Murder in the Rue Chartres (12 page)

Before the storm, I’d had bad dreams from time to time. After I’d killed a man a year or so earlier, I’d relived that horror at night, waking up screaming and drenched in sweat—but I’d had Paul to hold me and calm me down, to get me through it. The nightmares I’d endured after Paul’s death had been bad as well. After a few months of being nightmare-free, the dreams had come back after the evacuation and the breaking of the levees, but this one was, hands down, the worst I’d ever had. This dream had been so real, more real than any other dream I’d ever had. Back when I was staying in Dallas with Jude, the nightmares had never been New Orleans–related: they had Paul as the common theme. It was like the disaster had triggered the synapse in my brain controlling the Paul dreams. But I’d never dreamed about the horror that had befallen New Orleans. That horror I’d watched on television day after day, and those horrible images had haunted my waking hours. No, when I’d gone to sleep, it had been Paul who’d haunted my dreams.

Maybe it was because of what Paige had told me—maybe that had triggered the nightmare. I took another hit from the pipe and leaned back against the sofa. The pain Paige had been carrying around locked inside her head for all those years—it was no wonder she was popping pills now like M&M’s and guzzling whiskey. I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d always been suffering, or if the flood had somehow washed away her own internal defense mechanisms, releasing memories she’d locked away for years.

The pot was helping. I could feel my body relaxing, my heart rate slowing to normal.

I’d dreamed I was in a house I didn’t recognize. Paige, Venus, Blaine, and I were all sitting on the floor, around a hurricane lamp and its eerie yellowish glow. Outside the storm was hitting—that horrible howling roar, the crashing of debris as it slammed against the building, the sound of trees blowing down and smashing through things as they landed. Blaine kept moaning over and over, “Why didn’t we leave? Why didn’t we leave?” None of us answered him; we were holding hands. Venus was squeezing my right hand so hard I thought my hand was going to break, and on my other side, Paige was crying softly and praying under her breath. And then the storm was over and the sun came out, shining through the windows. Everything seemed to be fine. The power was out, but we had water and more than enough food to last us for however long we needed. We all got up and walked outside, and marveled at the tree branches, the debris and whatever else had changed since we’d gone inside to ride it out. We were joking and laughing, hugging, and giving each other high-fives…and then Paige got a puzzled look on her face. “That’s odd,” she’d said, and we’d all turned to look. The street was filling up with water.

“Where’s the water coming from?” Blaine asked—and then in the distance we heard a loud crash and roar.

And then the water started rising, faster and faster. “Get inside!” Venus screamed, and I slammed the door behind us. I stood in the window as they ran upstairs, and the water was submerging cars, climbing and swirling up to porch level.

“Come on!” I heard Paige scream, and then water was coming over the threshold.

I ran up the stairs to the second floor, and the angry swirling water came after us. “We’ve got to get on the roof!” Blaine screamed, grabbing an ax. Venus pulled on a rope and the trapdoor to the attic opened a folding wooden ladder unfurling. Blaine went up first, then Venus, and then I followed. Paige came behind me and then I heard her scream. I turned to look, and I saw her being carried away in the angry brown water, and I tried to reach for her. But she was gone…she can’t swim, I thought, and started screaming for her. The water kept rising and I felt the house shift and move, and then it was washing away, floating until it smashed into another house and came apart. Venus screamed, and I tried to grab for Venus but couldn’t get there in time and she was gone, her head going under. “Blaine!” I screamed, and I couldn’t see him anywhere, and the water was at my knees. I grabbed the ax and started swinging it at the roof. I hacked my way out, and climbed out. The sun was shining, and I could see the house we’d slammed into, and then the roof began to tilt, and I leaped onto the other house’s room. “Blaine!” I shouted, and then I saw him floating facedown beside the house and I started screaming.

And that’s when I woke up.

Jesus fucking Christ
. I reached for the pipe again, and took another hit.
Calm down, it was just a dream
, I told myself.

My heart had started racing again, and I could feel my mind starting to spiral off. I couldn’t stop it, and that was the worst part. I knew I was thinking crazy thoughts, but I couldn’t make them stop, I couldn’t get my brain to rewire itself and think calmly. There would be another hurricane and we wouldn’t be able to get out this time. This would be it, it would come up the river, what was left of the city would be destroyed when the river levees collapsed and we’d all die…I fumbled for the pill bottle Paige had given me, grabbed a Xanax, and washed it down with Coke. I took another hit off the pipe and sat back, letting my mind race until suddenly…

It was over. It was like a curtain of calm had dropped over me. The panic was gone, my heart stopped racing, and everything was just—fine.

“Wow,” I said aloud.

Paige was right. Xanax was a wonder drug.

I walked back into the bedroom and stripped the damp sheets off the bed. I got some fresh ones out of the linen closet and remade the bed, humming the whole time. Wow. I lay back down, staring at the ceiling. Everything would be fine.

“So that’s what an anxiety attack feels like,” I thought, shuddering a little at the memory. It was astonishing what a difference the drug had made. I made a note to myself to get my own prescription as soon as I could.

And finally, I fell asleep again.

I woke up feeling incredibly rested and relaxed—like the nightmare and the following attack had never happened. I took a shower while I brewed a pot of coffee and signed on while drinking my first cup. Might as well take advantage of this energy, I figured. Time to start looking for the missing dad—if Iris had been murdered because she wanted to locate her father, maybe I could find some kind of hint as to who didn’t want him found by finding out what actually did happen to him. I went to a website for licensed private eyes and keyed in a search for his Social Security number. His last known address was the house on Third Street; no address— nothing of any kind—after 1973. I cruised around on a number of different sites. He hadn’t filed an income tax return, either state or federal, under that Social Security number since 1972. He had never applied for a new Social Security number, either. There was absolutely no trace of him out there past June 1973.

There were only two possibilities: he’d either left the country, or he’d died. In fact, the last time his Social Security number appeared anywhere was in the court records when Margot Verlaine divorced him for desertion in 1980.

And although it was possible he’d left the country, I thought it unlikely. If Michael Mercereau had left the country for good, it was unlikely Iris had been killed because she wanted to find him—and like Venus, I distrusted coincidences. So, not only was it more likely that he was dead, it was also likely he hadn’t died of natural causes. It was the only thing that made sense.

I pulled out the envelope I’d found in Iris’s bedroom and slipped out the photograph of Michael Mercereau and “Aunt” Cathy. I went to a few search engines and typed his name in, but all that came up were links to websites with mentions of a couple of Michael Mercereaus who were obviously too young to be the one I was looking for—one was a baseball coach in Georgia, another a real estate agent in Montana, and the third a college professor in Utah. I did a search for Cathy Verlaine, then Cathy Mercereau, but those were both useless as well—nothing came up on either name.

So, the question was, who the hell was Aunt Cathy?

Might as well ask the old man when I went over there.

*

I arrived at the Verlaine house promptly at noon, and was buzzed in the gate. The front door opened as I climbed the steps, but instead of the black woman who’d greeted me the last time, a white woman in her late fifties stood in the doorway. Her steel-gray hair was pulled away from her face in a rather severe French braid that was a little unflattering, but her face was round and pink. Her eyes were wide and brown, and she was wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, a pair of gray slacks, and a blue silk blouse with a scarf knotted at the neck. She smelled faintly of Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds perfume—Paige always wears it. She was smiling. She looked pleasant and friendly and was still relatively attractive, even if a little thick in the waist and hips. “Mr. MacLeod? You’re right on time.” She extended a ring free, blue-veined hand for me to shake. “I’m Emily Hunter, Mr. Verlaine’s personal assistant. He’s waiting for you in the solarium. You’ll have lunch there. I hope you aren’t allergic or have any aversions to seafood?”

“No, Ms. Hunter.”

“It’s Miss Hunter. Good. Mr. Verlaine always likes to have shrimp Creole for lunch on Wednesdays, and he sticks to his schedule. There will be a salad and shrimp bisque first, then the main course, and bread pudding for dessert.” She gave a slight nod. “Does that sound all right?”

“Sounds good to me.” I wasn’t partial to shrimp Creole—while I like shrimp, this local specialty was made with a lot of tomatoes, and sometimes if made poorly it was more like tomato soup with shrimp floating in it—but I’d suck it up and eat it, if it meant getting some information out of Percy Verlaine. He was the only one left who had really known Michael Mercereau. “Do you know why Mr. Verlaine wanted to see me?”

She gave me a very careful smile. “That’s for Mr. Verlaine to tell you. This way, please. He’s waiting—and he hates to be kept waiting.”

She led me down a side hallway into a room that was all glass, and filled with gigantic plants of every kind—massive elephant ferns, orchids, roses, and banana trees, all in planters. The plants needed to be trimmed down; there was a sense of lush vegetation, kind of like a jungle gone wild. I recognized some Venus flytraps under glass just off to the left, their mouths open and hungry. The air was humid and damp, and I felt myself starting to sweat under my arms and on my forehead. The glass was tinted to keep out the direct glare of the sun, but it was still bright. There was a small wire table set up for lunch. Facing me was a shriveled old man in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank next to him. Just behind him was a thickly muscled man with his arms folded. His bare forearms were covered with brightly colored tattoos of a slightly Catholic persuasion—a sacred heart, a Blessed Mother, and some others I didn’t recognize. He was almost as tall as me, but easily had thirty or forty pounds on me. Though thicker, he didn’t seem fat at all. His hair was slicked back and the jet-black color that comes from a bottle, like Joshua’s. He had no expression on his face, but I could tell his nose had been broken more than once.

As I approached, the old man put a breath mask over his mouth and nose and sucked down some oxygen.

“Mr. MacLeod is here.” She gave a slight bow, and walked out, her heels clicking on the stone floor. I heard the door shut behind her.

“Forgive me if I don’t shake your hand,” the gaspy voice from the telephone said as he placed the oxygen mask back down. “Germs. At my age, I can’t take the risk. Please be seated.”

“And you are?” I said to the man behind him.

“That’s my bodyguard, Lenny Pousson.” The old man waved a hand. “Pay him no mind.”

I stuck my hand out. “Nice to meet you, Lenny.”

Lenny stuck out a thick hairy paw that seemed to envelope my hand completely. “Nice to meetcha,” he said in a thick yat accent. “I watched you play in the Sugar Bowl a coupla times.” His mouth twitched at the corners in what probably was supposed to pass as a smile.

“Sure you want to shake hands with a fag, Lenny?” the old man wheezed. “Aren’t you afraid you might catch something?”

Lenny’s face froze and he pulled his hand back as though burned. He refolded his arms and wiped any expression off his face.

“I didn’t come here to be insulted,” I said, keeping my voice even.

“My apologies.” Percy Verlaine gave me a nasty smile. “I like to yank Lenny’s chain from time to time. Please be seated.”

I sat down and took a good look at him. His head was completely devoid of hair, and his scalp gleamed in the sunlight. His skin was thin as paper, so I could see almost every vein in his face and neck. He was wearing a white linen suit, complete with navy blue button-down shirt and a rather loud red-and-yellow tie. He looked as though he would blow away in a slight wind, but his watery blue eyes were small, hooded, and alert—and alive with malice. He rang a bell, and the black woman who’d opened the door for me the last time I’d been to the house placed a plate of salad in front of him and one in front of me. It was merely a heart of romaine sliced lengthwise, drenched in a raspberry vinaigrette, and covered in feta cheese and crushed walnuts. She poured me a glass of red wine and refilled his ice water from a metal pitcher and then disappeared without a word.

“Eat,” the old man wheezed. “We’ll talk after.”

We ate in silence, him ringing the bell to signal the next course whenever we finished one plate. The salad was good, the bisque delicious, and it was easily the best shrimp Creole I’d ever tasted—not too much tomato and plenty of spices. The bread pudding was also heavenly, and then everything was all cleared away. He grabbed the mask, closed his eyes, and took in several deep breaths. He let the mask drop to his side, then opened the eyes slowly. I was reminded of a cobra.