“I see.”
“No, suh, I don’t believe you do. I’m a nurse. I’ve worked on people who died in an emergency room with bullet holes in them you could stick your thumb in, the gunpowder burns still on their clothes, except the police report says they were shot while armed and fleeing. I’ve seen babies brought in by parents who said the stroller got knocked over accidentally or the baby pulled down a hot-water pan on itself. Those t’ings keep happening ’cause other people go along wit’ the lie. When I looked into the faces of those dead girls, it was like there were words sewn up inside their mouths like dry moths trying to get out, except nobody wanted to listen.”
She was on a cell phone, and I could hear the transmission starting to break up. I had the feeling that if she didn’t finish her statement to me, she never would. “Miss Jewel, tell me what Mr. Abelard should have said in the parking lot.”
“The one named Bernadette was at the house. She came there in the boat with Mr. Robert and Mr. Kermit. They’d been taking a ride out on the bay, and they tied up the boat at the dock and played croquet on the lawn. Mr. Timothy shook her hand. I saw him.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Maybe t’ree months back. I’m not sure.”
“Maybe he forgot,” I said.
“Mr. Timothy never forgets anyt’ing. Not a face, not an injury, not a weakness in someone, not a show of strength. He’s the same wit’ loyalty. He always say he gives every friend and every enemy whatever they’ve earned. He’s never been afraid. Those dagos from New Orleans, the Giacanos, used to come here and do business. They were scared of Mr. Timothy ’cause he always tole the troot’ and always kept his word. If the troot’ hurt him, he didn’t care. The dagos didn’t know how to deal wit’ him. He tole you I was his daughter, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.”
“How many white men would do that?”
“But we haven’t gotten to the real issue. Why did your father lie, Miss Jewel?”
“I don’t know, suh. But I got to own up about somet’ing. The girl named Bernadette called the house. She wanted to talk to Mr. Robert.”
“Robert Weingart?”
“Yes, suh. I tole her he wasn’t here. I axed could I take a message. She said, ‘Tell Robert I saw him wit’ his pimp friend and their whores at the Big Stick club in Lafayette. Tell him I saw what he was doing wit’ one of them on the dance floor. Tell him I changed my mind about the land deal.’”
As she spoke, I was putting down on a notepad everything she told me. “What land deal, Miss Jewel?”
“I don’t know. She said somet’ing about conservation.”
“What, exactly?”
“I don’t know about those t’ings.”
“Just tell me what she said as closely as you can remember.”
“She said to tell Mr. Robert she gave his land to the conservatory or somet’ing.”
“Where are you now?”
“At my house.”
“Where is that?”
“In the quarters.”
“Okay, Miss Jewel. Don’t discuss this conversation with anyone. Everything you have told me is in confidence. You haven’t done anything wrong. You did everything you were supposed to do. At this point, your responsibility is over. You hearing me on this?”
“I should have called you a long time ago. I t’ink it was me that let that poor girl get killed.”
“You shouldn’t say that about yourself. You’re a good person. It took courage for you to make this call.”
“No, you’re not understanding me. After I gave Mr. Robert the message the girl left, I heard him talking on his cell phone to somebody. He was standing on the lawn, looking out at the trees in the water. I don’t know who he was talking to, but he said somet’ing I don’t want to t’ink about, somet’ing that makes me wake up in the middle of the night. I tell myself maybe I didn’t hear right, that it was my imagination, but I keep seeing him standing against the sunlight flashing off the water, his face shaped just like a snake’s head, and I hear him saying, ‘I believe we have a candidate for the box.’”
The box?
ON MONDAY MORNING I told Helen everything that had occurred at the fund-raiser in Lafayette. I also told her, almost word for word, everything Jewel had reported to me. When I finished, she propped her elbows on her desk blotter and touched her fingers to both sides of her forehead. “I’m having some trouble tracking all this. You took Clete Purcel with you on an unauthorized trip to Lafayette and got into it with Timothy and Kermit Abelard and their entourage?”