Bayou Moon Read online

  This is all a little too coincidental, thought John Henry. Eugenie St. Michel returns to LaValle, and then things started to happen. Mignon Thibeaux showed up professing utter innocence. And no one knew what really happened to Luc St. Michel or Garlande Thibeaux. They could be living in Bermuda with their feet up on a plush ottoman and glasses of Chardonnay in their hands. “And you think that tonight Mignon here is going to go into one of her little trances, like before.”

  “I don’t have trances,” insisted Mignon.

  “You did last Saturday.”

  “So you say.”

  “Hush!” said Terentia. “There must be no disagreement here. We must agree that we are here to seek out whatever is harming this house and these people! Can we agree? Can we focus on that?”

  Silence ensued. Finally John Henry said, “I think I can agree if we can do something to prevent some kind of hoax here.”

  “Are you suggesting that Madam Jones is some kind of chicanery artist?” Terentia demanded, speaking of herself in the imposing third person. “I have performed discernments with the richest people in this country and all over Europe.”

  Eleanor’s voice cut in. “I think the sheriff is only trying to protect all of us, Madam, and there is no need to take offense. What is the suggestion, John Henry?”

  “We can tie Mignon to her chair,” Terentia replied quickly.

  Geraud chuckled.

  “Yes,” agreed John Henry.

  “We can also turn on the lights,” suggested Geraud.

  “There must be total darkness,” said Leya. “The spirits will not come in light when called. Light repels those souls in limbo. Dark beckons them. Only when the room is devoid of the warm light from God’s grace will they seek out those who call to them. It’s the way it must be done.”

  “This is true,” agreed Terentia. “Darkness calls to evil ones in a way that cannot be ignored.”

  “Then tie her to the chair,” repeated John Henry stubbornly.

  “Gee, thanks, John Henry. This is the best way I can think of to end one of the most memorable evenings I’ve ever had,” said Mignon.

  Suddenly the lights came on; Terentia was standing beside the switch at the wall. Everyone blinked and gazed at her. She said, “The sheriff must tie her to the chair. Perhaps the one he was sitting in, with the arms.”

  John Henry gave her a long look and stood up. He pulled out his chair and checked it, looking underneath it for hidden objects. He rattled the arms and frowned because one side was loose.

  Eleanor objected, “John Henry, that’s a Chippendale and it does not respond well to harsh treatment. Rest assured it has been in this house for longer than your grandfather has been alive, and consequently must be considered free of conspiracy.”

  He shrugged, and motioned for Mignon to take his place. She glared at him. “This isn’t my idea of fun, but for the sake of argument I’ll go along with it.”

  “Good,” he muttered. “Something to tie her with.” He looked around.

  Geraud smiled brightly. “You could always use your handcuffs.”

  “I’d have to explain that to the taxpayers,” joked John Henry. He saw the curtain ties lying on the table between the two adjacent windows. “Ah, there we go. Velvet and satin in order not to chafe her arms, but secure enough to please me.”

  Mignon sat down and aligned her arms with the arms of the chair. She looked steadily at John Henry as he bound each arm to the chair, tying a double knot in each.

  “And her feet?” murmured Eleanor.

  Jourdain had been oddly quiet the entire time, taking in everything and missing nothing. He said, “It should be as it was before. Our feet on each other’s.”

  Terentia went to the door and summoned Faust, who was waiting outside. “My bag, please.”

  The young man handed her a dark valise, not unlike a doctor’s bag. She closed the door as he withdrew. At the table John Henry yanked at Mignon’s binding and looked thoughtfully at her feet. “We could simply move her away from the table.”

  “There is another way,” Terentia said. “There will be just the two of us, facing each other. My feet on top of hers. That will suspend suspicion.”

  “Unless you’re in on it with her,” responded John Henry dryly.

  Terentia tilted her head at the sheriff. “I believe that there is no one you trust. This says volumes about the manner in which you were raised.”

  “Madam, are you a psychic or a psychologist? It comes with the territory. How about Eleanor instead? Her husband; Mignon’s mother. Eleanor doesn’t take kindly to fakers in her house. She won’t allow Mignon to pull a fast one.” John Henry turned Mignon around to face another chair beside the table. Then he turned that chair toward Mignon. “Eleanor, if you don’t mind?”

  Eleanor rose and took her place. She carefully put her feet over Mignon’s. They faced each other with carefully neutral expressions. If anything, Mignon seemed slightly irritated and almost bored.

  Terentia was pleased enough. From the black valise she took out a little handbell with phosphorescent tape on it. “This will glow in the dark, showing us its position at all times.” She put it on the table next to the two chairs. “Here is a token of Luc St. Michel’s,” she said as she took out a man’s fob watch. “Mrs. St. Michel told me that he wore it frequently. It was given to him on his wedding day by his father.” She attached a bit of tape to it, while Mignon wondered why no one attached importance to the fact that if the fob was so prized, why hadn’t he taken it with him? “So we can see if the spirit reacts to its physical energy.”

  She looked at Mignon carefully. “Do you have a token from your mother?”

  Mignon thought of the metal box with the diary and the golden medallion. The diary held expressions of love from her mother to the man who had stolen her heart away. She had believed in Luc St. Michel as if he had been her fairy godfather. She had written about her naive trust in this rich, handsome man, fifteen years older than she was, who had a wife he would almost certainly never divorce, as well as children. It was the first thing of her mother’s that Mignon ever had in her possession. “No, I don’t have a token,” she lied.

  Finally, Terentia removed an egg from the bag. She also pulled out a small glass bowl and placed it on the table. She held up the egg for a moment. “Mrs. St. Michel removed this egg from her own refrigerator, not an hour before.” She put it next to the handbell, balancing it carefully against the table so that it wouldn’t roll off. Then she opened the bag so everyone could see that there was nothing else there—not a substitute egg or any other item that could be used for trickery.

  “And that symbolizes what?” asked Jourdain.

  “The egg is purity itself, Mr. Gastineau. It will show us the extent of evil present in this household. We must believe this because the egg cannot be tampered with beforehand. The egg is whole, undefiled, and a vessel for those who taint this place and these people.” Terentia waved gold-encrusted fingers over the egg. “It is a blessed thing, the egg of the chicken, and it comes from the home in which spirits are reputed to roam. It will tell us what we need to know.”

  “That’s one hell of an egg,” said Geraud.

  “Sit,” said Terentia. “We shall sit and wait for those who will come.”

  John Henry turned off the lights and took the seat that Eleanor had vacated. After a brief rustling there was a hush in the room.

  “We must believe that our answers will be found,” intoned Terentia solemnly. “One does not have to believe in the other world, but merely that possibilities exist. Relax your bodies and believe in our Lord, Christ in heaven. All answers stem from Him. He will guide our experiences here.”

  Someone said, “Amen,” but Mignon couldn’t tell who it had been.

  Terenita ignored it and proceeded with her delivery. “Concentrate on that which plagues this house. Concentrate.” Her voice was lulling and seductive in the dark void where they sat. “We must believe in that which taints this world.”
/>   Another long silence ensued. Someone was breathing more heavily than the others. Minutes passed and people shifted restlessly in their chairs, listening to their own breathing and to the hollow sound of the wind outside. In the blackness, the tape glowed on the little handbell and the watch fob.

  There was a soft moaning sound. It started out low and grew louder like an animal in pain. As it filled the room, all the subtle movements ceased suddenly. Terentia asked, “Spirits, are you with us?”

  The moaning noise continued, varying in tempo and volume. It caused a chill to run down John Henry’s spine.

  “It’s Mignon,” whispered Eleanor at last. “It’s coming from her.”

  “Spirit, we long to be informed of your desires. We want to understand your presence.” Terentia’s voice was level, calm, and determined. “Spirit, speak to us. Communicate with us.”

  “There is no light here,” came another voice. It was a deeper voice, unidentifiable as male or female. An electric voice, full of anxiety and anger. Everybody strained their ears to hear.

  “Who was that?” said Geraud.

  “Who speaks?” asked Terentia. “What spirit is with us now?”

  The watch fob moved suddenly. The phosphorescent tape showed its path along the table. It slid toward Mignon and Eleanor.

  “Did you see that?” said Eleanor incredulously, a tremble in her voice. “There’s no one by the watch. Did you see?”

  “Silence,” ordered Terentia. “If this is Luc St. Michel, give us a sign.”

  Slowly the watch fob began to coil up, then it lifted into the air, floating, floating.

  Someone gasped.

  The watch fob dropped to the table just as slowly as it had risen.

  The bell began to trill as if someone were shaking it.

  “Luc St. Michel,” intoned Terentia. “You must tell us why you are here. What troubles you?”

  The bell tinkled again.

  There was a sudden movement in the room, as someone lunged for the bell. It dropped to the table with a loud clunk. That person grunted, and then there was movement across the room as John Henry scrambled for the lights.

  There was no one near the bell on the table and the watch fob lay still, as if it had simply been there all along. John Henry cursed loudly as he went back to the table.

  Mignon had slumped forward in her chair, her arms still tied to the Chippendale with the curtain ties. Her chin rested on her chest and her eyes were closed. She seemed to be unconscious. Eleanor’s feet were still on top of hers.

  Eleanor removed her feet and leaned forward to touch Mignon’s face. “She’s like ice,” she whispered. Her midnight blue eyes raised up to meet her son’s. “Geraud, what is happening here?”

  Terentia brought the small glass bowl close to her and swiftly picked up the forgotten egg. With one hand, she cracked the egg on the side of the bowl and delivered its contents to the glass dish. The egg was full of blood. She made a gasping noise. “Dear Lord above, protect us from evil,” she cried.

  Jourdain gazed at the bowl filled with blood, his face a mask of horrified dismay. “What does it mean?”

  “This family is cursed,” murmured Terentia. “There is blood on the family name. It is cursed by evil, and if something is not done, someone will die.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20

  Hickety pickety, my black hen,

  She lays eggs for gentlemen.

  Gentlemen come every day

  To see what my black hen doth lay.

  HICKETY PICKETY

  MIGNON WAS PAINTING ON the porch of the small farmhouse, alone. Horace Seay had left a message at her bed and breakfast that the workmen wouldn’t be able to come until Wednesday because of “unforeseen difficulties.” The truth was that his wife had sworn that she had seen the fifolet in the bayou the night the tributary had cut off half the homes near the St. Michel mansion, and it was surely an omen not to be ignored. But Mignon, after sleeping almost twelve hours the day before, was relaxed and unconcerned with the fact that for the first time there would be nobody around.

  The storm had passed to the east, leaving the ground moist and debris strewn over the ground from trees, brush, and houses. Mignon had picked her way down the long dirt road to the farmhouse because it was too muddy to drive her rental car down the road. At the house itself there was a little note from Miner Poteet, who had come by Sunday to check on the place. Mignon made a mental note to go and thank him personally.

  She had finished her previous work and was busy with another. The start of this more abstract piece was beginning well and she was pleased. Next to her on the old porch was an ancient rocking chair she had rescued from the side of the road.

  Mignon put her brush down and stepped back to observe her efforts, nodding. Then she began to hum idly, resuming her work. In her art she could lose herself, working for hours at a time, losing track of time and even location, until her shoulders and arm cramped with overuse. This piece was another oil, instead of her preferred watercolors. She was so into her painting that she didn’t realize she was murmuring words to the tune she had been humming. “Bobby Shaftoe’s gone to sea, silver buckles on his knee …”

  The brush returned to the bottle of turpentine. She thought about what she had said. It was another of her mother’s rhymes. It was the oddest thing. She couldn’t recall when she had ever heard it. It had just popped into her head out of nowhere. She repeated it softly to herself. “Bobby Shaftoe’s gone to sea, silver buckles on his knee … now what’s the rest?”

  The trees around the old house were rich and green despite the late month of the year. Some were beginning to turn the rich yellows and reds of fall, but the evergreens reigned supreme and surrounded the house like a collar of vivid green. She stared into the foliage searching for an answer and found something deep inside of her.

  “Gone to sea, silver buckles on his knee,” she repeated again. Then slowly came, “He’ll come back and marry me, pretty Bobby Shaftoe.”

  The sound of an engine nearby, coming closer, made Mignon realize that someone was driving down her road. Without electricity and no sounds except for those that Mother Nature provided, it was easy to tell when someone was drawing near. She chewed on her lip as she considered the source of her rhyme. Like most of the others it had popped into her mind unwanted, at an odd time. Now it remained like a mystic chant, going through her mind again and again. She supposed each of the rhymes had some kind of meaning. Some were more obvious than others, Some were simply nonsensical. Garlande had liked the sound of them. Her mother had taught her some, her grandmother had taught her others. She had wanted to pass them onto her sole child, preserving one of the few traditions in her family.

  Though the engine was coming closer, someone was taking his or her time on the road. It might be days before the mud completely dried. Mignon had decided that the road would have to be re-leveled and filled with gravel. Eventually an asphalt road would be best.

  She sat down on the rocking chair and grabbed her purse beside it. She removed the Beretta, took the safety off, chambered a round, and placed it on her lap. Then she covered it with a newspaper, staring at the edge of the woods where the road emerged.

  A white Bronco appeared and parked in front of the house. Mignon let her shoulders sag slightly. This was no ordinary henchman. It was her own personal, gun-toting savior, none other than Sheriff John Henry Roque. He’d had his opportunity to get rid of her at the river early on Sunday morning, and he had missed it. Or he had never wanted it to begin with.

  There had been other missed opportunities. She was almost positive that John Henry was exactly what he seemed. He was a lawman first and foremost. Second, he wanted answers to his questions, no matter what the cost. Finally, she wasn’t falling down at his feet like tumbling dominos. Perhaps her obstinacy was part of the attraction. His history was readily apparent. He wasn’t crooked and there wasn’t a blemish on his professional record. No one had complained about
police brutality relating to him. No one had ever reported him taking a bribe. He’d never been investigated for any kind of police-related misconduct. And she’d heard Jourdain himself complain about John Henry asking questions on her behalf.

  John Henry climbed out of the Bronco like a great feline, all lean muscles and bunched energy. In Mignon’s mind she could find much to appreciate about his sinewy body. Not only was his face something she would enjoy putting on paper or canvas, but so was his physique. Here was the man who had snatched her hand as she was about to be swept away in a turbulent current. Here was the man who had kissed her like the world was on fire. She couldn’t help the secretive smile that momentarily curved her lips.

  But there was that nagging question. Am I sure enough about him to risk my life?

  John Henry propped one foot on the bottom step of the porch much as he had done before and looked solemnly at Mignon, his sherry-brown eyes warm in the light of early afternoon. After a moment he said, “Nice rocking chair.”

  “Found it. You believe someone threw it out?”

  He shrugged. “Hard to believe a lot of things around here.”

  “You mean about Saturday night? Which part?”

  “Let’s start with how you came to be outside,” he said.

  “I thought I saw someone. Someone in the woods, dressed in white.” Mignon rocked her chair back and forth slowly, knowing that it sounded amiss, knowing that she sounded like she was admitting she had seen some kind of ghost. “It was a little hard to miss.”

  “You were still dressed in your evening dress,” he stated.

  “I’m surprised you could tell. I had trouble going to sleep.” Mignon reached up with her left hand to scratch the side of her nose lazily. “I was still up, watching the last bits of lightning outside.” How in the name of God can I tell him that I was up tossing the joint for a notarized confession that doesn’t exist?

  “Did you know that the sluice gate had been jimmied open? That someone let the tributary flood out the road so that none of you could leave?” His eyes seemed to penetrate hers.