by Ray Celestin
This report and all attached reports, statements, evidence summaries etc. have been forwarded to the Lafourche County Sheriff’s office, Detective Department, Lockport, with a request for assistance (c.c. attached for your records).
Respectfully yours,
L. Donald Greer,
Captain, Comd’g Prec’t
49
The old man told his story with a glazed look in his eye, staring out across the rain-swept fields. Only occasionally did he swing his glance towards Luca, as if to make sure he was still there, bearing witness to his tale.
‘Back then this estate was owned by a Creole family – Negro Creoles, I mean, by the name of Baudet. A husband and a wife and two children, they had. That sounds kinda odd to hear these days – Negro landowners, I mean. But back then things were different – French influence was still pretty strong round here. I guess these out o’ the way places take longer to catch up with the rest o’ the world. See, the French had a different approach. Some places you even had some Negroes owning their own slaves. Sounds kinda upside down, don’t it?’
The old man peered at Luca and raised an eyebrow. Then he took a short drag on his cheroot and turned back to look out over the fields.
‘Everything changes eventually, I guess,’ he said. ‘People say the world moves forward. Sometimes I ain’t so sure. Old Man Baudet gave me a job as a farmhand when I was twelve years old, and I been here ever since. The old estate house was beautiful back then, not the mess it is today. Monsieur Baudet, the father of the family, he was about your age back then, chubby man, spoke French. Had airs and graces about him, you know, but in a good way. Made him pleasant to be around, not like those dicty Creoles you get these days. And the mother of the family, well, she was the most beautiful creature I ever saw. You ever hear the saying nature’s aristocrat? Thomas Jefferson said it first, I think. Means someone who’s royal and elegant, not cuz they’re a prince or princess or whatever, but cuz nature just made ’em that way – a cut above. Well, that was her.’
A hint of a smile crossed the old man’s face, and he paused for a moment. Then the smile was replaced by a look of sadness, of mourning for beauty that had faded from the world.
‘She used to take care of the local coloreds. Studied medicine at some French school, but she mixed it up with all that African stuff. They call it voodou these days, but it ain’t no different to old wives’ remedies. Potions and ointments and compresses, that kinda thing. Had a line forming outside the house some mornings – locals looking to get fixed up. I remember ’em – all raggedy blacks, standing in line, their breath frosting up in the cold. And she did a good job of it too, and never charged anyone a cent.
‘Few years before was about the time the newcomers started arriving – foreigners looking to start up their own little farms. Germans, Spanish, Swedes, you name it. Mainly Italians, though. You can understand how they felt about things, coming here and having to farm tiny pieces o’ land with godawful soil, watching their kids go hungry and all the while looking over to see a family o’ Negroes doing so much better. That didn’t sit right with how they thought things should be. Caused tensions. Didn’t start right away, took a few years to ferment, but eventually it became so’s you’d notice it. And then it became so’s it was impossible not to notice it.
‘They even started hassling me, for working on the coon farm. Like I should feel ashamed. Got to so’s I couldn’t go to the bar Saturday nights for fear o’ things turning ugly. Atmosphere in the town changed. When we went in to get supplies, there was a whole lot more silence around the place. I think that’s how these things always start, people not talking to each other.
‘Situation weren’t helped by the mother being a doctor for the whole damn parish, neither – that made her a strega in the Italians’ eyes – a witch. Over time, more and more newcomers moved in, and people felt threatened. The other Creoles started moving to the city. One by one. The newcomers buying up their land for nothing. Got till Baudet was the only one left. He wouldn’t leave for nothing.
‘Well, it all came to a head in eighty-eight. See, Baudet used to get these chemicals delivered from up north somewhere, Connecticut I think. They stopped the crops getting ill and dying. And in eighty-eight there was a blight o’ some sort or ’nother and everyone’s crops failed. Everyone except the Baudets’, cuz he’d had ’em sprayed.
‘Newcomers didn’t see it that way. They saw witchcraft. ’Course, they might have been using the whole thing as an excuse for what happened next. A rumor got spread around town that Madame Baudet had put a curse on their lands, and that’s why their crops had failed and the Baudets’ hadn’t. And that was just the excuse they’d been waiting for.
‘There used to be a long shack just near the estate house where the seasonal workers’d stay, people that came in to town looking for work for a few months every summer. I used to stay there too sometimes cuz my family’s house was a six-miles walk away. It was an old wooden building, bunk beds, drafts, that kinda thing. When it happened, we all got woke up in the middle o’ the night – screams and shouts and running o’ feet. I got up to see what all the fuss was about but I could tell before I even got outside – an orange glow coming in from the underside o’ the door. Remember how strange it felt seeing that glow at gone two in the mornin’.
‘Outside it was like a firestorm. As far as my eye could see fields were burning, lighting up the sky. Looked like damnation. People were running around trying to organize a water chain for all the good it’d do. Baudet and a few o’ the workers were getting a posse together to go find whoever did it. They come back holding an Italian boy by the elbow. I knew who he was, seen him about town. Scared as a rabbit, he looked, dazed too, probably out o’ his mind on julep. There’s no way one kid coulda started all them fires, so they start questioning him, out in front o’ the house – Who was with him? What names he could give? I dunno if it was the julep, or they beat him on the way back, but the kid wasn’t making a lick o’ sense.
‘Well, I guess the boy’s partners figured he’d gone missing and went looking for him. A clutch o’ them rolled up the path, shotguns in tow. Now Baudet and his boys only had a few guns between ’em, and, well, they look up to see they’re outnumbered.
‘To this day I ain’t sure how it happened . . . The Italians took their guns off ’em. They were drunk, too, raving ’bout this and that. Then I jus’ remember a scuffle and one o’ them caught Baudet in a headlock and pushed him to the ground. Next thing I know there’s an axe up high. And then a thumping sound. I’ll always remember that sound. Baudet screamed, but it’s that thump I remember. Can still feel it now.
‘Madame Baudet sees what’s happened cuz she was on the steps o’ the house. Standing there with the two children. A couple o’ the hands were holding her back, but she broke free when she saw that. Ran over to where her husband was and dropped to the floor next to him. Starts crying and wailing and holding his head while he bleeds to death right there in front o’ his own goddamn house. And the others are laughing. Then they start calling her a witch. Start talking about showing her what’s right. The other farm hands have scattered by now – so it’s just the Baudets and them.
‘They get her down on the dirt and pull her skirts up. They took turns, and all the while the husband’s laying there next to her bleeding to death and all around the earth’s on fire, and she’s screaming and wailing and kicking up a fight. And after it’s over, I guess some kinda shock kicks in and they realize they gotta cover their tracks. So they bring the axe down on her too. And that’s when they hear the screams. Coming from the steps o’ the house. They’d forgotten about the children. The boy and the girl. Not even teenagers yet and they just saw all that happen to their parents.
‘The newcomers run up towards the house, try and grab a hold o’ the kids before they can flee, but the little ’uns run back through the house and out into the fields. Got clean away. So they pick up the bodies and dump ’em in one o’ the fields and let the
fire do its work. The sad thing is, I watched the whole thing happen. From the corner of the worker’s house. There weren’t nothing I coulda done to stop it all, but . . . well, I’ll carry the guilt to my grave.’
He stopped and sighed, and for the first time Luca saw the shame in his face. Then the old man flicked the end of his cheroot out into the field – the glow of its tip a firefly through the raindrops.
‘If you looking for an Axeman,’ said the old man, ‘I’d say Baudet’s son would be about the right age. And what with him killing all the people that killed his parents, whole thing seems like justice to me.’
The old man stared out across the fields and Luca followed his gaze to the dilapidated house perched on the horizon line, and the two men sat in silence for a moment.
‘O Louisiana, fair paradise of the south, if still so lovely in thy ruin, what were you in the day of thy glory?’ Luca peered at the old man as he spoke the words. The man smiled and patted the stack of books on the table behind him.
‘Lafcadio Hearne,’ he said, by way of explanation.
Luca nodded. ‘I don’t read much,’ he said.
‘Plenty don’t,’ replied the old man. ‘Baudet sent a bunch o’ us farmhands to the local school after we got back from the War Between the States. One night a week. That’s where I learned my letters. I’m mighty grateful too, cuz when you get to be as old as me, there ain’t a lot else ya can do ’part from reading.’
Silence descended on them again and Luca leaned over and picked up his cup from the table. He took a sip of the sweet tea and the porcelain warmed his chilled fingers. He was thinking about smoking a cigarette when the old man reached over to his tobacco box and offered him another cheroot. Luca accepted and the old man leaned over and lit it for him.
‘What happened next?’ Luca asked.
‘Nothing,’ said the old man. ‘That’s the sad truth. We all knew who it was that did it, but they outnumbered us.’ He shrugged, an exasperated, world-weary shrug. ‘They greased the palms o’ the police, and then the estate came up for auction. I dunno if they planned it all along, or it was just a coincidence, but the ones that did the killings got together and bought the estate. Bought it fo’ a nickel too, on account o’ the auctioneer the parish commissioned fo’ the sale being a crook. ’Course, they weren’t so stupid as to buy it outright, so they did what you already know, got the Tenebre woman to buy it on their behalf, and when enough time had passed, they got rid of her.
‘Didn’t seem quite right fo’ ’em to carry on living hereabouts what with everyone knowing what happened, so they moved on out to New Orleans. Left the estate in the charge of a steward. Set it up so they could get the profits without ever showing their faces round here again. When the old steward retired, I took over the running o’ the place. Never was quite sure if I did the right thing, but I guessed if the Baudets were anywhere they could see they mighta been happy one o’ their own was looking after the place.’ The old man paused and took a drag on his cheroot, then he turned to look at Luca and a peculiar smile broke out on his lips. ‘So, you find what you was looking for, son?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir. Thank you,’ Luca said, nodding.
‘Yeah,’ the old man said ruefully, ‘people always find what they looking for. That’s why Baudet’s boy’s doing what he’s doing.’
Luca frowned at him. ‘Sir?’ he asked, and the old man shrugged.
‘Just my idea on how the world works,’ he said. ‘The Axeman’s a mystery, an empty thing that can’t be explained. And our minds don’t like empty things. So whenever we see one, we start filling it up. And what it gets filled with is what’s in the back o’ our minds – the dark things we’re scared of. Those Italians that killed the Baudets, they saw something they didn’t understand and their minds filled with what they was scared of – witchcraft. It’s the same with the Axeman, I reckon. Italians see the Axeman and figure it’s a Negro. Police see the Axeman and figure it’s the Black Hand. I reckon the Negroes probably think the Axeman’s some big, powerful devil of a white man. They all looking at the same thing – a whole lot o’ nothing – but they all seeing it in their own different way, depending on what fears they got buzzin’ about the back o’ they heads. They just finding what they’ve already decided was real, their own fears made fancy.’
The old man settled back in the rocking chair, and for a while they both sat in silence, smoking their cheroots, taking sips of the tea, watching the rain.
‘There’s one other thing I think ya should know,’ the old man eventually said. ‘That list o’ victims I read ’bout in the paper don’t tally up with the people who killed the Baudets. There’s a couple missing.’
Luca frowned. ‘Who?’
‘There was an accountant who helped set it all up for them. Lived out Thibodaux way. Heard he got bumped off too, the other day. Same evening that Axeman Night hullabaloo was going off in New Orleans. I fancy that was Baudet’s boy, too. He’s going after everyone that had a hand in the thing, so I reckon maybe he’d go after the steward too. He wouldn’t be on no list of estate owners, but sure as hell he was involved in the thing.’
‘What’s his name?’ Luca asked.
‘Rodrigo Bianchi,’ said the old man, pronouncing the name slowly. ‘He’s retired now. Moved to New Orleans when he gave up working, so’s he could be with his son. If he hasn’t been killed yet, I reckon he’d be on the list.’
‘Do you have an address for him?’ asked Luca, and the old man shook his head.
‘Can’t say as I do.’
Luca nodded and thought for a moment.
‘What happened to Baudet’s children?’ he asked, and the old man made a face, wearying of the painful questions.
‘That’s a whole ’nother mess,’ he said. ‘For the first few weeks after it happened they stayed close by. Hiding in the fields. I done see ’em a few times. Took ’em food to eat when I could. Tried to tell ’em to come back into town, but they was too scared. Lost contact with ’em after that. Rumor was they disappeared into the backwaters. Ain’t sure exactly how they lived. I guess some o’ the folks lived out that way took pity on ’em. There’s been stories about a wild-man living in the swamps for years now. I always figured it was him. About the girl, I couldn’t say.’
The old man reached over to the table and with a shaky hand opened a drawer set underneath its top. He rummaged about for a moment then pulled out an old photograph and handed it to Luca. Luca inspected it and saw it was of the Baudet family, taken sometime in the 1880s, he guessed. The family wore formal clothes, stiff suits and stiff old-time poses, and they stood outside the estate house, which gleamed white in the sunshine.
‘That’s Monsieur and Madame Baudet,’ said the old man, pointing to the two figures. Luca stared at the faces. There was something familiar about Madame Baudet.
‘And that’s the children, Davide and Simone,’ he said. Luca peered at the children standing in front of their parents, at their somber, almost downcast faces, and it was only then that Luca realized who the girl in the photograph was – Simone, standing next to her brother, thirty years younger.
50
They had been parked in Little Italy for over an hour, a half-block from the address they had on file for Pietro Amanzo. The cream-colored Chevrolet Detective Jones had procured for the night was fast, but incredibly cramped, especially for a man of Hatener’s size. He was in his usual position in the backseat, along with Detective Gregson, and Michael was sitting up front with Jones. Hatener was pleased Michael had gone home while his wife was at work and changed his clothes, but he could tell from the man’s glazed eyes that he hadn’t slept.
After Michael had left him in the diner, Hatener had called the hotel he knew Luca was staying at and spoken to the concierge. The old Sicilian had sounded guarded on the phone, and claimed not to know who Luca was. Hatener had hung up and dialed about, until he reached Sandoval in his office. Sandoval sounded surprised to hear from him and when Hatener explained the situa
tion, Sandoval told him Luca had gone out of town for the day. Hatener had thought about whether he should come clean or not. From what he could tell, Amanzo wasn’t a made man yet, just an associate of the Family. He decided to err on the side of caution and explain to Sandoval what Michael wanted him to do. There was silence at the other end of the line, then Sandoval gave him the all clear – if Amanzo was killing policemen without the Family’s authorization, they needed to know.
So Hatener had returned to the precinct and organized things for the night, calling in Jones and Gregson, arranging the car, gathering up the tools they needed. Then when evening swung around, they drove over to Michael’s and picked him up. Hatener had to speak to the men guarding his house, explaining to them that if anyone asked they had never been there and Michael had spent the evening at home. The men had agreed readily enough and Hatener and the others had then driven over to Little Italy. When they reached Amanzo’s street, they had to speak to the two men tailing him and explain to them in similar terms that, should anyone ask, they hadn’t seen Amanzo emerge from his apartment all night. After that, they had settled back and waited in the cramped interior of the Chevrolet, not wanting to break into Amanzo’s apartment unless they had to.
Hatener had grown steadily more annoyed by the wait – the canvas roof of the car was leaking rain onto the seats, and the cigarettes Talbot and Jones were chain-smoking were making his throat burn. He remembered himself as a young man, when he had first started taking on these kinds of jobs. He remembered the edge, the anticipation, the bolt-like rush of energy. These days he just felt grumpy at the disruption to his routine and faintly anxious that something might go wrong. He stared at Jones and Gregson, his two protégés, their faces sinister in the shadows of the car, and he wondered if he had done the best by them. Then he thought of his son, lying in a muddy field somewhere in France. He looked out of the window and watched the raindrops crawling down the window, distorting the world beyond.
