Fever Moon (9 page)

It took a moment for Chula to catch the humor hidden at the corner of Madame’s mouth.

Chula was still smiling as she drove away from the cabin. Lost in her own thoughts, she rounded a sharp curve with deep sand, unprepared for the car blocking the middle of the road.

She slammed on brakes, cursing. As soon as she brought her vehicle to a stop, inches from the wooden bumper of the other car, she was out and striding down the road past both cars. “Where are you, you stupid son of a bitch?” She was too angry to control her language. “What kind of moron leaves a car in the middle of the road on a curve?”

There was no sign of the person who’d abandoned the car, and she felt the edge of her anger fade. She took a deep breath; the October air held the promise of a chill when the sun went down. Turning, she looked back to see a tall, lean man standing with one foot on the running board of his car. To her disgust, she recognized Praytor Bless. He was grinning like a mule eating briars.

“I would have said something sooner, but I didn’t want to interrupt your pleasure in usin’ foul language.” Praytor took his foot off the running board and stood up tall, his hands at his side. A brown fedora shaded his eyes. Lanky and lean, he wore a starched shirt and creased wool trousers.

Chula disliked the fact that he stood between her and her vehicle. For all that he’d thrown in with Henri Bastion and was said to be building his own fortune, he made Chula uncomfortable. “What are you doing out here, Praytor?” She deliberately chose his first name.

“I could ask you the same.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of a nearly new jacket. Chula noted that whatever work Praytor claimed to do for Henri, it didn’t require manual labor or sweat.

“I’m doing my job.” Her tone belied her smile. “Delivering the mail.”

“And I’m doin’ mine.”

“Which would be?” She was worried about Madame. There were fools who thought Madame practiced some type of voodoo or witchcraft. They couldn’t comprehend that she was a healer, not someone who dabbled in curses and plagues.

“Lookin’ out for my interests.”

She would have to pass him so she started forward, her skirt swinging against her legs. “I’ve never been clear what your
interests
might involve, Praytor.”

“I’m a businessman, Miss Chula. By the terms around here, a successful one.” He turned so that he could walk with her to her car. “I got railroad and oil concerns. A little of this and a little of that. I expect my fortunes to grow in the near future.”

“Congratulations are in order then. Are you here to see Madame? Are you ill?” she asked, a thin layer of concern in her voice. She could feel her heart beating too fast, but she knew he had no inkling of her dislike for him. Nor would he. The trick to men was to smile as you looked in their eyes, to flatter even when it stretched the biggest imagination. Her mother had taught her survival skills in a world dominated by men. She was no physical match for Praytor and though he’d done nothing untoward, she felt uneasy around him.

“No, ma’am. I just wanted to talk to Madame about some medicine for my sister. She’s taken poorly and can’t seem to pull out of a slump.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope she recovers.” She tried to recall if she’d ever seen Praytor’s sister and came up with a negative.

“She just needs a tonic to build her blood. Mrs. Dumont will be able to help her, I’m sure.”

“Are you having car trouble?” Chula pointed to his vehicle as she passed.

“Not at all. That Ford runs like clockwork. I stopped to see if there were any crayfish in the slough there. I was thinkin’ Mama might boil us up some with some potatoes and corn. Maybe pull out my fiddle for a bit of dancin’.” He opened her car door. “Would you care to come to dinner?”

She pasted a smile, fighting against revulsion. “How kind of you, but I have plans.”

“I didn’t realize you were seeing anyone.” His tone was sharp.

Praytor Bless had money and influence. He wasn’t a man to toy with. “I have plans with Mother.” She got in and pulled her skirt in before closing the door. “But your invitation is kind, Praytor. I hope you enjoy the crayfish and the music.”

She started the car, focusing her attention on the road, hoping he would take the hint and move his vehicle so she could pass.

For a long moment he stared in the window at her, at last walking to his car and moving it to the side of the road so she could drive by.

She gave him a nod as she passed, her foot heavier on the gas than normal as the first blue notes of dusk seeped through the thick woods.

The sun had set when Raymond watched Praytor Bless exit the road that led to Madame Louiselle’s. First Chula Baker had pulled out, going a bit faster than advisable. Then, fifteen minutes later, Praytor. Instead of turning toward home, Praytor headed north, toward town.

Raymond eased down the road and parked at Madame’s. He gathered the quilts he’d had Pinkney wash and dry and took them up the stairs. Madame signaled him inside without a word, taking the bedcovers from him.

“How is she?” he asked. His own observations told him that Adele was neither better nor worse.

“She suffers.” Madame led him into the kitchen. A large glass bowl contained leaves and brown berries that Raymond had never seen. Madame poured an amber liquid from the bowl into tiny bottles.

“Chula Baker was here.” He made it a statement. “And Praytor, too.”

“Chula brought my mail, and Praytor came to see what he could learn.” Madame wiped her forehead with the back of one hand. She put the bowl down and walked behind him. “He’s a nosy man, but Chula is like you, Raymond, out of time and place here. Once she was good company for you.”

Raymond leaned his weight on the back of a chair. “I’m not good company for anyone, Madame.”

He felt her light touch trace across his lower back, moving along his hip. A tingle flickered up his spine.

“The pain is like a fire, burning low and then growing with new fuel. You live in the shadow of it,” Madame said.

He didn’t want to talk about his wound. “The pain reminds me of who I used to be and how much I’ve changed. If I didn’t have it, I might forget.” He walked to the window to escape her touch. “I’ll bring some of Adele’s clothes tomorrow.”

“She’s beyond my help, Raymond. Has Doc Fletcher returned?”

“He has, but he can’t do more than you.” Doc was a good man, but he would recommend incarceration in the state asylum. Adele would be taken away without even a trial. Joe Como would want him to drop the case. “Did Praytor see Adele?”

Madame moved around the table so that she faced him again. “He didn’t come inside. He had no way of knowing she was here.”

“Good.” Praytor was a mama’s boy and a busybody. No one to fear, but someone to stir trouble if he had half the chance. “I don’t want folks in town to know she’s out here. Could mean trouble for you.”

Madame handed him a cup of steaming tea. The brew was black, and Raymond thought of his great-grandmother, an Algonquin Indian who had no use for white men, saying they were a curse on the land and would bring death to all living things.

She’d taught Raymond the cry of the hawk, saying it would bring help in times of trouble. Raymond had taught the call to Antoine, a signal between them when they’d hunted together.

Nanna, as he’d called the old woman, claimed that she could change into a crow at will, and her eyes had been black and sharp. She’d cocked her head when she listened, like a bird, and she could read the future in the dregs of plants she used for medicinal teas. Once she’d drunk a cup of tea so black it was like looking into a hole. The thing she’d seen had frightened her so badly that she’d only say that Raymond faced a great battle and much hardship. She hadn’t been lying either. He sipped the tea, refusing to look into the cup.

“Did Adele ever mention the father of her boys?” he asked.

“She never said.” Madame stood at the sink and sipped her tea. “She came for morning sickness. She walked all the way here. She said only that she was with child and needed something so she could continue to work.”

“Did you ask her who the father was?”

Madame nodded. “I told her that he should help her.” She shrugged. “She said he wouldn’t. She said he was nothing to her or the baby. That she would love the child enough for two parents. When twins were born, she was delighted. She had them herself, alone. She is a strong woman.”

Raymond pondered that as he drank the hot, bitter tea. “She didn’t want the father to share in the baby, so she didn’t love him?”

“Adele didn’t seem to have love in her life, from any source, except Rosa and those baby boys. The man who planted the babies was never a part of her life. A man sometimes betrays the woman who loves him.”

Guilt was a physical sensation. Raymond thought of the young girl who’d waited for his return from the war, expecting a ring. He couldn’t explain to her that the man she loved was dead. What had come home from the battlefields was only a husk, a man undeserving of love. A half man deserving only contempt.

“Raymond, are you ill?” Madame took his teacup from a hand that shook.

“May I sit with Adele a moment?”

“Talk to her. Try to reach her,
cher
. She needs someone to bring her back. She has lost her children but she is young. From what I can tell, she can bear a child again.”

Raymond left the cool kitchen and drew up a chair beside the sofa in the stifling front room. A thin sheen of sweat covered Adele’s face, and he wrung out a cloth in a basin of water and wiped her face. She looked only moments away from death. In many ways, it would simplify things if she died. The parish would calm down, and the wild talk of werewolves would dissipate.

And a killer would also walk free, because Raymond knew she was innocent. Not by evidence, but by his gut. He’d come to the badge not because of his knowledge of the law or his desire to apply it, but his job was a symbol of who he’d become, a loner. It suited his view of himself, a man watching life from the outside. He judged others as he judged himself. This woman, though, so harshly served by life, needed his help. Whatever her sins, she was innocent of murder.

“Adele, I want to help you.” He spoke softly, wondering if Madame could hear him. “I don’t believe you killed Henri. I want to prove it, but I don’t know how. I need answers from you. I need for you to wake up and talk to me.”

Adele sighed, and a whisper of peace touched her features. In that moment, by the light of the flickering fire, Raymond realized that she might have been beautiful.

“Do you know what happened to Armand Dugas?”

The name troubled her. She turned her head from side to side. Raymond had the sense that she was almost with him, that the veil of unconsciousness was thinning.

“I need to find Dugas if he’s alive.”

Her hands seemed to push him away.

“Adele, let me help you. Try!”

He sensed Madame behind him, and he turned to look at her. “Can she understand me?”

“I don’t know,
cher
. But I do. And I worry for you. Some things are impossible to change.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Come back tomorrow. If she isn’t dead, she may be aware.”

F
LORENCE slipped the thin gold wire through the hole in her ear and straightened to judge the effect in her mirror. The gold glinted softly against her jawline. The earrings were the perfect length. She turned slowly and examined the room. The bed linens were freshly ironed and the coverlet new. A peach shawl, draped over the lamp shade, cast a warm, soft light that played to perfection on her olive skin tones.

From the bottom drawer of her vanity she brought out the tiny bottle of real perfume and dabbed her ears, neck, and cleavage before lifting her skirt to apply a drop to her naval and the exposed pubis that showed beneath her garter belt. For tonight she’d purchased silk hose. They’d cost a pretty penny, but the effect was worth it.

She lowered the skirt of the little black dress she’d bought at Marcel’s and rocked her hips to see the shimmy of material. For a split second she fantasized about going dancing. There were joints and bars all over Iberia Parish, but dancing was a date, and Florence Delacroix was not a woman men asked on a public date.

She swallowed back the bitter taste of self-pity and walked to the kitchen. Her drink had left a condensation ring on the table, and she picked up the glass and wiped the water mark off the burnished wood. He was late. She finished the bourbon, put the glass in the sink, and walked out on the front porch where a cool breeze brought the singing of insects to her.

The night was clear and through the arching limbs of the live oak in her yard she saw the round moon floating in black velvet. She shuddered as if someone had stepped on her grave.

The high-pitched whine of a mosquito near her ear made her swat wildly, her finger painfully catching the gold hoop in her ear. It shouldn’t be so hot in the last days of October. The weather was unnatural. Something bad was bound to happen.

She let the screen door slam behind her as she went back inside to look for her car keys. He was twenty minutes late, and she would not sit and wait for him. One of the lessons her mama had taught her was that waiting for a man was time lost forever. At thirty-four, Florence didn’t have time to waste. God had blessed her with firm flesh and sweet curves, but time had already begun to pull and tug. When she studied her face in the bright morning light, she saw the tiny wrinkles that would, in time, be fissures. Her breasts, so ripe and firm, would sag. She’d known older whores who tried to sell themselves and they disgusted her. Time was her most precious commodity and no one wasted it for her.

Her keys were on the vanity and she picked them up, along with her purse. Her high heels clicked on the wood as she strode through her house snapping off lights. The screen creaked and she jutted out her butt to hold it back while she locked the door.

A hand came out of the darkness and grabbed her buttocks, sliding over the curve of muscle to a place more intimate. “I’m sorry I’m late. Were you going out?”