I left the car at the curb and went up to the house and rapped at the door. An older black woman in what looked like a white nurse's uniform answered. "May I help you?"

  I gave her one of my nicer smiles. "Mrs. Johnson?"

  "Oh, no."

  "I'm looking for Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. I was told they lived here." The air behind her smelled of medicine and pine-scented air freshener.

  She was shaking her head before I finished. "You'll need to speak with Mrs. Boudreaux. I work for her."

  "Who's Mrs. Boudreaux?"

  "She owns this house." A wet, flapping sound came from deeper in the house, and a raspy old man's voice yelled something about his pears. The black woman took a half-step out onto the porch, pulling the door so I wouldn't hear. "She doesn't live here, though. She only comes by in the morning and the evening."

  I let myself look confused. A relatively easy task. "Did the Johnsons move?"

  "Oh, Mr. Johnson's her daddy. She used to rent this place out, but now she lets him live here." She pulled the door tighter and lowered her voice, letting me in on the know. "He can't live by himself, and they didn't want to put him in a home. Lord knows he couldn't live with them." She raised her eyebrows.

  "He's very ill."

  I said, "Ah. So Mr. Johnson does live here."

  She nodded, then sighed. "He's eighty-seven, poor thing, and he takes spells. He's a devil when he takes a spell." The voice in the house yelled again, something about the TV, something about Bob Barker and the goddamned pears.

  I said, "How is Mrs. Johnson?"

  "Oh, she died years ago."

  Score another for Martha Guidry. "If I wanted to speak with Mrs. Boudreaux, how could I do that?"

  "She'll be here in a little while. She always comes around two. Or you could go by her shop. She has a very nice formal wear shop on Second Street by the square. They call it Edie's. Her first name is Edith, but she goes by Edie."

  "Of course."

  She glanced back toward the house. "Twice a day she comes, and he don't even know it, most days. Poor thing."

  I thanked her for her time, told her I'd try to stop at the house again around two, then drove back to the square. Edith Boudreaux's boutique occupied a corner location next to a hair salon, across from a little square filled with magnolia trees. I parked on the square, then walked back and went inside. A young woman in her early twenties smiled at me from a rack of Anne Klein pants suits. "May I help you, sir?"

  I smiled back at her. "Just sort of browsing for my wife."

  The smile deepened. Dimples. "Well, if you have any questions, just ask."

  I told her I would. She finished racking the Anne Kleins, then went through a curtained doorway into the stockroom. As she went through the curtains, an attractive woman in her late forties came out with an armful of beige knit tops. She saw me and smiled. "Have you been helped?"

  The similarities to Jodi Taylor were amazing. The same broad shoulders, the good bone structure, the facial resemblance. They were, as the saying goes, enough alike to be sisters. We would have to unseal the sealed documents to be sure. We would have to compare the adoption papers from the Johnson family to the Taylor family to be positive, but Edith Boudreaux and Jodi Taylor were clearly related. Maybe Jimmie Ray Rebenack wasn't the world's worst detective, after all. I said, "Are you Ms. Boudreaux?"

  "Why, yes. Have we met?"

  I told her no. I said that her shop had been recommended and that I was browsing for something for my wife, but if I had any questions I would be sure to ask. She told me to take my time and she returned to her stock. I browsed around the store another few minutes, then let myself out, walked to a pay phone on the other side of the square, and dialed Lucy Chenier. I said, "Well, I've done it again."

  "Tied your laces together and tripped?" Maybe she had a laugh button, after all.

  I said, "I have found a gentleman named Monroe Johnson. Thirty-six years ago on Jodi Taylor's birthday, his wife, Pamela Johnson, delivered a baby girl. They gave the child up for adoption. I saw his adult daughter, a woman named Edie Boudreaux, and she is Jodi's spitting image."

  Lucy said, "You've done all this in two days?"

  "It is not for nothing that I am the World's Greatest Detective."

  "Perhaps you are." She sounded pleased.

  "Also, Rebenack found them for me." I told her what I had found in his office.

  "Oh." She didn't sound as happy about that.

  I said, "I still don't know what Rebenack's interest in all this might be, but if these people are, in fact, Jodi's biological family, Edie Boudreaux should be able to provide whatever medical information Jodi wants." I gave her Bogart. "So it's all yours, shweet-heart."

  "Was that Humphrey Bogart?"

  Some people are truly cold.

  She said, "The next step is to approach these people. Perhaps we can figure out a plan of action over dinner."

  I said, "Is this an invitation, Ms. Chenier?"

  "It is, Mr. Cole, and I advise you to accept. There may not be another."

  "Dinner sounds very nice, thank you."

  "Where are you?"

  "Eunice. The family lives here."

  She said, "Can you be back at the Riverfront and ready to be picked up by six-thirty?"

  "I think I can manage." If I grinned any wider I'd probably split my gums.

  "Good. I'll see you then." She paused, and then she said, "Good work, Mr. Cole."

  I hung up, went to my car, and sat there with the grin until a guy in a Toyota flatbed yelled, "Hey, pumpkinhead! You're gonna catch bugs that way?"

  Southern humor.

  Chapter 8

  I went back to the motel in Ville Platte, showered, shaved, then drove back across the Atchafalaya Basin to Baton Rouge . It seemed a lot faster than when I had driven from Baton Rouge to Ville Platte, but maybe that was because I was looking forward to getting there. I am nothing if not goal oriented. I checked into the Riverfront again and was nursing a Dixie beer in the lobby bar at six-thirty when Lucy Chenier walked in wearing a rose blazer over a clay-colored blouse and tight jeans. Two businessmen at a little round table watched her walk in. So did the bartender. She smiled when she saw me and her eyes seemed to fill the room. She offered her hand. "Did you satisfy your urge for local cuisine, or are you still feeling adventurous?"

  I said, "Adventure is my middle name."

  She smiled wider, and her teeth and eyes sparkled, but maybe that was just me. "Then you're in for a treat."

  Lucy waited while I paid the bar bill, then we went out to her car. She was driving a light blue Lexus 400 two-door coupe. The sport model. It was clean and sleek and had been freshly washed. There was an ATT car phone, and the small backseat was littered with CDs, mostly k. d. lang and Reba McEntire. She looked good behind the wheel, as if she and the car were comfortable together. "Nice," I said.

  She flashed the laugh lines, pleased. Lucy Chenier drove cleanly and with authority, very much the way I imagined she practiced law or played tennis, and pretty soon we turned into a great warehouse of a building with streams of people going in and coming out. Ralph Kacoo's. She said, "Let me warn you. The decor is kind of hokey, but the food is wonderful."

  "No problem," I said. "I go for that Barnacle Bill look."

  Ralph Kacoo's made an airplane hangar look small. It was festooned with fishing nets and cork buoys and stuffed game fish and mutant crab shells the size of garbage can lids. There must have been seven hundred people in the place. A lot of families, but a great many couples, too. All it needed was Alan Hale in a yellow slicker greeting everyone with a hearty "Ahoy, matey!" I said, "Kind of?"

  Lucy Chenier nodded. "We're big on hoke down here."

  A young woman who looked like a college student seated us and asked if we'd care for a drink. I said, "Shall we order a bottle of wine?"

  "Never with Cajun food." Lucy grinned, and now there was a glint of fun in her eyes. "You're going to think it's hokey again."

  "What?"

  She looked at the waitress. "Could we have two Cajun Bloody Marys, please?"

  I raised an eyebrow. "Cajun Bloody Marys?"

  "Don't laugh. They're made with cayenne and a hint of fish stock. You said you're adventurous." She turned back to the waitress. "And we'll have an appetizer of the alligator sausage."

  The waitress went away.

  I said, "First, it's dinner at Gilligan's Island, now it's alligator sausage. What could be next?"

  Lucy looked at her menu. "The best is yet to come."

  The waitress came back with Bloody Marys that were more brown than red, with a ring of lemon floating in them. I tasted. There was the hint of fish, and the flavors of Tabasco and pepper and cayenne were strong and tingly, and went well with the vodka.

  Lucy said, "Well?"

  "This is good. This is really very good."

  Lucy smiled. "You see?"

  The waitress returned with the alligator sausage and asked if we were ready to order. I tried the sausage. It could have been chicken or pork, but the texture was interesting.

  Lucy said, "If you really want to taste Louisiana, I'd suggest any of the crab dishes, or the crawfish. The crab dishes tend to be fried; the crawfish boiled or made in a soup."

  "Sounds good."

  Lucy Chenier ordered the crawfish +!touff+!e, and I ordered the crawfish platter. With the platter I would get a bowl of crawfish bisque, as well as boiled crawfish and fried crawfish tails. The fried tails were called Cajun popcorn. We finished the first Bloody Marys and ordered two more. The waitress brought our salads, and I watched Lucy eat as, in her office, I had watched her move. To watch her was a singular, enjoyable occupation. She said, "To be honest with you, when Jodi told me that she was bringing in an investigator from California, I tried to discourage it. I didn't think you'd be as effective as a local investigator."

  "Reasonable."

  She tipped her glass toward me. "Reasonable, but clearly misplaced. You're good."

  I tried to sit straighter in the chair. "You're making me blush."

  She sipped the Bloody Mary. She didn't seem too interested in the salad. "What did Mr. Rebenack have to say for himself?"

  I went through it for her. I told her that Jimmie Ray Rebenack had approached at least two of the women I interviewed and presented himself as someone seeking to find a sister, and that when I questioned him about this, he denied it, and also denied approaching the women. I told her that I had taken the opportunity to enter his office, and that when I did I discovered what appeared to be Louisiana State adoption papers and a birth certificate for a girl child born to Pamela and Monroe Johnson on the same day as the day of Jodi Taylor's birth. When I said that part of it, Lucy Chenier put down her Bloody Mary and held up a hand. No longer smiling. "Let me stop you. You broke into this man's office?"

  "Yes."

  She shook her head. "Breaking and entering is a crime. I will not be a party to criminal behavior."

  I said, "What office?"

  She sighed, still not liking it.

  I said, "The state papers were standard stuff, showing that the Johnsons remanded all rights and claims on the child to the state. Someone had written the Johnsons' address on back of the birth certificate. It could be coincidence, but if it is, it's a big one."

  "Were the Taylors mentioned anywhere on the papers?

  "There was a copy of Jodi's birth certificate. That's all."

  "Do you think this man Rebenack is related to Jodi Taylor or to the Johnson family?"

  "I have no way to know. He denied all knowledge, yet he had the file. He's interested in Jodi Taylor, and he's linked her to the Johnsons. He had Monroe Johnson's address, so he may have approached them, but I don't know that."

  Lucy Chenier stared into midspace, thinking. Now that we were on the serious stuff, she seemed intent and focused and on the verge of a frown. Her court face, I thought. A mix of the tennis and the law. I had more of the Bloody Mary and watched her think. Watching her think was as rewarding as watching her move, but maybe that was just the vodka. My mouth tingled pleasantly from the spices, and I wondered if hers was tingling, too.

  She said, "The documents you're describing are part of the files sealed by the state. The biological parents would've been given a copy, what you might call a receipt for the child, but there's no way Mr. Rebenack should have a copy."

  "Only he has it." I wondered what it would be like to kiss someone with a tingling mouth.

  She said, "Still, that document doesn't prove that Jodi Taylor is in fact the child given up by the Johnsons. We'll have to open the state files for that. We'll have to approach Edith Boudreaux to confirm that what you've found is correct. If her father is incapacitated and her mother is dead, then it falls to her to give the state permission to open the files. That's the only way to officially confirm that Jodi Taylor was born to Pamela Johnson."

  "And that we'll do tomorrow."

  She nodded. "Yes. I think it's best if we approach her at the boutique. We'll make contact there, on ground where she's comfortable, and ask to speak with her in private. That should be me, because I've done it before and because women are less threatened by other women."

  "You mean, we don't just walk up and say, hey, babe, how'd ya like to meet your long lost sister?"

  Lucy Chenier smiled, and had more of her drink. "Perhaps in California."

  I said, "Is your mouth tingling?"

  She looked at me.

  "From the spices."

  "Why, yes. It is."

  I nodded. "Just wondering."

  The waitress took the salad plates away and came back with the +!touff+!e for Lucy and the crawfish platter for me. A bowl of bisque was in the center of my plate, surrounded by a mound of boiled crawfish on one side and the fried crawfish tails on the other. The fried tails looked like tiny shrimp, curled tight and lightly breaded. I forked up several and ate them. They were hot and tender and tasted in a way like saut+!ed baby langostinos. "Good."

  Lucy said, "The bisque is like a soup that's been enriched with crawfish fat. The heads have been stuffed with a mixture of crawfish meat and bread crumbs and spices. You can pick it up, then use your spoon to lift out the stuffing."

  "Okay." The bisque was a deep brown, and several stuffed crawfish shells bobbed in it. I did as she said and dug out the stuffing and tasted it. The stuffing tasted of thyme. "This is terrific. Would you like one?"

  "Please."

  I spooned out one of the stuffed shells and put it on her plate. She said, "Here. Try the +!touff+!e."

  The +!touff+!e was a rich brown sauce chunky with diced green bell peppers and celery and crawfish tails over rice. She forked some onto one of the little bread plates, then passed it to me. I tasted it. These people have redefined the word yummy.

  She said, "Does the +!touff+!e you get in California taste like this?"

  "Not even close."

  Lucy Chenier picked up the stuffed shell I had given her and spooned out the filling. As she did, a brown drop of the gravy ran down along the heel of her hand toward her wrist. She turned up her hand without thinking about it and licked off the drip. I felt something swell in my chest and had to swallow and then had the rest of the Bloody Mary. I said, "Would you like another?"

  Nod. Smile. "Maybe one more. I have to drive."

  I flagged at the waitress and showed her two fingers. Two bags of ice and a cold shower, please. Lucy said, "You eat the boiled crawfish by breaking the tails out of the body, then pinching the tail so that the shell cracks and you can get out the meat." She took one of my crawfish and demonstrated. "You see?"

  "Unh-hunh." Maybe if I concentrated on the food. The food could save me.

  "Then you put the head in your mouth and suck it."

  I blinked at her as she put the head in her mouth and sucked it. She smiled simply. "Gets out the juice."

  I coughed and covered my mouth. I drank some water. Think about the food. The food. The waitress brought our drinks and I drank mine without stopping. Lucy looked concerned. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing." I shook my head. "Not a thing."

  She sipped her new drink and ate some more of her +!touff+!e. I noticed that most of my food was gone and most of hers was still on her plate. I hope she didn't think me a glutton. "Are you from Baton Rouge?"

  "That's right."

  "Your accent is sorter than the others I hear."

  She smiled. "I'm not the one with the accent, Mr. Cole."

  I spread my hands. Busted.

  "I went to LSU for prelaw, but I attended law school in Michigan. Living with Yankees can devastate your accent."

  "And you returned home to practice."

  "My boyfriend was here, working, and we wanted to be married. He was a lawyer, too. He still is."

  "How about that."

  "We were divorced four years ago."

  "That happens." I tried not to beam.

  "Yes, it does." It seemed as if she was going to say more, but then she went 'back to the +!touff+!e. "Now tell me about you. Do you have a background in law enforcement?"

  "Nope. I've been licensed for twelve years and, before that, I apprenticed with a man named George Fieder. George had about a million hours of experience and was maybe the best investigator who ever lived. Before that, I was in the army."

  "College?"

  "University of Southeast Asia. The work-study program."

  She shook her head, smiling. "You look too young for Vietnam."

  "I looked older then."

  "Of course."

  "May I ask you a personal question, Ms. Chenier?"

  She nodded, chewing.

  "Have you sought out your birth parents?"

  "No." She shook her head, then used the back of her wrist to move her hair from her eyes. Fingers still sticky from the crawfish. "The vast majority of adopted children don't. There may be a minor curiosity from time to time, but your mom and dad are your mom and dad."

  "The people who raise you."

  "That's it. A long time ago a woman gave birth to me, and gave me over to the state because she felt it best for both of us. She now has her life, I have mine, and my birth father his. I can appreciate on an intellectual level that they birthed me, but emotionally, my folks are Jack and Ann Kyle. Jack helped me ace algebra and Ann drove me to the court every day after school to practice tennis. Do you see?"

 

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