Disembodied Bones (8 page)

“I didn’t ask her,” Sebastien said gently.
“But it seemed very important to her. Oui, she stared at it as if
it would save her life.” He considered. “She asked about a ride to
Shreveport.”

Jacques glanced around him to make sure no
one except Louis was near. “She came to the police station,
Sebastien. The police to ask about this little boy who’s gone
missing. She knows what this can mean to us. Why the police, for
the love of
Dieu
? These people will never understand. They
would hate us if they could.”

“
Je ne sais pas, ma ami
,” Sebastien
said quietly. “The
famille
is coming. We will help. We can
find her. The
famille
is like cement. We stick
together.”

“Yes.
Oui,
” Jacques said,
distractedly. “If anything happens to her…”

“We won’t let it happen to her,” Sebastien
said confidently and hoped it was so. He hoped that Leonie’s
wrongdoing would not be repeated. She was going against
long-ingrained rules of the family. She was giving no thought to
the protection of the remainder of the family, and who knew what
would result as a consequence of her deeds.

After Jacques hung up the phone he rested his
head against the black machine and tried to compose himself. He
knew his daughter had a kind heart. What can Leonie have to do with
this child who had been kidnapped from some local mall?

Louis said, “You said the boy who’s gone
missing.” The look on his face was troubled. He had committed some
awful act by driving Leonie Simoneaud to this place, and he
couldn’t think of a single way to redeem himself.

Jacques looked up.

“Leonie said something about my belt buckle.
My prize belt buckle. I got it a couple years ago in Marshall at
the rodeo.” He grinned cheerfully at the memory. “Best time I ever
did and boy was Mary Bois impressed.” His grin faded as he saw the
look on Jacques’s face. “But Leonie said she knew where it
was.”

“What are you saying, Louis?” Jacques asked
tiredly.

“It’s missing. I lost it a few weeks ago and
I ain’t been able to find it. Thought Roy Freniere took it, tell
you the truth. Roy’s a down-dirty dog and…” Louis stopped as
Jacques frowned. He added hurriedly, “She said it was behind my
bed. I ain’t had time to look yet but she said it and it sounds
right, because I put it on my bed sometimes and
Maman
comes
in to fluff the blankets every day. It could have gone behind the
bed.”

“What on God’s green earth are you talking
about, Louis?” Jacques put his hands on his hips. His daughter was
missing in the world of the outsiders and Louis was babbling about
a missing belt buckle.

“The belt buckle’s missing. So’s the kid.
Maybe that’s Leonie’s gift.” Louis put his hands out appealingly,
as if he were trying to garner Jacques’s good will. “Finding
missing things. Sometimes the family, we have odd little offshoots,
oui
. You know, like that gal down to the gulf who can juggle
things without touching a single thing.”

Babette’s words came to Jacques as she had
presented her dirty Bulova watch to him in mild indignation.
“Leonie said she found it buried in the flowerbed. She said Althea
took it and buried it there. Silly little girl should have just
told me she took my watch instead of burying it in the dirt.”

Had my little Leonie been able to find it
because it was missing? Because Babette missed terribly her
favorite piece of jewelry, the watch her
grandmaman
gave her
the day she walked across the stage, when she was only eighteen
years old?

Jacques’s face furrowed into dismayed
uncertainty. Babette would have been missing that watch something
awful, because she didn’t have many things to remind her of her
beloved grandmaman. And Leonie was very upset that her mother
accused her of lying. So when she really needed help, what was she
to do? But go find the boy herself, and come to the police
department, where she undoubtedly was accused of more mischief. No
one to trust but herself. No one at all. Not even her family. “Oh,
Dieu
,” muttered Jacques. “Tell me what else Leonie said to
you, Louis. Tell me word for word.”

Louis scratched the side of his forehead, as
if the act would help him to better remember.

•

The house was a shadow-filled labyrinth to
Leonie. Each room had some childish theme to it. A room was filled
with hundreds of multicolored bouncy balls so that this twisted man
could have his own indoor bounce house. Another was packed with
Star Wars toys. There were even life-sized storm troopers who were
posed on each side of the door and Leonie caught her breath before
she realized there wasn’t someone under the suits. There was even a
room filled with E.T. paraphernalia from stuffed toys to three
pinball games along one wall. But in all of those rooms there
wasn’t a windowless room filled with satin pillows and a little boy
carefully attached to the floor by an inset ring.

Leonie found a staircase, pausing at the base
to listen. She had moved far enough from the side she had entered
that it seemed completely quiet again. She couldn’t hear the other
person moving around in the house, nor was she sure that she wanted
to hear him.

Looking up instead she judged that this must
be one of at least two staircases in the big house. It was narrow
enough for a single adult to pass, and its wooden steps showed a
light layer of dust. No one had come this way for a while.
But I
don’t have time or the safety to find the other staircase,
she
thought deliberately. There was something inside her that told her
the situation had just become urgent. Douglas was waking up and his
heavy-eyed confusion was turning to fear again. It leeched out of
his mind in viscous black waves.

Leonie mounted the stairs with ever
increasing speed. When she got to the top she was almost running.
Douglas mustn’t scream for help. He mustn’t scream at all.

There was a long hallway at the stop. Paneled
with dark wood and illuminated by intermittent gilded light
fixtures, it stretched far and away as it traversed the length of
the house. When she looked to her side there was a smaller door
there and she opened it to find another smaller staircase, which
showed an even heavier level of dust. Leonie was only guessing that
it led to the attic. It didn’t seem like there had been a third
floor, but it was such a big house. She moved on. Douglas was
closer. She could feel it. He was so near she could reach out and
grasp one of his little arms, no more big around than one of her
own.

A second door was a bedroom filled with old
furniture. A third door showed another bedroom filled with boxes of
unopened toys. A fourth bedroom was clearly in everyday use. Leonie
paused for a moment. It was simple and austere compared to the rest
of the house. Clearly the man she saw mentally as a monster was
undemanding in his sleeping habits. A single bed with plain covers
was centered in the room and there was nothing on the walls. Next
to the bed there was a plain whitewashed nightstand with a lamp and
a clock radio, with the kind of numbers that dropped from a
continuously moving circle of plastic slips.

The room didn’t tell Leonie what she needed
to know so she shut the door and moved on, moving down the
wood-paneled hallway with excessive care. At the end of the hallway
she found a door that was locked and knew that she had hit pay
dirt. She touched the wood of the door and knew that Douglas was
waiting for her, biting on his lip to keep from crying out.

“Douglas,” she whispered, pressing her face
close against the dark wood. “Douglas, I’m Leonie. I’m going to get
you out. But you have to be quiet. He’s in the house with us.”

Douglas didn’t say anything at all. But
Monroe Whitechapel did and she spun around with her back up against
the locked door. He stood at the top of the other staircase, which
was the one Leonie hadn’t time to locate. A tall man with broad
shoulders, he was in his thirties and possessed an unassuming,
good-looking face, hardly the monster she had pictured
mentally.

“Leonie? I don’t know any Leonie,” he said.
Whitechapel grinned a predatory smile at her and threaded a key
through his fingers in a complicated maneuver that street magicians
used, the key moving across the backs of his fingers effortlessly
as he looked her over. “A girl,” he added, the smile slipping a
little. “I don’t really…like girls.”

Behind her Leonie heard Douglas moan with
distress.

“But that aside, whatever are you doing in my
house, little girl?” he asked politely. “And how do you know about
Douglas?”

Leonie was frozen.

Whitechapel let his lips go back to show an
array of white teeth. He didn’t move, but merely stood there, with
one foot on the top step and the other two below, his knee bent and
waiting to make the last step up. “Tell you what, Leonie,” he said
amicably. “I’ll ask you a riddle and if you give me the answer,
then I’ll let you go. How about that?”

“A riddle?” Leonie found her voice and
couldn’t help the tremor in it.

“Sure. And I’ll let Douglas go, too.” If it
were possible his smile got even bigger and Leonie tried to sink
into the door. “Here it is. Douglas couldn’t answer it, but maybe
you can. Buried ever so deep, piled over with heavy stones, yet I
will effortlessly dig up the disembodied bones. What am I?”

“What am I?” Leonie echoed hollowed, the
words of her waking nightmare ringing in her brain.
What am I?
What am I? At least I know where those awful words are coming
from.
But she didn’t need to answer his riddle. She already had
the answers she needed to know. “You won’t let me go. You won’t let
Douglas go, either. You’re a monster. Sure you look like a normal
guy but you’re like some vicious thing that lives alone in the
bayous where no one will dare go. You need to be locked up like a
rabid animal,
M’su
. Angola will be too good for the likes of
you.”

Whitechapel laughed uproariously.

Behind her Leonie sensed that Douglas was
yanking at his bonds, but his limbs were almost useless from a lack
of circulation. But she forgot about him. Whitechapel was laughing
so hard at her that he had tears running from his eyes. He didn’t
consider her a threat. She was merely a skinny little girl who
happened onto him by circumstances. And he was bound to determine
one way or another to determine her level of threat. But she had
such fire as if she held all the power here, and he hadn’t such
enjoyment for years. When he reached up to rub the tears from his
eyes he suddenly comprehended that Leonie had launched her tiny
body at him and the momentum was enough to carry both of them down
the stairs.

-

If you break me

I do not stop working.

If you touch me

I may be snared.

If you lose me

Nothing in life will ever matter.

What am I?

I am hope.

The more of it there is,

The less you will ever see.

What is it?

Together they rolled to the first landing,
Monroe Whitechapel landing underneath Leonie as she pummeled his
bigger body with flying fists, twisting knees, and kicking feet. In
a furious rage she remembered that Granny Simoneaud had firmly
instructed her to aim for a man’s “sweetmeats” if he ever bothered
her. So Leonie tried with an arching foot and Whitechapel easily
tossed her away before she could connect. She slid down three
stairs on her back and cracked her shoulder on the solid wood
banister. A moan slipped from her mouth.

One of her shoes came off and went flying
down the stairs, tipping over the side and disappearing downstairs.
A long moment later, the echo of it hitting the marble floor below
came whispering back. Leonie ignored it as she scrambled to her
feet, as well as the bombarding pain in her shoulder. She froze
into place as Whitechapel rose up only feet away from her.

Lying between them on the edge of a step,
balanced precariously as it had been on his fingers, was the key to
the room that held Douglas captive. Leonie’s eyes flitted down to
it and knew she would have to beat this man somehow. Beat him and
get the key in order to get to Douglas Trent. Her eyes went back up
to him. Six feet tall, he looked taller than most of the men she
knew and just as strong. His shoulders were broad and she could see
the breadth of his biceps under his T-shirt.

Whitechapel’s eyes narrowed as he watched her
watching him. Although his expression was blank, his fists clenched
into tight balls of anger at his sides, suspecting that smooth talk
and charm would not soothe this child’s rioting emotions like he
had so many others. But she was inside his house, inside his
territory, and she would tell him what he needed to know. One way
or another.

“How did you know about Douglas?” he asked
unhurriedly. “Did you follow us from the mall? Someone tell you
that it was me? I need to know. You have to understand, I can’t
have any complications from this.” He unclenched a fist and used
his fingers to rub at a red spot on his chin where one of Leonie’s
elbows had connected. “You called him Douglas. Did you know he was
there or did he tell you his name?” His eyes skimmed her little
figure assessing her worth, gauging the cheap clothing and the
remaining single ragged tennis shoe. “You look like trailer trash,
so maybe you just broke in. Of course, I saw the window. A bold
little thief. And what did you find, a missing little boy instead
of ready cash? Is that it?”

“Memories!” Leonie suddenly shouted.

Whitechapel started. “Wha-at?” he stuttered.
Suddenly he was disconcerted. His hand dropped to his side as if he
were unable to control it any longer. Fingers twitched
agitatedly.