Disembodied Bones Read online

  “No one up there,” said Louis, unconsciously repeating Leonie’s thoughts. He peered through the heavy vegetation toward the house. “Is this where your papa told you he’d be?”

  Leonie’s eyes reluctantly left the big house through the trees. There was a bronze sign mounted on the post on the right side of the main gate. It read Whitechapel, and the address below it was 2345 Sugarberry Lane. She took a deep breath. “No, no one’s there,” she said unevenly, knowing that someone was there. Someone was up there waiting for her, someone who called to her, and she was going to have to drive away. She cleared her throat twice before the reluctant words came out of her mouth. “We can go to his office instead.”

  “Sure, Leonie,” said Louis carefully. He had a bad feeling about this all of a sudden. He cocked his head at the young woman and watched her as she looked back up at the big house. “Whitechapel. That’s a funny name, non?”

  “Oui,” she said absently. “You know that belt buckle you lost last week. The one you won roping calves in Texas?”

  Louis paused in the act of pulling the truck into the road. “Yeah, sure. I looked everywhere. Your maman tell you about that?”

  “It slid behind your bed, Louis.” Leonie chewed on her lower lip. It was killing her to leave the place she had been drawn to, but she knew she couldn’t help him. She had to find another way. But first she was going to have to start the trouble she had promised her maman she would not get into while her parents were gone from the house.

  “How the devil you know that, p’tite fille?” Louis demanded as he drove away, dismissing the thought almost instantly. A little rampant doubt tickled his brain. It could be there. Didn’t I leave it on the bed half the time? Maman comes in to fluff the blankets and sheets and couldn’t it have fallen back of the bed, just like that? Non. Non. Couldn’t be. How could the little one know this?

  Louis drove Leonie into downtown Shreveport and stopped at the office where her papa worked. He had regained some of his good humor and was again singing along with the radio. When he pulled into a small parking lot full with other vehicles, he smiled as Leonie suggested that she run in quickly to find out where her father was working that day. He sat in front of the office for a full ten minutes before he realized that Leonie wasn’t coming back.

  -

  Buried ever so deep,

  Piled over with heavy stones,

  Yet I will

  Effortlessly dig up the disembodied bones.

  What am I?

  I am memories.

  Chapter Two

  It lies behind stars and under the highest hills,

  And empty holes it solidly fills.

  It comes first and follows after,

  Ends life, and kills laughter.

  What is it?

  Roosevelt Hemstreet was pouring himself a cup of coffee when Eloise Hunter buzzed the detectives’ offices. Her strident voice came abruptly through the intercom and made Roosevelt spill a little coffee. He grimaced and mopped up the puddle with a paper napkin and kept his mouth firmly shut. Technically, it was possible that if he pretended to be invisible then the highly irritating clerk would think that everyone was out to lunch and cease her incessant bleating. Eloise had the concerted opinion that she was God and the detectives on the third floor of the Shreveport Police Department were her exclusive errand boys. It didn’t matter to her in the least that she was a clerk, weighed eighty-five pounds, and the top of her head didn’t clear Roosevelt’s belly button.

  “All y’all up there, stop messing around and answer, puh-lease,” she said loudly after a blessedly short interval of exalted silence. “Ah gotta gal out here who says she knows where that kid is.”

  Roosevelt froze in place. It was hard for him to do so, standing six foot four inches and weighing in at two hundred and twenty pounds. As broad as the proverbial barn door, he seemed a graceless giant, despite the fact that he could move quite silently when it was necessary. What made him freeze was the reminder of why all the detectives in the PD were working at the same time and had been since the previous day.

  There was only one kid on the large man’s mind and on the minds of most of the police department personnel that day. The boy was four foot nine inches and weighed sixty pounds. He had light brown hair and brown eyes and suntanned skin. He liked to play arcade games. He was learning how to roller-blade but he wasn’t much good at it. One of his teeth was missing in the front but the kid didn’t mind that because it meant he could make disgusting slurping noises in front of his sister. His sister had spent an inordinate amount of time detailing her older brother’s habit to the detective the previous evening, even while tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes.

  Eloise’s heavily accented voice screeched out of the speaker with the coup de grace that broke Roosevelt’s reverie. It was a shot to the head that effectively killed his resistance. “Y’all know. The Trent kid. All y’all stop this nonsense. Ah know one of you all is up there.”

  Roosevelt sighed. He threw the soiled napkin into the garbage and checked his suit. No crumbs on the tie. No stains on the shirt or the lapel. Dark blue wasn’t his best color but his wife had given him the suit to commemorate his promotion into the ranks of detective, so he wore it anyway. He brushed a little dandruff off his shoulders and looked longingly at a chocolate éclair that had his name on it, his stomach acknowledging the fact that meals had been scarce since the boy had gone missing. Doubtless by the time Roosevelt was done sorting out the ins and outs of a potential witness, who would probably turn out to be a flake, the other detectives would have swooped down and devoured the last éclair without so much as a by-your-leave. One of his big fingers stabbed the intercom. “I’ll be down in a minute, Eloise.”

  “My name is Miss Hunter,” Eloise replied primly. “Don’t you forget it, Dee-tective.”

  His finger released the button and then Roosevelt said under his breath in a falsetto, “My name is Miss Hunter, and I wear my control-top panty-hose too tight for my circulation, which means my little sour dough looking head is about to pop off my neck.” He smiled grimly at no one at all, punching the button again and saying with dour determination, “I’ll be there in a minute, Miss Hunter.”

  Roosevelt released the button once more and cogitated on the fact that he was a Yankee. Sure he had been born in Shreveport, but he had committed the unpardonable sin of being raised in Oregon by his Aunt Carlita. It didn’t matter that technically Oregon wasn’t really where Yankees came from or that they never had originated from that state. He looked black, but he talked like a northerner and there were many officers and employees in the Shreveport Police Department who treated him like he was different. Fortunately there were just as many others who didn’t give a damn, and besides Roosevelt Hemstreet had thick skin.

  “Getting thicker every day, too,” he added to himself, and straightened his jacket.

  When Roosevelt made it downstairs, Eloise didn’t say a word. She pursed her lips and pointed into the waiting area. Several people were there already. Some were waiting to speak to officers and some were waiting for police reports. “Where, Miss Hunter?”

  “That’s Miz Hunter, Dee-tective,” Eloise replied prissily. She was in her sixties and had been a stolid feature of the police department for thirty years. White hair contrasted with her bright blue eyes and those same eyes glittered intently at Roosevelt, challenging his authority.

  Roosevelt suddenly grinned broadly at the woman behind the counter. It was a flash of expansive white in a dark face. Her own face twitched uncomfortably, knowing that it wasn’t humor that animated the newest detective’s features. “Well, Miz Hunter, then.”

  Eloise picked up the phone, with another wary look at the detective.

  Tapping the glass for her attention, Roosevelt said, “You said something about someone who says they know where the kid is.”

  “Ah’m not a babysitter, Dee-tective,” she announced. “It’s that little girl, sitting all alone, right back there.”
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  Roosevelt turned away and looked. The room wasn’t crowded but it still took him a moment to acknowledge who he was looking for in the small crowd. She was a tiny little thing with skinny little limbs that looked like someone might be starving her. Her long black hair rested across one shoulder as she ran her fingers through the looping curls, working out snarls. He took in the shabby T-shirt, the frayed jeans, and the decrepit tennis shoes with a knowing eye. She was young, almost as young as Douglas Trent and Douglas Trent was only ten years old.

  He knew a lot about Douglas Trent. The day before, while Mrs. Amelia Trent went shopping in The Gap at Chinaberry Mall, Douglas had been playing in the game arcade. When she came to get him an hour later, the manager said that his father had already come to get him. The problem was that Douglas Trent’s father was in California on business and had been for a full week. The other problem was that Douglas Trent hadn’t turned up in the mall in the ensuing hours.

  The mall’s meager security had contacted the Shreveport PD two hours after that and the hunt began. There wasn’t a wait because a stranger had been involved. The kid had been lured out of the arcade by someone Mrs. Amelia Trent didn’t know. There wasn’t family in the area and the Trents were new to Shreveport. Mrs. Trent swore up and down on a bible that she wouldn’t have trusted any of her new neighbors enough to let them give Douglas a ride home. However, it didn’t matter because Douglas wasn’t with the neighbors and all the PD had was a blurry still from a security camera from a Sears store. It showed Douglas hand in hand with a tall Caucasian male, who had turned his head enough at the moment of the camera shot so as to be unidentifiable. The anonymous man had been wearing tan slacks and a dark shirt without any discernible logo. His hair was dark and he appeared as though he could be anywhere in his late twenties to early forties, but other than that, SPD had nothing at all.

  The father had flown home first thing and the Trents had gone to the media to broadcast the news, bringing Douglas’s school picture to be featured on the news. They waited for a ransom demand, hoping that would be what they receive instead of the news that their only son’s body had been found or worse yet, no news at all, and only wretched imagination to fill in the horrid gaps. Most of the detectives were out working various leads. A dozen patrolmen were performing related activities and the chief of police was about to call in the FBI for assistance.

  Meanwhile, the Trents waited at home, guilt and vile anticipation driving them slowly mad. And here was this little girl, sitting in the waiting room of the SPD, cooling her heels. Had she been at the arcade at the same time? Was she a friend of Douglas’s? Did she suspect that the man across the street who peeped at her from behind brocade curtains was the same one who had taken Douglas from the mall?

  Roosevelt sighed. She wouldn’t be the first to come in to talk to the police department and she wouldn’t be the last. Some of the phone calls were worse. Idiots who used pay phones to suggest that the little boy was already dead and buried, his decomposing corpse far away in the bayous, his flesh being eaten by catfish in the Red River, his little fingers a meal for voracious animals on some twisted man’s farm. He stood in front of the small girl and said, “I’m Roosevelt Hemstreet, ma’am. I’m a detective here. How can I help you?”

  The little girl looked up. Her eyes were the most peculiar color that Roosevelt had ever seen and for a moment it gave him pause. She gnawed on her lower lip before she said, “I know where Douglas is. I can take you to him.”

  •

  The policeman was very, very large. It was the first thought in Leonie’s mind. She sat on the battered bench that had dozens of names and crude phrases carved on it and looked up, up, up. Dressed in a blue suit, he had skin the color of syrup, and warm brown eyes. But she could tell right off he was tired and not in a receptive mood.

  The police department was the place that was so reviled by the family. It was one of the places that family members regularly shunned as though the black plague was actively rampant there. The police were outsiders. They didn’t possess the gift. They wouldn’t trust those who did. No one from the outside world really understood. Only a precious few outsiders could ever be trusted, so the rule was to trust none of them and never bring unwanted publicity upon the family because strangers could come and take one away just like Great-Aunt Lisette.

  Leonie frowned up at the large man wearing the dark blue suit. He frowned back down. Finally his features coalesced into dispassionate neutrality. His name is Roosevelt Hemstreet, she thought. Perhaps he was named after a president. But she wasn’t here about that.

  “How would you happen to know that, ma’am?” the big black man asked her politely.

  Leonie’s already twisted features turned more downward. Her plan had flaws. Here was one. She had to convince this man that she had legitimate knowledge of Douglas Trent’s whereabouts, and for Douglas’s benefit, she had to do so quickly. He’s afraid. She chewed on that lower lip again. He’s so afraid of that man and the stupid words that he keeps repeating. What am I? The fear made her shiver involuntarily. “I saw him. I saw him today. While I was looking for my papa.”

  She crossed her fingers behind her back and nervously looked away from Roosevelt. Somehow Leonie sensed that the detective knew she was lying and was trying to decide what to do with her, if anything at all.

  “Where did you see him?” Roosevelt asked gently.

  “It’s a big, big house just outside of town,” she said quickly, looking back up at the detective. “Red brick, lots of trees and bushes, and big glass windows all over. I saw him at the window. Very clear.” Leonie took the folded newspaper out of her pocket she spread it out and presented the front page to Roosevelt. “This boy. Douglas Trent.”

  “Why were you looking for your papa?” Roosevelt’s brown eyes had turned inquisitive. He was mulling over the story in his head.

  “He forgot his lunch.” Leonie mentally crossed another set of fingers. So many lies today. Surely God understands? “He works construction sites. I didn’t know which one, non.”

  “And you drove yourself?”

  “Oh, non. I’m only thirteen. One of the family drove me. His name is Louis Padeaon.” Leonie was reasonably happy to tell an honest fact for once. “I think he’s a cousin three or four times removed. His great-grandmaman was married to my great-great uncle.”

  It dawned on Roosevelt that he was talking to a little girl who was a member of the elusive Lake People. He’d heard other officers talking about them. They lived out at the distant Twilight Lake in St. Germaine’s Parish for the most part and spoke like Cajuns, although they weren’t really that. Some of them lived in the Atchafalaya Basin and married into Cajun families but most of them stuck to the lake, where they eked out a living doing whatever they could. They kept to themselves and for the most part stayed out of trouble, but they were reclusive people and strange stories circulated about them. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

  Leonie hesitated, but she knew she would have to convince this man. “Leonie Simoneaud,” she said, pronouncing it, “Lee-oh-nee See-man-oh.” Then she spelled the last name for him because she knew he wouldn’t be able to spell it himself.

  “Is this Louis, your cousin, waiting for you outside?”

  “Non,” she replied frankly.

  “Hmm,” Roosevelt said. He was beginning to think that Leonie had seen some other little boy and mistaken the child for Douglas Trent. He, himself, suspected Douglas had been dead only hours after leaving the mall with a stranger. The child couldn’t have been seen in some big, big house’s windows by Leonie Simoneaud earlier today. “And your papa’s name?”

  “Jacques,” she said. “The French spelling. The family prefers the French spelling.”

  Roosevelt patted Leonie’s slight shoulder. He said, “I’m going to give your papa a call, if you’ll tell me the name of the construction company he works for, and-”

  Leonie sat forward and put her hand on top of his. The tiny white fingers didn’t even be
gin to conceal his larger, toffee colored ones. He didn’t believe her. She had messed up by coming here, but there might be some slight chance left that she could convince him by other means. She grasped at the only straws she had remaining and interrupted him. The words rattled out of her mouth before she could take the time to think about how they would sound. “There’s a man named Whitechapel. I don’t know his first name, but he lives in the house. The address is 2345 Sugarberry Lane. It’s très beau. Very beautiful. This man took Douglas yesterday, and Douglas is very afraid. He doesn’t have much time left before the man will hurt him. The man is doing something else right now and Douglas is all alone in a dark room. He hears things that frighten him, even though the man has promised him he will get to play games and eat as much candy as he wants.”

  The little girl’s touch tingled on his fingers like an electrical shock and Roosevelt’s eyes suddenly widened in surprise. He couldn’t help himself. He jerked his hand away from her and shook it midair as if it had fallen asleep and he was reinitiating circulation in it. “How could you possibly know that?” he whispered, not even realizing that his voice had lowered in pitch.

  Leonie shrugged. It was a very adult movement and she pressed her lips tightly together in concentration. “The way I know anything at all. It’s just like I know the sky is blue and within the black waters of Twilight Lake swims Goujon, the great catfish who made the lake by thumping his large tail against the ground and causing an earthquake.” Her gold eyes caught his. “Just like I know you’ve been looking for a gold pen. It’s a Cross pen that your aunt gave to you when you graduated college. You like it so much because she gave it to you and she’s dead now. A gold pen you haven’t been able to find for two weeks. I know where it is, too.”

  Roosevelt took a step back. He hadn’t seen his pen since he’d signed a birthday card for one of the patrol officers almost two weeks before. He had been missing it and every time he had used it he had thought of his Aunt Carlita, who’d pressed him hard to finish college. Only last year had she succumbed to lung cancer and he’d been heartbroken to lose that pen. He’d torn up his house looking for it and practically strip-searched every one who’d signed the birthday card for the patrolman. Despite his efforts, the pen hadn’t materialized.