“Well, he’s kinda cute,” said Ava. “I like that furry, Muppet look. Except for that one ear that looks like it’s about to fall off. Makes his head look all crooked and goofy.”
Poobah, delighted to be the center of conversation, eagerly stuck his head over the back seat and licked Ava on the ear.
“Hey, watch it, fresh guy,” she warned. “Those are very expensive chandelier earrings you’re nuzzling!”
“You got new earrings?” asked Carmela.
Ava tossed her head and her oversized earrings twinkled and danced, catching the light provocatively. “Twelve ninety-nine at WalMart,” Ava told Carmela in a conspiratorial tone. “And believe me, honey, with romantic music and soft lighting, you can’t tell the difference between these babies and the fancy schmancy Fred Leighton baubles Nicole Kidman wears on the red carpet.”
“Works for me,” said Carmela, whose jewelry budget these days was just as tight as Ava’s.
“SO WHERE ARE WE HEADED AGAIN?” ASKED AVA. They had entered Plaquemines Parish a while back and just passed through Port Sulfur, one of the small towns strung along Highway 23.
“Boothville,” said Carmela. For the last ten miles or so she’d regaled Ava with her recent discoveries involving Jamie Redmond, as well as all the various and sundry players who’d had walk-on parts in Jamie’s life and whom she now deemed as suspects. In other words, Margot, Dunbar, and Blaine.
“You got weird things going on, suspects up the wazoo, and you still want to go lookin’ for the graves of Jamie’s folks?” asked Ava.
“Of course I do,” said Carmela. “Wren had Jamie cremated, and she’d like to put him someplace.”
“I suppose,” said Ava. “But I know lots of folks who keep their loved ones close by instead of stickin’ ’em in some grave or marble mausoleum.”
“Kindly explain what you mean by ‘close by,’ ” said Carmela.
“My Aunt Eulalie keeps her dear departed husband, Edgar, in a Chinese ginger jar on her night stand,” explained Ava. “Says it makes her feel like he’s still with her. Except now he doesn’t snore or hog the remote control. And this fella I used to work with, Carlos? He’s got his mother’s ashes in a coffee can under the sink. Says he’s going to plant her next spring when he puts in new rose bushes.”
“A double planting,” said Carmela.
“Something like that,” replied Ava, peering in the mirror again. “You know,
cher,
” she said, frowning, then poking at the tiny wrinkle that formed between her eyes. “That blue car’s been on our tail for the last few miles.”
Mildly curious, Carmela glanced in her rearview mirror. “This is the only decent highway going south,” she said. “He’s probably headed down to Pilottown or the Delta Wildlife Refuge.”
“Mn,” said Ava, settling back. “Probably.”
There was no sign of a blue car when they pulled into a roadside cafe for a bite of lunch.
“Big Eye Louie’s,” said Ava, as tires crunched across gravel. “Place looks awful.”
“Doesn’t it?” agreed Carmela. Big Eye Louie’s was a battered, one-story wooden building that could have benefited greatly from a coat of paint. An overhang of rusty corrugated tin stuck out from just below the roof line to shield the front door and the large windows to either side of it.
“Which means we might just get ourselves a decent bowl of gumbo,” Ava added gleefully.
“Or jambalaya,” said Carmela. She was passionate about the rice-based dish that often featured spicy andouille sausage.
“Dogs okay in the car?” asked Ava.
But Carmela had already left the driver’s-side window partially cracked and was making tracks for the front door of Big Eye Louie’s.
Once inside, the roadside cafe was everything they expected it to be. Smoky, fairly crowded, hideously decorated. Men with red-and-white checked napkins tucked into their shirt fronts labored over steaming bowls of gumbo. Neon beer signs lent a crazy Times Square feel. Loud zydeco music pulsed from the jukebox. Stuffed possums, alligators, and fish hung overhead. The wooden walls were a veritable rogue’s gallery of photos, sports pennants, team jerseys, and trophies. A big-screen TV dominated the back wall of the bar.
“The prototypical sports bar,” murmured Ava. “Designed for the sporting gent with a lust for life and an urge to blast away at small animals.”
They walked up to the bar where a tall, lean man with curly red hair and a handlebar mustache was briskly wiping glasses. “Help you?” he asked.
“Are you Big Eye Louie?” asked Ava.
“Might be,” smiled the man, whose two front teeth were rimmed in gold. “You ladies interested in lunch?” He gave the bar in front of him a neat swipe with his rag, then quickly snapped down two paper place mats and fresh red-and-white checkered napkins. “We got turtle soup today—‘the other white meat.’ And it’s on special.”
“Is it really turtle?” asked Carmela. “Or alligator?” She knew that most turtle soups in Louisiana restaurants and cafes contained a good bit of alligator meat. There were over one hundred alligator farms in southern Louisiana, and alligator meat was big business.
The red handlebar mustache twitched faintly. “There’s some of that in there, too,” he allowed.
“You got gumbo?” Ava asked.
The bartender nodded. “Chef’s partial to crawfish and a bit of okra.”
“Good enough,” said Ava as the two women slid onto barstools. “But I want a bowl, not just a cup.”
Carmela opted for the hybrid turtle-alligator soup and they both ordered Dixie longnecks.
“We didn’t miss the turn off for Boothville, did we?” Carmela asked, once big steaming bowls had been set in front of them.
“Another mile down,” said the bartender. He smiled and slid a plate of hush puppies between them. “Compliments of the house.”
Their respective lunches were steamy, hearty, and spicy. And Carmela and Ava soon fell into what Carmela called “the N’awlins feeding frenzy.” In other words, the food was so good and hot and spicy that it actually prompted you to eat faster. Whatever the logic behind Carmela’s feeding frenzy theory, they both finished their lunches in record time.
“My lips are on fire,” remarked Ava. “They feel all puffy.”
“That’s good, right?” smiled Carmela.
“Yeah,” said Ava, poking at one with a manicured finger. “I guess so. I never thought of cayenne and Tabasco as natural lip plumpers, but if they do the trick—great!”
Carmela paid the bill, leaving three single dollar bills on the bar. “You ever hear of a family by the name of Redmond who lived around these parts?” she asked the bartender, after he’d carefully folded the bills, tapped them on the bar in recognition, then slipped them into a glass jar that had a hand-lettered TIPS sign pasted on it.
The man thought for a moment. “Sounds familiar.” He nodded toward the wall filled with framed photos. “Seems to me there was one or another Redmond who played football. You might check them pictures over yonder.”
Carmela slipped off her barstool and walked over to the wall. She stood there a moment, studying the various photos. There were pictures of guys playing football, guys playing softball, guys hunting, guys fishing, guys cleaning fish.
Louisiana. Sportsman’s paradise.
Carmela was halfway through the sportsman’s rogue’s gallery when she found what she was looking for. A photo of one of Boothville High School’s football teams.
And there was Jamie Redmond, in a somewhat younger incarnation, staring back at her.
“I think this is him,” she called over to Ava.
“Yeah?” Ava slid off the barstool and sauntered across the room. Her mass of auburn hair, lithe sinewy figure, denim mini skirt, and leather jacket were almost too much for the men still sitting at tables.
They stared, gaped, and ogled.
In the silence that spun out, one man snapped the head off a crawfish and sucked the spicy juice. Loudly.
A chorus of
ooohs
rose from the table where he was sitting.
Ava tossed her head nonchalantly. “You
wish,
” she sang out.
Which touched off a hearty spattering of applause for Ava.
“Time to go,” announced Carmela. She hustled back to the bar, grabbing her denim jacket off the back of the stool.
“You ladies care for a slice of homemade bread pudding with brandy sauce?” offered the bartender, grinning stupidly at Ava. “It’d be compliments of the house.”
Ava reached up and fingered a stuffed catfish that dangled overhead. “Thanks,” she told him, “but I’m stuffed, too.”
The bartender shook his head and grinned at her. “You’re a real pistol, aren’t you? Why don’t y’all come back Saturday night? We got a live zydeko band that cranks up about nine o’clock.” He winked at Ava. “We’d show you a real good time.”
“Thanks,” she said as they headed out the door. “Maybe we will.”
“Now wasn’t that an amusing little interlude,” said Carmela. She pulled the car door open, caught the two dogs by their collars as they struggled to make a break for it, and unceremoniously stuffed them back in. “Vastly entertaining. And such scintillating conversation. With Noel Coward- type
bon mots
.”
“Oh you,” laughed Ava. “They’re just good old boys havin’ fun.”
“Maybe a little too much fun, if you ask me.”
THEY STOPPED AT THE LOCAL LIBRARY LOOKING for information. An elderly gent with faded blue eyes and a “Friends of the Library” pin in the lapel of a too-large, slightly frayed blue suit, carefully informed them that the “regular librarians” were still out for lunch.
“What I’m after is a little information,” Carmela told him.
He smiled at her politely.
“There was a man named Redmond who used to run a small printing shop in these parts,” she began. “I know he and his wife passed on a while ago, but I’m trying to find out where they’re buried. Or perhaps where they once lived.” She pulled out a black-and-white photo. “I think this was their house.”
The old man pursed his lips and nodded slightly as he glanced at the photo. “I remember the family,” he said in a soft voice. “Baptists, I believe.” He reached for a pencil and a piece of paper and slowly began sketching a rudimentary map. “You’d want to look for them in this particular cemetery,” he told her. With great precision he drew a criss-cross of streets, then placed an X in one area of the map.
“And the homestead?” said Carmela. “I understand the family lived out of town a ways. On Fordoche Road.”
The old man bent over his map again. “Turn here,” he told her, tapping his pencil. “Lidville Street to Fordoche. Then follow Fordoche, maybe ten miles out.”
“You knew them?” Carmela asked. “The Redmonds?”
He gave a faint nod. Carmela couldn’t figure out if the old man was trying to cover up for his forgetfulness or was just covering up.
“Anything you can tell me about them?” she asked. “About the family?”
The old man closed his eyes slowly and Carmela was reminded of an old turtle. “Don’t like to speak ill of anyone,” he told her as he slid his homemade map across the scarred counter to her.
“What was that all about?” asked Ava, once they were back in the car.
“I have no idea,” said Carmela.
“Seemed like he wanted to say more, but was too polite,” said Ava.
“Seemed to me he was being awfully careful,” replied Carmela.
Chapter 16
T
HE cemetery was, no pun intended, a dead end. There was no marble gravestone with the name Redmond carved into it, no family marker, no caretaker nearby to query.
They had split into two teams—Carmela with Poobah on a leash, and Ava with Boo—and walked the rows of tombstones for the better part of an hour. But they’d found nothing. The results were disappointing, to say the least.
“At least the dogs got to stretch their legs,” said Ava, noticing the glum expression on Carmela’s face.
“Us, too,” said Carmela.
“We goin’ to the house, then?” asked Ava. They had gravitated to a large memorial commemorating all the veterans who’d fought in this country’s wars, both foreign and domestic. “That is, if the house is still there.”
“We’ve come all this way,” said Carmela. “It’d be a shame to quit now.”
Bumping down Fordoche Road, following the map the old man at the library had sketched, Carmela was struck by the raw beauty of the area. On either side of what seemed more like a dike built to keep the bayou at bay than a road were great expanses of brackish water, punctuated by mangrove trees and towering, bald cypress. This was the realm of egrets, herons, ibis, and cormorants. Where the American alligator was most at home, too. The one also dubbed the Mississippi alligator, pike-headed alligator, or just “gator.” Whatever the moniker, this contemporary cousin of the dinosaur garnered a good share of respect.
“It’s kinda spooky,” said Ava. Poobah had wormed his way from the back seat into the front and was now firmly ensconced in Ava’s lap. Boo, happy to have the entire back seat to herself, looked on approvingly.
“I truly do love it down here,” said Carmela. “Lots of folks get all fidgety and nervous about bayous. They find them haunting and dangerous. But I think they’re incredibly beautiful and mysterious.”
“Everything’s so soggy,” said Ava, peering out the window. “I guess I’m more of a dry land gal.”
“Are you kidding?” said Carmela. “Of the three hundred sixty-something square miles that make up greater New Orleans, half of that is water.”
“Good heavens,” exclaimed Ava. “Half? That much, really? Well, I still prefer the dryer things in life. Dry land, dry martinis . . .” She thought for a few seconds. “Dry cleaning.”
The sun peeped out from behind high puffy clouds and suddenly illuminated the entire bayou. Greens became brighter and more intense, water riffled by breezes suddenly sparkled like jewels, tendrils of Spanish moss swung gently. Two large heron, both with heroic wingspans, swooped gracefully in front of the car, then settled near a stand of swamp grass.