Disembodied Bones, page 4
Louis groaned loudly. “She is as swift as a deer, Jacques. How can I possibly know she simply went out the back door of your office? That you weren’t even in the office.”
“Mr. Simoneaud,” said Roosevelt curiously, still thinking about his gold Cross pen. “How did you know she was here, if Mr. Padeaon last saw her at your office building?”
Jacques stuck a finger into his ear and scratched it. “I hoped?” he answered weakly, not knowing exactly what to say to an outsider who was also a police officer. The truth was altogether different. Both Jacques and Babette Simoneaud had suddenly begun to feel a little of what was going on in their daughter’s head. It was like a switch had suddenly been turned on. At first Babette’s thoughts were ecstatic. Our little girl, at last, isn’t it wonderful, Papa? But they had felt a little fear in Leonie. Then the clear vision of the police station came through to them, and Jacques had leapt off the bobcat he’d been using to rip up a driveway in north Shreveport, leaving it running even while his boss yelled irritated questions at his retreating back. Another family member who worked the same construction company had driven him, pleading to the foreman that there was an emergency. Fortunately, the foreman was easygoing and waved them off with an exasperated look.
On his way there was a faint message from Louis, and it told of how Leonie had come to Shreveport, and what she’d done when she got there.
How was I supposed to know, Jacques? came Louis’s indignant thoughts. She said she was looking for you.
“Anh,” Jacques said aloud. “Did Leonie say anything to you, M’su Detective?”
Roosevelt stared at the two men standing in the waiting room. The crowd had gone down from the lunchtime rush. Only Eloise Hunter bore witness to the angry Lake People who were interrogating a detective as if he were the criminal. “She said she knew where the Trent boy was at. She said that she could locate him.”
“The Trent boy?” repeated Jacques. A confused look traversed his handsome face.
Roosevelt realized that these two men had the same curious gold color of eyes as did Leonie Simoneaud. And the same rich, raven’s wing black hair. Family traits ran strongly in this group, Roosevelt grasped. It was like a stamp that proclaimed them all of the same kith and kin. Did they know the same things that Leonie did? As a father, Roosevelt thought he would understand what it would feel like to lose a child. Having talked to the Trent family, he couldn’t quite appreciate the agony of a missing child. Looking at Jacques Simoneaud, Roosevelt wasn’t sure that he could until it had happened to him, and there was an urge to find some wood upon which to rap his knuckles for the luck that would prevent such an occurrence.
Louis shrugged suddenly. “Le p’tite that was taken yesterday, non? From the mall?”
“What does that have to do with Leonie?” asked Jacques, clearly baffled.
“Could your daughter have possibly been a witness to Douglas Trent’s kidnapping?” Roosevelt asked, not ready to leave any stone unturned, the mental image of that Cross pen twirling around in his head.
“Non,” protested Jacques. “She was at home all day long. Her maman was off yesterday. They preserved strawberries. Leonie was giggling about how we’d be eating strawberry jam until we died.” His voice trailed awkwardly away as he became aware of what he’d said.
“Has Leonie ever come to the police station before to tell about some crime she didn’t really know anything about?” Roosevelt asked gently.
Jacques’s eyes found the floor, puzzlement melting away to practiced neutrality. “Non,” he said. “Non. I’ve never known Leonie to lie. She’s a good girl. She would only tell you such a thing if she honestly thought she was trying to help the boy.”
“But it couldn’t be possible that she would know where the child is located, then?” Roosevelt persevered quietly.
Jacques looked up at the large black man and then slowly looked at Louis. Louis’s face was stricken. Finally, Jacques said and his voice was tired, “It’s not possible that she could have seen the boy kidnapped, non.”
“I didn’t really think so,” said Roosevelt. His voice was barely a thread of noise. He didn’t really know what was going on here. “Does your daughter have…does she ever-”
“What?” snapped Jacques. His gold eyes burned at Roosevelt as if he knew exactly what the detective wanted to ask of him. “Does my daughter what?”
“See things? Have visions that come true?”
Jacques Simoneaud stared at the outsider and thought about his aunt who had died before he was born. She had been the eldest child of five and his father the youngest, merely a toddler when his sister had finally succumbed to the pain that tormented her final years on the earth away from her beloved fiancée and the strength of the family. The tattered black and white photographs that remained showed what a beauty Lisette had been and reputedly a kind woman as well. She had been cruelly betrayed by a once-trusted outsider who had disappeared into the black waters of the lake years later after his crimes had been known. Varden Comeaux had cruelly extracted his revenge and none of the family had judged him for his actions. Jacques answered slowly, “Leonie has never had visions that came true, M’su Detective. Will you tell your police force to look for her?”
Roosevelt stared hard at the other man. He knew something was wrong. Something was being held back by Leonie’s father. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but that it was something he should know, something that would help them find Douglas Trent and probably Leonie Simoneaud as well. “Yes, I’ll have them look for her as well. Perhaps you can give us a photograph of her to use. We might be able to get it into the news this evening. Hopefully we’ll have her home before nightfall.”
Jacques looked outside and thought that the sun had never moved so fast across a clear blue sky.
-
This is a thing all things devour:
Birds, beasts, trees, even a simple flower;
It gnaws iron, and bites steel;
Grinds hard stone to meal.
It slays all in its path, and will ruin many a town,
And it will beat the mighty mountain down.
What is it?
It is time.
Chapter Four
It occurs once in every minute,
Twice in every moment,
And yet never in one hundred thousand years.
What is it?
“A word with you, Rosy?” said Gerald Ritchie.
With an impatient grumble, Roosevelt turned away from Jacques Simoneaud and Louis Padeaon. Gerald was waiting by Eloise Hunter’s counter with a piece of paper in his hand. He stuffed it into Roosevelt’s hand with a curt nod and said in a low voice, “I remembered where I heard that name, Whitechapel. A fella from Mexico called a few months ago, asking about a guy named Monroe Whitechapel, an American who lives here in town. He was down there, slumming, I reckon. I expect something happened and the Mexican guy wanted to know if maybe this guy might be a part of it.”
Roosevelt looked at the piece of paper in his hand. There was a name and a number scrawled in Gerald’s messy handwriting.
Gerald went on without waiting for an answer. “You’re lucky I ain’t cleaned out my desk in a month of Sundays.”
“You never clean out your desk, Sarge,” said Roosevelt. “What did this guy want?”
“He’s a cop down in Chihuahua, I think. Maybe it was Mexico City. I don’t recall.” He screwed up his features. “Wanted to know if Whitechapel had a record.”
Roosevelt screwed up his own features in confusion. Some other police officer, even if it was in another country, wanting to know about a man named Whitechapel sent up silent alarms in his head. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, said the cop-on-the-beat mentality in Roosevelt. He firmly believed that 99% of criminals messed up regularly. Most crimes were solved because of perseverance on the part of determined police officers. If fingerprints didn’t match up with a known perp, try again in five years because the chances were good that in that time the guy had gone and committed a crime in some other locality. “Did the cop say why he needed the information?”
Gerald sighed. “I gotta go. We got a call from somewhere by Gillmer Bayou. Somebody found some kid’s clothes and we have to drag the swamp.” He hesitated. “I don’t remember what the guy had to say, Rosy. And I sure as shit don’t remember what I found out about the Whitechapel guy, nothing I think. I think I had ten cases come up in one week, including a triple murder at the bowling alley, and my wife done forgot my name. Think she was sleeping with the mailman and the milkman. The cop probably thought I was one rude SOB, if I said what I think I said. You can call him and ask him. If he’ll talk to you.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Roosevelt and watched the sergeant walk away, in a hurry to be at the latest possible crime scene. If the boy had been murdered, finding his clothes probably would lead right to the body. He glanced over his shoulder at Jacques and Louis, who were actively discussing something in rapid-fire French. It didn’t look like a happy conversation.
“Having problems, Dee-tective Hemstreet?” asked Eloise saccharinely.
Roosevelt looked back at Eloise. She had her chin resting on her propped arms and was looking pleased that Roosevelt’s day wasn’t going agreeably. He bared his teeth at her. “Why don’t you stick a lollipop up your butt, Miz Hunter? It might sweeten your disposition.”
Eloise’s mouth made an “o” of disbelief, but Roosevelt had already turned back to Jacques and Louis.
He didn’t waste any time. “Do you know a man named Whitechapel?”
“Whitechapel?” repeated Louis. “That sounds familiar.” He glanced at Jacques and shrugged weakly. “I don’t got a great memory for names.”
Jacques spared Louis a brief sour look. “I’ve never heard of him,” he said, his eyes shooting back to Roosevelt. “What does he have to do with Leonie?”
“You gentlemen mind waiting a bit?” Roosevelt asked politely. “I need to make some phone calls and maybe we can find out exactly what the deal is.”
Jacques shrugged. Even though the distance was over seventy miles to his wife, Babette had still received the gist of the information that she needed. She was already in her car on her way to help look for their daughter, as were several members of the family. Between themselves and the police perhaps their p’tite could be found before some ill befell her. He didn’t know what was happening, but he was worried about the child. Leonie was typically so sensible, so trustworthy, that these actions were absolutely terrifying coming from her.
•
Everywhere Leonie looked she found something more and more interesting. She was creeping around the back of the large house, trying to keep out of the view of the glass windows in the front of the house. She couldn’t see inside because the glass was darkened somehow. The bright light of the sun bounced off the windows and made the reflection unbearable to look upon for very long. But there were fewer windows as she rounded the back of the house and discovered the playground.
Leonie stopped for a moment in abject shock. It was as if someone had decided to plop some huge whimsical creation on an alien landscape. There were huge hedge animals carved in animal shapes. A bear, a rabbit, and a cat guarded the edge of the area, their boxwood claws reaching out dangerously. Within their realm were all the accoutrements that a child would want, would ever desire. Monkey bars, swings that were three times the length of any Leonie had ever seen, a set of slides that curled around and around like a twisty straw. There were swings and giant tires sitting on top of sand boxes painted in a vivid rainbow of primary colors. There was a swimming pool with intricate waterslides and a dozen bright red beach balls lazily floating across its serene blue surface. There was a tiny replica of a castle with real glass windows sitting a dozen feet from the pool. Rope ladders dangled from trees and there was a tidy tree house built in one, from which a child could look down upon this dreamlike empire.
She looked around slowly and saw the utter emptiness of the playground. It was a place for ghostly children to frolic, their silent antics an escapade of nothingness as only a mild breeze moved a swing and a faint squeal sounded as a door to the little castle swung lightly shut. No one really played here, Leonie realized. It was a place of horrifying blankness; a tribute to children who might look out upon the temptation of the playground and yet never get to touch one single piece of the equipment.
Leonie didn’t quite understand what it was that she was thinking. But somehow she knew that children had not been allowed to play there. They had looked upon it and never been allowed, lest they ruin its sheer perfection of being an unabashed enticement. She wouldn’t have been able to put the words into her mouth but she knew what this was; it was a trap.
She forced her gaze away back to the house. Douglas hadn’t fallen for the playground. No, it was something else with him. And right now she could almost reach out and touch him. He was asleep, his little mind dreaming about arcade games, not quite able to win, but not able to let go of the game controls. His limbs twitched as he lay awkwardly tied up to a hook that was set into a floor. His head rested against a satin pillow but he wasn’t comfortable.
Leonie snapped back into herself. There was a way to get inside. She wasn’t stupid. She would get inside in whatever way she could. At the edge of the playground was a line of river smoothened rocks that delineated the gravel of the play area from the green grass of the sweeping lawn. She leaned down and picked one up, testing the weight of it for heft.
That’ll do, Leonie thought and stared at a door that led inside. The bottom half was solid wood the color of mahogany, but oh, the top half was glass partitions with neat little squares that invited someone to break a pane or two. As she drew closer to the door she saw that there was a parking area behind the house as well. It sat empty of vehicles, but its gravel surface showed habitual use. Her eyes followed the curve of the road up a rolling hill as it led to the west. There was the back entrance. This is where he will return to, that man, the one named Whitechapel.
Leonie raised the rock and broke out a pane, wincing at the abrupt loud noise shattering glass made as fragments hit the floor inside the door. She took the rock and knocked the fragments out all around the little frame, so that it wouldn’t immediately be obvious to someone returning that the glass had been shattered. Then she reached inside with a slender arm and fumbled for the mechanism that would open the door.
She was simply amazed that the door seemed to open so easily. There was no bleating alarm that went off, no security man running up to quickly arrest her, or worse, Whitechapel himself. In Leonie’s mind he would be a monster, a thing with a rabid snarling mouth that would devour her to prevent her from spreading her knowledge of his misdeeds. She didn’t understand then that he didn’t dare have an alarm system that would invite police officers to intrude on his personal sanctum while he was gone, lest they discover his nasty horde of secrets.
The door swung open and silently invited Leonie inside.
•
Roosevelt wanted to pound his head against the desk in frustration. His high school Spanish wasn’t doing the job in getting through to the man whose name Gerald Ritchie had scribbled on a rumpled sheet of notepaper. The man who had answered the phone was very willing to play a verbal game of decipher-the-rotten-Spanish with Roosevelt, but he didn’t actually understand what he wanted. “Si, mi nombre es Detective Roosevelt Hemstreet,” he repeated carefully for the third time. “I need…I need, oh, hell, how do I ask for this guy?”
Eloise Hunter said from the doorway, “¿Puedo hablar a…?”
Roosevelt looked up and winced. But he repeated the words anyway, hoping he wasn’t inviting the man on the other end to have oral sex with his donkey or something equally vile. “¿Puedo hablar a Faustino De La Torres …?”
The voice on the other end made a weary sound of acknowledgement. “Si, un momento, por favor, Senor.”
Eloise poured herself a cup of coffee and said loudly, “It’s amazing what an old gal like me can do with a lollipop stuck up my butt.”
There are twenty other coffee pots situated in the building, thought Roosevelt and Eloise had to appear in his office at the precise moment he needed someone to do something he couldn’t quite do. She would be lording this over him for the next twenty years, if he lived that long. He made a mental note to buy her a bag of Tootsie Pops and ask how many licks it took her to get to the center.
“Hola,” said a crisp voice on the crackling phone line after a minute.
Roosevelt’s eyes snapped open wide as he suddenly sat straight up in his chair. “Uh, si. Mi nombre es Detective Roosevelt Hemstreet. Is this Senor Faustino De La Torres?”
“Fortunately for you,” came the dry reply, “I can speak English very well, and yes, this is Detective De La Torres.”
“Okay,” said Roosevelt, surprised at the crisp almost accentless English that the Mexican detective spoke. “I’m calling from Shreveport, Louisiana in the United States.”
“Do tell.” De La Torres lost the amused note immediately.
So much for détente. “I don’t know what the sergeant you spoke to said, but I’m very sorry if he didn’t help you or he was rude to you,” Roosevelt said hurriedly. Gerald was going to owe him for this and Roosevelt was in a mind to make the Sarge pay up in chocolate éclairs, the kind that would put two spare tires around his middle. “Like yourself, I’m sure you’re overworked and understaffed and he was extremely busy.”
De La Torres sighed on the other end of the line, but said nothing.
“It’s about this Whitechapel guy,” Roosevelt added quickly. “I’m wondering why you wanted information on him.”
