, killed in the course of action she’s chosen?

  John Henry stared at Mignon for a long moment.

  •

  Mignon was studiously thinking the entire time the range of emotions flowed over John Henry’s normally masked face. She’d the opportunity to go through Dara’s possessions, but there wasn’t a better time to show John Henry the little insurance card with Simon Caraby’s photograph and identification on it. But she reconsidered. There was her promise to Sister Helena about the intimate photograph with her lover as a youth. Then there was the fact that Caraby, after all, was armed. She had seen the cannon-sized pistol in her living room being held in his more than able hand. Perhaps there was a better time to show it to John Henry.