It was a Monday, so most kids were at school and adults at work, but still the streets were active. All the residents here were black. Cree was startled to see an impossibly tiny woman struggling to push a baby carriage along the uneven sidewalk. She wore medium-heeled pumps and a pink dress belted awkwardly at the waist, a battered hat with fake flowers on it, a gaudy, old-fashioned necklace, and bracelets too loose on her spindle arms. A midget? And then Cree realized what she was seeing: a little girl, dressed in her mother's or grandmother's clothes, playing mom. Cree missed the twins with a sudden pang and then she had sailed past. On the porch a few houses down, a couple of women chatted animatedly, slapping their thighs as they laughed and hooted at something scandalous. A middle-aged, hugely fat woman tottered laboriously along lugging heavy clusters of plastic grocery bags in both hands. Beyond her, three men wearing tool belts dug around the base of a falling-down porch propped up by two-by-fours; one of them turned and shielded his eyes against the sun to watch her.
Cree glided on, feeling like a voyeur, wishing she were invisible so that she could look and look and absorb and not be seen, not disturb or intrude. Here in the dense center of the neighborhood, she could feel its hum: a penetrating, warm, steady vibration like the muffled buzz of a honeybee hive deep inside the trunk of a hollow tree. The ghost of New Orleans. Of the living and the dead alike.
Yes, Charmian, she thought, pleasant feelings have a life just as much as the awful, the unendurable ones. Here it all mixed together, a patchwork quilt of rainbow colors as rich and dense as the decaying facades all around. Every dark and terrible thing was lived here: the frustration of poverty, numbing resignation, anger and resentment, cruelty and violence, jealousy and hatred, hopelessness and helplessness, madness. But also humor, joy, aspiration, love, tenderness, anticipation, glee, desire, celebration, strength – even here in the poorest corner of the decaying city, the light did not yield. It all poured together and did not cease.
Take me in, she called to it again. And it seemed to.
She pulled over to the curb and just stared up at a row of beat-up houses, feeling inundated and comforted. She couldn't recall a more seductive place, one that drew her into resonance so easily and thoroughly.
Of course, it occurred to her, maybe it wasn't so much New Orleans that had caught her in its web. Maybe it was just more of what Edgar had pointed out: her unaccountable susceptibility right now.
Her eye fell on the face of her watch and she got a sudden jolt. If she didn't hurry, she'd be late for her appointment with Investigator Bobby Guidry.
She had to mask her surprise when she met him. When she'd talked to him on the phone, his deep voice and strong accent had conjured the image of a tall, big-bellied bubba, with a gun on his hip and a wooden matchstick in his teeth. But Bobby Guidry was a tiny man who looked less like a classic Southern sheriff than a race-horse jockey at a wedding. He was dressed fastidiously in a dark charcoal gray suit with faint pinstripes, tie, and mirror-shined shoes, and though his black hair was probably natural, it was so thick and glossy it looked like a toupee. His small, blue-stubbled face wore what had to be a permanent frown of suspicion.
Guidry led her into the labyrinthine interior of the building and brought her to a metal desk in a big room with six identical desks in it, only two of them occupied. Windows lined one wall, and through them Cree could see one of the facility's parking lots, mostly full of white-and-blue police cruisers. Institutional beige walls, shiny linoleum floor, uniformed and plainclothes police coming and going: all in all, an atmosphere of industrious professionalism that was a good antidote for the stuff Charmian had stirred up.
Guidry gestured to a chair and asked Cree if she wanted some coffee. She looked at the half-full paper cup of curdled-looking mud on his desk and declined. Guidry remained standing, arms folded as he leaned back against his desk; even when she was sitting, Cree's face was nearly on a level with his.
"Well, you got exactly two minutes to explain why in hell I should tell you even one thing about the Chase murder." Guidry tapped the face of his watch as if marking the beginning of Cree's time. "You can start with who y'are, and why ya'll're down here all the way from See-attle."
Cree had anticipated this question. Telling Guidry she was a parapsychologist would be a good way to get the bum's rush out of here. Anyway, the Beaufortes had been very clear about their desire for confidentiality. So she opted for a small lie – a misleading truth, really.
"I'm a freelance writer, and I'm working on an article about the case. I've started my interviews with the Beaufortes because I needed their permission to get into the house. But everyone tells me you're the guy who can really help." Guidry looked doubtful, so she added quickly, "I don't think I need to know anything that will compromise your investigation."
"We'll have to see about that." Guidry's frown pinched his narrow forehead. "Hell, okay, shoot. But if I say no, you gotta take me at my word it's somethin' I can't tell you. Don't push on it."
Cree nodded gratefully and got out her pad and pen. "So I take it the case is still open."
"Oh, yeah, case's still open. But the name of my unit should tell you something – cold. I rode this damn thing up from the District Six office, and I can tell you it's basically been cold from day one."
"I read in some newspaper articles that you were looking into the possibility that Chase had organized crime connections. Have there been any developments in that area?"
"Wouldn't tell you if there had been." Guidry opened a drawer and found a stick of gum, which he peeled and folded into his mouth. "But to set the record straight, 'connections' may be the wrong term. You look at who Temp was talkin' to, who he knew, maybe he could be some of these guys' buddy. And maybe some favors got traded, highway contracts, with Temp's friends up in Baton Rouge – Southern Lou'siana social networkin' has a tendency to get more'n a little inbred. But then you ask his people at the TV station, they say, yeah, ol' Temp, about twice a year he liked to pick out a choice item for some investigative reporting, and he'd been workin' up a piece on organized crime influence in the legislature. So maybe Temp was on the up an' up after all. But I can't tell you more'n that."
"Were there – are there – any other suspects?"
"No comment."
"What about the wife?"
"Looked at her, cleared her one hundred percent. Verifiably with her family that night, they had a baby shower for her sister, they all spent the night. Murder broke that gal up, too. Poor kid."
"Were any of the Beaufortes ever considered suspects?"
A clever look of dawning comprehension came over his face. "That what this's about? Ron Beauforte, or that ol' Charmain, they got you checkin' up on me?" He eyes narrowed as he chewed his gum animatedly.
Cree avoided staring at the neat little gnawing teeth. "No one's got me checking up on you! Absolutely not. Why would -?"
" 'Cause we looked at the Beaufortes. Standard procedure – murder took place in their house. So we interviewed Ron and his sister and the old battle-ax. Especially Ron – everybody knew there were some sour feelin's between him and ol' Temp from back in '94."
"Can you tell me about that?"
"Oh, Ron got it into his head he'd give politics a try, maybe thought he could buy a good campaign for himself, ran in the Democratic House primary. Like I say, down here things get kind of looped around, family connections, money connections, hard to untangle. Ron and Temp kinda belonged to the same club, you know, but at some dinner party or other Temp let it be known that he preferred the other candidate. I never saw any harm in it, probably it was more Ron felt Temp had some kind of duty to support his landlord, maybe give his candidacy a boost. But Temp was a popular fella in this town, his word went a long way, the other guy got the nomination. Sure, we talked to Ron. But it sounded like they figured out how to get along afterward, Temp kept on rentin'his house. And anyway, Ron killin' a guy five years later, over somethin'like that – that's a bit of stretch."