Blood in the Lake Page 8

  A side door next to the defense table opened. Two deputies prodded forward a pale white man clad in Day-Glo orange and shackled in leg-irons and handcuffs. Remuald Richard. In black flip-flop shower shoes, he shuffled across the tile floor to stand before the judge’s bench. Sarah Bernard and Terry Moore moved forward to flank their client.

  “Not Guilty, your Honor,” Sarah responded to the reading of the indictment for the charge of First Degree Murder of Pierre Boudreaux. She made this response with an edge of defiance. Did she really believe Richard was innocent? She had vehemently stated the same to the reporter for The Daily Iberian and vowed she would prove her case at trial. Sarah repeated the same response after the reading of the second indictment, the charge of Attempted Second Degree Murder of Lydia Falgout.

  At Provost’s Sports Bar downtown on Main Street you could lay a bet on which fly would jump off the table first, but you couldn’t have gotten hundred to one odds of Remuald Richard taking a walk for these crimes.

  Minute Clerk George read out a list of dates for discovery deadlines, motion hearings, and plea days stretching forward three months to a trial date in March. The judge rapped his gavel on the surface of the bench, swiveled his neck, and squonked like a foraging goose. “So ordered.” The deputies who had escorted Richard into the courtroom stepped forward, nodded respectfully to the judge, and led the prisoner away.

  “Court is in recess. Arraignments will resume in twenty minutes.” Judge Bonin strode out the way he had come in.

  For this we had marshaled the standing army. The whole procedure took no longer than five minutes. My raised eyebrows said I told you so to my mom.

  Mom refused to adopt my ill humor. “Dora is staying at J. Allen and Mathilde’s, of course. I’ll be glad to get a chance to visit with her. Come join us, Hon.”

  “Not right now, Mom. I have somewhere I need to be for lunch, but I’ll come on over for a visit this afternoon.”

  Mom’s smile and raised eyebrows told me she knew where I was going first, or at least who I’d be with. Her eyes followed me as I took a left turn out of the courtroom, away from the elevator, and walked down the hall to the office of the assistant district attorneys.

  If the early morning rain shower had continued, Tom and I would have gone to Lagniappe, a cool little restaurant on Main Street. I loved the place. The courtly proprietor greeted everyone by name and pointed out any additions he had made to the collection of his paintings on the walls—mostly caricatures of his customers—and frequently sat down for a visit. His wife stayed in the back. But with clear skies now, Tom had called ahead to order a couple of po-boys from Bon Creole. We picked them up, headed for City Park, and found an empty picnic table at the edge of Devil’s Pond.

  “You did well this morning, Tom. I saw smiles and satisfied looks on the faces of my family. I believe they’re getting used to you.”

  “And how about you? Are you getting used to me too?” Tom teased.

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Not sure I could. You look a bit on edge today.”

  “OK. I guess you can tell I’m uptight at those family meetings, and maybe the arraignment made me nervous. I’m feeling better already.”

  “Sometimes I think we design our court proceedings to keep the public intimidated so the judge and the lawyers can have the upper hand. But soon you’ll be one of us, Mandy. People will be nervous in front of you!”

  I wasn’t going to tell Tom he was the cause of my jitters. Twenty minutes watching the ducks glide silently along the surface of the pond, listening to the mocking birds calling from the treetops, the fall breeze on my face, I felt better. Tom is easy to talk with—and also easy to be around without talking. When we finished our sandwiches, Tom picked up our boxes and stood.

  “I’d love to take the afternoon off and spend it with you, but I have to get back to an appointment.”

  * * *

  Mom and I sat on a green painted bench on the back porch of the old Darby house. Aunt Dora and Uncle J. Allen’s wife Mathilde rocked slowly in a cypress swing. We chatted at first, catching up on each others’ lives. We could barely see the bayou through the trees—a shimmering stream of dark-roast coffee undulating a half a football field below the house. Mesmerized by a soft breeze and the rhythmic creak of a rope suspended from hooks in the porch ceiling, we fell silent.

  The Bayou Teche in south Louisiana casts a spell, an inspiration for poets and a perfectly legal narcotic for the enchantment of those lucky enough to spend time on her shores. Over one hundred years ago, when Longfellow paid a visit to the Louisiana home of his Harvard roommate, he probably passed time on a porch like this one. Three sides opened to the southern breeze. Beneath branches dipping from two-hundred-year-old live oaks, the sun shed light but little heat inside the railings. We wore light jackets but were far from cold.

  Mom had told me that years ago, when best friends Dora Boudreaux and Mathilde Darby were in high school at Mt. Carmel Convent, a casual acquaintance could barely tell them apart. They rolled their pleated brown skirts exactly the same way and went everywhere as a pair. On this day, both pairs of dark Cajun eyes sparkled, but now Dora looked ten years younger than Aunt ‘Tilde. An affluent suburban life is kinder on a woman than Louisiana tropical sun and a rice and gravy diet. Aunt ‘Tilde’s end of the porch swing hung six inches lower than Aunt Dora’s.

  Aunt Dora tipped up her chin and wrinkled her nose.

  “Ah! The smell of the sweet olive. My home in Georgia is beautiful. We have the same azaleas in the spring and the same crepe myrtles blooming all summer long, but there’s nothing like the scent of sweet olive blossoms. To me, they are Louisiana. I’ll always come back here.” Aunt Dora turned to my Mom. “How are things at PawPaw’s house, Mimi?”

  “Just fine so far. Locked up tight. I check every day, but soon we’re going to have to come to a decision about what to do with the old place. We can’t just leave the house empty.”

  Down on the bayou bank, my Uncle J. Allen, tall, grey-headed, in khaki work clothes, bent over a thick, six foot long cypress log. His muscled arm reached out to the shore to grab a heavy chain and hook it into a metal eye screwed into the cut end of the log. He straightened up, surveyed his work, and scratched his chin.

  On the porch swing, Aunt Mathilde spoke softly to her rocking partner.

  “J. Allen’s been working at tying up that log for a couple of evenings now. He wants to watch the snapping turtles toast themselves in the afternoon sun and then, when a boat comes by, flop off into the water. Plop, plop, plop! Why does he want to watch that? Beats me.”

  Mathilde Darby grew up in this house. At eighteen, she married my Uncle J. Allen, her best friend Dora’s older brother. When her parents passed away and the other Darby children, all older, had made their nests elsewhere, she and Uncle J. Allen bought out the Darby siblings and moved back into her old home. That was twenty years ago. Through the years, whenever Aunt Dora came back to Louisiana to visit, Mathilde and J. Allen insisted she stay with them.

  Aunt Dora met her husband in college. I don’t think he’d ever felt comfortable with our family. Dora said he confessed to her he could breathe a bit better at ‘Tilde’s than under everyone’s eyes in PawPaw’s house, but it was only a matter of degree. He’d rather she made these Louisiana trips by herself and leave him behind in Atlanta. A couple of Christmases ago I overheard PawPaw say to Dora, “Nice fella’, your husband, but he doesn’t eat very much and he doesn’t have enough vowels in his name. What kind of a handle is Wyznyck anyway?”

  “It’s Polish,” Dora had answered, laughing. “You know PawPaw, some people think Boudreaux is a funny name.”

  “My brother is pretty quiet these days, ‘Tilde. Is he OK?” Aunt Dora asked her sister-in-law.

  “Each person handles grief differently, I’ve learned over the years. J. Allen prefers to keep his feelings to himself, but even from here I can see a sag in his shoulders. The other day, when he laughed at those flopping tu
rtles, I thought the log project might help put a bit of joy back into his life.”

  “Has he been fishing in the Basin?” Aunt Dora asked. “As I remember, that’s what he liked to do when he could.”

  “Not one time since...” Her voice dropped off. “Today he left the boys in charge of planting cane, but grinding will begin soon. From then until the end of January he’ll be really busy, loading cane all day, dog-tired at night. Work helps but doesn’t cure the blues. He tells me he still feels his father’s presence on every row of cane.”

  J. Allen and his father had worked the farm together for over twenty years. When PawPaw couldn’t climb into the tractor anymore, he still kept a close eye on operations. Mom told me Uncle J. Allen used to fuss about the constant supervision from his father. Now, the lack of it left a hole.

  Down on the bayou, a lone blue heron silently skimmed into view. He thrust his feet forward to break his flight and plopped awkwardly onto a sandbar near the far bank. The neck of the bird collapsed into a crook and his head listed left. Our eyes were drawn to the movement of the bird, but J. Allen, no more than twenty feet away, didn’t seem to notice. He bent over a grove of cypress knees standing at attention like miniature soldiers awaiting review. From the opposite bayou bank, the blue heron watched the water with one beady black eye.

  My mom interrupted our fixation on the bird. “Dora, what did you think of the guy this morning?” An abrupt change of topic, but Dora knew her sister was asking about Remuald Richard.

  “Looked like just any guy.”

  Aunt Mathilde broke in. “He’s been in jail for over a month now, so I guess he’s cleaned up. And sobered up, they say. Now he just seems regular. If I’d been behind him in the line at the grocery store, I probably would’ve told him to have a good day—if he weren’t wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs, of course. Mr. Barnett says he’ll look even better at the trial when they have him dressed up in street clothes. He may wear a suit and tie! You know, that’s just not fair. I think the jury should see him the way PawPaw did, dirty and all doped up. Maybe even holding a kitchen knife. That would be fair.”

  “I feel really weird about him,” Aunt Dora said softly. “He looks like us, grew up right around here, and yet he could do what he did to PawPaw. You never know about people. We once had lynchings right here in Iberia Parish, and in Georgia too, of course. Then there was the Holocaust...”

  Was I picking up a hint Dora had what PawPaw would have called “northern liberal ideas?”

  Mathilde shook her head angrily. “That woman, his lawyer. How can she do what she does, defend people like that? She mustn’t have any principles.”

  Mom beat me to a response, and smiled at me when she did so. “Tom Barnett made a point of explaining that, ‘Tilde. Remember?”

  Aunt ‘Tilde did a mocking imitation of Tom’s speech, complete with the extra syllables of his northeast Louisiana accent. “The defense lawyer’s job is to be certain the District Attorney proves his case. Only if both sides present all the evidence and their best arguments for their positions can we be sure the result is just,’ he said.”

  Mom answered. “Now, ‘Tilde. Would you want a system where the government decides in secret who should be punished? Sounds corny, but the work of the defense lawyer preserves civil liberties for us all.”

  I raised a thumb in approval. Good job, Mom. I couldn’t have said it better. ‘Tilde was still fuming, blowing out little puffs of air. Aunt Dora changed the subject to try to repair the mood between the sisters.

  “Ah, Mimi. I think you’ve taken a liking to Assistant District Attorney Tom Barnett? That’s a good thing since he seems to be sparking after Mandy.”

  Oh, my. Here come the aunts to comment about my love life. Mom, please get them off the subject.

  “What a family! You flew into town last night, Dora, and you already know the gossip.”

  Aunt Mathilde stayed on the subject of Tom. “I like the young man well enough as a boyfriend for you, Mandy, but prosecuting this case is another matter. He talks funny and he’s so skinny he mustn’t like our food. I’d be happier if the DA himself took charge. He can really make you feel comfortable. I bet juries eat out of his hand.”

  Aunt Dora gave her childhood pal an affectionate pat. “One glance at Tom Barnett and I knew he was a runner. My husband has the same look—a neck that’s all Adam’s apple. People are forever telling me I should cook more. I agree the twang is hard to get used to. I had the same problem when I first heard the voices of the people in Georgia. The extra syllables make people sound like snobs.”

  Mom added her comment, which I appreciated. “Girls, I like Mr. Barnett because he explained things.”

  With dusk, the mosquitoes descended. We watched J. Allen slap his neck a few times, straighten up from his project, and climb up the lawn to join us behind the screens of the porch. He pulled over a chair and settled down next to the swing.

  “Jay, we’ve been talking about the arraignment this morning.” Dora said.

  “Huh,” J. Allen grunted.

  “What did you think of it?”

  “It was OK by me.”

  “Really? Do you think we’re in good hands?”

  Uncle J. Allen set his lips together. He’d worked in the fields since he was in high school; years of sun had darkened his face to a permanent tan. When he concentrated on something, his skin looked even darker, almost pecan-shell brown.

  “It bothered me to see the District Attorneys so buddy-buddy with the defense lawyers. Shaking hands, laughing, chatting it up.”

  I answered this one. “That’s just the way lawyers are, Uncle Jay. We have to stay on friendly terms so we can work together. Civility is just part of the profession.”

  At least civility is alive and well in most courtrooms. Legislatures could learn a bit about cooperation and collaboration from lawyers.

  “Barnett’s OK, I guess. When we first met him he told us what to expect.”

  “True,” said Aunt Dora. “And he told us what’s going to happen in the future. A long haul. We’ll be dealing with this case for years to come.”

  Aunt Dora lowered one foot onto the deck to stop the movement of the swing. Clearly, she’d given some thought to what she said next.

  “As Mr. Barnett told us, when capital punishment is on the table, a trial takes four times as long as a regular murder trial. And after the trial is over, if the jury brings in death, there can be a half dozen post-conviction hearings. At each hearing the family has to be involved, testifying and reliving the whole thing. A capital process, trial to execution or release, now seems to take forever. We’ll be living with a nightmare for years to come, unless—”

  Uncle Jay interrupted. “We can’t do a thing about it. The jury makes the decision.”

  Dora looked solemn. “Jay, we could possibly do something. I think Mr. Barnett hinted that sometimes they take the death penalty off the table. Explain that to us, Mandy.”

  Much as I hated to get in the middle of this, I couldn’t resist showing off a little of the knowledge I learned in my internship with the DA in Baton Rouge.

  “Sometimes, when the victim and the defendant are willing, the ADA doesn’t ask for the death penalty. It may be possible to get Richard to admit everything and agree to a sentence of life in prison rather than going to trial and risking a verdict for death. If he did that, there would be no trial. Our ordeal would be over. Richard would go straight to Angola and stay there for the rest of his life. But the District Attorney usually doesn’t even talk about backing off from the death penalty unless the family of the victim agrees.”

  J. Allen snorted a response. “Well, I don’t think we’re going to do that.”

  I continued my explanation. “Also, his lawyer would have to agree. Right now Ms. Bernard is saying her client didn’t do it.”

  Aunt Dora pinched her brows. “Does she really believe that, Mandy? Or is that just part of the way this game is played?”

  “I don’t know
what she really believes. I do know the detectives and the DA are totally convinced Richard is guilty of both crimes.”

  Dora’s expression softened. “Good. At least we don’t have to worry about a wrongful conviction, although I have heard that happens some time.”

  I could see Uncle J. Allen carefully picking the right words to express his thoughts.

  “When I think about that guy, on a beautiful day like this, out in the fields on the farm at Angola, enjoying the days the way we’re enjoying today, his grandchildren coming to visit with him, I’m furious. After what he did to PawPaw.”

  Uncle J. Allen put his hands over his eyes before he could continue. He swallowed hard.

  We sat in silence. Darkness crept in. Then, as if directed by an invisible baton, the evening concert of chirps and chatters began. The cicadas struck up the band.

  Mathilde began to fidget, stood up and broke the silence. “I’ve got to see about my dinner.”

  J. Allen had one last word. “Death is even too good for that guy.”

  If Tom been had been hinting around about getting the family to back off from the death penalty, he hadn’t scored with J. Allen or ‘Tilde. Maybe Dora would be interested. My aunts and uncles had the say, not in-laws or grandchildren like me, but if anyone asked, I didn’t think I’d be interested either. If the evidence proved a crime, the prosecution should swing for the outfield fence.

  Basketball