The Levee: A Novel of Baton Rouge

by Malcolm Shuman

  “Oh, shit,” I said. “Well, we know Stan didn’t do it.”

  “You know it and I believe you, but there are some saying maybe you’re lying for him, or maybe he snuck away in the night …”

  “Bastards. I bet it’s Jennifer Broussard and that bunch.” Jennifer went out with Fred Picou, who was a year older than we were and was a star pitcher on the baseball team.

  I set down my forkful of macaroni and cheese, no longer hungry.

  “Let ’em talk,” I said.

  “Colin, look: You don’t know what it was like at those other schools. I didn’t have any friends. I was always sick and when I wasn’t sick I was practicing my piano. Do you know what’s it’s like to always be called queer because you don’t go out for sports and you like music? When I came here I thought it would be the same way, but you and Stan, well, you treated me like a person. I’d feel the same way if it was you.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. But the only thing we can do is find somebody else. Isn’t that what Perry Mason does on TV all the time?”

  “I’m serious, Colin. I don’t mean just find somebody, I mean find the guilty one. Unless you think Stan or his dad did it.”

  “No, I don’t think he did,” I said, but it must have sounded weak, because he fixed me with his brooding eyes.

  “Tell me, then: Say ‘I don’t think anybody in Stan Chandler’s family had anything to do with the murder of Senorita Gloria.’”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “No, damn it, say it.”

  I shrugged. “Okay, I don’t think anybody in Stan’s family had anything to do with the killing, all right?”

  He relaxed slightly. “Okay.”

  “Then who does that leave? Sikes?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think it was Sikes.”

  “Why? He’s a mean son-of-a-bitch.”

  “We don’t know that,” Blaize pointed out. “All we’ve got is a bunch of stories from Toby.”

  “Bullshit. Old man Bergeron says it and, besides, you were in the car when he came after us the other day. We know he served time for knifing a man.”

  “That’s just it. There are stories, but that’s all. Don’t you think if a bunch of women were missing it would be news?”

  “Not if they were nigger women.”

  “I don’t believe that. At some point something would have to be done. And if he knifed a man, it was in a fight, it wasn’t sneaking up on anybody, at least that’s what you told me Bergeron said.”

  “Okay, but what about the other day? You heard what the bastard said yourself.”

  “I heard him threaten us, but we were where we shouldn’t have been. And he didn’t really do anything.”

  “Well, you believe what you want. But I was there. Besides, who else is left besides some tramp?”

  Blaize leaned close until his face was only inches from my own.

  “You remember the man Sikes told us about, Drood?”

  “Yeah. But who the hell is he?”

  “I asked my mother. She knows about the old families around here. The Droods owned Windsong since right after the Civil War. The first Drood was a carpetbagger, came down from the north and bought it at a sheriff’s auction, and they say he had all kinds of Negro mistresses and that his wife committed suicide, drowned herself in the river.”

  “So? That was a hundred fucking years ago.”

  “Let me finish. They said old man Drood went crazy after his wife drowned, used to ride through the fields at night on a black horse, kidnapping the slave women out of their houses and raping them, and then burying them alive near the old graveyard.”

  “It was after the Civil fucking War. There weren’t any more slaves.”

  “You know what I mean: They weren’t slaves but they had to work for him because they didn’t have anywhere else to go.” His eyes were as big as plates now, and seemed to burn with ancient fires. “Then, one night, when they were setting fire to the fields, he dragged off this one woman, and she ran away, right into the burning field, and he went after her, on his horse, wearing one of these long white coats they called dusters, and it caught fire, and the last anybody saw was him riding through the fire, all lit up like a Christmas tree, trailing flame and smoke. They said he disappeared back into the swamp and after that the darkies wouldn’t go back there, because they always said the swamp was haunted by Massa Drood’s ghost.”

  I snorted. “Where did you get that bullshit?”

  “My mother,” he said quietly. “And then, when I was sick the other day, I asked our maid, Lucretia, and she knew all about it, because her people came from the plantation next door.”

  “So you think old Sikes was threatening us with somebody that’s been dead for a hundred years, or was he just threatening us with his ghost?”

  “Will you listen, Colin? I’m trying to tell you: The Droods were all crazy, starting with that first one and, for all I know, they were crazy in the north, before that, but all we know is about when they came down south after the war. But this Drood had a son, and there was something wrong with him, too. My mother said the story was that Drood’s wife was pregnant at the same time this Negro woman was, but that the white baby died so they put the Negro woman’s baby in Drood’s wife’s arms, but when she saw he was dark-skinned, that was when she went and drowned herself.”

  It sounded suspiciously like a Bible story I’d heard in Catechism class, but I couldn’t remember which story it was, because as Catholics we didn’t learn much about the Old Testament.

  “Anyhow,” Blaize went on, excited, “this mulatto boy was raised as Drood’s son, but before old Drood went crazy and burned himself up, he sent the boy up north to be raised by his folks up there, and the boy didn’t come back for twenty years.”

  “So we’re talking about what? Eighteen-ninety or something?”

  “That’s not the point. The point is that every Drood has been crazy ever since and they always send the boys up north to be educated, and then they come back here. And when they get back, they’re as crazy as ever and all kinds of things happen. In the nineteen-twenties there was a murder of a professor on the campus, with an ax, and Lucretia said the cops knew it was a Drood who did it, but they couldn’t prove it, on account of the Droods have a lot of money and can always buy out of it.”

  “That’s what Lucretia says, huh?”

  “Don’t laugh. She knew all about it, and she said something else, too.”

  “Oh?

  “She said the Sikes have been working for the Droods ever since the first Drood came down here. She said Sikes is a mean white man—that’s what she called him—but she said he just had one aim, like all the Sikes before him, and that was to take care of the Droods, even to take the blame for ’em if they have to.”

  “The blame?” I regarded the chocolate pudding in my spoon and then decided I didn’t want it.

  “That’s right. It was something about how the first Drood saved the first Sikes in the Civil War, at Gettysburg, I think, and ever since then the Sikes’ have looked out for the Droods, even if it meant going to jail for ’em or running the place while the Droods were away. It’s sort of like that high priest in the Mummy, you know, the one who guards Kharis and …”

  “And feeds him fucking tanna leaves. I guess Lucretia told you that, too.”

  “No. And you don’t have to believe all of it. I mean, maybe Lucretia’s full of it, but there’s some truth there, because I asked my mom, and she knew all about the Droods. At least, she knows they’re crazy, and she knows about the one Sikes was talking about.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She says the Droods almost lost everything in the Depression and old man Drood killed himself. His wife took their son and went up north and nobody knew what happened, but a year or so ago, the young Drood—Darwin his name was—showed up again and took to living on the old place, by himself.”

  “Your mother says that?”

  “Yes. And she knows about these old families.”
/>
  There was no denying that.

  I was still mulling over the possibility when Toby plopped down beside me, his tray full of what most of us considered inedible.

  “You girls on a date?” he asked. “Or can I join you.”

  Nobody else wanted to sit with him, and we were almost finished, so I shrugged:

  Toby forked a mountain of macaroni into his mouth, not bothering to wipe away the cheese that stuck to his lips.

  “Still trying to decide who did it?” he asked.

  “None of your business.”

  “You may change your tune when you hear what I know.”

  “You don’t know shit,” I said.

  “No? I know about the lie detector test.”

  “What lie detector test?” Blaize asked.

  Toby smacked his lips and forked in another load of macaroni. He eyed Blaize’s pudding. “Hey, you gonna eat that?”

  “I don’t know. What about the lie detector test?”

  Toby helped himself to the pudding and I lowered my eyes as he filled his mouth.

  “Well?” Blaize demanded.

  “Well, what?” Toby asked, mouth still half full.

  “Finish chewing,” I said, disgusted.

  “Screw you,” Toby said and belched.

  He eyed both our plates for anything we’d missed and then wiped his mouth with a hand.

  “Okay, girls, here’s the way it is, the latest from the courthouse: Stan’s old man agreed to a lie detector test and how do you think it came out?”

  “How the fuck should we know?” I asked.

  “Well, you think he did it, don’t you?”

  “I never said that,” I told him.

  “Look, either say what you’re gonna say or shut up,” Blaize said.

  “Okay.” Toby cocked his head and considered another group of students at the next table. “Look at ’em: gossip, gossip, gossip. Bunch of dumb assholes.” He turned back to us: “Okay, here it is: The results of the test were inconclusive.”

  “Inconclusive?” Blaize and I said in unison.

  “Do I stutter? There was no conclusive result, one way or the other.”

  “What does that mean?” Blaize asked.

  Toby looked pained. “It means, dumbass, that Dr. Benson Chandler was too smart for ’em. He told the truth about some things and he huffed and puffed and tensed up on other questions that he gave truthful answers to. So they couldn’t figure out what they call a baseline. That’s what my old man said.”

  “You mean it was deliberate?” I asked.

  “Christ yes. He’s a doctor. He knows how to fuck up one of those machines.”

  “So they’re going to let him go?” I asked.

  “Shit, no. He claimed he was at a medical conference in Dallas, but the airline says he never took that plane, and he never registered. There’s no proof he ever parked his car at the airport, like no parking receipt. So he could’ve just stayed so he and Gloria hot pants could get it on.”

  “That’s still just circumstantial,” I said. “I mean, nobody saw him with her, did they?”

  “They’re checking all that. But they’re checking something else, too. I heard my old man telling my old lady.”

  “What?”

  “Well, what if Chandler was screwing Gloria and his old lady found out about it? What if she was the one who did it? There’s motive, see, and that’s what cops look at. The triangle, it’s called.”

  “That’s crap,” Blaize mumbled.

  “How do you know, fairy boy? You mean if your old man was fucking your teacher your old lady wouldn’t be pissed enough to kill her?”

  Blaize’s face flushed and he jumped up, almost upsetting his tray: “You shut up about my mother,” he cried.

  “Hey, it’s just an example,” Toby said. “Could’ve been Stan’s older brother, Ben.”

  “And I guess you’re going to spread this all over school,” I said, disgusted.

  “Don’t have to. What do you think they’re talking about over there? Won’t be but another day before they hear it. Shit, man, this town is like a fucking auditorium. Everybody hears everything. I heard from my old man that the campus police chief got chewed out by the sheriff for talking to the dean. And you know the dean told old Cornhole.”

  That much was true; my father had often commented on how anything that happened at or near the university was known by everybody within a few hours.

  That night I asked my father about the Droods.

  He sighed and put down his paper.

  “I guess everybody’s fair game in this business.” He sighed and picked up his pipe. “Well, I don’t know much about them, son. Your mom, if she were alive, would know more, because she came from here. And your Uncle Royce could tell you a lot more. But as far as I know, the family’s just about died out, except for young Darwin.”

  “Darwin?”

  “The son. They sent him north for his education, to one of those exclusive prep schools, Exeter or Andover or Choate. Then he went on to one of the Ivy league colleges.” He started to pack his pipe. “I think there was something peculiar about the boy. I’m not sure what. He had a nervous breakdown or something when he was about your age, home for the summer. I really don’t remember because it was a while back, and folks like the Droods cover their tracks.”

  “I heard he came back.”

  “Did he? Well, then, he’s got a lot of work to do, because after his folks died the place went to ruin.”

  “Do you think he’s dangerous?”

  My father frowned and put down his pipe. “Why would you ask that? Oh, I see: you’re wondering if he might have killed your teacher.”

  “She wasn’t my teacher.”

  “You know what I mean. Well, who can say what anybody else might do? All I can say is that just because somebody has a nervous breakdown doesn’t mean he’s a killer.”

  “But do you think Stan’s dad’s the killer, then? Or his mom? Or …”

  “Son, I don’t know what to believe. All I know is that all this speculation can’t do anybody any good. The authorities are investigating. That’s their job, and they do it better than you or I, so why don’t we leave it to them?”

  I started to tell him about the results of the lie detector test, then held back. Maybe he knew but, then again, maybe he didn’t. Whatever the case, it was clear he didn’t know anything more than I did at this point.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I awaken and shower, feeling empty. The memories of those days have flooded back like flotsam propelled by raging waters.

  Maybe it is time to go back to the River Road. Isn’t that why I’ve come? Do I intend to stay in the hotel room and never summon the courage to do what I came here to do?

  But it will be so much easier if I can enjoy some support, validate the memories by exposing them to someone who was there and will know what is true and what my mind may have invented.

  I look at my watch: It is six-thirty. Blaize probably hasn’t yet left for school.

  Hand trembling, I lift the phone and punch in his number.

  “I’m sorry to call so early,” I say when he answers.

  When he speaks, there is resignation in his voice: “I knew you’d call back. I’ve been waiting.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll get away for lunch. Do you know where Baton Rouge High is?”

  “I think I remember.”

  “There’s a shopping center almost across the street, in Westmoreland, with a Piccadilly Cafeteria. I’ll meet you there at noon.”

  I drive and reach the school half an hour early. It is as I remember it, a three-story Gothic structure built in the mid-twenties. It has been converted into a Magnet school, a haven for the more promising students, in an attempt to slow white flight. I park on a side street, near a tattoo parlor, and watch the students lying on the big grassy lawn, under the live oaks. Some of the girls have pink hair and, though I cannot get close enough to see, I am sure they wear body jewel
ry and are pierced in places that would have been unthinkable forty years ago.

  I am hardly surprised, because that is the way it is in Colorado, too. Maybe I’m just surprised that it has reached this town, which, as part of the South, has always been at the end of social change.

  I leave the side street and find a place in the parking lot in front of a row of shops that range from a kidney dialysis unit to a dollar store. In the center of the block is the cafeteria.

  It is noon now and people are trickling in. All at once I wonder how I will know Blaize St. Martin. It has been so long … But then I see him walking diagonally across the lot, a tall, graying man with glasses, though not with the unhealthy pallor I recall from high school. I get out and we shake hands.

  “It’s good to see you,” I say, and he gives me a shy smile.

  “A long time, Colin,” is all he says.

  We go inside, passing down the line to order, and I catch myself smiling at the hot dishes: the heapings of red beans and rice, the crawfish etouffé, the cornbread that I remember from my youth.

  “Not exactly the school cafeteria,” I say.

  “Not exactly,” Blaize says, returning my smile. I look for clues that will tell me about his present life but there’s nothing, no wedding ring, no necklace that might hold a religious medal or a peace symbol.

  We carry our trays to a booth in a corner, against the wall, and I reflect that in the old days, when my father and I came here to eat after church, there were always white-coated waiters who performed this service, and my father always gave me a dime to tip them with.

  “You have a son,” I say, as we settle in.

  He nods, lifting his iced tea. “His mother and I divorced years ago.”

  I make an appropriate noise.

  “Here.” He produces a photograph from his wallet and I see a handsome, dark young man with the same brooding eyes as his father. “We don’t see each other much.”

  I nod. I know the havoc that divorce can wreak, from what has happened in the lives of other friends.

  “I guess you have children, too,” he says, picking up a piece of cornbread.

  I show him my pictures of Colin, Jr., and Caitlin, whom we call Honey.