by Rhodi Hawk
“You hit them fast, and then throw them fast. Five seconds from the time the first one hits. Then you must run.”
Rémi pushed away thoughts of his sons and daughters. He picked up the hammer and hefted it in his hands. No good stalling.
He tapped the nail in the first grenade and then in each one in the line, quick as his numb hands could manage, activating them all. The blood rushed in his ears, and the raindrops seemed to slow their descent toward the earth. Rémi threw the first grenade, and it landed on the first sandbag near the top of the levee. The second grenade bounced off its target and then tumbled down the incline to the base, and Rémi paused.
“Keep throwing!”
He launched the third, fourth, and fifth grenades, and they each came to rest on their marks. Before he could throw the sixth and final grenade, the first grenade exploded. With the debris of the levee still surging heavenward, he threw the last grenade but could not tell where it landed.
“Now come!”
Ulysses stood just upriver on the levee beyond the site of the explosion, his hand stretched toward Rémi.
The second grenade exploded.
Debris from the first grenade hailed from the sky, and a rock pelted Rémi’s shoulder in a burst of pain. A surge of water began to gush from the wounded levee.
Ulysses called: “Come!”
Rémi covered his head against the hail of earth and wood, but he did not move toward Ulysses. Two more explosions sounded, and then only the sound of rushing water. Even as it surged toward him, Rémi noted that two of the grenades had not exploded, but instead lay impotent where they had landed.
“Rémi! Come! Now!”
The four active grenades had inflicted only superficial wounds upon the levee, and water pooled sluggishly toward Rémi’s feet. But the Mississippi fixated. She surged at the fissures and pried at them until they gave way, dividing earth and wood until Crow’s Landing crumbled into brown frothing torrents.
Despite the tremendous force, one need only to stride for higher ground to avoid her wrath. Downstream, people would see the water coming from far away, and would have ample time to escape to safety. Even Rémi, standing before the disintegrating levee, still had adequate time to sidestep the waters. To save himself.
“Rémi! Come!”
But he did not. He chose instead to stand with widespread legs and embrace the furious river.
The water knocked Rémi from his feet. It swallowed him, drowning out all sounds, including, for once, the voice of Ulysses.
seventy
NEW ORLEANS, 2010
MADELEINE SAT DRESSED IN a new fitted suit, watching the trial. Sam was on one side of her and Ethan on the other. Previously the courtroom had been about half full, but today people were jammed in to capacity, and Madeleine felt a queasy suspicion that this unusual attendance was because of her scheduled testimony. She saw Sheriff Cavanaugh, and also Shawn, the reporter from the Times-Picayune. Sheriff had been testifying that same morning. Now they were waiting for court to resume after a late afternoon recess, and Madeleine was wondering if they’d ever get around to calling her to the stand. Chloe was sitting several seats down in the same row. Madeleine nodded at her and she nodded back.
“Have you been seeing much of Chloe lately?” Sam whispered as people continued to shuffle toward their seats.
Madeleine shook her head. “Been kind of avoiding her. From what I read in Mémée’s diary, I don’t want to get Chloe involved. I’m just trying to make it through the trial.”
“Relax,” Ethan said.
“Trying to.”
“Come on,” Sam whispered. “Joe Whitney couldn’t possibly hold up against you. Anyway he’ll be too busy staring at your boobs to be able to concentrate.”
Madeleine rolled her eyes with a chuckle. “You are so very wrong. But thanks for the laugh. I needed it.”
Sam smiled. “Well, Joe Whitney’s such an easy target. The way he’s always pawing at the ladies and flashing those gold hubcaps.”
“Gold hubcaps?” Madeleine said, puzzled. “He doesn’t have gold hubcaps on his BMW.”
“On the Beamer, no,” Sam said. “But he’s got’m on that other car, the black Jag.”
The bailiff called out from the front of the courtroom. “All rise.”
Madeleine rose to her feet as the judge entered in long black robes, but in her mind she remembered Severin’s vision of the night her father died. When Daddy’d been dropped off in Iberville, he had gotten out of a black car with gold hubcaps. Joe’s car.
Anger flurried in Madeleine’s stomach. Joe Whitney was the one who drove her father to the ghetto. Never said a word about it. Joe Whitney.
She felt the temperature rise in her neck, but she forced herself to be calm. Today was too important a day to let herself get swept away with anger. She breathed in slowly, and exhaled with deliberate restraint.
The bailiff called Madeleine’s name.
She rose and strode to the stand, taking a deep, cool breath. Her heels clicked across the floor. She took the stand and looked only at the bailiff who approached her, with her gaze carefully avoiding the vast sea of people who were all staring.
Madeleine raised her right hand and swore to tell the truth. Her palm was clammy, and she was certain she left a wet print on the Bible. Jameson approached.
MADELEINE EXPLAINED IN DETAIL how she and her father had seen Zenon at the plantation house, and the pool of blood she found there. And then, she explained what had happened that night on Bayou Black. The opening questions were the same ones she’d answered in the pre-trial interviews, and Madeleine’s responses were as honest as possible without mentioning Severin. Her confidence was building. In fact the testimony went even more smoothly than it had in Ms. Jameson’s office, because Jameson was not stopping her to explore weaknesses as she had before. Madeleine knew that would most likely occur during cross-examination, when Joe Whitney took his turn.
However, by the time Ms. Jameson finished asking questions, the judge adjourned court until the next day.
Madeleine was disappointed. She had hoped to get it over with that afternoon. She would now have to endure another sleepless night, followed by another day of testifying, with the worst part yet to come. And she had already worn her lucky suit.
After the judge left the courtroom and people began to move toward the exit, Madeleine felt a cool hand on her arm. She turned to see a handsome dark-haired woman in her fifties, and she recognized her grief-stricken expression from the news. She had the same long nose and thick, dark lashes as her daughter, Anita Salazar.
Madeleine gasped. “Mrs. Salazar!”
Around them, conversations rippled to silence.
Mrs. Salazar regarded Madeleine with heavy, red-rimmed eyes. “Dr. LeBlanc. I want to thank you for your courage. For bringing my daughter back.”
She leaned forward and kissed Madeleine on each cheek.
Madeleine was speechless. Mrs. Salazar took her husband’s arm and he held her with care. They slowly left the courtroom.
THE FRONT PAGE OF the morning newspaper led with a picture of Mrs. Salazar kissing Madeleine’s cheek. That kiss invoked renewed confidence and determination. Madeleine would see that Zenon paid for what he did.
Once again, she resisted the reporters’ questions as she entered the courtroom with Ethan and Sam. She settled herself, waiting to be called. And once again, the courtroom was jam-packed. The trial picked up where it had left off, and Madeleine was called to the stand for cross-examination.
Joe started off by asking small details about Madeleine’s testimony from the day before, referring to the old plantation on River Road. “You entered private property in Hahnville, Louisiana, without permission?”
“Yes.”
“So you were illegally trespassing.”
“Yes.”
“Did you perhaps think that the property was open to the public?”
“No, there were ‘no trespassing’ signs posted.”
&
nbsp; “But you went in anyway?”
“Yes.”
“What did you expect to find there?”
Madeleine took a breath. “I was curious about the place. I had uncovered documents that indicated the old plantation had belonged to my family in previous years.”
Whitney nodded and scraped his teeth along his lower lip. “Still does.”
She looked at him, confused. “I beg your pardon?”
“The property is still owned by your family, Dr. LeBlanc. Were you not aware of that fact?”
“I—no. No, I wasn’t.”
“Are you saying you did not know that Zenon Lansky owns it?”
Madeleine was stunned. “Zenon owns that property?” She stole a look at Ms. Jameson, and could tell that the news was no surprise to her.
Why didn’t she tell me?
And then she wondered if perhaps she had, and Madeleine was so absorbed with appearing sane that she had somehow missed it.
“I didn’t know he . . .” Her voice trailed off, because in that moment, she realized that Joe had said that the property was owned by her family.
Whitney retrieved a piece of paper from his desk and presented it to the judge and to Jameson. Jameson objected and the two lawyers approached the bench while Madeleine sat on the witness stand trying to absorb what Whitney was saying.
Whitney returned and handed Madeleine the paper. “Dr. LeBlanc, will you please examine this document and tell the court what it is.”
The blood throbbed in her ears. “It, uh, it looks like a property deed.”
“That’s correct. And can you tell me whose names are on it?”
The paper was trembling in her hand. “It says that my father, Gaston Rémi LeBlanc, deeded the property to Zenon Lansky in 1980.”
A murmur rippled through the courtroom, and the judge had to bang the gavel to restore order. Madeleine gripped the stand. Joe retrieved the paper from her hands and asked another question, but her mind was racing. She didn’t know what to do with this information, and had to force herself to focus on what he was saying.
“What was the question again?” she asked him.
“I said, did you know that Zenon Lansky was your half brother?”
“Wh . . . what?”
“Are you asking me to repeat the question yet again, Dr. LeBlanc?”
Madeleine felt nauseated. Felt even that she might faint. Each and every person in the room was staring at her.
“I . . . no I don’t . . .” she tried to say, and it came as a whisper.
“Beg your pardon, Dr. LeBlanc?”
Madeleine filled her lungs, and it came as a shudder. “No. Zenon is not my half brother. He grew up in a house near me.”
“Shall I produce the paternity test?”
Whitney strode to a stack of papers and selected one, showed it to the judge, and then handed it to Madeleine. Madeleine couldn’t even read it. She made a show of sweeping her gaze across it as it wilted in her grasp.
“Well, Dr. LeBlanc?”
“If Zenon Lansky is my half brother, it’s news to me.”
“That so? Because by all accounts, you and him have been running around together since you took your first steps.”
Madeleine shook her head. “Marc and I—I mean, my brother, my real brother . . .”
She paused, steadying herself. “We knew Zenon’s parents when we were kids. Zenon had a father. A different father.”
Whitney grunted, signaling to the jury that he doubted her veracity. “Were you aware that your father deeded the plantation over to his son, Zenon Lansky, when Zenon was still an infant?”
“No,” Madeleine said. And then, “I had no idea Zenon owned that property, let alone that my father had given it to him.”
“So, your father never mentioned any of this to you?” He spread his arms wide.
“No!” Madeleine said. “I had no idea!”
“Since your father is deceased, Dr. LeBlanc, I guess all we have to go by is your word.”
Ms. Jameson piped up with an objection, and the judge sustained it.
The memory of that night in the flower shop crept over Madeleine. Disturbing on its own, but in light of this news it was an absolute abomination. Her gaze stole to Zenon. He was watching her. And on his face there lurked the ghost of a smile. He must have known all along. There was another person who would have known about it as well: Chloe.
Madeleine’s blood coursed with outrage and mortification. She closed her eyes for a moment, but she knew the bramble was stretching from the shadows. From beneath the seats, curling from the corners, reaching higher, up toward the ceiling.
I’VE GOT TO CALM down, Madeleine told herself. It doesn’t change what happened to Anita. It’s a separate thing.
“Now, Dr. LeBlanc, let’s go back to the night when you found Anita Salazar in the bayou. You claim you saw the defendant wandering along the banks, near where the body was found.”
The courtroom was filled with briar, ebony, and snaking.
But Madeleine managed to say, “Yes, that’s true.”
“How close would you say he was to the body, about twenty feet?”
“No, he was probably about forty yards from the actual spot where I found Anita. He was on the opposite bank of the waterway and down a ways.”
Whitney’s eyebrows lifted with feigned surprise. “Forty yards? Did you say forty yards?”
“Thereabouts.”
“On the opposite bank?”
“Yes,” her voice was beginning to sound weak even to her own ears.
“That can hardly be considered near the body.”
“I assumed she’d gotten away from him, but then died from wounds he’d already inflicted.”
“Objection, your honor!” Whitney bellowed.
What did I say? Why is he objecting?
“Sustained,” said the judge. “The witness will confine her response to only answer questions posed by defending counsel.”
Joe Whitney tented his fingers to his mouth. “And you say he was wandering in impenetrable wilderness.”
“Well, yes. I suppose it wasn’t completely impenetrable,” Madeleine said. “Because he was there.”
“And later, you were wandering impenetrable wilderness.”
“I—yeah.”
“But you saw him clearly.”
“Oh, yes.” Madeleine said. “I was surprised to see him, because I’d never seen anyone there on the banks before. I’d never known anyone to attempt to go out there on foot.”
“So you were surprised to see him standing there in the rain.”
“Yes. I mean, no, it wasn’t raining. Well, it had been raining. But it stopped raining just before I saw Zenon.”
“And then it started again?”
“Yes.” The word tumbled idiotically into the courtroom.
Joe Whitney threw back his head and laughed. “So you say it was raining cats and dogs. Then it stopped, and you got a good look at Zenon, and then it started pouring again?”
She gritted her teeth. “Yes!”
He laughed and clapped his hands together. “All right, all right. Now let’s talk about the boat. You saw a boat near the body.”
“That’s correct.”
“And you assumed that it was the defendant’s boat.”
“Yes.”
“And later, after you retrieved the corpse from the water, the storm hit, it was dark and raining, and you were pursued by that same boat?”
She could feel the blood pulsing in her neck. It was clear what he was getting at. She took a deep breath.
“It was difficult to see due to the rain and darkness, but on the way back, I could hear a boat’s motor and see a spotlight. I assumed that it was Zenon’s boat chasing me, because there had been no other boats around. And Zenon had already tried to board my craft.”
Joe looked annoyed, and Madeleine felt that she had scored at least one small victory.
“But you can’t be sure that it was his boat, correct?”
he said.
“Like I said, no, I couldn’t see to be sure.”
“All right Dr. LeBlanc. You testified that you ferried the body of Anita Salazar from one end of the bayou to the other.”
“Yes.”
“In the middle of a severe tropical storm.”
“Yes.”
“And when you wrecked your boat, you carried the corpse bodily.”
She paused. It was sounding ridiculous. Macabre, even.
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“You’re stronger than you look, Dr. LeBlanc.” He winked at her and walked toward the jury, then turned back and spread his arms wide. “She was already dead.”
“Yes.”
“You testified that you feared for your own life, both from the severe weather and because you thought you were being pursued. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you risked your life to lug around the body of a woman you barely knew, and whose life you could not save?”
“Yes, I did.”
He lifted his shoulders. “Now why would you do that?”
This, at least, she could answer with confidence. “Because of the storm, I was afraid her body would get swept out to sea, and no one would know the truth about what happened to her.”
“The truth about what happened to her,” Whitney repeated, scratching his chin. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out now.”
She folded her arms.
“Dr. LeBlanc, did you know that your blood was found all over the victim’s body?”
An uneasy sensation wormed through her stomach. “No, I did not. But of course that would make sense, because I’d injured myself in several different ways, and then carried—”
“Carried her body all around the swamp. We heard all that. Do you know how much of the defendant’s blood was found on the victim’s body?”
She looked at Jameson, who was on the edge of her seat, but did not assert any objection.
Madeleine looked back at Joe. “None. I was told they found no evidence like that. They said that any blood or tissue from Zenon would have been destroyed during the storm.”
