Nothing seemed to shake this woman’s composure. “We need to talk. Can you take a break?” Renée’s gaze never strayed from the knife.
Rose didn’t look up as she quickly reduced the leaves into a finely minced pile. “These herbs must be fresh or they lose strength,” she said, tilting her chin at a seat a few feet away. “You sit, I listen.”
Renée stayed where she was, her eyes trained on the knife. “Where were you yesterday afternoon?”
Rose looked up with her head slightly cocked. “Here.”
“You’re sure? There was a protest at Camp Bulkeley. Things were chaotic—maybe you slipped away?” The idea wasn’t as preposterous as it sounded. There was no barbed wire surrounding the bungalow.
The clunk of a knife hitting the cutting board and Renée’s slightly labored breathing were the only sounds in the kitchen for several beats.
“Why do you ask such questions?” Rose said, her voice low and measured, though a bead of sweat had formed on her upper lip.
“A friend of mine was murdered yesterday. Someone stabbed him seven times with a chef’s knife.”
Rose’s knife stilled in midair. “You think I did such a thing?” Her voice at last registered an emotion: astonishment.
Renée couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m your lawyer. I’m just asking a few questions.” She sounded more defensive than she would have liked, but the questions needed to be asked. Rose had the means; not only was the bungalow unfenced, but she also had a chef’s knife. And she certainly knew how to use it. Not to mention, there was still the matter of Mr. Baseball Cap with his bowl of Haitian food and the eighteen dead refugees.
“Did you know that people here call you Lady Death?” Renée asked abruptly, hoping to catch the older woman off-guard. She was too self-possessed by a long shot.
Rose only chuckled. “This is because they do not understand Death.”
“They say you are a practitioner of Vodou, that you worship Erzulie.”
“I worship God. You cannot worship Erzulie. You can only serve her.”
“Do you serve her?”
Rose laid down her knife and gathered the minced herbs. She placed them in a small stone mortar that looked like it might have belonged to an apothecary—or a witch. “Why are you interested in Erzulie? I thought only your parents were Haitian?”
The barb hit home, but Renée ignored it. “I’ve been reading a book—”
Rose laughed, a big belly laugh that echoed through the kitchen and shook her thin frame. “The Spirits cannot be found in your books,” she said with a suppressed chuckle.
Renée could feel heat rise in her throat. “I may not understand any of this, but the coincidences are beginning to pile up and even an ignorant American like me can add. First we have eighteen dead bodies with no explanation of how they died. Now we have a man who was stabbed to death seven times with a chef’s knife.”
“Death comes in many ways.” Rose raised her pestle—a tiny baseball bat—and started grinding herbs.
“Those particular ways seem to be how Erzulie claims her victims,” Renée said.
“Her victims?” Rose gave her a quizzical look.
Renée spoke from memory: “I am La Sirène, the serpent of the sea, mistress of the deep and all its treasures. I am the great temptress who lures you to the ocean. There shall you know my magic, if you are ready.”
“You say the words, but you have no understanding.”
“The Greeks also had a myth about Sirens,” Renée said. “They lured sailors into the sea where they killed them.”
“I am not Greek,” Rose said with a mirthless smile.
“The concept is still the same.”
The look on the older woman’s face was a mixture of pity and pain. “No, it is not.”
“Well, explain it to me. Tell me what happened to the eighteen people who got on that boat with you.”
“They died.”
“How?”
“Papa Bondye called them home.”
“None of them showed any signs of drowning.”
“I do not understand this more than you, Renée.”
“I wasn’t there,” Renée shot back.
The pounding of pestle into mortar was the only reply.
“Tell me about Erzulie Dantor,” Renée said. “Who is she?”
“You must tell me. It is you who has read a book.”
“You don’t know who she is? Let me refresh your memory.” She looked at Rose and said: “Seven stabs of the knife, seven stabs of the sword. Hand me that basin so I can vomit blood. Blood will flow.”
Each strike of pestle on mortar was like a tiny roar of thunder. “Because of this, you believe Erzulie stabs people?”
“What else could it mean?”
“Did your book not tell you it is Erzulie who was stabbed?”
“No, I—” She coughed to clear her throat, but the small movement only irritated her ribs. “I didn’t realize. What happened?”
“Her people betrayed her.”
“How?”
“It was the time of the Haitian revolution. Those who rebelled hid in the woods. Erzulie came, and they feared she might betray them. They cut off her tongue. She became a mute able to make only one sound, ke-ke-ke. It was left to her daughter, Anaïs, to translate her words.”
Bile filled Renée’s throat and her confusion mounted. Was she accusing her client of murdering eighteen people—murdering Eric—because of something she’d read in a book? She was beginning to sound like her father. She tried to apologize, but a fit of coughing overtook her.
“I will get you some tea.” Rose marched to the stove and returned with a steaming mug, which she pressed into Renée’s hands. “Drink. It is strong, but it will help.”
The pungent odor of herbs greeted her. It smelled earthy and dark, like fresh rain on dry soil. Renée took a cautious sip. The hot brew went down smoothly, and a moment later her cough eased.
“I’m trying to make sense of things that don’t make sense,” Renée said when she had caught her breath. “Last night, I followed a man behind my hotel and found Haitian food among his things. How would he have gotten that?”
She hadn’t mentioned the food to anyone because she couldn’t implicate her own client. But she needed answers.
“It is this man who hurt you?” Rose demanded.
“He—” Another flurry of coughing stopped her midsentence.
“Drink,” Rose ordered.
She took another careful sip. The coughing stopped. “Do you know this man? Did you cook for anyone recently?”
“I am not the only Haitian on Guantanamo.”
“You’re the only one with access to a stove.” Even as Renée said this, she remembered that the refugees had banged pots and pans at yesterday’s protest. Didn’t that mean they had access to stoves? It was all so confusing. “If you’re not involved, someone is going to a great deal of trouble to make it look like you are. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Renée followed her thoughts down a dark hole. “The only logical explanation is that you’re being framed. Why? What would anyone have to gain?”
Rose stirred the contents of the stone mortar. She said nothing, though her eyes swept Renée from head to toe.
“Someone wants to make sure your asylum claim is denied,” Renée continued, the puzzle pieces clicking into place. “Think about it. If you’re charged with murder, you’ll be shipped back to Haiti. There’d be no reason to hold your hearing and—”
The words clogged in her throat. A sharp pain stabbed at her chest. She was suddenly drowning in her own fluids.
Rose was instantly at her side. “Lie down.”
Before Renée could make sense of what was happening, she found herself stretched out on the kitchen floor. “Whaat . . . ?” The words wouldn’t get past the ocean of fluid that filled her lungs.
“Don’t talk.” Rose raised her arm, and a sunbeam glinted off the object in her hand.
It was a chef’s kni
fe.
“No!” Renée tried to scream. It came out a wet gurgling protest.
The knife came down. Rose shredded Renée’s blouse and tore into the compression wrap like a wild thing.
A second later, Renée lay half-naked. She wanted to do something. Grab this woman by the throat, something. But she was helpless and gasping for air.
Rose stood up to grab an item off her worktable. Renée saw her chance and took it. She raised her foot and jammed it in the older woman’s knee. Rose buckled. The mortar and pestle came crashing to the ground. A river of green sludge oozed out.
Renée tried to crawl away, but Rose recovered fast. The older woman was on her in an instant.
“Be still,” Rose said.
Renée tried to shove her off, but she couldn’t move her limbs. Something cold and wet landed on her chest. She looked down to find Rose rubbing the green sludge on her body. Stop. The words were loud in her head, but no sound came out.
Rose began to sing:
Noye mape noye
Noye mape noye
Erzulie si’w wè mouin
Tombe nan dlo
Pranm non
Sove lavi an mouin
Noye mape noye
Renée fainted.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Home Remedies
What woke her was the beeping. It was a steady rhythm, a throbbing pulsing beat that called her back to a reality she wasn’t sure she could handle. Her eyes shifted rapidly beneath closed lids, and her mouth tightened in a wordless protest. Stop.
Renée’s eyes popped open. The room swam into view, the images blurry and indistinct. Something was looming over her—a large square box that blinked and beeped with mechanical precision.
“I think she’s awake.”
She turned toward the voice and saw a figure detach from the shadows. It floated to her side.
“Chérie, you frightened us. How are you feeling?” It was Gigi.
“What . . . ?” Renée tried to form the words, but her throat was dry.
Another burst of movement, and this time John emerged to stand next to Gigi.
“Don’t try to talk,” he said. “The doctor should be here soon.”
Gigi fluffed the pillows behind her back while Renée tried to make sense of her surroundings. She was in bed, attached to a machine that flashed and beeped at regular intervals. The room was sparsely furnished with a chair, a bed, and a side table. The walls were white and bare.
“Water,” she croaked.
John helped her sit up, while Gigi poured some water from a carafe on the side table. She handed the glass to Renée, who managed a few greedy sips before handing it back.
Renée slumped against the pillows and stared up at her friends. “What happened?” Her voice was hoarse, but at least it worked.
John and Gigi glanced at each other. “You’re in the hospital,” John said, though she had managed to deduce that much on her own. “I’m not sure what happened. When I came to pick you up, you were passed out. Ms. Fleurie was standing outside the bungalow holding you in her arms.”
At his words, snatches of memory came flooding back. A mortar and pestle. Green sludge. She patted her chest, but with no real idea why.
“Don’t do that, chérie.” Gigi grasped her hands. “There are a lot of wires. You don’t want to disturb them.”
Renée stilled. “I’m glad you’re here, but I didn’t mean to interrupt your plans.” Gigi was supposed to spend the day with Adam Hartmann.
“I was already at the hospital.”
“You were? Why?”
Gigi gave her a strained smile. “I had a small accident and wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
Before Renée could question her further, a man walked in the room. He wore a white lab coat that was almost the same color as his hair. A pair of glasses dangled off a long chain around his neck. He flipped through some papers on his clipboard before he addressed her.
“You speak English?” he asked curtly.
“Excuse me?” Renée said.
“I asked if—”
“This is Renée François, Dr. Simmons,” John interjected. “She’s a lawyer for one of the migrants,”
Dr. Simmons looked up, his eyes trained on John. He was considerably shorter but held himself with a stiff formality that gave him extra height. His green eyes were topped by bushy white eyebrows pulled into a tight frown.
“What are you doing here, Petty Officer Wilkes? Shouldn’t you be at home with the wife and kids?”
A vein pulsed on the side of John’s neck. “Just doing my job, sir. I’m here on Captain Mason’s orders.”
“Hmm.” Dr. Simmons turned his frown on Gigi. “Are you a family member, Miss?”
Gigi offered one of her patented smiles, but his frown only deepened. She seemed to crumble under the weight of his stare. “I’m a friend.”
“In that case, I must ask you to leave.”
“Leave?” Renée struggled to sit up. “Why?”
“Hospital policy,” Dr. Simmons barked.
John put a restraining hand on Renée’s shoulder. “That’s Gislène Bienaimé, Doctor. She’s a member of the UN staff. Maybe you can make an exception?”
Dr. Simmons glared at Gigi. She blinked rapidly, then stared at the ground. Renée watched the exchange in confusion. She had never seen a man look at Gigi with anything less than total adoration—and she had never seen her friend collapse like this.
“When can I get out of here?” Renée demanded.
Dr. Simmons turned those green eyes on her, but she matched him glare for glare.
“Ms. Frances—”
“François.”
“—I understand you were in an accident?” He didn’t bother to acknowledge her correction.
She took a deep breath and silently walked herself back from the edge. She didn’t have the time or inclination to deal with the likes of Dr. Simmons. She had work to do, and the sooner she got out of there the better.
“I fell on my ribs yesterday. Twice,” she admitted.
The doctor stared down at his clipboard. “Any shortness of breath? Chest pain? Cough?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“All of the above.”
“Did you seek medical attention?”
“I bandaged my ribs. They were fine.”
He slid on his glasses but left them perched on the tip of his nose. When he looked down at her, he appeared cross-eyed. “It was not fine. Wearing a compression wrap on bruised ribs is idiotic. It constricts the breathing, which can lead to pneumonia.”
Gigi looked stricken. “I bandaged her ribs. I didn’t realize I was doing anything wrong.”
Dr. Simmons cast her a disdainful glance. “Which is why rational people seek professional care when they get hurt. We don’t rely on home remedies.” He spat the last words like a curse.
“Home remedies? What are you talking about?” Renée demanded.
“We saw evidence of some kind of poultice applied to your skin, Ms. Frances. Some godawful, foul-smelling home remedy.” He stared down his nose at Gigi. “I suppose that was also your handiwork?”
“A poultice? No, I—”
“Dr. Simmons, I am the patient here. You will address your comments to me.” It was all Renée could do to remain civil with this odd little man.
He inclined his head like a monarch to his royal subject. “Your concern about medical privacy is admirable, Ms. Frances. It would be better served if you hadn’t insisted on having a stranger in the room.”
“Is something wrong with my ribs?” she asked, ignoring the rest of his comment.
Something flickered in Dr. Simmons’s eyes. It might have been uncertainty. “Under ordinary circumstances, I would say you suffered a pneumothorax or what laymen might call a collapsed lung. It is usually caused by some sort of puncture or traumatic injury—in your case, the two successive falls would have done it. The injury caused a tear in your lungs that allowed air t
o enter the pleural space—the area between the lungs and the chest wall. The trapped air prevented your lungs from inflating, causing at least one of them to collapse.”
Her head was swimming in technical jargon. “You said ‘under ordinary circumstances.’ My case is different?”
“We’re not sure what happened to you.” He clearly had a difficult time uttering those words.
“What do you mean?”
He looked down at his clipboard once more. “Your chest X-rays and other tests support the plausibility of my diagnosis, however . . .”
“However?” she pressed.
“The ordinary course of treatment for a pneumothorax is a needle aspiration or even surgery to remove the air from your pleural space. Once the air is removed, your lung inflates, and you can breathe easier.”
“Surgery?” She sank farther into the pillows, trying to understand what he was telling her. “But I feel fine.”
Dr. Simmons cleared his throat and shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, that’s the issue, frankly. It would appear that your pneumothorax has resolved itself.”
“Oh.” Renée instantly brightened. “Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and when he did the words came in a rush. “Based on your test results, there is no way you should be breathing on your own right now.”
“I’m breathing just fine.”
“Pneumothorax has been known to resolve itself—in minor cases. However, all indications are that yours was a major event. You should have needed surgery, but you don’t. I can’t explain it.”
No one said a word. Renée’s blood pressure and heart-rate monitor beeped steadily.
“Does that mean she can go back to the hotel?” John finally asked.
Dr. Simmons nodded. “I’ll have someone prepare the discharge papers. Let’s free up this bed for our boys in uniform who actually need it.”
When Dr. Simmons left the room, John said, “I’m sorry about that guy. He’s an old-school asshole. Please don’t let him put you off.” He was staring at Gigi.
She squared her shoulders and flashed them both a weathered smile. “I’ll help you get dressed,” she said to Renée.
“I’ll wait outside.” John started for the door but paused. “Your blouse was completely shredded,” he said to Renée. “I brought one of my T-shirts for you to wear. Hope that’s okay?”
When Death Comes for You Page 16
