Chapter Fourteen
Something heavy and hard settles under my ribs later that morning as I sit in the kitchen with Charles LaSalle’s business card in my hand. You never know when a lawyer will come in handy. It’s time to go to the police, but I’m not going without an advocate.
After showering earlier, I decided on pants and a T-shirt today.
No more silk. No more pretending. I’m an accomplice to something horrific.
No need to dress it up and call it something it isn’t.
I glance at the crease in my left elbow.
The mark I left is small and red. No indication of the depth of pain it holds from knowing I helped my mother dispose of a body.
I rub my face and try to stop my thoughts from unspooling, but they have too much momentum.
And I’m too tired to stop them. I’m back inside Mama’s cluttered car as I followed Travis from his house down a dark dirt road leading to the deepest part of the bayou.
The Delarouxes’ farm on the northeast side of town.
A sprawling tree farm with an old farmhouse and several run-down shacks around the property.
Travis stopped and turned off his lights.
I did the same. We met in front of Travis’s truck.
The August night scorching, humidity so thick it was hard to breathe.
Travis pointed to the bayou. “Dump it there. Other side of the levee.”
I set my coffee on the kitchen table with a shaky hand and will my last sip to stay down. The house is silent. The window over the sink shows a bright blue sky. My days in this town are longer than they should be. As if I really need another hour to sit and think about what I’ve seen.
I watched the tape more times than I should have, stopping it right after Mama hauled his body up into the trunk, then rewinding to watch again.
Never watching far enough to see my younger self enter the frame.
I should have. I need to see it. I need to own it.
But I couldn’t. I kept watching Mabry and Mama over and over and over.
Maybe to make sure I saw exactly what I think I saw.
Maybe to punish myself for thinking what I’d done for Mama all those years ago was harmless.
I tell myself what I’ve told countless people: you were a child.
But Mama wasn’t a child. She knew. And she sent me there to get rid of it. Get rid of him.
Then a thought occurs to me that I hadn’t considered yet. Its sharp and disturbing point piercing my throat, closing off my windpipe as I try to inhale. What if her boss wasn’t dead?
I jump up from the kitchen table and release the contents of my stomach into the farm sink.
I heave until all that’s left is bile. I run the water, rinse my mouth, then lean back against the counter.
Then the tears start. Slowly at first but building quickly into deep guttural sobs.
After several minutes, I manage to catch my breath.
He wasn’t alive. There’s no way. I saw what happened. If he’d been alive . . .
That’s when I hear it. A car engine or a truck. An older model with a missing muffler. I race for the window in the front foyer and see taillights skittering down the drive toward the gate. It looks like Doyle’s truck. He is the last person I want poking around here.
I race upstairs, skittish and shaky, for my handgun. It’s where I left it, unloaded. I grab the cartridge box from my duffel and load it, then ease back down to the window. I flick on the giant chandelier in the foyer and look outside. The driveway is empty. I unlock the front door.
The late morning is as hot as every other morning.
Not even a hint of a breeze. The sky above me shows no sign of creating a cloud anytime soon.
Birds chatter through the oaks. The cicadas are already up and singing as well.
The hotter it gets, the earlier they start.
The humidity feels like a weighted blanket, and sweat starts on my neck even before I make it to the porch steps.
I sit and try to manage the river of emotions flowing through me.
My fear morphs into anger, then remorse, then guilt.
It’s cycling through my veins like poison.
And with it comes the memory of Mabry. Oh, Mabry.
I cradle my head in my hands. Mabry was trying to protect Mama.
Mama was trying to protect Mabry. And I’m still trying to protect them both.
But that circle of protection is becoming more and more toxic.
No doubt, in Krystal Lynn’s warped mind, sending her eldest child back to clean up her mess that night made perfect sense.
But I can’t stop my mind from reeling. Why?
Why would she think that was the best option?
A small sad laugh escapes me. I know better.
I know you can’t apply logic to an illogical person.
I can’t expect normal reactions from a woman who had no idea what normal was.
She wouldn’t get back in the car. I saw the fear in Mabry’s eyes that night.
I assumed it was something Mama had done.
In a way it was. But I had my hand in it too.
I put that car in the bayou. I disposed of evidence.
Of . . . I can’t finish the thought. I harness every ounce of energy I have left to lock it away.
No going there right now. And no calling Mabry.
Even if she’d answer, I’m not sure what I would say.
As I stand back up, something brown and crumpled catches my eye at the bottom of the steps. Possibly trash. But it doesn’t look like trash. It looks like a paper bag. And it wasn’t there yesterday. I ease down the steps to it. The top of the bag is neatly folded down.
Part of me says don’t touch it, but I give the bag a small kick. Whatever’s inside is hard and sounds metallic. I think of the figurines and Eddie. If this is one of those, it’s considerably bigger than the others. Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem too dangerous based on my baseless assessment.
Slowly, I set my handgun down, pick up the bag, and unroll the top.
I’m not sure what I’m expecting to find, but it sure as hell isn’t what’s inside.
I drop the bag as if it’s full of snakes.
I stare at it several seconds before grabbing it and pulling out the metal object inside.
A license plate. It’s heavy in my hand. Cold.
With a shaky hand, I drop it back in the bag.
The old convertible was missing its plate.
I roll the top back down. This isn’t like the metal dolls Eddie made, the gifts he’s given me.
This is a message. A message from Doyle Arceneaux.
Nan’s Café is not quite the clatter of activity it was a few days ago.
Even though every table is full, some locals, some media, a heavy silence hangs over the room.
The clink of silverware on plates is the loudest sound.
Except for the orange boots and the fact I couldn’t bring myself to fix my hair before I left, I still fit in more with the media, an outsider looking in.
A few people study me. The locals look tired, their eyes turned down, their mouths in tight, straight lines.
The media folks look hungry, not for food, for more death.
Unlike the locals, their eyes are bright and focused.
And most focused of all is a green pair staring straight at me. Rita Meade.
A text pops up on my cell, a new number.
The more you try to ignore me, the harder it will be. This is Rita.
I look over at her. The sides of her mouth curl up.
Great.
Even with Rita here, this is still better than sitting around Shadow Bluff, waiting for Charles LaSalle to call me back.
I’d placed the license plate in the kitchen next to Eddie’s dolls and stared at them so long my eyes hurt.
Why would Doyle leave that for me? And when I take it to the police, will they believe that’s how I got it?
If I stayed in that house one more second, I would have driven myself crazy with questions and eventually started on the tape again. Or worse, gone back to my toiletry bag. And I can’t do that. So I decided, despite the fact I look and feel like a zombie, I needed to be in a public place.
A couple exits one of the booths by the bank of windows, and I slide in even though it hasn’t been cleaned.
A young waitress with blonde bangs and a mouthful of gum wipes the table with a wet rag, then sets a plastic menu in front of me.
She disappears for a moment, then returns with a thick ceramic mug she clunks onto the table.
“Coffee, hon?”
A waitress half my age calling me hon manages to bring a smile to my face.
But it’s not a real smile. Nothing feels real at the moment.
I feel like I’m an actor on a set, stumbling through a scene I’m not prepared for.
Amy once did a stint in her early twenties as a production assistant in Los Angeles.
She told me how, when she was on set, she lost all perspective.
Her world would shrink to the actors, the director, the gaffers, and grips, and that would become her new world.
That’s how this town feels. Except no one is yelling “That’s a wrap.”
The coffee is strong, and I don’t bother with creamer or sugar. I don’t need it diluted right now. My nerves are crackling under my skin, and although caffeine may intensify it, I don’t care. I need fully loaded.
I feel someone staring at me from across the room.
I look up, expecting Rita again. Worse. It’s Travis.
He’s a few tables away, sipping coffee and watching me.
I nod. He nods back. I don’t like the way he’s studying me.
He wads his paper napkin into a ball and drops it on his plate; then he scoots back from the table and heads my way.
I sit up straighter, push the hair off my shoulders.
“Morning,” he says. He’s smiling, but the smile is too pinched, too static.
“Hi.”
“We need to finish our conversation.”