Chasing the Wind (23 page)

The kitchen was full of children and a cheerful-looking, round-faced man and redolent of garlic and onions. The man stood up when she walked in, trailing Caroline, still holding onto Luke's hand. Caroline halted.

"Well, Ellis." She stretched out her hand toward Amalise. "Meet Amalise Catoir."

Ellis's face lit, and he raked his hands back through his hair in a self-conscious way. "How do?" he said, tucking his blue work shirt under his belt. He moved to reach out his hand and then quickly pulled it back, as if uncertain. "I've heard a lot about you."

His chuckle made Amalise wonder exactly what he'd heard. Nick and Charlie looked up from their places at the table and smiled. Daisy held up her doll and waggled it in Amalise's direction.

Ellis pulled out a chair, and Amalise sat down. She hiked Luke onto her lap. From the corner of her eye she saw Ellis raise his brows and give Caroline a look. With a slight shrug, Caroline picked up a large spoon on the counter and turned to a pot on the stove. Over her shoulder she said, "I've been wanting you two to meet, and . . . Ellis, I could use a pinch of salt here."

Amalise curled her arm around Luke, and he settled back against her. Ellis rose, picked up a box of Morton salt on the counter and took it to where Caroline was stirring the huge iron pot.

"Just pour until I say to stop, please." Ellis upturned the salt. Immediately Caroline shrieked and lifted the spoon. "That's enough! Not so fast. Stop. Stop. Stop!"

Amalise laughed. "It smells wonderful. What are you making?"

Ellis put down the salt while Caroline recovered. He patted his wife's shoulder and returned to his chair. "Creole Daube. Caro's a good cook."

Amalise nodded. "Mama makes it. Takes all day to make, but it's one of my favorite dishes."

"Stay and eat with us."

She raised her eyes to the ceiling and made a face. "I wish I could. But I need to get to the office."

"Then I'll save you some." Caroline turned her head, looking at Luke, sitting quietly in Amalise's lap. She smiled. "Looks like you've made a new friend."

Suddenly aware of the attention, Luke ducked his head into the crook of her shoulder. With a sigh, Caroline glanced at Ellis and turned back to the stove. "We just can't get him to open up. We've tried everything."

"He's confused," Ellis said, looking at his wife's back. "He doesn't understand."

"I know." But Caroline's shoulders slumped as she jabbed the contents of the pot.

"Imagine what he must have been through." Amalise cradled the child, feeling the thin shoulder blades, like bird's wings, pressing against her chest. Charlie and Nick scampered out of the room, and the front door slammed behind them. Daisy stood beside Caroline, looking after them. With the doll hanging at her side, she sank against Caroline.

Amalise looked over Luke's head. "I wish we knew his language."

"Could be he just doesn't want to talk," Ellis said.

Caroline walked to the closed end of the kitchen where a cabinet stretched above a counter. "Let me show you something." She pulled out several sheets of paper, brought them to the table, and spread them out, side by side. "I asked the children to draw pictures of themselves," Caroline said, spreading her hands on the table before the pictures. She pointed to one of the sketches. "This one is Luke's."

Amalise looked up. "He understood?"

"Not at first. I gave them the basic outline of a head, then gave them a mirror and told them to fill in the faces. Told them to draw their whole bodies, and add clothes if they wanted." She looked at Amalise. "He copied the others, at least this far."

Amalise studied Luke's picture, drawn with an unsteady hand, a stick figure under the head that Caroline had drawn, with straight lines for arms and legs and slashes for hands and feet. But Luke had drawn no eyes, or nose or mouth where there should be a face. There were no ears, no attempt at depicting hair. The face was simply a blank. She looked up at Caroline. It was a shocking void.

"Compare it to the others." Caroline passed her hand over the other three sheets on the table, each containing facial features, ears, hair. Daisy had used crayons—the girl in her picture had long yellow hair.

Caroline pulled out a chair and sat, looking up at Amalise. "What do you think?"

She shook her head, curling her arms around Luke. "This breaks my heart. How old do you think he is?"

Ellis leaned back. "He's malnourished. I'd guess around six years."

"He eats and sleeps here, but he needs love," Caroline said.

"I guess when he begins to feel secure, he'll learn to trust. That's what we're hoping." Ellis's voice, directed to Caroline, was soothing.

Sweeping up the pictures, Caroline stored them away in the cabinet once again and returned to the stove. Ellis watched her with a frown as she turned down the burner. She placed a lid on the pot of Creole Daube, then untied the apron and sat across from Ellis. They looked at each other.

Luke leaned back, snuggling against Amalise as if she'd been around all his life. Looking down at him, she realized that she could come to love this child, if she let herself.

Sitting on her lap was one small survivor from the war whose televised images had haunted a nation in 1975, when she was in law school. When the shadow children had been far away, there was nothing she could do, she told herself. But this one child was here now, and that raised questions about everything.

He had been told to keep
her close, so here he was, bored, beat, and with nothing much to show for the day. His new client was intense, and that made him nervous. It was almost the end of October, but with the sun blazing through the windshield, he was hot. He ran his finger around the inside of the damp shirt collar, then glanced at his watch and saw it was only 1:30. He thought about making a late lunch run but rejected the idea because it would be just his luck if his client should check in right at that time.

He yawned. Bad enough he'd had to get up at the crack of dawn. He'd been beating his feet behind Amalise Catoir all morning, and now here he was stuck sitting in a hot car with the air conditioning off and the windows down, in front of the First Merchant Bank Building on a Sunday afternoon. And if she was anything like the other suits he'd followed to this building in the past, she might not come out till
next
Sunday. What was wrong with those people? Couldn't they afford to get lives?

And what was with the Asian kid? She'd come out of the house on Kerlerec with him still hanging on, until the woman who lived there had pulled him away and picked him up.

And church? He'd felt shifty skulking in the back of the cathedral. She'd met some guy there he hadn't seen before, not at the law firm anyways. At first he'd thought the way their heads nearly touched when they knelt—you couldn't have slipped a quarter between them—that they were lovers. The way they shared the prayer book, how he'd tucked his hand under her elbow and steered her out when Mass was over. But he'd taken a table behind them at the café and decided after all that they were only friends.

Besides, she'd ditched him for the kid.

The house on Kerlerec Street was what seemed to be making his client nervous. The kid lived there, and plenty others, too. He'd kept his distance, never having been fond of children. They moved too fast with all those quick, sharp movements that catch you off guard. Like cats. He was certain if you were over twenty, any kid could read your mind. They didn't miss much, either.

With a deep sigh, he struggled out of his jacket and tossed it onto the passenger seat. He reached down, pulled off one shoe, and rubbed his foot. His feet hurt from schlepping around the Quarter. Glancing around him out the windows, he saw no sign of his client, so he took off the other shoe, too. He leaned back against the door and stretched out his legs across the seat. Good pay, but what kind of hard-luck job was this?

Robert handed Bingham the investigator's first report. "You'll want to read this," was all he said. Bingham took the report, held it up, and began to read.

They were in the living room of Bingham Murdoch's suite at the Roosevelt late Sunday night. The ceiling was high, the chandeliers hung low. The room was ornate, filled with antiques, and carpeted with a large Persian rug in rich patterns of burgundy and cream. Heavy gold draperies framed the windows. Bingham lay sprawled across a sofa with intricately carved tables at each end. Robert took a seat in a chair nearby. Leaning on one elbow, chin on knuckles, he watched Bingham.

Bingham was feeling exhausted and irritable. He'd thought from the first it was a bad idea to have an associate at Mangen & Morris followed. This was asking for trouble. Amalise had been in the conference room all afternoon, right where she was supposed to be, and they were paying an investigator to sit outside in a car and sleep. Plus, he'd wanted to relax awhile. He'd just left mountains of paper and expensive lawyers behind in the conference room and needed some time to himself.

A tap on the door interrupted them. A muffled voice on the other side called out, "Room service."

Bingham jerked his head toward the door, and Robert went to open it.

"Evenin', sir." The waiter stepped past Robert and nodded toward Bingham. "Mr. Murdoch." The waiter stood holding a tray laded with a bottle of scotch, one glass, a bucket of ice, and a plate of those little sandwiches he liked. The ones with the crust cut off, like Mother used to make.

"Hello, Joseph. Just put it down there." He indicated the coffee table in front of the sofa where he sat. "How's your grandson? Doing better?"

"Yes, sir." Joseph set down the tray. Robert palmed a bill to the old man. Bingham saw it was a ten. "His fever's down and he's wantin' to get out now." Joseph's face crinkled with a smile as he turned his gray head and headed for the door. "He's figured out how to keep his grandma on the run, that's for sure." The door closed softly behind him.

The man knew how to make an exit.

Bingham turned his eyes to Robert, wishing his guest had that same wisdom. Tossing the report down on the couch, Bingham sat up straight, plopped his feet on the floor, and picked up the scotch. He added some ice to a glass and poured himself a drink. "There're some glasses at the bar over there if you want some."

"No, thanks."

"Suit yourself." Bingham sat back, picked up the report again, and settled into the corner of the couch. "Grab yourself a sandwich. There's ham, cheese, roast beef."

"I'm fine," Robert said. He sat back down in the chair, stretching his arms down the armrests and drumming his fingers.

Bingham read through a few paragraphs about going to church, coffee with someone—probably Jude Perett—before he came to the address on Kerlerec. Holding the glass in one hand, he lowered the report and looked at Robert, brows raised.

Robert nodded.

Bingham blew out his cheeks and set the drink down on the table beside him. When he looked back at Robert, he thought the expression on the young man's face was slightly smug. Robert spread out in the chair and said nothing.

"She visited people in the Marigny District?"

Robert nodded again. "Yes, a location within the project survey."

"What's their connection?"

"We don't know. She spent some time with a kid living there. An Asian kid."

"Find out about the family. Let's hope we're not dealing with troublemakers. If she's stuck on the kid, find out what that's all about."

Bingham skimmed the rest of the report. Except for the visit to the Marigny, the rest was uneventful. When he reached the end, he set the report down in his lap and, brows lowered and drawn, looked off. "Wonder how long she's known those folks. And why didn't she mention that right off, about having friends living in the target area?" He looked back at Robert. "What do you think?"

"I've told you before. I think she's trouble."

"Coincidence, maybe."

Robert plucked some lint from his suit jacket. "Too much at stake here for speculation, Bingham." Dangling his hand over the side of the armrest, he flicked away the lint. Bingham watched it float to the floor. "Too much money involved to play games. I've sent a copy to Tom."

Bingham's mouth quirked down at the corners. Robert had a point. Amalise Catoir was a woman worrying about souls and trees. She was a potential protester. He could see it now, all that commotion. He felt the surge as his blood pressure spiked. "Who else lives at this address?"

"Man and wife, with four children, including the kid. Renters."

"No lease?"

"Nope."

Bingham frowned. Renters had nothing to gain and everything to lose when a house was sold out from under them. And the sale was a certainty, he knew. The offered price would go as high as needed to get them out of there. They'd be evicted. He picked up a sandwich from the tray and chewed without tasting it.

The telephone rang. Bingham flicked his finger at Robert and finished off the sandwich. Robert lifted the rotary phone from the table beside the chair, balanced it on his knee, and picked up the receiver. "Tom, buddy!" he said after a second.