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“I was late getting to work ’cause trees limbs were down on the road. When I got to the house, my key wouldn’t go in the front lock.”
“Which house?”
“The big house, Mr. Timothy’s. The key wouldn’t work. The lock looked like somebody drove a screwdriver in it. I went around back, but the door was bolted from inside. I banged on all the doors, but nobody answered.”
“Who’s supposed to be there besides Mr. Timothy?”
“The maid and the gardener, but they probably couldn’t get t’rew on the road.”
“What about Kermit and Weingart?”
“They went off to the casino in New Orleans for a couple of days. I put a ladder up to the window. I could see a shape inside one of the doors, just standing there, not moving.”
&n
bsp; “That doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m telling you what I saw. There’s a shape in the doorway. It’s not moving. I’m scared, Mr. Dave.”
“Where are you now?”
“Right outside the house.”
“I’m heading over there. Call the sheriff’s office in Franklin.”
“No, suh.”
“Why won’t you call the sheriff?”
“This is still St. Mary Parish. It doesn’t change. Y’all want to believe it has, but you’re just fooling yourself.”
“Look, Mr. Timothy doesn’t stay at night by himself. Who else was there?”
“Mr. Emiliano, the Spanish man from Nicaragua.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes. But you have to call the St. Mary sheriff. I don’t have authority outside Iberia Parish.”
“Yes, suh. I’m putting the ladder up by the sunporch now. I can see to the hallway,” she said. “Oh, Lord, that t’ing is still standing there.”
“What thing?”
“Hurry up, Mr. Dave,” she said. Then I heard her crying just before she dropped the cell phone.
CHAPTER
23
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, my flasher rippling, I came up behind a utility truck and an ambulance and a St. Mary Parish sheriff’s cruiser on the two-lane that led to the Abelard house. Men in hard hats and overalls were chainsawing a fallen tree and hauling it in segments off the asphalt. The sheriff, Tony Judice, shook hands with me. “Jewel Laveau said she called me after you told her to,” he said.
“It was something like that, I guess,” I replied, not meeting his eyes.
He caught my embarrassment. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We didn’t treat people of color around here very well. I don’t know why we’re surprised when they act the way they do.”
“I couldn’t understand everything she was saying,” I said, changing the subject. “Did you get anything out of her?”
“She was yelling about her father. I thought her father died years ago,” he replied.
When the utility workers had cleared the road, I followed the sheriff’s cruiser to the Abelard home. The sun was white on the bay, the wind blowing stiffly out of the south. There was a bright smell in the air, as though the land had been swept clean by the storm. But Jewel Laveau was a quick reminder that there was no joy or sense of renewal to be found at the home of the Abelards. She sat on a folding chair in her white uniform in the shade of the boathouse, her shoulders rounded, her large hands spread like baseball gloves on her knees. Her eyes were rheumy, her nose wet, when she looked up at us. “What took y’all?”
