Crimson Bayou

by C. L. Bevill

  Mignon stepped backwards into the deepest shadows and simply watched. Sister Helena went directly toward the Dubeauxs’ little house and climbed up the stairs as though she had been there a thousand times. Little wonder, thought Mignon. Thereze is dying. She needs spiritual help. The sister comes. But next time, ah, next time, it should be Father William.

  “Curious about our visiting nun?” came a frail question from behind her, and Mignon wasn’t even surprised. She hadn’t heard the other person approach, but on some level she had expected them to make an appearance.

  “Mrs. Prudhomme,” Mignon said before she turned around.

  “Sister Helena does a fine job with the girls at the school. Many of those girls are in desperate need. A few of them are Creoles.” Leelah Prudhomme was a black shape in the darkness. All Mignon could see was the bend of her form as her spine fought the good battle with Father Time.

  “I know,” Mignon said. “I’ve been teaching them. Linda Terrebonne is one to be proud of. She’s going to a vaunted university next year. I expect she’ll be a fine attorney. Callie, and I’m sorry I don’t remember her last name, will be an accomplished artist if she receives proper encouragement.”

  Leelah took a step forward and took Mignon’s arm. “Come, let’s step out of these shadows. It makes me think of that old radio show.” The elderly woman led Mignon out from under the house and added, “The Shadow, you know. We used to listen to it with undying devotion. ‘Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?’”

  “‘The Shadow knows,’” Mignon finished for her. “I saw the movie years ago.”

  “Ptooie,” Leelah scoffed. “Not the same thing. Listening makes the mind work in different ways. The listener is forced to use imagination to fill in the gaps. I often used active listening as a teaching tool. Listening, you see, makes the mind work effectively.”

  They stepped into a pool of light, and Mignon looked down at the elderly woman. The scarf on her head was blue this time, and a wool cardigan was wrapped around her thin shoulders. A long black skirt covered her legs, and bright pink tennis shoes peeped out from under the edges. Leelah saw Mignon’s glance and said, “They’re very comfortable. Skechers. My grandson got them for me in New Orleans. He said they’re very cool now. It gives an old woman a warm spot on the inside to know she’s fashionable once again.”

  “So what has you lurking in the shadows tonight, Mrs. Prudhomme?” Mignon asked politely. “Will it be another polite warning about suitably appreciating my heritage or perhaps a veiled threat about what happens to people who ask too many questions?”

  Leelah barked laughter at her. Both of her hands gripped Mignon’s arm, and she realized that the elderly woman was missing her cane. “My, oh, my. I sure can tell you’re not used to speaking to your betters. Call me Grannywoman, if you’d like. Mam-maw, if you’d rather. Mrs. Prudhomme still makes me think of my mother-in-law, and she’s been gone off the face of the earth for nigh on a half-century.”

  Mignon kept her mouth shut. The thought of being lured out to the enclave to be spoken to like some kind of inferior being only made her angry, and she didn’t want to say anything that she would later regret. For this new incident, she only wanted to know the level of Robert’s involvement. “Did Robert bring me out here to speak with his mother or with you?”

  “Hah,” Leelah said forcibly. “Don’t ascribe my wants to Robert. He’s his own man. I hoped to catch you. One of the children came to let me know you were wandering around outside, and I took the opportunity to speak with you. I’m just an old woman, mind you.”

  “An old woman with an extraordinary amount of power is the way I see it.” Mignon was relieved that Robert and Thereze hadn’t knowingly misled her. “You remind me of another woman I met recently. The St. Michel matriarch. She had a lot of power, as well. But she discovered that for all that brought her, it couldn’t bring her what she so desperately wanted.”

  Leelah didn’t like the comparison. Her thin hands momentarily and unconsciously pinched at Mignon’s flesh and then released. “Eleanor St. Michel and I are nothing alike,” she said resolutely. “I think you mistake one affair with another.”

  “Perhaps,” Mignon admitted, “but the comparison was inevitable. You’ll grant me that.”

  Leelah didn’t respond. She led Mignon toward the dock as if escorting the younger woman toward the door that would put her on the street. Their slow pace allowed them a moment of peace and then Leelah said, “You remember that I taught many children in the parish?”

  “Yes,” Mignon said. “Tomas said that you taught him, too. As a matter of fact, something you told him once has impressed upon his memory. He shared a bit about some local history with great pride in the knowledge.”

  “Hmm. Good. Perhaps he’ll endeavor to remember the reason we teach history.”

  “So we don’t repeat our mistakes?” Mignon guessed.

  “That’s the company line,” Leelah said mockingly. “We teach history because knowing the past can give us supremacy. Forgetting the past makes us weak. And the Creoles will never forget their past. No matter how hard the Anglo-Protestant population wishes us to move on and conform. No matter how much they change the written word in the history books that are used in the classroom, we will never forget.”

  Mignon tried to understand the message, but she felt as though she was missing a key component. “I’m not one of you,” she said at last. “I’m related to you, and God knows I wouldn’t try to hurt you, but I’ll never be one of you. Not where it truly counts. I was raised too differently.”

  “Blood calls to blood,” Leelah said confidently. “That’s why you’ve returned to us. You are one of us. And when push comes to shove, we’ll know if we can truly trust you.”

  They passed the man chopping wood, and he stopped to mop sweat away from his forehead. He said, “Madame, mamselle.”

  Leelah granted him a smile and walked on.

  “Trust me,” Mignon repeated. “About what? Having stills out here? Illegally hunting alligators? Continuing to be in a relationship with the parish sheriff? I’m not going to ‘squeal’ about what you’ve done to survive out here. And as for John Henry—”

  Leelah interrupted, “I don’t mean your fancy man.”

  “Fancy man,” Mignon said with disbelief. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Robert striding toward the dock with a set expression on his face.

  “I mean the issue of Dara Honore’s murder,” Leelah stated decisively. There was a note of warning in her voice. “I mean you have to learn that anyone is capable of murder. You have only to open your eyes to see the truth of the matter.”

  The two men on the far end of the dock were still working on the boat. The man chopping wood had resumed his activity, and Robert was making progress across the compound like a man on a mission. For all of that, and the distant noise of someone’s television turned up too loudly, Mignon suddenly felt as if she were standing alone with Leelah on an isolated plane. It was but them, alone, and no one else for a thousand miles. They had stopped two steps out on the rough wooden surface of the dock, and Mignon looked determinedly at the elderly woman.

  “Do you know who’s responsible?” Mignon said slowly.

  Leelah’s chin went up. Her black eyes glittered dangerously in the dim electrical light of the bare bulbs that lined the dock. One of her hands came up and hooked one of Mignon’s curls, and Mignon had to force herself to stay still. Leelah looked at the hair coiled around her finger and let it go with a sigh. “They say red hair means trouble,” she said finally with a grim smile twisting her thin lips. Then she called, “Charles.”

  One of the heads of the men working on the boat shot up. “Oui, Grannywoman?”

  “Would you walk me back to the house? I went off and forgot my cane like the old woman I am.”

  Charles bounced up from the power boat and jogged down to the two women. He shot Mignon a curious look and gingerly took Leelah’s arm. As they walked away, she heard Leelah say
, “And how is your daughter, Charles?”

  “She be fine, Grannywoman. Three years old and ready to mend fence and shoot coyotes.” The answer drifted back to her and Mignon sighed.

  Robert passed them with a curt nod. As he came level with Mignon he gestured at another boat at the end. “I got Mam’s boat running just fine and dandy. We’ll take that back to the dock and get you home again.”

  Five minutes later, Robert was expertly guiding the power boat through the channels of the bayou. Sitting in the passenger seat, Mignon said loudly, “Robert?”

  The sound of the boat engine almost drowned her out, but he heard her and jerked. The running lights of the boat made Robert’s face appear pink in the night. He glanced at her and raised his eyebrows. “I’m sorry I’m cantankerous, Mignon,” he offered. “I guess you know why.”

  “Your mother,” she said.

  “Yeah. She be bad off. I’m calling my captain tomorrow and telling him ‘bout it. I ain’t sure what they’ll do. Give me a little more time, I reckon. See ifin I can take care of bidness here.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “I don’t think so, Mignon.” Robert shot her a grim smile. “But I thank you all the same. Ain’t nobody can do nothing but God, and God ain’t been right receptive lately.”

  “Sister Helena comes to give your mother comfort,” Mignon said. It wasn’t a question. Robert nodded shortly.

  “Ain’t many folks who would come out here. Sister Helena been coming out to the Creole enclaves for years. Visiting them who cain’t get to the church at La Valle or one in Natchitoches. She be a proper nun and all.”

  “You know why Leelah Prudhomme wanted to speak with me?” Mignon said after another pause.

  “I know some of it,” Robert admitted, grumbling as he missed a floating piece of debris. They came to the dock where his truck was parked, and he cut the engine with a little flourish. “Ain’t nothing but an old woman using the only thing she got left in this world.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Influence, I reckon. She be the oldest. The one who be most educated. Most of the Creole’s respect her because of her age and her wisdom, but mind you, Miz Prudhomme’s got her own plan. She be like God.” Robert laughed bitterly. “Ain’t telling no one what it be.”

  He took her home, and Mignon didn’t ask anything else.

  •

  Mignon went to Blessed Heart the next day and taught her class, not really taking it in. There was too much swirling around in her brain like unwanted fragments that could not be cleared away. The girls worked eagerly and talked about the field trip they were taking the following day to Baton Rouge. Mignon smiled at them and laughed with them over what they were going to wear to the state capitol. Her art class had been canceled for that day so that they could spend most of the day touring the old capitol building that Mark Twain had supposedly called the ugliest building he’d ever seen. Then they would visit the current state capitol building, which had been built by Huey P. Long only two years before he was shot dead in its very own halls.

  Beadie said, “They say a ghost named Pierre haunts the old capitol.”

  “Keep telling ghost stories and you won’t sleep a wink,” Callie advised gravely. “Ask Miz Thibeaux.”

  A dozen pairs of eyes turned to Mignon expectantly. She tended to forget that the girls in the school had a well-connected grapevine. Callie had obviously heard some of the stories about the St. Michel Mansion and possibly the rumors about the renovated farmhouse. With an eloquent shrug, Mignon said, “When things go bump in the night, I usually pull the covers over my head.”

  That was followed by a colorful diatribe of varied methods on how to best dispose of pesky haunts on one’s property. “My granny said you be having to call the priest to bless the spot,” said Sharla, whose cast was all penciled in. Another girl was starting to color in the background, liberally painting blue wherever she could reach.

  “Or give that old nasty ghost what-for,” said another girl with a pasty grin. “Get a gris-gris from the witch-woman, no?

  That was followed by ghost stories until Mignon laughingly called a halt. When the class was over, the girls trailed out, and she started to clean up. After Callie wheeled Sharla out in her wheel chair, Sister Helena stuck her head in the door and looked at Mignon curiously. “Miss Thibeaux, why don’t you come to the living room? We’re having a birthday party for all the girls who have birthdays this month.”

  Mignon nodded and followed the sister. There was a cheerful party with punch, cake, and party streamers that someone had thoughtfully put up in every corner of the room. Three girls had March birthdays, and Mignon helped sing “Happy Birthday” to them with the rest of the girls, the teachers, and the administrative staff.

  Father William playfully threatened to chase the three girls down and give them their birthday spankings but rapidly relented, bestowing colorfully wrapped gifts instead. The gifts were useful rather than the toys and pretty things little girls might have received in another world where they didn’t exist in a foster home. One got a new pair of tennis shoes that fit her perfectly. Another received a set of reference books for assistance with the college classes she would begin in the fall at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches. The third one received a set of dishes. Apparently, she was moving out of the home on her own. She already had a job and was saving enough to pay for the deposit and first month’s rent on her own apartment. All three were appropriately grateful.

  Mignon watched with interest and then helped clean up. She looked up and caught sight of Linda Terrebonne, watching her intently from the other side of the room. Mignon smiled tentatively at the young woman, but Linda turned away without response. The young woman’s face was neutral, and the other girls spilled away from her like Moses parting the Red Sea. It was odd, but Mignon let it go because of the lack of obvious progress in Dara’s case. It was probable that Linda was simply frustrated that a killer hadn’t simply produced himself or herself. And Mignon was the only one to blame in Linda’s eyes.

  Father William and Sister Helena let everyone out of school for the day. Half of them ran to go outside. They stopped at the closet that held all the balls, jump ropes, and other play items they used outside. Then Mignon continued picking up cups and napkins. She stopped to talk with the eighteen-year-old girl who was going to move out of the home the following month. Her name was Annona, and she was as lithe as a butterfly with beautiful blonde hair that hung down to her waist.

  “What kind of job is it that you have?” Mignon said.

  “I’m working at the Natchitoches Library,” Annona said proudly. Her blue eyes sparkled with pride. “They’re going to sponsor part-time college classes for me.”

  “Wonderful!” Mignon said. “Congratulations. Now you’re getting all your things prepared for moving out. I remember the first time I got a place of my own. I forgot to buy a can opener, and it was sorely missed.”

  “A can opener,” Annona said breathlessly. “Sister Helena, I have to remember to get a can opener!”

  Sister Helena shrugged with a wry look in their direction. “We have a list of essential items you can check off, Annona. We can do that next week so you don’t end up in dire straits.”

  “Wait,” Mignon said curiously. “You’re already working, Annona?”

  “Uh-huh,” Annona said promptly. “Tuesday through Saturday. I graduated high school a year early.”

  “Do the people here take you to work every day?”

  “No,” the young woman said with a little grin. “I take one of the donation cars.”

  Sister Helena surreptitiously licked off a finger full of icing and looked guiltily over her shoulder at the other two women. “Annona’s a very good driver, Miss Thibeaux. We have several young women who drive themselves to and from work. Sometimes we have to coordinate the use of the vehicles because of driver’s education and too many needing to use them, but we usually work it out.”

  “I like
to take the Altima because it’s the nicest one,” Annona said. “It’s got an iPod port.”

  There had been a Nissan Altima parked at the lot where Mignon had gone to speak with the Dubeauxs. Callie had mentioned that one of the donated cars was an Altima. And the school let the girls use the cars. But undoubtedly all the staff had access to use those cars. It could be anyone at the school. “A gold Nissan Altima?” she said.

  Annona nodded. “I’d rather have a red one, but hey, it’s better than nothing.”

  Mignon wanted to call it a coincidence. Mid-sized sedans were common. Altimas were probably very common. They were economical cars with good reputations. Coincidence. But she would go out and look at the car later and see if it had red mud in its wheel wells that might indicate that it had been out at the dock area at the end of a muck-filled road. And how would one of the girls have known that she was going out there? Mignon remembered that she had asked Miner about it, but she had also asked Gail Harper. Anyone could have overheard in the rush of the school. Mignon hadn’t even paid attention to who had been around them at the time.

  Mignon let it go and turned to Sister Helena. “Good cake, huh?”

  “Sinfully good,” the sister sighed.

  Chapter Twenty–seven

  Wednesday, March 19th

  In New Orleans, where I did tell, a shopkeep boy I loved so well;

  He courted me my heart away, and then with me he would not stay.

  When father dear came one night and found his daughter out of sight,

  He ran inside and broke the door and found his daughter by a rope.

  He took a knife and cut her down and on the note this he found:

  “Oh, father dear, what a fool I’ve been, to hang myself for Pierre Tremen.”