Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense (80 page)

“I wanted to throw it away, but somehow I couldn't. I thought it might speed up the curse or something,” Mrs. Torrance said. “Naturally I didn't show it to Trey.”

“This was how long ago?”

“Just under a month. She told him he'd be dead within the month and he was.”

“Is the body still upstairs?” I asked.

She nodded, her eyes darting fearfully.

“You'd better take me up to see it.”

She led us up a graceful curved staircase to an enormous master bedroom. The drapes were closed, and the room had an aquariumlike quality. I turned on the light. The man lying in the bed looked peaceful enough, but nothing like the fierce bulldog in that portrait. He looked small and shrunken.

“Your husband lost a lot of weight since that portrait was painted,” I said.

“Since the curse,” she said. “He just shrank before my eyes.”

“He didn't eat?”

“He started vomiting the next day, and after that he couldn't keep food down. He'd feel fine, he'd eat something, and the vomiting would start again. He got so weak he couldn't stand.”

“You called a doctor?”

“He said it was probably a virus. He didn't take it too seriously.”

“I understood it was a heart attack that killed him?”

“That's what the doctor said. The vomiting did stop after a few days, but Trey was as weak as a baby and he found it hard to swallow. Then he started having heart palpitations. He had had previous heart trouble, you know, and he was on medication. The doctor upped his dose of digoxin, but it didn't do any good, did it? I begged him to go to that woman and tell him he'd leave her in peace, but he was so stubborn, he wouldn't do it. Even with his life on the line, he wouldn't do it.”

She started to sob quietly.

I stared down at the man lying in the bed and cleared my throat. “Mrs. Torrance, I'm sorry your husband died, but I'm not sure what you think the police can do for you.”

She glared at me. “Arrest that woman. Make her pay for what she has done.”

I tried not to smile. “Mrs. Torrance, you seem like a sensible woman. I'm sure you'll understand that there is no court in this state that would convict someone of killing via a curse. It would be thrown out before it came to trial.”

“But she's just as guilty as if she stabbed him or forced poison down his throat,” she said angrily. “You should have seen my husband before. He was a powerful, aggressive man—full of life. The moment her curse struck, he just melted away until his heart gave out. And even if you couldn't prove the voodoo curse, surely harassing him and making threats is against the law, isn't it?”

I shook my head. “If we hauled in folks every time they said ‘I could kill you,' the parish jails would be even more crowded than they are now. And sending one doll through the mail doesn't amount to harassing. Did she send anything else?”

“One doll was enough.” She looked at me coldly. “It worked, didn't it?”

I started to make my way toward the door. There was something strangely cold and uncomfortable about that dark room with its drawn blinds. I wondered if I was succumbing to the voodoo hysteria myself. “Look, Mrs. Torrance. I'll have the body autopsied to verify the cause of death. If it was a heart attack, I don't think there's anything we can do. I'm really sorry. I'm sure this is most disturbing for you.”

“It's even more disturbing to know that people like Maman Boutin can kill at will and nobody is going to stop them,” she said.

“Okay,” I said with a sigh. “Tell me where I can find this Maman Boutin and I'll go talk to her.”

She described where we'd find the shacks. I had Renoir call and arrange for the body to be taken for autopsy, then we paid a call on the family physician.

“I understand that you were uncomfortable about the cause of death,” I said to him.

He was a dapper, fussy little man, the kind who wears blazers and has his shirts starched and ironed. He had a gold signet ring on his left pinkie. “The cause of death was a heart attack,” he said.

“Brought on by—”

He shook his head. “The man was a walking time bomb. He'd had heart trouble for several years and yet he wouldn't slow down. He loved his beignets and coffee, and his bourbon-and-Seven-Up. Typical type-A personality. Very short fuse. Upset him and he'd explode. The heart attack was only a matter of time.”

“So you don't agree with his widow that it was caused by voodoo.”

“Is that what she told you?” He looked amused, then shook his head. “She was very upset. She had told me several times that some woman had cursed him, and I agree that he did become sick immediately after the supposed confrontation took place, but as a physician I'm not trained to recognize the symptoms of voodoo. I'd reiterate what I put on the death certificate. He was weakened by a nasty stomach virus and finished off by a heart attack.”

“I'm having an autopsy done,” I said. “Just in case.”

“I don't know what you think you're going to find,” he said, “other than a severely damaged heart muscle.”

He escorted us to the door and opened it. I paused on the doorstep.

“So in your estimation there was nothing unexpected about this man's death?”

“Only that he went downhill so fast,” he said. “He was a big bull of a man, and apart from that heart condition, he was never sick. He caught some little bitty virus and it didn't seem like anything helped.”

“You're sure it was a virus?”

“If you mean was it a voodoo curse, all I can tell you is that there is a nasty stomach bug going around this city at the moment, and Trey Torrance's symptoms were consistent with the other cases I've treated. A little more violent and severe, perhaps, but Trey also overindulged in his food and drink. And he probably didn't stick to the bland diet I prescribed for him. He wasn't exactly good at taking directions, as his wife will tell you.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” I nodded to him and we took our leave.

I
T WAS CLOSE
to rush hour and it took us awhile to cross the river and get free of the city sprawl. Then we were driving up Highway 18 with water meadows and the occasional horse swishing its tail in the shade of a live oak on one side of us and the great brown expanse of the Mississippi on the other. It was times like this when I asked myself what the hell I was doing shutting myself up in a big city. I was born in Kentucky, came down to New Orleans to attend Tulane, and stayed. But I was still a country boy at heart.

The last mile to the shacks across the river was on a dirt track. It had rained earlier in the week, and the potholes were full of puddles. We splashed, bumped, and slithered our way out to the shacks with Renoir apologizing each time we bottomed out in a particularly big pothole. That boy was going to have to develop some balls if he wanted to survive in the NOPD.

The dirt track ended, and Renoir parked the car under a sorrylooking half-dead tree. We got out and immediately I heard the whine. I barely had time to remember to roll down my shirtsleeves before the mosquitoes descended on us in a cloud. Renoir wasn't so lucky; he was wearing short sleeves. He slapped and waved his arms and cursed under his breath.

“Why would anybody want to live out here, sir?” he muttered. “This is a hellhole if ever I saw one.”

“Some people like the peace and quiet, I guess,” I said. “And they like to be left alone.”

“I'd leave them alone, all right, if I got my blood sucked dry every time I came to visit.”

We followed a narrow track through some bushes until it brought us out to a field of saw grass running alongside a bayou. Where the bayou emptied into the river there was a cluster of shacks huddled together in the shade of a tree. The shacks looked as if they had been built in haste by a gang of boys wanting a clubhouse. There were holes in the walls, half-collapsed front porches, and boarded-up windows. A sorrier-looking sight I have never seen.

Renoir echoed my sentiments. “I can't see why this place was worth fighting over. You couldn't pay me enough to stay here.”

There was a rustle in the tall grass to our left, and a big old gator slid down the muddy bank and plopped into the bayou. An egret rose from the water and drifted to a safer spot. The mosquitoes kept up their whining symphony. I could feel them biting through my pant legs, but as a senior officer, I was too dignified to slap the way Renoir was doing.

A skinny dog slunk out from beneath the nearest of the shacks and started barking at us. At this signal an old black man poked his head out of the door.

“Good afternoon, sir,” I said. “We're looking for Mrs. Boutin?”

“Maman Boutin you's wanting?” he asked in a voice that sounded like a wheel that needed oil. “She don't take kindly to strangers.”

“We're policemen. We just need to ask her some questions.”

“She don't take kindly to questions,” he said.

The mosquitoes and the steamy heat were getting to me. “And the police don't take kindly to being given the runaround,” I said. “We can talk to her here or have her hauled in for questioning. It's all the same to me.”

The old man shot us a look of alarm. “I wouldn't do that, mister,” he said. “It don't pay to mess with Maman Boutin. She give you the eye, and you jus' shrivel up an' die. I seen it for myself.”

“I'm willing to chance it,” I said, and heard an intake of breath from Renoir standing behind me.

The old man shrugged as if I were a hopeless case. “She in that house over there,” he said. “The one beside the tree.”

That particular shack was half hidden under the great tree, with curtains of Spanish moss trailing down all over it. It was a pitiful structure of mismatched wood. New boards had been nailed on where old ones had fallen off. The roof had several patches of shingles missing, exposing the tar paper underneath. Being this close to the river I was surprised the place had survived at all. I had seen what spring floods could do.

We made our way between puddles to Maman Boutin's shack. The dog had been joined by another one, and they walked at our heels, growling softly. Not a comfortable feeling. Renoir made sure he stayed as close to me as possible.

“Do I really have to go in there, sir?” he asked.

“You afraid of voodoo, Renoir?”

“It's all right for you, sir,” Renoir said. “You weren't born around here. We have it in our blood.”

“If she's a real priestess, she'll know you don't mean her any harm. You'll be safe enough,” I said.

As I started up the five rickety steps that led to Madam Boutin's front door, there was an unearthly cackling sound. My heart did a flip-flop as several white chickens, who had been sleeping in the shade on the porch, rose up, cackling and flapping around us. The noise produced a face in the darkness behind the doorway.

“I know why you here,” a dried-up old voice said. There was a slight twang of French accent.

“Are you Maman Boutin?” I asked.

“That's what they calls me.”

“I'm here to ask you some questions about Mr. Torrance. You remember the man who came to visit you?”

“He dead yet?” she asked calmly.

“He died this morning. May we come in?”

“I suppose you can. He can stay on the porch.” She indicated Renoir, who looked visibly relieved.

I stepped inside and was enveloped in a darkness so complete that I could only just make out the form of a table and a straight-backed chair. The place stank of a peculiar odor—a mixture of rotting vegetation and sweat mixed with maybe chicken shit and some kind of sweet incense. I coughed and tried not to breathe.

“You can sit there.” She pointed at the chair.

I sat. She took up position in an old armchair I hadn't noticed before in the darkness. I could barely make out her face. What I could see was little and wizened like an old dried apple, and so dark that it blended into the darkness of the room. But her eyes were bright enough. As I became accustomed to the darkness, I could see that she had some kind of fabric wrapped around her head and several rows of beads around her neck.

“Mr. Torrance died today,” I said.

She nodded as if she'd been expecting it.

“He came to see you a month ago. He told you you'd have to move out because he was going to build on this land. You threatened him.”

“I didn't threaten him,” she said.

“His widow claims you put a voodoo curse on him.”

“I just warned him,” she said. “What right did he have coming here and telling me to get off his land? What made him think it was his land, eh? I was born in this place. My mama was born here before me. I tol' him I wasn't goin' nowhere. And you know what he tol' me? He said he gonna bulldoze this place and it don' matter to him none whether I'm in it or not.”

“So you put a curse on him?”

She shrugged. “I tell him if he don't change his mind, he's going to be sorry.”

“And you sent him a doll.”

“I done what?” She leaned forward in her chair.

“A voodoo doll. You sent him a voodoo doll with pins stuck in it.”

“I never sent him no doll. That's just mumbo jumbo stuff for tourists. Maman Boutin don't need no dolls to do her work, young man. If I say a man goin' to die, he goin' to die. I got strong magic. The
loa
listen to me.”

“So you never sent the doll?”

“I tol' you.”

“And you didn't send anything else? Did you give him anything to eat or drink?”

She laughed then, a dry, cackling laugh. “You trying to find out if I give him some kin' of bad medicine? Maman Boutin don' need no bad medicine. You policemen wasting your time here. If my magic made him die, ain't no way you ever goin' to prove it.”

She wasn't stupid, I thought as I got to my feet. “I know that,” I said. “But this is the United States of America. You can't go around killing people when you feel like it.”