Murder in the Garden District (Chanse MacLeod Mysteries) (25 page)

My hands shook. I pulled over to the curb, got out of my car, lit a cigarette and drank in the beauty of the city.

The first time I’d come to New Orleans was also the night I fell in love with the city. It was like nothing I’d ever seen growing up in a small town forty-five minutes north of Houston. I was eighteen. I’d just begun college. As I walked the cracked and tilted sidewalks of the French Quarter, I knew this was where I belonged. Throughout my undergraduate years at LSU, I came down from Baton Rouge as often as I could, just waiting for the day I could move here for good. My two years on the police force had showed me the dark underside of the city: the crime, the poverty, the racism, the despair and the broken system the Sheehan family epitomized. But despite all those problems, somehow the city was a joyous place that embraced everyone.

The Mardi Gras after Katrina had been amazing. A mere five months after the storm, the city had rallied and thrown a party to show the doubters and the haters of the world that New Orleans had survived and we would endure. I remembered walking up the parade route on Fat Tuesday, wearing a costume for the first time because it seemed like the right thing to do, and seeing the crowds cheering all along St. Charles. I remembered the signs—

504EVER and ATLANTA THANKS AND LOVES YOU NEW ORLEANS and ST. BERNARD WE’LL BE BACK—

and T-shirts saying things like NOPD—
Not Our Problem, Dude or Campaign
2006—I’m
for Cookie Monster or FEMA—Fix Everything My Ass or FEMA—Find Every Mexican
Available or I Stayed for Katrina and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt…and a flat screen TV and a Cadillac and a stereo…

And the costumes! A group of women dressed as Brownies, only their sashes read
Heckuva Job
. A group of men dressed as UPS deliverymen sporting
What can Brown do for you?
on their backs. I saw incredibly flawless and over-the-top drag. It was almost too much to take in. Everyone was so happy and relaxed and having a good time laughing and dancing in the streets. What pride I’d felt in my city, and in my fellow New Orleanians. My eyes swam with tears of joy, my face ached from the huge grin I had on it all day. It was the first time since I’d evacuated that I truly believed New Orleans was going to come back, the first time it felt like
New Orleans
again. The magic hadn’t gone away, it just hibernated for a while.

I threw my cigarette in the gutter and got into my car. It would take a hell of a lot more than a goddamn act of nature to kill the spirit of New Orleans. We’d gotten through it before and we’d do it again if we had to, a thousand times over.

*

The only car parked on Polymnia was Paige’s battered old Toyota. The backseat was piled high, but she’d left space for Nicky’s carrier. Maybe the marshals were right about Vinnie. I let myself in the gate and walked back to Paige’s apartment. She was sitting on her steps, smoking a cigarette and crying. When she saw me, she wiped her face and forced a smile.

“So, how’d it go?”

I sat down beside her and put my arm around her.

“Case closed. It’s in Venus and Blaine’s hands now. Are you okay?”

“A little overwhelmed, I guess. Ginevra turned a bit, but it’s worse than before.”

“I heard it on the radio,” I said.

“Not again, Chanse. It
can’t
happen again.”

“It might keep turning,” I said, giving her a squeeze. “How many times before has that happened? Remember Ivan? And Jorges? Just keep thinking good thoughts.”

There’s something to be said for comforting another person. The more I talked, the more confidant I felt myself that Ginevra would keep turning west.

She put her head on my shoulder.

“I don’t know if I can go through it all again, Chanse.”

“We can handle it. And this time we know what to expect. The only thing I remember about getting out the last time was the shock and horror. It doesn’t feel the same this time. Come on, let’s go inside and watch some death-and-destruction television.”

The Weather Channel showed a long line of cars on I-10 West, moving at a crawl out of the city. A pretty blond woman with a serious expression told us the evacuation was going smoothly. There were some snarls in traffic exiting the city, but once the contraflow lanes were reached it went smoothly. Baton Rouge was now estimated at five to six hours away. The latest report from the National Hurricane Center showed Ginevra was still Category 3. Unfortunately, this had not lessened the projected storm surge it carried before it. Although the Army Corps of Engineers had stated that the levees damaged by Katrina had been repaired and could withstand a Category 3 storm surge, city residents were not reassured. All over the South, National Guard units had been called to duty. Relief supplies were being stockpiled and readied for transport.

Paige hit the mute button. “I think we should wait a few more hours before we hit the road,” she said calmly, lighting a cigarette. “Let the traffic die down some more.”

“It should lighten up by then,” I agreed, not taking my eyes from the television.

“I could really use a drink,” she added. “But…”

I didn’t need to point out that it was a bad idea.

“I guess I should call my sister,” I said. I’d been delaying all day, even though I knew she’d be worried about me.

“Use my landline. I’m going to start emptying out the refrigerator.”

My sister picked up on the second ring. “Hey Daphne, it’s Chanse,” I said.

“Chanse!” Daphne half-shrieked. “I’ve been trying to call you all day! Please tell me you’re on the road out of there!”

“I’ll probably leave in a couple of hours.”

“You’re coming here,” Daphne asserted. “I’ll get the guest room ready and you can stay as long as you need to. I won’t take no for an answer.”

“Thanks, Daphne. How’s Mom doing?”

“Better.” She paused. “It meant a lot to her to see you. She’s worried about this storm. I’ll let her know you’re staying here.”

“Thanks. I’ll call when I’m leaving. I’ll send a text if I can’t get through.”

“Don’t thank me,” she said. “We’re family.”

“Talk to you soon.”

Family.

Mothers.

When Daphne had called three weeks ago to tell me our mother had cancer and was dying, I hadn’t wanted to go. I hadn’t seen my family since the day I packed my car and left for LSU. I’d been so exhilarated when I passed the city limits sign heading south, as though I’d finally gotten out of prison. I was never going back to that trailer park on the bad side of town. I didn’t care if I ever saw my father again. He downed a six-pack of beer every night after getting home from the oil fields. His temper was uncertain and he wasn’t afraid to use violence to vent it. And my mother, who never intervened when it happened. She always smelled of sour alcohol and didn’t care how she looked. High school had been a misery until my talents on the football field made the other kids forget my worn-out Sears Roebuck clothing and my status as trailer trash. No, I was never going back, I swore as I took the on-ramp to I-10 and said goodbye to Cottonwood Wells and my family forever.

Daphne wrote to me at LSU, and I’d send her a card every now and then. As the years passed, I heard from her less and less. A card for my birthday, the wedding invitation, announcements about the birth of her kids, and of course Christmas. I never bothered to read the notes she wrote on the cards, just tossed them in the trash. I didn’t care what was going on with my parents. I didn’t want to know anything. I had a different life. I was a different person. No one in New Orleans knew I’d grown up in a trailer with a drunk for a mother and a violent father, and that was fine with me.

Paige and I had met for dinner at the Avenue Pub the night Daphne called. After a couple of drinks, I told Paige about it.

“Are you going?” she asked.

“No way,” I said.

“I think you should.”

“When was the last time you talked to
your
mother?” I snapped. “You cut your mother off just like I did.”

“I’ll never forgive my mother. Her boyfriend raped me and I had to get an abortion. I was thirteen, and she blamed me! You know that, Chanse. But if she were dying, I’d go see her. You need to do this.”

So, I’d driven the six hours to Houston with a knot in my stomach and gone to see my mother at the M. D. Anderson medical facility, not knowing what to expect. The last time I’d been in a hospital had been the day Paul died. Would my father be there? My younger brother? What would I say to my mother after fifteen years?

I’d knocked on the open door to her room. The beautiful woman in a chair by the bed looked up and smiled at me.

“Chanse,” my younger sister Daphne said, and ran across the room, throwing her arms around me and nearly knocking me down. She held on to me and sobbed. After a few awkward moments, I hugged her back. Finally, she pulled away from me.

“It’s so good to see you,” she whispered. “Go say hello.”

I couldn’t speak.

My mother was hooked up to tubes and monitors. Her eyes were closed. I cursed myself for not bringing flowers, or something. I stood there in silence, unsure of what I should do.

She’d lost weight, and aged. Her hair was shot through with gray around her wrinkled face, which was made up. (I found out later that Daphne did that for her every morning.) She looked like a shell of her former self.

Then her eyes opened, and her face softened. “Oh, Chanse,” she said. Her eyes filled with water and her chin trembled. “Thank you for coming. I’m so, so sorry.”

In that instant, my life history was rewritten. I forgot the woman who always seemed to be complaining, who always smelled slightly of stale liquor as she chain-smoked her way through daily visits to the soap opera towns of Pine Valley, Llanview and Port Charles. And I knew it wasn’t the first time I’d done this.

The morning I left Cottonwood Wells, I’d been packing my car. My father was at work, Daphne at her job, and my younger brother was off at baseball practice. I’d said perfunctory goodbyes to all of them and was coming back into the trailer to get another box of my stuff when my mother confronted me.

“I found this in your room,” she said, her voice shaking and her eyes wild.

It was a
Playgirl
magazine I’d shoplifted from a bookstore in town about a year before. I’d forgotten all about it.

“It’s not mine,” I said automatically.

She slapped my face. “Don’t lie to me!”

In all my eighteen years, my mother had never raised a hand to me. That was my father’s job. She always used tears and guilt. I stood there and looked at her, not knowing what to say. Finally I responded.

“It’s mine,” I admitted petulantly.

She became hysterical, screaming at me about sin and God and how no son of hers was going to be a pervert. I’d never seen her so angry. I stood there under the barrage of words, getting angry myself, and more hurt by the second. All I could think was that I needed to get away, and that once I did I was never coming back.

When she finally stopped, her rage spent, she collapsed onto the couch and sobbed.

After a few moments, I said, “Goodbye, Mother,” and walked out of the trailer for the last time. There were a few more boxes left, but I didn’t care. All I wanted was to put as much distance between Cottonwood Wells and me as humanly possible.

I drove out of town with tears on my cheeks, forcing all my good memories of her out of my mind. I trained myself to remember only the bad. If I only remembered the bad stuff, it wouldn’t hurt anymore.

As I stood by her hospital bed, I saw love and sorrow in her eyes, and I started remembering the good.

I remembered the woman who had walked me to my first day of school, the woman who’d gotten up at five every morning to make breakfast for my father before he left for work, and then made breakfast for the rest of us when we got up. I remembered the face that turned sad whenever we shopped for school clothes at the Sears in the mall instead of the Gap, the Levi’s Store, and all the more chic places where the other kids’ parents took them. The woman who packed my lunch every day with my favorite chips and sandwiches—and how much I resented not being able to buy lunch like the cool kids. I remembered the woman who came to every one of my football games, and when my name was called when they introduced the starters before the game, shouted louder than everyone else, loud enough that I knew it was her. I’d see her in the stands, jumping up and down and telling everyone around her, “That’s my son! That’s my SON!”

Finally, I remembered looking back in the rearview mirror as I fled the trailer park, and seeing her standing at the foot of the driveway when I sped off to LSU, her shoulders bent, crying as she waved goodbye to her son. She’d had a shock that rocked her world and didn’t know how to deal with it, and had reacted badly. And she’d regretted that reaction every minute of every day ever since.

For the first time in years, looking down at my dying mother, I didn’t see a monster. And God help me, I started crying as I stood there. She’d reached out and grabbed my hand.

“Shhh, baby, it’s okay. All that matters is you’re here now.”

I sat down next to her bed, grateful for the chance I’d never had with Paul before he died.