“Used to be Donna Dunaway,” she says.
Recognition comes like a thrown switch. It’s like the day I met Michael Wells. Only Donna hasn’t lost weight in the intervening years like Michael. She’s gained. But somewhere in her plump, rosy cheeks is the outline of a thin-faced girl I knew in junior high school.
“Is this your baby?” I ask.
She nods happily. “My third. Four months old.”
My eyes fix on the baby’s round face as I search for something appropriate to say. Nothing comes. My head is spinning from what I’ve just discovered in the prep room. The baby has huge eyes, a flat nose, and a laughing smile.
“What’s his name, Donna?”
“Britney. She
“Oh, God, I’m sorry.”
Donna isn’t angry. She’s smiling. “Are you here for the funeral? I didn’t know you knew Uncle Joe.”
“I don’t. I mean…” As my words fade into silence, my gaze settles on the baby’s toothless smile. A long string of drool drops from Britney’s mouth, and the greatest epiphany of my life occurs. There’s no blast of trumpets or bolt of lightning from the heavens-merely a sudden and revelatory flash of absolute certainty.
I know who killed the men in New Orleans.
Chapter 57
“Cat? What’s going on?”
I gasp in relief. I’m almost to Malmaison, and I’ve been trying to reach Sean since I left the funeral home. “I know who the killer is, Sean.”
“Whoa, whoa, which killer are you talking about? Your family stuff, or the New Orleans case?”
“New Orleans!”
“How the hell could you know who the killer is?”
“How do I ever know? Something clicked in my head.”
“What clicked this time?”
I’m tempted to tell him, but if I do, there’ll be no stopping the consequences. And right now I’m not at all sure I want the killer arrested. “I can’t tell you that, Sean. Not yet.”
“
“I’m coming to New Orleans this afternoon. I want you to meet me at my house. Are you still suspended?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you still have your badge and gun?”
“I’ve got a gun. And I have a badge that’ll do in a pinch. What do you have in mind?”
“I want to talk to the killer before we do anything.”
“Talk to him? About what?”
“It’s not a him, Sean. It’s a her.”
I hear a quick rush of air. “Cat, don’t do this to me.”
“It’s only a few hours. I know it’s hard on you, but you’ll understand when I get there.” I turn into the drive of Malmaison and accelerate down the oak-shaded lane. The iron gate stands open. I drive through it and take the sweeping curve toward the main house.
“Why did you call me?” Sean asks in a strange voice. “Why not Kaiser?”
“Because I trust you.” I’m lying. I picked Sean because-to a certain extent-I can control him.
“Okay. Call me thirty minutes before you get here.”
“Be ready.” As I swing into the parking lot behind the slave quarters, I’m shocked to find Pearlie’s blue Cadillac parked beside Grandpapa’s Lincoln. Shocked and glad. “I need one more favor, Sean.”
“What is it?”
“I know who killed my father, too.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“My grandfather. He’s the one who molested me. Not my father. Daddy caught my grandfather abusing me, and Grandpapa killed him to keep him quiet.”
“Fuck.” In that one curse I hear two decades of homicide experience. “I’m sorry, Cat.”
“I know. This isn’t about that. Look, if I don’t make it to New Orleans for some reason-if I’m dead, in other words-I want you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“Kill him.”
There’s a long silence. “Your grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“Are you serious? You mean take him out?”
“Yep. Remove him from the world.”
The phone hisses and crackles. “That’s asking a lot.”
“If I’m dead, he’ll never be convicted. And I think he’s still doing it. You understand? If you love me, you’ll do it. For me, Sean. And for your own kids. I have to go now.”
“Wait! If something happens to you, how will I know who the killer down here is?”
I think for a minute. “I’ll write it on a piece of paper and put it under the floor mat of my mother’s car. Her name is Gwen Ferry. She drives a gold Nissan Maxima. Good enough?”
I hear him breathing. “I guess it’ll have to be.”
I hang up my mother’s cell phone, then open the console and dig through it. About the only piece of paper big enough is a grocery ticket from Wal-Mart. On its long, narrow back, I scrawl the logical basis for my epiphany at the funeral home. As I lift the floor mat beneath my feet to conceal the note, I pray that Sean doesn’t have to drive to Natchez to find it.
Chapter 58
Pearlie doesn’t answer my knock. When I try to go in anyway, I find the door locked. This frightens me. Pearlie’s door is never locked. At least it never was when I lived here. One more sign of how things have changed.
She’s drawn her curtains, too. After trying the front windows on the ground floor, I go around back. One window there is barely latched. By jiggling the frame, I get the latch loose, then slide up the window.
Pearlie’s bedroom is dark, her bed empty. A converted slave quarters like ours, her house has no hallways. I move quickly to the door and pass through to the kitchen.
Like my mother this morning, Pearlie is sitting at her kitchen table without lights, staring blankly ahead. Unlike my mother, she’s smoking a cigarette. I haven’t seen Pearlie smoke since I was a little girl. An ashtray full of butts is beside her, and a bottle of cheap whiskey stands beside her coffee cup.
“Pearlie?”
“I thought you was Billy Neal coming to get me,” she rasps.
“Why would he come get you?”
“’Cause of what I know.” Her voice has a frightening note of fatalism in it.
“What do you know?”
“Same thing you do, I reckon.”
“What’s that?”
A new alertness comes into her eyes. “Don’t play games with me. Tell me what you come here for.”
“I’m about to confront Grandpapa. I wanted to talk to you first.”
