"Why did he want to know about me?"
"Because he offered you a job. It's temporary — only for as long as this project lasts — but you'll be a full-time employee of WCCY-TV at fifteen bucks an hour with the title investigative assistant. We've talked about hiring an assistant in the past. If everything goes well on this assignment, then maybe — just maybe, I'm saying — this might work into something permanent. There are no promises and no guarantees. You'd just be on the payroll working with me."
"Holy crap! Are you kidding? After the performance I apparently put on during Tiffany's hypnosis the other day, he's still willing to take a chance on me? Holy crap. Yes, yes, I accept! Let's drink to that!"
He raised his soda bottle and clinked with their glasses.
They're willing to give me a chance. And by God, I won't let them down.
Landry said, "Okay then, it's official. You're my assistant. Now it's your turn. Let's hear what you found."
"Two things. First, except for being trustee in 1892, Empyrion's name never appears in any state record. Except for one instance, it's as if he never existed. After I learned Prosperine was still owner of record, I searched for a will. Even if the plantation remained in her name, her heirs would own it today. Who are they? I searched the parish records in this parish and in St. John the Baptist, where the home and cemetery are. There was nothing here, and up in Edgard the only things on record are a death certificate and the order to inter her body in that crypt we saw."
Landry said, "So there's no will, maybe no heirs, and a strange man who says the house is his. If he actually lives there, he spends nothing on maintenance or upkeep. Anything else?"
"Here’s a side note. I said how helpful the parish clerk in Edgard was. Keeping your name out of it, I told her I went to the cemetery this morning. I also went inside the house and Empyrion Richard and I had tea."
"She said that was impossible and I couldn't have done those things. Her exact words were, 'You weren't there, period.' She told me everybody in town knows the LaPiere place. It's been uninhabitable for years, and it's collapsing inside and out. I stopped her. I told her which road we took, the brick columns we drove through, and that the cemetery lies in the trees off to the right. The house is old and in disrepair for sure, but it’s livable. The place isn’t falling apart like she said."
He stopped, pulled some papers from his notebook and turned them upside down on the table. "I was adamant because I knew what we saw. Thank goodness my arguing didn't make her mad. She asked me what interested me about the LaPiere mansion, and that's when I revealed who I worked for. Man, did that ever change things. She became even more helpful. I'm sorry if I shouldn't have played the Landry Drake card, but it sure worked."
Cate smiled. "I'm not surprised. People in south Louisiana are getting accustomed to having Landry poke around their towns. It creates some excitement."
"Here's what she said next. She and her father go for a drive every Saturday. Three weeks ago, they were exploring the back roads of the parish and came to the brick pillars. He recalled that the LaPiere house was down the road on the bayou, and they turned in to see it. They went to the cemetery too. They almost didn’t see it for all the ground cover. It was nothing like what we saw.
"Then there was the house. Three weeks ago the vines over the front door were so thick her dad cut a hole through them to get to the door. I think that's the same hole we crawled through today! But then everything is different in her story. They tiptoed down the hall to avoid gaping holes where the floor had rotted out. The furniture we saw wasn't there — only sticks and debris where chairs and tables had been a long time ago. There were no books on the shelves, no knickknacks or tea service. A portrait couldn't have hung above the fireplace, because the fireplace and the chimney were just a pile of bricks on the floor.
"The more she assured me we didn't go there, the more I insisted we did. That's when she said she'd prove it to me. She emailed me pictures they took that day." He flipped over the pages to reveal a series of color photos he'd printed off. Each bore a date — a Saturday three weeks ago.
Without a doubt it was the same house. But instead of what Jack and Landry had seen this morning, the place was just as the girl described it — a decaying mansion abandoned for over a hundred years. The same vines and creepers blanketed the veranda, but in her pictures, they were much thicker and denser than today.
The interior was the astonishing part. Her astonishing photos confirmed her story. The rooms were the same, but the dust and grime Landry and Jack had seen was nothing compared to the absolute destruction the pictures showed. In them the house was falling apart, nothing at all like the dusty room where they had sat with the man who claimed to be Empyrion Richard.
"She and her dad also went upstairs. Same thing. Debris and destroyed furniture everywhere. Gaping holes in the floor too. See why she claimed no one could live there today?"
Landry studied the pictures. "We know what
