The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  Built in the nineteenth century, Charity Hospital looked like a fortress; the original two-story building had grown helter-skelter into four huge towers, each thirty feet high, with hundreds of brightly lit windows, eerie in this weather, like a castle’s malevolent eyes.

  Charity Hospital was its own world as much as the wetlands, the bayou and marsh, except that it was enclosed, recycling stale air through linking hallways, surgical theaters, and overcrowded wards. Ages ago, the Sisters of Charity, mainly Irish-Catholic nuns, had battled yellow fever, tuberculosis, and venereal disease. Now an army of multiethnic men and women fought the good fight against human frailty: flu pandemics, cancers, West Nile virus, HIV and AIDS.

  It was a universal law: bacteria, viruses, damaged cells were ever morphing, creating new ways for people to die. Her job was simple—outwit death.

  Snapping her umbrella open, Marie sprinted toward the ER’s glass doors. The automatic doors slid open, then shut.

  “Hey, Doc.” Sully, the security guard, handed her a towel. Big and big hearted, Sully had been at Charity for as long as anyone could remember.

  “Thanks, Sully.” She snapped the umbrella shut, wiped her hands dry, murmuring, “I’ve got a new dog.”

  “Big dog?”

  “A little one with a big heart.”

  Sully looked disappointed. “What’s the dog called?”

  “Beau.”

  “Can I bring him bones?”

  “Small ones.”

  “Take him for a walk?”

  “You bet.”

  Impulsively, Marie kissed Sully’s cheek. She remembered how much he’d loved Kind Dog.

  “Beau’s going to like you.”

  “You think?” Sully lit up with a smile. He looked like a serene Buddha, his hands clasped over his stomach, his feet turned outward, graceful, like a dancer’s.

  Sully’s landlady wouldn’t let him keep dogs, so he’d borrowed Marie’s. Kind Dog had been a gorgeous black Lab mix. A perfect companion for a kind black man.

  “How small is Beau?” asked Sully. “Terrier small? Or Chihuahua small?”

  “Pug small.”

  “Ah,” he sighed, weighing what it would look like for a big man to be seen with such a small dog. “I’ll buy a new leash. Red, I think.” His metal chair teetered on two legs.

  Marie felt a rush of joy. She felt at home again in the ER.

  Loss was what being a human and a doctor was all about—but she hadn’t lost everything. She still had friends in the ER, her health, and her family. A new dog, Beau.

  She surveyed the waiting room, a multiracial mix of desperate, uninsured people—Cajuns, Creoles, Hispanics, Vietnamese, African Americans, and more.

  Charity, despite perennial deficits, turned no one away; the well-endowed Tulane University Hospital, next door, served the city’s insured.

  New Orleanians didn’t seem to mind the irony of two unequal hospitals side by side. Didn’t seem to mind the de facto segregation based on color and class. One hospital was a rainbow world, while the other was predominately white.

  Marie waved to her colleagues Huan and K-Paul. K-Paul was a diagnostic genius who hadn’t been tempted by Tulane’s lure of more money and better equipment. Huan was an expert at caring for traumatized and abused children. Marie was the generalist with intuitive gifts. She was the one who sought out the worst cases.

  In the doctors’ lounge, Marie opened her locker, slid on her white coat. Her name stitched above the breast pocket used to say Levant; she’d had it restitched, changed to Laveau. She was convinced her mother, if alive, would approve. Though her mother had been afraid of her heritage, Marie, once she’d discovered her ancestry, couldn’t bear dishonoring the ties.

  She clicked the metal locker shut.

  Her cell started ringing, singing about rain and men.

  She slipped the phone out of her jeans pocket and flipped it open. She didn’t recognize the area code. Probably a sales call. She placed the cell in her coat pocket, then wrapped the stethoscope around her neck and tightened her tennis shoes. Time to stop mourning El and DuLac. Tonight, she’d focus on the here and now. Tomorrow, she’d travel to DeLaire.

  “Are you ready?” asked Lillianne, Charity’s new head nurse. She was almost as good as El had been, professional and caring. El, though, had been short, her fashion tacky and loud. Lillianne was tall, always elegant, with her black hair tucked beneath an old-fashioned white nurse’s cap.

  “Ready,” she responded.

  “Coffee’s still hot.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Huan brought some of her steamed buns.”

  “Great. I’ll have some for midnight lunch.” Marie redid her ponytail, stretching her hair tight, behind her ears.

  Lillianne watched her, as if straightening, corralling flyaway hair was akin to a miracle.

  “Anything else?” Marie asked.

  Lillianne shook her head, poured a cup of coffee.

  Marie knew Lillianne was curious about her powers. Marie preferred Lillianne’s reserve to colleagues whispering behind her back. Nearly five years at Charity and some still believed her spiritual work was evil.

  “It is what it is.”

  “Hey, El.”

  “Did you say something?” asked Lillianne.

  “Just talking to myself.” Marie pushed open the door. She winked at El’s ghost.

  One day, she’d have pity on Lillianne and answer all her questions. But not tonight, tonight she was just a doctor. Dr. Laveau.

  “Incoming,” shouted Huan. “Just got a radio call.”

  Marie exhaled. Her shoulders ached. Twenty patients in less than three hours. She would have thought the rain would keep everyone but the sickest away. But Charity’s ER filled with the usual—flu, kitchen burns, a spousal beating, heart attacks, gang beatings, and undertreated chronic conditions such as lupus, diabetes. Unfortunately, when they got busier and busier, it became easier to categorize patients by their conditions and symptoms.

  Marie caught a whiff of jasmine. Only Huan smelled of flowers after hours of exhausting work. Only Huan, with her belief in ancestor worship, suspected Marie saw ghosts. She’d invited Marie and Marie-Claire to Vietnam. “Meet my family,” she’d said. And Marie had understood she’d meant meet both the living and the dead.

  “Did you try my b´nh bao?”

  “Not yet.”

  “There’s pork and chicken. If you like, I’ll make some for you and Marie-Claire.”

  Everyone knew Marie didn’t cook much or well. Irritatingly, the nurses often wondered aloud if her daughter was plump enough and well-fed.

  “Thanks. Marie-Claire will be happy. She loved your noodle soup.”

  “Bún bó hué. I’ll bring some of that, too.”

  “Only if later you let us treat you to dinner. Po’ boys with French fries. Marie-Claire’s favorite. We’ll go to Roger’s Café.”

  “Can I come, too?” asked K-Paul, coming to stand beside them in front of the ER glass doors.

  “Girls’ date,” answered Marie. “Any more news?”

  K-Paul shrugged. “Another fight on Bourbon Street.”

  “How many?” asked Huan.

  “Five, maybe six, hurt.”

  “Could be anything then,” answered Marie. Knife or gunshot wounds. Broken noses. Cracked ribs from a fistfight. Rain had pushed the tourists indoors. Add in drugs, alcohol, gluttony, and lust enflamed by strip clubs and you had a perfect recipe for disaster.

  Lillianne quietly ordered nurses to check crash carts and available beds.

  Sirens whooped, repetitive, spiraling wails.

  In the ER lobby, a drunk, a bloody rag twisted about his hand, started hollering, “I was here first. Don’t take no more. Shut the doors. Can’t care for us here.” Some murmured agreement. Others, yelled “Drunken slob,” “Troublemaker.”

  Lillianne went over to the man and spoke quietly. Whatever she said, it calmed him. He sat, hands folded, quieted, as if he was in church. />
  K-Paul chortled. “El would’ve shouted, ‘Sit your ass down.’ She didn’t suffer fools.”

  “Including you, K-Paul?” asked Huan, deceptively sweet.

  Marie laughed. K-Paul grinned. Humor calmed nerves. The three of them had become good at it.

  The spiraling wails were coming closer. Eight, maybe six blocks away. For Marie, each high-pitched scream caused an adrenaline rush, a quickened pulse.

  Marie saw the three of them reflected in the glass doors, herself and Huan, like twins, both average height, in white coats with brown skin and ponytails. K-Paul, six feet, ruddy and red haired, towered over them. Inside, she saw technicians, nurses moving with hurried grace; outside, rain still fell, seeming to bounce upward from the asphalt.

  The three of them—herself, Huan, and K-Paul, the doctors on call—stood waiting, wondering if their skills were going to be good enough.

  K-Paul glanced at her sideways. “How’s it going, Marie?”

  “Fine, K-Paul.”

  “Marie-Claire?”

  “Fine.”

  “Thought you’d never ask,” said K-Paul. “I’m fine, too. Right as rain.”

  “Don’t start, K-Paul.” Last summer, Marie had flirted with K-Paul, and every day since then, she’d regretted it.

  “You’ve been ignoring me—”

  “Not funny, K-Paul.”

  “—since your affair with Detective Parks. That’s what it was, wasn’t it? An affair? Temporary pleasure.”

  In the reflecting glass doors, Marie noticed nurses had slowed, stopped moving behind the counter. Teddy, who did blood draws, wasn’t even trying to listen discreetly. Huan dipped her head, trying to hide her smile.

  “Is Parks fine?” asked K-Paul, grinning like a Cheshire cat, deepening his accent, the twangy Cajun sounds. “Though why’d you’d want a northern boy . . . ,” K-Paul paused, shaking his head sorrowfully. “Cajuns more fun any day.”

  Lillianne stepped forward. “Back to work, everyone.” Teddy and the nurses dispersed from the station. “Doctors, time for you to meet the incoming. If the EMTs can get wet, so can you.”

  Marie turned to Lillianne, mouthing, “Thank you.”

  Huan slipped her arm through Marie’s, whispering loudly, “K-Paul’s cute.”

  “You date him, then.”

  Huan giggled. “I’m waiting for a Vietnamese man.”

  Walking backward, K-Paul crooned, “Cajuns better than them, too.”

  Huan slapped at him.

  “Cajuns, best lovers on the planet.”

  The siren wails were loud, searing. Abruptly turning, K-Paul, serious, shouted, “Let’s save lives.”

  The glass doors slid open and steam rolled in. Rain soaked skin.

  One after another, three boxy red ambulances arrived. Sirens stopped midscream. Nurses rushed forward. Paramedics jumped out of cabs. Van doors swung open, gurneys lowered, their wheels unlocking, then locking in place. Disembodied voices shouted status reports:

  “Head wound, probable concussion, pulse seventy-seven”; “broken nose, possible cracked ribs, one thirty-eight over ninety-eight”; “blunt trauma, unresponsive.”

  “Saline and restraints,” said an EMT, his lip swollen, rolling a cursing, struggling patient past Marie. “This idiot wants to keep fighting.”

  Huan and K-Paul were effectively doing triage, shouting orders for ER placement.

  Marie stood still, feeling for the worst case. She was in the middle of the vortex, the wet, swirling madness. The red and yellow ambulance lights seemed mournful. She wiped strands of rain-soaked hair from her face.

  Then a police car, flashing red, pulled into the ER bay. An ambulance lagged behind it.

  “K-Paul,” Marie shouted. She sensed the patient in this fourth ambulance was critical.

  K-Paul ran to Marie, not asking how she knew she’d need help. They opened the ambulance bay doors before the EMT.

  “Fucking cops, fucking cops,” shouted a bleached-blond EMT doing CPR. “They shot blind. Fucking blind. He’s had two units of blood. The tourniquet isn’t slowing enough.”

  The right leg was mangled, flesh open and scarred. Two bullet wounds to the upper thigh.

  “He’s not going to last.” Marie scrambled inside the bay. “He’s a beautiful boy.” Maybe nineteen. Most likely an out of towner given his khakis and Dockers. Wrong place, wrong time. “Another blood pack. Any pain meds?”

  “I didn’t dare,” said the woman. “Just a shot of EPI.”

  Blood pulsed through Marie’s fingers.

  K-Paul, dripping wet, crouching just inside the packed van, asked, “What do you want me to do?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Marie. “The artery is shredded by the bullet.”

  “Got a pulse,” said the EMT.

  “Let’s move him,” shouted the second EMT, standing outside in the storm.

  The EMT started to lift the gurney.

  “Wait,” said Marie. “He’ll never make it to surgery. Give me some silicone tubing, about an inch. Latex gloves.”

  “What’re you going to do?” asked the EMT.

  “You need sterile conditions,” said K-Paul. “There’s an on-call surgeon.”

  “Never mind, K-Paul. Do it,” Marie shouted at the EMT, clean cut, not much older than the gunshot victim. He snipped a piece of tubing.

  “K-Paul, hold his leg in case he wakes.”

  “I doubt it,” said K-Paul.

  “Wise guy.”

  “Cocky doc.” Then, more quietly, “Surgery isn’t going to like this.”

  “Then they can meet ambulances in the rain.” Her fingers dug into the wound; the boy moaned, then quieted.

  “He’s out,” said the EMT, checking his pulse. “But still alive.”

  Marie closed her eyes, letting her fingers feel for the artery, severed and lost in flesh. “Got one.” She needed both ends. Her left fingers dug deeper. “Got it.”

  “Hand me some gloves,” said K-Paul. He snapped them on. “Let me help.” He squeezed beside Marie, their bodies close, their arms entwined.

  Marie held the artery. K-Paul slipped the tube, like a bridge, over both ends. Blood flowed.

  “That’s amazing,” said the EMT. “He’s pinking up. Pulse is rising.”

  “Doc Laveau’s amazing,” answered K-Paul. “Aren’t you, Doc?”

  “Let’s move him,” she said.

  “You learned that from the army field surgeon, didn’t you?”

  “Unlike you, I pay attention to guest doctors.”

  “Most are blowhards.”

  “Making miracles again, Marie?” Huan looked like a drowned cat, except a happy one. “He’s the last one. The rest are recovering fine.”

  “Here,” said Marie, handing Huan the IV lines. She flattened herself against the van as K-Paul jumped down, back into the rain, ready to receive as the EMT slid, then lifted the gurney.

  The young man’s eyes flickered open. “Dead?”

  “You’ll be fine,” said Huan, bending closer, holding a pink umbrella over him.

  “Angel,” said the disoriented boy.

  Huan giggled, and the lilting sound seemed to chase away rain. Droplets slowed to a mist.

  “He’s not Vietnamese,” cracked K-Paul, pulling as the EMT pushed.

  Huan, looking over her shoulder, smiled at Marie. Then she turned, jogging slightly, keeping pace with the gurney.

  Marie stripped, putting on dry clothes. Jeans. T-shirt. New lab coat. She shivered; she told herself it was the hospital air-conditioning. But it was really deflation from the adrenaline rush.

  She checked her cell. The rain hadn’t damaged it. But there’d been another missed call. She hadn’t heard it ring. Hadn’t heard the “raining men” melody.

  A 510 area code. Where was that?

  She pressed voice mail. She could hear Parks’s soft, urgent voice: “Marie.”

  “Aren’t we fine?” hooted K-Paul, entering the lounge, startling her. “Hey, you’re fine. I’m fine. E
verything and everybody’s fine.”

  She pasted on a smile, shut her phone without listening to Parks’s message. Why was he calling her now? She hadn’t heard from him in nearly a year. Yet she couldn’t deny her pleasure in knowing he’d been trying to reach her, hearing him say—“Marie.”

  “Let’s go dancing,” said K-Paul, grabbing, swinging her around.

  “K-Paul, I’ve just gotten dry. Change before you catch cold.”

  “You were amazing. Me, you, Huan—we’re all amazing.”

  She pulled away. “How’s the patient?”

  “In surgery. The surgeons, especially Bigelow, aren’t too pleased you saved his life.”

  “Screw them.”

  K-Paul laughed. “We’re—the three of us—a good team.”

  She smiled. “Yes. We are.”

  “You and I could be a better team.”

  “Let it go, K-Paul.”

  “This Cajun not good enough for you?” He twirled her like they were in a zydeco bar, explosive spins across the floor, then a final spin, arms apart, followed by a tight clutch, chest to chest. “Friends with benefits?”

  “K-Paul!” she laughed. “Back to work.”

  He shrugged and winked, but not before she saw a shadow flit across his face. Cajuns were notorious for good humor, their laissez-faire attitude. But Marie also knew they were great at masking. A Cajun could be dying, his lungs flooded with fluid, and he’d still be cracking jokes, at his own expense, wondering how to ensure a good time. Not just for him but, also, for everyone in the hospital room watching him die.

  “K-Paul—” Her hand caressed his face; for a second, she didn’t know herself whether she’d kiss him or tell him again she wasn’t interested.

  “Thank you, Doctors. No one died.” Lillianne, her hand on her hip, her body filling the door frame, stared curiously.

  Marie let her hand fall to her side. K-Paul opened his locker, the door slamming against the metal next to it. He slipped his soaked shirt over his head; reddish-brown hair ran from his neck down to the small of his back.

  When K-Paul started pulling off his pants, Lillianne murmured, “We’ll give you privacy.”

  K-Paul responded, “Stay. You might see something you like.”

  Lillianne scowled. “I’ll have maintenance mop the floor.”