Courir De Mardi Gras (26 page)

She didn’t own the man, hadn’t even wanted him until that night in the cabin when dull, stable George turned out to be a devil in the sack. Ironically, George St. Julien was her ideal man—steady, nice, and a wonderful lover. Now, he despised her for meddling and wanted Cherie Angers. Magnolia Hill had no bodies under the beds but plenty of skeletons in the closet. She simply couldn’t resist dragging them out and dusting them off like forgotten priceless antiques. Everyone had been unmasked now, thanks to the interference of Suzanne Hudson.

The telephone rang. Hoping George called, she got halfway down the stairs in an instant, but Birdie answered.

“Oh, no, oh Lawd, Lawd,” she kept saying softly to the voice on the line. Hanging up, the housekeeper sat in the chair by the phone and wept.

“What is it?” Suzanne asked. “Is it George? Your son? What happened?”

“Doc Sonny’s dead. Took his own life this afternoon. Odette St. Julien done heard it from the Sonnier’s maid. Left a long letter saying to his wife how he was a liar, an adulterer, and a thief, and asking for her forgiveness. Left letters for his children and Mr. George. They say he went into Opelousas with his son after he finished his morning appointments. Come back an hour or so later and said he would be going up to his bedroom to rest before the afternoon patients, give himself a shot of something in the arm, and died.”

Birdie didn’t say it, but Suzanne knew what she thought. This was the city girl’s fault, all her prying Yankee fault. Rip off the mask and some men crumbled, some stood tall, and some men showed an entirely different nature.

Paul was like that, a man in a mask, impeccably dressed and well-mannered, a methodical perfectionist but underneath filled with rage. What had his last letter said? “I’m coming to get you,” just what they all said, another note to be disregarded and thrown in the trash. What if George had been telling the truth and hadn’t gone to Cherie’s room or tussled with her on the balcony? Had Paul come last night and found Cherie Angers in her bed? Had the kidnapped Cherie taken a knife meant for Suzanne and wielded by a serial killer from Philadelphia?

She knew which bed she would have to lie in that night. The one she had made for herself—and she’d be sleeping in it alone. Sure, she could call Sheriff Duval and share more of her fine crime solving skills with him. He would love that. He was probably going to be one of Jefferson Sonnier’s pallbearers. Besides, she hadn’t kept even one of Paul’s letters. No evidence to show. No blood, no knife in the room, only a missing woman who had slept where Suzanne should have been, an old flame who thought at one a.m. her former boyfriend wanted to play wicked games. Cherie had laughed when Paul carried her away. Could she still laugh now?

Birdie, upset by Doc Sonny’s suicide, went home early. George did not return, and the dark set in. Having creeped herself out with her theory about Paul, Suzanne stayed dressed in practical clothes—jeans and a shirt—and tucked a carving knife from the kitchen under her pillow. She put out the lights and drew the covers up to her chin. She lay there, so tense and afraid she quaked under the quilts. Near midnight, she heard a sound at the window. A dark figure filled the frame. The sash jerked so hard the ancient latch snapped open. Clutching her knife, she prayed.

“Oh, please, God, let it be George in his mask and cape. Let this all be for fun where no one dies and everyone lives happily ever after. Please!”

The person leaning over the bed was not George. Suzanne stared up at the face concealed by a black ski mask and tried to rip the butcher knife from under her pillow. His hand clamped on her wrist. He took the knife away easily, twisted her arm behind her back, and hauled his former girlfriend from the bed. Suzanne figured she deserved to suffer for the pain she’d given Paul, George, Birdie, and most of all, Doc Sonny.

Chapter Nineteen

Linc’s story

Linc came home from school and found the Ghost working out with the weights, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up and his tie undone like he’d come directly from the office.

“So how could you blow it with Suzanne in just two days, man! When I picked you up at the lake and dropped you off at the Hill, I thought I’d fixed everything up just fine, and here you are working it out with the weights.”

“A lot can happen in two days,” he told Linc.

“Such as…”

“Such as Cherry Fontaine showing up and disappearing. Such as finding out Birdie and Jeff Sonnier stole the silver.”

“What you say!”

The Ghost was still filling in Brother Linc when the phone rang, and Doris came out to get her husband. His mama had called with the news about Jefferson Sonnier. Suicide, she said. He told the Ghost the call was nothing and let him finish what he had to say. All the while Linc wondered how he would tell George that Doc Sonny killed himself. Knowing how his friend felt about the man, thinking Doc should have been his father, not old philandering, hard-drinking Jacques, Ghost would take it hard. Meanwhile, George kept talking about this good man who had kept a promise to a dead woman and tried to spare her son. All mixed up in this were Cherry Fontaine and Suzanne Hudson, the past and the future. Still working on his words, Linc noticed when Sheriff Duval drove up in his squad car.

Funny how a sight like that in these liberated times can still cause a black family to retreat, the children to seek their mama, the wife to move toward her husband. Having the law in your driveway never meant any good in the old neighborhood. The men in uniform rarely came to protect or to serve, only to question and to take people away, but the Man wasn’t looking for Linc this time. Sheriff Duval wanted George.

“Miss Breaux told me you was out here. Guess you heard about Jeff Sonnier taking his own life this afternoon.”

George dropped the bar he pressed into the rack. The sweat on his cheeks looked a little like tears as it ran down to his chin.

“Doc left several long letters and a will all signed and witnessed. You get whatever we find in that cistern tomorrow, but that’s not what I come about, George.”

Linc shook George’s arm to make sure he listened. Not paying attention to the Law when it talks can lead to trouble.

“We checked out your old girlfriend, Mrs. Angers, with her ex-husband down in New Orleans and asked around town if anyone saw her since yesterday. They all said no, but Evelyn Patout over at the museum claimed a stranger came in yesterday morning who didn’t want her tour or any historical information at all—a stocky blond fellow driving a light blue rent car. First, I thought Mr. Angers had hired someone to tail his ex. Maybe he wanted to be sure she didn’t sell off any of those antiques she took with her before their settlement. But, it turns out this blond guy only wanted directions to Magnolia Hill. Said he had a friend living up there named Suzanne Hudson, and did Miss Evelyn know her. Sure, Miss Evelyn says, and he’d better hurry up and get there because George St. Julien and that girl have been out on the town together, and Suzanne thinks she’s too good for any other man in Port Jefferson. Leave it to a Patout, even one by marriage, to stir things up. Anyhow, this guy gets sort of red in the face and stomps out.”

“Hippo down at Joe’s Lounge says he ain’t seen any strange red-headed women, just one fair-haired guy who come in late afternoon and wanted to know where he could rent a boat. Hippo told him Alcide Porrier would rent most anything he owned for the right price and gave the fellow directions. The man drove a light blue sedan. Some of the regulars at Joe’s seen it parked along Front Street when they left around one a.m. Hippo says it wasn’t there at three when he went home. George, I think your lady friend’s been kidnapped.”

“It should have been Suzanne,” George said, looking like a weight had dropped on his foot.

“Would have helped Jeff Sonnier some if he’d took the Yankee gal last night,” the sheriff agreed.

“No, I mean Cherie was sleeping in Suzanne’s bed. Suzanne has been getting weird letters from some man back in Philadelphia. All they ever said was that he’d come to get her and then a lot of…well, descriptions of bondage. No threats against her life, but sick just the same. I pulled one out of the trash the other day when she seemed upset. After that, if I saw another in the mail, I threw it out. The guy sounded like some kind of psycho.”

“If he is a psycho, he might make another try for Suzanne if we give him the chance. Probably, he didn’t figure on two young women staying at your house. Since he wants to do things to her, he won’t kill her right away. He could lead us right to Mrs. Angers. What say you don’t get home tonight, George, in case he’s watching the house?”

“Suzanne could be dead before you stopped him.”

“And if we don’t catch him, she could still end up dead.”

Linc admired the sheriff’s reasoning until he realized George was demanding to go along on the stakeout at the Hill. He started to say, “Look, George, we ain’t playing Devil’s Horseman here. Let the law handle it,” when George volunteered his buddy to go along, too. The sheriff deputized them faster than Linc could back out. It looked like he and the Ghost were going to be spending more time together hunched in the magnolia thickets at the Hill waiting for another man to carry off Suzanne Hudson.

Chapter Twenty

George’s story

The dew started to settle, but too much of a man to admit it, George felt cold in his shirtsleeves and cold around the heart, too. This is what came of wanting Suzanne to see him as desirable to another woman, not just some clown who had to dress up in costume to get her attention. He’d used Cherry as she had used him years ago, but kidnapping and murder made it an unequal trade.

He had plenty of time that moonlit night to lay blame. Finally, it came to rest, not on Suzanne, but on his mother for setting the whole chain into motion. Jefferson Sonnier’s foot got caught in that chain, and it dragged him into the grave with her. By Virginia Lee St. Julien’s code, appearance mattered—a marriage that appeared valid, silver plate that appeared to be sterling. Had she simply appeared to be a mother worried about her son’s future when her real concern was saving Magnolia Hill as a monument to herself—even if it made her lover a thief and her son a liar?

The hum of a small outboard on the bayou drowned out the whine of the early crop of mosquitoes spawned by the flood and feasting on their arms and ankles. Tough to watch the man come up from the water, a shadow in the shadows, moving toward Suzanne’s room where the lights had gone out an hour ago, and not move a muscle. He passed the clump of trees where Linc and George hid, long-legged birds in the bush. Sheriff Duval and a regular deputy squatted behind the big azaleas near the entry.

The kidnapper, Paul, the name on the letters, went up the stairs to the upper gallery. He entered Suzanne’s room by the window, giving it a mighty shove. George waited for her screams, for Sheriff Duval to surge from his hiding place. Nothing happened.

He wanted to move so badly his leg twitched and caught Linc in the shin. Linc gasped but sucked up most of the sound. The night stayed quiet, not a noise but a few plopping fish this close to the bayou. With Suzanne completely dressed, she and her kidnapper stepped out of the window and moved down the steps. The man wore a ski mask covering his face and the pale hair that would have shown in the moonlight. Why didn’t she scream or run? George waited for the sheriff to strike. Damn him, the law did not make a move.

As the pair came closer, the rays of the moon glinted on the knife pressed into Suzanne’s back. He remained quiet as he’d been told to do. The couple passed the trees to the river beyond. Not being able to see the abductor’s face upset him internally. You can tell a man’s intent by looking him in the eyes, which way he will toss a ball, when he is faking an injury. He wanted to knock the guy to the ground and tear off the mask, but, obeying orders, George waited until the noise of the small boat motor buzzed out of hearing.

Linc broke a branch of the magnolia in his hurry to get down. George was already out, running for the bayou when the sheriff radioed to his squad car in town to keep an eye on the blue sedan. He took the path along the river, a direct line into town, quicker than the roads. Linc pounded along behind him. Struggling with the mud left behind by the storm, he kept going down, once near the spot where Linc had waited with the pirogue. Linc pulled him up. Mud-soaked, glasses splattered, George finally reached Front Street. No light blue sedan in sight.

A squad car crept from its hiding place in the alley like a stray cat not sure of its welcome. George pounded on the deputies’ window to let them in. They did, behind the grate they used to separate the sane and the law abiding from the crazies and the criminals. He swore at them to get going, but the officers explained that volunteer deputies were stationed along all the roads leading out of town. They would pick out the sedan and follow in an unmarked vehicle.

Forced to sit and listen to the radio’s blare marking the progress of the light blue sedan, George fidgeted, bumping Linc with his elbows and knees as the culprit and his prey moved farther and farther away. The last voice to come over the air belonged to Billy Patout.

“Shoot,” he said. “Didn’t I just go and lose them somewhere on the old Baton Rouge road?”

Damn that Billy Patout. He did this just to get revenge for the brawl in Joe’s Lounge, George believed. He banged on the grill separating him and Linc from the cops.

“I know where he took her. Let’s get moving.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Suzanne’s story

The worst part was being in the trunk. Suzanne feared suffocation. Paul taped her mouth and tied her hands before locking her into the small, dark place, an insecure womb smelling of gas fumes, where she curled with her knees under her chin. She wanted to gulp air, but the tape across her mouth prevented that and also screaming for help from any late night denizens of Joe’s Lounge. The trunk is not airtight, she reasoned. Breathe evenly. You will be all right. You will. You will. Doesn’t want to kill you, only do obscene things to your body. Maybe, if he weren’t the Philly Slasher, but what if he was? Not a comforting thought. You will be all right. She mentally repeated her not so calming mantra.