Plunder: A Faye Longchamp Mystery #7 (Faye Longchamp Series)

by Evans, Mary Anna

  Faye was so curious that she reached out a finger and touched one of the pieces of paper, but she drew it back as if she’d touched a firebrand. Evidence. She needed to preserve this evidence. It was time to get out of there before she really screwed up, but Faye thumbed 911 into her phone after she took a photo of those slips of paper.

  “I need to report a missing person and a burglary.”

  The operator asked her the right questions and she answered them, all the while uncrumpling those papers with her eyes and wishing she could touch them. Perhaps it was just as well that she couldn’t, since she was probably risking a serious hex by disturbing a mambo’s sacred space.

  “I’m at the Lafitte Marina. I don’t know the slip number, but it’s Miranda Landreneau’s houseboat. Somebody in the marina store can get you here.”

  The operator’s tone said that she herself knew exactly where Miranda Landreneau lived, because everybody knew Miranda, but she was too professional and well-trained to let it show. Nevertheless, there was a note of concern in her voice when she said, “I’ll have someone out there to you right away.”

  The papers on Miranda’s altar bothered Faye. They hadn’t been there before. Faye was certain of it. She remembered the altar as…pretty. Yes, pretty. It had been designed to look pleasing to the gods, yet now there was trash piled atop the silk. At least a dozen torn scraps of paper had been crumpled up and scattered over the altar.

  Faye realized that she was risking a hexing, but she squatted down to get a good angle on one of those wadded-up scraps. In an old woman’s spidery handwriting, it bore a single name, with a line drawn through it:

  Steve Daigle

  She took a picture while squatting, to document Steve Daigle’s hexing. Now that she’d read the name in its entirety, she could read bits of Steve’s name on each of the others. Faye was certain that they were all the same.

  One of the candlesticks adorning the altar attracted her attention. Its base was a pewter skull so small and understated that she hadn’t noticed it until this minute. Under it was another scrap of paper. Faye could read the last four letters of a name, written in the same spidery script:

  igle

  Steve Daigle, again. Justine’s widower. In the short span of time since Faye was last in this room, Steve had been the focus of Miranda’s voodoo-soaked brain.

  Remembering Steve’s behavior when he first met his stepmother-in-law, Faye would say that Miranda had possessed several good reasons to hex the man. As she looked over the altar again quickly, before going outside to wait for help, she brushed at her eye, which was prickling strangely. Big mistake.

  Touching the rim of her right eyelid with her right forefinger made that eye stop prickling and commence burning. She rushing to the kitchen sink to wash out her eye, but remembered at the last minute that she shouldn’t even touch the sink. Damn. Instead, she squinched the eye shut and pressed her left palm into it, while she studied her right hand with her good eye. A red powder smudged the pads of its fingers.

  Its familiar look, coupled with the burning in her eye, prompted her to lick her index finger, which in retrospect seemed rather foolish. That hand could’ve been covered with graveyard dust or ground-up cadaver bones or something else awful out of the voodoo priestess’ apothecary, but not this time. The red powder was nothing more than cayenne pepper.

  Writing down somebody’s name, crossing it out, sprinkling cayenne pepper on it, then tossing the crumpled paper onto a skull-adorned altar…it seemed to Faye that these things meant something. And they probably did not mean that the man in question was the voodoo practitioner’s best friend.

  Rubbing her eye with the back of her hand in case she hadn’t gotten all the cayenne off her fingertips, Faye found her blurry vision focusing on the refrigerator. Another scrap of paper was fastened to its door with a magnet shaped like the state of Louisiana. Faye quickly snapped a photo of it.

  The same spidery handwriting was scrawled on it, although the letters and numbers weren’t crossed through. It was a simple note written from Miranda to herself:

  Sechrist, Friday, 2:00

  It was Friday. Or was it?

  Faye’s internal calendar was so scrambled by her seven-day work weeks that she had to think for a moment to be sure. Yes. It was Friday.

  Had Miranda met with someone named Sechrist that very day? Or were they planning to meet in a week? Or maybe they’d met the week before, and Miranda was careless with taking down her notes to herself. Or perhaps the note didn’t refer to an individual. Maybe Miranda had a business meeting or a doctor’s appointment or…something else unexpected.

  Faye looked at her watch. It was barely six thirty. Miranda might still be at the Sechrist meeting, but four and a half hours was a very long time. Too bad the note didn’t say where the meeting was supposed to happen. Faye suspected that Miranda would have preferred to meet at her own home, given the choice. But maybe he hadn’t given her a choice. Maybe Miranda had gone to a perfectly innocent meeting and she was on her way back, only to find that her home had been invaded in her absence. Might this mean that she’d been lured away to clear a path for the burglar?

  This was the best possible scenario that she could muster, because it meant that Miranda would be walking in the door any minute, so it was the one she would present to Amande.

  There was nothing left to discover in the houseboat. Faye decided to stop stalling and go talk to Amande, but her questions never got asked. She stepped onto the open deck, just in time to hear sirens and to see marked cars approach, just as they had three short days before when Amande discovered her uncle’s dead body in the water. The sirens made Michael clap his hands over his ears and scream, but Amande stood absolutely still and silent.

  Was it possible that the 911 response had come so quickly? Faye didn’t think it had been a minute since she hung up the phone. Something felt very wrong.

  Not knowing what else to do, Faye moved close to the girl. Joe, with the squalling baby in his arms, hovered close on her other side. There was nothing to do now but wait to see what the sirens would bring.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Faye was glad that Amande didn’t have to hear anything the sheriff said beyond the fact that her grandmother was dead. She’d pulled the weeping girl aside and let Joe handle the rest, but not before she’d had the presence of mind to tell the sheriff that she and Joe were “visiting relatives.” Something inside her couldn’t bear the thought of Tebo or Didi being the go-between for Amande with the law.

  By the time a woman with salt-and-pepper hair and a sober business suit approached, Amande had dissolved into the tears that she’d probably needed to cry all week. First, she’d lost her mother, which had cost her the fantasy reunion anyone in her position would have harbored. Now Amande knew, beyond all doubt, that Justine wasn’t going to miraculously appear and explain herself, then take her daughter out for a girls-only lunch and shoe-shopping trip. She would never have her dream mother.

  And now she had lost the woman who had not been a dream grandmother. She had been a real grandmother to Amande, in every way but blood.

  Perhaps Miranda’s devotion to this homeless child of her ungrateful stepdaughter was in Faye’s mind when she ramped up the lie she’d told the detective. When a business-suited woman introduced herself as Sally Smythe, telling them she was a representative of the Department of Children and Family Services, a vision of Amande being handed over to foster care had congealed in Faye’s mind.

  Perhaps the foster parents would be perfectly nice people, but would they live where a boat-dwelling girl could see the water? Would they be able to handle a child who was brilliant and quirky and strong without crushing those things out of her?

  And what if they weren’t perfectly nice people? Faye had heard stories about beatings and neglect and molestation…no. These things were not going to happen, not if she could help it.

  Faye’s only motivation for the lie was to stall the inevitable. She thought that, by ke
eping Amande out of the insatiable maw of the foster care system, even momentarily, she might be able to steer the girl into a living situation that she could…well…live with.

  The woman had looked at Joe as he smoothed the hair back from the crying girl’s face, then asked Faye, “Do I understand that the two of you were relatives of the victim?”

  Faye gave her a quick yes, then asked the question that was at the front of her brain and, coincidentally, would have been an important question for a real relative, as well. “Does anybody know where her Aunt Didi and Uncle Tebo are?”

  Ms. Smythe pursed her lips and said, “I’m told that they were easy to find. There aren’t that many bars around here. When Mrs. Landreneau’s daughter was found, she was winning a drinking contest against three large men. Vodka shots are her weapon of choice. Or so I’m told.”

  “Tebo?”

  “He’s in custody for public drunkenness.”

  “Do they really arrest people for that in Louisiana?” Faye asked. “It’s the home of the drive-thru daiquiri bar.”

  “If they’re drunk enough, and if they piss the arresting officer off badly enough, then yes. They do. Tebo succeeded on both those counts. He’s a charming man.”

  Ms. Smythe studied Joe and Amande again. Joe had lifted Michael by the armpits and was making him fly around Amande’s head in an obvious attempt to get her to laugh. It wasn’t working much.

  Ms. Smythe looked Faye in the eyes and said, “Please tell me that Tebo and his drunken sister are not the only relatives who might be able to take this girl. She doesn’t look like she’s had any instruction from them in the fine art of being a barfly. I’d rather not place her with someone who will expose her to that. Foster care might be preferable.”

  Trying to minimize the number of times she uttered an out-and-out lie, Faye said, “Well, they’re certainly her closest relatives.”

  She wondered if the fact that she, Joe, and Michael were some of the few people in the county with skintones approaching Amande’s would give just enough credence to her lies. Other than Amande, Faye’s family, and Steve Daigle, Manny the marina manager was the only person of color in sight. This was a very white part of the world. Faye’s family looked like Amande’s relatives; therefore, they were Amande’s relatives. How far could she push her luck with this bureaucrat?

  Sally jerked her head in Amande’s direction and started walking. Faye followed her.

  Sticking out her hand, she shook Amande’s and said, “Sally Smythe. We met after your Uncle Hebert passed. Remember? It’s my job to make sure you’re okay, and I’m going to do that.”

  Amande looked terrified. No, she looked like a lonely little girl. She’d lost her grandmother and her mother, and she was smart enough to have already figured out that Miranda’s death changed everything when it came to the houseboat. She, Didi, and Steve would be splitting ownership of it, and her share would be by far the smallest. There was every likelihood that she’d be forced to leave her home. What did any of that matter, anyway, while she was too young to handle her own affairs?

  All those things paled, now that the foster care system beckoned.

  Faye was capable of pulling facts out of the air and making a decision so fast that she almost felt careless later, as if she should have agonized more over the problem and its solution. She didn’t consciously weigh the risks that Amande’s family presented against the burden an extra child would put on her own family. She just heard herself asking the social worker a question she hadn’t planned to ask: “Will a distant cousin do for a temporary guardian, until you can decide on the best placement for Amande?”

  “How distant?”

  “I’m her…”

  Not being a practiced liar, Faye hesitated a moment too long. She saw a change in Amande, as composure settled on her and she, too, decided what to do without taking the time to sweat over the details. In that instant Faye knew that Amande, though impossibly young, was unmistakably the kind of person any woman would want on her side in a crisis. The girl knew how to do what needed to be done.

  “Fifth cousin,” Amande stated coolly. “We’re fifth cousins.”

  Joe, wanting to help, popped in with, “Once removed.”

  Faye was pretty sure that Joe didn’t even know what “once removed” meant, in terms of cousins. She regained control of the conversation with a feeble, “But we’re very close. Amande’s our…very favorite cousin. We’re staying in the area for a few weeks. Why don’t you let us take charge of Amande while we’re here? Can we do that without her formally entering foster care? Later, the family can meet with you and decide what’s best for her.”

  Faye was frankly amazed that this feeble seat-of-the-pants ploy got her as far as it did, but Ms. Smythe could only do so much. When she heard Faye say, “We’re staying in the area for a few weeks,” she’d started shaking her head.

  After Faye had stopped telling bald-faced lies long enough to take a breath, Sally had explained the way things were. “I can release her to family, or even close friends, if they have an acceptable place to stay, and if they pass the background check, and if they agree to come get fingerprinted tomorrow. For starters. It’s the government we’re talking about, and we’re talking about the safety of a child. But you tell me you’re not from around here. Where are you from?”

  Faye said, “Florida,” in the same tone of voice she might have said, “The third circle of Hell,” because she had a feeling that either answer would have carried as much weight with the state of Louisiana.

  Sally shook her head some more. “There are ways to put her in your custody, but we would have to work with our sister agency in Florida. We’d have to find out for certain that you had room in your home for her and that you were suitable parents, even temporarily.”

  “But tonight…” Amande quavered.

  “No. I can’t send you with these people tonight. They seem very nice, but no.”

  A taxi pulled up and Didi flung herself out. “My mother! What’s happened to my mother?”

  A uniformed officer stepped forward. “I’m sorry, Miss. We found her in the water, stabbed. She’s dead.”

  “Like my half-brother.” Didi’s hands flew to her face in a gesture that looked sincere to Faye, who figured that even the most self-centered person in the world could possibly harbor feelings for her own mother.

  “Yes, Miss.” The officer gave her a look that said he was susceptible to the tears of manipulative women, if they were pretty. “I’m very sorry.”

  Didi backed away from him, blindly stumbling into the bench of Amande’s favorite picnic table. She dropped onto the bench. In one fluid motion, she lifted both feet off the ground, swung them over the bench and under the picnic table, then dropped her face onto her folded arms. Her narrow shoulders shook, and Faye actually felt sorry for Didi when she realized that there was no one to put a comforting hand on those shoulders. It certainly wasn’t her place to do it. Maybe when Tebo was released from jail, he might be able to muster up a morsel of sympathy for his half-sister.

  Faye saw Sally studying Didi. The social worker paused, but she must have decided to leave the young woman alone with her grief. Instead of going to Didi, she took Amande by the elbow. Faye watched as Sally led Amande away from the crowd and spoke with her for a half hour or so. By this time, Didi had raised her head and wiped her eyes, so Sally sat down beside her, spending almost as much time with Didi as she had with Amande.

  Faye and Joe had nearly decided to leave when Sally walked their way again, saying, “Well, Didi doesn’t seem all that drunk. Not anymore. Of course, I’ve just stalled for an hour. I was trying to give Didi’s liver a chance to catch up with her.”

  Faye had the sick feeling that Sally spent a lot of time deciding which unsuitable adult was going to be put in charge of which needy child.

  “There’s no law against drinking,” Sally said, “and Didi didn’t drive herself home from her afternoon in the bars, so she didn’t break any laws tonight, not
that I know of.” She gestured toward Didi, whose head was once again resting on her crossed arms. Amande was sitting silently next to her, staring at nothing in particular. “That’s no condition to be in when you’re responsible for a child, but Didi had no way to know she’d be coming home to find herself in charge. If I leave Amande with her aunt, for the time being, the child will be able to stay here on this houseboat in her own home. She’ll be with family. And will she have you two around to keep an eye on things?”

  “For another week, at least,” Faye said.

  “Probably longer,” Joe added helpfully.

  “Well, foster care may be the best place for her, but I’m going to let Didi try. We can revisit the situation in a few days, sometime before you have to go home. Didi says she can be responsible for her niece.”

  “Half-niece.” Faye didn’t know why she’d felt compelled to correct the social worker. It had just popped out.

  Sally waved Amande’s and Didi’s fragmentary kinship away with one weary hand. “You cannot imagine the snarled family webs I have to untangle in my line of work. This one isn’t really all that bad.”

  From a distance, Faye watched Amande sit silently beside Didi. Not a word passed between them.

  Sally was arranging several folders full of paperwork in her briefcase, but she saw where Faye was looking. “The girl is going to need therapy, after all she’s been through. If you have any influence with Didi, please ask her not to neglect counseling for Amande after I move on to the next abandoned child.” Then, mercifully, she left.