matter, and I treat everyone's confidence with the utmost respect.'
Edith Boudreaux's face darkened and she took a single step back. Jimmie Ray had been to see her all right.
Lucy went on, 'Birth parents who want to find their children or adoptees who want to find their birth parents or learn something about their biological relatives employ me to help make those connections. I'm working for such a person now, and Mr. Cole and I have come across something that we need to check.'
Edith Boudreaux glanced from Lucy to me and back to Lucy. Her mouth opened slightly, then closed, and her hands came together beneath her breasts. Lucy said, 'Mrs. Boudreaux, I hope this won't come as a shock to you, but it may. This isn't bad news in any way. It is very, very good news. Were you aware that your mother gave birth to a child on July 9, thirty-six years ago, and then gave that child up for adoption?'
The eyes flicked again. Me to Lucy. Lucy to me. 'Why did you come here? Who sent you here?' Jimmie Ray all right.
The bell tinkled again and the young blond clerk came through the door. Edith Boudreaux clutched at Lucy and said, 'Please don't say anything.'
She went to the young woman and said something so softly that we could not hear. Lucy looked at me and lowered her voice. 'Why's she so scared?'
I shook my head. Edith Boudreaux returned and said, 'That's Sandy. Sandy helps out. We can go in back.' She hustled us through the curtained doorway and into the stockroom. Racks of plastic-covered clothes filled most of the floor space, and blue and white garment boxes were stacked against the walls and on cheap shelves. An Arrowhead water cooler stood outside what I guessed was a restroom. Edith pulled the curtain and wrung her hands. 'I don't know what you want of me.'
Lucy's voice was calm and measured and soothing, an FM disc jockey playing easy listening after midnight. She said, 'My client may be the child that your mother gave away. Your sister, Edith. She wants nothing of you, or anyone else in her biological family, except to learn her medical history.'
Nodding now. Squinting like all of this was going by very fast and it was difficult to contain. I wondered what Jimmie Ray had told her. I was wondering where he'd gotten the money to buy the Mustang. She said, 'I don't know.'
Lucy said, 'The only way we can be sure that my client is the child that your mother gave away is if both parties submit to the state's adoption registry search so we can see if there's a match. If there is a match, the state will unseal the records and confirm the identity.'
Edith Boudreaux was nodding, but I'm not sure the nods meant anything. She said, 'You think your client is that baby?'
'We believe she is, yes.'
'That's who sent you here? The baby?' She was so nervous she was rocking, swaying back and forth as if in time with a heartbeat.
'My client is thirty-six years old. She's a woman now.
'That was all so long ago.'
'She doesn't want anything from you, Mrs. Boudreaux. She simply wants to know the particulars of her medical heritage. Does breast or uterine cancer run in the family? Is the family long-lived? That kind of thing.'
'My mother's dead.'
'We know. And we know that your father is ill. That's why we came to you. Won't you help us?'
She was still making the little rocking moves, and then she said, 'I have to call my husband. I need to speak with him.'
She went out through the curtain without looking at us. Lucy blew out a loud sigh and took a cup of water from the cooler. 'What's wrong with this picture?'
'Somebody scared her. Probably Jimmie Ray.'
Lucy crumpled the cup, didn't see any place to toss it, put it in her pocket. 'With what? All we're talking about here is an adoption.'
It didn't take long for Edith Boudreaux to talk to her husband, and it didn't take long for him to arrive on the scene. We waited maybe eight or nine minutes, and then the outer bell tinkled and a tall, florid man about Edith's age came through the curtain ahead of her. He was thick across the shoulders and butt, with small eyes and a sun-reddened face and large hands that looked callused and rough. He was wearing a crisp khaki Evangeline Parish sheriff's uniform open at the collar, and he was the same cop I'd seen with Jimmie Ray Rebenack at the crawfish farm.
He said, 'My name's Jo-el Boudreaux. I'm the sheriff here in Evangeline Parish. Could I see some identification, please?' As he said it he looked over Lucy and then he looked over me. His eyes stayed with you without blinking. Cop eyes.
Lucy showed her driver's license and gave him a business card. When he looked at my investigator's license he said, 'California.'
I nodded.
'You carrying?'
I shook my head. 'Nope. Not licensed in Louisiana.'
'Why don't we see?'
He pointed at the wall and I assumed the position and he patted me down. Lucy Chenier looked surprised and then angry. She said, 'There's no need for that. I'm an attorney, this man is a licensed investigator. This is a legitimate inquiry.' She was breathing quickly, confused by his manner. Everything had suddenly risen to a level she wasn't used to.
I said, 'It's okay.'
The sheriff copied some information off the license into a little notepad. After that he flipped back the license, and he didn't much care if I caught it or not. He said, 'Yeah, well, we'll check on that. We'll see. Now that we know where we stand, why don't you tell me what you're after.' He squared himself off at us, the way he'd front a kid he'd stopped for driving too fast on a back road.
Lucy didn't like it, but she went through it again for Jo-el Boudreaux, telling him about the sealed state documents, about the possibility that our client was the child given away by Pamela Johnson, about our client's desire not to contact her long lost family but simply to establish her medical history.
Jo-el Boudreaux was shaking his head before she finished. 'You got any proof that this baby and your client are the same person?'
Lucy said, 'No, sir. But they were born on the same day, and they're both female, and they were both given up to the state. That's why we need the records opened.'
He was shaking his head again. 'Not interested. I want you people to leave my wife alone. Whatever you're selling, we don't want any.'
Edith Boudreaux looked like she wasn't as sure. She said, 'Jo-el, maybe we should -'
He cut her off. 'Edith, what's there to say? The past is the past, isn't it?'
Lucy said, 'Our client doesn't want anything from you, Mr. Boudreaux. She simply wants to know her medical history. You can understand that, can't you?'
He said, 'I understand that a lot of my wife's family's dirty laundry is going to be stirred up again. You people go around town spreading crap about my wife's family, it'll go hard on you.'
Lucy stiffened and the court face appeared. 'Is that a threat, Sheriff?'
'Yes, ma'am. I've just threatened legal action. As an attorney, I'm sure you understand that.' He handed back her card. 'We've got nothing to say to you.'
Lucy looked at Edith Boudreaux. She was small behind her husband. Her eyes looked hurt. 'Is this what you want?'
Edith repeated it. 'What's past is past. Let's not stir things up.' Nervous.
Lucy stared at the other woman for a time, then carefully put her business card on a stack of Anne Klein boxes. 'I can appreciate your confusion. If you change your mind, please call me at this number.'
Sheriff Joel Boudreaux said, 'There's no confusion, counselor. If you leave the card, I can cite you for littering.'
Lucy picked up the card, thanked Edith for her time, and walked out.
I said, 'A litter bust. That'd probably make your month.'
