The Evidence Room: A Mystery (12 page)

“A few times? So in addition to being a singer, guitar player—”

“Ukulele player,” Samba corrected.

“Sorry, a ukulele player, and a tamer of feral cats, you’re also—what, an EMT? Volunteer firefighter?”

“There’s more than one way of saving a person, Josh.” Samba patted Josh’s hand on the steering wheel. He gestured towards the turn. “This is it.”

Josh swung the Jeep onto the dirt road. The abandoned houses down here were so choked with kudzu it looked as though they were floating in a fuzzy green sea. Aurora’s house sat at the bayou’s edge, twinkling in the darkness.

She opened the door when they pulled up the drive, backlit by the living room. She wore the same shorts and T-shirt that she’d had on earlier, but something about her looked more vulnerable now; childlike even.

“Hi, guys.” Samba was right—she did look glad to see them. She ushered them into an immaculate sitting room, where she had laid out coffee.

“Hey, Aurora!” Samba held the greasy sandwich bag aloft. “Bet you haven’t tried a fried grouper sandwich yet.”

“You’re right about that.”

“Well, you are in for a treat. It’s from the El Cap, this place downtown. Real spicy, but I bet you can handle it. It’s like being kicked in the face, but, you know, in a good way.”

Aurora and Josh exchanged a smile. “Come on in,” she said.

Josh had never been inside the Broussard home, but everybody knew the alligator man’s house, with the magnolia trees and the yard that dipped towards the bayou. Inside, the place was tidy, as though someone had scrubbed every surface. It smelled of gardenia and lemon leaves.

“Everything okay, Aurora?”

“Sure. I mean, sort of. I just got this creepy phone call. It was probably just kids being stupid, but it just kind of threw me off balance. Let me get some plates for the sandwiches.” She headed back to the kitchen.

Josh followed. “What did the caller say?”

“Go back to where you came from, or you’ll be sorry, just like your mama.” It had rattled her, that was for sure.

“Kids, probably,” Josh said. “There’s not much to do out here except get into trouble.” He wasn’t convinced, but he hoped she could not hear that in his voice.

“Hey, check this out,” Samba said. A felt doll leaned against the windowsill behind the couch, covered in gold pins and tied with an orange ribbon. “Aurora, you know what this is, doncha?”

Aurora and Josh emerged from the kitchen with the plates. “I’m not really sure,” Aurora frowned. “My grandpa had some—strange stuff like that around here.”

“It’s a juju,” Samba explained. “Lucky, for protection. People like stuff like that around here. I have some. Crucifixes too. You never know what works, so I guess I’m just hedging my bets.”

Something in Aurora’s face told Josh to change the subject, so he held up the files. “So, we’ve got the file here,” Josh told her. “Police reports, evidence log, the whole thing.”

“Thank you so much,” she said.

Samba patted her knee. “Sometimes it’s tough,” he said, “seeing everything again. Just take things one at a time. Go slow. Maybe we can even sort through things for you. Is there something you were looking to find? You said it was important.”

She hesitated, looking between Josh and Samba, sizing them up. “I have some questions. I should probably take them to the police—but I just don’t know.”

“Atta girl,” Samba said. “You can’t always trust the cops. It’s best to stick with the evidence, plain and true.”

“What are your questions?” Josh could see that she wanted to tell them, could see the story rising through her. She opened a drawer in the stately varnished desk in one corner of the room and brought out a file.

“It looks like my grandfather was starting to look into the case on his own,” she said. “There’s some stuff here in the house, but it seems pretty incomplete. I don’t really know what to make of it.”

“Did they ever run the samples for DNA?” Josh thought about the backlog, the rows and rows of sample kits. Back in 1989, it was still a relatively new thing.

Aurora shook her head. “It looks like my grandfather requested it when he asked them to reopen the case, but they denied it. Said the sample was too degraded because it hadn’t been preserved properly so there was no chance anyway.”

Samba made a humphing sound. “Well, that’s a bunch of hogwash,” he said. “I’m a stickler for preserving things the right way. And I log every request. Nobody has asked about those samples. I’d remember.”

“Can you look at this stuff? I mean, are you authorized or whatever?”

Samba chuckled. “I’m not law enforcement, not technically. To work in the evidence room, you’ve just got to have a GED and pass a background check. But I’ve seen a lot in my time there. And I can tell you, Aurora, that cops make mistakes. People jump to conclusions sometimes, instead of looking for the truth.”

Josh watched the color drain from Aurora’s face, like someone was pulling a white curtain across her features. He was willing to bet she’d always been running from this moment, the same way he was. Sometimes Josh thought he was destined to meet a bad end, that he was just running out a length of rope, and one day he’d reach the end and be snapped back to the day of the attack, some kind of evil waiting there for him to finish what the Shadow Man had started. There were certain things you couldn’t outrun.

“I think I know someone who can help us,” Josh said. Doc Mason at the morgue would help them put the pieces together. He’d have autopsy records that the evidence room didn’t have.

“Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

“Sure. We can head over there in the morning, if you want.” Josh’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

“You know what, guys, I’m gonna take a walk around the outside of the house, make sure everything’s secure. Can’t hurt, right?”

He pushed open the door and stepped out onto the porch. Outside, the rain had given way to a cloudless night, and below him the bayou sparkled, barely a ripple on its creamy surface, no hint of the choppy water of less than an hour before. He answered the phone.

“Pea?”

“
Bonjour,
Josh,” she trilled, the Southern accent still crowding out the French one.

Josh steadied himself against the railing. “Did you get any more information? About Liana?” He was willing to pay drug dealers, play ball with anyone. Whatever it took.

Pea laughed, a velvety sound. “Well, of course. I always follow through on my promises. I just need some funds.”

“How much?”

“Well, now, I don’t like to talk about money right away,” Pea purred. “I was raised better than that. I was just making sure you hadn’t changed your mind. You didn’t call me back after we last spoke. I was feeling a little—rejected.”

Josh turned away from the bayou. Through Aurora’s front window, he could see Samba and Aurora sharing the remains of the sandwich, their two heads close together. He ached to be like them, to be able to confide in them about who he was, about Liana, about Jesse, about how the attack had made him a stranger in his own life. He wanted to tell Samba that he was right; there was more than one way of saving a person’s life, but there was also more than one way of taking it.

“Josh? Hello?” Pea spoke again, the lushness in her voice replaced by impatience.

“I’m sure,” he said. “Just text me what you need.” He hung up.

Josh flicked on the outside light, illuminating the pale rows of hibiscus that stretched across the yard. There was no place to hide a car out here; if you wanted to sneak up to the house, you’d have to pick your way through the tall grass that obscured the path down to the bayou.

He completed a perimeter sweep of the house and was reaching for the light when he saw them.

Footprints.

They were fresh. Someone had trampled a few of the flowers in their hurry to get down to the bayou. Something orange glimmered on the outside sill. Josh moved to get a closer look. A small flannel bag was overturned, and a fine orange powder was spread across the sill. Josh bent closer. He would have known the smell anywhere; it was part of his mother’s chicken marinade. Cayenne pepper.

Josh heard the sound of it then; the whisper of a rope being unwound, a skiff slipping onto the water.

“Hey! Wait!” He skidded down the path. The exterior lights shone only as far as the edge of the yard, and beyond that was only the black maw of the bayou. He could hear paddling, but he couldn’t see a damn thing. There was no way to catch them.

Josh turned back to the house. He could hear the sound of laughter, of Samba putting Aurora at ease. Now he was going to be the one to have to tell her.

Someone was out here.

Someone was watching.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Charlsie the voodoo woman was also the proprietor of the local pharmacy.

Aurora was learning not to be surprised at this kind of information; after all, in Cooper’s Bayou, everyone seemed to have more than one job. She wondered what Josh Hudson’s other job was, since he’d told her he wasn’t a cop. She’d wanted to ask him more about this, but something in his face had stopped the question. Everyone was allowed to have secrets, she reminded herself. She thought about Mike. He’d texted her a few times since her trip down south. They were sweet little missives like
Everything okay?
It wasn’t the kind of question that could be answered over text; she could not even imagine what she would write back to him.
Insane family—voodoo and murder! Drinks next week?

She was supposed to be in the attorney, Royce Beaumont’s, office right now, but she had decided that could wait. It was something about the voodoo woman’s voice. She’d known Papa, known something about what he was doing. He had confided in her for some reason, and Aurora was going to find out why.

The entrance to the pharmacy was almost completely obscured by a wooden statue of an American Indian grasping a sword, his lips pulled into a leering smile. A cheap dish towel adorned with a map of the state of Florida was tied around his hips in an attempt at modesty. Glass jars, opaque with age, lined the sides of the room, labeled in spindly purple handwriting and filled with seeds and grains of all shapes and colors with magical-sounding names that suggested strains of psychedelic drugs rather than ordinary houseplants.
Mustard spinach tendergreens,
Aurora read,
Squash crookneck blues, Pepper California wonder
.

“Need some help?”

It sounded like more of an accusation than a question. The speaker was a woman in her seventies, her hair piled high and secured with a paisley scarf on her head. Her eyebrows were penciled in thick violet eyeliner and curved upward at a spectacular angle.

“I’m looking for Charlsie. Is she here?”

“In back,” the woman said, and turned away. Aurora followed the woman down the aisle. Half-melted votive candles flickered on every available surface, illuminating rows of bottles and canisters. Next to the cash register, a black felt doll with two gold fleur-de-lis pins for eyes hung from a coat hook, a knitting needle protruding from its crotch. A tiny charm hung around its neck and Aurora recognized the palm with shooting stars that she had seen in Luna Riley’s office engraved on the front.

The woman followed her gaze. “To scare shoplifters,” she said matter-of-factly, and then pointed behind a beaded curtain. “She’s back there. You got an appointment?”

“No. I just—I’m a friend.”

“Friends, neighbors, enemies, they all gotta pay,” the woman shrugged, regarding Aurora with pity. “Ain’t nothing in this world for free.”

Aurora dug in her pocket and unfurled a twenty-dollar bill.

“Charlsie,” the woman sang out in a bright tone, “your ten thirty’s here.”

Behind the beaded curtain, Charlsie appeared to be in a trancelike state, her eyes focused on the wall in front of her. It took Aurora a moment to realize that she was watching a small television in the corner. On the screen, Diane Keaton, in round sunglasses and a white power suit, was berating a balding man in a restaurant.

“Romantic comedies,” Charlsie muttered. “Love them.” She aimed the remote at the screen and powered it off, pointing a ringed finger at a chair across from her, a flimsy lawn chair draped in a thick curtain. Aurora sat.

“I knew you’d be coming to see me, beb,” Charlsie said. Her fingers worked a set of cards, softened and yellowed with age.

“Oh, that’s all right,” Aurora protested. “I don’t need a reading. I just have some questions.”

“We all got questions, as long as we brave enough to hear the answers. I’m glad you came here, beb. I’m gonna tell you what you want to know.”

“My grandfather.”

“Your grandfather,” Charlsie echoed, “the alligator man. A good man.” She placed a shiny green pebble the size of a cough drop on top of the card. “He help people in need, he never judge anybody too hard. That’s why I helped him when he was in trouble, you understand?”

“Trouble? I didn’t know he was in trouble. I thought he came to you to try to reach my mother. What kind of trouble was he in?”

Charlsie ignored the question and instead fiddled with her necklaces, then held out a simple gold chain with a browned tooth on the end. “You know anything about alligators? He teach you?”

Aurora shook her head and for the thousandth time wished that she could remember being a kid here, sitting in the plastic pool with the baby gators, anything before the house in Connecticut. Some mornings she’d look out onto the bayou, the sun slicing through the sunken cypress, and a memory of her mother would grip her so fiercely she had to sit in the woven chair on the porch and rock back and forth until it subsided. Back home, her mother had existed only in objects; a photograph, a piece of jewelry. But here on the bayou, she was as real as anything alive, so real that Aurora felt the boundlessness of her loss in a way she had never before experienced.

“They been here millions of years, them gators,” Charlsie continued. “This tooth, your grandpapa gave me this tooth. It brings strength. And the head, it means wisdom, power. My people, we respect those creatures, like your grandfather did. But not everyone respects them.”