Whispers of the Bayou

by Mindy Starns Clark

I was so frustrated at the slow tediousness of this task, but I knew if I tried to go any faster, I would damage the painting hidden underneath. Tired of my complaints, AJ asked if there wasn’t some chemical that would do the job, some solvent or paint remover, but I told her that we didn’t dare try, because the mural had no protection to it, not even a coating of varnish.

  “Lucky for us, Willy used enamel to cover the acrylic instead of latex. At least enamel peels off.”

  “What’s that up there?” AJ asked, pointing toward the top of the wall. “It looks like a letter.”

  I hadn’t been working all the way to the ceiling, because I assumed it merely showed more sky. I slid over a table and climbed on top, and carefully scraped until I revealed a few letters. Working to the right and to the left, I tried to figure out what that word was, until finally I uncovered an accent mark and realized that it was in French: réciter. Calling Lisa up from the kitchen where she was just unloading groceries, I brought her into the room and showed her the word and the young man’s tattoo. Her eyes blazed with sudden interest, as if I just may have uncovered the truth we’d been searching for.

  “Réciter,” she said. “That means recite. Recite! Work to the left, Miranda. What’s the word just before that one?”

  Using one of the putty knives, I carefully scraped backwards until I had uncovered the two previous words, Il devra.

  “Go the other way,” Lisa said, nearly bouncing up and down with excitement.

  I worked as fast as I could, eventually needing to hop down from the table, push it toward the right, and climb back up again. Finally, when I reached a period, I stopped, my arms throbbing. My efforts had revealed a full sentence: Il devra réciter ce serment et le garder toujours en mémoire.

  “What does it mean?” I asked, knowing it sounded so familiar.

  “‘He must recite this oath and remember it always.’“ I looked at Lisa, who was crying. “You found it, Miranda! You found Le Serment.”

  I climbed down from the table and we hugged each other, relief flooding my veins. That was it! That was why Willy had yelled at his beloved Ya Ya and was banished from this floor. Because in her senility, she had insisted on painting out the secret that she had kept inside her entire life.

  If Lisa had her way, we would take an electric sander to the wall and plow down the line, uncovering the rest as fast as possible. I had to argue with her to make her calm down, and though I was irritated at her impatience, I had to remind myself that I was used to working at a snail’s pace because this was my job. This type of thing was what I did regularly for a living.

  I offered to let her choose which she would rather see me uncover next: the rest of the words or the rest of the pictures.

  “I say, keep going with the words for now,” she replied. “But go in that direction. We already know what it says before this. Now we need to see what the rest of it says.”

  Too impatient to watch, she finally excused herself to go back to the kitchen to get dinner started. Once in a while, she would pop in and translate what I had uncovered. When I ran out of wall space in that room, I had to go on a bit of a treasure hunt to find where it picked up next. Moving to the various places Deena had shown me, I was able to keep finding the trail. I wasn’t sure how I would know when I had reached the end. Eventually, however, I gave up, convinced that though there were more pictures, I had exhausted all of the words.

  I called Lisa up one last time and asked her to read and translate as she went. I stood with pen and paper and wrote down what she said, then when she was finished, I read all of the words out loud, in English, the second half of the oath:

  “In time of great danger, I must reveal the location of the angelus and present it to all Acadians whose ancestors were born in the village of Colline d’Or. The angelus belongs to each of us, its gold has come from each of us, and to each of us it will return, to serve as our protection and to guarantee that we will never again be forced to leave our homeland. Never again will we suffer from a great expulsion.”

  I lowered the paper and looked from Lisa to AJ.

  “Do you think that’s it? That’s the whole oath?”

  Lisa chewed a nail, her eyes scanning the wall.

  “The pictures,” she said. “You have to keep going now with the pictures.”

  Wearily, I set down the pad and tried to make sense of what it said. My eyes kept going back to one phrase: The angelus belongs to each of us, its gold has come from each of us, and to each of us it will return. Was it possible that these people from Colline d’Or, aka the Hills of Gold, had somehow combined their wealth to buy a valuable bell? Why a bell of all things?

  “Hello?” a man’s voice called out from downstairs.

  Startled, I looked at my watch to see that it was six o’clock on the dot.

  “Anybody home?” Holt called out. “Something sure smells good in here.”

  “We’re upstairs. Be there in just a minute.”

  “Take your time.”

  In a mad shuffle, I realized that my father could be showing up any minute as well—and the stairs would provide no boundary against him. Soon, he would see the oath that we had uncovered, something that I felt we should keep from him if at all possible.

  “I think you’re worrying about nothing,” AJ said after listening to me suggest ways we could cover it up. “This is Richard we’re talking about. If we don’t act like it’s any big deal, he won’t know. He was always bored by his mother’s art anyway. Just tell him you’re uncovering it because you’re interested in studying her painting style.”

  Lisa didn’t seem quite as certain, but finally she agreed. Short of repainting what we had uncovered, there didn’t seem to be any way to hide it that wouldn’t call attention to it.

  I asked Lisa to go downstairs and make Holt feel welcome, assuring her I would be down in a minute to start the grill going for the steaks. After she left, I asked AJ if she was going to be able to get through dinner.

  “Get through it? What do you mean?”

  “Considering your history with Holt and all.”

  She brushed me off with a wave of her hand.

  “So much water under the bridge,” she said. “We’re just a pair of old fogeys by now. It’s no big deal. Really.”

  Of course, her statement was followed by a long visit to the mirror and lots of bottles, tubes, and jars. While she fixed herself up, I ran a brush through my hair and pinned it back up and then went down to greet my guest and take in the heavenly smells of the kitchen myself.

  “I have something for you,” Holt said as Lisa disappeared into the pantry. I was trying to appear as if I was relaxed rather than dying to get upstairs and get back to work. “But please don’t think I’m trying to push anything on you. I wasn’t sure if you had one, but this is a nice translation, very easy to understand if you haven’t ever really read the Bible before.”

  He held out a box and I took it from him, opening it up to see a Bible with a snazzy two-tone leather cover.

  “You bought this for me? Thank you, Holt.”

  “Ah, I was in town anyway. Not to mention, I couldn’t find any macaroons or a pony.”

  I laughed, surprised at how modern Bibles had become since the last time I paid any attention.

  “Actually, I have some questions about Psalm 141,” I said, handing the Bible back to him. “Could you take a look at it?”

  “Sure,” Holt replied, taking it from me and quickly finding the passage. He read to himself, one finger leading his eyes down the page. “What did you want to know?”

  “Let’s walk as we talk.”

  Together, we went out the door, with him holding the Bible and me pushing his wheelchair. We went up the driveway alongside the house, in the direction of the bayou, as Holt told me what he could about the passage. Though his discourse was interesting, I didn’t hear him say anything that seemed significant to my search. Basically, the psalm was a lament written by David, asking God to hear his prayer, to keep him in l
ine, and to deliver him from his enemies. What that had to do with finding the angelus, I could not imagine.

  “Does this passage have some significance to you?” Holt asked when he was finished, closing the book on his lap so that he could take over the rolling of his own chair.

  “When I was at the boudin festival I overheard that last line, ‘Let the wicked fall into their own nets,’ and I was trying to figure out if it had some significance beyond what’s written there on the page.”

  “Ah, well, everything in this book has significance for every part of our lives.”

  Not wanting him to launch into a sermon, I changed the subject, asking Holt about all of the various out buildings and what purposes they had served back when this was a working farm. He couldn’t identify every one, but he named the ones that he could. He said that the tallest one there by the water had been for sugar storage and loading, from what he could recall. I nodded, thinking that was the one that had given me such an odd feeling of attraction and danger when I got close to it.

  When we reached the end of the house, I told him to wait there while I crossed the lawn to go to the patio outside Willy’s door and grab the grill.

  “You’re kidding, right?” he said.

  “No, why?”

  “I’m sure the grill was seized by the police. Impounded as evidence.”

  He gestured toward the patio and I turned to look, surprised to see that there was no grill to be found.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  He seemed to think for a moment, his eyebrows dipping low over his eyes.

  “I guess they didn’t tell you the details of Willy’s murder?”

  I shook my head, eyes wide.

  “No, those cops didn’t want to talk to me at all. Do you know more about it? Do you know what really happened?”

  “I know some,” he said, and we turned and walked back toward the house as he explained. He said that he’d been chatting with friends on the force, who told him that Willy’s murder had essentially been death by lighter fluid.

  “Lighter fluid?”

  “That’s why they think it wasn’t all that premeditated. Whoever killed him simply reached under the grill outside his door there and grabbed the can of lighter fluid, used it to fill up the humidifier, and then put back the little bit that was left when they were done.”

  “That’s how he died? Breathing in the fumes of lighter fluid?”

  “Yeah, they said his lungs were so full of froth that the coroner knew right away there was something fishy about his death.”

  My mind reeled with the thought of poor Willy, struggling to breathe with the very mechanism that had been altered to kill him!

  “So what’s the DNA that they have? Why did they take samples from all of us?”

  “Lucky for them, two cops checked out that grill together. One leaned down to grab the bottle of lighter fluid and the other goes, ‘Watch out, Bubba, you’re gonna bump your head on that piece of metal hanging down.’ The other guy freezes and pulls his head out real slowly like, because he doesn’t want to get hurt. He looks at the metal and says, ‘Oops, looks like somebody else beat me to it.’ ”

  “The killer,” I said as we reached the back door.

  “Yes. Judging by the freshness of the evidence there, the cops theorize that whoever killed Willy banged their head pretty badly, either when they grabbed the lighter fluid or when they put it back. The police were able to get a good little chunk of scalp tissue, some blood, and even several hairs. That’s why they tested everybody for DNA. If they can find a match, they will have zeroed in on whoever reached for that lighter fluid.”

  “And that’s why they insisted on examining my head,” I mused, comforted that they really hadn’t been looking for my stupid tattoo.

  I opened the door and we went inside, now faced with the question of how to cook steaks without a grill. Shaking her head, Lisa said not to worry, there was a grill outside of Willy’s room that we could use. Holt glanced at me, his expression grim, and then he explained to her everything he’d just told me.

  She seemed very upset by what he told her, more than I would have expected, and finally I decided that was because she was the one who had put the mask on Willy, so theoretically she had been part of the cause of his death. Hoping to calm her down, I focused on the food, asking what we should do about the meat. With tears rolling down her dark face, she busied herself with broiling the gorgeous steaks in the oven, and soon the kitchen was filled with the delicious, sizzling smell of roasting beef. As she pulled the last dish from the oven, she set it on top of the stove and handed me the potholders.

  “You have to take it from here,” she sobbed, and then she grabbed her car keys and ran out the door.

  I went after her, stopping her just as she climbed into her little red car.

  “Lisa, wait!” I said. “Are you okay?”

  She was crying in earnest now, deep heaving sobs that rolled up from her chest.

  “I just have to be alone for a while,” she sobbed. “I have to think.”

  I hesitated, not at all sure she should be driving in such a state.

  “Miranda, please let me go. I’m all right. I need a good cry, and I’d rather not fall apart with all of these people here.”

  I reluctantly stepped back and let her pass, watching her car speed down the driveway and out of view around the trees.

  Back inside, I tried to pick up the pieces of our little dinner party. All that was left was to get the food on the table. I knew that Lisa had planned for us to eat in the dining room, which seemed an odd choice to me since we had to make a big loop through the parlor, entryway, and living room just to get to it.

  “No you don’t,” Holt said. Rolling his chair toward the door to the pantry, he flung it open, rolled inside, and then reached for a latch on the back wall—which turned out to be not a wall at all but a door. He slid the door open to reveal the dining room right there on the other side, just steps away from the kitchen. Amazed at the clever workings of this old house, I walked through, back and forth, several times, carrying all of the food to the table.

  My father showed up just in time to eat, putting a damper on a gathering that had already turned quite somber with the exit of Lisa. He had brought along a bottle of wine, though he drank most of it himself. Halfway through the bottle, he grew a little more loquacious, though I could tell that he didn’t really want to be there—either that, or he knew we didn’t want him there.

  Holt, on the other hand, was the very picture of charm. When AJ finally came downstairs, she looked lovely, her makeup and hair simply perfect, her outfit filmy and soft and vaguely sexy. She seemed nervous and self-conscious but also flirty, and I realized with a start that this was the first time I had ever observed her acting this way with a man. I wasn’t sure what that was about, but I found it kind of cute. Old fogey or not, having Holt here was really rattling her cage.

  During the meal, trying to lay the groundwork with my father, I brought up the subject of my efforts to uncover my grandmother’s hidden paintings upstairs. As AJ had predicted, he asked no questions and didn’t seem interested at all. Poor Holt was curious about them but in no position to get up there and take a look. I made a vague promise to snap some photos once I was finished so that he could see them that way. I knew that was a promise I might have to forget or at least put off for a while, depending on what the rest of the murals revealed.

  Considering the dynamics of the group, conversation flowed along rather well. At one point, Holt and I got to laughing about something, and when I glanced at AJ, I could see a change coming over her face. Her smile dimmed somewhat and eventually disappeared all together. Before we even served dessert, she excused herself, and then she headed upstairs, putting a hand to her mouth to hold in a sob before she was even out of the room.

  I looked at Holt, who seemed terribly disappointed.

  “Do you think I said something wrong?” he asked me.

  I shook
my head.

  “I think she’s feeling guilty,” I whispered. “For all those lost years. Seeing how well you and I get along and everything.”

  Of course, I thought with my own surge of guilt, I had probably been overdoing it a little tonight, trying to show off in front of my father. It was pathetic, but I just wanted Richard Fairmont to see that his daughter could be interesting and entertaining and very much worth spending time with if he’d ever just bother to try.

  Except for steaks that would have been tastier from a grill, the meal was wonderful. We went ahead and moved along to the dessert without AJ, a light and heavenly bread pudding with a rum raisin sauce.

  When we were finished, the men complained about having eaten too much and I knew that was true of me as well. While they sat there and talked, I stood and began clearing off the table. Now that dinner was over, I was embarrassed to admit that I wanted to go upstairs and get back to work, as there was a painting up there with my name on it. Still, I didn’t want to be rude. In the kitchen, as I loaded the dishwasher, I dialed Lisa’s cell phone, just to check and make sure she was okay.

  Wherever she was, it was noisy, the music and clanking glasses in the background making me think perhaps she had gone to a bar. We talked for only a minute, but she sounded much better, saying that she had run into some friends who had taken her out for a bite to eat. When she said not to wait up for her, I reminded her of my sighting of Jimmy Smith yesterday and said that she shouldn’t be coming back to the house late at night alone, just in case it hadn’t been a dream.

  “Don’t worry about me, Miranda,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

  I was just hanging up from our call when voices began to rise from the dining room. From the sound of things and the occasional mention of my name, I realized that my father and Holt were having an argument—and that it had something to do with me.

  I tried to listen by hovering in the pantry, but their voices were too muffled to make out half of their words. Finally, I opened the dining room door and leaned in to ask if anyone wanted coffee. They both declined, but my father pushed out his chair and said that I would need to excuse the two of them. They were going over to Holt’s house where they could continue their “discussion.”