by Karen White
Detective Kobylt pulled back two chairs and indicated for us to sit. He then moved to the box and slowly lifted the lid. “We’ve already taken as much forensic evidence as we can from everything in here, so if you need to touch anything you’re free to do so.”
Very slowly, he began taking things out of the box and laying them on the table in front of Trey and me. I felt light-headed, as if I were watching this from the vantage point of the ceiling, or the two-way mirror at the end of the room. As if this composed young woman sitting at the table watching the detective remove things from the box were somebody else; as if all this were happening to somebody else.
The first thing he placed in front of me was a four-inch square of what looked like it had once been a sweater with wide pastel stripes. Next to it he placed a rainbow-hued shoelace, a tight knot at one end, encrusted with dried dirt. A small red patent-leather purse with a dull brass handle came next, followed by a lace-edged ankle sock, the lace wilted and brown.
I touched them all, the stiff hardness of the material, the slippery softness of the purse, and stared closely at these remnants of somebody’s life, willing them to be recognizable. But Chelsea had been wearing my favorite gray Harvard football sweatshirt when she disappeared. She might have been wearing a sweater underneath, but she didn’t own a pastel-striped sweater. I knew this with certainty, because Chelsea wore all of my hand-me-downs and I hated stripes.
And Chelsea never had pocketbooks or lace ankle socks. My sister had loved science, math, and painting. These were not hers, could never have been hers. And as I placed the shoelace back on the table with shaking fingers, I was no longer sure whether I should be relieved or disappointed.
Both men were watching me. I shook my head. “These aren’t Chelsea’s.” I explained why and watched the detective’s shoulders fall. I stood and took his hand. “They aren’t Chelsea’s, but they’re somebody’s. I hope you find out whose, so the family will know.”
Detective Kobylt shook his head. “I was so sure . . .” He let out a deep breath. “And here you are, trying to make me feel better.” He hugged me tightly, and my world seemed to refocus itself.
Gently, he put me away from him. “This isn’t your sister, Julie. But maybe this is a clue to finding her. This victim and Chelsea are about the same age, and one was found and the other went missing in the same geographical area. This gives us something, at the very least.” He looked from me to Trey and back again. “I’m just sorry to have dragged you up here.”
I shook my head. “I’m glad we came. We know for sure now that it wasn’t Chelsea, and I got to meet you finally.”
He smiled sadly. “Still . . .”
“And I’d do it again. Anything to help you, all right? Don’t hesitate to call me if you need me to come back.”
He nodded, then led us to the reception area. My palms were slick with sweat, my hands shaking as he placed them both again in his. “I won’t forget Chelsea. I’ll keep looking.”
“I know,” I said. “Thank you.”
We hugged again and said our good-byes; then Trey and I left. We walked out the back door into a day filled with heavy gray clouds, an icy misting rain beginning to fall. But I turned my face skyward, sensing the sun that lay behind the clouds and feeling a lightness I hadn’t felt in a very long time. As we walked toward the car I pressed my hands against my chest again, feeling a hollowness there, an emptiness that had been carved not from the passing on of a burden, but instead from the opening of a void that waited to be filled.
We sat in the car, but Trey didn’t start the ignition right away. “Are you okay?”
I took a deep breath, my lungs suddenly seeming to have more room to expand. I breathed out slowly and we watched as it came out in a cloud of white. “I don’t know.” I took another breath. “I really don’t know. But I’m glad you came.”
“Me, too.” Trey leaned over and kissed me lightly before starting the car.
My cell phone rang and I saw it was the house phone in New Orleans. I picked it up, surprised to hear Aimee’s voice.
“Julie?”
“Yes, Aimee, it’s me.” I looked at my watch, calculating the time in New Orleans. “It’s only two o’clock in the afternoon. I didn’t expect Carol Sue to have brought you home so early. Unless nobody felt like partying last night and you all got to bed early.”
Her voice was agitated, distracted. “I needed to get home. I’ve got things to do that can’t wait.”
“Did Beau come with you?”
“No, he stayed with Carol Sue.” There was a long pause, and I was beginning to wonder if she’d remembered that she was the one who’d called me. “That photograph of Monica. I left it in Trey’s car.”
“Yes,” I said. “I found it.”
“Did you see?”
“The pin?”
“Yes.” She breathed into the phone. “And the ring. My mother’s ring was taken off her finger when she was killed.”
I straightened. “Yes, I remember. Do you know how Monica got them?”
She didn’t answer right away. Finally, she said, “I need to tell you my story of the night Hurricane Camille hit Biloxi.”
I focused on breathing deeply, trying to tamp down my impatience. “But that was way before Monica’s time.”
“Yes, it was,” she said slowly, as if already thinking back on the summer of 1969. “But I think I figured out where the jewelry’s been all this time.”
“All right,” I said. Then I sat back in my seat and began to listen.
CHAPTER 29
In saffron-colored mantle, from the tides of ocean rose the morning to bring light to gods and men.
—HOMER
Aimee
1969
My life developed a sameness to it, a routine I found outwardly comforting. It was as if I believed a placid external life could smooth the wrinkles of my conscience and make them go away. They never did.
My father died, and I went up to Philadelphia to the funeral and to pack up what few possessions he had. My parents’ wedding photograph that had sat on his nightstand for all of those years now sat on mine.
We saw the Guidrys often, especially Mr. Guidry, who seemed to latch onto me as his last connection to Gary, and that touched me. Gary’s relationship with his father had never been a smooth one, yet I found some comfort knowing Mr. Guidry grieved for his youngest son. He’d gone through the attic for Gary’s baby pictures and given them to me. I treasured them, along with my wedding ring, which I still wore.
And Johnny became the son that I wished I’d had. He was an intelligent and sweet boy who enjoyed building with blocks, then knocking them down with swift, harsh kicks. I supposed this was natural for a child with an innate curiosity about how things worked, but whose mother seemed more interested in social appearances, and whose father spent more time at his office than he did at home. Johnny came over almost every day after school, and I’d give him a snack while we talked or built log houses or just sat on the front porch absorbing the heat of the day. He needed companionship almost as much as I did.
Wes and I avoided each other, although it was usually he who’d come to claim Johnny on Ray Von’s day off. We kept our conversations on neutral ground, avoiding the minefields of our thoughts and feelings. But I looked forward to those meetings, rushing through my life until the next time he’d come to my grandmother’s house to collect his son.
I didn’t see Xavier again; Ray Von said he was working on a lumber barge on the Mississippi River and making good money. With him away, Ray Von seemed almost relieved, and was less hostile to me. But when I asked her to send my regards to Xavier and wish him well, her expression would harden, so I learned to stop asking.
I never visited River Song during those years; the memories were too painful. But I knew Wes, Lacy, and Johnny visited it often, always with large groups of friends and their children, as if they needed the distraction of other people. I was glad for Johnny. The beach and the beautiful white hous
e held so many possibilities for a young boy, a place of refuge by the water where the days seemed longer and the stars at night brighter.
I still worked at the same gallery on Royal Street, but had been promoted to manager, and had even been allowed to go to several estate auctions on buying trips. I loved my work, and was good at it, but it never filled the void completely. Looking back, I realized that my life had become much like the hot Sahara wind blowing into the Atlantic: deceptive in its obscurity, yet spawning the seeds of a great storm more than a thousand miles from its inception.
On a Saturday morning in the middle of August, I woke up to a red-tinted sky, remembering something about a red sky at morning, sailors take warning. By the time I’d dressed for work and was in my car headed downtown, the sun blazed in a perfectly blue sky, the trees barely ruffled by a calm breeze. If a storm brewed somewhere, the placid houses and people I passed on my way to work were blissfully unaware.
Traffic converged on Lee Circle, and I braked quickly to avoid a beat-up sedan, a collection of Mardi Gras beads dangling from its rearview mirror. I turned on the radio and listened to the weather report. A tropical storm named Camille had hit Cuba, and was expected to head out into the Gulf of Mexico, gathering strength as it veered toward the Florida panhandle. I expected we might get some wind and rain from Camille, but the panhandle was far enough away from New Orleans that I wasn’t too concerned.
At the beginning of the hurricane season in June my grandmother and I had attended a Mass to pray to Our Lady of Prompt Succor, as native New Orleanians did, to protect us from hurricanes. Almost three months into the hurricane season, I felt some relief knowing that we were halfway through.
I noted again the dirgelike movement of the leaves on the trees and flipped to another station to find music instead of the incessant chattering about the storm. Still, I planned to close the hurricane shutters on the house and move the outdoor furniture inside when I got home after work. Grandmother had left for her yearly cruise with her girlfriends, and Aunt Roseanne was taking her own vacation, so it was up to me to make sure the house was stormproofed.
Around noon, the gallery owner stuck her head in my office.
“Aimee, have you been listening to the weather reports?”
I shook my head, my pencil poised over a column of figures.
“Camille is in the gulf. The National Hurricane Center has issued a hurricane watch all the way from Biloxi to St. Marks, Florida. You have a house in Biloxi, don’t you? They’re still saying it’ll hit the panhandle, but I’m closing the gallery so everybody can have a chance to fill their tanks with gas and join the rest of the city at the grocery store to buy bread and milk and get ready for their hurricane parties.”
I thought of River Song and the last time I’d been there with Gary. I’d always thought of it as a haven, but now could see how vulnerable it seemed so close to the water, its glowing white facade as delicate as a seashell. “You don’t really think we’ll get hit, do you? We get warnings like this all the time, but it always seems to turn and go somewhere else.”
She shrugged. “Not always.” With a wave she disappeared out the door.
Before I could put the pencil down, the phone rang. “Hello?”
“Aimee, it’s Wes.” He paused a moment, and I listened to the sound of my breathing in the receiver. “Have you been listening to the news?”
“No, but if it’s about the hurricane, I know all about it. We’re closing the gallery, and I’ll be heading home as soon as I finish some paperwork.”
“Good. I’ll help you secure the shutters. Then I want you to come to our house to ride out the storm.”
“Do you really think that’s necessary?” A feeling of unease took root in the pit of my stomach.
“Yeah. I do. It doesn’t look good. The thing’s growing in the gulf, and they’re saying that the winds are already about one hundred and sixty miles per hour. If it hits, we’re in big trouble. Even if it doesn’t hit us directly, we’ll get some serious winds and more water than this city knows what to do with. They’re not evacuating New Orleans, but I want to know you’ll be safe.”
“All right. I’ll give you a call when I get home. When will you be there?”
A phone rang in the background. “I’m going to stop and pick up Johnny from school. Then, depending on traffic, I should get home around three.”
“Fine. I’ll see you then.”
“And, Aimee . . .”
“Yes?”
He paused. “Never mind. We’ll talk later.”
I cleared my throat, staring at my wedding ring on my finger. “Okay. Later, then.”
I hung up the phone, my heartbeat almost audible. The traffic was heavy as people headed home to prepare for the worst. Within an hour and a half, I had made it to my grandmother’s front steps. Next door at the Guidrys’ house, the tall shutters—decorative on houses in other parts of the world—had been closed over the thick antique glass windows and bolted.
I quickly changed into blue jeans and a blouse, then called next door, hoping Wes would be the one to answer. He wasn’t.
“Hello, Lacy. It’s Aimee. Wes told me to call to get some help shuttering my windows. Is he home yet?”
She paused. “He’s picking up Johnny and hasn’t returned yet.” She didn’t say anything about taking a message to have him call me back.
“Well, never mind then. He’d also mentioned riding out the storm at your house, but I think I’ll be fine over here.” I looked out the window, where thick clouds had begun to obscure the blue.
“Yes. I think you’re right. Good-bye, Aimee.”
I heard a click and then the dial tone before I hung up the phone.
I spent the rest of the afternoon getting the house ready, then ate a TV dinner watching the news. Hurricane Camille was now just two hundred miles south of the Mississippi River, and the hurricane watch had been upgraded to a hurricane warning for the entire Gulf Coast. They were advising evacuation of low-lying areas.
I called next door to see if they’d remembered to call a neighbor in Biloxi to board up the house and move the furniture to the upper stories. I tried three times throughout the evening, and received a busy signal each time. I wondered if Lacy had placed the phone off the hook, and how much embellishment she might have added if she’d relayed my earlier phone call to Wes, as an explanation for why he didn’t try to call me.
A soaking rain fell overnight, and when I awakened on Sunday morning, the skies hung low and gray, the saturated earth oozing water into the humid air. I reached for the phone again but hung up without dialing. If there were an emergency, I could always walk next door.
I went to Mass, noting that it was nearly as crowded in the church as it was on Easter and Christmas. I’d always thought that the people who attended Mass only on the high holy days reminded me of students who studied only for the final exam. A hurricane, I supposed, was no different.
I spent my day alternating between moving valuables to the upper stories of my grandmother’s house and watching the news. The roadways moving away from the Gulf Coast were packed with would-be vacationers, station wagons stuffed full with suitcases strapped on top, sedans and coupes all heading away from what forecasters were now saying would be a direct hit somewhere along the coast. By five o’clock p.m., the pictures of the approaching hurricane sent me to the phone again.
It rang before I could pick it up to dial.
“Hello? ”
“Where is he?” Lacy screamed into the phone. “Is he with you?”
“Wes? No. I haven’t even talked to him since yesterday morning. Why?”
She was sobbing so hard that she was nearly incoherent. “Because he’s gone! He left an hour ago without telling me where he was going, and he hasn’t come back. His car isn’t here either.”
“Calm down, Lacy. Did you ask Mr. Guidry? He might know.”
“He’s not here either. An old widow—a client of his, near the river bend—needed his help to b
oard up her windows, so he left a couple of hours ago. Ray Von is gone, too—she went to her sister’s house in Chalmette first thing this morning.”
Her voice was rising again, and I kept my voice calm. “Is Johnny with you?”
Lacy sniffed loudly into the phone. “Yes. It’s just the two of us, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Lacy, your house is shuttered and the Garden District is on higher ground, so you and Johnny should be safe. Let me make a few phone calls to see if I can locate him and then I’ll come over and we’ll ride out the storm together, all right?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” A pause. “Thank you.”
I hung up the phone, then grabbed my address book and began calling numbers. Nobody answered at his office, and the few people I reached at home had not seen or heard from him. I called Lacy back to see if she recalled the name of the client whose house Mr. Guidry had gone to, but she couldn’t remember. I’d been hoping that he might at least know where Wes could have gone.
I turned off the television, needing the silence to think. Rain pelted the windows and the roof, and a strong wind bent the trees in the garden, stripping the flowers of their petals. I had my hand on the phone, getting ready to call Lacy to tell her that I was coming over and would let myself in with my key, but stopped. The last time Wes had disappeared had been after the Comus Ball, and he’d gone to River Song. But then he’d gone to escape the turmoil of the aftermath of his mother’s disappearance. This time he was moving toward the source of turbulence and confusion, and the heavy weight of dread settled firmly on my shoulders.
