by D. A. Bale
I think Mr. Barthélémy was a mite impressed if the sparkle in his eye was any indicator. I know I was.
“What timeframe ya lookin’ fer?”
“Civil War period,” Janine said.
“Civil War, ya don’t say?”
“Yes, particularly around the time of the Union’s occupation of this area.”
A grin mustered its way past his sagging skin and increased the sparkle in his eye as Mr. Barthélémy leaned over the desk until I was afraid he’d fall across it with a final beat of his heart.
“Ye’ve come lookin’ fer the gold.”
Chapter Thirteen
If you’ve ever sat inside a vault for any length of time, you’re gonna appreciate my pain. The walls are thick. There’s no ventilation. The only air flow is from the open door. In stifling Louisiana. In a building built when such fantasies like modern air conditioning could get you burned at the stake for heresy.
The one good thing? Because of the nature of preservation needed for all these records, they had installed a portable dehumidifier inside the vault that ran twenty-four seven – and likely needed emptied every hour.
Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. But with the way I was glistening straight through my lingerie, I had to have added a good quart of moisture to the surrounds.
Which was why I’d left Janine to the actual handling of the registers. The latex gloves were already making my hands drip from the trapped heat, and unwanted perspiration might ruin the precious parchment and get us banned.
I was afraid Mr. Barthélémy was gonna pull a muscle – better yet, take a tumble – before he rested what appeared to be a twenty-pound ledger at the table’s end. “Ya might wanna take a looksee in here. This here’s from the Tangipahoa Parish records.”
I took a gander at the faded gold lettering on the cracked leather cover. “Why’s all of this here instead of at the county…er, parish courthouse?”
“The courthouse and library been goin’ all digital and photographin’ everthang, then sendin’ it all t’ us ‘cause we have this climate-controlled vault.”
A dehumidifier counts as a climate-controlled environment now? Who knew?
“Thank you, Mr. Barthélémy,” Janine said. “This is a real treasure-trove you have here.”
“Just call me Jerome, Dr. De’Laruse. And the real treasure is that gold.”
Janine didn’t correct Jerome’s assumption of her doctoral status, and I wasn’t about to offer to either. Besides, my bestie would hold that title soon enough anyway. What’s a few months after all of these years?
“Eh,” I said with a sharp glance to Janine. “That whole gold thing is just a myth.”
Jerome shook his head. “Actual fact. Seen the ship’s manifest m’self. Got it ‘round here somewhere.”
“Really?” Janine asked, ignoring my keep quiet about the gold look. “I thought France remained neutral during the conflict.”
‘Course she’d know that.
“Sho’nuff, far as the public was concerned. But that thar Napolean III had ambitions in Mexico at the time too. A vessel got all the way through them Rigolets and past Fort Pike into Lake Pontchartrain ‘afore it got captured by the Yanks. It be said them gold bars was t’ go t’ the Confederacy’s cause.” A sharp pop echoed in the vault as Jerome stood straight and shuffled toward the open doorway. “Well, I’ll be out here at my desk when you’re done with these.”
Janine worried her lower lip between her teeth as she watched his retreat. “Is it wrong to let him believe I already possess that title?”
“After all the education and degrees you already hold?” I whispered. “At this point, all you’re missing is the certified paper to hang on your office wall.”
“You’re right.” She smiled. “That did sound nice though…Dr. De’Laruse.”
I nodded. “And that was pretty interesting about the ship. Should we ask him to locate that manifest?”
“The journal already mentioned the ship, so I don’t see how reading a manifest would help the search at this stage.”
“Okay then, doctor, we’ve got a lot of work to do and not much time to do it in, so let’s get busy.” I sighed as I took in everything neatly arranged on the table. “I thought he’d never leave.”
“He probably wanted to see if I really knew what I was doing with these records before leaving us alone with them,” she returned, tugging the Bonafeld journal from her purse and setting it in front of me. “The spine is a little more fragile after that tumble last night, so be careful when you turn the pages.”
“Me? You’re the old, musty documents expert, remember?”
“I need to handle this while you read,” she said, drawing the big parish ledger to her before opening it with both hands. “Oh, this is deeds and bills of sale starting from before the war.” Her brow scrunched. “The sale of slaves encompasses the entire first page.”
“Look here,” I said, trying to draw her attention from the checkered past. “It’s a membership register from the Louisiana Ladies’ Aid Society. Didn’t they help injured soldiers during the war?”
“Isabella’s probably mentioned in their rolls,” Janine murmured about her ancestor, carefully turning the oversized ledger page. Her upper lip curled in increasing disgust with every gentle page turn. “Human beings…bought and sold like cattle. How could they have done such things generation after generation?”
“They were idiots?”
“They claimed to be Christian too.”
Hmm. Just like some people I knew in today’s world. “They were misguided, self-righteous idiots?”
“And my ancestors participated in this…this…our family fortune built on the backs of others.”
“That’s it,” I growled with a slap on the table.
Okay, I’ve been known to be bitchy on occasion, but I was getting pretty tired of seeing my best friend saddled with the responsibility of others’ actions. We were finally making some headway this week concerning her brother, so I’d be damned if I was gonna stand by while she shouldered more responsibility for something when she wasn’t even a twinkle in her great-great-great grandpappy’s eye.
“Janine look,” I said, placing my hands on her shoulders to face me. Tears glistened in her eyes. “You aren’t responsible for their stupidity. I’m not responsible for their stupidity. Our ancestors fought, bled, and some died to stop that madness. If the rumors are to be believed, your great-great-great grandfather worked with the Union, which means we can reasonably assume he had a change of heart concerning slavery.”
“Or he was simply looking out for his own skin.”
I shrugged. “True. But my point is all of that is in the past where it belongs. The only reason we’re looking into the past today is because Addie asked us to help her find…you know what.”
Her shoulders beneath my hands relaxed – a little.
“But do you really think there might be something to all of that?” Janine mulled. “After all, people have been talking about it and sneaking in to dig around on the family plot for more than a hundred and fifty years now. If it really was there, surely someone else discovered it during all this time.”
“It’s possible,” I agreed. “But they didn’t have this.” I held up the journal and pressed it toward her face until her eyes crossed.
She laughed and swiped the corners of her eyes. “Fine. Let’s get to work then.”
About an hour and a half later, my back and neck ached. I almost fell asleep from boredom – twice. Worst of all, my stomach rumbled in loud protest to a missed lunch, and my navel inched closer to my spine with each passing minute.
“Have you noticed something different about Addie this visit?” I ventured to keep myself from the sandman’s clutches.
“You mean that she seems a little less…oh, how should I put it?” Janine mused. “Temperamental?”
“I was thinking less cranky.”
“That works too.”
“And she’s been standing
up for you more.”
“Mm-hmm. But I’m kinda liking it,” Janine said, then propped her chin in her hand. “I still think there’s something she’s not telling us. Like something’s wrong.”
“Besides turning ninety this week?” I asked.
She grabbed my arm and I almost dropped the journal. “You don’t think she’s got cancer or anything, do you?”
“Relax, Janine. Even if that were the case, she’s lived a long life as it stands now. We all have to go sometime.”
Okay, I was seriously freaking myself out. Over the past couple of days, I’d already stood up to both my mom and Janine’s, morphed into my own sort of motherly figure over Slinky, and now I was philosophizing about life and death like some sort of Sigmund Fraud.
I grabbed my phone and pecked out Bonafeld’s name in multiple search engines. At least this puppy wouldn’t get ruined by acid rain sweat stains. Worst case scenario I’d short out the stupid thing due to liquid immersion.
Several possibilities popped up in the search parameters. “Hey, Janine, did the journal mention anything about when and where Bonafeld was born?”
“Not that I read,” she replied. “The only dates were at the beginning of each journal entry. Are you searching online?”
“Yup.” I tried narrowing the search a little further. “Anything about what regiment he was with?”
“Huh-uh. But he was a lieutenant, so that would help.”
Nope. Still too much digging to do. “I’m gonna go ask Mr. Barthélémy if the society has anything around here on the Union soldiers.”
“K,” Janine said, nose deep in her own search.
Mr. Barthélémy pecked away on a computer that appeared stuck in a time warp. The thing probably didn’t even have internet capabilities.
“Mr. Barthélémy?”
“What can I do fer ya, Miss Bohanan? And remember, call me Jerome.”
“Okay, Jerome. And you can call me Vicki.”
“Alrighty then. Did ya have a question, Vicki?”
“Does the historical society have any records about Union activities from the Civil War? Particularly about soldiers around Heaven’s Gate?”
“Did ya have a particular name o’ Yank in mind?”
“Bonafeld. Lieutenant John D. Bonafeld.”
I kept the Yank’s journal to myself. Addie had entrusted us with it, and though we’d had a few mishaps along the way, I didn’t want to reveal to anyone its existence. At least any more than we already had.
The slow peck-peck-peck of two finger typing lulled me like a metronome into a near doze before Jerome spoke again. “Ah, here ‘tis.” He squinted and adjusted his glasses. “They’s a book with somethin’ ‘bout that there Bonafeld Yank.”
“Can you point me in the right direction?”
“Cain’t. That particular set o’ documents was loaned t’ the folks over at the university week ‘afore last.”
Before I could ask about getting it returned, Jerome’s face split into a grin. “But I gots connections there, so let me see what I can do.”
“That’d be great, Mr…Jerome.”
I gave him my cell number then returned to the vault. The steaming, grungy, hot vault that smelled like dusty mothballs.
“What’d he say?” Janine asked without looking up.
“He’ll call me when he finds the information.”
Janine drifted into silence again before speaking up as she dug through the latest ledger of deeds. “Did you know the family landholdings once equaled over five thousand acres?”
“That’s a lot of fields to plant,” I said, stretching and twisting my muscles to stem such backbreaking thoughts. “Where’d you find that?”
“Here,” Janine said, pointing a dusty, gloved fingertip toward the entry. “Great-great-great Grandpa-pa bought about a hundred more acres from an adjoining property owner after the war ended and put his total ownership above the five thousand acre mark. He got it for a song too.”
“That’s ‘cause few here in the south had money by the time the Civil War ended.”
“Yet somehow the De’Laruse family still did,” she surmised. “Hey, here’s another entry three weeks later to buy up about fifty acres to the south bordering Lake Pontchartrain.”
“Hmm, all that property became extremely valuable when development began, not to mention the building of the interstate systems.” Stretching wasn’t doing it, so I paced while I did internet research.
“In the eighteen hundreds, it was the rail lines.”
“It says here that Hammond was a main hub serving Louisiana. Matter-of-fact, it still is.”
“Here are three more bills of sale in just as many months.” Janine glanced up from the musty text, her blue eyes rounded in surprised speculation. “Do you think his purchase of all this land was where the gold rumors came from?”
“I’d think at this point it’d be safe to say they weren’t just rumors.”
“When everyone else was destitute, J. Everard De’Laruse had money to burn, buying up land for pennies on the dollar,” Janine mused aloud. “But why? Slavery had been abolished. There was no one else left to work the land after so many of the south’s sons lay buried in faraway fields.”
“Your dad always says a De’Laruse must be a forward thinker,” I offered. “Though I think George’s understanding of this phrase is way off kilter.”
Janine giggled. “I’ve quite enjoyed seeing him get smacked down by Grandma-ma these last few days. If I hadn’t been so horrified over the journal’s potential demise last night, I might’ve spewed water across the table when she literally slapped his hand.”
“An action he could’ve used more of in his younger years,” I said stifling another yawn.
“Hey, better late than never. I’m just glad I was around to see it.”
My stomach interrupted our reverie with another loud protest. “Speaking of George, do you think there will be any lunch left by the time we return to the house?”
“Maisie has probably kept something warm for us, I’m sure,” Janine assured, “but we do need to get back.”
As we sought to straighten up and organize the ledgers for Jerome to put away, I summed up the day’s efforts thus far. “Okay, we know after the war your De’Laruse ancestor bought up more property in the area while many were desperate to sell for any price.”
“And with the fact Grandma-ma’s landholdings total only four or five hundred acres now, that land has been gradually sold off.”
“Probably at premium pricing too, with all of the area development.”
“And the fact that Heaven’s Gate still stands means there was a reason the Union didn’t burn her down after they withdrew at the end of the war.”
“Which gives credence to the collusion rumors.”
“But what about the gold?” Janine whispered. “I mean, there’s irrefutable evidence now it did exist.”
I didn’t want to burst Janine’s bubble, but we had to look at this realistically. “Even so, you do realize the likelihood we’ll find any treasure in the next few days is virtually nil.”
“But Bonafeld wrote about it in his journal. Mr. Barthélémy has seen the ship’s manifest. Do you think we should ask to see it anyway?”
“But who’s to say the gold ever came to Heaven’s Gate?” I challenged. “That’s what I’m getting at.”
“But the journal…”
“Then if it did rest on De’Laruse land,” I continued, “why didn’t the Union take it with them when they left the area? Or ship it north? They had control of the main rail lines, remember?”
The wheels started turning in Janine’s brain with a cock of her head and a hum. She glanced over the ledgers laid across the table and chewed on her upper lip as she sorted the pieces like a puzzle – and I got a front row seat to witness the sheer strength of her intellect.
Yep, they were definitely grooming the wrong De’Laruse, and it angered me anew that no one else realized that fact. I had to get my be
stie out from under her parents before George took control and squandered the fortune their ancestors built, thereby leaving Janine destitute. Not. Gonna. Happen. Not on my watch.
The ah-ha moment hit with a purse of Janine’s lips. “Do you think Everard De’Laruse used the gold to buy all those land parcels?”
I thought about it for a sec. “It’s a good bet.”
“Then if that’s the case,” Janine continued with a sag of her shoulders. “It’s also a good bet he spent it all and there may be nothing left.”
“True,” I said. “There’s only one problem with that theory.”
“And what’s that?”
“Why keep this…” I whipped the journal in front of her again. “…a secret?”
Chapter Fourteen
Have you ever really, really wanted to punch someone who deserved it?
Yeah, me too – though sometimes nature has a better hand to play.
After filling our bellies on Maisie’s famous shrimp and sausage jambalaya – yes, rich snooty people eat this southern Louisiana staple too – we changed clothes then set out to spend the remainder of the sunlight-saturated afternoon exploring the De’Laruse estate grounds.
While I typically don’t mind a brisk walk – brisk being the operative word – I was plumb worn out by the lack of sleep the last few days and the welcoming weather Louisiana offered. In order to take in as much of the extensive grounds as possible, with the least amount of exertion, we opted for a sauntering ride.
Maurice saddled a couple of horses for us in slow, methodical fashion, then sent us on our way with a warning. “Watch out fer that thar gator, mind ya.”
“Gator?” Janine questioned.
“Yep, still haven’t trapped the dang thang yet, but I’m closing in on ‘at willy sucker.”
I shivered. The sorrel nickered and chuffed in agreement as I took her reins from Maurice, and we set off at a meandering pace.
