The Unraveling of Mercy Louis (17 page)

E
VERY EVENING DURING
dinner, Illa and Mama watch the news together, and Illa feels relieved for how it fills the cavernous silence that has developed between them since the fight over Mercy's letters. There is something comforting about TV news anchors, Illa decides. Even when they're telling you horrible things, they look so put together, bringing order to the chaotic world they're forced, regretfully, to inform you about. When they say that strangely sterile word,
neonaticide,
it sounds like science, like it could almost make sense.

“This is Joe Hartman, and he owns the Market Basket at the corner of LeBlanc and Main,” says a male anchor with a well-coiffed pouf of hair. “The baby was found in the dumpster behind his store, just across the street from the high school. As we heard from Detective LaCroix at the press conference earlier today, an employee of Mr. Hartman's who was working the night that police speculate the baby was left recently gave a statement to the police. It may be the closest we'll come to eyewitness testimony in this complicated case. Joe, tell us what your employee saw that night.”

“He couldn't see real good, Bill, but he told the detectives he heard something around one a.m. We got bulletproof glass on the windows, so it can get pretty foggy, but he told the detectives he thought he saw a young girl in one a them hooded sweatshirts by the bathrooms. But like I said, he had a hell of a time seeing clear through the glass.”

“And how old was the girl? Did he say?”

“Thought she mighta been around fifteen, sixteen, but you know how it is with women, you get teenagers looking like they're thirty and grandmas who look the same way. Hard to tell.”

“And what color was the sweatshirt, did you say, Joe?”

“Told Detective LaCroix it was one a them navy and gold sweatshirts like all the high school kids wear.”

“Thank you for the information, Joe. I'm sure everyone in town is grateful to your employee for keeping an eye out.”

While the anchors try to maintain a neutral tone when reporting on the story, their furrowed brows the only indication that they have feelings on the matter, the townspeople they interview are less objective. “That girl better hope I don't meet her in a dark alley someday,” one woman says. Another says, “I hear there's a special reckoning for baby killers down at Henley.” The protestor with the short black hair says she hopes that lawmakers will do what's right and pass the parental notification law
because maybe advice from a mom or dad could have prevented this kind of tragedy.
One policeman mentions the large amount of blood at the scene and speculates that perhaps the mother hemorrhaged and passed away; he says they've stopped checking the hospitals and are now searching morgue records. Finally, Beau Putnam comes on, talking about the demonic nature of the crime and the reward he's offering for any tips leading to the capture of the killer. Mama asks Illa to change the channel, and she does.

“What's he frothing at the mouth about that baby for?” Mama says. “He wouldn't part with a cent of his money unless he stood to gain something by it.”

“No idea,” Illa replies. Then she remembers what Lennox said about Beau's plan to run for mayor, that he'll need a miracle to win. Maybe the LeBlanc tragedy is Beau Putnam's twisted version of a miracle.

AFTER DINNER, ILLA
goes for a drive. The tension between her and Mama is crazy-making. As she drives, she thinks that this is how they will lose each other, slowly, like Pangaea breaking into the continents.

Passing Park Terrace, emptied of players for the day, Illa remembers that at least one good thing came of that awful night in June when she and Mercy fought. Finally, Illa got her contest shot, a singular image of Mercy dancing in celebration after a baseline-to-baseline drive, tongue out, eyes wide with disbelief at her own physical genius.
Euphoric sport.
Hell, yes. Everything about the picture—the framing, the saturated sunset colors, the glint of the metal net against the darkness of the surrounding trees—was perfect.

From the darkroom, Illa had shouted with joy as the shot emerged from the murk of developing fluid and Lennox had hurried in to see what was wrong.
Dude,
he'd said.
Excellent shot. So tight.
From him, the highest possible praise. At the eleventh hour, she stuffed the photo into an envelope and mailed it express to 4 Times Square. She also kept a copy in her backpack so she could look at it from time to time, because seeing it made her feel proud and happy, and she needed a little of that this summer. The contest website said they'd notify winners by February.

After that evening's news story, she feels drawn to the crime scene, so she drives to the Market Basket lot and snaps a few photos from her car window. The college students positioned near the dumpster barely blink as she clicks away, probably inured by the media bombardment from earlier in the summer.

Cruising away from the convenience store, she sees that the street has been blanketed with posters. They are simple and striking, black letters on a white background, and they hang alongside the colorful flyers advertising Zydeco and country bands at the Pelican Club and the Rodair. H
ELP US FIND HER
, $10,000
REWARD FOR INFORMATION IN
L
E
B
LANC BABY CASE
, they read.

Illa pulls to the curb, grabs her camera, and takes half a dozen snaps of one of the signs, taped crookedly inside the window of a payday loan place. After a couple of minutes, a man appears behind the door, where he hovers, arms crossed over his chest, until she replaces the cap on her lens and slides back into her car. She glances in the rearview mirror and sees that he has come out onto the sidewalk and is staring after her. She sees him writing something on his palm, probably her plate number, and wonders if, once inside, he'll phone the tip line with the information.

AS THE NEWS
of the reward spreads, and after the eyewitness report, the tip line sees a surge in calls. Messages spring up on church marquees: W
HEN YOU ARRIVE AT THE GATES
,
WILL YOU BE ABLE TO TELL
H
IM YOU PROTECTED THE UNBORN
? and A
BORTION IS MURDER
and L
ORD
,
PRESERVE THE VIRTUE OF THE GIRLS OF
P
ORT
S
ABINE
. Mayor Sanchez says the town is engaged in a robust investigation, but that in cases like these, barring better physical evidence, it's very difficult to find the perpetrator. Beau Putnam responds by saying that Sanchez is soft on crime. Because the local news channels love both a political dogfight and a loose cannon, they return to Beau again and again, until it's almost as if he's the official spokesman for the case. Even though Beau hasn't announced his candidacy, people start rallying around him. They're unhappy with the slow progress on the case. They want assurances that it will be solved, and Beau is ready with the strong words they want to hear.

Illa watches as fear grows its tendrils through the girls of Port Sabine. At Sonic, she overhears rumors about girls called in to the station for questioning, about rape and broken condoms and so-and-so who thought his cousin might have been pregnant but then never had a baby. When girls talk about the case, crunching ice from their empty Styrofoam cups, they seem ill at ease, dropping their voices low and looking over their shoulders as if to catch someone watching them.

You were always watched, Illa wants to tell them. In your bikinis at the river, at the Sonic, cruising the seawall hanging out of your friend's car, tanned arms held aloft, shrieking with joy. All over this town, people watch you because you're young and radiant, and you make them desire things: to touch you, to be you. Or at least to be as free as you.

One night, when a sophomore named Katie Dirks skates up to deliver Illa's diet cherry limeade, some tubby punk in a Ford truck heckles her, invoking the LeBlanc baby, her mother, her short shorts and nice ass. As the girl counts out Illa's change, she says: “You'd think being a girl was the fucking crime.”

RETURNING FROM THE
pharmacy one Tuesday in late July, Illa pulls alongside the curb in front of the house. Lingering by the car, not wanting to go inside just yet, she takes stock of the neighborhood. The homes on Galvez Street are modest but neatly kept, with crepe myrtle blooming decadently from every yard, the roots of ancient pecan trees coming up through the sidewalk like the tentacles of sea monsters. Farther down the street, someone is grilling, the scent of singed meat carrying on the torpid breeze. Illa's house sits on a large corner lot, partially hidden from view of the street by oaks, palms, banana trees, and a tropical thicket of hibiscus and oleander bushes. A tall wrought-iron fence separates the yard from Mr. Alvarez's, and bamboo runs wild along the barrier.

The family who lived there before them had abandoned the house; they'd fallen months behind on the mortgage, and Mama bought it cheap at auction back when she drew a paycheck from the refinery.
Two stories, Illa,
her mother stressed to her when they pulled up in front of the house for the first time. With its paint-bare cedarwood planks made gray by weather and neglect, and a turret that was righteously out of place among the clapboard ranch styles, the house on Galvez Street looked to Illa like something out of a Tim Burton movie—haunted, whimsical, and completely unsuited to daily life. And since the day Mama could no longer move up and down the stairs she'd been so proud to own, it carries the whiff of tragedy.

Illa finds Mama in the kitchen looking shifty-eyed. “Hey,” she says, surveying the room.

“Hello!” Mama says too cheerily. She smiles broadly, but there's something wrong—one of her teeth is black. Illa leans in to get a better look. She's pretty sure it's Oreo cookie. She goes to the sink, opens the cabinet door beneath it, and looks into the trash can.

“Illa?” Mama says.