Voodoo River

heard gossip.'

The eyebrow arched again. 'I don't gossip.'

I said, 'Ville Platte is a small town. Unwed pregnancies happen, but they would be rare, and babies given for adoption would be still more rare. Maybe one of your girlfriends at the time mentioned it. Maybe one of your aunts. Something like that.'

'Absolutely not. In my day, that type of thing wasn't tolerated the way it is now, and we would never have discussed it.' She clutched her hands tighter and raised both eyebrows, giving me All-knowing. 'Now, people don't care about this kind of thing. People do whatever they want. That's why we're in this fix.'

I said, 'Onward Christian soldiers.'

She frowned at me. 'What?'

I thanked her for her time and left. One up, one down. Six more to go.

Evelyn Maggio lived alone on the second floor of a duplex that she maintained six blocks south of the five and dime. Her duplex was a big white clapboard monster set high on brick piers in case of flood. Evelyn Maggio herself was a vital woman in her late fifties, twice married and twice divorced, with tiny teeth and too much makeup. She showed me the teeth when she let me in and latched onto my arm and said, 'My, but you're a good-lookin' fella.' Her words were long and drawn out, sort of like Elly May Clampett. She smelled of bourbon.

I was with her for almost forty minutes and in that time she called me 'sugar' eleven times and drank three cups of coffee. She drank it royale. She put out a little tray of Nabisco Sugar Wafers and told me that the very best way to eat them was to dip them in the coffee, but to watch because they could get too soggy and would fall apart. She put her hand on my arm and said, 'No one likes a limp sugar wafer, honey, especially not lil' ol' me.' She seemed disappointed that it wasn't what I wanted to hear, and, when it became clear that she knew nothing about a child being given to the state, she seemed even more disappointed when I left. I took two of the sugar wafers with me. I was disappointed, too.

I spent the next twenty-two minutes with Mrs. C. Thomas Berteaux. She was seventy-two years old, rail thin, and insisted upon calling me Jeffrey. She was quite certain that I had visited her home before, and when I told her that this was my first time in Ville Platte, she asked if I was sure. I said I was. She said she was certain that I had asked her about this adoption business before. I asked if she remembered her answer, and she said, 'Why, of course, Jeffrey, don't you? I didn't remember anything then, and I don't now.'

She smiled pleasantly when she said it and I smiled pleasantly in return. I used her phone to call Mrs. Francine Lyons, who said she'd be happy to see me, but that she was on her way out and could I call later. I said that I could, but then she volunteered diat Mr. Parks had mentioned something about a child given for adoption and that she just didn't know anything about that, though, as she'd said, she'd be happy to see me later in the day. I told her diat that wouldn't be necessary and scratched her off my list. You either remember or you don't. Mrs. C. Thomas Berteaux, watching from her chair, said, 'What's the matter, Jeffrey? You look disappointed.'

I said, 'Some days are more difficult than others, Mrs. Berteaux.'

She nodded sagely. 'Yes, Jeffrey. I know that to be true. However, I might suggest that you speak with Mrs. Martha Guidry.'

'Yes?' Martha Guidry wasn't on my list.

'Martha was a midwife at that time and, if I remember correctly, quite a well-known busybody. Martha may know.' Then she looked thoughtful. 'Of course, Martha may be dead.'

I let myself out.

Four up, four down, and nary a shred of evidence to show for it. I had three more women to see, and, if the results were the same, it was back to the drawing board. Not good. The key to all this seemed to be the sealed state documents. Maybe I should stop trying to investigate my way to Jodi Taylor's medical history and concentrate on unsealing those documents. I could shoulder my way into the appropriate state agency, pistol whip a couple of civil servants, and force them to hand over the documents. Of course, this method might get me shot or imprisoned, but wasn't that better than questioning women who called me Jeffrey? Of course, thirty-six-year-old documents would probably be buried under thirty-six years of more recent documents in an obscure state building long forgotten by any living person. You'd need Indiana Jones just to find the place.

I decided to think about it over lunch.

The Pig Stand was a white cinder block building with handwritten signs telling you what they offered and a couple of windows to order the food. The people on the sidewalk were mostly thin guys with crepey skin and women with pale skin and loose upper arms from eating too much deep-fried food. Everybody was drinking Dixie beer and eating off paper plates and laughing a lot. Guess if you stand around eating barbecued ribs in this kind of heat you had to have a sense of humor.

An enormously wide black woman with brilliant white teeth looked out of the order window at me and said, 'Take ya awdah, please?'

I said, 'Do you have boudin?' I had wanted to try boudin for years.

She grinned. 'Honey, we gots the best boudin in Evangeline Parish.'

'That's not what they say in Mamou.'

She laughed. 'Those fools in Mamou don' know nuthin' 'bout no boudin! Honey, you try some'a this, you won't be goin' back to no Mamou! This magic boudin! It be good for what ails you!'

'Okay. How about a couple of links of boudin, a beef rib with a little extra sauce, some dirty rice, and a Dixie.'

She nodded, pleased. 'That'll fix you up jes' fine.' 'What makes you think I need fixing?' She leaned toward me and touched a couple of fingers beneath her eye. 'Dottie got the magic eye. Dottie know.' Her eyes were smiling when she shouted the order into the kitchen, and I smiled with her. It wasn't just the food around here that gave comfort.

Passing cars would beep their horns and diners would wave at the cars and the people in the cars would wave back, sort of like everybody knew everybody else. While I was waiting, a sparkling new white Mustang rag-top cruised past, top up, giving everybody the once-over and revving his engine. The Mustang circled the block, and when he came back around an older guy widi a thick French accent yelled something I couldn't understand and the Mustang speeded up. Guess the older guy didn't like all the engine-revving.

A couple of minutes later, Dottie called me back to the window and handed out my order on a coarse paper plate with enough napkins to insulate a house. I carried the food to the street, set the Dixie on the curb, then went to work on the food. The boudin were plump and juicy, and when you bit into them they were filled with rice and pork and cayenne and onions and celery. Even in the heat, steam came from the sausage and it burned the inside of my mouth. I had some of the dirty rice, and then some of the beef rib. The dirty rice was heavy and glutinous and rich with chicken livers. The rib was tender and the sauce chunky with onion and garlic. The tastes w ere strong and salty and wonderful, and pretty soon I was feeling eager to dive back into the case. Even if it meant being called Jeffrey.

The black woman looked out of her little window and asked, 'Whatchu say 'bout dat boudin now?'

I said, 'Tell me the truth, Dottie. This isn't really Ville Platte, is it? We're all dead and this is Heaven.'

She grinned wider and nodded, satisfied. 'Dottie say it'll fix you up. Dottie know.' She touched her cheek beneath her left eye and then she laughed and turned away.

At ten minutes after two, I used a pay phone at an Exxon station to call the last two women on my list. Virginia LaMert wasn't home, and Charleen Jorgen-son said that she'd be happy to see me.

Charleen Jorgenson and her second husband, Lloyd, lived in a double trailer two miles outside of Ville Platte on Bayou des Cannes. The double trailer sat upon cement block piers and looked sort of ratty and overgrown. A small flat-bottomed boat rested on a couple of sawhorses in the backyard, and a blue tick hound slept in a tight knot in the shade thrown by the boat. They had a little drive made out of the crushed oyster shells, and when I pulled up, the oyster shells made a loud crunching sound and the blue tick hound charged at my car, barking and standing on its back legs to try to bite through the window. An old guy in his seventies came out on the step yelling, 'Heah naow! Heah naow!' and threw a pop bottle at the dog. That would be Lloyd. The bottle missed the dog and hit the Taurus's left front fender. Lloyd said, 'Uh-oh,' and looked chagrined. Good thing it was a rental.