Ciji Ware (59 page)

Virgil waved his hand around the empty hall. “What happened here today is likely just an intermission. You know what I’m sayin’, boss? If King and his preservationist pals are interested in savin’ those buildin’s, they’d better come up with some really good stuff that’ll tug at the heartstrings of this town between now and the next city council meetin’. It’s the only way.”

Corlis looked at Virgil sharply. “You got any particular suggestions along those lines?” she asked. She had come to understand that Virgil Johnson had never quite been the kind of disinterested fellow he presented to the world.

“Did you ever get around to readin’ Professor Barry Jefferson’s brochure he was passin’ out at the last meetin’?”

“Skimmed it,” Corlis replied impatiently. “I already know the background.”

“Well, girl, I suggest you read it
very
carefully,” he advised, handing her a copy. “I sure hope
King
has.”

Corlis glanced at the cover and opened the pamphlet to its fullest extension. Positioned in the center of the page were two oval engravings depicting the head and shoulders of well-dressed African Americans with bushy sideburns and top hats. They were attired in black business suits with starched white collars and neckcloths. In a box below, Corlis scanned a description of the lives of “two Free Men of Color whose success as tailors in the employ of white men-of-fashion in the late 1830s resulted in their joining forces with merchant Paul Tulane, Free Woman of Color Martine Fouché, the French Creole grande dame Marie Lavaudais, sugar and cotton exporter Julien LaCroix, and saddlery owner David Bates in a consortium to construct a commercial-residential block of buildings on Canal Street.”

“So?” Corlis said. “I know all this.”

“For a smart woman, you are sometimes real dopey, boss lady,” Virgil said with an exasperated expression, pointing at the pictorial rendering of one of the tailors. “Now, what does it say right there under their portraits, will you please tell me?”

Reading aloud Corlis murmured, “‘J. Colvis, Tailor’… and ‘Joseph Dumas, Tailor.’” Then her mouth formed a little
O
. Eyes wide, she stared at Virgil and grinned. “Dumas! Dumas!” she exclaimed. “As in city council president Edgar
Dumas
!”
She threw her arms around the video operator. “Virgil, you are a blooming
genius
!
It sure might give Edgar pause if he knew he was voting to tear down a piece of
his own family’s
history.”

“Well, you gotta somehow prove Edgar’s a direct descendant of this tailor guy, but… ain’t New Orleans a grand place?” he said, grinning widely. “It’s the only city in America where there’s a real good chance that everybody—black or white—is related to
everybody else
!”

By this time, however, Corlis was already sprinting through the auditorium toward the double doors at the top of the aisle, praying that her cell phone battery hadn’t died.

***

“Aunt Marge, you’ve just
got
to FedEx the diary!” Corlis pleaded over the telephone. “I can’t wait for you to go photocopy it. I need it
now
! It could be an important starting place for tracking down specific information about Joseph Dumas, and it might give me some clues for finding out if the city council president is a direct descendant. There’s a slew of Dumases in the telephone book, so I’ve got to narrow it down. I’ve got to have absolute proof. And besides, I have no idea when the council will meet again to decide the fate of the buildings, once and for all. They could order demolition on a moment’s notice. I
need
that diary.”

“Now, Corlis, calm down,” her aunt admonished. “This is primary source evidence. I’m not about to let it out of my hands without a copy, and that’s final! I’ll see what I can do about getting this reproduced tomorrow and send it along immediately.”

Corlis recognized her aunt’s implacable tone of voice and took a new approach. “Well… can you tell me if you remember coming across the name Joseph Dumas in the diary?” she implored. “Any little lead, at this point, would be helpful.”

“Dumas… Dumas…” Aunt Marge muttered into the phone receiver, and Corlis could picture the old lady squinting through her spectacles as she thumbed the diary’s brittle, yellowed pages. “My stars, but this is spidery script! Wait one moment, dear… I’ll have to get the magnifying glass. I’m having a little trouble with my eyes lately. They’re just not as sharp as they once were.”

“Oh… look,” Corlis conceded gently. “It’s too hard for you to do it this way. Just do the best you can to get a copy to me right away, will you, darling?”

“If I can get a ride to the copying place, I’ll try to get it done this afternoon, dear.” There was a pause. “And how’s that nice young man I talked to that time? Mr. Duvallon?”

“He’s a source,” Corlis replied neutrally. “So we don’t socialize these days.”

“Ah… yes… well, then,” Aunt Marge conceded. “The next time you run into him on the story, please do send my regards. I liked his voice.”

“I will tell him that you send your best,” Corlis promised, wondering to herself
when
that would ever be.

By noon the next day she also had reason to wonder when—or if—she would ever receive a copy of the McCullough diary. The FedEx delivery never arrived, and the latest message on her home voice mail was alarming.

“Now, I don’t want you to worry, dear,” a fragile-sounding Marge McCullough said, “but I had a minor fall when I was going through those heavy doors at the copy shop. The good news is the doctor said I’ve only bruised my hip and my right shoulder and arm. The paramedics were so nice… One of them said he’d drive me home from the emergency room when he goes off duty. I didn’t want you to wonder why you hadn’t received the diary. I’m so sorry to have disappointed you.”

Corlis closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. This had long been the kind of call she had dreaded receiving from California. “Poor baby,” she murmured into the receiver.

“And don’t worry about the McCullough diary,” Aunt Marge’s message continued. “Those dear people at the copy shop made sure it was put in my bag when the ambulance came. I’ll be home soon. I’m sure I’ll be able to work my email with my left hand, and I’ll write you a note, just so you know I’m fine, so don’t spend money calling California. Love you, dear.”

Aunt Marge was something else, Corlis thought admiringly. What an old warhorse she was. Disregarding her aunt’s directive, she quickly dialed Marge’s number and was dismayed when the voice mail picked up. Corlis left a message of love and sympathy and hung up.

Well, so much for getting the diary to New Orleans any time soon, she fretted, gazing around her home office. Nevertheless, she
had
to find out more about that tailor, Joseph Dumas—and fast! Furthermore, what had happened to her namesake, Corlis Bell McCullough, when she was tossed from the carriage, right in front of the door downstairs? Had her two young sons, Warren and Webster McCullough, lost their mother to that accident? Had Julien LaCroix died from yellow fever? And what had happened to Martine Fouché?

Just then Cagney Cat startled Corlis by hoisting his furry bulk from floor to desk. He settled comfortably near the phone and stared at her with a beady gaze. An idea… a bizarre, off-the-wall idea that she would never repeat to another living soul—but one—sprang to mind. She quickly looked up Dylan Fouché’s telephone number at his real estate office and dialed.

“I need your help,” she said briskly, and proceeded to detail her last odd excursion into the nineteenth century, which had been launched from Julien’s former study when they’d shot video at Reverie Plantation.

“I thought you looked pretty wigged-out that day,” he drawled, “especially when you let that terror behind the wheel, Althea, drive your Lexus back to New Orleans.”

“Believe me, the modern version of absinthe is still pretty lethal stuff, even when you just inhale it.”

“And so you think that the fumes from the decanter of absinthe whisked you back to those days in New Orleans, before the Civil War?” Dylan asked thoughtfully.

“
And
the incense at Saint Louis Cathedral,
and
the lilies in my apartment,
and
the pralines at the old warehouse,” she added impatiently. “What I want to know, Dylan, is how in hell can I get back to the tailor shop of Joseph Dumas—or the deathbed of Julien LaCroix, for that matter? Do I have to start sniffing a spool of tailor’s thread or a vial of carbolic acid?”

“What a good idea!”

“Give me a break!” Corlis retorted. “I was kidding! But can you put me into a trance or something? Ask me to recall the past?”

“I don’t think it would be reliable at this point,” Dylan mused. “You’re too anxious about figuring it all out. Whatever you came up with could be merely a product of your own projection… your own wish to come up with an answer—even one invented by your subconscious mind.”

“Well, what do you suggest?” Corlis asked, feeling foolish for even hinting at the possibility of conducting genuine research into the past in such an unorthodox fashion.

“Sit tight,” Dylan announced suddenly. He appeared to have settled something in his own mind. “I’ll be right over. And after you hang up from this call, unplug your phone, and don’t answer the door until I get there!”

***

The shades were drawn in Corlis’s back bedroom, making her enormous four-poster plantation bed appear to loom even larger than it was. In the sepulchral light, its luxurious yellow brocade hangings cascaded from the canopy, much like a stage curtain.

Dylan placed a briefcase on the bedspread and opened the metal catches. Inside were a number of unusual items, including a feather, a box of matches, a thick ivory candle about six inches high, and a brown glass vial.

“Carbolic acid?” Corlis asked dryly.

“Close,” Dylan chuckled. He withdrew the silver bell he had used during his space-clearing session, and a soft linen cloth. “Why don’t you recline on that chaise longue over there?”

She did exactly as Dylan had instructed and lay down. She eyed the brown glass vial. “How’s
that
going to flip me into Dumas’s tailor shop?”

“It probably won’t,” Dylan responded calmly, dripping a bit of the liquid from the bottle onto the piece of clean linen. “I think we should stick with the types of circumstances that have sent you backward in time on previous occasions.”

“And you think reclining on a chaise like Blanche DuBois in
A Streetcar Named Desire
will help?” Corlis teased.

“Did you know that Desire is the name of a
street
in New Orleans, and it had a streetcar on it in Tennessee Williams’s day?”

“Do tell?” Corlis replied with a smile. “Actually, about twenty people told me that the first week after I moved here.” Then she said quietly, “You know… I’m actually kind of scared. Maybe I’m asking questions I don’t want to know the answers to.”

“It’ll be all right,” Dylan assured her, patting her shoulder. “I’ll be right here with you. I won’t let anything bad happen.” Dylan closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Corlis guessed that the former Catholic seminarian was saying a prayer and closed her eyes as well. “Now,” Dylan instructed, “just start takin’ deep, calmin’ breaths. That’s right… in and out… in… and out. Empty your mind of all extraneous thoughts while I light this candle and place it beside you so you can gaze at its flame. Just breathe in… and out… that’s good. Now open your eyes and focus them on the flickerin’ flame and breathe evenly… deeply. Good. Now close your eyes again and cleanse your body and mind of everythin’ but the sound of your breathin’. That’s right. Inhale… exhale…”

Dylan’s hypnotic, melodious voice had a tranquilizing effect, and before long Corlis began to feel wonderfully relaxed as she concentrated solely on the sound and sensation of her own breath. She smelled a strange, pungent odor, but she kept her eyes closed, as she knew Dylan would ask her to do if she opened them to identify the medicinal scent.

It was an oddly familiar aroma, she thought idly, an odor that spoke of the sickroom and fainting spells. She inhaled deeply. An acrid smell bloomed all around her, as if to rouse her from her state of stupor, rather than put her into a trance.

The scent grew stronger still—biting, astringent, and quite unpleasant. Then her eyes began to water, and Corlis was forced to swim to the surface of complete consciousness when all she longed to do was sleep… and sleep…

***

“Out of the way, girl!” barked a gruff voice. “I’m a doctor. These smelling salts should do the trick!”

“Mrs. McCullough! Oh, dear God, sir… She won’t wake up!
Mrs. McCullough
!”

Corlis Bell McCullough was able to identify the high-pitched squawk of Hetty, her children’s mammy, but for the life of her, she was unable to open her eyes so that she might insist that the hysterical woman lower her voice.