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I CHECKED OUT A cruiser and drove to Cade, a tiny, mostly black settlement on the back road between New Iberia and Lafayette. The church house was a clapboard building with a faux bell tower set back in a grove of pecan trees. A house trailer rested on cinder blocks behind the church. In the side yard stood a bottle tree. During the Great Depression and the war years, many rural people hung blue milk of magnesia bottles on the branches of trees so they tinkled and rang whenever the wind blew. I don’t believe there was any reason for the custom other than a desire to bring color and music to the drabness of their lives. Then again, this was Louisiana, a place where the dead are not only with us but perhaps also mischievous spirits you don’t want to think about. I knocked on the door of the trailer.
The man who answered looked much older than the father of a twenty-six-year-old. He was bent and thin and walked with a cane, and wore suspenders with trousers that were too large. His cheeks were covered with white whiskers, his eyes the color of almonds, unlike those of our Jane Doe. I opened my badge holder and told him who I was.
“Come in,” he said. “You got news about Lucinda?”
“I’m not sure, Reverend,” I replied. I stepped inside. “I need more information, then maybe we can make some phone calls.”
“I’ve done that. Didn’t help.”
I sat down on a cloth-covered stuffed chair. I looked around for photographs on the walls or tables. My eyes had not adjusted to the poor lighting. A fan oscillated on the floor. There was no air-conditioning in the trailer. I hated the possible outcome of the conversation I was about to have.
“Miss Lucinda works for the Innocence Project?” I said.
“She used to. She got a job in California.”
“Doing what, sir?”
“What they call organic catering. She always loved cooking and messing with food. She’s been working for a caterer about three months.”
“How long was she with the Innocence Project?”
“Two years. It was mostly volunteer work. She’d visit men in the penitentiary and interview them and help their lawyers.”
“Over in Texas?”
“Yes, suh. Sometimes. Other times in Angola.”
“Do you recognize the name Hugo Tillinger?”
“No, suh. Who is he?”
“A man we’d like to find.”
He was sitting on a faded couch printed with roses. The coffee table in front of him was stacked with National Geographic and People and Sierra magazines. “I called the airline. They wouldn’t give me any information. I called a friend she worked with in Los Angeles. Nobody at her workplace knows where she is.”
“Is your wife here, sir?”
“She passed nine years ago. We adopted Lucinda when she was t’ree. She never went off anywhere without telling me. Not once.”
“Do you have a photograph?”
He went into a short hallway that led to a bath and a pair of bedrooms, and returned with a framed photo he took from the wall. He put it in my hand and sat down. I glanced at the young woman in the picture. She was standing next to the reverend, a beach and a mountain behind her. She was smiling. A wreath of flowers hung from her neck. I felt the blood in my chest drain into my stomach.
“That was taken in Hawaii two years ago,” he said. “We went on a tour with our church.” He paused. “You’ve seen my daughter before, haven’t you?”
“Sir, I need you to go with me to Iberia General.”
He held his gaze on me, then took a short breath. “That’s where Lucinda is?”
“We found a young woman in Weeks Bay.”
“Lucinda wouldn’t have any reason to be out there.”
“Is there someone who should come with us?” I asked.
“It’s just me and her here. That’s the way it’s always been. She was always the sweetest li’l girl on earth.”