Bayou Moon Read online

  Jourdain was silent for a moment. Then he shrugged carelessly. “I would imagine that everyone has something to hide.”

  The group wandered into the large dining room and found their places. Throughout dinner the lights continued to flicker in tune with the pouring rain and strikes of lightning. Not long after they were finished, the electricity went out for good, and the housekeeper lit dozens of candles.

  In the quivering candlelight Mignon could see that Eleanor and Leya were pleased with themselves. They thought it would be a grand night for another discernment. And who better to assist them than a distinguished spiritualist from New York City?

  Mignon was amused. After the dinner dishes had been cleared from the table, people began to slip away to drink or smoke. She took a candelabra and began to walk the halls, looking at the many paintings.

  There was a library in the west end of the mansion where Mignon had discovered a Carlos Carrà piece from the early 1900s. It was a wonderful oil on canvas, a futurist piece depicting the four horsemen of the apocalypse. As Mignon examined it she realized that she didn’t know much specifically about Carrà, only that he was Italian and considered a futurist artist who was ahead of his time at the peak of his career. She held the candelabra up to examine the piece closer and found his delineation and use of color fascinating. She could understand why Eleanor would be attracted to the painting. It was simply striking.

  Outside the house the storm was working itself up to an impressive display. Rain pelted the roof with unquenchable frenzy, drowning out any other sounds from the interior of the house. Mignon was lost in the abstract painting with its vibrant primary colors when there was a sudden sound behind her.

  The words seemed to originate from nowhere at all, deep and throaty emissions, sounding like something out of Mignon’s deepest nightmares. “There was a little man, and he had a little gun, and his bullets were made of lead, lead, lead; he went to the brook, and saw a little duck, and shot it through the head, head, head.”

  Mignon was frozen in place. It was as if her mother were whispering the words to her, as if she had come from some unfathomable place to remind her only child of a nursery rhyme recited so many years before—and perhaps to remind her that once there had been a woman called Garlande Thibeaux, who had taught her nursery rhymes with an easy smile and a loving touch. Mignon slowly turned her head and her figure followed, allowing the candelabra to cast weird, twisting shadows and malicious black shapes in the gloom.

  A nightmarish face made of the purest white stared at her. Mignon swallowed the scream that threatened to escape from her throat. The frail woman standing before her was like a wraith floating in the candle’s tremulous light. Mignon abruptly realized who it was, but her heart thundered in her chest all the same.

  “It is you, isn’t it?” said Eugenie.

  Chapter Thirteen

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18–SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19

  Hark! Hark! The dogs do bark,

  The beggars are coming to town;

  Some in rags, some in tags,

  And some in velvet gowns.

  HARK! HARK!

  MIGNON ALMOST SAID, “MY God, you scared the crap out of me.” But Eugenie’s face began to fade away as she stepped back into the shadows of the library like some ghoulish figment of Mignon’s imagination. She bit off the exclamation with a soft question. “I’m who?”

  “You’re her. I see the resemblance. I see what you look like. Only … only your hair is short, instead of long.” Eugenie had retreated to the other side of the library, visible only as a shape in pale blue silk.

  Mignon’s eyes strained in the darkness. She took a step forward, raising the candelabra in order to see better, but Eugenie said quickly, “Don’t. Don’t come any closer. I’m … I’m not sure about all of this …”

  “I’m Mignon,” she said softly, her voice as unthreatening as she could make it. “I know I resemble my mother, but I’m just her daughter. I’m your mother’s guest for dinner tonight. Remember, Eugenie?”

  There was silence from the other side of the library. Eugenie was gathering the few wits she still possessed and forming them into some kind of cohesive sense of reality. Finally she said, “I remember, Mignon. I came looking for you. They’re about to start the discernment.” Her voice was low and scattered. She spoke slowly, as if lost in deep thought. “The thunder and lightning … bother me. The darkness in the mansion disturbs me. And your face in the candlelight. It … reminded me of someone. Someone I knew a long time ago … . I used to play with a little girl with hair the same color. That red, red hair …”

  “It reminded you of Garlande,” Mignon suggested. The idea shocked her. Thoughts ran fast and furious through her mind as she went through possibilities. Eugenie had remembered that they had played together. Where had they played together? Certainly Luc wouldn’t have brought Garlande to the St. Michel mansion, but on the other hand, he might have brought Eugenie to the old farmhouse in the woods. Before they had disappeared …

  “Yes, Garlande. You look just like she did. I didn’t see it at first. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her.”

  Mignon took another step forward. Eugenie had knocked the brains right out of her head by reciting that nursery rhyme in the darkness like an incantation from beyond the grave. It had been one of dozens her mother had taught her. “The nursery rhyme, Eugenie. Where did you learn it?”

  “The nursery rhyme?” repeated Eugenie dumbly. “The nursery rhyme.”

  “There was a little man, and he had a little gun …” Mignon’s voice trailed away as she took one more step closer to Eugenie. Now she could see her face, a confused face, perhaps a little flummoxed from too many liqueurs before dinner, and perhaps a little panicky from the roar of thunder and the crack of lightning. Confusion changed to apprehension as Mignon repeated the rhyme. “And his bullets were made of lead, lead, lead …”

  “He went to the brook, and saw a little duck, and shot it through the head, head, head,” finished Eugenie reluctantly. “I remember the rhyme. There were many rhymes.”

  “Where did you learn it?” Mignon’s voice was more insistent. She wanted to reach out and shake the older woman by her trim shoulders. Shake her right out of that stupor.

  “There was a woman,” cried out Eugenie. “And she used to teach me the rhymes, so I could repeat them. She was in a house in the woods and there was a little girl there with the same color hair. Oh, that pretty color of hair, like the leaves in fall, bright and alive. Sometimes the little girl taught me the rhymes. It … it was you.”

  “Yes,” answered Mignon, lowering the candelabra. “You came with your father sometimes. And sometimes we would learn the rhymes from my mother together. And sometimes I would teach them to you.” Suddenly it was clear to Mignon as well. There was a startling vision in her mind of a big, new car parked in front of the little house in the woods, and a young, coltish girl with hair the palest shade of blonde. She was five years older than Mignon but it had never seemed that way when they had played together outside on the grass. They had played together like … sisters, as if Eugenie were the sibling Mignon had always wanted.

  “And sometimes my papa would leave me outside in the dark trees all alone, because I couldn’t get him away from … that red-headed whore!” With that she gave Mignon a quick, unexpected shove and slipped away into the blackness of the hallway.

  Mignon struggled to keep standing and not drop the candelabra. She fell heavily on her posterior anyway, and grunted in a most unladylike manner as hot wax was slung across her arm, causing a flash of instantaneous, burning pain. But somehow the candles and their holder remained upright in her hands. “Merde,” she swore awkwardly.

  There was another voice in the darkness, a rich, redolent voice, tinged with amusement. “Perhaps you should leave this place.”

  Try as she might, Mignon couldn’t hide the fact that she jumped at the unexpected addition of another person in the library. An old, dark mansion. A storm thu
ndering rain and lightning outside. Hints about ghosts. A seance planned. Although it all seemed like a scene straight out of a gothic novel, it was more than enough to give Mignon permanent goose bumps along her arms and shoulders. She remained on the floor and looked around for the owner of the voice, who had apparently overheard her conversation with Eugenie.

  There was a flicker of light from a cigarette lighter and Mignon saw Terentia Jones with a long cigarillo in her hand. She lit it, inhaled until the tip glowed red, then the lighter went out abruptly, liberating the shadows again.

  “You could help me up,” Mignon suggested sarcastically, her hands on her knees. She had to appear the utter fool, sitting on a bare wood floor on her ass while this woman stood in a corner and watched with thinly veiled amusement.

  “What, and spoil your big scene with the St. Michel girl? Woman, you’ve got to be joking. That lady is nuttier than all the fruitcakes at the post office at Christmastime.” Mignon couldn’t see the short woman’s face, but she had a sudden whiff of the cigarillo smoke as it was exhaled.

  “That a professional opinion?” Mignon asked as she carefully climbed to her knees and rubbed her buttocks with one hand.

  “As professional as I’m going to give, dear.” There was a moment of silence before Terentia spoke again. “I don’t know if this is going to work, Miggy.”

  Mignon had managed to wobble to her feet, one hand still on her flank, half an eye on the other woman. “Terri,” she said. “Anyone could be listening.”

  Terentia Jones, an art gallery owner from New York City and one of Mignon’s closest friends, laughed. “The only one who matters is Eleanor, my dear, and she believes, oh lord, how she believes. She swears up and down on an old woman in the area who gives her ‘readings’ and protective charms. It wouldn’t matter if God Himself proclaimed that I wasn’t a spiritualist.”

  Glancing behind her, Mignon said quickly, “Yes, but we don’t want to trumpet it to the rest of the house.”

  Terri took another drag of the cigarillo. “My mama used to be so upset that I wouldn’t follow in her footsteps. Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and all of that. I figured out pretty early in life that pretending to be psychic was just another big con job and knew there had to be something better.”

  “And the art world is about as pure as the driven snow.”

  “Look, if you think you can get something out of her by doing this, then I’m glad to help. My son is glad to help,” Terri said, meaning her only child, Faust, who had taken a brief break from Princeton to give a hand. “My mama thought it was wonderful that I wanted to use some of the old connections to set this up with Eleanor St. Michel until I told her it would be my one and only gig as the infamous Madame Terentia.” She drew the words out in a theatrical manner. “But this place is bad news, sugar. I don’t think anyone is going to give anything up. I think Nehemiah will tell you the same thing. So if you don’t want something bad to happen to you, it’d be best if you leave.” Terri laughed as she said it. It sounded like the cryptic warning that a so-called psychic was supposed to give to the mysterious woman who might be in peril. It was downplayed by the laugh, but Mignon knew that her old friend meant the words and that hidden beneath the humor was a mute plea.

  The candelabra remained by her feet as Mignon straightened out her flowing dress. She flicked the cooled wax off her arm and smoothed out the long, white skirt. At last she turned to her old friend, who continued to stand in the corner of the library, leaning against a stack of books and smoking. Only the red glow of the cigarillo and a vague shape could be seen in the Cimmerian blackness.

  “If I had a dime for each time someone told me that lately …” Mignon almost laughed at herself. “Well, I’d have a handful of dimes, anyway.”

  There was a chuckle from the darkness. The red tip of the cigarillo wobbled visibly. Then Terri said, “I don’t know if we’re biting off more than we can chew here. Be careful, Migs. Be more careful than you’ve ever been in all of your life.” There was a long pause and only the sound of faint thunder and wind from outside. “They say that girl Eugenie hasn’t been back to Louisiana in over two decades, that the spirits started haunting this place because she is the only St. Michel who’s … sensitive enough to pick them up.” She paused again. “It gives a person something to think about. By the way, I think Madame Eleanor has changed her mind about the discernment. The storm has knocked out the electricity and the phones, too. Of course, they have cell phones, but there’s something else.”

  “What? What now?”

  “The river has washed out the road about a quarter mile from the mansion. None of us are going anywhere tonight.” There was a little snort of laughter. “Wonder how that happened.”

  That river was an offshoot of the Cane River, once a tributary into the Red River. This particular offshoot wasn’t just a tiny tributary, because it had once been used for small barges to export produce from the St. Michel plantation. Nehemiah, Mignon, and Terri had hoped for an opportunity to flood out the bridge and strand them at the house for a night, to give Mignon time to search for evidence that her mother had been murdered. Apparently Nehemiah had taken the opportunity. Mignon could only hope that the river didn’t flood out homes down the river.

  As it turned out, there were more than enough rooms for Eleanor’s guests. Mignon was put into a blue room on the second floor of the west wing, along with several of the others. Down the hall were Terri and Faust. Jourdain and his wife were on Mignon’s other side. Across the hall was Gabriel, who had given her another salacious glance as she entered her room. Mignon hoped he would not come wandering in the middle of the night and silently vowed to wedge a chair under her doorknob.

  It was well after midnight before the guests had been escorted to their rooms. Most of them had hoped that the river would recede, allowing them to leave, but when it became obvious that they were stuck, they all seemed to take the forced restriction with good humor.

  Eleanor had laughed and said, “Excuse me, but I have to see that some of the servants get rooms, as well. We’ll see you all in the morning over a nice breakfast, and hope the sun is shining down on our heads instead of that mess outside.”

  Mignon sat in the window seat watching the lightning and rain outside. Although the water was rapidly dissipating, the road was still flooded and not passable. The storm was moving to the east like an enraged god. The rain must have dumped a few inches of liquid upon western-central Louisiana. Each lightning strike revealed tree branches broken by the wind and excessive rain. The ground had soaked up as much water as it could, and the remainder was running off in the direction of the tributary of the Cane. Mignon wasn’t disturbed by Mother Nature’s wrath because this plantation house had existed for two hundred years, and would most likely stand for another two hundred, horrid thunderstorms aside.

  Mignon was tempted to go to Eugenie’s room and shake out any information the woman had about Garlande. Instead, she decided to wander through the halls looking at paintings and seeking any knowledge that she could ferret out. Something in this cavernous house would tell her what she wanted to know, and she would find it. Another chance like this wouldn’t come along in a million years and Mignon couldn’t afford to waste it sleeping.

  There was a light tap on her door, and it opened quietly. A maid said, “Ma’am, I brought some extra towels.”

  Mignon turned around and smiled. The maid shut the door carefully behind her and put the towels on the bed. Then she said, “Mignon, don’t you look like a hottie.”

  Kate Trent had her grandfather’s good looks, the same blue eyes and clear-cut features. Mignon stood up and gave the younger woman a quick hug. “I can’t say how grateful I am that you’re helping. Doing all the intensive labor when—”

  “They’re not going after me with a knife or a gun or whatever,” Kate interrupted her. “Besides, a few more weeks and I’m off to Europe to study art with the masters. You’ve more than helped me out.” She shrugged, just a twe
nty-year-old young woman who had come to love her grandfather’s adopted daughter as if she were her own flesh and blood, but there was also the excitement of trying to fool people into revealing something they hadn’t let go of in over two decades. “But just to remind you, the security measures are strongest around the paintings. It’s just as well we’re not here to steal them. There’s none in the offices at all, and I think he’s got a safe under the desk.” She looked around. “I could do more of the searching. I’m here sixty hours a week.”

  “No!” Mignon almost yelled it, then took a breath. “I can’t let you take that risk. It has to be me. You promised me, Kate.”

  Kate nodded. “I’ve kept the promise. God knows, if that woman caught me snooping she’d have me thrown into the dungeon.” She glanced over her shoulder again. “I’ve got to go. Good luck, Mignon.”

  After Kate slipped out the door, Mignon waited for people to find rooms, go to bed, organized by Eleanor in whatever way she wanted. Then she would go and look for what she knew must be here.

  When she could hear no other noises except the endless cry of the wind and the sporadic splatter of the remainders of the rainstorm, she left her room, still dressed in her evening apparel. Mignon didn’t care to be cat-footing around a dark mansion in a stark white dress, but didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. She took a small penlight from her designer purse, a bag no bigger than the palm of her hand. In this venue, a candelabra would only get in the way and alert anyone still awake that she was prowling uninvited through the house.

  Mignon’s first stop was the home office that Geraud kept at the mansion. She looked through his desk and glared at the computer that she couldn’t explore because of the power outage. Perhaps there would be another opportunity before dawn, if the power were repaired. The desk revealed various business records, all aboveboard. There was a fireproof safe under the desk, however, and the combination lock seemed simple enough. She didn’t expect to find anything of significance because she knew that the St. Michels kept several large safety deposit boxes in various banks around the area.