Bayou Moon Page 21

  The palette knife was still in her hand. She plunged it backward into his thigh as hard as she could. Although it wasn’t sharpened, the edge was very thin and cut effortlessly through his pants and the flesh of his upper leg. With an outraged yell, he let her go. She pushed him away from her and ran to her car, but someone else was waiting for her there.

  Chapter Nineteen

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21

  Little Miss Muffet

  Sat on a tuffet,

  Eating some curds and whey.

  Along came a spider,

  And sat down beside her,

  And frightened Miss Muffet away.

  LITTLE MISS MUFFET

  “THAT LITTLE BITCH TRIED to kill me!” Geraud cried.

  Miner Poteet stood between Geraud and Mignon. He had approached silently through the woods, and the cultivated lands in their last growth cycle of the season. His arrival was timely, but Mignon knew that Geraud wouldn’t consider the seventy-year-old man much of a threat. However, he was carrying a thick walking stick made out of some heavy wood, which he held ably in one arm, as though he were quite willing to use it.

  Mignon had barreled down the porch steps as if she were on fire, and had almost run into the old farmer as he walked around the cars parked in front of the house. She had been so glad to see him that tears poured down her face.

  Miner Poteet had taken one look at Mignon—crying, her lip bloody where she had bitten it when she had been yanked backward, her face flushed red, and her T-shirt torn on one shoulder—and stepped in front of her protectively.

  Geraud had been busy yanking the palette knife out of his thigh. The blade had gone about an inch deep, and the wound was bleeding freely enough to create a stain the size of a pie plate on his pant leg. He held a blood-covered hand against the wound and limped after Mignon, pausing when he finally realized that Miner Poteet was standing in between him and his prey.

  “It looked like you were trying to rape her,” said Miner, without even a bit of sympathy. For one thing, Geraud was a whole lot bigger than Mignon. For another thing, she was running away from him. For a third thing, the older man had seen what Geraud had been doing to her before she stabbed him with the funny-looking knife. Miner smacked the cane against his other palm with a loud thump. “I know when a man might be mistaken about an event.”

  Geraud began to snarl, “I’m not mistaken about—”

  Miner interrupted him. “He might have had a little accident which caused him to be cut, just like another man might have been mistaken about what looked like attempted rape.” His voice was cool and collected as he suggested a course of action for both of them. “That’s what happens ofttimes. A man is simply … mistaken.”

  Mignon had her car door open and her hand on the butt of her Beretta. One false move and Geraud was going to hell where he belonged. She wasn’t sure if she could stop the shaking in her hand long enough to plug the bastard, but it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.

  A variety of emotions flashed across Geraud’s face, from anger to surprise to understanding. Mignon could see it plainly. It had taken him a moment to comprehend the combined threat and bargain Miner offered. If he didn’t cry assault, she wouldn’t cry rape. Miner Poteet didn’t know it, but Mignon couldn’t afford to cry attempted rape on Geraud, not if she wanted to go back to the mansion to see what else she could find out.

  Miner tossed Geraud a red handkerchief he’d pulled out of his pocket. Geraud caught it and pressed it to the wound. Miner said, “Maybe you oughts get to Natchitoches to the clinic. A few stitches will take care of that. A man should be careful when he’s … walking through the woods and trips on a deadfall.”

  “I agree,” Geraud said after a pause. He limped to his Land Rover, got in, and shot Mignon one last sullen look before driving off.

  Mignon wiped the blood away from her mouth with the back of one hand and sat down in the front seat of her car.

  Miner watched the road where the Land Rover disappeared into the woods. He said, “Don’t suppose I’ll see that handkerchief again.”

  Her knees were shaking so hard they knocked together as she sat there and stared at Miner. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I would have killed him. I would have gotten this gun”—she placed the Beretta on her lap—“and I would have shot him dead.” She was horrified with herself. Despite all of her planning, all of the scenarios she’d imagined, she had never thought that this might be the conclusion, and it would have been the worst one possible. She would have killed him and then she would have never known who had killed her mother.

  “Mais non,” protested Miner. He shuffled over and patted her awkwardly on her shoulder. “He is not worth the trouble, that one. He is a selfish one. He philanders on his wife, and visits young women in the area. Nothing good has ever come of that one, and shooting him would only bring a touch of evil upon you.” He frowned. “You must not come to this place alone, daughter. There are too many who don’t want to see you here.”

  “Daughter?” she repeated. “I wish that could have been. Did I tell you about my adopted father?”

  “No.” Miner patted her shoulder again. “Tell me about this man.”

  “He saved my life, too.”

  Miner moved about restlessly. He opened and closed his mouth several times as if he wanted to say something, but finally he closed it and continued to pat her shoulder. It was a long time before Mignon could stand again, and she put the gun back into her purse as if she were watching herself from afar. It was surreal.

  Miner said, “I didn’t save your life, Mignon. You would have reached your little gun there, and you would have shot him as dead as I shoot dead the crow who plucks at my corn. I only prevented you from making a mistake.” He looked at her gravely. “You do not want the blood on your hands, little Mignon. It’s a terrible burden.”

  Mignon stared at him with large, luminous eyes. “You have that burden?” What is he trying to tell me? That he killed my mother and Luc St. Michel?

  Clearly Miner could read the thoughts running rampant across her face. He shook his head. “No, chère. I did not do that fearsome thing. But there is something else I should tell you.”

  She waited and he went on. “There was that day the sheriff came and told us what would happen. What would happen to you and your father, and what would happen to me and my kin if I interfered. That day, so long ago, that your mother left with her lover. We found you earlier, hours earlier, my wife and I, as you walked up the little road to our home. Covered with blood and not speaking a word. And in one of your tiny little hands you held this.” One hand retrieved something from a large pocket. As he held it out, it glittered in the sun, and Mignon took it without thinking.

  In the palm of her hand was a delicate bracelet. It was made of eighteen-carat gold and gleamed as if it had been purchased from some expensive department store that very day. However, anyone could see that this was no mass-produced object, but a finely wrought, exquisite piece of jewelry. Mignon turned over the little pendant that was attached to the gossamer chain. It was an oval engraved with a large E. She shivered again. There was still dried blood on the bracelet. Little blackened flakes of blood, preserved by time and by Miner Poteet, floated off as she turned the bracelet in her hand. The clasp was broken as if it had been wrested from its owner’s wrist.

  “We were afraid, you see,” Miner whispered, his old voice hoarse with the pain of remembering. “And soon I will go to God, confessing to Him for my sins, and the one I can never forgive myself for. When we didn’t try to help you as we should have.”

  The bracelet lay in her hand like a tiny golden snake. Mignon wanted to fling it away before it could bite deeply into her flesh, wounding her forever. Her eyes went to Miner’s. “Are you saying I was there? I saw it all?”

  “You weren’t wounded, but you were covered with blood,” Miner murmured. “I can see it in my mind. Such a tiny little petite, your white pinafore almost completely red. We thought an animal had got at you.
My wife, she bathed you, dressed you in the clothes of one of our daughters, while I called for Ruff. He had been in Natchitoches drinking, as usual. I went to the old store at the crossroads and called five taverns before I found him. He came to pick you up, and found some of his belongings packed and waiting on the porch of the old farmhouse. The judge was waiting there. And the old sheriff visited me, then he go to Ruff, too … .

  “I put that bracelet away in a box and hid it under the bed for twenty-five years because I was afraid of what it meant. And I knew that something dreadful had happened. Days later I went to the old house and found that it had been cleaned from the ceilings to the floors. Some of the walls had been painted. It was as if you and your family had never been there.” Miner turned away. “I don’t know what they did with their bodies, Mignon. I think you won’t be able to find them. But at least you know, she’s not out there, living somewhere without you. She wouldn’t have left you, no.”

  “I know that. I knew it almost as soon as I saw the old house,” she said. “But you don’t know who?”

  His eyes went involuntarily to the bracelet held in her hand. “You know who, chère. You know it better than I.”

  Her gaze dropped to the bracelet, as well. The E etched into the gold seemed as big as life, an elegant shape that denoted the wealth that had purchased it. Like the saint’s medal in her mother’s rusted keepsake box, this wasn’t a piece of dross. The air was humid and still as she whispered the name that they both knew so well. “Eleanor.” The sound was like the wings of a small bird escaping through the forest from a vicious predator.

  After a while, she muttered, “Let me drive you home, Miner. I’m going back to Natchitoches. I won’t stay here alone anymore.” She paused. “You wrote that letter to me, didn’t you, Miner? It had to be you.”

  Miner nodded hesitantly. “My granddaughter, she write for me. Her mother saw the article in the Alexandria papers. There wasn’t a picture of you, but your last name was mentioned there. She knew and she sent the article to me. I kept it for weeks before I got Mary Catherine to write some words to you. That girl, she said your address was available on the computer … the Internet, she calls it.” He paused and chewed on his lip. “I didn’t know what to say to you, daughter. I felt shame at keeping this secret, at your expense.” He passed a hand over his face as if to wipe away an errant tear that leaked from his eye. Then he abruptly changed the subject. “What you do with that?” he gestured to the piece of jewelry in her hand.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t blame you, Miner. You didn’t have a choice, any more than I did.”

  The old man stared at her for a long time. “Perhaps not. But I believe we all make choices we have to live with. Someone comes here at night. Last night, I run them off with the shotgun. They were messing with the property, bringing a truck down to the house. I hear it rumbling off as they leave. They make a bad choice, too. I got plenty of shells for my old Winchester.”

  HOURS LATER, JOHN Henry was tipping Mignon’s chin up to the light inside his house. “How did you get that fat lip?”

  “I bit it, John Henry,” she answered. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it certainly wasn’t the complete truth, either. She had stopped by to tell him that she wanted to see him later in the week, on Wednesday night if he were free. He had noticed immediately that her lip was slightly swollen.

  “What happened?”

  Mignon couldn’t tell him. Not him. There would be too much risk. He was already investigating her claims, walking on “her side of the fence,” as he had put it, and pursuing Geraud would be dangerous for him as well as for her. There would be nothing to prevent Geraud from coming after her again. “I tripped and bit my lip. It was stupid. The workmen tore up the floor in the house. Lots to trip over.”

  John Henry let go of her chin. He had known from the moment they’d met that she was a stubborn woman. Perhaps she would share it with him later. “What about tonight?”

  “I’m claimed by someone else,” she said softly. “Jealous?”

  “Depends on who it is,” he answered.

  “Well, Eleanor’s invited me to her country club.” Mignon smiled at him. He hesitated because it was a brittle smile, and he thought for a moment that it was a clever facade to keep him out.

  “You think she murdered your mother years ago, and yet you want to go to dinner with her?” John Henry couldn’t quite keep the amazement and awe out of his voice.

  “Maybe she’ll confess to me.”

  “Not likely.”

  “She’s showing me off at her country club, her pet artist who just happens to be the daughter of the woman her husband ‘supposedly’ ran off with.” Mignon shrugged lightly. “I’m going to pick her brains. Besides, I won’t be alone with her.”

  John Henry put on his sheriff’s face again. “Don’t be,” he said and kissed her gently.

  Then he pulled back and looked at her solemnly. “If you were doing something illegal, Mignon, you know what I would do, don’t you?”

  Mignon studied him. Her face was as serious as his. A warning was being issued and she suddenly wondered if he knew more than he was letting on. “I know what you would do, John Henry. I know it’s the only thing you could do.”

  “You understand that?”

  She kissed him back, and it was a long time before she pulled away to murmur, “I understand, John Henry. I wouldn’t expect less of you.”

  AN HOUR BEFORE dinner a limousine picked up Mignon at the bed and breakfast. The driver held the door for her, and when she got in, she came face to face with Jourdain Gastineau. Mignon was momentarily startled. For the briefest of seconds she thought it was Geraud, even though the two men didn’t look anything alike.

  Settling into the comfortable seat, she eyed him warily. Jourdain was dressed in black as she was. They were both immaculate, sleek, and soignée. She regained her composure immediately and asked about his wife.

  “Another function,” he explained. “A historical society charitable event.”

  Mignon nodded and made herself a bit more at ease. Undoubtedly Alexandrine preferred to avoid events where her husband’s beloved Eleanor was going to be.

  Jourdain stuck his chin out. “John Henry came to chat with me last week.”

  Mignon didn’t reply because no reply was necessary. So Jourdain went on. “He seems to think that something suspicious happened to your mother and to Luc St. Michel.”

  “May I have a drink?” she asked politely. “Cognac? Brandy?”

  Jourdain turned to the little bar inside the back of the limo and poured her a drink. She sipped it and said, “And what does that have to do with me?”

  “You said you weren’t interested in raking up the past.” His eyes were full of ice.

  “Sometimes the past has a way of coming back to haunt us,” she replied. “In a way we can’t do anything about.”

  Jourdain was silent.

  Mignon continued, “I heard on the radio about your nomination, Mr. Gastineau. Or should I be calling you ‘Your Honor?’”

  “Not yet.”

  The bracelet on her wrist slid down as she raised the glass to her lips. It glittered in the reflection of the lights from passing vehicles. His eyes caught it and narrowed to slits. “That looks very familiar.”

  Mignon watched his face. “Oh, do you like it?”

  “It’s very … exquisite, isn’t it?”

  It was, and the jeweler who had been paid an extra hundred dollars to repair it this afternoon had thought so, as well. He’d held it in his hands like a priceless gem, and said, “This is a Nairne. He’s an exclusive jeweler from New Orleans. A man who’s been at the top of his form for over three decades. It’s even signed here.” He pointed out the tiny initials on the back of the pendant and gushed over the masterful yet delicate work. He hadn’t been able to do the first-rate job that he swore the quality of the piece required, but it would stay on her wrist provided someone didn’t yank it off.

  And Mignon needed t
o wear it that evening; she wanted several people who would be there to see it, people who might have seen it before.

  At the country club Mignon admired the old Southern decor. It was as if they had stepped into a plantation from a hundred years before. Willow trees lined the drive, dripping with Spanish moss. Old gaslights in black lanterns were placed strategically at each corner. Inside was leaded crystal and velvet walls, and people mingled happily in groups. Eleanor emerged from a crowd and immediately escorted her around, introducing her as a famous artist from New York. A few people were crass enough to mention her Louisiana roots in a mildly insulting manner, but Mignon handled those with all the ease she had learned in the Big Apple.

  By the time they sat down to dinner, Mignon had been introduced to over a hundred people and she knew she could never remember all their names in a hundred years. But she didn’t care about most of them. At their table were Eleanor, Eugenie, and her companion David, with his sullen face and uncommunicative manner. Eugenie was off in a world of her own making, and Mignon suspected that she had been heavily medicated this evening. Jourdain sat on one side of Mignon, and a couple from Shreveport sat across from her. She repeated their names twice, but all Mignon could remember was Mary and Joseph something. They were friends of Eleanor’s, and Mary gushed over Mignon so much that Mignon was afraid she’d have to go to the ladies’ room to wring the excess moisture out of her dress.

  No one mentioned why Geraud and his wife weren’t present. Mignon was pleased that his name didn’t come up and didn’t bring it up herself. She saw Gabriel once in the distance, and was pleased that he didn’t come over and ogle her, as was his habit.

  The dinner conversation was mundane. Eleanor invited Mignon to the mansion on Saturday night. “It’s a full moon, darling,” she said. “We should have a most fascinating response.”

  “I suppose you’ll want to tie me up again,” Mignon said sarcastically.