The Haunted Heart: Winter (16 page)

“Maybe Edward ran off with the chauffeur.”
But I’d been thinking that point over myself, and I didn’t really
have an answer. Still, I said stubbornly, “According to the legends
I’ve read — and a couple of episodes of
Paranormal State
—
just having the truth revealed, usually sets the spirit free.”

“See, I think our spirit is too free
already. I want to know how to get her back in her grave. For
good.”

I pushed back my chair. “Okay. Let’s do it.
Let’s start there. Let’s go find where Ines and Edward are
buried.”

Kirk studied me for a moment. He pushed his
chair back.

* * * * *

“Back so soon?” Daphne greeted us in
surprise. “We’re having record crowds today.” She nodded toward an
elderly couple quietly discussing the morose family portraits
lining the central hall.

“We missed the graveyard when we were here
earlier,” I said.

“You’re determined to get your money’s
worth, aren’t you.” She was amused. “You passed the family cemetery
on the drive up to the house.” She picked up one of the colorful
and highly misleading brochures, and opened it to a map of the
grounds. “There we are. It’s right there.” She glanced up from the
map. “You can see the top of the marble tomb belonging to John
James from the road. There’s a mermaid holding a shell.”

“A mermaid?”

“I suppose she’s kind of a mermaid angel.”
Daphne looked thoughtful. “He was a pirate, after all.”

We thanked her, turned around, and returned
down the hill. The rain was a soft, white mist around us,
swallowing our footsteps. The air smelled of wet earth and warm
flowers. Every so often something rustled in the undergrowth, but
whatever was wandering around the old plantation, whether wild hog
or armadillo, was too shy to make an appearance.

“You should be happy,” I said to Kirk.
“We’re getting our exercise for the day.”

“Can’t you tell how happy I am?”

Once we reached the main road it didn’t take
long to locate the cemetery. Sure enough there was a mermaid
quietly and eternally preening, face to the sun, on the tomb of
John James Whitaker. No fence stood around the cemetery and we
could walk freely among the tumbled statues and half sunken
gravestones.

It didn’t take us long to locate the graves
we were hunting.

In Memory of

Edward James Hammond Whitaker

July 3rd 1887 - February 15th 1933

Died of Influenza

“Here we go,” Kirk said.

Ines Whitaker

Wife of Edward

April 11th 1911 - February 15th 1933

“Short and sweet.”

“No kidding.”

I said, “It doesn’t state she died of the
influenza. But then they weren’t wasting words, were they?”

“No. But they died on the same day.”

“I didn’t realize how much older Edward was.
You can’t really tell from the photo.” My gaze fell on the plain
gravestone next to Ines’s. “Kirk, look at this.”

He moved next to me.

“There was a child,” I said at last.

“Yes.”

We stared down in silence.

Charles Edward Whitaker

Beloved son of Edward and Ines

February 10th 1933

Oh for the touch of a vanished hand

And the sound of a voice that is still.

A
my Madison was a
tall, slender, sloe-eyed twenty-something. She looked like an
African American Audrey Hepburn. She even spoke in that soft,
deliberate Audrey style. At least until we showed her the video
clip of me doing my Talking Dead routine.

“What the heck is that supposed to be?” she
demanded, staring from me to Kirk then back to me again.

We were once more in Maryann and Violet’s
parlor. That had been Amy’s suggestion, and I couldn’t blame her
for not wanting to meet two strange men alone in her own home.
Judging by her current expression, she clearly felt she’d made the
right move.

“Do you understand any of it?” I asked.

“Enough to know I don’t want to understand
the rest!”

“Is it French?” Kirk inquired.

“It’s some archaic variant of Creole.” Amy
looked at him in disbelief. “What is going
on
in that
video?”

“Sometimes I talk in my sleep,” I said
apologetically. “I never remember what I’ve said.”

“If that’s true, you need help, that’s all I
can say. And not my kind of help.”

“So you do understand at least some of it?”
Kirk pressed.

Amy glared at him. “Some. It’s mostly
swearing, as far as I can make out.” To me, she said, “You’re
accusing someone,” she looked at Kirk with strong dislike,
“
him
, I guess, of betraying you. Of being a coward, a pig, a
rapist, a murderer.”

I’m pretty sure Kirk couldn’t have looked
more aghast than me, but it must have been a tight race. Maryann
and Violet appeared pretty upset too.

I said quickly, “Not him. It’s nothing to do
with him. He’s just a friend.”

“You know some nice people!”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I had no idea what
was on that clip.”

“Riiiight.” Amy began gathering her things.
“I’m sorry for your troubles. You’ve clearly got more than your
share of them. But I can’t listen to any more of that. I suggest
you get professional counseling.” She directed another look of
utter loathing at Kirk.

Kirk looked so guilty that in another time
and place it would have been funny.

“I will,” I said. “I will definitely get
help. Thank you for your time. I’m sorry about all the swear
words.”

“Goodnight, Maryann. Night Miz Violet.” Amy
gave Maryann a meaningful look.

“I’ll see you to the door, Amy,” Maryann
responded in none-too-subtle reply. She rose.

They left the room, speaking quietly.

“I guess it’s worse than I thought,” I said
to Kirk. Kirk nodded toward Violet. She looked tiny in a blue
velveteen house coat with a flowered collar. Her hands were knotted
and she was nervously licking her lips.

I moved over to the sofa and sat beside her.
“Mrs. Gallot,” I said. “Am I wrong in thinking maybe you know
what’s really going on here?”

Violet’s face quivered.

“Please,” I said. “I wouldn’t ask, but…you
can hear for yourself I need your help.”

Her thin chest rose and fell. Her first
words were so quiet I had to lean down to hear. “You weren’t
talking in your sleep. I could hear it in your voice. You were in a
trance. I seen it once. At a séance in Baton Rouge when I was a
girl.”

“I think so, yes.” I looked at Kirk. He
stared down the hall and made a face, which I took to indicate Amy
was giving Maryann an earful. “Strange things have been happening
to me ever since I found that mirror my uncle bought from the
Bellehaven Estate all those years ago.” I took a deep breath. “I
think I’m being haunted.”

“That can’t be. That can’t be.” Violet shook
her head, but she felt for my hand and took it in her own small
one. Her skin felt as dry and fragile as paper, but her grip was
surprisingly strong. “Do you believe in ghosts, child?”

“I never did before. But I’ve seen things.
Kirk’s seen them too.”

Violet turned her face in Kirk’s direction.
“Kirk is your…special friend?”

“Well, he’s a friend. And he’s special,” I
said.

Kirk rolled his eyes.

“Things are mighty different now,” Violet
murmured. “Back then, well.” She absently patted my hand. “Your
fingers are so thin. So cold. You haven’t been well, child. That’s
why she came to you. That’s why you can see her. You’re standing
too close to that veil between this world and the next.”

I didn’t bother to remind Violet that Kirk
had seen “her” too, and he wasn’t standing by any veil. Unless it
was a beach towel. “It’s Ines, isn’t it?” I asked. “Ines is
haunting me.”

Violet nodded. “I don’t see who else it
could be. That mirror settles it. I remember that mirror.”

“What happened? There was a baby, we know
that. It was stillborn? Or it only lived a few hours. It was just a
few days before Ines and Edward died.”

Violet sighed. “I only know what was told to
me. I wasn’t there, you have to remember that.”

Maryann appeared in the doorway. “My word,
it’s getting late. I’m afraid it’s past Mama’s bed —”

“Hush, Maryann,” Violet said. “You sit down
and don’t interrupt.”

“Mama!”

“Sit down and hush up!”

Maryann sat down and hushed up.

Violet squeezed my hand, as though demanding
my attention. “Edward was not the oldest son. Bellehaven was
supposed to go to Charles Whitaker. But Charles died during the
war.”

“That’ll have been the Great War,” Kirk said
sardonically. “The War to End All Wars. Not the Late
Unpleasantness.”

Violet nodded. “After the war, Edward took
his time settling down. He’d always been what you’d call a playboy.
But finally he got to an age when he had to think about who was
going to carry on the Whitaker line. He went to stay with his
cousins in New Orleans, and while he was there he fell madly in
love with a beautiful girl by the name of Ines Villars.”

“A Creole girl,” Kirk said.

“You’re a smart one,” Violet said
approvingly. It was my turn to roll my eyes at Kirk. “But Edward
didn’t know that,” Violet continued. “He only knew Ines was from a
wealthy, well-respected old French New Orleans family.”

“What would it matter?” I asked.

Kirk said, “Because after 1915 all Creoles
were considered African American. If you had so much as one drop of
Creole blood, you were considered African American.”

“One sixteenth made you Negro,” Maryann
corrected automatically. “That was the law in Louisiana.”

“Okay,” Kirk said. “If you were even one
sixteenth African American, you were considered
one hundred
percent
African American and subject to racial discrimination
and segregation. It didn’t matter if you were a Creole of European
descent or a Creole of Color, you were all lumped into the same
second class citizen category.”

“But weren’t they the same thing? Weren’t
all Creoles of African descent?”

“No. Not at all. During Louisiana’s colonial
period Creole was just a term used to describe anyone born here who
had foreign ancestors. You had French, Spanish, slaves, people of
mixed race all lumped under the term ‘Creole.’ But after 1915 it
all changed.”

“And whites couldn’t marry blacks.”

“Yep. And it wasn’t just about the legal
implications of marriage. You couldn’t cohabitate or have any
sexual relations with a person of African heritage.”

I stared at Violet. “So Ines was passing as
white?”

Violet nodded. “She married Edward and came
to Bellehaven to live. I guess if she had been a different sort of
girl, it might have all worked out all right. But it wasn’t the
same way in New Orleans, and Ines was proud, strong minded, and
independent. She put a lot of folks’ backs up. Womenfolk, that is.
She was not liked by the wives of Edward Whitaker’s friends. And I
don’t think she tried very hard to
be
liked.” Violet bit her
lip. “Also there were rumors.”

“There always are,” Maryann put in a little
bitterly.

“Nobody knows if there was any truth to the
talk or not,” Violet said. “Nobody ever will. I don’t suppose by
then it was a very happy marriage, but a marriage doesn’t have to
be a love affair to work well.”

“Mama!”

I thought of the whole “coward, pig, rapist,
murderer” matter. Yeah, probably not a match made in heaven.

Violet ignored Maryann’s protest. “But then
that poor little baby was born.”

I guessed, “And everybody blamed Ines when
the Whitaker heir died?”

Violet patted my hand comfortingly. “That
was terrible of course, but the real calamity, at least from the
viewpoint of Edward Whitaker, was that poor little boy was born
black as coal. Black as sin.”

Nobody said a word.

Violet gave a creaky giggle into that
stricken silence. “You young folks are mighty easily shocked,
aren’t you? Well so was Edward Whitaker. He accused Ines of having
an affair with a young jazz musician Baton Rouge way. But the fact
is, the alternative was even worse. If Ines wasn’t having an
affair, if that poor little baby was just some kind of a throwback,
then Edward’s marriage was a sham and a disgrace and those rumors
about Ines’s family were true.”

“Wow,” I said finally. “What did Edward
do?”

“He blew his brains out in the dining room.
In front of Ines and the servants and that very same mirror your
uncle purchased twenty years later. In fact, there was a story that
no matter how many times the glass was cleaned and polished, if you
looked hard enough, you could find flecks of Edward’s blood and
brains in the groove between the mirror and the frame.”

“Eww.” Maryann said weakly, “I can’t believe
you never told me any of this.”

“It wasn’t my story to tell,” Violet
said.

“What happened to Ines?” Kirk asked at
last.

“That’s not quite as clear cut. She was half
crazy over losing her baby, of course, and then Edward accused her
of all those terrible things, accused her of driving him to suicide
right there in front of the household staff. Then Edward was gone,
the validity of her marriage was in question; and there was all
kinds of wild talk of putting her in prison or even worse. The only
thing anyone knew for sure was her body was found later that
evening floating in the little ornamental pond on the east side of
the house.”

Kirk said, “How the hell — heck — did a
double suicide end up being attributed to influenza?”

Violet shook her head. “It was such a
terrible tragedy. And, worse, such a terrible scandal, Edward’s
family and friends moved to hush it up. There
was
an
influenza epidemic at the time, and a lot of folks were busy with
their own tragedies.”