“I’ve eaten them in Paris.” I grinned.
“Paris? Where the hell is that? For good food you got to go to New Orleans, or Elva’s kitchen.”
We had reached the eastern suburbs, not quite in the country. The houses dotted a landscape of sweeping lawns, small pastures, hedges, fences of wood, iron, chain link, split rail; lines of trees suggested boundaries between acreages of sizes to be called estates.
Elva turned onto a white-graveled driveway that wended between rows of sheltering willows. I saw a farmhouse that was comfortably old Southern, white frame, two stories, tall windows, a porch rambling across the front, a towering fieldstone chimney snugged against the eastern end.
George led me upstairs to a spacious front corner bedroom. Beneath the tall ceiling was a solid old poster bed, chest, bureau, huge oval mirror, writing desk, a Tiffany lamp on a table beside the invitation of a lounging chair.
“Your bath is right there.” George nodded at a door in the rear wall. “The wardrobe filling the corner should do. No closet... House was built by Valentina’s great grandpa, and houses were taxed by rooms in those days. Bureaucrats of course counted a closet as a room, and a hell of lot of people decided to make the wardrobe industry what it was for a while.”
He paused in the doorway. “Just follow your druthers while you’re with us, Cody. We don’t live on ceremony. Shoot any food allergies, or preferences, up front. We’ll do our best.”
“Thanks, George. Not picky in the mess hall. If it’s creeping, just kill it before you serve.”
“Stow your gear, freshen up if you like, and come on down as it suits your mood.”
Half an hour later, I heard the pleasant rise and fall of voices as I went down the oaken-banistered stairway into the spacious lower hallway.
They were in the living room, the forepart of the house off the hall, and Val saw me instantly when I appeared in the broad doorway.
She came and took my hand, ran the fingers of her other hand lightly along my temple. “Your hair is curling a little from the shower damp.” She smiled. “Come let me display you. People, this is Cody. Cody, meet Lissa Aubunelli, with whom I’ve had some pigtail pullings, and Keith Vereen. Careful with State Department classified in Keith’s presence, Cody. He’s one of those monsters known as the press. Publishes the local daily newspaper and brought the first, and only, television station to Wickens, a CBS affiliate.”
Lissa was plump, dark, big brown eyes, brown hair cut short and sassy, teeth that flashed almost as perfectly as Val’s, round, pink-cheeked face with chronic little moisture swatches beneath her eyes.
She gave me a hug and peck on the cheek, a sigh as she stepped back, head tilted, looking me over. “Val the stinker... really got the pick of the litter.”
Keith Vereen was smiling at her, offering his hand to me. He was tall, slender, slightly stooped, sandy-haired with quick, sharp blue eyes in a finely boned face. His movements suggested a carefully tuned conditioning and the reflexes of a cat.
“A real pleasure, Cody. But you’re no stranger. Val’s carryings-on about you in letters to her mother made you a friend quite awhile back.”
“How about a drink, appetizer?” Keith suggested. We drifted toward a buffet burdened with the wherewithal.
“Bourbon?” Lissa said. “I’ll pour; want it neat, or with branch, soda, ginger ale?”
“A splash of branch is fine.”
“How about a Sunday feature, Cody?” Keith said. “Isn’t every day an assistant secretary of state surfaces in Wickens. I’d even ask Lissa to write it.”
“No way,” Lissa said. “Hunk like him... I couldn’t be the least bit objective.”
Our hands touched as I took the proffered drink. “You’re a writer?”
“The best by-hell investigative reporter in the state of Louisiana,” Keith said, “perhaps the South.”
“Why stop there?” Lissa asked.
She didn’t look like an investigative reporter; she looked like a jolly young woman with innocent devilment behind her eyes and pasta recipes in her head.
“She started on the Sword, which is what my grandpappy called the paper when he bought the first linotype machine. Unfortunately, we lost her in a short time to the New Orleans Observer. Been there how long now, Lissa?”
“Seven years, kiddo. Don’t bother to ask my age.”
“She’s had offers from the Washington Post, New York Times, a news magazine or two,” Val said in pride of her lifelong friend.
“They’re not in New Orleans, lamb. They’re in places where there’s no old French market and the yokels don’t know how to listen to Dixieland music.”
Elva and George came in, beginning a pleasant hour. I felt so at home, I might have been born in Wickens.
Despite the comfort of the poster bed, I didn’t sleep well. Finally, about two in the morning, I gave it up. I put on a robe and socks, and slipped downstairs to the kitchen. I filched makings, cold chicken roasted in a piquant Louisiana basting, French bread, shreds of jack cheese, and a generous slap of a cajun version of slaw.
I carried the reuben out to the front porch. The night was nippy, but not cold. A breeze whispered in the pines and palm trees, the moon glinted behind scudding clouds, the faintest insinuation of primeval earth seeped from the swamps.
“You ought to have a cup of steaming coffee and chickory with that drooly goody. The chickory — it gentles everything, lulls you to sleep on a full stomach.”
At the first soft murmur I’d turned. Lissa’s round face, dimly seen, was smiling from a wicker chair in the darkness. Beside the chair was its wicker twin. I sat down, holding out the sandwich. “Want a hunk?”
“Sure.” She reached, carefully wrestled off a modest share, sat back, taking a bite. “Very good.”
“Want a whole one? You hardly got a mouthful.”
“Better not.” She bit into the morsel. “What’s with you? Jet lag? The quiet against big-city ears?”
I shook my head. How could I tell her? An awful premonition won’t let me sleep... I’ve had them before, not often, never know when or how, but they’re more real than the wailing of that night creature, which sounds like it’s in bad trouble.
“Oh, the excitement, I suppose,” I said. “The day. Coming to Val’s home, meeting you people, who are so very much exactly as you should be.”
“So are you.” She was silent a moment. She saw me looking in the direction where the night creature had screamed, one brief wail, abruptly cut off.
“It’s a million years ago, not far down state road 61. But you’ve been in jungle even more deadly.” She rustled, leaning slightly toward me. “You can keep from telling me what’s on your mind, Cody. None of my business. So I won’t ask.”
“I won’t volunteer.”
“Touché. Well, I don’t mind telling you why my bed was smothery, why I finally came down to look at the familiar yard and think about when we were kids, Val and I. Fact is, I need an ear... someone who won’t sigh crossly and tell me I’m an emotional nit, acting like a stupid child.”
“Give you my word. None of us sounds altogether brilliant when we need a sounding board.”
“Truth is...” She took a breath. “Cody, I’m frightened. And if I tell you why, I’ll sound like an underdone fool kid who got hold of some crack.”
“Try me.”
“It’s this... the pattern.”
“What pattern?”
“The appearances of the dead bodies in Mad Frenchwoman’s Cove! But of course, you don’t know any of it. I’m not yet making sense.”