The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

She needed to escape. Marie pulled Deet aside. “Outhouse?”

  “Round back,” he said, clapping, shouting with the passionate others.

  Marie shook her head as Nana, oxygen tubing attached to her nose, faced and blessed the dirt courtyard as if she were a queen.

  Marie squatted in the outhouse; the pungent smell fit her mood and circumstances. She couldn’t doctor effectively, and she didn’t believe an on-demand voodoo ceremony would cure all ills.

  Erratic flies, mosquitoes, landed, fed, then flew. She held her breath. Urine flowed.

  Her skin itched; hives spread along her arms.

  “Damn it to hell.” Where was Aaron? As soon as she thought it, she heard a car, the juba quieting, and shouts of recognition.

  Zipping her pants, hop-skipping, running as best she could, she rushed forward, rounding the shack’s corner, eager for Aaron’s assessment of the crime scene. Did he identify the victims? Collect significant evidence?

  Slowly, too slowly, Aaron was exiting the car.

  She stopped short. A willow branch slapped at her arm. Look at me, she thought.

  Aaron’s gaze was downward, focused on the dirt.

  Look at me. Tension coiled in her stomach. Look at me.

  Aaron looked up as if she’d shouted his name.

  Marie saw ghosts, saw the murdered family standing apart from Aaron.

  She started screaming, “What did you do? What did you do?”

  Father, mother, baby. A trinity, lost and woebegone.

  She collapsed onto her knees.

  Deet reached for her.

  “Leave me alone!” she shouted.

  She saw it: A canister of oil—thick, dripping like a black stream onto the floor. The bodies were dragged into the center of the cabin. The mother, faceup; the father, facedown. The baby wrapped in the stained pink blanket was picked up and placed on the floor between her parents.

  Gasoline mixed with blood, a greenish-black with red.

  A match was struck. Flames and smoke shot upward.

  She looked across the yard. “Why?”

  Aaron looked like an undead, his limbs heavy, his face drained of emotion.

  Stumbling from the ground, ignoring the pain shooting up her leg, she raced toward Aaron. She punched, scratched, his chest, shoulders, and arms.

  “You watched,” she wailed. “Why? Why didn’t you stop them?”

  Deet pinioned her arms.

  Followers exclaimed, pushing forward, behind Aaron. Nana moaned, “Aaron baby, Aaron baby.” Deet shouted back to the porch, “Everything’s all right, Nana. All right.”

  She stopped fighting, twisting from Deet’s grasp.

  The bewildered crowd quieted.

  Contemptuous, she glared at Aaron.

  He murmured, “I’ll take you back to your car.”

  Breathing heavily, she asked, “Why?” Then whispered, “Nana.”

  Suddenly, she understood—the pills, the high-tech gadgetry, all of it useless bribery.

  “She’s dying. None of the machines can stop that. Who paid for them, Aaron? Who paid you?”

  Bodies pressed, forming a circle around her and Aaron. Anxious, worried faces. In the high-noon sun, she saw sweat beading on foreheads, necks, and arms.

  She smelled her own dirt, smelled Death again. Rank. Penetrating the damp air.

  “Forgive them.”

  The crowd parted.

  It was Nana, untethered from her oxygen canister, gripping Tommy’s arm. “For me. All for me.”

  Women cooed: “Go back,” “Rest,” “Don’t fall.” Luella put an arm around Nana. Deet supported her left side. Like an amoeba, the community shifted, fanning out to the left, right, standing behind Nana.

  They’d drawn a line in the sand.

  On the planes of Aaron’s face, she could see the cottage burning to the ground. See Aaron standing apart from the murderers, the fire starters.

  She blinked. Aaron knew she’d seen inside his soul.

  Aaron hugged Nana. Nana patted his back. And when he stepped away, all the DeLaire residents—even Brenda—were scowling, stern and fierce, as if looks could kill or turn Marie to stone.

  She shuddered. Nothing was as it appeared. Folks, in their impoverished Sunday best, were menacing, threatening. As if possessed by some unknown evil.

  It was clear that anyone who imperiled Nana was the enemy. Her grandsons were protected as well. Whoever Nana loved, the entire town loved. Marie could almost admire the sentiment. But she couldn’t keep from thinking, who had loved the murdered young family? Who had stood for them?

  “My grandsons mean well,” said Nana, her voice raspy thin without oxygen. “Always mean well.”

  “You let them do it. Bargain with the devil.” As soon as she’d said it, she knew it was true.

  Nana had known her medical care was both payment and bribe. For what? The murder of a new family? Clearing criminal evidence? Or something even more sinister?

  She and Nana both trembled. A burst of hot air blew into the yard, rattling leaves.

  “I’m a weak, foolish woman,” said Nana.

  “Why? Why did you allow it?

  “They needed to feel useful. To help my dying sit easier.” Tears filled her cloudy eyes. “I chose my grandbabies over faith. I’m not proud of it.”

  “Aaron’s committed a crime.”

  “He was just looking out for me. For the village.”

  Appalled, Marie looked around at the ragtag band of followers. “What did the village get out of this?” As far as she could tell, every resident lived well below the poverty line.

  She turned to Aaron. “Only the Malveauxs have benefited from your sins and crimes. If you’ve been gracing the community with your largess, I don’t see it.”

  Aaron’s jaw clenched; unflinchingly, he faced her.

  Marie screamed at the villagers, “How could you allow it?”

  Nate, Luella, Tommy—all of the villagers stared blankly.

  She screamed at Aaron, “How could you? Obstruction of justice. Accessory to murder. Imperiling public safety. Betraying one’s oath to protect and serve.”

  Knees buckling, Nana cried out, wailing almost loud enough to wake the dead. Deet lifted her, carrying her away. Followers closed ranks, blocking Marie’s access to the house.

  There was no gratitude. No pleasure that a doctor and a voodooienne was here, trying to help, to set things right.

  Faces were strained, almost feral. How far would they go to protect Nana?

  Aaron raised his hand. “Y’all go home now. I’m going to take Dr. Laveau to her car. Time for her to go home.”

  There were murmurs of assent. Still, no one moved.

  “Go on. This is upsetting Nana.”

  Nate stood his ground. Old men, fierce, protective, made fists; women, thin lipped, crossed their arms over their chests. Only Brenda turned and walked away.

  “Get into the car, Miz Marie,” said Aaron, then, more adamantly, “Dr. Laveau, get into the car.”

  Aaron opened the passenger-side door. Marie touched the glass-cage barrier between back-and front seats.

  “I should be driving,” she said, slipping into the car. “You should be cuffed in back.”

  Aaron shut the door, and walked around to the driver’s side.

  Through the front window, Marie had a clear view of Nana’s faithful. All happiness had drained from them. They looked just like what they were—a forgotten, dispossessed, and dying people.

  Aaron sat behind the steering wheel.

  “I’ll tell the police,” she said.

  “No one’s going to believe you. Ever.”

  “I’ll make them believe. See you prosecuted.”

  He shrugged as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “You’re all crazy.” Crazier than her now seeing ghosts in the side mirror, seeing El and the murdered family standing by the side of the road.

  “You’ll pay,” she said, hoarsely.

  “Tell me something I don�
��t know.” Aaron turned the key and the engine roared.

  The townsfolk started humming again, like smoked, outraged bees.

  The car in reverse, Aaron pressed on the gas. His boots were mud sticky, layered with burnt ash.

  She couldn’t wait to get the hell out of DeLaire, to drive north, back to New Orleans. To drive out of a world where up was down, down, up—a mixed-up looking-glass world where she didn’t have the power to set things right. But she swore that soon, one day she would. Justice wouldn’t be denied. Not for a baby girl who’d never experienced more than a month’s worth of life. Not for a baby who had to die in her mother’s arms.

  Threatening rain finally fell—water would be flooding the crime scene. But the water was too late to prevent arson. It was just a summer shower, a prelude to a storm.

  Marie bit her lip. She wouldn’t cry, even though her soul felt battered, blown apart, caught in the eye of a hurricane.

  II

  New ways, city ways,

  Folks die,

  Everyone drowns.

  FOUR

  NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT

  EARLY MORNING

  Marie stood in the police captain’s office. He hadn’t asked her to sit. But the overweight Creole glared at her, his feet on the table and his fat hands holding a cup of coffee and a pecan praline.

  Everything about the cop was disrespectful—but his disrespect for her didn’t matter compared to his disrespect for the murdered family.

  Captain Beauregard had pig’s eyes, little gray slits inside rolls of fat. Today, another man—dressed in an expensive suit—stood to the left of Beauregard. The captain had introduced him as “Agent Walker, Special Agent James Walker.”

  The albino man looked nothing like James Bond. She would have laughed if she hadn’t been so angry.

  For three nights, she’d completed her red-eye shift at Charity and instead of immediately going home to her daughter and bed, she’d come straight to the station, badgering Beauregard about the DeLaire investigation.

  “Just time. It all takes time,” Beauregard said, over and over.

  Yet she realized he’d been careful not to give promises. “Time” was vague and elastic.

  Now, four days later, Beauregard was introducing a strange officer who seemed inordinately calm, and Marie couldn’t help feeling wary.

  Beauregard fit the description of most Louisiana officers—prime candidates for cardiac arrest, stroke, and hypertension. Walker was so fit he looked like he’d come from another planet. Maybe he was an agent? FBI? But if so, why? Why now for, supposedly, a noncase? And why would Walker look at her as if she were the suspect rather than a citizen reporting a crime?

  Beauregard nervously fiddled with his tie. “Dr. Laveau, there’s nothing to substantiate your claims. Why should I believe you over a man of law?”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “I can think of a number of reasons. Self-importance. Fame.”

  She lurched forward. Beauregard flinched. His feet dropped to the floor, and his rolling chair skittered back.

  “Assaulting an officer,” said Walker, “won’t win you any friends.”

  “I don’t need friends. Just officers willing to do their job.”

  “Sheriff Malveaux found nothing,” Walker answered blandly.

  “The sheriff obstructed justice. Allowed the murderers to destroy evidence.”

  “That’s a serious charge,” said Walker, his eyebrow lifting like a hawk’s wing.

  Marie ignored him and glared at Beauregard. She could see the bulldog of a man he’d once been. Age and insensitivity had fattened him; but today he seemed especially uneasy, subdued, as though Walker were his superior.

  “Malveaux’s corrupt,” she said, stubbornly. “I’ve told you that.”

  “Why should we believe you, not him?” asked Walker.

  “Because I’m telling the truth. An innocent family was brutally murdered. It happened. I didn’t imagine it.”

  Beauregard stood, looking like a top ready to tip over. “As I said, this case is outside my jurisdiction.”

  “You said you’d coordinate with the state police.”

  Beauregard shifted nervously. “I called the state police. No one’s missing.”

  Something was awry. Her head ached. She felt animosity in the room—as hot as Walker was cool.

  “We’ve got plenty of crime in New Orleans,” answered Beauregard. “Please, Dr. Laveau, worry about what’s here.”

  “New Orleans. America’s murder capital. I know the statistics. Seen the victims in the ER. But that doesn’t mean we should value any one death less.”

  Beauregard shifted his gaze.

  Walker, deadpan as ever, focused on her.

  Marie stepped closer to Walker. “Who are you? State police? Internal affairs? No, I don’t think so.” His face was angular, close shaven, almost gaunt. White haired, white lashes and brows, his eyes were nearly clear, tinted with pinkish red veins. “I doubt you’re a law officer.”

  Walker didn’t flinch. “I don’t care what you doubt. Just stay out of my way.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Look, Dr. Laveau,” said Beauregard, moving from behind the desk. “I did have the state boys follow up. The whole town says the L’Overtures must’ve moved on.”

  She spun around. “L’Overture? Was that their name?”

  “L’Overture. John and Mimi L’Overture.”

  “And the baby’s name?” She tried to still her trembling. “The little girl?”

  “No word. There,” Beauregard blustered, “I’ve told you all I—we”—he looked at Walker—“know.”

  If nothing had happened, why mention a name? Three days—finally a name. L’Overture. Finally, an admission that a family had existed.

  Like throwing a bone to a dog, she was supposed to be satisfied.

  “Let me see you out,” said Walker.

  “You’re not from Louisiana,” she said, emphatic.

  Walker’s jaw clenched. “Doesn’t matter where I’m from.”

  Beauregard was sweating, wiping his sticky hands on his pants.

  “You’re not law enforcement. Not a Louisiana native.”

  “Neither are you. Heard you were a Chicago foster-care brat.”

  “Louisiana is my home. I care about it. My mistake was thinking Captain Beauregard cared. You, Agent Walker—you’re not an agent of anything, are you? You don’t care about a damn thing.”

  Walker sneered, “And you, Dr. Laveau, care about everything. Care about ‘your people,’ ” he sneered. “Isn’t that how they say it down South? ‘Your people.’ But you’re a city girl. How did it feel to visit Louisiana’s back roads? The wild swamps? To go country?”

  He was baiting her.

  “How did it feel to stand on that porch?”

  Air whistled through her teeth. Walker had watched her in the bayou. Had committed murder.

  She could see oaks, cypress, and Spanish moss, gray like rotten tinsel, see Walker watching her through long-range binoculars, watching her grieve.

  She wanted to tear the sneer from Walker’s face.

  She looked at Beauregard. Shame flushed his fat jowls. She knew Louisiana was famously corrupt. Yet it still surprised her when she could put a face on it. Beauregard, somebody’s husband, father, was another betrayer.

  “You won’t get away with it,” she said to Walker.

  “Threatening me with voodoo dolls?”

  “I don’t do voodoo dolls.”

  Walker was her adversary, at least one of them, and she’d need every skill to outwit, outmaneuver a criminal protected by the law.

  She wanted, needed, to know—why? Why kill a child? Her parents? “Motive,” Parks had taught her, “is key. Motive unravels everything. Motive is the hangman’s rope.”

  Nauseous, she looked out the inneroffice glass wall at the busy police hive: rows of desks, the requisite water cooler, an overworked copier, worn computers, hundreds of mug shot
s posted on the smoke-stained walls. Officers—some uniformed, some in street garb—were typing reports, and handcuffing, transporting criminals—petty thieves, vagrants, and repeat offenders. How many of them knew that a criminal, by act or omission, was in their captain’s office? How many knew Beauregard was corrupt? How many of them were corrupt?

  In the reflective glass, she could also see Walker towering over the squat Beauregard.

  Flesh rolling over his belt, ballooning his shirt, Beauregard sidled up to her. “Maman Laveau, let it go.” His voice was low. Marie detected sympathy. Empathy?

  He called her “Maman,” her voodoo honorific.

  “They don’t want your interference in DeLaire. Keep at it and there might be consequences.”

  “Are you threatening me, too?”

  “No,” said the captain, his voice thin bravado. “There’s no evidence of a crime.”

  “Liar.”

  “Dr. Laveau”—Beauregard opened his door—“let me walk you out.”

  “I know the way.”

  “You’ll come back.” It was a statement whispered as she passed.

  Beauregard’s body blocked the sight line between her and Walker.

  She nodded slightly.

  Beauregard looked relieved. What the hell did that mean?

  Beauregard had played her all along, and when she didn’t go away, Walker was called. Walker, who, apparently, intimidated Beauregard more than she did. But Beauregard seemed to be asking for her help. It didn’t make sense. Some things she could divine, but with Beauregard, she’d hit a blank wall.

  Aaron had said she wouldn’t be believed. That wasn’t quite right. She was believed, but that didn’t stop the cover-up, the lies, or the likelihood of conspirators lying to each other.

  “I’ll go to the state police myself.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “You should listen to Beauregard,” said Walker, softly.

  Marie looked at Beauregard’s fat, guilty face.

  Police and doctors were supposed to be kin, counterparts in a terrible yin/yang. Police handled robberies, incest, and murder; doctors handled the resulting gunshots, suicides, and knife wounds.

  “You disappoint me, Captain Beauregard.” Then she looked scathingly at Walker.

  Walker was everything Beauregard wasn’t—tall, thin, white, dressed in an expensive tailored suit.