Voodoo River

a'course, but I was.'

'Thirty-six years ago on July ninth a baby girl was born in this area and given up for adoption. Chances are that the child was illegitimate, but maybe not. Chances are that the mother was underage, but maybe not.'

Her eyes narrowed behind the thick lenses. 'You think I birthed the child?'

'I don't know. If not, maybe you heard something.'

She looked thoughtful. 'That was a long time ago.'

'Yes, ma'am.' I waited, letting her think. Probably hard with all the nerve damage from the Raid.

Martha Guidry scratched at her head, working on it, and then seemed to notice something in the far corner of the room. She put down her Pepsi, picked up the Raid, then crept across the room to peer into the shadows behind the television. I got ready to hold my breath. She said, 'Goddamned ugly bugs,' but she held her fire. False alarm. She came back to the chair and sat. 'You know, I think I remember something about that.'

Well.

She said, 'There were some folks lived over here around the Nezpique.' She was nodding as she thought about it, fingering the Raid can. 'They had a little girl, I think. Yes, that's right. They gave her away.'

Well, well. 'You remember their names?' I was writing it down.

She pooched out her lips, then slowly shook her head, trying to put it together. 'I remember it was a big family. He was a fisherman or somethin', but they might've cropped a share. They lived over on the bayou. Right over here on the Nezpique. Wasn't no bastard, though. Just a big family with too many mouths to feed.'

A name?

She looked sad and shook her head. 'I'm sorry. It's right on the tip of my tongue and I just can't remember it. You get old, everything goes to hell. There's one!' She raced to a potted plant beneath the window and cut loose with the Raid. Clouds of gas fogged up around her and I walked over to the door, leaned out, and took deep breaths. When she was finished with the Raid I went back to the chair. Everything smelled of kerosene and chemicals.

I said, 'These bugs are something, aren't they?'

She nodded smugly. 'They'll run you out of house and home, let me tell you.'

I heard the crunch of a car pulling off the road. Not in her yard, but farther away. I went back to the door. The white Mustang was sitting across the street by the strawberry stand. I said, 'Ms. Guidry, has someone else approached you about this?'

She shook her head. 'Unh-unh.'

'A few months ago.'

She got the thoughtful look again. 'You know, I think a fella did come here.' She made a face like she'd bit into something sour. 'I didn't like his looks. I won't deal with anybody I don't like the way they look. No, siree. You can tell by a person's looks, and I didn't like that fella, at all. I ran 'm off.'

I looked back out the door. 'Is that the man?'

Martha Guidry came over next to me and squinted out through the screen. 'Well, my goodness. That's him. That's the little peckerwood, right over there!'

Martha Guidry charged through the screen door with her can of Raid as if she'd seen the world's largest bug. She screamed, 'Here, you! What are you doin' over there?!'

I said, 'Oh, God.'

She lurched down the steps and ran toward the highway, and I was wondering if maybe I should tackle her before she became roadkill. Then the Mustang fishtailed out onto the highway and roared back toward Ville Platte, and Martha Guidry pulled up short, shaking her fist at him. I said, 'Martha, do you remember his name?'

Martha Guidry stalked back up the steps, breathing hard and blinking behind the thick glasses. I was hoping I wouldn't have to dial 911. 'Jerry. Jeffrey. Somegoddamnthing like that.'

'Aha.'

'That rotten sneak. Why do you think he was out here?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'But I'm going to find out.'

She took a deep breath, shook herself, then said, 'God damn, but I feel like a drink! You're not the kind of fool to let a lady drink alone, are you?'

'No, ma'am, I'm not.'

She threw open the door and gestured inside with the Raid. 'Then get yer ass in there and let's booze.'

CHAPTER 6

A t twenty minutes after six that evening I checked into a motel in Ville Platte and phoned Lucille Chenier at her office in Baton Rouge. I only had to wait eight or nine minutes for her to come on the line. She said, 'Yes?'

'Guess who?' Martha had been generous with the Old Crow.

'I'm very busy, Mr. Cole. Is there some way I can help you?' Some people just weren't around when they handed out laugh buttons.

'Can your office run a license plate check for me?'

'Of course.'

I gave her the Mustang's number and told her about the red-haired man. She said, 'He was also asking about a child?'

'Yes'

You could hear her fingernails clicking on her desk. Thinking. 'That's odd. I wonder why he would be following you?'

'When he tells me, I'll pass it along.'

'It's very important that this not be associated with Jodi Taylor.' She sounded concerned.

'I'm telling people that I'm searching for a marrow donor. In a case like this, you have to ask questions. People talk. This kind of thing can be exciting to folks, and they like to share their excitement.'

'And people with secrets want to protect them.'

'That's the point. But I've no reason to believe that anyone I've yet seen has secrets.'

'Except, perhaps, for your red-haired man.'

'Well, there is that. Yes.'

She told me that she would have the information on the Mustang's owner by ten the next morning, and then she hung up. I stared at the phone and felt strangely incomplete now that the connection was broken, but maybe that was just all the Raid I had breathed. Sure. You spend most of the afternoon breathing Raid and drinking Old Crow, it heightens your sense of dissociation. It also puts you to sleep.

At eighteen minutes after nine the next morning, the phone rang and Lucy Chenier said, 'Your Mustang is registered to someone named Jimmie Ray Rebenack.' She read two addresses, both in Ville Plane.

'Okay.'

'Mr. Rebenack lists his occupation as a private investigator. He was licensed two and a half years ago.'

I was grinning. 'If this guy's for real, he has to be the world's worst detective.'

'Prior to licensing, he was employed as a full-time auto mechanic at an Exxon station in Alexandria. His tax records indicate that he continues to derive the majority of his income from part-time mechanic work.'

'Wow. You guys work fast.'

'The firm is well positioned. You'll keep me informed?'

'Of course, Ms. Chenier.' Elvis Cole, Professional Detective, discourses in a professional manner.

I located Rebenack's addresses on my map of Ville Platte, then went to find him. One was a business address, the other a residence. The residential address put Jimmie Ray Rebenack in a small frame duplex on the east side of town, four blocks north of a switching station for the Southern-Pacific Railroad. It was an older neighborhood, and it wasn't particularly proud, with small unkempt houses and spotty lawns and cars and trucks that were mostly Detroit gas guzzlers in need of paint. Jimmie's Mustang was not in evidence.

I cruised the block twice, then drove to Jimmie Ray Rebenack's office two blocks north of Main above a fresh-