The Gates of Evangeline (19 page)

Noah rolls over into his pillow, mumbling incoherently in his sleep. His broad shoulders are bare and tempting, but I resist the urge to touch him. There must be some way to enjoy his company without risking anything, some way to maintain a safe emotional distance. Men do it all the time, don't they? Noah is probably not overly invested in me. I'm the one with the problem.

Perhaps it's a sign of weakness, but I can't take another night of brooding. I take an Ambien and hope that this isn't the night Gabriel intends to reveal all.

By morning, the pill has left me feeling hungover and apathetic. I'm not enthusiastic when Noah suggests we get out and see the area, but I go, and as the Ambien fog lifts, I'm glad I did. We spend the weekend exploring the local scene: strolling City Park, eating bad Chinese takeout, catching a movie at the second-string theater. We get chicory-flavored coffee at a bakery near the center of town and I almost gag. It tastes like dirt, but Noah pronounces the flavor “nice and sort of woody” and drinks both his cup and mine.

On Sunday we hike a four-mile nature trail and devour fried catfish and dirty rice at a little hole-in-the-wall. Back at the estate, Noah flips on a basketball game and flops onto my bed, totally content.

“Been a good weekend,” he says.

I don't tell him this is the best weekend I've had in months. I don't thank him for this brush with happiness, however brief it ends up being. He doesn't know the dark place I'm coming from, and I want to keep it that way.

I watch him shout at the muscled giants on the television, mystified that a sloppy turnover should inspire such passion. My dad was a sports fan, but I've never dated one before. Eric was the kind of guy who, even as an adult, became bitter if you mentioned high school gym.

“You gettin' sick of me yet?” Noah asks during a commercial. “I don't wanna overstay.”

I shrug. “Do you want a night to yourself?”

“Nope.” He strokes my knee absently. “I don't like sleeping alone.”

I could be offended. The fact is, though, I don't like to sleep alone either. For the rest of the night, he talks more to the TV than he does to me. I don't mind. I call Rae back and arrange to spend a few days with her while she's in town, then settle in with a pint of ice cream and a few sudokus. This arrangement feels like the nice part about being married. The day-to-day togetherness.

Not that Noah is anything like Eric. I rushed into things with Eric because he was the means to an end I desperately wanted, part of a plan. Live together, get married, buy a house, get pregnant, have a baby. His involvement ended there. I can't blame Eric for finding someone else. From the moment our son was born, my husband was no longer part of the equation.

You wanted him to leave.

It's a strange realization that comes right as Noah throws a pillow and starts screaming, “That's bullshit! That call was bullshit! He was out-of-bounds! Are you
blind
?”

I smile. Somehow I don't want this guy to leave, and that is even stranger.

•   •   •

A
COUPLE O
F NIGHTS LATER
I'm getting a pretty hot foot massage when my cell rings. Noah pauses, his thumbs still deep in the arches of my left foot. I hate to interrupt, but it could be Grandma. He sighs as I snatch my phone from the bedside table.

I don't recognize the number, but it's a local area code, so probably work-related. I scramble to answer. “Charlotte Cates.”

“Hey there,” says a familiar female voice. “Got your number from that detective fella. This is Danelle. Danelle Martin.” She sounds like she has misgivings about making this call.

I shake my head in admiration.
Remy, you son of a bitch, you nailed it.
I have never been so happy to lose fifty dollars.

I
was kind of hoping that Danelle would drop an earth-shattering nugget of information over the phone and we'd be done with it, but instead she wants to come speak with me at Evangeline.

“Hettie there?” she asks.

“She's here,” I say. “You want to see her?”

Beside me, Noah wrinkles his brow, trying to figure who I'm talking to and what about.

“You said she's sick,” Danelle says. “Figured I might pay my respects. I never did get to thank Mr. Deveau before he passed. Be nice to see the place again. They still got the cameras and guards?”

“I can get you in.” This, of course, is what she's counting on. I've no doubt it's why she wanted to speak to me and not Detective Minot. I just hope she has something worthwhile to say.

“Tomorrow morning, then.” Danelle doesn't bother asking if that's convenient for me. “I'll speak my piece and that's that. I don't want my name in any book, and I don't want any more policemen knockin' on my door, understand?”

It's not a promise I can make, not if she tells me something of real value. “I'll do my best.”

When I get off the phone, Noah wants to know who it was. I hesitate. I'm sure he'd love to meet Danelle, a woman who knew his grandparents and his mystery dad—probably even him, when he was little. But I can't let them know about each other just yet. If Danelle has anything interesting to say about Maddie, Jack, or Sean Lauchlin, I don't want concern for the surviving Lauchlin holding her back.

“It's for my book,” I tell Noah. “I'm just following up on something.”

“Oh yeah? What's that?” My answer has only made him more curious.

“Nothing important.” I place my feet in his lap. “I believe you were working on these before we were so rudely interrupted.”

He rolls his eyes. Takes my left foot and gives it a halfhearted rub. “You can talk to me about your work, ya know. I'm not too dumb to understand.”

“It has nothing to do with your intelligence,” I protest. “You just have this weird family connection to everything I'm writing about.”

His face grows deadly serious and I can tell my arches are getting no more love tonight. “What's it matter who my family is? Unless you think they did somethin' wrong.”

“I'm not worried about your grandparents,” I say, although it isn't exactly true, “but even you have to admit that your father is a big question mark.”

“You're lookin' at
him
?”

The moment Sean enters the equation I can feel a wall go up in him, although I don't know if it's for me or the man he feels rejected by. Either way, I'm sure Noah would like some insight into the bum who fathered him. Unfortunately, I made a promise to Detective Minot—a promise I intend to keep.

“I'm not
looking
at anyone,” I say. “I'm not the police. Just trying to tell this story, and your dad's a piece of it.” Something occurs to me. “If he did turn up, would you want to know? I mean . . . would you get in touch with him?”

“No,” he says quickly. But he's brooding now, working it over in his mind. “He's probably dead anyhow.”

A charitable explanation, I think, for Sean's failure to contact his son or parents at any point in the last thirty years. Actually, death is probably the
only
acceptable excuse. Even a stupid death, like driving your car off the road and into a tree because you're too damn drunk to operate a vehicle, is still better than outright abandonment.

“You're probably right,” I agree. “I bet he died a long time ago. What about your mom? Violet Johnson. Would you like to know more about her?”

He's dismissive. “She's dead.”

I don't point out his grandparents could've lied about that. “Someone named Violet Johnson worked at Evangeline in the midseventies,” I tell him. “She was a housekeeper. I'm guessing that's how she met your father.”

“A housekeeper, huh?” Noah's face is unreadable.

I wish I knew what was going on in that head of his. “It's a common last name, but I bet you could find her records if you tried.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Prob'ly could.”

Maybe he's afraid of what he'd find. Maybe he genuinely doesn't care. Maybe he's just a guy, disinclined to share his feelings with me.

“You got somethin' to eat?” he asks. “I'm starvin'.”

•   •   •

A
LL OF
D
ANELLE
M
ARTIN
'
S ATTITUDE
and self-assurance seems to shrink when she enters her former place of employment. I meet her on the steps around nine o'clock the next morning. She has spruced herself up with a long black dress, earrings, a string of rectangular glass beads, and a colorful scarf. “Good to see you, Ms. Martin,” I greet her.

Her gaze sweeps past me, over the great oak trees and along the bayou, traveling up to the shining white house. I wish I knew what memories the place evokes for her. “Always was such a purty home,” she says. “Hard to think of somethin' ugly happenin' inside.”

“Do you want to look around? I bet a lot has changed.” I'm hoping a tour might prompt some stories, but as I lead her through the house and outdoors, she offers only terse remarks about changes to the property.

“New cabinets,” she says of the kitchen. “They took down the gazebo,” she tells me in the garden. She has a quick walk and her sharp eyes remind me of a predatory bird scanning the horizon for food, trained to any flash of movement. When Danelle sees the remodeled cottages, she is scornful. “No character,” she pronounces.

Eventually I'm done with all the small talk. We've seen enough. Either she trusts me or she doesn't.

“Well?” I sit back on a garden bench in front of the old fountain and take in the crisp sunshine, no longer caring about good manners. “You came here to talk to me, didn't you?”

She places her hands on her hips. “You think I know what happened.”

“Do you?”

She scowls. “Got no damn clue.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

Her mouth pinches into a pink knot. “I came 'cause there's things I oughta set straight. I been carryin' around that family's business long enough. Got my own life to get on with.” She puts a hand to what remains of her breast and stares at the blank-eyed cherub on the fountain. “Sometimes doin' the right thing means tellin' a lie, and thirty years ago when the FBI and them was askin' all those questions . . . well, I guess I told a few.”

I'm not sure she realizes the seriousness of what she's admitting here. I let her go on.

“That family was goin' through a hard enough time havin' lost their baby boy.” She doesn't sit beside me on the bench but stands, stolid, drawing up her small frame as tall as it will go. Her eyes are fixed on some point directly ahead of us. “Alla sudden they got every cop on the planet breathin' down their necks tryin' to say they done it. I'll tell you certain as I'm standin' here that Neville and Hettie Deveau didn't hurt Gabriel. They had their faults—don't get me started—but they wouldn'a harmed a hair on that boy's head, and that's God's honest truth. If I'd a said all I knew to the police, I'd a made it worse for them.”

“You wanted to help,” I say, trying to coax it out of her. “The truth can be complicated.”

She gives me an exasperated look that indicates my conciliatory tone is transparent and unnecessary. “Neville had a lady. I told 'em I didn't know about it, but he did. More'n one, over the years.”

“He was having an affair?” I try not to show her what a letdown this is, but frankly, it would be more surprising if Neville Deveau had been faithful to his wife. I can't see why Danelle considers this such a bombshell. Of course it would have humiliated Hettie if her husband's infidelities got out, but why would the FBI care? I suppose one of Neville's lovers could've kidnapped Gabriel, but why? And that doesn't fit with the sexual-abuse angle.

“Neville wasn't a bad man,” Danelle tells me. “I hope you say that in your book. He had the money and position to turn heads, and he was weak-willed. Nothin' more to it. But he didn't honor his marriage vows the way he shoulda. Never did.”

“Did Hettie know?”
She can't have been that naïve,
I think. The twins mentioned how frequently their father was gone on business trips.

“Oh, she knew,” Danelle confirms. “First time she found out, Neville made nice, swore he'd behave. Then a couple years before Gabriel came along, some other lady turned up. It was an ugly scene. They had some words one night.”

“What did she say?” I'm trying to understand how Hettie went from being devastated by Neville's philandering to pregnant with his child a few years later. What happened in between? Did he make promises to change? Did she reach some kind of grudging acceptance? I remember the Bible I found, its passages about sexual immorality and sin. Maybe she put her faith in divine justice, believed that in the end her husband would answer to God.

Danelle cocks her head to the side, remembering. The light catches one of her earrings. “Somethin' just snapped in her. Never heard her yell like that before. She told him she'd wasted her life tryin' to be a good wife, and for no good purpose. Said her life had no purpose at all. I'm not much for head shrinkin', but I think Hettie was depressed. She didn't know what she was gettin' into with this kinda life.” Danelle glances over her shoulder at the house, and I know what she means. I can't imagine regularly enduring dinner parties like the one I was subjected to here.

“But she stayed with him. She could've taken him to the cleaners with a divorce settlement. Why didn't she leave?”

“And cut Neville loose? That wasn't her way. She was gone make him sweat it.” Danelle toys with her string of beads, thumb and forefinger closing on a jagged blue one. “She talked about leavin', mind you. Had him beggin'. But she was real mad. Said if he wanted to continue on with his whores, then fine, but the least he could do was find her a nice pool boy.” Danelle purses her lips, as if she thinks Hettie went too far.

Maybe Jules is just one in a long line of family pool boys, I think. “How'd Neville react to that?”

Danelle looks me square in the eye. “He hit her.”

I inhale sharply. “You saw this?”

“I heard 'em. He said she ever touched another man, he'd kill her, and—well, she went crashin' into a table.”

“Did he hurt her?”

She nods. “Bloodied her nose. She came by the kitchen later askin' for ice.”

Now I realize Danelle's big secret wasn't the infidelity at all. Any whiff of domestic violence when Gabriel went missing, and that would've been the end for Neville Deveau. Guilty or innocent, he would have been buried alive in a sea of salivating investigators, immediately convicted in the court of public opinion.

“Look,” Danelle says, “Neville had a temper an' I don't pretend otherwise. But I don't believe he ever hurt anyone but that once. He never lifted a finger against any a those children, that I know. That's why I didn't go spreadin' it around. Woulda just confused things, see?”

I do see. It's hard to be objective about a guy who cheats on his wife and then pops her in the face for threatening him with a dose of his own medicine.
I'm
struggling with it, anyway. “So after he hit her, what happened?”

“Hettie went to their New Orleans house, lived there a few months while they sorted things out. The kids were away at school, but she went back to Evangeline when they came home, so they never even knew she was gone.”

“And all of that was before Gabriel.”

“Yeah. Couple years before. He'd taken up with some new lady by the time Gabriel was born.”

It troubles me that Hettie had another child with this asshole. Was she stupid enough to think a baby could fix things? Or perhaps she was simply a good Christian woman who believed it her duty to yield to her husband's desires. “Was Neville happy when she got pregnant?” I ask Danelle.

She nods emphatically. “Pleased as punch. Hettie was the one who didn't want that baby. She came around later, I guess, but . . .” Danelle trails off, declining to speculate further. “All I know is, nobody took it harder than Neville when Gabriel went missin'.” She shakes her head, and her obvious empathy for this man angers me. “Even after he put in them cameras and guards and all, he never had peace a mind. But he wouldn't get rid of this place either, no matter how many times Hettie tried to make him sell it.”

“Why not?” I think of the house in Stamford, all the memories of my son that it holds. I realize now that there is no future in that house for me, only past.

Danelle considers my question. “Sounds crazy, but I think he was hopin' Gabriel'd come back one day.” She studies my face, and for the first time, I detect something resembling anxiety in her. “I hope I did right tellin' you this. I know it sounds bad for Neville, but I believe in my heart he did nothin' wrong. He shouldn'a done what he did to Hettie, a course, but there's a long way between gettin' rough with a woman once and wipin' your baby offa this earth.” Her eyes dart to the looming white house behind us and then back to me. “Whatchu thinkin'?”

“I'm thinking you're right,” I tell her. “I don't think Neville was involved.” And it's true. What Danelle just told me doesn't, in my mind, implicate Neville. If he hit Hettie, isolated her from the world, and cheated on her, then it's Hettie who had the motive. To rid herself of a child she never wanted. To bring pain to the man who hurt her.

It's possible, isn't it? The twins' birthday party ended around eleven, and Room Service Boy said both Neville and Hettie were present when he delivered aspirin at three a.m. If he was lying, though, if he was paid off, as Detective Minot suspects . . . she could've done it. She could've driven back to Evangeline, spent several hours there, and still made it back by eight o'clock when they got the phone call from Maddie that Gabriel was missing.