Chapter Eighteen #2
“Me too.” He looks around, then back at me with sad eyes.
“You know, my wife is talking about moving. Says little Charlie can’t grow up in a town like this.
I just . . . can’t believe this is happening .
. . here.” He points to the floor. “I grew up here. My parents grew up here. My grandparents grew up here. Small-town living is in my blood. It’s safe.
You form relationships; you raise your children in a world where they can ride their bikes to the store without you thinking they got kidnapped.
And now this.” He looks around at the throngs of people crammed around us. “Makes me sick to my stomach.”
“I understand. It’s a lot to absorb.”
He rubs his hands together. “Well, I didn’t mean to go on and on and interrupt your breakfast. I just wanted to say thanks, and be sure to call me if you need any more legal help. I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you as well, Charles. For reposting that video.”
He smiles. “That’s the least I could do.”
I finish what I can of my breakfast, and as I exit Nan’s, I freeze. A car is parked in the spot next to mine, the engine still running. Rita Meade sits behind the wheel, staring at me through the windshield. She smiles and waves. As if she’s been waiting for me.
I let Rita follow me back to Shadow Bluff. I’ve seen the tape. I’ve talked to the police. Talking to Rita again pales in comparison. Besides, the last time we visited, she gave me more information than I gave her. Maybe she’ll keep sharing.
I steer off Main onto the road to Shadow Bluff.
The oak-lined path feels more like a rabbit hole.
One that’s swallowing me up. The lack of sleep recently isn’t helping, but it’s more than that.
It’s a sadness for the young girls and women murdered and dumped in the bayou.
For their loved ones who have suffered through the constant news coverage along with their grief.
A sadness that is finally settling in after days of being distracted with my own problems. And then there’s Walter Delaroux.
The police obviously had enough evidence to arrest him, but what if they’re wrong?
Someone left that license plate for me, and it certainly wasn’t Walter Delaroux.
Rita may be able to shed some light on that.
Not that she’s the overwhelming expert, but she may have the answers I need.
And in return, I’ll give her the answers she needs.
The first step toward unburdening myself.
Bright patches of sunlight dot the oystershell drive.
My head feels as full of shadows as the front yard.
My heart feels dark. My body aches from the inside out.
Memories of Mabry and Mama float through my mind like dandelion seeds, and I let them glide by without grabbing on to any.
Even the sweet ones. I’m too fragile for them at the moment.
At some point, I’ll tie this all up and go back to the life I left in Fort Worth.
But what is that life going to look like?
Me coiffed and smiling and ready to dole out advice to the masses?
I can’t see it. And of all the frightening things I’ve encountered over the last few days, this one frightens me the most. For years, decades, I pictured it.
I saw myself climbing the ranks. I saw myself being my own boss and helping as many people as possible.
Being successful and in complete control.
But those visions are starting to drain of all color and clarity.
Success at this point would be getting out of this town without being arrested.
I park in front of the house, and Rita follows me up the front-porch steps. Inside, I direct her to the right. She finds a seat on the sofa in the front room.
In the kitchen, I start a pot of coffee and study Eddie’s metal dolls on the counter. Something dances on the edge of my memory, but I can’t quite grasp it. Something about that house, about the shoebox clutched in Eddie’s massive hands, about Doyle in the doorway, telling me to be careful.
I pour two cups and take them with me to the front of the house. I settle in next to Rita and set our coffees on the table. The room is warm and full of light, but I still feel a chill. She’s looking at me with eyes that know more than they should.
“Thanks for letting me in,” she says. “Again.” She smiles.
Rita is a mixed bag for me. Some salty, some sweet. I need to be careful with her, but something feels genuine about her. I hear it in her voice. “I figured if I didn’t, you’d just be back tomorrow.”
“And the next day,” she adds with a smile.
We sit for a minute in silence; then I say, “Look, I don’t know where to start.”
Rita crosses her legs and leans forward. She takes her phone from her bag and sets it on the coffee table. “I know where to start.” She glances at the recorder on her phone, then to me. I nod.
“I like you, Dr. Watters,” she says. “I like your podcast. I like your book. I don’t want to hurt your career in any way whatsoever. I only want to cover this bayou story. And even though you’re not the whole story, you’re part of it.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Let’s start with why you’re part of it, and then, after, I’d like to talk about something else. Something that may be a lot more uncomfortable for you.”
I’m not surprised. I know what she really wants to talk about. I’ve been questioned about it before. I can do this. I need to do this. I swallow the knot forming in my throat. “I’m ready.”
Rita straightens her shoulders. “I know you spoke with the lead investigator yesterday. Had that lawyer with you.”
“News travels fast here.”
She tilts her head. “I make sure of that.”
I remember her saying she had a source at the police station, and a vision of the woman at the front desk pops into my head. Margie. “Margie makes sure of that,” I say.
Rita shrugs. “I know you dumped that first car in the bayou a couple of decades ago. But I don’t believe you dumped it with a body in the trunk. I’ve spent my entire career talking to guilty people. You’re not guilty of that. But you are hiding something.”
“Aren’t we all,” I say, brushing aside the image of the videotape.
“Will you tell me about the car?”
I sip my coffee. I’ve already told the police. Telling Rita is second fiddle now. The words I spoke to my mother circle back to me: Start at the beginning.
I rewind the clock to that summer and replay the same story I told the investigator. Rita listens intently, without interrupting. I finish with the license plate left on my porch steps. She looks off a minute, then says, “Do you have any idea who left it on your porch?”
“I have an idea.”
“Interesting. Someone is either trying to scare you or send you some type of message, and I doubt it’s the man they have in jail.
He’s not the type of guy to have connections on the outside to do dirty work for him.
The cops have had a hard time tying Walter to your car.
Knowing it was dumped on his land will help, but the license plate showing up here creates a problem connecting him to the teacher’s car. ”
“I thought the investigator said the teacher’s death was an accident. At the press conference by the bayou.”
Rita’s eyes brighten. “No way she’s a coincidence. She could have had an accident, sure. But something about it doesn’t sit right with me. And it doesn’t sit right with the police either. They’re just not ready to say why.”
“What do you know about Walter Delaroux?”
Rita shifts on the sofa. “Who’s interviewing who here?”
I raise my eyebrows.
She takes a sip from her coffee, sets it down, and continues, “Old Walter has been in and out of jail since he was eighteen. Mostly petty stuff. And even though the police haven’t connected him to all the victims, they have connected him to the actual barrels.
They’re his. He claimed they were stolen years ago, but there’s no proof.
And Walter’s been caught dumping in the bayou before.
Fertilizers and chemicals from his farm.
The problem at this point seems to be motive.
Some of the remains go back over a decade.
Then there’s your mother’s car, which you dumped on the back of Walter Delaroux’s property.
And now that missing teacher’s car. I keep getting the feeling your car and that teacher’s car are like bookends.
The barrels in between. They must be connected somehow.
” Rita sets her coffee on the table. “What I know so far is they’ve only tied Walter Delaroux to one of the victims, the senator’s daughter.
He had beef with the senator over some nonsense about regulations on tree farming and had written her all kinds of rambling letters.
The evidence is weak at best, but because that victim is high profile, the police moved fast. Whomever you have an idea”—she air quotes—“about might be worth discussing.”
I stay quiet.
Rita threads her long fingers together and rests them on her lap. “Who?”
“Doyle Arceneaux.”
Her eyes narrow. “Is that who you think left the plate?”
“I heard a truck that sounded like his that morning, in the driveway. But I didn’t get a good look. Something about Doyle doesn’t sit well with me.”
She nods. “Interesting family.”
“Do you know about his sister?”
Rita nods again. “Oh, I know about them all. And Emily Arceneaux has a strange story.”
“I’ve heard some of it. Not sure what’s local gossip and what’s the truth, though.”
“Did you know her?”
I shake my head.
Rita opens her phone and scrolls. “Emily Arceneaux. Youngest. Only daughter. Sickly kid. Lots of medical records but mostly just her mother bringing her to doctors, insisting she was ill. The jewel of her mother’s eye.
” She looks up from the phone. “But people in this town talked. Turns out there are several complaints on record about the Arceneaux mother, especially in regard to Eddie and her only daughter.”
“Munchausen syndrome by proxy,” I say.
Rita taps the end of her nose with her slender finger.
She opens her phone and scrolls again and looks up.
“Emily attended school until she was eight or nine. The teachers and even the school principal noted the little girl wasn’t ever sick, but the mother kept insisting the daughter was indeed ill.
They said in a statement in her file that Emily was a happy, healthy little girl.
For a time. There’s even a complaint from a local doctor about finding no evidence of illness, yet the mother insisted to the point the doctor had to call the police to have her removed from his office.
Then her mother pulled her out of school.
There’s a note about homeschooling but no proof Liv actually did it.
After that, Emily really was sick. There were a sprinkling of doctor visits where it was charted Emily had lost weight and looked malnourished.
I even found a child protective services visit to the Arceneaux house about a year after she was pulled from school.
A welfare check. Nothing came from it. Everything checked out. ”
Everything checked out. I sigh. I’ve heard countless stories over the years about welfare checks to homes where everything checked out, only to hear later of a negligent death in that very home.
It happens all too often with a broken system, exhausted state workers, and parents who can lie their way out of trouble.
I find it hard to believe that anything in the Arceneaux home would check out, but maybe back then, the house wasn’t so chaotic and messy.
Maybe back then, Liv had a better poker face.
Rita continues, “Rumor was her mother kept her locked up at home, treating her for illnesses she didn’t have.
Some say the woman was overprotective and fearful, some say she was negligent, and others say she was just plain crazy.
But whichever one she was, the fact remains, sick or not, that girl died in October of 1999.
” Rita pauses. Her eyes lock on mine. “And she was buried on her family’s property. ”
“What?” I gasp.
“Yep.”
The cross I’d seen outside the window of Emily’s bedroom. I shiver. “Is that legal?”
“It is. Thing is,” Rita adds with a sly smile, “she may not be buried there anymore.”
I gape at her. “What?” I repeat. It seems to be the only response I can say.
“The neighbors behind their property think Emily was dug up and moved at some point.”
“Why?” I think again of Liv and how she talked like Emily had disappeared. What if she had?
“Who knows? Could be a rumor. Nothing to back this one up but some nosy neighbors.” She crosses her legs and leans in. “I’m still working through it.”
“You’ve thought about Doyle Arceneaux too,” I say.
“I’ve thought about everyone. Unlike the police, I’m exploring every lead.”
She rolls her neck, checks her phone. It’s still recording. “Okay then,” she says, locking her gaze on mine. “Shall we change gears?”
I don’t answer her. My mind is reeling with the information she just shared, as it filters through what I know about that family. I need to talk to Travis sooner rather than later.
“Dr. Watters?” Rita says.
I refocus. “Yes?”
“I’d like to talk about you now.”
Any importance I placed on myself and my public humiliation has been overshadowed in a big way. It takes me a second to understand why Rita even cares about me anymore. But this is Rita Meade. She cares long after others don’t.
Sometimes I wish I could freeze life at one moment in my childhood when Mabry and I were happy. Ironically, that moment would be in Broken Bayou. One of the summers we caught fireflies or bobbed in the bayou, splashing water on each other, smelling the sunscreen in her hair the next morning.
Other times I want to skip over my childhood entirely, pretend it never happened. The sweet pain too much to bear. But my pain is what Rita wants, a twist to her story. And for reasons I can’t explain, I want to give it to her.
A story with a twist is the best kind.