Murder in a Minor Key (27 page)

Sometime later, Beatrice pulled on the reins and Keats came to a stop on the levee along Lake Pontchartrain. Napoleon hopped off the driver’s bench and held out his hand for me.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

“There are no roads where you want to go,” he replied. “We have to take a boat.” He pointed to a flat-bottomed touring craft with rows of four seats across the beam, tied up at a terraced concrete seawall. “I need some money,” he said apologetically. “We have to pay the captain.”

While Napoleon negotiated with the “captain,” a boy of about sixteen, I experience a twinge of trepidation that I had put myself into the hands of all these youngsters. But the boat looked sturdy enough, bobbing up and down as the wake made by larger vessels on the water reached the wall.

“Okay, we’re set to go,” Napoleon told me. “Beatrice will meet us when we get back.”

The young captain, whose sea legs were better than mine, stood in the center of the boat and rode out the swells. He grasped my left hand and Napoleon took my right, and they guided me to the closest seat.

“I forgot to tell you when you called, if I don’t get this back by two, my father will kill me,” the captain told Napoleon. “He’s got a tour group this afternoon.”

“No sweat. We’ve got lots of time.”

Napoleon dropped into the seat next to mine, and the young helmsman untied the lines and pushed off from the wall. He walked to the front of the boat, picked up two orange life vests, and dropped them at our feet. I struggled into mine, but Napoleon left his on the floor. We moved away from the concrete mooring slowly, but once clear of it, the captain opened the throttle. The wind whipped my hair and stung my eyes as the boat flew across the choppy water of the silver lake, and I put on my sunglasses to protect my eyes from the airstream. We cut across the wake of a yacht, and our boat tipped up in the air and slammed down in the water, spray rising on both sides of the bow and raining down on us. My arms were covered with water droplets, and tiny dark spots appeared on the parts of my blue blouse not covered by the life jacket.

“Can you get him to slow down?” I shouted to Napoleon, who was leaning back in his seat with both arms stretched along the tops of the adjacent chairs.

“What?” he yelled back.

I shouted my request again, and he reluctantly turned around and motioned to the captain.

At a slightly reduced speed, I began to enjoy being on the lake, although our competition for the right of way was daunting. Speedboats, sailboats, slower-moving tugboats, and fishing boats moved at various angles across the water, with no stoplights or yield signs to control the traffic. Fortunately, our young captain seemed to know the lay of the lake, and we zipped along, slowing down only when its breadth began to narrow. Ahead of us was a marina. We bypassed the piers and, instead, turned into a wide bayou.

Immediately, the air was still, thick with humidity and the sounds of insects and birds in the trees lining the waterway. Our captain chose a smaller branch and we glided up the stream, disturbing a great blue heron, which lifted into the air at our approach, its six-foot wing span creating a fleeting shadow over the boat. The water was dark, covered with patches of green algae, and the tupelo, gum, and cypress trees pressed in on us until there was no longer a distinct shoreline; we were surrounded by water and woods. There wasn’t a sign of civilization until the captain rounded a curve to bring us to a rickety dock balanced on long poles sunk into the murky water. Tied up beneath the wooden platform was a small red pirogue, a Louisiana canoe.

“I’ll wait two hours,” the captain told Napoleon. “After that, I’m gone, so you better be here.”

“No problem,” Napoleon replied. As our boat knocked against one of the pilings, he leaned over, grabbed the rope that tied the smaller vessel, and pulled it toward him. “You can leave the life jacket here, Mrs. Fletcher,” he said. “You can stand up in this water, although I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Why not?”

“Leeches,” he replied. “Snakes, frogs, alligators. Lots of wildlife lives in this soup.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said.

“You might want this,” he added, tossing me an aerosol can of insect repellent. I took his advice and sprayed my exposed skin.

The captain took the rope from Napoleon and held the canoe steady while we stepped into it. There was not a lot of room for both of us. Napoleon sat in the stem. I sat in the bow, facing him. Our knees were barely two feet apart. He pulled a paddle out from under the seats, pushed it against the bigger boat until he had room to maneuver, and aimed the bow into the woods. In minutes, I could no longer see the tourist boat and the dock it was tied to.

We paddled for what seemed a long spell, passing live oaks, black gums, and swamp maples. Several times I heard gurgles, and saw the surface of the water move, ripples growing out from where some creature had submerged itself, or a faint wake where another glided out of sight behind a tree. A low grunt echoed in the woods.

“That’s a bull alligator,” Napoleon told me, pointing out the log-like back of one of its kin drifting away from our boat.

We brushed away strands of Spanish moss that hung down from the trees, and swatted at flies buzzing around our heads in the steamy heat. We pushed through weeds and bumped against Cypress knees, the tree’s roots that grow into the air about the base of the trunk and are believed to help the Cypress breathe. The boat was small and easy for Napoleon to handle in the tangled growth of the swamp. I tried to see what markers were guiding him, but he was reading a language I’d never learned.

The clouds above darkened, and thunder rumbled in the distance. Perhaps a break in the drought was near. I hoped we wouldn’t get caught in a storm in the swamp. Napoleon aimed at a place where the woods deepened, and we found ourselves in a daytime twilight, the water black, with gray mist hovering above its surface.

“We’re here,” he said softly.

I turned and could barely make out through the mist a cabin perched on stilts. A tin roof covered the small house that had siding cut from logs, a thin layer of bark still clinging to the boards like crust on a piece of bread. There was one window, and a lantern was placed on the sill. Napoleon tied the pirogue at the bottom of steps leading up to a small porch, and we climbed out.

“Missus,” he called out. “We’re here.”

I looked at Napoleon. “Is someone expecting us?”

“I asked him to bring you here,” said a tall woman, who stood silhouetted in the cabin door.

I looked at Napoleon. “She asked you to bring me here?”

He had the grace to look abashed. “I’ll wait out here,” he said, shrugging.

“Napoleon told me what you said in the newspaper,” the woman said, beckoning me inside. “I’m Sarah Williams. Elijah was my husband.”

Mrs. Williams closed the screen door and invited me to sit on the only chair in the room. A handsome woman with strong features and dark brown skin, she was dressed all in black, and wore a white turban that covered her hair except for a few stray gray curls that showed at her temples. She sat down on a thin mattress that had been set on a platform to serve as both bed and couch. It was covered with colorful fabrics and half a dozen pillows.

“I’m sorry about your husband, Mrs. Williams.”

“He was a good man.” She looked at me with sad eyes.

“I’m a widow myself,” I volunteered.

“Then you know.”

“Yes, I think I do.”

We sat silently for a moment before she asked if I’d like some tea.

“Only if you’re having some yourself,” I replied.

She rose and filled a kettle from a gallon jug. One corner of the room had been made into an efficiency kitchen with a tiny sink, hotplate, and shelves holding boxes of foodstuff, canned goods, and dishes. Jugs of water sat on the floor. While she busied herself with the preparations, I took in the rest of her surroundings.

The room was cramped but furnished with more than just the simple basics someone would need to live. Beautifully patterned fabrics were draped from the walls and reached to the floor, probably concealing storage. Two polished maple dressers sat side by side. One held a stack of books, along with an elaborate metal triptych serving as an altar, in front of which were arranged multicolored candles, two crosses, and bowls of bones, herbs, and powdered substances I couldn’t identify. A small oriental rug hung on the wall above the altar. Fastened to it were Mardi Gras masks made of feathers and ebony African masks. On top of the other dresser, glass canisters were filled with a jumble of everyday items—packets of tissues, a hairbrush and comb, pads of paper, lipsticks, individually wrapped mints, pens, coins, soaps, candles, matches—each in its separate container. A mirror hung on the wall above the canisters with more than a dozen photographs stuck in its frame. They were of Elijah and fishermen he’d guided.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, her back to me.

“I must admit, I didn’t know it was you I was meeting,” I said. “Napoleon didn’t tell me.”

“He’s a scoundrel, that Napoleon,” she said loud enough for him to hear on the porch.

“He did say you knew about the cylinder recordings of Little Red LeCoeur.”

“Two people have already died because of those recordings, Mrs. Fletcher. Don’t you fear for your life, too?”

“One of those men was Wayne Copely, a dear friend of mine,” I replied. “He was passionate about the music of Little Red. If he lost his life because of those recordings, I’d like to know why. And I’d like to find who killed him.”

“Can’t help you with that.”

“What can you help me with? Why did you want to see me?”

She turned from the kettle and sat again.

“Do the recordings exist?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I heaved a sigh of relief. Little Red’s playing had been recorded. There was still a chance to fulfill Wayne’s dream of bringing the art of this talented musician to a new generation. “Do you know where they are?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Will you tell me?”

“I don’t know yet.” She fingered the pleats in her black skirt.

The water in the kettle began to boil. She made the tea and handed me a cup. “I’m here many years,” she said finally. “I’m tired of hiding.”

“Why
are
you hiding?”

“Elijah come home one afternoon, pack up everything we have, and move us into the swamp. He wouldn’t say why. One day, he earns money taking rich men fishing. He plays his music for me at night. The next day he is fishing so we can eat, and the music is gone. He don’t have the heart to play no more.”

“Did you ever find out what happened?”

“Some of it.” She hesitated. “He wouldn’t tell me all. Said I would be in danger if I knew.”

“Please tell me what he told you.”

“There was an argument and a man was killed. An important man. Elijah saw it happen, and we been running ever since.”

“Did the killer see Elijah?”

“‘Yes, and he knew him,” she said, hugging herself and rocking back and forth. “Fifteen years, Mrs. Fletcher, fifteen years of living poor, hiding in the dark.”

“Why didn’t he go to the police?”

“You think the police is going to believe a poor black man’s story about a rich white man’s murder? He was afraid, Mrs. Fletcher, and he spent the rest of his life afraid.”

“Why did he go to the cemetery?”

“He sees an ad in the paper looking for Little Red’s recordings. Elijah thinks he can sell the cylinders and give our life a little ease. I tell him, maybe it’s a trap, but he says he knows it’s Copely. Copely wouldn’t trick him. But when he goes to meet your friend, Elijah ends up dead. Would your friend do that?”

“He wouldn’t, Mrs. Williams. I’m sure of it.”

“You know what I think? I think the man Elijah saw do the killing finally found him. Must’ve been looking for him for fifteen years, and finally found him. That’s what I think.” A few tears slipped down her cheeks, and she wiped them away with her hand. She shook her head and sighed. “The music. That’s what I missed the most when we was in hiding. The music. Before we ran away, he would play for me every night.”

“What instrument did he play?”

“Trumpet, of course,” she said. “He was the son of Little Red’s nephew. But he never had the ‘chops’ of Little Red. Do you know what that is?”

“Chops? That means his technical command of the instrument, doesn’t it?”

“Close enough. Little Red could make the trumpet sing like a bird and growl like a gator. He was some player, all right.”

“And he was Elijah’s great-uncle,” I said. “Is that how Elijah got the cylinders?”

“Yes. Give him the boxes to keep safe, but he don’t want them played. Against his beliefs.”

Napoleon rapped his knuckles on the door. “We have to go, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“All right,” I called back. I stood up, and Elijah’s widow opened the door for me. “Will you tell me where the cylinders are, Mrs. Williams?”

“After Elijah was killed, I sent them to his cousin,” she said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. I don’t want them no more. They’re cursed for me. He should’ve had them anyway. He’s a player, too. Good one.”

“Who’s Elijah’s cousin?”

“I thought you might have known,” she said. “He’s famous around here.”

“What’s his name?”

“Blind Jack.”

Chapter Twenty

“For more than two hundred years, we New Orleanians have been interring our dearly departed above ground in what we call ‘Cities of the Dead.’ Early settlers tried burying bodies, but the ground was so waterlogged, the graves they dug would fill with water. If they were able to bury the coffins—say, during a dry spell—as soon as the weather turned, the coffins would float to the surface again.”

The tour leader held her lace-trimmed, hot-pink parasol aloft and gathered her small group of tourists around her like a mother hen with her chicks. We were about to enter St. Louis Number One, the cemetery where the infamous Marie Laveau was laid to rest, and where Elijah Williams and Wayne Copely had been murdered, their bodies abandoned at her tomb.

Napoleon and I had left Sarah Williams’s cabin in time to link up with our young captain, who’d transported us back to New Orleans before he’d headed off to return his borrowed command. Beatrice awaited us on the levee. We’d taken a different route back on the way to the French Quarter, one that led past the cemetery, where a tour bus had been unloading its passengers.