and power shifted back into the hands of the same oligarchy that had ruled the state before the Civil War. Slavery was replaced by the rental convict system, one established by a man named Samuel James, who turned Angola Plantation-named for the origins of its workforce-into Angola Penitentiary, which became five thousand acres of living hell on the banks of the Mississippi River.
The home of Pierre Dupree was reacquired by the same family who had built it. Unfortunately for the family, one of the descendants was insane and sealed herself inside the home while the grounds turned into a jungle and Formosan termites reduced the walls and support beams to balsa wood.
Then the house was purchased by the Dupree family, who not only restored it and rebuilt the foundation and cleaned up the grounds and terraced the slope but turned the entire environment into artwork, even reconstructing the slave quarters, relying solely on antique wood and brick from historical teardowns, going all the way to France to buy eighteenth-century square nails. I had called ahead and had been surprised by Pierre Dupree’s generosity of spirit when I asked if Alafair and I could visit him at his home that afternoon. “I’d be delighted, Mr. Robicheaux,” he had said. “I’m due at my exhibition at UL this evening, but I’d love to have y’all for an early supper. Something simple out on the terrace. I’ll tell cook to put something together. I’m sure y’all will enjoy it. We’ll see you then.”
He hung up before I could reply.
He was waiting for us on the front porch when we turned off the old two-lane road into his drive. His lawns and gardens were already in shadow, the camellias blooming, the sunlight dancing on the tops of oak trees that were easily two hundred years old. He was dressed in a dark suit with a vest and a luminescent pink tie and a watery blue shirt with a diamond design stamped into the fabric. He opened the car door for Alafair and in all ways was everything a gentleman should be. But something continued to bother me about him besides the physicality that emanated from his tailored clothes; I just couldn’t put my finger on it. “Would you like the grand tour?” he asked.
“We don’t want to take up too much of your time,” I said. “I just wanted to ask a question or two of you.”
“Did you know that ghosts live here? Five rebellious slaves and a white instigator were hanged right on that tree by the side of the house. Sometimes people see them in the mist.”
I knew the story well. But the event had taken place outside St. Martinville, not Jeanerette. I wondered why he had appropriated the story, because the details of the execution and the level of inhumanity it involved were sickening.
He looked at me, then at Alafair, and seemed to realize we were not entertained. “I already have food on the terrace. Cook has created a new recipe, shrimp deep-fried in a mushroom batter. Have you ever tried it?”
“No, I haven’t,” I replied.
“I think you might find yourself addicted,” he said.
He was smiling, but I wasn’t sure at what. Had he chosen the word “addicted” deliberately? I heard a sound above me and looked upward into the glaze of sunlight on the tree branches and saw Alexis Dupree peering down at us from the second-story veranda.
“My grandfather told me about your visit to our office in New Orleans,” Pierre Dupree said. “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Robicheaux. Gran’pere gets things confused sometimes. Rather than admit it, he becomes defensive. Please, let’s sit down.”
I did not want to sit down, and I was becoming less and less inclined to be polite. Alafair intervened. “I’d love some shrimp, Pierre,” she said.
I gave her a look, but she refused to acknowledge it. So the three of us sat down at his table on the terrace in the cooling of the day and the glimmer of the late sun on Bayou Teche. The four-o’clocks were opening in the shade, and I could smell the horse stables and see the wind blowing plumes of cinnamon-colored dust out of the cane fields. In the middle of our table was a silver tray set with a decanter of brandy and several crystal glasses. Close by the French doors was an artist’s easel with a partially completed painting propped on it. I asked permission to look at it.
“Why, certainly,” Dupree said.
On the canvas was a peculiar scene, one that seemed to draw its meaning from outside itself: a weathered wood home with cornices and gables, a vegetable garden by a stream, oak trees pooled with shadow, a Victrola in the yard, a guitar leaning against the steps that led up to the gallery. There were no people or animals in the painting.
I sat back down. Alafair had accused me earlier of obsession. I wondered if she was right.
“Does something bother you about my painting?” Dupree said, his eyes bursting with so much goodwill that they were impenetrable.
“Yes, it does bother me,” I replied. Before I could continue, my cell phone chimed. I started to silence it, then saw who the call was from. “I’m sorry, I have to take this call.”
I got up from the table and walked through the trees and down the slope toward the bayou. “Where are you?” Helen asked.
“At Pierre Dupree’s home in Jeanerette.”
“Is Clete Purcel with you?”
“No, I haven’t seen him.”
“Dana Magelli just called from NOPD. Frankie Giacano got popped last night in the men’s room of the Baton Rouge bus depot. Three rounds in the head inside a toilet stall. Giacano’s neighbors say he left his garage apartment with a man in an antique Cadillac convertible. The ticket seller at the New Orleans depot identified Giacano’s photo and said a man fitting Clete’s description bought a ticket for him to Los Angeles.”
“Did Clete get on the bus with him?”
“No, he just paid for the ticket.”
“So why should Clete be a suspect for a homicide committed in Baton Rouge?”
“Ask Dana Magelli. Listen, Dave, if you see Clete Purcel, you tell him to get his big fat ass into my office.”
“Copy that,” I said.
“Don’t be clever. I’m really pissed off.”
“About what?”
“What are you doing at the Dupree house?”
“I’m not sure.”
She made a sound that wasn’t quite a word and hung up. When I got back to the table, Alafair and Pierre Dupree were eating jumbo shrimp that had been fried in a thick golden batter. “Dig in, Mr. Robicheaux,” he said. “What were you about to say about my painting?”
“It reminds me of a song by Taj Mahal. It’s called ‘My Creole Belle.’ Mississippi John Hurt wrote it, but Taj sings it. There’s mention of a house in the country and a garden out back and blues on a Victrola.”
“Really?” he said.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alafair watching me.
“A Cajun singer named Tee Jolie Melton gave me a recording of it when I was in a hospital in New Orleans.”
He nodded pleasantly, his gaze as radiant as the sunlight filtering through the trees. Then I realized what it was that had bothered me most about him. His eyes performed a constant deceit. I believed he could look endlessly into the face of another human being with a lidless, almost ethereal curiosity, giving no hint about his inner thoughts while he simultaneously dissected the other party’s soul.
“Today I saw a photo of one of your paintings at the UL exhibition. The nude woman on the sofa is Tee Jolie, isn’t she?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know this person,” he said, biting into a shrimp and chewing, leaning over his plate, his gaze never leaving mine.
“Her sister was the girl who floated up on a sand spit in a block of ice south of here.”
He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Yes, I heard about that. How does someone end up in a block of ice in the Gulf of Mexico?”
“That beats all, doesn’t it?” I said. “Tee Jolie used to sing in a couple of clubs by Bayou Bijoux. You ever go to clubs on Bayou Bijoux?”
