Heather Graham (15 page)

“Ah, if he would conveniently die!” Mama Lili Mae mocked, calmly dusting ash from her cotton skirt. “There will always be someone to question the obvious, and there were too many men with her that night to so easily pin what happened on one, eh,
mon cher
?”

Again, he felt the sweat.
How the hell could she know what he had been doing that night? Just exactly what did she know? Not that he considered what had happened to be his fault.

“Who is coming? Why must you rush back so quickly?” he demanded. “You already spoke to the police; they were crawling all over the cemetery today. So just who is coming?”

“I don’t know exactly who. I know why.”

“Why?”

“Because nothing on earth is so simple as it seems. Now, Jacques, drive. Bring me back to the bayou.”

He clenched his teeth together.

And he drove.

Mama Lili Mae sat back comfortably in the car. She was an old woman. She had few pleasures left.

One was driving Jacques to distraction by smoking in his car.

Another was weighing and judging people. Testing her own abilities to judge the
insides
of those she met.

She’d seen the woman today. Watching her, watching everyone. Seeking the truth. The woman was coming. Actually, it wasn’t any voodoo or magic that had told her so; Gina’s one true friend, handsome young Gregory Hanson, had told her that he was bringing someone.

Intuition told her that it was the petite blond woman who would be coming.

Instinct already assured her that today would be the day when she talked herself, when she told the truth. Because the truth was not just something that had to be told to be useful.

It had to be heard as well.

Before leaving the cemetery, Mark made arrangements to meet Harry Duval at the coroner’s office. During the services, he’d had an opportunity to see most of the people who had been important in Gina’s life. Had there not been blood all over Jon Marcel, three of those who might have been top suspects in the case had carried Gina’s coffin with him—Harry Duval, Jacques Moret, and Gregory Hanson. Mama Lili Mae had been there—she knew more than she was saying, but he’d have to get her alone to find out if she would tell him anything special or not. The Dixie Boys had all been in attendance, as had most of the dancers from the club. Gina had been loved. Not so oddly, she had probably been loved by her killer.

Now there was another murder. And one of the most important questions regarding the victim was about to be answered.

Duval was prompt. Both men were certainly dressed for the occasion of visiting the dead, as they wore their black suits from the funeral. Mark was certain they must look like a pair of penguins.

They walked down the corridor together to meet Lee Minh at the freezer. Duval glanced Mark’s way.

“I didn’t kill them, you know.”

“I didn’t accuse you.”

“We know one another well enough. You’ve unusual eyes, my friend. They cut into a man and condemn him quickly.”

Mark arched a brow to him. “I’m a detective, Duval. I gather evidence for the D.A.’s office. I don’t condemn anyone.

Duval sniffed. “Surely, if the police decide to seek further than Jon Marcel for suspects, they will look in my direction. I own the club where Gina L’Aveau worked. I deal in flesh. To the Bible thumpers, I am a devil, Satan in black and white. If it is determined that the murders are related, this strangled girl and Gina, then Jon Marcel must be innocent, unless he can rise up from his hospital bed as a spirit and commit murder by the power of his will alone.”

“If the murders are related, then naturally, the case against Jon Marcel will have new light shed upon it. How many of your female dancers are unaccounted for?”

“I had not seen Judy, but she came to the funeral today. April did not show as yet; but she is married, and I have not seen or heard from her husband either. They are not due on stage until this afternoon. Renee, Samantha, Ashley and Jean have not reported to work, nor did they come to the funeral. But we will know in a matter of minutes, eh?”

“Right now,” Mark agreed, opening the door for Duval.

Lee Minh was waiting for him. The corpse lay on a gurney. She had been pulled from the water. She was not beautiful in death as Gina had been.

“Do you know her?” Mark demanded as Duval stared down at the body.

Duval grated his teeth together.

He knew her.

I
T WAS A GOOD
thing they had started out fairly early.

Cindy McKenna was waiting with Gregory. They were both at the club before her, which she thought was an amazing feat until she realized that they must have slipped away from the cemetery while she was still trying to overhear Mark’s words to the Oriental man—and the Oriental man’s reply.

Since she had stayed in the background at the services, Ann had felt comfortable enough to wear black jeans, black Reeboks and a black pullover, ready for her excursion into the wilderness. Gregory and Cindy, who had dressed for the funeral, had both changed clothing, apparently at the club, and were prepared for a day in the wilderness, both in blue jeans and knit tops.

“Ann, we’ll take your car, if that’s all right,” Gregory said. “No one will wonder what mine is doing at the club; they’ll imagine I’m around somewhere. While your car...” He shrugged. “If someone is snooping around, they might recognize your car, and wonder what you’re up to.”

“Sure,” Ann said.

Cindy slipped into the tiny backseat; Gregory sat beside her. Ann felt the slightest twinge of unease, wondering if she should be worried about what Gregory had said. If she was to become lost in the bayou...

No one would find her.

From the backseat, Cindy squeezed her shoulder. She glanced over at Gregory. What was human intuition and instinct worth? She felt good about Gregory. She’d felt good about him since she’d met him.

Hop out of the car, scream like a lunatic, forget meeting Mama Lili Mae and proving Jon’s innocence, or go along quietly for the ride and enjoy the bayou.

They left the city behind, driving hard along the water. When a copse of trees appeared before them, Gregory had her drive off the road and park by the trees. When they got out of the car, she was surprised to see that a number of boats were tied up in the shallows.

“Come on,” Gregory suggested, hopping aboard one of the small motorboats and offering her a hand.

“Is it your boat?”

“It was Gina’s boat,” Cindy said.

“It’s all right; many of the families keep their boats here. To see them, you take a boat.”

“No one steals them?”

Cindy smiled, shaking her head. “Only bayou people know that they’re here. You can’t see them from the road. You won’t even be able to see your car from the road now.”

Gregory’s hand was still outstretched to her. All right, if she was murdered—and under the circumstances it didn’t seem like such a fear might be paranoia—it would be her own fault.

She wasn’t going to be murdered. She knew that Gregory was innocent of hurting Gina. He wasn’t passionate, he wasn’t angry, he was just hurt to the core. And Cindy was with them. And she had seen Mama Lili Mae; she was even certain that Mama Lili Mae had looked right at her. The woman wasn’t going to hurt her anyway.

She took Gregory’s hand and settled into the boat. Cindy climbed in beside her.

“How do we know that she’ll be there?” Ann shouted above the roar of the boat’s motor.

“I told her we were coming,” Gregory shouted back at her. “She’s expecting us; I think she wants us to come.”

Ann nodded.

“Sit back, enjoy the ride!” Cindy suggested. Ann swung around to see that Cindy had leaned back comfortably. The wind was rushing through her hair. She looked happier and more relaxed than Ann had yet seen her appear. The bayou, she thought, was really home to these people. The sky, the water, the dense greenery.

They didn’t talk; it was too difficult to do so with the motor running. They traversed open waterways for quite some time; then Gregory cut the motor and picked up an oar as they entered into a more narrow channel where the water seemed to be quite shallow, where tree roots rose above the water level and the embankment sometimes seemed to disappear into black voids. The swamp was quiet except for the occasional cry of a bird and the slap of the oar against the water. Cindy patted her shoulder. “Look,” she murmured quietly, pointing to the embankment.

An alligator—a good ten feet long—slipped into the water in a silent plunge. Its eyes remained eerily above the water.

They seemed to focus on the boat.

“Is it—safe?” Ann whispered.

Gregory chuckled softly. “That old-timer catches his fair share of birds and ’coons and the like. He ain’t no man-eater.”

“Well, they have killed people,” Cindy said. She glanced at Ann. “Oh, but not often. And they don’t charge boats or anything. At least, not that I’ve ever heard of.”

“You’re safe,” Gregory assured her. “I’ve come here and back in this very boat with Gina dozens of times. I’ve come alone. So has Cindy. We’ve survived the alligator gauntlet every time. They make fine eating, you know, if you cook the rascals right.”

“I’ve had alligator,” Ann said, surprised to realize that she sounded a little defensive.

“Then you know the swamp, you know alligators?” Gregory said.

She shook her head. “No. I came from Atlanta straight into the French Quarter. I don’t know alligators or swamps. I’m a city girl.”

“Ah, you don’t know alligators or swamps,” Gregory teased.

“I like the swamp just fine. It’s beautiful. I’d love to come here to paint one day.”

“That would be great!” Cindy applauded. “Jon always said that you were wonderful with landscapes. He said that you liked faces best, but that you were wonderful with landscapes.”

“He was very proud of you,” Gregory said softly.

“He isn’t dead yet!” Cindy hissed softly to Gregory. Then she glanced guiltily at Ann. “Is he?”

She shook her head. She’d made a stop at the hospital before heading for the funeral. Jon remained in a coma. The nurses had assured her again that he was actually in a “good” coma—which seemed extremely strange, but she was thankful for any small favors. She hadn’t yet talked to her daughter; though she had put a call through to the school, and the school had promptly put out a communication to their people in the field. Katie was working with tribes in very remote regions, and it might take a few days for her to get back to her mother. Ann hadn’t wanted to stress that it was an emergency; she was praying that she’d have something good to tell her daughter when she heard from her at last.

“Jon is alive. They told me again that his vitals were very good and that his color was excellent and that they think he is going to come out of it. Of course, they might just say that for my benefit. The doctor has officially given him a fifty-fifty chance.”

“He’ll make it,” Gregory said encouragingly.

“Thanks.”

“We pull in here,” he said suddenly.

Ann viewed the spot Gregory indicated. There seemed to be nothing different about it from all the other stretches of embankment they had passed so far. Then she realized that beneath a cluster of gnarl-rooted trees were two more boats; surely, out here, that had to indicate something like a bayou town.

Gregory helped her out of the boat, warning her, “Watch the mud at first. The water there is only a few feet deep, but the level remains really high when you’re supposedly on solid ground. Be careful—it’s all firmer just up a ways.”

Black mud squeaked beneath her feet. She realized that there was something similar to a trail just ahead of them. She started to follow it to the higher ground, then paused, waiting. Birds shrieked high above her. A light wind rustled the foliage that seemed to embrace her. The swamp, she discovered, had a special scent to it, the smell of the water, the damp earth, a smell that was somehow
green
.

Gregory set his arm around her shoulder. “Come on, we’ve a bit of a walk. The house is up there around the bend. Cindy, you coming?”

“Just pulling the boat up a bit better,” Cindy called back.

“The house is a walk from here?” Ann queried.

“Yep.”

“That poor old woman walks down here when she wants to come into the city?”

“That poor old woman can probably walk farther than an Olympic champion,” Gregory said dryly.

“She must be at least eighty—”

“Almost one hundred and ten.”

“Jesus.”

Gregory grinned. “Makes you kind of believe in voodoo, eh?”

“Killing chickens and sticking pins into dolls?” Ann said skeptically.

Gregory laughed. “Ah, there’s so much more to voodoo than that, in ancient times, in our current days. Mama Lili Mae is a good practicing Catholic as well as a voodoo queen.”

She arched a brow to him.

“They burned witches in centuries past. Some ‘witches’ honor the earth, practice ‘wicka.’ They are gentle and kind and nurturing.”

“Voodoo is gentle, kind and nurturing?”

“Mama Lili Mae’s form of voodoo,” he said. “She reads bones; she advises the young ones. She has second sight. Maybe there is nothing in the bones; she has just lived so long she knows what should be said. Maybe she has no second sight, just
in
sight into human nature.”

“But she practices old ways.”

“Old ways that have changed. You must imagine where it all began. Think of all the slaves transported from Africa, taken to the islands such as Martinique and Hispaniola, brought here then, to New Orleans. Black men and women, coming from different tribes of the Dark Continent, different beliefs, different civilizations.”

“So voodoo began in the islands.”

He grinned. “Yes and no. The origin of voodoo was west Africa, what they called Dahomey Land then, the People’s Republic of Benin now, and Yorubaland then, Nigeria then. The white slave traders thought the black savages had no true religion, but they honored their ancestors, deities and forces of nature. They did so with their music, and their drums. They brought their religion to the New World where it was changed by native Indian cultures, and by Christianity itself. Today, voodoo is, in Mama Lili Mae’s case certainly, a spirituality. There are many New Orleans Spiritual Churches. But if you think back, imagine then what it was like to be a slave. To be at the whim of an owner who may be a kind man and may be a cruel man. Women taken by their owner if they so desire. A new people coming into existence as the slave children of these unions were born. The voodoo drums scared the white people. Sometimes, the drums were all that the slaves had to use as leverage over their masters.”