Blood in the Lake Page 5

  “Easy there, Ti Pierre. I talked with Detective Aymond just a few minutes ago. He and Deuce will be back in town tomorrow. And believe me, we’re already at work.”

  Uncle Ti stomped a boot on the floor, rattling Mama B’s little coffee cups displayed on a mini-shelf directly behind him.

  “I bet I know who did it. One of them slit-eyes that hangs around the docks on the road to Intracoastal City waitin’ to sign onto a shrimp boat. You know, the trash that lives in the bunkhouses when they’re onshore between jobs. You talked to them yet? You need to go door to door out there and turn the screws until you find that fu—g guy, or someone who’ll rat him out. That scum goes on those boats and stays on the water for a month at a time. Our guy could even jump off on some island full of spics and never be seen again.”

  The sheriff raised his eyebrows but kept silent. Uncle Ti’s prejudice made me cringe, but I thought for once he had a good idea. Someone should go check the docks right away. Uncle Ti continued his rant.

  “You got a snitch in there? You sure should.”

  More of his venom. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying something. Thank God we were just family here. Except for the sheriff and Detective D’Aquin, of course.

  The sheriff didn’t react. He’d had plenty of experience dealing with hot heads. When Uncle Ti saw his words weren’t having any effect, he didn’t stop his rant, he just spoke louder.

  “You got nothin’ yet? I thought as much. Damnit, man! You better get out there right quick before I do, or you won’t have any so-called investigation. I’ll find the bastard and take care of things myself.”

  Over the years, Uncle Ti looked more and more like PawPaw. His thick hair glowed white, his stomach bulged over his belt. His temperament did not take the same track. PawPaw became a sweet old man; Uncle Ti got more and more obnoxious.

  Aunt Nell stood up and put her hand on her husband’s arm. “Ti, let the sheriff get on with his job.”

  Aunt Nell turned to the sheriff and invited him to have a seat. Bless her. No one else had thought to extend the usual courtesies of a host. The sheriff nodded his thanks but remained standing. He probably wanted to keep a position of control.

  “I assure you we are on the job, Ti Pierre. We sent the missing person report out days ago, and as we drove over here, Detective D’Aquin put more information on the wire. Our investigation is in full flower.”

  “Full flower? What the hell else are you doing?”

  “Well, today we want to take some detailed statements. We’ll start with you Mimi, and Bub too, since you were the ones who began the search. We’ll trace every step your father took, and we’ll uncover every connection he made until we get a lead. We’ll find our man, I assure you.”

  Aunt Tut broke in. “Sheriff, may I ask you something?”

  “Yes indeed, Mrs. Bienvenu,” the sheriff said quickly, relieved to have reason to turn away from Uncle Ti.

  “As you know, Mimi’s husband Emile is a firefighter. He says his crew answered the call last week on that horrible house fire back on Captain Cade Road, the same day PawPaw disappeared. Could there be any connection to PawPaw’s disappearance? That woman was so badly beaten.”

  The sheriff turned to Detective D’Aquin. “Now Ted, wouldn’t Mrs. Bienvenu make a good addition to CID!”

  “CID?” The acronym puzzled Aunt Tut.

  “That’s the Criminal Investigation Department, ma’am. Our detectives. No, we have no evidence of a connection between the two events, nor that they might have been caused by the same person. I’ll admit it’s unusual to have two violent incidents a day apart in our peace-loving parish, but looks like we’ll probably have to find two dangerous persons out there.”

  He should have said in our part of the parish. The sheriff wasn’t including the area known as back-a-town where a couple of stabbings—or stobbins as they call them—occurred every Saturday night. He knew the people in this room rarely thought much about what happened there.

  “Of course, we don’t rule out a tie-in between the two events, ma’am,” the sheriff continued. “Right now, we don’t rule anything out.”

  The sheriff had left the door open for the possibility the crimes were committed by the same person, which turned on my “what ifs.” Perhaps the motive was the same—robbery to find money for drugs. No one would target PawPaw for any other reason I could think of.

  Aunt Tut had another suggestion. “I saw on the paper that the lady on Captain Cade Road knew the person who did that to her.”

  The sheriff raised his right thumb. “More good thinking, ma’am. We’re working on that.”

  “How’s the lady doing? That must have been horrendous, what happened to her.”

  “Name’s Lydia Falgout. She’s beat up so bad she’s been off limits to us since the trooper found her almost a week ago. But the doctors say she’ll make it. When she’s been cleared to talk to us, our detectives will be right there. Incredible guts, that lady.”

  Aunt Tut’s husband, Burt, entered the exchange. “I heard she gave a name. Who did she say did it?”

  The sheriff hesitated just a moment before he answered. Seemed to me he wanted to put an end to the questions.

  “We have some information, but I can’t go any further right now. Maybe we’ll have more to tell you after we’re able to have a real conversation with her. We’ll see what our detectives have to allow when they get back in town.”

  The sheriff slipped smoothly into political mode. He scanned the room like an airport searchlight, casting his condolences on each pair of eyes turned in his direction.

  “I hope y’all know that you have my deepest sympathy for your loss. What happened to your PawPaw shouldn’t happen to anyone. I promise you, every one of you, that our whole department will not rest until we’ve solved this terrible crime, until we send that mean bastard for an appointment in that very special room at Angola. The table is waiting, and that’s exactly what he deserves.”

  The sheriff’s glance skipped around the room. Through one of the tall windows he caught sight of Father Martin on the front walk—and sensed opportunity.

  “I see Father coming up right now. Y’all have business to tend to. I’ll leave you alone to make your arrangements.”

  The sheriff appeared visibly relieved. Smiling to the right and left, he strode through the front door. He paused, very briefly, to shake Father Martin’s hand as they passed on the walk.

  Mom and Uncle Bub led Detective D’Aquin into one of the large bedrooms off the center hall of the old house. Mom signaled me to come along. The detective asked Mom’s permission to turn on a little tape recorder to take down the conversation. Her eyebrows asked for my guidance; I nodded approval.

  “Mrs. Aguillard—”

  “Call me Mimi, detective.”

  “And you call me Ted. All three of you.”

  Uncle Bub didn’t call him anything. He didn’t speak.

  Answering the detective’s questions, Mom began at the beginning of PawPaw’s last day. Again. How many times did they want her to go over this? Mom filled the detective in on some of her father’s routines. Ted told her he’d write what she told him into an affidavit and come by for her to sign.

  Really? Was that how it was done? Seemed to me an affidavit should be in someone’s own words. But I guess if Mom wrote the story on her own she’d leave out details. And she’d make a lot of extraneous comments.

  Detective D’Aquin had some more questions for Mom.

  “Can you think of anyone who might have had a grudge against your father? Any reason to do him harm?”

  The question surprised me. Mild mannered, easygoing PawPaw? It aggravated Mom.

  “Absolutely not. PawPaw got along with everyone,” Mom snapped.

  Detective D’Aquin dug deeper.

  “Maybe a problem with a neighbor? The family owns quite a few acres and they farm even more on a share. With property, there can be boundary issues, rotten tree branches dropping on a neighbor, bl
ocked water flow, or a rut from heavy equipment turning over the line.”

  Damn. Did he really have to ask these questions? Preposterous! People don’t kill over that stuff. Well, maybe. Detective D’Aquin had more experience than I did, and I don’t remember learning anything about investigations in law school.

  “No problems I ever heard about.” Mom cocked her head. “Long ago, I do remember hearing something about a little tiff PawPaw had with his neighbor Jack Alexander. Mr. Alexander owns Jefferson House next door, you know. Something about Alexander’s nephew who spent the summer here and played with Bub when they were both little boys. That was years ago, and PawPaw and Mr. Alexander patched it all up quickly and became pretty close friends. Alexander leaves his key with PawPaw when he goes north.”

  The detective’s questions gave me an idea. Maybe my law student status allowed me some leave to butt in.

  “Detective, if there was no particular motive, does that tell us these crimes were just random, someone looking for money? Or was PawPaw a particular target? What I mean is, do the rest of us have reason to fear anything from this person?”

  “Random robbery is our working theory, Miss Aguillard. You have no more reason to be fearful than anyone else out there in this troublesome world.”

  But the idea that PawPaw might have been a target, and that another member of our family might be as well, found space in some corner of my brain. I resolved to check out Dad’s flip phone and see about updating Mom’s old cell. We needed to keep track of each other—and of Taddy and Uncle Bub.

  Turning away from Mom, Detective D’Aquin tried to speak with Uncle Bub, but Bub scrunched his fists into the sockets of his eyes and mumbled words I couldn’t understand. The detective didn’t make any suggestions, seeming to hope Bub would say things his own way. But Bub couldn’t put his sentences together. He mumbled something unintelligible and didn’t protest when Mom told the detective her brother needed to lie down awhile. I suggested to Ted that he come back another day.

  Relieved from the questioning, Uncle Bub paused in the doorway of what had been the room he’d shared with his brothers when they were boys. He didn’t go in. He turned and limped back into the hall, bumped on to PawPaw’s room, and threw himself on top of the big bed close to the door. He buried his face in the pillow and breathed deeply, drawing in the lingering smells of his father. Mom went to a tall armoire and pulled out a hand-stitched quilt. Uncle Bub didn’t stir when she tossed it over his crooked back. Her hand lingered a few moments on her brother’s shoulder.

  Mom and I returned to the center hall to find Father Martin talking to the family. He had made an offer to have PawPaw’s wake inside the church, PawPaw’s church, Our Lady of the Sea in Delcambre. He expected a crowd would be coming to pay their respects.

  “But I think we’ll have to wait a few days before they release the body,” Father Martin said.

  “No way. We’re not going to sit still for that.” Uncle Ti again.

  “The coroner tells me they’ll be getting in someone special to do the autopsy. We have to wait.”

  Mom’s face pinched in pain at the word autopsy. Uncle Ti went into another rant.

  * * *

  Father Martin scheduled the Requiem Mass for Friday afternoon, five days after the body had been raised from the Delcambre Canal. Although Mom protested, the priest insisted on displaying the old-time funeral banners, black teardrops on stark white background, hung high on the pillars in the nave. Only this deep country parish still went for trappings like that. I told Mom I didn’t like them either but had to say PawPaw would’ve thought they were fine.

  Mom added a few other touches more in keeping for what they now call A Celebration of Life. She took the eightieth birthday picture off the wall of the old house and set it up on an easel at the cross aisle of the church. Next to the poster, Aunt Tut placed a collage of photographs of PawPaw through the years. High in the center, a solemn little boy in short pants clutched a thick pencil on the first day of school. Below, a very young man stood tall and proud in his uniform for the Great War. Then he and Mama B on their wedding day, smiling behind a tiered white cake with a miniature bride and groom on top. Another photograph showed a young farmer in overalls standing next to his first John Deere. On a third poster, Mom pinned up an array of color photographs of PawPaw with his grandchildren.

  The funeral director said he had done what he could with PawPaw’s body, but he had a strong recommendation. Close the casket. Uncle Ti and Mom jumped at that. Bub wouldn’t have been able to stand the sight. The American Legion supplied a flag to cover the top of the casket. Good. PawPaw was proud to have served his country.

  I didn’t think there was anyone left around the lake who hadn’t already come by the house to pay their respects, but all evening before the service, the line of mourners for the wake stretched the full length of the aisle. More people waited on the steps outside. Aunt Nell had to go into town for a second sympathy book to record the names of the visitors.

  The pews of the church filled up for the rosary at seven. Sophie-Claire, my brother Emile’s little girl, pulled on her grandmother’s skirt and raised her sparkling black eyes. “People, people, lots of people G’Mimi.” she said. “I can count to some pretty big numbers, but not this big.”

  We greeted the entire faculty of Our Lady of the Sea Elementary School where Uncle Etienne’s wife Berthe had been teaching third grade for twenty-some years. My dad’s firefighters came in uniform, as did the sheriff’s deputies who worked with Bub. A tall black deputy stood at attention at the head of the casket. Mom’s catechism class arrived together, right behind three nurses who worked with Uncle J. Allen’s wife Mathilde at Iberia General Hospital. On and On. Worn down from hours on their feet, the brothers and sisters took turns standing in the line. My Dad brought in a chair for Uncle Bub. All of the family members said the same words over and over. “Thank you for coming.” “Yes, I remember.”

  I remembered PawPaw’s smiling face at the head of Mama B’s Thanksgiving table. I remembered his steady hand on mine, guiding my fishing rod over the lake. And I remembered my last sight of him—a misshapen bundle being lifted from the water of the Delcambre canal. Anger again surged through my chest. Sweet PawPaw!

  Early Saturday morning the line formed again, from the back of the church, past the cross aisle, and up to where the family stood before the altar. Why did so many people come for one old man? Because they knew the family, of course, and because the community had lost a beloved member. But for another reason. Everyone knew they could have been lying there instead of PawPaw. Anyone could have been the totally unsuspecting victim who had an accidental and tragic encounter with a crazy man.

  The pews filled for the Requiem Mass. An altar boy came out and lit the candles, then signaled to the funeral attendants to begin the procession. The organ sounded a mournful hymn, and the family lined up to follow PawPaw on his last trip to the altar. Two black-suited men brought the flag-draped casket back to where we had assembled at the foot of the aisle, rotated the gurney, and pointed the flag toward the cross.

  Father Martin intoned. “I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whosoever believeth in me shall not die.” Six dark suits, six lapels with white carnations, flanked the casket: PawPaw’s three oldest sons, Ti Pierre, J. Allen and Etienne on one side, and the husbands of three of the daughters, my Dad Emile, Tut’s husband Burt, and Mazie’s husband Al, on the other. Dora’s husband and the women walked behind with their children. Every female member of the family over the age of fifteen wore black.

  And then came the two who didn’t keep in step. Bub bumped along on his crutches. Behind him, the frail form of an ancient nun shuffled slowly.

  Many years ago, Sister Agnes, PawPaw’s sister and my great-aunt, returned from a convent in the Philippines where she had spent forty-five years teaching in an orphanage and mission school. She moved into a home for retired nuns in uptown New Orleans. Today, for her brother’s final Mass, an old-fashioned white
wimple framed her wizened face. She folded her hands over her heart, on the front of the long black habit the Sisters of Mount Carmel now rarely wore. Her frail form tilted to the supporting frame of a much younger woman clad in the dress of the Sisters of today—pastel, mid-calf polyester skirt, high-neck blouse, large cross on her chest.

  The rest of the family followed. As they passed the cross aisle, the poster-sized photograph on the easel drew every gaze. Bright blue eyes sparkled in the smiling face of PawPaw, at the center of his family, celebrating his eightieth birthday.

  Family Meeting

  “NOW DON’T FEEL like you’re doing something weird, Mom. You know, we’re actually reviving an old legal tradition. The Louisiana Civil Code once said you had to have a family meeting whenever there was something important to decide.”

  I snapped open a borrowed folding chair and handed it to my mom, who set it out with a couple of dozen others in the central hall of PawPaw’s house. The two of us, just the two of us, were getting ready for a crowd. We had gathered here during the search for PawPaw, and again after the funeral. The DA had asked for this meeting of the family. Mom let out a disgusted snort, so I kept talking.

  “All through the 1800s, the Clerks of the Court would order a family to get together to talk about who should raise orphaned children, plant the crops, and such. Makes a lot of sense to me. Some decisions are so important everyone should have a say.”

  “A say-so maybe, but this family will never agree on anything. Anyway, my dear, we have nothing to decide. Getting us together is going to be another wake. This house brings it all back.” She snapped open another chair.

  “You’re probably right, but we’ll be getting information the DA thinks we should have.”

  Even with a scowl on her face, Mom looked a lot better than she had a month ago, and my dad said she was sleeping OK. But the old house had sunk into melancholy. The venetian blinds sat askew, causing irregular ribbons of sunlight to stripe the wide pine boards of the floor. Mom pulled on the cords trying to straighten the slats.