The Devil in Canaan Parish (25 page)

“Always do.” I answered.

I took my time sweeping the floor, restocking some of the shelves and wiping down the lunch counter. I could hear the church bell clanging mournfully and knew that the entire town would be deserted soon, everyone taking their places in their respective pews.

I was closing the blinds in the front window when I heard a loud pounding at the back door.
I couldn’t imagine who it would be. Bordelon had a key, of course, and any customers would have come to the front.
 
I marched quickly to the back and swung the door open.

It was Izzy Johnson.
 
I had not seen him in weeks, and I was surprised at his sudden appearance.

“Izzy!” I shouted.
 
“What brings you here?”

The little boy stared at me with wide eyes.
 
Tears streaked his face and his clothes and hair were soaked with rain.
 
I realized from the way that he was panting that he must have been riding his bicycle fast.
 
His pants and shoes were covered with mud.

“Mr. Bram, please,” he begged,
 
“you gotta help us!”

“Sure, sure,” I answered.
 
“Come inside a minute and I’ll get my things.”

I held the door open and he came inside, shivering from the wet and peering anxiously around.

“Hurry, please, Mr. Bram,” he urged.

I ran to the front of the store and made sure the door was locked, then returned to the back to grab my coat, hat and car keys.
 
I flipped off the lights and then hurried back to Izzy.

“What’s this about, Izzy?” I asked.

“It’s my momma, Mr. Bram.
 
She’s in trouble.
 
Please, you gotta come quick.”

I opened the door and ushered him out, turned and locked the door behind me, and then grabbed his bicycle that was parked against the wall.

“Get in my car.” I ordered.
 
He quickly obeyed, and I threw open the trunk and tossed his bike inside.

I slid in behind the steering wheel, started up the car, and then pulled out of the parking lot, the car tires kicking up gravel and mud as I jerked the car into drive.

I glanced at Izzy who was sitting small and frightened in the passenger seat.
 
His little face puckered and tears rolled down his cheeks.

“It’s my fault!” he cried.
 
“It’s all my fault.”

“Izzy don’t say that!” I pleaded.
 
“How can you say that? You can’t help what your daddy’s done.”

“No, Mr.
 
Bram, you don’t understand,” he mumbled.
 
“It is my fault.
 
None of this would have happened if it weren’t for me.”

He was right, I did not understand.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He paused for a moment, trying to decide whether or not to tell me.

“Izzy, if you expect me to help you and your momma, you’re gonna have to tell me the truth, now.
 
What is going on?”

Izzy sighed and stared out the window.

“Do you remember back when someone took that necklace from Meyer’s store?” he whispered.

“Yeah, yeah, I remember, why?”

“Well, I took it.”

I sat silently for a moment. Izzy was still staring out the window,
 
his hands clenched together in his lap.

“You took it? The Saint Anne necklace? How could you have taken it, Izzy? I heard what Warren Blanchard said about it.
 
He said someone went through the side window. That’s way up higher than you could reach, Izzy. Don’t you mean your daddy took it?”

Izzy glared at me defiantly, wiping the tears from his cheeks.

“No sir, I mean I took it!
 
I used my bike, and I stood up on the seat and I crawled my way inside.”

I did not know how to respond to this.

“Why, Izzy?
 
Why did you take that necklace?”

Izzy started crying again,
 
putting his heads in his hands.
 

“I know it was wrong, Mr. Bram, but it was so pretty. It was so pretty and it had my momma’s name on it, and I saw it in the window and I just wanted to give it to her for her birthday.” His words spilled out between sobs.

“Okay, okay,” I said, “so you took it.
 
That was wrong, Izzy, but you can give it back.
 
We can make this right, can’t we boy?”

“No, Mr. Bram,” he sniffed, shaking his head at me, “it’s too late, and now he’s hurting my momma.”

“Who’s hurting your momma?” I asked, bewildered.
 

Izzy searched my face for a long moment, and then collapsed into sobs.

“Sheriff Boyle!” he wailed. I was stunned.
 
This was not at all the answer I expected.
 
I waited a few moments for Izzy to recover himself and continue.

“He found out about it.
 
He found out that I took that necklace and that my momma had it.
 
He came to my house and he said he was gonna take me and put me in jail and that my momma was never gonna see me again.
 
So she begged and begged him not to, and that she’d do anything.”

A growing feeling of dread began to gnaw the pit of my stomach.
 
I pushed my foot down on the gas pedal, urging my car forward.
 
How could I not have seen this?

“The Sheriff started coming over to my house every night.
 
He would pick up my momma from work and bring her home and then he wouldn’t leave.
 
She would send me to my room and tell me not to come out.
 
He would lock Gabriel out of the house. Sometimes he’d be drinking, and when he was drinking, he’d beat on her, and if I didn’t go away fast enough he’d beat on me too.”

I nodded and my mind raced back to the months before this: the time I had seen Annie in the store, and then Izzy.
 
The strange way Gabe had acted when I asked him about his father.
 
Vernon Johnson hadn’t been the devil all along.
 
It had been Sheriff Boyle!

“He’s there right now, Mr. Bram,” Izzy continued.
 
“Miss Peg let my momma go home early today, on account of the holiday and the Sheriff came over this afternoon.
 
He’s been drinking and he’s been beating up on my momma!
 
I ran out the back door to find Gabe, but I can’t find him anywhere! So I came to the store to get you.
 
Oh please, hurry, Mr. Bram.
 
I think he’s gonna kill her this time!”

I was getting closer to Izzy’s house and was driving as fast as I could on the sloppy, muddy road.
 
A few times my tires got stuck in a pot hole and spun out, and I had to throw my car into reverse, and then drive around the hole. Izzy was getting more and more frantic as time dragged on.

Finally we reached Annie Johnson’s tiny house.
 
The Sheriff’s cruiser was not there and so I guessed that he had left. As soon as we pulled up, Izzy leaped out of the car and ran inside. I followed close behind, my heart pounding in my ears.
 
I had no idea what I would find in that house.

“Momma, momma!” I heard Izzy screaming.
 
I followed his voice and found myself in a tiny kitchen.

There was blood on the walls and smashed glasses and plates everywhere. Curled up in a heap in the corner of the room was Annie, her dress pulled up around her waist and the buttons open, revealing her brassiere.
 
I barely recognized her, her face was so swollen and bloodied.
 
Izzy was kneeling next to her, his arms wrapped around her shoulders, sobbing.

“Annie?” I whispered.
 
“Oh my God, Annie. What happened? Did the Sheriff do this?”

I already knew the answer.

Annie gazed up at me as if in a dream. Her eyes were almost swollen shut, but she slowly reached a hand up toward me.

I kneeled down beside her, pulling out my handkerchief and trying to gently wipe some of the blood from her lips.
 
Her mouth was full of it, and she choked a bit as she tried to speak.

“Gabriel,” she whispered.

“What’s that, Annie? Was Gabriel here too?”

She nodded.
 
“You have to find Gabe.
 
You have to find my boy!
 
He came home and he found the Sheriff on me, then he hit him!
 
Hit him so hard he knocked him down.
 
Then they fought, and Gabe hit him some more and knocked him out!
 
I got scared. I told Gabe to run away, to run away and not come back!
 
I told him to go to his cousin’s house, and get him to take him to Baton Rouge to my sister’s. So he left, and then after he left the Sheriff woke up and said he was going after him.
 
I tried to stop him, Mr. Bram.
 
I tried to stop him, but he just hit me again.
 
He said he was going to find my boy and when he found him he was gonna kill him!” at this she began to wail.

“You have to stop him, Mr. Bram!” she cried, clinging to my shirt and pulling my face close to hers. “You have to stop him! I can’t lose my boy, Mr. Bram, I just can’t!”
 

She pressed her face against my chest and sobbed, soaking my shirt with blood.

“It’s alright Annie,” I tried to reassure her.
 
“It’s alright.
 
I’m gonna find the Sheriff.
 
I won’t let him hurt your boy, I promise.”

Izzy followed me out to the car.
 
I pulled his bike out of the trunk and handed it to him.

“Go get some help, Izzy.
 
Go get somebody to help your mother, and then stay here at the house, you here?
 
I’m going to go try to find that son of a bitch Sheriff and stop him.”

Izzy nodded, jumped on his bike and pedaled away.

For the second time that day, I was pushing my car as fast as possible down the muddy gravel road that led from the Bottoms to town. The rain was pounding down harder now, making it even more difficult to drive.
 
The slow pace was maddening to me, and as I drove I tried to come up with a plan for how I would handle a drunk and angry Boyle if it came to that. I decided that I should prepare myself for the worst, and so I turned the car toward my house to get my gun.
 

It had been years since I fired the revolver. I had bought it when I lived in New Orleans as protection on the streets. I kept it after I married Sally, although I never used it except for the occasional target practice. The truth was that the sound of a gunshot still unnerved me, even thirteen years after the war.

As I drove through the middle of town, I was struck by how deserted it was and then remembered that everyone was at church.
 
It was now after six o’clock, and the sun was going down, although the rain clouds made the sky seem even darker. I knew that the service would be in full swing and would most likely not end until nearly eight.
 

I pulled into the driveway and drove around the house, slammed the car into park and then jogged across the yard to the back porch. As I entered the kitchen, I noticed all the lights were out. The bedroom door was open and yet all was still and empty.
 
I walked to the bedroom and peered inside.
 
Dresser drawers were open and clothes were spilling out on the floor.
 
There was a general disarray and silence, as though something terrible had happened.
 

Where was Melee? Sally must have gone to church with her parents.
 
Did Melee run away?
I went back to the kitchen and switched the light on, and then slowly made my way up the stairs.
 

The sun had gone down and the attic was quite dark.
 
I switched on the light bulb and then began to rummage through the piles of books, furniture, and boxes, looking for the small metal case where I stored my gun. Minutes passed, and I began to get frustrated, thinking that the Sheriff could have found Gabriel by now. I was about to give up when my foot hit something hard and I heard a metallic clang ring through the rafters.
 
I picked up the box and then cursed.
 
It was locked, of course, and I did not have the key with me.
 

I ran back downstairs to the kitchen and began frantically pulling out drawers and rifling through the contents. Finally I pulled open the silverware drawer and lifted the tray out.
 
I stuck my hand in and reached all the way to the back.
 
My fingers touched something small and cold.
 
I pulled the key out and sighed in relief.
 
Then I ran back upstairs to open the box.

I had pulled out the gun, loaded three bullets in and put it back together. I stood up and started to stuff the gun into my pants, then thought better of it and placed it back in the box. I hoped that I would not need to use it, and so I thought it would be best to just put the box in my glove compartment and only pull it out just in case.

As I turned to leave, a small noise stopped me.
 
It was the sound of humming softly and it was coming from the spare bedroom.
 
I noticed for the first time that the door was closed.
 
There was no light coming from beneath it, so I assumed that Melee must be there, sitting in the dark.
 
I could not understand why she would be there. It had been months since she had used that room.
 
Sally had practically forbidden it, insisting that Melee stay in the bedroom.
 
I had been using the spare room instead and because of that, Melee did not even come up to the
garconniere
at all anymore.
 

I walked over to the door to investigate.
 
I knew that she would most likely not be happy to see me, but I decided that I should at least check to see if she was alright.
 
As I got closer to the door, the humming got louder.
 
It seemed to be some kind of lullaby although it was disjointed and strange.
 
The melody was nothing that I recognized, but perhaps Melee was singing another one the Cajun songs she had been taught as a child.