Bayou Blue

by Raquel Byrnes

  Citrine laughed softly. She emptied the pan into a silver chaffing dish and I remembered that the Lighting Bug was a bed and breakfast. She must have other guests here.

  “She refused to eat her breakfast today,” Citrine murmured. “She says she is now a vegetarian.”

  “That’ll last until the next hamburger comes her way.”

  “This is my hope.” She took a sip of her coffee and smiled at him. “Are you sure they’re not in the room? You were quite tired last night if I recall. Maybe they’re on the floor by the bed?”

  So Jake stayed here last night.

  I looked at Citrine in her silky robe and then at Jake. If he never went home, then he must keep clothes here with her. This scene didn’t fit with the man I thought he was. A tug of jealousy pulled at my stomach.

  How cozy.

  I no longer felt guilty for stealing his keys and making him wait.

  “Looking for these?” I held the keys out.

  Jake turned and I thought I saw a tiny twitch under his right eye. He plucked them from my fingers.

  “You’re a thief now?”

  “I’m more like a secret borrower.” I nodded towards the door. “If you won’t stay and talk then I’ll go with you. I’m not opposed to a captive audience.”

  “Croyez-vous cela?” Jake looked past me to Citrine. “Do you believe this?”

  I turned to see her mouth the word, ‘trouble’ before looking back down at the eggs. I sniffed with irritation and walked into the parlor, my hand on the front doorknob.

  “I’m going with you, Jake.”

  “Fine.” He called back.

  I walked outside and tried the squad car but found it locked. Feeling a bit like my grand departure would be ruined if I went back in I sat on the porch stairs.

  A slight drizzle, more of a mist really, hung in the air. Tiny droplets landed on my nose and eyelashes and I blew at them. I looked at the sky and noticed the dark clouds from yesterday still hovering a few miles off.

  Jake came out two minutes later, put his hat back on his head and peered down at me.

  “Let’s go, then,” he murmured.

  I followed him across the pebbled driveway to the saw grass near the bank of the river.

  He headed towards the floating dock and motioned to the small canopied boat moored to the post.

  “We’re taking a boat?”

  “Looks like,” Jake said and untied the pull line.

  “But it looks like rain,” I glanced at the squad car and back at Jake.

  “The place I need to get to is quicker by boat.”

  “We’re not going to the sheriff’s station?” I eyed the cracks in the surface of the hull.

  Jake threw the coiled rope over the railing. “Nope.”

  Climbing carefully aboard, I sat in the plastic lawn chair bolted to the deck by the driver’s seat. It was hard to get use to this; the locals used boats as often as cars out here. Whether or not they were seaworthy was another question.

  Jake climbed in and we pulled away from the dock. We made an arc in the water down the river, away from the center of town and towards the overhanging willows.

  We rode in silence, my gaze bouncing along the verdant banks, up to the heavy tree boughs that bent in an arch just skimming the water’s surface and across the river to a small fishing hut. A man, nestled in a hammock tied between his boat and the post of the shack, lifted a hand to wave as we passed.

  Jake tipped his hat in return.

  “You know everyone here?” I asked.

  “Just about.” Jake looked at me with a raised brow. “You make it sound strange.”

  “No, it sounds nice. I just never…” I shrugged. “I don’t know what that’s like.”

  “Maybe if you settled down somewhere…” It was his turn to shrug.

  I wondered what he meant to say after that.

  Further down the water, we pulled alongside a pirogue.

  Two men lounged in the flat-bottomed boat floating in the reeds. Both of them wore camouflage, from their hunting boots to their ball caps. One man was blond, but his companion was as colorless as a baby mouse; white hair, brows, and lashes. I wondered if he was an albino. He wore sunglasses and his pale hands held a writhing baby alligator.

  “Hey there, Jake, what you got good to say?” The pale man shouted. He gave us an easy smile from underneath his cap.

  “Mason,” Jake said. He pointed to the baby alligator. The small reptile whipped back and forth, his taped snout straining against the binding. “What’re you and Dennis doing with this one?”

  “Aw, this caiman,” Mason shook his head. “He and his mamma are up in my shack all night trying for my chickens.”

  “You trapped his mother, too?” Jake shook his head. “Lucky you have both your arms.”

  The other man, Dennis, shrugged and nodded to the water. “She’s about here. Waiting for us to drop in her baby, I guess.”

  “You call for help next time,” Jake warned as he started the canopy boat.

  “You bet,” Mason piped up. “Sure enough, Jake.”

  We continued along the green waters, skimming the shore with our lighter boat and passing hulking trawlers with their sides covered in old tires. As the waterways narrowed, the traffic on the water lessened. Shrimp boats gave way to men passing in canoes. Their scraggly-looking dogs stood with tongues wagging on the front of their boat as we passed them. On the banks, we floated by trucks parked on the grass with spray painted signs announcing crabs for sale. Broken down shrimp shacks butted up against the water. No longer in use, they bore graffiti and the signs of disuse.

  We made our way further down the bayou and turned towards a stand of cypress, veering onto a path cut into a field of reeds, into the swamp. Great oaks stretched their gnarled arms over the water, their tops tangling with each other over our heads as we floated under the vast moving canopy.

  I blinked against the misty wind and listened to the tap-tapping of water drops overhead and wondered if the drizzle had turned to rain or if the dew was so heavy that it was dropping down on us. We cut an easy slice through the water and the rocking of the boat lulled my nerves. Jake’s profile was unreadable. I was irritated that I should care.

  “You’re very determined.” He said quietly.

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “I guess that depends on what you’re determined to do.”

  “I’m not out to cause trouble.”

  “Yeah,” Jake murmured. He slowed the engine and then looked at me with concern. “You keep saying that.”

  My phone buzzed again, startling me. Sighing, I stared at Perry’s text message.

  Don’t mess up this opportunity!

  8

  Jake navigated us along a snaking inlet that tunneled through arching weeping willows. The sunlight from when I woke up now faded to an eerie muffled orange behind charcoal clouds. A decent wind picked up and rocked the boughs that formed a foliage ceiling overhead. It seemed like the whole world was moving with us.

  I looked out at the water slicing off the front of the boat. “Where’re we going?”

  “I need to talk to someone.” Jake’s gaze flicked to the grassy banks and back. “After we talked last night, I thought it might help.”

  “We didn’t.”

  “What?” He looked over and got my meaning. “We didn’t talk about everything, no, but enough for me to make a call.”

  “I thought we were going to really discuss this. I have files—”

  “In due time, Riley,” Jake interrupted. “Morning is the only time we can catch a few minutes with her.”

  “Doesn’t she have a phone?”

  “This kind of thing goes better in person.”

  I nodded, secretly pleased that he’d not only listened to what I was saying, but acted on it already. It made his infernal slow pace easier to take. “So who is it?”

  Jake scrunched his eyes and then bobbed his shoulders. “She’s sort of hard to explain.”


  “How about trying?”

  “How about showing,” he countered and pointed to our right.

  The building was a white structure, the kind I’d seen atop river boats, but nestled under a stand of cypress trees instead. White lattice nailed to the roof held up a sign painted in faded red script, Verona’s Vittles. People sat in bunches around tables under the wrap-around porch. The place looked busy.

  “What is a Verona?” I asked, as he pulled up alongside a wood pylon.

  “Verona is a she and vittles…well, you’ll see.”

  A worn tire encircled a wood post on the side of the dock and our boat bumped against it as Jake hopped out and tied us to it. I noticed a half dozen other make-shift craft lolling in the water nearby. On the grassy hill leading away from the water, more people stood against the tree trunks holding steaming coffee mugs and laughing. A low song, accordion and fiddle music reminiscent of pirate movies, squeaked out of a rusty speaker over the door as if from a far off radio.

  We were at a café, one that probably few tourists knew about. I’d heard them called lieu local, a local place. Jake strode ahead, tipping his hat to a group of ladies who smiled as we approached.

  They looked at me with curiosity, but no hatred, as we passed.

  I let out a slow breath of relief. I didn’t realize how nervous it made me to be in the midst of those my brother hurt. I carried his guilt with me like an unpleasant odor, wary of offending others by my mere presence. It wasn’t rational. I knew that. But I took care to give physical space as I passed, careful not to further their grief by treading too near.

  And still their ways fascinated me. The smell of strange meat, the hearty laughter, and the shadows of the draping trees over the casual crowd made me think of wandering parties I’d read about in storybooks about far away islands in the Caribbean. It seemed that this place, these people, knew so much more about living than I did. Suddenly, coffee and cottage cheese at my kitchen counter seemed so empty.

  We walked along a path of bare dirt in the grass. Men dressed in slacks and ties stood alongside men in overalls. Women with bright-flowered dresses chatted next to steel pots set atop cement block fireplaces. Golden liquid bubbled in the pots, its rich aroma making my mouth water. Near the café’s railing, the wind kicked up the patterned tablecloths and flipped the brims of the older women’s hats.

  “What is this…a lobster boil?” I checked my watch. “At ten in the morning?”

  “Nah, its just breakfast on the bayou.” Jake nodded to a group of people sitting on a wood fence. They raised their white coffee mugs.

  “Comment ça va, Jake?” An older black man, thin with cotton-white hair, called out from the rocking chair near the door. How are you?

  Jake waved. “Très bien, very good.”

  “Been a bit since you git down here.” Another man called out. Short and round, he wore a grey uniform with a patch of a caged skunk on the breast pocket. His dirty blond hair spiked out from his head like he’d licked a light socket.

  “Be coming ‘round soon, Kale,” Jake answered.

  I noticed Jake’s speech got sloppier, more accented when he talked with locals.

  Climbing the steps to the porch, I heard the raucous laughter of a woman, followed by lower tones of men, and then the crash of dishes.

  Jake held the door open for me and smiled. “That’s Verona.”

  Walking into the café, I was hit with the intoxicating blend of coffee and breakfast meats on the griddle. My stomach growled again.

  “Wait here.” Jake left my side and I watched him make his way over to a group of people eating at the breakfast counter.

  He walked towards a black woman, pretty, older than Jake by at least ten years, I guessed. Her long, braided hair fell to her waist. She stood at the far end of the counter. Fanning herself with a dishcloth, she chuckled as two men across the counter leaned on their elbows over their plates with whispering smiles. One of the men, a red-head wearing waders and a t-shirt with no sleeves, said something to her.

  “Oh, Pilkey, you crack me up,” she breathed and collapsed into silent chuckles again, resting her head on her arms on the counter.

  Jake reached out and touched her elbow.

  Her head popped up and she beamed. “Hey, Jake.”

  “I need to ask you something.” I heard Jake say. I saw him nod back in my direction.

  Verona leaned over the counter to peer at me and then nodded.

  “We’ll go on back.” Verona swatted the two men at the counter with her dishcloth. “You better be sure Flanders don’t catch you all out on his land,” she warned them, and then walked with Jake over to me.

  She walked with a sashay, hands on her hips, large brown eyes taking me in. By the time she got to me, she was smiling. “Well, Red, I hear you’re fixing to stir up some trouble,” she said in a whisper.

  I couldn’t deny that searching for answers here would, in fact, stir up trouble. All I could do was shrug. “It’d be nice if it didn’t, but that’s not going to stop me from poking around.”

  “I heard about Carl’s tantrum over at the Roustabout.” Her dark eyes, barely touched by time at the corners, regarded me with amusement. “That kind of reception would’ve sent most people running back to the city.”

  “Well, as Jake said, I’m pretty determined.”

  Verona’s smile broadened and she winked. “That’s not all Jake’s been saying about you, Red.”

  My face went hot. “Sorry?”

  She shook her head slowly, her gaze on Jake. “Don’t be.”

  “Can we just cut to the chase, Ver—” Jake started, but Verona shushed him with a swat from her towel.

  “Hush now, the girl can speak for herself,” she chided. She arched a brow at me. “Can’t you?”

  “I certainly can.” My hand went subconsciously to my hair. Red? Does auburn count?

  “Mmmhmm,” Verona eyed me. “Did he feed you?”

  “We left before Citrine—”

  Jake winced and then Verona turned on him. “Did I just hear her right?”

  “V, don’t start.” Jake put his hands up in front of him.

  “I cannot believe what I am hearing, Jake. I should have beat that woman when I had the chance.”

  “That’s not the business we’re here to discuss, V.”

  “Everything, is my business. Isn’t that why you come here? Now I told you about that woman—”

  Jake rubbed his face with one palm. “V, not now. And stop calling her ‘that woman’.”

  She raised an eyebrow, but let it go.

  Apparently Jake doesn’t like people picking on Citrine.

  Verona turned back to the counter and yelled, “Tell Pam to bring us out a special.”

  No one stood at the counter, but a voice from the kitchen shouted back. “The new special, or the old one?”

  Jake and V answered in tandem, “Old one.”

  “Well then,” Verona took my arm. “Let’s get a booth.”

  We walked to a table in the back corner. He put his hat on the bench next to me. Jake and Verona sat in the seat opposite.

  Pam brought out mugs with coffee and set a platter between us. Piled with beignets and doughnut holes, the sweet, warm treats made my mouth water.

  I closed my eyes and said a quick whispered prayer. When I opened them, Verona and Jake were both looking at me.

  “What?”

  Verona shrugged and dug into the platter, but Jake had a strange expression on his face.

  “I thought your mother and father were atheists?”

  “They are.” I took a sugar-coated doughnut hole and took a bite. Washing it down with a sip of the rich, dark coffee I smiled broadly. “I’m not them.”

  Verona cleared her throat.

  “Eat ‘em while they’re warm, Red. That’s the best way.” She grabbed a beignet and shook the excess sugar off before popping it in her mouth.

  “Wow. I’ve been getting short-changed out there in California.”
/>   “Maybe you ought to move out here, then,” Verona quipped and her gaze flitted to Jake.

  He cleared his throat and kept his eyes in his coffee mug. “We need to talk to you, V.”

  Verona squinted. “What are you fixing to do out here?”

  Jake put his hand up. “She’s not here to start any kind of trouble, V. Am I clear on that?”

  She swished her hand at Jake dismissively and pointed to his mug. “Drink your coffee, Jake, you’re cranky.” She smiled at me. “So do tell, baby girl, what have you got on your mind?”

  “I’m trying to find out who framed my brother.”

  Jake rolled his eyes. “Aw man, Riley, just ease into it, will you?”

  Verona laughed and hit Jake in the chest with the back of her hand. “I like her.”

  “You would,” Jake grouched. “She’s trying to prove her brother was not alone in the chemical plant explosion.”

  “And you’re helping her?” Verona clicked her tongue at Jake and winked. “Do tell?”

  “You knew her brother?” Jake asked, ignoring her question.

  “He came in here, sure.” Verona frowned. “I thought he was a nice guy.”

  I stiffened. “He was.”

  Verona didn’t respond. She looked at Jake. “He used to hang out with Dauby LaRoche. I heard they were really tight right up until the whole plant explosion. After that, Dauby disappeared.”

  “You sure? Dauby was close with Randy?”

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?” She popped a bite into her mouth.

  I took a sip of my coffee. “How’d they know each other?”

  “The port, maybe? Dauby worked the docks, sometimes.”

  “The docks? Over in Port Vert?” Jake scratched his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  She let out an exaggerated sigh. “Boy, why do you come down here asking me questions and then don’t believe me?”

  “That’s not what I said,” Jake answered her.

  I could see the confusion cross his features and understood. Why would my brother drop out of the university to work and hang out at the docks?

  “Dauby and Randy came in with the other guys from the port?”

  “Yeah, you know those boys. They get paid and come in here to trade their sweat for food and entertainment soon as they cash in. It’s like clock-work every Friday. Them, and the plant workers. All those shift workers come here for some down time. I think we even get some of the boys who work on the fishing trawlers in here.”