Fever Moon (35 page)

Raymond stood with the gun raised. The sheriff scooped Adele into his arms and stepped inside the house. The door slammed, and suddenly Raymond was engulfed in a stampede of men pushing to get away from the priest’s house.

They scattered in all directions, and Raymond was left alone with Bernadette. She lay on the grass on her side, her back to him. He walked forward, stopping when he was only inches from her. He knelt and rolled her onto her back. Her sightless eyes gazed into the sun, as if she, too, sought to catch a glimpse of a hawk.

R
AYMOND stood outside the bedroom he’d occupied only two days before. Doc Fletcher was with Adele. Had been with her for most of the afternoon and evening. He wouldn’t leave her side—except to consult with other doctors on the phone. He’d ordered everyone except his wife from the room.

A small, screened porch offered Raymond a place to sit in privacy, and he eased his body into an old rocking chair. The pain in his back was constant, a grinding of bone. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He’d found Marguerite’s car and determined that the tires matched the tread marks he’d found in Madame’s yard. He couldn’t be certain now whether Bernadette or Marguerite had paid a visit to Adele at Madame’s and slipped her more of the fungus-laden bread. Unless Adele came to her senses, he’d never know. Not that it mattered to anyone but him.

He’d been waiting for hours for word on Adele. John had rushed to Baton Rouge with the grass, bread, and jar of meal. He’d twisted arms at the university, calling in favors from colleagues, and had called back to report that the fungus was indeed ergot, common enough in grasses and grains in the Dakotas but also found in Southern states. Severe hallucinations, and a few other unpleasant side effects, occurred when it was ingested. Deadly in cattle if eaten for long periods, the effects in humans hadn’t been studied. There might be the possibility of recurring episodes. Blood vessel constriction might cause a form of gangrene. The best anyone could say was that if Adele lived long enough the effects might wear off. Might.

The coroner had collected Bernadette’s body. There would be no autopsy for her. The Bastion boys were on the way to the home of their Mandeville relatives in New Orleans. Joe had packed them off posthaste, and Raymond suppressed a smile as he thought of a refined New Orleans family attempting to deal with their lawlessness. The boys needed discipline and love, and he could only hope someone would supply both for them.

The sound of footsteps approaching on the wooden floor halted his thoughts. Clifton Hebert stepped onto the porch.

“She going to live, her?” he asked Raymond.

“I don’t know.” Raymond stood. “She’s on the edge, Clifton.” He hesitated. “I didn’t have a choice with Bernadette.”

Clifton shifted so that his gaze rested on the Teche. He cleared his throat. “Bernadette was jealous. Of Adele. Of Rosa. It was a sickness with her. Maybe now she can rest.”

“Why did she do this?”

“When Bernadette took up with Henri, I knew bad times were comin’. I talked to her, but she wouldn’t listen.” Clifton sighed. “Henri hankered for Adele, but she never had no use for him.”

“Were the twins his?”

Clifton rubbed his beard. “Adele never said. If she’d said, I woulda kilt him for her.”

Raymond reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. “All along, it was Bernadette who was the wolf. Never Adele.” He struck a match and lit a cigarette.

“Praytor was greedy, him,” Clifton said. “He argue with Henri ‘bout the money from the liquor. Praytor say Henri was cheatin’ him. I heard them. Praytor say he gone get even. Henri, he just laugh like a big joke.”

“This information might have been useful earlier.” Raymond was too tired to chastise Clifton further. “So Praytor had the motive, and Bernadette came up with the scapegoat. Adele. She hated Adele because Henri fancied her.”

“Adele never wanted more than to love her babies, but Bernadette could never see that, her.” Clifton walked to the edge of the porch. “I never thought Bernadette would harm Adele.”

“All Marguerite had to do was convince that fool Praytor that she’d marry him once Henri was dead.” Raymond walked to the edge of the porch beside Clifton and dropped his half-smoked cigarette into the dirt. They both stood looking over the Teche.

Clifton hesitated. “You won’t take my dogs, you?”

“Your dogs?” Raymond saw the truth in Clifton’s eyes. “Doc said the bodies were bitten by an animal. Not a wolf, though. Bernadette borrowed your dogs the night Henri died, didn’t she?”

Raymond could see it clearly. Henri walking down the road in his usual pattern after having sex with Bernadette. Except this time Bernadette followed him to the place where Praytor was waiting with the dogs. Praytor accosted Henri, striking him hard enough to bring him down. “Once Henri was mortally wounded, Bernadette got the dogs to attack him.”

Shifting his weight slightly, Clifton took a breath. “My dogs do only what they told to do, them.”

Raymond lit his cigarette. “Keep those dogs out of town, Clifton. I don’t want to see them again.”

Silence stretched between the two men. Raymond considered all that had been lost. Bernadette, Marguerite, and Praytor were all dead. He’d put together the pieces of the puzzle and created a picture, but he would never be certain who’d first come up with the scheme. Even if Adele survived, Doc said she probably wouldn’t remember.

“Thank you, Deputy Thibodeaux.” Clifton stepped down from the porch and disappeared into the darkness. “Adele will thank you, if she lives.”

Raymond remained standing. Sitting was hardest on his back, and though he felt a need to walk, he didn’t want to leave Adele. It was an illusion that his presence helped her fight to live, but he clung to the notion.

A shadow stepped into the moonlight on the lawn and Raymond’s body grew still. The figure of a woman walked toward him, a figure cast in the silver glow of light.

“Madame,” he said when he recognized her. “You gave me a start.”

She took the hand he offered as he assisted her up the steps of the porch. “How is Adele?”

“Doc won’t say. It’s a waiting game now.” He hesitated. “Would you look at her?”

“Dr. Fletcher might not like an old woman from the swamps meddling with his patient.”

Raymond couldn’t see her features, but he heard the amusement in her voice. Madame had never greatly cared what men of the medical profession thought of her. “It can be our secret,” he said. “She’s right in here.” He led her to the casement windows that opened wide and deep enough to be used as doors.

Florence sat on one of the benches in the small city park. During the summer the oak-shaded playground was filled with the laughter of children, and Florence avoided the place. Today, though, the chill November weather had sent the children home to fireplaces and kitchens filled with the smell of cooking gumbo. The park was empty, the swings creaking in the occasional breeze that fluttered more oak leaves to the ground.

Stella and Vincent Matthews were at the church where Michael Finley was attempting to console them about their mother’s death. Their father had been found in Houma and was on his way back to New Iberia.

Florence had chosen to avoid that scene. Death was always the visitor that stole away loved ones, and Florence had no real comfort to offer the children. Telling them that Bernadette was a murdering bitch wouldn’t help. No matter what she’d done, the children still loved her.

All parents marked their children. Sitting on the hard park bench, Florence saw how her life had been shaped by the scars of her own mother’s guilt and remorse.

Even so, Florence wanted a child. Two actually. A boy and a girl. No matter that she’d convinced herself otherwise in the past, she knew her heart now. She would make her mistakes, and the children would suffer for her past, but there would also be love. And love compensated for all the errors.

She pulled her sweater closer around her neck. The day was long gone, the temperatures dropping steadily. Across the park and beyond the Teche, stars scattered across the black sky. It was time to go home.

Florence stared at her hands, still plump and youthful. They were soft hands, because she’d done little manual labor. She’d chosen a means of making a living that didn’t require calluses on her palms. In doing so, she’d lived within the boundaries of her scars. That was over and done.

She shifted on the bench. Either Raymond would come or not. If he had feelings for her, he’d act on them, and together they’d begin to build the future. If his love wasn’t strong enough, she would move on. There was a house in a neighborhood of quiet streets and soft shade. That was her destiny, and she would claim it.

Standing beside Adele’s bed, Raymond picked up her hand and stroked the torn flesh and slender fingers.

“Call her, Raymond.” Madame stood at the window, almost more shadow than real. “Call her back. She can hear you.”

“Adele.” Raymond leaned close to whisper her name. When he looked at the window, Madame was gone. “Adele, can you hear me?”

Doc had said she might lose her fingers and toes. Only time would tell how Adele would heal. “Adele.” He whispered her name.

The light from a lamp warmed her face, and though Raymond knew it was a trick, he was glad for it. He touched her cheek lightly.

“Adele.”

Her eyes opened, and her gaze found him. Confusion touched her face. “What have I done, me?” She started to struggle, but Raymond touched her chest, lightly pressing her back into the bed.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “You’re very sick. Stay still.”

“My babies.” Tears touched her eyes.

“Tomorrow Father Finley and some men are going to find your babies, and Rosa, and bring them to the church cemetery.”

Tears slipped down her temples. Her hand, so weak, pressed his fingers.

“You were poisoned, Adele.”

She glanced at the window, transfixed for a moment by the darkness.

Raymond stroked her hand. “Bernadette is dead.”

Adele closed her eyes, and for a moment, Raymond thought she’d gone to sleep. “Henri was the father of my babies, but I didn’t kill him.”

Raymond cast about for something he could say, something he could hold out to her for a lifeline. She’d lost everything she ever loved. Her own sister had tried to kill her. And then he remembered. “I saw Dugas. He’s well.”

Her eyes fluttered once, twice, and opened.

“Armand.” Her voice was little stronger than the wind whispering through the dying leaves. Her eyes closed.

He put her hand on the sheet and stood. “Sleep well, Adele.”

He closed the door softly and walked through the house and out onto the lawn. The town had settled into winter quiet. As he walked the streets, his footsteps echoing on the sidewalk, he wondered how the violence of the afternoon could fade away so quickly. He walked past the sheriff’s office, past the movie theater, past the drugstore. His feet moved toward Florence’s house. He had no idea if she would welcome him or not. He’d given her so little of himself in the past, because so much of him had been dead. Adele had taught him something. He chose life. Through all the death and loss and the pain that crept down his spine, he wanted to live.

He turned back toward Main Street. Before he did anything else he wanted to wash up. Florence liked a neat man, and if he was going to try to convince her to give him another chance, he wanted to be clean.

John and Chula walked toward him, arm in arm. He’d never seen Chula happier. “You made a quick trip to Baton Rouge,” he said.

“Amazing what a man can do when a woman inspires him.”

Raymond pulled the pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shook one out for John.

“Thanks.” John took the smoke and the matches and lit up. “It’s a vile habit, Thibodeaux. I’m going to quit as soon as Chula and I say our vows. I was wondering if you might stand up for me as my best man.”

The invitation caught Raymond unawares. “Are you sure?”

“You’re the best man I know, so you’re perfect for the job.” John patted Raymond’s arm. “We hired a lawyer today to start adoption for Sarah Bastion. She’s asleep back with Thomasina.”

“Looks like you’re getting a wife
and a
. family.” Raymond felt a knot in his throat. “Congratulations.”

“We saw Florence in the park.”

“In the park?” Raymond was surprised. “I was planning on talking to her after I cleaned up.”

“She looked like she was doing some serious thinking.” Chula reached out to straighten the collar of Raymond’s shirt. “I think you’d better get over there right now and see if you can’t turn her thinking toward you. Else you might lose her.”

“Thanks.” Raymond glanced down the empty street toward the park. “Thank you both.” He started walking. Behind him he could hear Chula’s clear laugh and John’s soft chuckle. The cold November night bit his ears and nose, and he increased his pace. Ahead of him a pale crescent moon tipped the treetops.

All of my previous books have been set in Mississippi, my home state, but Louisiana has always held a fascination for me, from the wicked temptations of pre-Katrina New Orleans to the primal pull of the swamps, one of the few places left where nature still reigns. I have to credit two people, James Lee Burke and Dianne Agee, with making that world accessible to me. Burke took me there with his fiction, and Dianne took me there in the flesh. It is her home, and it was such an adventure to share it with her, even briefly.

In one instance in the book I’ve skewed time a bit. Although the practice of leasing convicts for labor was in use throughout the United States, much of it stopped in the early 1900s, as it did in Louisiana.

The idea for
Fever Moon
came from an image, one of the first in the book—Adele guarding the body of Henri Bastion, much as a dog guards a food bowl. From there, it was my job to figure out why she was there, what had happened to her, and who Henri Bastion was that he deserved such a fate.

My editor, Kelley Ragland, and my agent, Marian Young, gave comments and criticisms that were insightful, helpful, and enriched the story and the characters. Good criticism is a hot commodity in the writing world. I’m blessed.