“Our first choice canceled this mornin’.”
“So I’m a substitute?”
Broussard nodded. “Sad but true. Does it matter?”
Kit considered the question briefly and said, “When I was a kid, we used to have a minister back home that liked to say he wanted to be the last one through those pearly gates. And when people would ask, ’Why would you want to be the last one, reverend?’ He’d say, ’Because then I’d be in.’ I didn’t agree with everything he said, but that always made sense to me. I’ll be there.”
*
* *
Back in her office, Kit turned to the Guillots in the phone book, stared at all the listings for a minute, then began at the top: Aaron Guillot, 728… Thirty Guillots later, she put the receiver back in its cradle and let her ear cool off. Thirty calls—only five people home, an expected yet discouraging result.
While she reflected on whether there was any point in continuing, the phone rang.
“Kit Franklyn.”
There was no answer.
“Hello. This is Kit Franklyn. Anyone there?”
“Yes… I’m here,” a male voice said hesitantly. Another pause.
“What can I do for you?” Kit said.
“I… know something… and I think…” Another pause.
“Yes. You think…”
“I think… we need… we should talk.”
“Is this about the picture in the paper?”
“Yes.”
“You know something about the case?”
“Yes.”
“You knew the girl?”
“Not exactly. I was…” Another long pause.
“You were…?”
“I was there… when she… died.”
“When was this?” Kit said.
“I’d rather… I don’t want to get into any details like that yet….”
“But I have to know if your information is accurate.”
There was a long pause, then he said, “It was… more than twenty years ago, and… she liked Mardi Gras.”
Mardi Gras. Kit’s heart climbed into her throat. Lacaze had said that about Francie O’Connor. This was definitely the genuine article. But he was nervous and not sure that making this call was the right decision. She felt that she had to be careful, bring him along slowly, or she’d lose him.
“So this has been on your mind for a long time…” Kit said.
“Yes. A very long time.”
“And you would like to tell someone about what happened.”
“I want to… but I’m not sure… it’s…”
Kit felt as if she was trying to edge up on a wild deer with a bunch of grass in her hand. One wrong move… “I can help you. We can talk and afterward you’ll feel better.”
“I want to… but maybe it’s not… wise.”
“No. It is wise. You’re doing the right thing.”
“No. I’m sure I can’t… shouldn’t. I’ve got to go.”
“Wait. Wait. We don’t—”
Click. Mocking silence filled the receiver.
She had blown it. Disgusted at her ineptitude, she slammed the receiver down. “Damn.”
He had been practically in her hands and she’d let him get away. Franks couldn’t have deserved a Babe Ruth story any more than she did right now.
8
Kit picked up Lucky’s bowl to wash it and groaned at what she saw. In it was the pill she’d hidden in his food the previous morning. She looked at Lucky and wagged her finger. “Why won’t you cooperate?” He sat down on his haunches and hung his head, looking so guilty, she had to laugh. Reflecting on it, she realized that it had been two weeks to the day since she’d felt this cheerful, and there was no doubt about the reason. It was the expectation of seeing Teddy.
In the newspaper story accompanying French’s reconstruction of Francie O’Connor’s face, Kit had indicated that the phone number listed for her could be called even on weekends. Before leaving the hospital on Friday, she initiated call forwarding on her office phone so all calls that came in over the weekend would be automatically transferred to her home. Now, with Teddy’s arrival imminent, her mood was so upbeat that she believed the mystery caller from the previous day might try again. So rosy was her outlook that she half-believed he might even leave his number on her answering machine if she was out when he called.
She dried Lucky’s bowl with a paper towel and shifted her thoughts to the dog’s unwillingness to take his pill. This could not be allowed to continue. But what was the answer?
Ahhh.
She put some beef in the bowl, then folded one of the pills in a kitchen towel. With the heavy handle of a case knife, she pounded the pill almost into a powder and mixed it with the food.
“Breakfast, you little twerp,” she sang, putting the bowl on the floor. Lucky ran to the bowl and sniffed it suspiciously. He circled it and sniffed some more. Then he dropped to his belly, his chin resting sadly on the linoleum.
The doorbell. Teddy.
She hurried to the door and opened it. A strong arm went around her waist and she was enveloped in a delicious cologne. Lips pressed against hers. She returned the kiss.
Releasing her, Teddy said, “Does this mean you will buy an upholstery steamer from me?”
“I don’t do upholstery,” Kit said, pulling Teddy inside by the front of his shirt. “But upholstery steamer salesmen… that’s a different matter.”
Teddy had two major trademarks: a great cologne and his stylish straw hat with a black band. Though he belonged to a sex that thinks nothing of blowing their nose at the table and believes a belch is a creative achievement, Teddy wouldn’t even wear his hat inside. His features were fine and delicate, like expensive porcelain, and he always looked as though he had just come from the barber. Kit often thought of him as appearing newly minted… uncirculated. He was dressed casually—short-sleeved pale blue shirt of brushed oxford cloth, jeans that showed his slim hips, alligator skin belt and boots. In the hand opposite the one he’d hugged her with, he was carrying a suit, shirt, and tie on a hanger.
“Why’s all the furniture in the hall?” Teddy asked.
“Had the living room floor refinished last week. Could we put it all back before we go out?”
“How about right now?”
Kit took his suit to her bedroom closet and came back to the hall. As they carried the carpet into the living room, Teddy said, “I’ve been thinking about this case you’re working on… the skeleton… I hope you’re being careful.”
“Careful? How do you mean?”
They set the carpet down. “Like keeping in mind that whoever did it is probably getting very nervous.”
“That’s what I’m counting on.”
“Nervous may not be a problem, but nervous could lead to desperate. And when animals get desperate, even the meekest will turn and fight.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I hope so.”
When the furniture was all in place, Teddy looked at Kit with a puzzled expression. “Where’s Lucky?”
“In the kitchen. He’s not very happy, I’m afraid.”
Teddy followed Kit to the kitchen, where Lucky was still sprawled forlornly in front of his bowl.
“He won’t take his new heartworm pills, so I ground one up and put it in his food. He liked the other pills, but not these new ones.”
“Bet I can get one down him. Where are they?”
Kit gave Teddy the pills and he tapped one into his hand.
“It won’t work,” she warned.
“I’ve been around dogs all my life,” Teddy said. “If I can’t pill him, I’ll take the pill myself.”
Teddy pulled Lucky into his lap, forced the dog’s mouth open, and chucked the pill into his throat.
Lucky blinked and swallowed.
Teddy let him go and capped the pills. “All in the wrist,” he gloated, handing them to Kit.
Lucky made a faint metallic sound. His head bobbed and he opene
d his mouth. The pill plinked onto the floor.
Teddy looked at Kit and shrugged. “A deal’s a deal.” He got a glass from the cupboard, filled it with water, and picked the pill off the floor. The hand with the pill flew to his mouth. He followed it with a long drink, then rolled his eyes. “Not bad. What did you say was in them?”
“Estrogen,” Kit said, going to him and prying his hand open. In it was the pill. “Guess I’ll have to grind it up and put it in your food,” she said, kissing him.
“How about letting both of us off the hook and just get Lucky his old pills.”
“Agreed,” Kit said, wondering why she hadn’t thought of that.
While Kit got Lucky some fresh food, Teddy looked out the window over the sink. “That hole where they found her… it’s still out there?”
“Yeah.”
“Want me to fill it in?”
Kit hadn’t set foot in the backyard since the day the skeleton had been found. But she’d looked out the window many times at the pile of dirt French and Allen had left behind. She had expected that Allen would fill in the pit when he came back to screen the dirt from the pedestal, but he hadn’t. Surprised, she had mentioned this to Broussard and learned that anthropologists always leave the filling in to others. He had not been very clear on who the “others” might be. At first, she’d wanted the pit filled, wanted to forget it had ever existed. But that was before she’d seen how much the victim had resembled Leslie. Now, it was more than a pile of dirt. It had become a symbol of something unfinished, a debt unpaid. “No thanks,” she said. “I’d like to leave it as it is for a while. What are we doing today?”
“How about the zoo?”
“Great. I haven’t been there in years.” Kit gave Lucky his food, then went to the closet and got the large-brimmed straw hat she’d bought in anticipation of doing some gardening in her new backyard. “If you’re ready, I am.”
Teddy drove a shiny red pickup with a cartoon picture on each door of a baby alligator emerging from an egg. Under the pictures were the words BAYOU COTEAU ALLIGATOR FARM. Having long ago wrestled with and reconciled her self-image and the truck, Kit climbed in with no misgivings.
Teddy took St. Charles to Jefferson and crossed over to Magazine. The zoo was not more than a mile and a half away, sitting between Magazine Street and the Mississippi River, at one end of Audubon Park. Once an embarrassment to the city and a liability to the upscale neighborhood surrounding it, the zoo was now a respected equal to the best the city had to offer.
Teddy turned into the drive leading to the zoo’s parking lot. On the grassy plot next to the drive, they saw a group of old folks standing on the grass, their arms out in front of them, heads thrown back, mouths open, eyes closed. Leading them was a much younger male Oriental.
“What are they doing?” Kit asked.
“Extremely low-impact aerobics,” Teddy replied, entering the parking lot.
It was still early and the heat and the crowd were still well below the day’s predicted maxima. As in other cities, the Audubon Park zoo had replaced the cramped cages of less enlightened times with natural habitats enclosed by moats and simulated rock walls. Teddy paid the entrance fee and they began at the Asian Domain, following an elevated walkway made of logs and planking. This took them to the first exhibit—the bears, all of whom appeared to be asleep. The crowd was not only relatively small in number but was also very small in stature, with noisy children careening from rail to rail and occasionally off Kit’s legs.
Children, Kit thought. Something Leslie Music and Francie O’Connor never got a chance to experience. Something that maybe Kit Franklyn should be thinking harder about.
A mother put her son on the step in front of the plaque for the bear exhibit and pulled his hand to the brass bear claws projecting from the plane of the plaque.
“That’s how they dig for honey,” the mother said.
Expecting now that the plaques for every exhibit would have a touchie-feelie associated with them, the boy ran to the cranes and climbed onto the step in front of that plaque. He proceeded to rub his fingers in a big dollop of bird droppings left by a mockingbird a few minutes earlier.
“A story his mother can tell at his presidential inauguration,” Teddy whispered.
Watching his mother search vainly in her purse for something to wipe the boy’s hands, Kit pulled a tissue from her own bag, went to the boy, and cleaned his fingers. Apparently offended for some reason at Kit’s kindness, the mother grabbed the child by his clean hand and pulled him to the next exhibit.
“I didn’t know you liked kids,” Teddy said.
“Neither did I.”
It was too lovely a day to dwell on anything negative, so Kit put a cap on the pit where those gremlins dwell and let herself enjoy the animals.
After finishing the Asian Domain, they wandered over to the Mombasa Depot Café, a concession stand that made no attempt to look Mombasa, where they each had a DoveBar.
Wondering where to go next, they were drawn to the World of Primates by a series of shrill hoots that sounded like something worth seeing. The dozen or so excited animals they expected to find turned out to be a pair of siamangs, large black primates perched in the top of a dead tree that the keepers had provided. Up close, their cries were unbelievably loud and clear, the power apparently coming from the volleyball-sized sacs under their chins.
According to their plaque, the vocalizations were meant to drive away intruders. In this case, the main intruder was a potbellied guy in a sleeveless undershirt, yellow Bermuda shorts, sandals, and black socks. The guy was egging the animals on by hooting back at them and waving his fist.
In response, the siamangs shook their tree and hooted madly in return. With each exchange, the war escalated. When the animals couldn’t shake their tree any harder or hoot any louder, one of them left his perch and scurried to the ground.
Kit jumped at the feel of a hand on her arm.
“You two had better come over here,” a voice said. “Hurry.”
It was someone Kit knew. “Adrian. What…”
“Hurry now.”
Teddy and Kit joined the man behind a stand of bamboo that shielded them from the siamangs’ view. Kit tried to speak, but the man pointed behind them.
They turned and saw a projectile of monkey feces fly through the air and splatter against the hooting man’s undershirt, some of the scatter hitting people around him. Women screamed and the crowd ran for safety, all except the hooting man, who was so dazed, he took another hit before wandering out of range.
“Thanks for the warning,” Teddy said.
“Teddy, this is Adrian Iverson, president of our local Rose Society. Adrian, Teddy LaBiche, a friend from Bayou Coteau.”
Teddy and Iverson exchanged a handshake.
“How did you know that was going to happen?” Kit asked.
“I’m on the zoo’s board, so I come here a lot to see how things are going,” Iverson said. “And I’ve seen those rascals do the same thing before. I’ve mentioned it to the director, but apparently he hasn’t gotten a warning sign made yet.”
Iverson was in his late fifties. He was tall, with thinning brown hair that formed a prominent widow’s peak on his modestly freckled scalp. Punctuated by a nose already beginning to cauliflower, his long face was bracketed by a pair of large ears. There was a chevron of three deep lines on his forehead and a dark crease under each puffy eye. Dressed in a tan linen suit, pale blue shirt, and a cream tie with large blue dots, he was proof that style and manner more than compensate for physical imperfection. Though he never did, Kit always expected him to speak with an English accent.
“Fortuitous running into you this way,” Iverson said to Kit, “because I was going to give you a call later.”
“What about?”
“The Louisiana Rose Society is sponsoring a contest to find the most fragrant new rose and I was wondering whether you would be willing to come over and give me your opinion on some hybrids I’ve developed.
”
“Of course. Be glad to help.”
“Would tomorrow be convenient… say around two o’clock? Mr. LaBiche, of course you’re welcome, as well.”
“Thanks,” Teddy said, “but I have to leave in the morning.”
“Two would be fine, Adrian,” Kit said. “Where do you live?”
“Off Sabine Road, about a mile from its intersection with highway ninety. It’ll be easy to find. There’s not much else around.”
“Two it is, then.”
At the exit to the primates, Iverson excused himself and went off in the direction of the birdhouse. Kit and Teddy went in the opposite direction.
“Nice fellow,” Teddy said.
“He sort of put me on the spot.”
“How?”
“I’ve been advising one of his competitors on his hybrids for the same contest.”
“Doesn’t matter, as long as you don’t tell either one how you think the other’s doing.”
“Sounds right.”
“Look at this,” Teddy said, walking up to the rail of an exhibit of black humpbacked creatures with yellow tusks that curved upward from their lower jaw to rest alongside an ugly snout. “Russian boars. One of the meanest, most fearless animals on earth. If you’ve got a death wish, you hunt old Sus scrofa with a bow and arrow.”
“What makes him so dangerous, those tusks?”
“That’s a big part of it. They get you down, they can rip you open with them. But their hooves are sharp, too, and they like to stamp on your face. And they die hard. In Europe, when they used to hunt them with lances from horseback, they had to put a stop on the lance to keep the boar from running up the lance and gutting the horse. But more than his physical equipment, he has a dangerous mind. Experienced boar hunters all know that a boar will come for you.”
“Come for you?”
“Stalk you while you stalk him. Want to go boar hunting sometime?”
“Sure, but I have to bungee-jump off the Eiffel Tower first.”
Instead of bypassing the Louisiana swamp exhibit, as Kit thought Teddy would, he pulled her through the entrance, saying, “There’s something in here I want to show you.”
Deep in the exhibit, which consisted of a raised wood walkway wandering through a re-created swamp, they stopped at a glass tank containing what appeared to be two white rubber alligators about four feet long, floating motionless, with only the upper half of their heads out of the water. Kit leaned closer and looked at their eyes.
No Mardi Gras for the Dead Page 8
