Bayou Moon Read online

  “Why did you come back here?” he asked.

  “Why do you think?” This was Mignon’s cardinal rule; when in doubt, always ask a question. She kept her voice neutral and non-accusatory, as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  “You think the St. Michels called me up and said, ‘Hey, John Henry, go run that gal out of town because she’s the daughter of the woman who ran off with Luc. We’re inclined to think that little lady’s up to no damn good.’” John Henry glanced at her again. “Is that what you think?”

  Mignon avoided his gaze. “I think that Louisiana politics can be a dangerous thing.”

  John Henry knew that he wouldn’t be getting anything out of this woman except with a rubber hose, and maybe not even then. Finally, he said, “They didn’t call me. Hell, woman, it’s been two decades and change. You think Eleanor St. Michel gives a good goddamn whether Luc St. Michel comes crawling back here, much less the daughter of the woman he ran off with back when Gerald Ford was falling down boarding ramps? She controls his money. Has for all these years. She’s got her hands in the kitty, but good. She doesn’t give a damn about you, or your mother. And for your information, she ain’t one to give to politicians’ campaign funds. At least, not anymore, not to anyone but the Governor of Louisiana, and maybe not even him.”

  Just then a deer exploded out of the vegetation in front of them, giving them both a startled look before leaping gracefully into the woods on the other side of the road, vanishing forever into the green jungle-like forest.

  It was a long moment before Mignon said, “It’s hard to say what Eleanor St. Michel would think, much less do.” But in her mind was the vision of an article Terri had brought to her months before, from a newspaper Mignon wouldn’t line the bottom of a birdcage with. HAUNTED PLANTATION IN LOUISIANA, screamed the headline. A GHOST WALKS THE HALLS! Terri had known about her past; she was one of the few people that Mignon had ever spoken to about that subject. The article had transfixed her, putting together all of her feelings of confusion and dread in a way that gave her life a new purpose. Then there had been the anonymous letter, some months later. A cryptic letter which had told her that things were happening at the St. Michel mansion that would interest her.

  She abruptly changed the subject. “I haven’t seen a deer in years, perhaps decades.”

  “You’ll see more here,” John Henry said. “This ain’t the city. You never know what’s going to jump out of the shadows.”

  When they got to her rental car, Mignon could see the four-wheel-drive Bronco parked behind it with its rack of lights and parish emblem emblazoned on the side. “They call you John Henry, not John.” It was not quite a question.

  “A few do,” he said. He opened her car door and handed her inside it, in a way that made her feel a little special. “My mother named me John Henry, not John. Though I like to get to know people before I invite them to call me John Henry.”

  One of her eyebrows rose eloquently, wondering if he was intentionally flirting just then. “I wouldn’t think otherwise.”

  John Henry retrieved a small first aid kit from his vehicle, and took a few minutes to tend to her injury, completing the action by putting a large Band-Aid across the scrape. The warmth of his fingers touching her flesh made her shiver, and she bit her lip until he finished. When he was done, he stood up and tucked the kit under one arm. Then he leaned down into her open door and stared at her with his piercing brown eyes, trying to figure out what her motives were for being in this place.

  Mignon thought about drawing his face on a blank canvas, glorying in the strong lines, embracing the clean delineation of his cheekbones, the curve of his forehead. It was such an interesting face. He smiled at her, and the smile changed his features, showing her the charm that he must have innately possessed because of the very nature of being a politician.

  He said, deliberately, “I don’t work for the St. Michels. I work for the parish. The St. Michels don’t have nearly the influence over the area they did a decade before.”

  “And now you’d like to know why I’m here. Just out of normal curiosity, I suppose … ,” She trailed off, drawing her legs up into the cab of her rental car. She closed the door, forcing him to withdraw, and spoke to him through the open window. “Because I’d like to learn a little about my heritage, that’s all.”

  Mignon started the car and carefully backed out and around the Bronco, leaving John Henry staring after her. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and put his sunglasses back on. You never know when one of those pesky skeletons wants to come popping on out of the closet. Damn fine looking skeleton, that.

  A few moments later, Mignon forced herself to stop shivering. She had expected a lawman to visit her, just not that quickly, not within hours of her setting foot in the town. Either he had an idea who she was and had stumbled upon her at the old Poteet place—and therefore was innocent of being an ally of the St. Michels—or he had been informed of her presence immediately through the grapevine and had been conducting a little reconnaissance to find out what Mignon Thibeaux was doing in town. Either way, he had demonstrated the suspicious nature of a longtime peace officer and was accordingly dangerous to her.

  She hadn’t counted on the instant recognition. In her memories, Garlande Thibeaux was a tall, beautiful woman with long auburn hair, pale green eyes, and an infectious laugh that invited one and all to participate with her in laughing even more. Garlande couldn’t have been the exact image of her one and only daughter, except that the tiny town of La Valle seemed to think she was just that.

  Mignon could barely remember her mother’s face. Almost every personal possession she’d had was lost in the challenging system that sheltered abandoned children. Every move she made, things disappeared, got left behind, or other foster children stole or destroyed for reasons Mignon never understood. Consequently, there wasn’t even a photograph of Garlande left for her to look at, much less for her to compare their remarkable similarity.

  But Mignon knew that they were similar, and she had heard some of the mutterings in the town very clearly. A few people thought she was Garlande Thibeaux, back from distant places to haunt La Valle with insidious rumors and taunts about how she’d spent the last quarter of a century. The reasoning was ironic because Garlande would be in her early fifties now, and surely showing some of that age, whereas Mignon was only thirty years old, and sometimes looked twenty.

  She had to laugh. She’d believed most of her naïveté had left her long ago when a foster parent tried to feel her up in a walk-in pantry. The remainder of her naivete had disappeared when the foster system administrator didn’t believe that she had been trying to protect herself when she smashed the man across the head with a can of baked beans, leaving him with a cut that required six stitches. Imagine that, she told herself. I have a little naïveté left, after all.

  Chapter Four

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10

  Rain, rain, go away.

  Come again another day.

  RAIN, RAIN

  THE STEEL-GRAY MERCEDES BENZ entered the gates of the St. Michel mansion only fifteen minutes after it had left La Valle. Jourdain Gastineau sat in his car and stared at the rows of pale Grecian pillars lined up before the generous doors that guarded the interior and all of the St. Michels who dwelled within. He stared as he thought about what he had seen.

  Moments later he was admitted by a maid and shown to the back patio, fitted with red flagstones a St. Michel ancestor had brought from the Texas hill country by wagon and barge a century before. The patio was a wide expanse overlooking elaborate gardens filled with boxwood that framed arrangements of roses in every shade conceivable. The huge area was lined with oaks blanketed with Spanish moss and honeysuckle, and the delicate aroma overflowed Jourdain’s nostrils.

  Eleanor St. Michel was taking in a bit of sun with Eugenie at her side, both sitting at a glass table on intricate wrought-iron chairs. Jourdain smiled when he saw Eleanor, admiring her trim figure, the fine length of her ne
ck, and the sheen of her hair as a fall breeze gently teased it. Dressed in casual cotton and twill, both women looked like they might have come from a walk in the nearby woods, and were now taking in glasses of iced tea with a sprig of mint and a slice of lemon to cool the perspiration from simple excess.

  Eugenie saw Jourdain first, but he didn’t bother to look at her. If he had, he might have seen the dark smudges beneath her eyes, similar to the ones under his own, and pondered the meaning of that.

  Eleanor finally turned around and smiled brilliantly at Jourdain, a flash of white in a mouth outlined flawlessly in lipstick purchased at an exclusive New Orleans boutique. “Why, Jourdain, we’ve not seen you so much in a month of Sundays.” One hand graciously touched her daughter’s arm. “As I’m sure Eugenie could tell you.”

  Jourdain nodded at Eugenie and said, “And we haven’t seen Eugenie in, oh, goodness, it’s been years since you’ve come home. How does it feel to be back at the home front after all this time?”

  Eugenie shrugged carelessly. “After the divorce, Cannes wasn’t the same. I needed a change.”

  “And the mansion was the change you needed.”

  “Mother insisted I come home. It was time for me to return. And it’s been so long …” Her voice trailed off.

  Jourdain turned to Eleanor. “I wanted to be the first one to tell you,” he said.

  Eleanor took a sip of iced tea. “So dreadfully intent, my dear. Why not sit and take a glass of tea? Sally makes a lovely mint tea that delightfully quenches one’s—”

  “Eleanor,” he interrupted. “The girl is back.”

  The St. Michel matriarch studied Jourdain thoughtfully. Eugenie’s hand shook as comprehension flowed through her body. Eleanor put down her glass as her eyes flickered toward the distant trees in the direction of the old farmhouse where the Thibeauxs had once lived. “What of it, Jourdain?”

  “I think you know,” he answered.

  Eugenie murmured, “I told you. She’s come back.” She shivered despite a warm breeze and rose in a smooth motion, disappearing into the depths of the house within seconds, leaving the glass of iced tea on the table, beads of sweat rippling down the sides.

  Eleanor was still staring into the black horizon of oak and pine in the distance, immersed in the domain of her own mind as Jourdain stepped closer. His hand reached out to touch a curl of silvery hair that had escaped her chignon, wrapping it around a finger. Her hair was as it ever was. Soft and silky, beckoning to him to run his hands through it, and then to touch her satiny flesh. How could Luc have wanted to leave this woman? he thought with disgust.

  “I went to the old witch-woman last night,” she said.

  Jourdain closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep, cleansing breath. The curl slipped from his fingers and his hand retreated to safety at his side. Finally he said, “Is that old woman still alive? It seems that she was a thousand years old when we were children. She tolerated us as though she were an autocratic queen and we merely peons.”

  That same enigmatic smile passed over Eleanor’s finely wrought features. She might have been just forty years old, ever palely refined, ever coolly enthralling. “She cast the bones for me and said that secrets are about to be revealed.”

  “What does that mean?” Jourdain asked.

  Eleanor’s dark blue eyes moved away from the forest and back to Jourdain. “I believe it means that life is ironic.”

  Chapter Five

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10

  Goosey goosey gander,

  Whither shall I wander?

  Upstairs and downstairs,

  And in my lady’s chamber;

  There I met an old man who wouldn’t say his prayers;

  I took him by the left leg

  And threw him down the stairs.

  GOOSEY GOOSEY GANDER

  AFTER JOURDAIN LEFT, ELEANOR met with the witch-woman again. She parked her Lexus next to a tin and wood shack deep in the woods ten miles from her own home, and gracefully exited the car, careful to adjust her skirt as she stood up. The sun cast the shadows of late afternoon and Eleanor knew that the old woman would probably be expecting her. She didn’t know how the woman knew, but she never seemed to be surprised.

  The old woman opened the ragged hanging door and beckoned at Eleanor with wizened fingers stained with nicotine and her hands showing liver spots as large as quarters. Eleanor paused for a moment, carefully sorting her turbulent thoughts into neat little compartments which she could open at will. She wanted to know what needed to be done. She wanted answers that only the witch-woman could provide. But she didn’t dare lose her composure. After all, she was a lady and a St. Michel.

  The inside of the shack was neat and clean, even more than was usual. Everything seemed to have its place and was appropriately free of grime and dust. The woman herself was clad in old, patched, but clean clothing, from the cotton print blouse that did not match the striped skirt to neatly mended stockings. Even her steel-gray hair was fiercely scraped back into a bun at the back of her head.

  Her family name was Poulet, and sometimes she was called Maman Poulet by the people in La Valle. But to Eleanor she had always been the witch-woman, to whom girls had gone for sage advice and surreptitious readings. Sometimes Eleanor saw young women hurrying away from the shack, intent on whatever they had been told. Whispers of the woman carried on the wind, and the next generation would soon be knocking at her door.

  Inside the tiny dwelling only a few items indicated the witch-woman’s profession. Candles burned along one wall, emitting odd smoke and musky aromas. A set of bones, dry and tiny, polished to a shiny gleam from repeated handling, lay in a brass bowl near the candles. Little bottles of unidentified substances were scattered along the crudely made shelves of another wall, their contents as mysterious as their purpose. All of these things hinted at the old woman’s vocation, but it was the shrewd, knowledgeable face that showed it in the most undisguised fashion.

  “You don’t normally come back so soon, madam. Yest’day only hours before. Dem bones, they cause you some concern, no?”

  Eleanor withdrew two crisp hundred dollar bills from a calfskin pocketbook. “I have a question.”

  The woman sat at a card table and motioned for Eleanor to take the opposite seat, a rattling aluminum chair that was probably older than both of her children. She passed the bills to the witch-woman and waited.

  The old woman withdrew a pack of tarot cards, well used and weathered with age. It was not a standard Rider deck but something that had been passed down through generations of Poulet women, the figures on the cards primitive and earthy. In years of using psychic readers and fortune-tellers Eleanor had never seen another deck like it. “Think you of your question, madam, and de cards, dey answer you.” She set the deck before Eleanor and tapped the top. “Cut thrice, each to de west, so the sun’s gracious light will shine on de cards.”

  Eleanor cut the deck, carefully placing them in the direction indicated, and the witch-woman then laid out the cards in a cross formation.

  The first card the witch-woman revealed was the hanged man. The old woman studied the card and pronounced, “Dis man hanging. He tell of trials to come. He say dat you must be full of wisdom to overcome, dat sacrifice must be made.” She flipped over the second card with her yellow, gnarled fingers and withdrew her hand quickly.

  The card was the tower, a crude drawing of a wooden structure with lightning striking it, indicating destruction. The old woman said, “You have ter’ble obstacles, madam, oh, oui. De tower speak of misery. Devastation. Wretchedness to come.”

  Eleanor wanted to reach out and touch the cards that were displayed on the small table but her hands seemed to be frozen in place as the old woman turned over the third card and carefully positioned it at the bottom of the first two. “Dis card,” she said. “Dis is you. De high priestess.” The card showed a delicately framed woman sitting in between two marble columns. She stared forward as if nothing could touch her and the world only pas
sed her by. The old woman tapped the card once. “Dis shows dat dere are secrets here. Many secrets and secrets sometimes as bad for dose who keep dem as for dose who wish to reveal dem.”

  The fourth card went at the head of the other three. It was the moon card. The yellow sliver of a moon with a crooked face stared down upon two wild dogs baying up at it from inside a dark forest, black tendrils curling and reaching for nothing at all. The old woman let out her breath. “Dere is danger here. Danger for you. Danger for your own. Dere are enemies hidden from your eyes. Not dose who you t‘ink are your enemies but dose around you. You must act. You must bring forth someone you ain’t never t’ought to bring forth before. A stranger, but not a stranger to your family.”

  The fifth card went to the right of the pile, a standard cross appearing before Eleanor’s eyes. “De judgement card,” the old woman murmured. The card showed an angel from heaven blowing his horn of adjudication, as woebegone mortals supplicated him from below, expressions of abject terror on their faces. “Dis say dat t‘ings will change. T’ings must change. Dere is no choice here. Only warning to de one who may prepare herself.”

  Eleanor stared at the cards, trying to discern the old woman’s meaning. “And the last card?”

  The old woman flipped it over. Eleanor held her breath for a moment. She’d expected a severe card, such as the devil or death, showing the dire state of affairs, but instead it was the magician. A man in a robe looked down upon a table filled with mysterious items that provoked one’s thoughts, a goblet, a sword, a pentagram, and a staff. The witch woman studied it carefully. Finally she said, “What will come, dis is up to you. You must take de first step to salvation. Your salvation. Your family’s salvation.”