City of Masks cb-1

by Daniel Hecht

  Joyce didn't seem so sure. She sorted among her carefully ordered files and pulled out a page. "Richard's obituary says he died on January 7, 1972. Lila could have been still at home for Christmas break, or maybe she'd gone back already. How can we verify when Josephine left?"

  Cree took the sheet from her and read it closely for the first time. "I don't know that it matters. Either she was still working for them, or she came back just to put something in Richard's drink. She might still have had a key."

  "You think cyanide? Isn't that the one that smells like almonds? All I know is the old mystery movies."

  Cree shrugged. It didn't matter.

  They were sitting in Cree's room, drinking the hotel kit's anemic coffee with chalk dust in it. The curtains were wide to the morning light and the throb of activity on Canal Street below. When Cree had told Joyce she'd gone to the house again, Joyce had been furious at first, then merely negative and resigned. Only after a lot of reassuring had Cree been able to rekindle the spark of curiosity in her, her bloodhound's instincts.

  Joyce tapped a pencil against her lips, thinking. "One question, though. Coroner said it was heart failure. How'd that get by?"

  Cree had already found the answer. She showed Joyce a line from the obituary. "Dr. Andre Fitzpatrick — Paul Fitzpatrick's father — was the New Orleans parish coroner at the time, and he's who certified cause of death. He was Richard's physician and a good friend of the Beaufortes I've seen his name on the back of probably a dozen photos in Lila's albums. He was also the doctor Charmian called in to treat Lila when she fell apart. My guess is Charmian prevailed upon him to cover it up to protect the Beauforte name. She probably told him why Josephine killed Richard, and he agreed that it was justified, that punishing her would serve no interest. And that charging her would only make the scandal public."

  Joyce poured herself the last of the coffee from the little pot, swigged it, made a face. "So you're thinking Richard really was, clinically, a multiple personality? That he's both ghosts?"

  "It's the only way all the parts fit together. It fits with what I've learned from the ghosts and what we've learned from conventional research. It fits Lila's psychological state and Channian's secretiveness. I know it's a pretty radical idea, but I'm going to assume it's the correct theory."

  "So what's next?"

  "Well, we hope Deelie turns up Josephine. Part of me wants to go confront Charmian, tell her what I know, plead with her to cooperate. But first I think I need to talk to Dr. Fitzpatrick again. We need to figure out a prognosis for Lila based on what we now know."

  "So it's Doctor Fitzpatrick again? Here I thought maybe you guys -

  "

  "Joyce. This isn't the time for — "

  "For what? Life? Or just love?"

  Cree bristled and stamped her foot in anger and frustration. " Damn it, Joyce, you are simply going to have get off this thing of — "

  "Oh, no! Uh-uh, Cree — don't you even dream of getting angry at me!" Joyce shot out of her chair and stood defiantly, startling Cree with her intensity. She turned three-quarters toward Cree, legs apart in almost a martial arts stance, her narrowed eyes shooting black sparks. "Yeah, Cree, I remind you that we are alive, okay, and that life goes on, and you should neverlet all this stuff interfere. Well, excuse me! My attitude is you need a dose of life once in a while. No, actually, let's cut to the chase here — my attitude is that getting laid would do you a world of good. There, I've said it. You don't like that, I quit. Seriously, Cree, I walk out of this room right now, and you go ahead and turn into some kind of walking dead, zombie bitch. The metaphysics here are a complete no-brainer, and I'm sick of going over it and over it!"

  Cree had never seen her like this. She stood open-mouthed, unable to respond.

  Joyce was shoveling her files into her briefcase in a blind fury, blinking back tears. "Plus you owe me two weeks' back pay and severance."

  Cree's heart felt wrenched in her chest. "Joyce, it's not that simple with Paul — "

  "It never is 'simple,' Cree, not even for people with discernable body heat and a few remaining mammalian instincts, okay? But you've forgotten all that, I guess." Joyce snapped up the briefcase but then looked at it in surprise. "What am I doing? I don't need this stuff. Here, you take it." She flung it at Cree's feet. Then she grabbed her purse, slung the strap over her shoulder, and strode to the door. "All yours. And good luck."

  "Joyce. Please."

  Joyce stopped with her hand on the knob, her heaving back to Cree. "What," she said after a moment.

  "Listen, you're probably right. But it's very hard for me to be with a guy who… thinks I'm nuts. It means we're not… not equals. How can I be with someone who sees me that way? Half the time he acts as if I'm a… a patient, a case… not a woman."

  Joyce spun back to her. The anger was still bright, but it was conflicted and starting to come apart. "Well, I can think of some real easy ways to shift his perspective. It doesn't take a genius. A short skirt, a snug tank top, and the right attitude, Cree, does wonders for a guy's outlook! Suspends all that rational judgment damned fast. Every time."

  Cree shook her head. "Paul doesn't believe in what I do. He doesn't believe in what I see, what I am. His worldview won't allow him to see it any other way."

  Joyce took a step back from the door, biting her lips as her fury broke apart. She was still breathing hard as they looked at each other for a moment. Then her face puckered. She put out her shaking hand to Cree's cheek, a cool, tentative touch.

  "Then you're just gonna have to change his worldview, aren't you?" she said softly.

  It took an awkward half hour, but they patched things up. They were both shell-shocked, but Joyce had called it right, it was the kind of battle and reconciliation sisters had: Afterward, the combatants mustered on and somehow the relationship endured. They talked about the case for a time, then Joyce went off to do homework — mainly, to chase down a few leads Deelie had suggested for finding Josephine.

  Finally, Cree also requested that Joyce call Edgar and ask him if he could come sooner than planned. She didn't specify why, but Joyce clearly got the message: If Ed wanted a shot at this ghost, he'd better come soon. Cree would need to move straight into remediation; they couldn't delay for a period of technological verification and physical analysis. This ghost had to be dealt with fast, before Cree fell apart or Lila succeeded in killing herself. Or both.

  After Joyce left, Cree put in a call to Charmian. She spoke to Tarika, who said that she was out; Cree left a message requesting a call back. She called the hospital and asked to speak to Lila but was told she was asleep. She was recovering well, the floor nurse said, but she was on a sedative drip that kept her groggy. Medically, physically, she could be released at any time, but her psychological health was another matter; Jack and Lila's physician were arranging longer-term treatment at a psychiatric facility. She called Jack to arrange a meeting with him, to persuade him to allow her access to Lila, but he hung up on her. She called Deelie to check in about progress on Josephine, got her voice mail, left a message.

  That left her just about out of initiatives. True, there was much to be done at the house — too much, in fact, a daunting task. Joyce was right, she needed some recuperative time. The mere thought of the boar-headed man sent her thoughts scuttling like panicked mice; her hands shook. She was afraid to go back to the place alone.

  Of course, there was still Paul Fitzpatrick to deal with. For an instant, Cree remembered the reassuring yet erotic contact of his hip as they'd walked on the levee, his arm firm around her waist. The sensation had touched a deep ache of longing. Should she sleep with him? No, the fundamental barriers were still there. Anyway, it was probably too late: They'd fought too hard, too many times. And Edgar would be here soon, and there was no way in hell Cree would subject him to witnessing her having an intimate relationship with someone else.

  But Joyce was right that she had to change Paul's worldview. Cree couldn't stay in New Orleans forever
to be available to Lila in the long term; Cree might be able to banish the ghost, but she couldn't banish what had happened when Richard was alive. And neither Paul nor any other therapist could effectively treat Lila unless he or she accepted the literal reality of the ghost — if for no other reason than that Lila did not need one more person urging her to deny, diminish, "selectively reinterpret," or forget another crucial and traumatic experience.

  No. With bone-deep certainty, Cree knew the opposite was true: To survive, Lila had to face the ghost herself, to achieve her own victory over or reconciliation with her tormentor. Exposing her to the ghost again would put her in mortal danger, but so would pretending that the original or the spectral rapes hadn't happened.

  Which meant she had to go back to the house. And there would be no way to get Lila back there, over the objections of Jack and no doubt Charmian, without Paul's help.

  Cree stared at the phone for a moment, feeling the pulse accelerate in her throat, and finally dialed his home number. Machine. Then she called his office and was told by his secretary that he was not in today. She had just set down the receiver when it rang, making her jump. She snatched it up again.

  "Paul?"

  "I sound like a Paul to you?"

  "Deelie!"

  "No, it's the ghost of Jean Laffite!" Deelie's voice sounded a little hoarse, but there was definitely warmth and a smile in it. "Hey, Miz Black, I been up half the night. Legwork, my specialty? Mainly talkin' to a lot of old, old ladies. And, girl, you do now owe me major big. I believe I've found your Josephine!"

  39

  Highway 23 ran straight southeast from New Orleans, following the Mississippi almost to the point where it divided into multiple channels and petered out in the Gulf of Mexico. It was a flat, wet country. The shapes of land and water on Cree's road map told the story: Depositing its silt over millions of years, the patient river had extended the coastline by two hundred miles, leaving a lacework of low-lying Delta soil, brackish bayous, and meandering channels.

  Just south of New Orleans, the road ran through a seemingly endless series of commercial strips separated by areas dominated by heavy industry and shipping. From the relative height of highway overpasses, Cree could see horizons defined only by rearing loading gantries, the superstructures of gigantic freighters, and tall chimneys spilling smoke.

  Farther south, the countryside became less cluttered. On the right, the land was empty, scrubby fields; on the left, when the levee didn't block the view, Cree could see a dense, snarled low-growth forest. Chemical plants rose out of the landscape every few miles, industrial necropolises of towers, pipelines, vents, rail tank cars, and razor-wire-topped fences. For two miles on either side of the Oronite plant, the air stank so badly of chemicals that she had to breathe through her handkerchief, yet just beyond it she passed orange groves and strawberry plantations, complete with cheery roadside stands. Road-kill armadillos broiled on hot highway asphalt.

  From the map, Cree figured that Port Sulphur was about fifty miles southeast of New Orleans. One long, long hour from Canal Street.

  Deelie had done what only a black woman, smart and personable and persistent and skilled at interviewing, could do: She'd gone back to Treme, Josephine's last known address, and, starting with friends and relatives and acquaintances, had identified the oldest residents of the project. From there, it was a matter of going door to door, talking to old people who might have been around in the 1970s. At last she found a grandmother who remembered Josephine, describing her as a tall, serious woman who had a worked for some rich white family for many years. She vaguely recalled that Josephine had lived next door only a few years, until her own mother died; then she'd moved back down to where she'd been born, some no-count town 'way deep Delta.

  It took a few hours more to find another old woman who had attended Josephine's church back then. She even remembered the minister's name. Josephine had been a true believer, a good Christian woman, and this Reverend Washington had won her lasting loyalty with his fiery piety and commitment. Deelie then called the church offices until she found someone who could tell her where Reverend Washington was; the answer was that he was dead. But looking through their records, the church secretary found Josephine: She'd moved down to Port Sulphur, where she attended an affiliated splinter church, Mount of Olives Sunrise Congregation. Deelie called and spoke to the minister, Rev. Bernard Huggins, who told her that, yes, Josephine Dupree was still a devout member of the congregation, a mainstay of the church community.

  No, Josephine didn't have a phone. But she did have an address.

  "Piece of proverbial cake," Deelie crowed. Then her voice darkened. "Gotta warn you about one thing, though. Couple people said there'd been some white guys asking about this same Josephine, like two years back? They went around saying she'd inherited some money, could anybody help them find her so they could give it to her? I don't have to tell you how well that flew in Treme. You black in New Orleans, you know when to open your mouth and when to keep it shut. Rule one is you keep it shut when a white guy in a suit comes asking."

  "So who were these guys?"

  "Nobody knew. Not cops exactly, maybe like private dicks. What ever, it suggests that this Josephine's messed up in something, and you're not the only one trying to find her. I don't know what this is all about, but, you — watch yourself. You know?"

  Deelie had let Cree off the line only after she'd sworn a blood oath to give her first access to the story. If indeed there was any story.

  Cree's curiosity grew as she drove, and she had to make a conscious effort to keep her foot light on the accelerator. Josephine was deeply connected to this; she was the key that could unlock the whole case. But would she tell Cree anything? Cree had debated asking Deelie to come with her, but the reporter had other obligations, and besides, this had to be a very, very confidential meeting.

  Beyond the basic distrust between black and white Deelie had pointed out, Josephine would certainly not want to talk about her murder of Richard Beauforte. And then there was the apparent tie-in, whatever it was, to the Chase murder and the fact that others were looking for her. Josephine would probably feel too at risk to say anything at all to anyone — black, white, or green.

  Here and there along the road, Cree saw the remains of old plantations: sagging, magnificent pillared houses deep at the end of tunnels of massive live oaks. In their weary-looking, moss-stained roofs and hollow windows, their overgrown grounds, Cree could still feel the history that saturated this place. There was the public history of Southern chivalry, decorous soirees, and great events, and there was the hidden, very different tale of intimate lives lived in the long days and steamy Delta nights.

  In both cases, time had moved on, and the old mansions were few and far between. Now most of the houses were small and poor, desperately ramshackle, sharing their lots with buckling sheds, dusty truck gardens, and abandoned vehicles. Every fifteen miles or so she encountered new enclaves of gigantically ostentatious, upscale new mansions in pseudoTudor or Creole-modern style, safely isolated by perimeter walls and guardhouses.

  And always, just over the levee, the marine terminals: gantries, mountains of coal, huge conveyors, fuel tanks. And a chemical stink the car's air-conditioner couldn't hide. Cree mistook the first cemetery she saw for a self-storage place: neat rows of little white buildings with gabled roofs.

  When she'd told Cree how to get to Port Sulphur, Deelie had called this "Religion Alley," and faith did run strong here, Cree saw. For miles, every telephone pole wore a blue-and-white plastic sign that said simply JESUS. The same sign appeared on lawns, in storefronts and living room windows, something like an election sign. The declarations of faith brought up another question: If Josephine believed in that return from the dead, would she accept that other ways were possible, too? What if Josephine refused to talk to her on the basis of her beliefs?

  It struck Cree that there were a lot of reasons for Josephine to say nothing, and only one reason for her to talk.


  Port Sulphur wasn't much: the Tennessee Gas pipeline, a dead opossum in the road, Fremin's Foodliner and a few other stores, lower-middle-class and poorer houses. Residential streets branched to the left and right of the highway, lined with trailers, aluminum-sided ranch houses, or ragtag shacks. The streets all ended at the levee, a sloped wall of green at the end of each tree-shaded corridor. It took only a minute to find the Mount of Olives Sunrise church, a one-story wooden building with scaling white clapboard siding and a squat, humble steeple no bigger than a camping tent. From there, she followed Reverend Huggins's instructions to Josephine's house on the last cross street, out at the edge of town. Beyond it, the tangled forest and scrub fields began again.

  There were no numbers on the houses, but Reverend Huggins had been clear that Josephine's was the last one on the right, an old place up against the levee. Cree cruised slowly past dilapidated one-story houses, drawing the attention of residents who paused at their tasks or came to screen doors to give her suspicious stares.

  Josephine's house was an old wooden building in an overgrown lot, windows dark behind shrubs and vines, porch roof sagging under the weight of leaf detritus, screens patched or rusted through. Cree pulled into the driveway behind an old Ford and got out into heat that hit like a body blow. The smell of the bayou just over the levee was humid, rich with the smell of rot and carrying just a hint of some exotic spice, and it brought to her forcefully just how far from home she was.

  Josephine had not visibly aged much from the photos Cree had seen: tall, straight-backed, her corded neck emerging from a floral-patterned dress, flat chest and sinewy arms, long dark face with a sober expression carved into its lines and folds. Coming close to the screen, she regarded Cree in silence for a moment. Her eyes were steady, deep brown irises in rheumy yellow sclera. Cree could feel her presence, a deep gravitas, somber, dark.

  Josephine pushed the screen door out and half turned to make way for Cree. "You can come in. I been waitin'." Her voice was deep, almost a man's voice.