by C. L. Bevill
From the manner that the priest’s face changed, Caraby could see that he was correct.
“She’s such a clever young woman,” Father William said. “We keep a strong hand on her, and she’s done so well. Her acceptance into Stanford, and…” he trailed off because there was nothing else he could say.
“That’s a bolt-action rifle, right?” Caraby said. “How much ammo was there?”
“Not much,” Father William said. “There were six rounds in the desk and two in the rifle. There are wild dogs around. You know that, sheriff. We heard about Miss Thibeaux’s experience with a pack, and we’ve seen some in the area. They’ve been attracted to the garbage at the school, and we’ve had to make sure the children were safe. I keep it locked up.”
“Who knew about the key to the closet?” Caraby went on.
“The senior staff in case I wasn’t here, and the…oh my,” Father William trailed to another weak stop.
“Linda Terrebonne, too,” Caraby finished.
“Yes. She knew. She had more responsibilities than most of the other girls because she had proven herself trustworthy. She could drive one of the donor cars anytime she wanted, and she stayed behind today to go to a job interview.”
“How many donor cars are there?” Caraby asked.
“Four. There should be two gone. One young woman works at the library, and Linda will have the other one.” The priest hesitated. “What about Sharla Adams? She’s going to be very frightened by all of this. I should— ”
“She went to the hospital with Gail Harper,” Caraby told the priest calmly. “The little girl is uninjured, but Mrs. Harper has severe head trauma. The doctors say she’s in a coma. There are three cars around back. Which one was Linda driving?”
“She usually takes the gold one. It’s a Nissan I think.”
“An Altima?”
“That’s right.”
Caraby nodded at John Henry. John Henry didn’t say anything. The gold Altima was present. Linda had access to the only gun at the school. Linda was missing. Mignon was missing. It all sounded bad. Then Caraby turned back to Father William. “Now would be a very good time to tell us everything about Linda Terrebonne and why it is that she would have murdered Dara Honore.”
•
The plan had changed again. Linda realized it as soon as she thought about how much longer it was taking her to track Mignon down. It turned out that the older woman was more agile and resilient than Linda would have given her credit for. Lost in a bayou full of insects, reptiles, and black water, Linda would have thought that Mignon would have given up long before. Instead, she was making her way westward, and she would be running into one of the dozens of logging roads that crisscrossed the national forest.
On one of the roads, Mignon would have ample opportunity to run into someone else who might be willing to help her. Linda increased her pace. She needed to take care of this very quickly. As she went, she thought about what she would tell the authorities that Father William would have called as soon as he discovered Mrs. Harper’s body. Sharla would be spilling her guts, and Linda was certain that she could convince them that Sharla was mistaken. After all, the little girl hadn’t seen her hit Mrs. Harper with a paperweight. She hadn’t seen Linda wipe her fingerprints off the paperweight. She hadn’t seen Linda take back the rhymes and Mignon’s car keys. Nor had she seen Linda shoot at Mignon or chase her into the forest. A short talk with Sharla would definitely persuade the little girl that she had been mistaken. No, that would simply be her word against a little black girl’s, and Linda knew who would come out on top.
Once Linda was through with Mignon, she would dispose of the older woman’s body, the rifle, and the Ford Explorer keys in the bayou. She’s been reading up on criminology lately and she would not make the mistake of allowing the body to float away. She would eviscerate the body so that gases wouldn’t cause it to come to the surface, and the denizens of the bayou would consume it all the quicker. Without any of that evidence, a case against Linda would be sadly lacking. Besides which, Linda would simply say that Tomas Clovis had been the one to come to the school. He’d taken Mignon before, so why not do so again? Linda was a witness, and everyone knew Linda was a good girl.
Linda smiled to herself. It was helpful to be so much smarter than everyone else.
•
Mignon came to a pair of rutted furrows that led down a dry stretch of land. Bayous stretched away to one side. Dense thickets seemed impenetrably black on the other side. Once Linda came to the same place that she was at, then Mignon knew that she would follow. It had become urgent to the teenager. She wanted those rhymes. She wanted the woman who had them in her possession. She had killed for them. She would do so again.
Suddenly, her ankle burned as if it had caught on fire. Mignon looked down in horror to see a snake slithering away into the brush. Having a murderer after me wasn’t bad enough, she thought. Now I’ve been bitten by a snake. She’d stepped on it, and it had retaliated immediately.
Dizziness perched on the peak of a wave about to crash over her. Mignon closed her eyes. There was no way to run away from Linda now. If the younger woman was half as good as she’d said she was, then it wouldn’t be long before she’d catch up to her. What the hell am I going to do now?
•
Linda climbed up a dirt bank and looked at the fresh marks that Mignon had left in her rush to get away. It was a trail that was as clear as the runway lights at an airport. The older woman didn’t know a thing about the bayous. It was amazing that she had even stumbled upon Dara’s body. Another day and there would have been nothing left but bits and pieces.
Grimly, Linda surveyed the path ahead of her. Amazing and unfortunate but nothing I can’t deal with. A logging road appeared before her. It was two ragged ruts leading off into the distance, the remnants of a time where logging trucks rolled through here to retrieve harvested trees from the oldest growth of Kisatchie National Forest. The forest was periodically harvested to limit forest-fire potential. It had also provided an easier pathway for Mignon to follow in her escape attempt.
But Mignon hadn’t gotten very far. Not a quarter mile away, Linda paused as she saw the older woman’s unmoving form lying across the road. Her red hair was as brightly visible in the road as a neon sign. Linda studied the woman’s inert shape and debated if this was some kind of trap. Exhaustion? Fear? What caused her collapse?
It didn’t matter to Linda because what she really wanted was a few minutes of Mignon’s time. Then she would make sure that Mignon never bothered anyone with her relentless questions again. She approached the motionless figure, keeping the end of the Winchester rifle trained on her. A round was already pumped into the chamber.
“Miss Thibeaux?” Linda said ten feet from the other woman. Five feet closer Linda could see the swelling and redness of Mignon’s ankle. Her pant leg had been pulled up to the knee to expose the bite. Linda understood immediately. A poisonous snake had abruptly ended the chase. Well, she can still talk to me. Then I don’t even have to hide the body. No way can someone blame me for her getting snake bit.
Mignon didn’t move. Then Linda struck out with her foot and forcibly hit the other woman directly in the stomach. Mignon moaned and clutched at her abdomen.
Linda smiled uninvitingly. She knelt down and slapped Mignon across the face, noting that the older woman was beginning to get the sweats that accompanied such a bite. Then she would start to vomit, and unless she got to a doctor for antivenin, she was going to deteriorate further until death released her. “It’s just going to get worse. Cottonmouth, was it?”
Mignon moaned again. Her eyes stayed shut.
Linda listed the symptoms of a cottonmouth bite. She observed that although the bite could be treated, if it had hit a vein, then it was almost undoubtedly fatal. “So, if you tell me where the rhymes are, then I’ll get you help.”
Her eyes opened just a slit, and Mignon said hoarsely, “I’ll tell you.”
Linda said, “
Good. We can clear this right up. Where are they?”
“It was so important to you,” Mignon whispered. “At least tell me why?”
There was innate hesitation while Linda considered the question. “I worked my ass off for the last ten years to make sure I had my ticket out of this hellhole,” she said coldly. “Ten years of sucking up to the right people, taking care of every eventuality, only to have it taken away from me by my stupid cousin. She threatened to give the rhymes to the entrance committee at Stanford. They don’t look fondly on outright bigotry despite First Amendment rights. Dara would have cost me everything. If Stanford had rejected my admission, no other good school would have accepted me. She would have ruined everything. Everything.”
“There had to be another way,” Mignon said weakly.
“Of course there wasn’t,” Linda replied. She stared down into the older woman’s face. Mignon seemed as though she were on the verge of unconsciousness again. Her eyes began to drift shut. Linda released the rifle and viciously shook Mignon. “Wake up, dammit.”
•
Her ankle was throbbing as if someone had hacked a large hole in it. She didn’t know what kind of snake had gotten to her; its red, black, and yellow coloring was unfamiliar. The terrifying swelling and redness was enough to try to fool Linda into thinking Mignon was unconscious. Linda had undoubtedly seen snake bites before. She would know if Mignon was faking or not. In the moment that Linda reached forward with her hand, Mignon saw that Linda had let go of the trigger. She didn’t hesitate. She brought the hand up that had been half hidden behind her back, holding the large stick she had found before, and slammed Linda on the side of her head with it.
Linda screamed and fell backwards. The rifle went end over end flying into the air and landed with a great splash in the bayou. Mignon catapulted to her feet, ignoring the pain in her ankle. Linda scrambled to her knees and started to move away. Then she turned with a snarl and said, “You tricked me. Snake bit you but you sure ain’t as bad off as I thought you were.” Rage made Linda revert to the rural vernacular she’d learned as a child.
Mignon held the branch in her hand and waited. Linda could go for the rifle. Mignon didn’t know if it would work with the bullets all wet, but she could prevent Linda from getting to it. Linda could take off running, preferring to fight another day. Mignon would let her do just that. Or Linda could do what Mignon was really afraid of. That was exactly what Linda did. She launched herself at Mignon, viciously cursing in Creole French at the older woman.
They fell in a pile of fiercely flaying arms and legs, and Mignon was underneath the younger woman as she rained blows upon her. Mignon thrust her entire body upward, using her elbows and legs to force herself skyward, and Linda was tossed away. Mignon didn’t take the time to argue about semantics. She was already swinging the branch before Linda hit the ground. Using the branch like a baseball bat, Mignon put all of her remaining strength into her blow, determined to end it there and then. She connected with the part of Linda’s skull just above her ear with the force of a major leaguer. The teenager fell over like a bag of cement and stayed still.
Panting with fury and adrenalin, Mignon resisted the powerful urge to return the kick in the side that she’d received. “I may be older than you are. I may not know shit about the bayous like you do. But I sure as hell learned something important from all those damn foster homes I spent my childhood in.” She dropped the bloody stick on the ground next to Linda and added viciously, “How to play dirty.”
A trail of blood trickled down the side of Linda’s face and forehead where Mignon had nailed her. Mignon looked briefly at the bayou and decided that she didn’t know where the rifle had landed, and worse was that she didn’t know if it would work if she could find it. Last, she didn’t want to take the time to search for it. The snake bite was too painful and too alarming.
She turned away and staggered down the furrows that led away from Linda. “I’ll send someone back if you’re still here and not running,” Mignon muttered coldly. A few steps down the old logging road, and she realized that her ankle seemed to be numb. As a matter of fact, the whole leg seemed to be going dead.
That isn’t good, Mignon thought. Doggedly, she went on. The road had to lead somewhere. She had started where the road had ended at the bayou. So at the other end was a main road and help.
A half hour later, Mignon stopped. She was getting incredibly tired. She wanted to lie down and take a nap. It hadn’t been a cottonmouth that had bitten her. She would have recognized that snake. No, it had been a more colorful snake with bands of black, yellow, and red. She shivered and wrapped her arms around her body.
When the man with the red cap on the huge ATV drove up to her and said, “Jesus Christ Almighty! You be that Thibeaux woman?” Mignon didn’t think he was real and laughed at him.
Epilogue
Wednesday, March 26th
Way down south, a long way off, the gator’s got the whooping cough;
Sixteen doctors came and said, ‘Your little gator’s nearly dead.
The only thing to make him better is salt, mustard, vinegar, and pepper.’
- Children’s jump rope rhyme
“Red touch yellow, kill a fellow. Red touch black, venom he lack,” John Henry muttered it into Mignon’s ear. He sat back down in the rocker on her porch and held onto her hand. She was sitting on a lawn chair, stretched out so that the sun could shine on her.
Mignon’s leg was wrapped and propped up on a pillow. Fortunately, she had been treated with antivenin in time. There was some problem with the skin possibly necrotizing, but the doctor was optimistically cheerful about it. “I hate hospitals,” she muttered back. “And you might have mentioned that little rhyme before I stepped on a coral snake.”
“I didn’t know you’d be going for a run through the bayous,” John Henry said amicably. “Hey, isn’t that a Credence song?”
“‘Born in the Bayou,’” she said. “It’s ‘Run Through the Jungle.’ Also by CCR.”
John Henry thought about it and said nothing. Mignon wasn’t in a very good mood. The treatment for a coral snake bite wasn’t pretty. The fact that she’d been found alive had cheered him enormously until they had informed him that she’d been bitten by a coral snake. But she’d been treated within four hours of the initial bite, and it was likely that she’d only have some loss of flesh near the ankle to show for it. Finally, he said, “I like a woman who likes CCR.”
Her injury had also put their ongoing argument in a state of limbo. John Henry treated her like a delicate flower and brought her flowers and chocolate every day. The chocolates made her grumble. “I won’t be able to run for weeks, and you’re trying to fatten me up.”
“Give them to Miner Poteet,” John Henry said. “Or to your aunt.”
“They don’t need it either,” she snapped. Then Mignon took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, John Henry. I’ve been on my back for a full week, and I’m really, really tired of it.”
“Nehemiah called again yesterday,” he said, softly rubbing her hand with his fingers. “He thinks that Louisiana is a savage place full of barbarous animals and men. That, incidentally, was a quotation. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was a barbarous snake and a barbarous teenage Catholic schoolgirl.”
Mignon frowned. “You haven’t found her.”
“Found the rifle. Five feet off shore. Right next to the bloody stick you conked her with.” John Henry frowned back. There was an APB out for Linda Terrebonne, but it seemed that she had effectively disappeared as had Tomas Clovis.
“You dropped all charges against Tomas?” Mignon asked, reading him like a book.
“Yes, dear,” he said dryly. “The sheriff’s department admitted that while evidence existed to point at Mr. Clovis, it was determined that he was not guilty of Dara Honore’s murder. But he hasn’t come forward. Perhaps his relatives are having a hard time finding him.”
“They’ll let him know,” she said. Her brown eyes lo
oked worriedly at John Henry. “And us? Do you have that all wrapped up, too?”
John Henry stared back. “All I can say is that I’m glad I’m not going to your funeral.” His tone was dry but grimness was contained within it, letting her know that he was not happy with her, although he was willing to let it go for now. “You want to duke it out now?”
“Not really,” Mignon answered honestly. “I don’t want to lose you.”
John Henry stilled. Only his lower lip trembled in his handsome face. She was happy that he wasn’t clenching his jaws or that the muscle in his cheek wasn’t twitching ominously or that the vein in his forehead wasn’t forecasting an imminent stroke. Finally, he grasped her hand with both of his and murmured, “I don’t want to lose you either.” He twisted his body so that he could bend his head over her hand to gently touch his lips to her skin.
Mignon could only stroke his sable hair with her other hand.
•
Long after John Henry had been reluctantly ushered out the front door, Mignon tried to fall asleep. Her bedroom was dark with only a sliver of light coming from the slightly open door. A light in the living room had been left on, and her Beretta was under her pillow, loaded and ready.
During the previous days, there was little rest to be had because of the people coming and going. Robert and his mother had visited, and for once, Thereze looked healthier. Miner Poteet had made an appearance, dragging Mary Catherine along for company. Sister Helena had visited the day before bringing a large card signed by the entire Blessed Heart School, and Mignon had given her the photo of her and her deceased lover. The sister also had said Gail Harper was out of her coma and expected to recover fully. Two days before, Leelah Prudhomme had imperiously called, deigning to pat Mignon on her head like a schoolchild. Even Ruby Wingo and her husband Percival had visited. The overly large Percival had repeated the rhyme that John Henry had mentioned about coral snakes.
