by Cindy Adkins
“White umbrellas?” Billy asked with a puzzled look on his face.
“Yes, and it was near water. Is it around here somewhere?” she asked.
“There’s no place like that here,” Billy answered.
“Are you sure?” Sarah asked.
“Sure, I’m sure,” insisted Billy. He did not know what to think. Who was this young woman? Did Dana really know Sarah well enough to introduce him to her? Maybe she was a psychic who was just playing a game with him. Game over. Perhaps Sarah was like one of those voodoo princesses in the French Quarter. Jessie’s memory was precious to him and Billy did not want someone tainting it, nor did he want anyone playing with his emotions. Then, suddenly something occurred to him. Sarah was right. “That was a cafe in Lanzarote,” he recalled.
“Why would she have been there?” asked Sarah.
“I don’t know, but I went to the island for two weeks right after she died,” Billy said. “I used to go to an outdoor cafe and sit there for long hours every day looking out at the water.”
“She was with you.”
Billy just shook his head. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
“No, I’m not,” said Sarah. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Jessie must have really wanted to reach you. But, I wonder why she chose me.”
“I have no idea,” replied Billy. “I have so many questions and I don’t even know where to start.”
“There’s one thing that has me perplexed more than anything,” Sarah confided in him. “When she comes up out of the water, there’s always a ten-year-old boy that is standing next to her. Who is he?”
“I don’t know,” answered Billy. He had to think about it for a few seconds. Then, he realized who the child was. It couldn’t be. No, it just was not possible.
“I think it’s our son,” he said looking down.
“You had a child together?” asked Sarah.
“No, we didn’t,” said Billy. “But, when we were in our early twenties, Jessie got pregnant. Not long after, she had a miscarriage. Jessie always thought that the baby was a boy. She talked about him for years.”
“That must be who the little boy is, then,” said Sarah. “Jessie comes up out of the water and he walks up to her and holds her hand.”
“Jessie was really distraught when she lost the baby. I told her that we could always have more children,” said Billy. “I wanted to get married the minute she found out she was pregnant, but she insisted that it was too soon. She never felt ready. But then, years went by and before I knew it, she was taken, too.”
“I’m so sorry.” Sarah did not know if she should go any further. Maybe this was too painful for him.
“Does anyone else know about any of this?” asked Billy.
“No one,” she assured him. “I didn’t even begin to put the pieces together until Dana invited me to meet you. That’s when it started to make sense. I’m glad I found you.”
“I am, too,” replied Billy. “My mind has been filled with so many questions for so long. Here you are bringing me the answers. I didn’t mean to be rude. This is a lot to swallow. I’ve heard of this type of thing happening. It’s just never happened to me, personally.”
“I understand. We can drop it, really.”
“No. Please if you know more, I wish you would tell me. I apologize.” Billy felt that this was his ticket to Jessie, albeit, a strange way to get to her.
“No apology necessary. I just don’t know if I can be of much help. I don’t even know why she is contacting me. Do you remember the St. Christopher medal that you bought her?” asked Sarah.
“Yes,” said Billy. “She was wearing it when she drowned.”
“No, she wasn’t.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“It’s in a compartment on Gotcha,” said Sarah.
“How is that possible?” asked Billy.
“I’m not sure, but that’s where I saw it when she showed it to me.”
“Let’s go see,” Billy insisted. He stepped down from of the truck bed. Then, he took Sarah’s hand and eased her down onto the pavement. They walked toward the boat and he helped her onto it. Billy went inside of the small cabin and flipped a light on while she waited at the back.
When Billy walked out, he was holding the medal dangling from a long silver chain in his hand. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “This is it. It has been there all this time and I didn’t even know it.”
“Put it on,” Sarah instructed him.
“What?”
“Put it on,” she repeated. “Jessie wants you to wear it for protection.”
Billy put the medal around his neck. “I wish it was with her,” he said. “But, I’m also glad that I have a small part of Jessie here with me. She wore this since we were sixteen. I gave it to her for her birthday.”
“Jessie really loved it,” said Sarah.
“I have a St. Christopher mounted on the dash in here, too. Very few fishermen in these parts would even think of going out on the water without one for protection,” said Billy.
“Oh, I didn’t realize that,” answered Sarah.
“What can I do for you?” asked Billy.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you have helped me so much. What can I do for you?” he inquired.
“Nothing,” said Sarah. “I’m just the messenger. By the way, what does Ice mean?”
“It was Jessie’s nickname for me.”
“You’re that cold?” she accidentally giggled.
“No,” he laughed. “Jessie just meant that she was fire and I was ice. I was content. She always wanted to be somewhere else doing something different.”
“That may explain why her energy was strong enough to come through to me,” said Sarah. “Even all that water couldn’t put the fire out.”
“Jessie was full of ambition,” Billy told her. “She had even entered a photography contest before she died. A few weeks after she drowned, her mama told me that Jessie won. Her work was featured in a magazine. Do you want to see it?”
“Wait,” said Sarah. “Is it a picture of a Mississippi River boat?”
“Yes,” replied Billy in disbelief. “How did you know?”
“Jessie showed it to me. I dreamt about it a month ago. The picture was so vivid that I took a walk and tried to find it. The boat is five blocks from my apartment,” Sarah replied.
“So, you live in the French Quarter?” asked Billy.
“Yes, right over a dress shop,” said Sarah. “I found the place from a rental agency’s listing online when I was in Texas. I don’t venture out much around there, but when I had that dream, I walked over to the river and found the boat docked right near Jackson Square.”
“That’s the one,” said Billy. “We went there for her to take the picture one day. It was a couple of months before she died.”
“Can I see that picture now?”
“Sure,” said Billy. “Let me go get the magazine.”
“Hold on,” Sarah said. “Before you get it, let me just tell you that there is a photo of the desert next to it.”
“I’m not sure if there is,” said Billy. Then, he offered her a seat on one of the benches at the back of the boat. He turned around and walked inside the cabin. Billy came out with the publication in his hands a few seconds later. He opened the page to show her the photograph and sat next to her.
“This is it, all right,” said Sarah. “There’s the shot of the desert, too.” She pointed to the photograph on the opposite page. It was a picture of the Sahara Desert. Sarah held the magazine in her hands. The light from the shore illuminated it. “She really was a good photographer.”
“Yes, she was,” said Billy. “She dreamt of going all over the world taking pictures.
That’s why she wasn’t ready to settle down.”
“There’s still something missing,” Sarah said as she closed the magazine and
handed it back to him.
“What do you mean?�
�� asked Billy.
“She showed me a building. It’s three stories high and I think it’s in the French Quarter,” said Sarah.
“What color is it?” asked Billy.
“It’s burgundy and has two large balconies with wrought iron railing around them,” Sarah replied. “The building definitely has a number four in the address, but that’s all I could detect. Have you ever been there?”
“No,” said Billy. “Who lives in it?”
“I think it’s her father,” said Sarah.
“It can’t be,” said Billy. “Her father was a shrimper who disappeared in a boating accident a few days after Jessie’s twenty-sixth birthday.”
“That’s terrible.”
“The next week, she moved in with me at my fishing camp not far from here. Jessie was never close to her mama. She was really ‘Daddy’s little girl.’ I knew Eddie most of my life. He and my daddy were good friends. His boat was found floating on the water out in the Gulf and he was not on it. They never found his body.”
“Just like Jessie,” said Sarah.
“Just like Jessie,” Billy repeatedly sadly.
“Well, I don’t think Eddie’s gone because Jessie showed him to me,” said Sarah. “He’s a real thin man with salt and pepper hair and a dark mustache, right?”
“No, Eddie was a big, burly man,” said Billy. “He used to say that he ate as much as he could catch, but of course, that was not possible. He was always jovial. He had dark hair and a mustache.”
“He did?” asked Sarah.
“Yes, but there is no way that he could be described as thin by any stretch of the
imagination.”
“What else do you know about him?” asked Sarah.
“I only know that he used to joke with his wife that he was worth more dead than alive,” said Billy.
“What if he’s not dead?”
“I’m sure he is because it was so many years ago and no one ever heard from him since. There is no way that a shrimper from these parts would abandon his own boat because it means his livelihood,” said Billy.
“But, not if he had no intention of ever working again,” said Sarah. “Did Charla’s life change much after he disappeared?”
“Well, she moved out of the double-wide trailer that they had lived in for years. She bought a nice home not far from here and a couple of properties in New Orleans.”
“Did you ever see them?” asked Sarah.
“Only her house,” said Billy. “Jessie never even saw the other buildings until the
week before she died.”
“Why did she see them?” Sarah inquired.
“Because her mama gave her the addresses and asked her to go take some pictures that she needed for insurance,” said Billy. “Jessie snapped the photos in the French Quarter one morning. Then, she went to her mama’s house to download them off of her camera onto Charla’s computer so she would have them.”
“Did her mother ever remarry?” asked Sarah.
“No, after Jessie died, I was over at Charla’s house one day and we talked about Eddie. She said that no one could replace him. He was the love of her life.”
“I wonder why Jessie would have shown me that he is alive. Maybe the man in my dreams is not her father, but I thought he was. Perhaps I’m wrong about that,” said Sarah. “It all comes to me in picture form. It’s not an exact science.”
“I know, but everything else sure fit, didn’t it?” asked Billy.
“Yes, it did,” agreed Sarah. “There’s only one other thing I can remember.”
“What’s that?”
“A pair of white rubber boots,” answered Sarah. “They almost looked like rain boots.”
“Oh, every fisherman around here has a pair of those,” Billy told her. “Wait. Let me show you.”
Billy took the magazine back to the cabin and came out with a pair of white boots in his hand. “Those are the ones,” said Sarah. “Maybe she just used those as a clue. I have no idea.”
“Well, like I said, lots of people wear them down here if they go out on boats all the time,” explained Billy.
“I’m glad I got to see what they look like,” Sarah told him.
“Hey, do you want to go over to my fishing camp and hang out for a while?” asked Billy. “It’s not much to look at, but you’d probably be more comfortable there.
“Sure, let’s go,” said Sarah.
* * * * *
Billy and Sarah got in the truck and drove down a dimly lit highway. Before long, they arrived at his place. Billy was right—it was only a “stone’s throw” away from his boat, which he had mentioned on their way there. When they got out of the truck, Sarah could hear the sound of crickets, as they seemed to welcome her into the serenity of their surroundings. They walked up the tall staircase of his beige-colored fishing camp. It was built on stilts at the edge of the water. “Does it look familiar from your dreams?” he asked.
“No, it doesn’t. Are you sure you live here?” Sarah giggled nervously.
Billy put his key into the lock, turned it, and opened the door. “I guess I still do,” he laughed. Once they got inside he turned the lights on. His place was tastefully decorated in neutral tones. There were large black and white photographs of the bayou on the wall over the sofa.
“This is really nice,” said Sarah. “Is that Jessie’s work?”
“Yes,” he replied. “She did all the decorating in here, too.”
“She did a terrific job,” said Sarah.
“Would you like some soda?” Billy offered.
“I’d love it,” Sarah replied. Billy went to the kitchen. As Sarah looked around, it appeared as though the entire room was a shrine to Jessie. There were framed color prints of Billy and her together displayed on a table in the corner. Jessie’s picture was on the front of a photo album sitting on the coffee table. Although it was a bit eerie, Sarah assumed it was normal considering how many years Jessie and he had been together. That kind of a loss would have been difficult for anyone and clearly, Billy had not gotten past it.
Would the handsome shrimper ever be interested in someone else? Sarah did not know how she could begin to get him out of his comfort zone of pain. As she stood there, it suddenly felt as though she was “the other woman.” Still, she thought it was important to find Eddie and hoped it would be possible. Why had Jessie even contacted her? What was the urgency regarding her father? Sarah had no idea.
Billy brought some drinks back from the kitchen and handed one to her. “Here you go,” he said
“Thank you,” Sarah smiled.
“Have a seat,” said Billy motioning to the beige, ultra-suede sofa. “I don’t know where my southern manners are.”
“I’d say you’ve got plenty of them,” Sarah assured him as she sat down. “Billy, I’ve been thinking about something. Just hear me out and give me your opinion. The French Quarter is usually desolate on Sunday mornings. What if you come over tomorrow and we look for that burgundy building? Once we’ve got photos and addresses, we could go to the Hall of Records on Monday afternoon when we get off of work. We could find out if one of the buildings is in Charla’s name. If so, it’s possible that Eddie could live there.”
“We could, but I seriously doubt that he is alive,” said Billy. He had taken a seat on the easy chair across from her. “What are you insinuating?”
“Well, Jessie made a point of showing me the building. The thin man lives inside. Maybe he’s not her father. But, let’s suppose he is. What if this is some plan that he and Charla cooked up in order to live off of the insurance money? Do you know if his shrimping business was going okay when he died?”
“Eddie always made a lot of money, but Charla spent it as soon as he made it.”
“If they lived in a trailer, what did Charla spend their money on?” asked Sarah.
“I don’t know because she sure didn’t spend it on Jessie and she was their only child,” said Billy. “I bought Jessie her camera one Christmas and the year
before that I bought her a car.”
“Do you still have her camera?” asked Sarah.
“Yes, it’s around here somewhere,” said Billy. “Why?”
“Well, maybe you can bring it tomorrow so we can get the pictures,” she replied.
“Sure, I’ll find it later and head over early in the morning. What time do you want to go?” he asked.
“If you meet me at seven, we could cover a lot of ground,” said Sarah.
“It sounds like we’re looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Billy.
“I know, but it only takes one needle and the haystack is not really that big. So far we’ve got the building narrowed down to being burgundy with a number four in the address in the French Quarter. It should be a piece of cake to find it.”
Chapter Two
A Needle in a Haystack
-
Billy arrived outside of Sarah’s apartment in the French Quarter on Sunday morning at seven o’clock on the dot. She was waiting for him by the entrance of her gold-colored building that had a distinctive old world charm. “I can’t believe that I found parking,” Billy said as he approached her.
“It’s only because it’s so early and the tourists haven’t arrived yet,” smiled Sarah.
“Let’s go. Did you leave the camera in your truck?”
“No, I couldn’t find it, but I can get pictures with my cell phone,” replied Billy.
“I can, too,” said Sarah. “I suppose between the two of us that we will have enough memory. I can put in the addresses on a notepad on my cell, too.”
“I feel like a private detective,” said Billy as they started to walk down her street.
