Voodoo River Part 2

"Course. Where you think you are, Arkansas?" They're really into that Arkansas thing down here.

"Any chance you'd tell me how to get there?"

He leaned back on his stool and crossed his arms. "Which library?" Score one for the yokel.

Six minutes later I circled the town square past a red brick Presbyterian church and parked at the library. An older African-American gentleman was behind the counter, stacking books onto a gray metal cart. A young woman with braided hair sat at a reading table and a kid with a limp shuffled through the stacks, listing to the right so he could read the book spines. I went to the counter and smiled at the librarian. "That air-conditioning feels good."

The librarian continued stacking the books. "That it does. And how are you today, sir?" He was shorter than me and thin, with a balding head and a prominent Adam's apple and very dark skin. He was wearing a plaid short-sleeved shirt and a burgundy knit tie. A little nameplate on the counter said MR. ALBERT PARKS.

I said, "Do you have the Gazette on microfiche?" I could have gone by the newspaper offices, but newspaper people would ask questions.

"Yes, sir. We do." He stopped stacking books and came over to the counter.

I told him the year I wanted, and asked if he had it.

Mr. Parks grinned broadly, pleased to be able to help. "I mink we might. Let me run in the back and see."

He disappeared between the stacks and returned with a cardboard box and had me follow to an ancient microfiche unit on the other side of the card catalogs. He pulled out one of the spools and threaded it into the machine. "There are twenty-four spools in this box, two spools for each month of the year. I put in January. Do you know how to work the machine?"

"If the film gets stuck, please don't force the little crank. These kids from the school use this thing and always tear the film."

"I'll be careful."

Mr. Parks frowned down into the little box and fingered through the spools.

I said, "What's wrong?"

"Looks like we have a month missing." He frowned harder, then arched his eyebrows and looked up at me. "May's gone. Did you need May?"

"I don't think so."

"Maybe I put it in a different year."

"I don't think I'll need it."

He nodded thoughtfully, told me to call him if I needed any help with the little crank, then went back to his book cart. When he was gone I took the January spool out of the microfiche and dug around in the box until I found the two July spools. I threaded in the first and skimmed through until I reached the Gazette dated 9 July. The ninth was a Tuesday and had no birth announcements. I searched through the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth, which was the following Friday. Friday's paper had three birth announcements, two boys and twin girls. The boys were born to Charles Louise Fontenot and William Edna Lemoine, the twin girls to Murray Charla Smith. As I was writing their names on a yellow legal pad, Mr. Parks strolled by. "Are you finding everything you need?"

"Yes," I said. "Thank you."

He nodded and strolled away.

I cranked the little spool back to the beginning of July and copied the birth announcements published at the end of every week, and then I did the same for June and August. When I was working through August, Mr. Parks pushed the book can next to me and made a big deal out of straightening shelves and trying to pretend that he wasn't interested in what I was doing. I glanced up and caught him peeking over my shoulder. "Yes?"

Mr. Parks said, "Heh heh," then pushed the cart away. Embarra.s.sed. They get bored in these small towns.

When I finished with August I had eighteen names. I put the little spools back into their box, turned off the microfiche, and returned the box to Mr. Parks. He said, "That didn't take very long."

"Efficiency. Efficiency and focus are the keys to success."

"I hear that."

I said, "Is there a phone book?"

"On the reference table next to the card catalog."

I went over to the reference table and looked in the phone book for the names I had copied. I was on the fourth name when Mr. Parks said, "Seems to me you appear to be looking for someone."

He was standing behind me again, peering over my shoulder.

I put my hand over the names. "It's rather personal."

He frowned. "Personal?"

"Private."

He peered at my hand as if he were trying to see through it. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"No," I said. "I'm from the government. Central Intelligence."

He looked offended. "No reason to be rude."

I spread my free hand.

He said, "You were copying birth announcements. Now you're looking for those names in the phone book. I think you're trying to find someone. I think you're a private detective." Great. The big-time Hollywood op gets made by the small-town librarian. He started away. "Perhaps we should call the police."

I caught his arm and made a big deal out of looking around. Making sure that the coast was clear. "Thirty-six years ago, the person I'm working for was born in this area and given up for adoption. She has now contracted leukemia and requires a bone marrow transplant. Do you know what that means?"

He answered slowly. "They need a blood relative for those transplants, don't they?"

I nodded. You toss it on the water and sometimes they take it, but sometimes they don't. He was a knowledgeable man. He'd know more than a little about marrow transplants. He could ask to speak with my client or my client's physician, and, if I were legitimate, they'd be more than happy to speak with him. He could ask me if the leukemia was acute or chronic, or he could ask me which type of white blood cells were affected. There were a hundred things he could ask me, and some of them I could scam but most of them could blow me out of the water.

He looked at my hand over the list of names, then he looked back at me and I saw his jaw work. He said, "I saw some of your names there. I know some of those folks. This lady, the one you're working for, she gonna die?"

"Yes."

He wet his lips, then pulled over a chair and sat down beside me. "I think I can save you some time."

Of the eighteen names on my list, Mr. Albert Parks knew four, and we found another three listed in the phone book. The rest had either died or moved away.

I copied addresses and phone numbers for the seven still in the area, and Mr. Parks gave me directions on how to find those people who lived in the outlying areas. He offered to phone the four that he knew to tell them that I'd be stopping around, and I said that that would be fine, but that he should ask them to respect my client's privacy. He said that he was certain that they would. He said that he hoped that I could find a donor for my client, and asked me to give her his very best wishes for a complete recovery. His wishes were heartfelt.

Mr. Albert Parks worked with me for the better part of an hour, and then I walked out of the cool quiet of his library into the damp midday Louisiana heat feeling about three inches tall. Lying sucks.

Chapter 4.

O f the seven names on the list, four lived in town and three lived in the outlying area. I decided to speak with the townies first, then work my way out. Mr. Parks had recommended that I start with Mrs. Claire Fontenot who, as the widowed owner of a little five and dime just across the square, was the closest. He said that she was one of G.o.d's Finest Women. I took that to mean that she was kind and caring and probably easy to manipulate. Son of like Mr. Albert Parks. As I walked over I thought that maybe I should just cut out this manipulation business and proclaim for all the world who I worked for and what I was after. If I did, I would probably feel much better about myself. Of course, Jodi Taylor probably wouldn't, but there you go. Her privacy would be violated and her confidence breached, but what's that when compared to feeling good about oneself? Elvis Cole, detective for the nineties, comforts his inner child. Going into Fontenot's Five Dime was like stepping backward in time. Cardboard cutout ads for things like Carter's Little Liver Pills and Brylcreem - a little dab'll do ya! - and Dr. Tichnor's Antiseptic were taped and retaped to the door and the windows, filling the same s.p.a.ces that they had filled when they were first put up forty years ago. Some of the cutouts were so faded that they were impossible to read.

An overweight girl in her late teens sat on a stool behind the counter reading a copy of Allure. She looked up when I entered.

"Hi. Is Mrs. Fontenot in?"

The girl called out, "Miss Claire," and a stately woman in her early sixties appeared in the aisle, holding a box of Hallmark cards. I said, "Mrs. Fontenot, my name is Elvis Cole. I believe Mr. Parks over at the library might've phoned."

She looked me up and down as if she viewed me with caution. "That's right."

"May I have a few minutes?"

She viewed me some more, and then she put down the box of cards and led me to the rear of the store. She seemed rigid when she moved, as if her body were clenched. "Mr. Parks told me that you want to know something about a baby that was given up for adoption." She arched an eyebrow when she said it, clearly suspicious of the practice and disapproving.

"That's right. Somewhere around the time that Max was born." She had delivered a son, Max Andrew, sixteen days before Jodi Taylor's birth.

'Tm afraid I don't know anything about that. I kept all my children, believe you me." Daring me to deny it. When she spoke, she kept both hands folded together between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, as if she were praying. Maybe you did that when you were one of G.o.d's finest.

"Not one of your children, Mrs. Fontenot. Another woman's child. Maybe you knew her, or maybe you just heard gossip."

The eyebrow arched again. "I don't gossip."

I said, "Ville Platte is a small town. Unwed pregnancies happen, but they would be rare, and babies given for adoption would be still more rare. Maybe one of your girlfriends at the time mentioned it. Maybe one of your aunts. Something like that."

"Absolutely not. In my day, that type of thing wasn't tolerated the way it is now, and we would never have discussed it." She clutched her hands tighter and raised both eyebrows, giving me All-knowing. "Now, people don't care about this kind of thing. People do whatever they want. That's why we're in this fix."

I said, "Onward Christian soldiers."

She frowned at me. "What?"

I thanked her for her time and left. One up, one down. Six more to go.

Evelyn Maggio lived alone on the second floor of a duplex that she maintained six blocks south of the five and dime. Her duplex was a big white clapboard monster set high on brick piers in case of flood. Evelyn Maggio herself was a vital woman in her late fifties, twice married and twice divorced, with tiny teeth and too much makeup. She showed me the teeth when she let me in and latched onto my arm and said, "My, but you're a good-lookin' fella." Her words were long and drawn out, sort of like Elly May Clampett. She smelled of bourbon.

I was with her for almost forty minutes and in that time she called me "sugar" eleven times and drank three cups of coffee. She drank it royale. She put out a little tray of Nabisco Sugar Wafers and told me that the very best way to eat them was to dip them in the coffee, but to watch because they could get too soggy and would fall apart. She put her hand on my arm and said, "No one likes a limp sugar wafer, honey, especially not lil' ol' me." She seemed disappointed that it wasn't what I wanted to hear, and, when it became clear that she knew nothing about a child being given to the state, she seemed even more disappointed when I left. I took two of the sugar wafers with me. I was disappointed, too.

I spent the next twenty-two minutes with Mrs. C. Thomas Berteaux. She was seventy-two years old, rail thin, and insisted upon calling me Jeffrey. She was quite certain that I had visited her home before, and when I told her that this was my first time in Ville Platte, she asked if I was sure. I said I was. She said she was certain that I had asked her about this adoption business before. I asked if she remembered her answer, and she said, "Why, of course, Jeffrey, don't you? I didn't remember anything then, and I don't now."

She smiled pleasantly when she said it and I smiled pleasantly in return. I used her phone to call Mrs. Francine Lyons, who said she'd be happy to see me, but that she was on her way out and could I call later. I said that I could, but then she volunteered diat Mr. Parks had mentioned something about a child given for adoption and that she just didn't know anything about that, though, as she'd said, she'd be happy to see me later in the day. I told her diat that wouldn't be necessary and scratched her off my list. You either remember or you don't. Mrs. C. Thomas Berteaux, watching from her chair, said, "What's the matter, Jeffrey? You look disappointed."

I said, "Some days are more difficult than others, Mrs. Berteaux."

She nodded sagely. "Yes, Jeffrey. I know that to be true. However, I might suggest that you speak with Mrs. Martha Guidry."

"Yes?" Martha Guidry wasn't on my list.

"Martha was a midwife at that time and, if I remember correctly, quite a well-known busybody. Martha may know." Then she looked thoughtful. "Of course, Martha may be dead."

I let myself out.

Four up, four down, and nary a shred of evidence to show for it. I had three more women to see, and, if the results were the same, it was back to the drawing board. Not good. The key to all this seemed to be the sealed state doc.u.ments. Maybe I should stop trying to investigate my way to Jodi Taylor's medical history and concentrate on unsealing those doc.u.ments. I could shoulder my way into the appropriate state agency, pistol whip a couple of civil servants, and force them to hand over the doc.u.ments. Of course, this method might get me shot or imprisoned, but wasn't that better than questioning women who called me Jeffrey? Of course, thirty-six-year-old doc.u.ments would probably be buried under thirty-six years of more recent doc.u.ments in an obscure state building long forgotten by any living person. You'd need Indiana Jones just to find the place.

I decided to think about it over lunch.

The Pig Stand was a white cinder block building with handwritten signs telling you what they offered and a couple of windows to order the food. The people on the sidewalk were mostly thin guys with cr+!pey skin and women with pale skin and loose upper arms from eating too much deep-fried food. Everybody was drinking Dixie beer and eating off paper plates and laughing a lot. Guess if you stand around eating barbecued ribs in this kind of heat you had to have a sense of humor.

An enormously wide black woman with brilliant white teeth looked out of the order window at me and said, "Take ya awdah, please?"

I said, "Do you have boudin?" I had wanted to try boudin for years.

She grinned. "Honey, we gots the best boudin in Evangeline Parish."

"That's not what they say in Mamou."

She laughed. "Those fools in Mamou don' know nuthin' 'bout no boudin! Honey, you try some'a this, you won't be goin' back to no Mamou! This magic boudin! It be good for what ails you!"

"Okay. How about a couple of links of boudin, a beef rib with a little extra sauce, some dirty rice, and a Dixie."

She nodded, pleased. "That'll fix you up jes' fine." "What makes you think I need fixing?" She leaned toward me and touched a couple of fingers beneath her eye. "Dottie got the magic eye. Dottie know." Her eyes were smiling when she shouted the order into the kitchen, and I smiled with her. It wasn't just the food around here that gave comfort.

Pa.s.sing cars would beep their horns and diners would wave at the cars and the people in the cars would wave back, sort of like everybody knew everybody else. While I was waiting, a sparkling new white Mustang rag-top cruised past, top up, giving everybody the once-over and revving his engine. The Mustang circled the block, and when he came back around an older guy widi a thick French accent yelled something I couldn't understand and the Mustang speeded up. Guess the older guy didn't like all the engine-revving.

A couple of minutes later, Dottie called me back to the window and handed out my order on a coa.r.s.e paper plate with enough napkins to insulate a house. I carried the food to the street, set the Dixie on the curb, then went to work on the food. The boudin were plump and juicy, and when you bit into them they were filled with rice and pork and cayenne and onions and celery. Even in the heat, steam came from the sausage and it burned the inside of my mouth. I had some of the dirty rice, and then some of the beef rib. The dirty rice was heavy and glutinous and rich with chicken livers. The rib was tender and the sauce chunky with onion and garlic. The tastes w ere strong and salty and wonderful, and pretty soon I was feeling eager to dive back into the case. Even if it meant being called Jeffrey.

The black woman looked out of her little window and asked, "Whatchu say 'bout dat boudin now?"

I said, "Tell me the truth, Dottie. This isn't really Ville Platte, is it? We're all dead and this is Heaven."

She grinned wider and nodded, satisfied. "Dottie say it'll fix you up. Dottie know." She touched her cheek beneath her left eye and then she laughed and turned away.

At ten minutes after two, I used a pay phone at an Exxon station to call the last two women on my list. Virginia LaMert wasn't home, and Charleen Jorgen-son said that she'd be happy to see me.

Charleen Jorgenson and her second husband, Lloyd, lived in a double trailer two miles outside of Ville Platte on Bayou des Cannes. The double trailer sat upon cement block piers and looked sort of ratty and overgrown. A small flat-bottomed boat rested on a couple of sawhorses in the backyard, and a blue tick hound slept in a tight knot in the shade thrown by the boat. They had a little drive made out of the crushed oyster sh.e.l.ls, and when I pulled up, the oyster sh.e.l.ls made a loud crunching sound and the blue tick hound charged at my car, barking and standing on its back legs to try to bite through the window. An old guy in his seventies came out on the step yelling, "Heah naow! Heah naow!" and threw a pop bottle at the dog. That would be Lloyd. The bottle missed the dog and hit the Taurus's left front fender. Lloyd said, "Uh-oh," and looked chagrined. Good thing it was a rental.

Charleen Jorgenson told me that she wished she could help, but she just didn't remember anything like I was asking.

I said, "Think hard, Mrs. Jorgenson. Are you sure?"

She sipped her coffee and nodded. "Oh, yes. I thought about it when that other fellow was here."

"What other fellow?"

"Another young man was here a few months ago. He said he was trying to find his sister."

I said, "Do tell."

"He wasn't very nice and he didn't stay long."