Disembodied Bones (3 page)

Roosevelt released the button once more and
cogitated on the fact that he was a Yankee. Sure he had been born
in Shreveport, but he had committed the unpardonable sin of being
raised in Oregon by his Aunt Carlita. It didn’t matter that
technically Oregon wasn’t really where Yankees came from or that
they never had originated from that state. He looked black, but he
talked like a northerner and there were many officers and employees
in the Shreveport Police Department who treated him like he was
different. Fortunately there were just as many others who didn’t
give a damn, and besides Roosevelt Hemstreet had thick skin.

“Getting thicker every day, too,” he added to
himself, and straightened his jacket.

When Roosevelt made it downstairs, Eloise
didn’t say a word. She pursed her lips and pointed into the waiting
area. Several people were there already. Some were waiting to speak
to officers and some were waiting for police reports. “Where, Miss
Hunter?”

“That’s Miz Hunter, Dee-tective,” Eloise
replied prissily. She was in her sixties and had been a stolid
feature of the police department for thirty years. White hair
contrasted with her bright blue eyes and those same eyes glittered
intently at Roosevelt, challenging his authority.

Roosevelt suddenly grinned broadly at the
woman behind the counter. It was a flash of expansive white in a
dark face. Her own face twitched uncomfortably, knowing that it
wasn’t humor that animated the newest detective’s features. “Well,
Miz
Hunter, then.”

Eloise picked up the phone, with another wary
look at the detective.

Tapping the glass for her attention,
Roosevelt said, “You said something about someone who says they
know where the kid is.”

“Ah’m not a babysitter, Dee-tective,” she
announced. “It’s that little girl, sitting all alone, right back
there.”

Roosevelt turned away and looked. The room
wasn’t crowded but it still took him a moment to acknowledge who he
was looking for in the small crowd. She was a tiny little thing
with skinny little limbs that looked like someone might be starving
her. Her long black hair rested across one shoulder as she ran her
fingers through the looping curls, working out snarls. He took in
the shabby T-shirt, the frayed jeans, and the decrepit tennis shoes
with a knowing eye. She was young, almost as young as Douglas Trent
and Douglas Trent was only ten years old.

He knew a lot about Douglas Trent. The day
before, while Mrs. Amelia Trent went shopping in The Gap at
Chinaberry Mall, Douglas had been playing in the game arcade. When
she came to get him an hour later, the manager said that his father
had already come to get him. The problem was that Douglas Trent’s
father was in California on business and had been for a full week.
The other problem was that Douglas Trent hadn’t turned up in the
mall in the ensuing hours.

The mall’s meager security had contacted the
Shreveport PD two hours after that and the hunt began. There wasn’t
a wait because a stranger had been involved. The kid had been lured
out of the arcade by someone Mrs. Amelia Trent didn’t know. There
wasn’t family in the area and the Trents were new to Shreveport.
Mrs. Trent swore up and down on a bible that she wouldn’t have
trusted any of her new neighbors enough to let them give Douglas a
ride home. However, it didn’t matter because Douglas wasn’t with
the neighbors and all the PD had was a blurry still from a security
camera from a Sears store. It showed Douglas hand in hand with a
tall Caucasian male, who had turned his head enough at the moment
of the camera shot so as to be unidentifiable. The anonymous man
had been wearing tan slacks and a dark shirt without any
discernible logo. His hair was dark and he appeared as though he
could be anywhere in his late twenties to early forties, but other
than that, SPD had nothing at all.

The father had flown home first thing and the
Trents had gone to the media to broadcast the news, bringing
Douglas’s school picture to be featured on the news. They waited
for a ransom demand, hoping that would be what they receive instead
of the news that their only son’s body had been found or worse yet,
no news at all, and only wretched imagination to fill in the horrid
gaps. Most of the detectives were out working various leads. A
dozen patrolmen were performing related activities and the chief of
police was about to call in the FBI for assistance.

Meanwhile, the Trents waited at home, guilt
and vile anticipation driving them slowly mad. And here was this
little girl, sitting in the waiting room of the SPD, cooling her
heels. Had she been at the arcade at the same time? Was she a
friend of Douglas’s? Did she suspect that the man across the street
who peeped at her from behind brocade curtains was the same one who
had taken Douglas from the mall?

Roosevelt sighed. She wouldn’t be the first
to come in to talk to the police department and she wouldn’t be the
last. Some of the phone calls were worse. Idiots who used pay
phones to suggest that the little boy was already dead and buried,
his decomposing corpse far away in the bayous, his flesh being
eaten by catfish in the Red River, his little fingers a meal for
voracious animals on some twisted man’s farm. He stood in front of
the small girl and said, “I’m Roosevelt Hemstreet, ma’am. I’m a
detective here. How can I help you?”

The little girl looked up. Her eyes were the
most peculiar color that Roosevelt had ever seen and for a moment
it gave him pause. She gnawed on her lower lip before she said, “I
know where Douglas is. I can take you to him.”

•

The policeman was very, very large. It was
the first thought in Leonie’s mind. She sat on the battered bench
that had dozens of names and crude phrases carved on it and looked
up, up, up. Dressed in a blue suit, he had skin the color of syrup,
and warm brown eyes. But she could tell right off he was tired and
not in a receptive mood.

The police department was the place that was
so reviled by the family. It was one of the places that family
members regularly shunned as though the black plague was actively
rampant there. The police were outsiders. They didn’t possess the
gift. They wouldn’t trust those who did. No one from the outside
world really understood. Only a precious few outsiders could ever
be trusted, so the rule was to trust none of them and never bring
unwanted publicity upon the family because strangers could come and
take one away just like Great-Aunt Lisette.

Leonie frowned up at the large man wearing
the dark blue suit. He frowned back down. Finally his features
coalesced into dispassionate neutrality.
His name is Roosevelt
Hemstreet
, she thought. Perhaps he was named after a president.
But she wasn’t here about that.

“How would you happen to know that, ma’am?”
the big black man asked her politely.

Leonie’s already twisted features turned more
downward. Her plan had flaws. Here was one. She had to convince
this man that she had legitimate knowledge of Douglas Trent’s
whereabouts, and for Douglas’s benefit, she had to do so quickly.
He’s afraid. She chewed on that lower lip again
. He’s so afraid
of that man and the stupid words that he keeps repeating. What am
I?
The fear made her shiver involuntarily. “I saw him. I saw
him today. While I was looking for my papa.”

She crossed her fingers behind her back and
nervously looked away from Roosevelt. Somehow Leonie sensed that
the detective knew she was lying and was trying to decide what to
do with her, if anything at all.

“Where did you see him?” Roosevelt asked
gently.

“It’s a big, big house just outside of town,”
she said quickly, looking back up at the detective. “Red brick,
lots of trees and bushes, and big glass windows all over. I saw him
at the window. Very clear.” Leonie took the folded newspaper out of
her pocket she spread it out and presented the front page to
Roosevelt. “This boy. Douglas Trent.”

“Why were you looking for your papa?”
Roosevelt’s brown eyes had turned inquisitive. He was mulling over
the story in his head.

“He forgot his lunch.” Leonie mentally
crossed another set of fingers.
So many lies today. Surely God
understands?
“He works construction sites. I didn’t know which
one, non.”

“And you drove yourself?”

“Oh,
non
. I’m only thirteen. One of
the family drove me. His name is Louis Padeaon.” Leonie was
reasonably happy to tell an honest fact for once. “I think he’s a
cousin three or four times removed. His great-
grandmaman
was
married to my great-great uncle.”

It dawned on Roosevelt that he was talking to
a little girl who was a member of the elusive Lake People. He’d
heard other officers talking about them. They lived out at the
distant Twilight Lake in St. Germaine’s Parish for the most part
and spoke like Cajuns, although they weren’t really that. Some of
them lived in the Atchafalaya Basin and married into Cajun families
but most of them stuck to the lake, where they eked out a living
doing whatever they could. They kept to themselves and for the most
part stayed out of trouble, but they were reclusive people and
strange stories circulated about them. “What’s your name,
ma’am?”

Leonie hesitated, but she knew she would have
to convince this man. “Leonie Simoneaud,” she said, pronouncing it,
“Lee-oh-nee See-man-oh.” Then she spelled the last name for him
because she knew he wouldn’t be able to spell it himself.

“Is this Louis, your cousin, waiting for you
outside?”

“
Non
,” she replied frankly.

“Hmm,” Roosevelt said. He was beginning to
think that Leonie had seen some other little boy and mistaken the
child for Douglas Trent. He, himself, suspected Douglas had been
dead only hours after leaving the mall with a stranger. The child
couldn’t have been seen in some big, big house’s windows by Leonie
Simoneaud earlier today. “And your papa’s name?”

“Jacques,” she said. “The French spelling.
The family prefers the French spelling.”

Roosevelt patted Leonie’s slight shoulder. He
said, “I’m going to give your papa a call, if you’ll tell me the
name of the construction company he works for, and-”

Leonie sat forward and put her hand on top of
his. The tiny white fingers didn’t even begin to conceal his
larger, toffee colored ones. He didn’t believe her. She had messed
up by coming here, but there might be some slight chance left that
she could convince him by other means. She grasped at the only
straws she had remaining and interrupted him. The words rattled out
of her mouth before she could take the time to think about how they
would sound. “There’s a man named Whitechapel. I don’t know his
first name, but he lives in the house. The address is 2345
Sugarberry Lane. It’s
très beau
. Very beautiful. This man
took Douglas yesterday, and Douglas is very afraid. He doesn’t have
much time left before the man will hurt him. The man is doing
something else right now and Douglas is all alone in a dark room.
He hears things that frighten him, even though the man has promised
him he will get to play games and eat as much candy as he
wants.”

The little girl’s touch tingled on his
fingers like an electrical shock and Roosevelt’s eyes suddenly
widened in surprise. He couldn’t help himself. He jerked his hand
away from her and shook it midair as if it had fallen asleep and he
was reinitiating circulation in it. “How could you possibly know
that?” he whispered, not even realizing that his voice had lowered
in pitch.

Leonie shrugged. It was a very adult movement
and she pressed her lips tightly together in concentration. “The
way I know anything at all. It’s just like I know the sky is blue
and within the black waters of Twilight Lake swims Goujon, the
great catfish who made the lake by thumping his large tail against
the ground and causing an earthquake.” Her gold eyes caught his.
“Just like I know you’ve been looking for a gold pen. It’s a Cross
pen that your aunt gave to you when you graduated college. You like
it so much because she gave it to you and she’s dead now. A gold
pen you haven’t been able to find for two weeks. I know where it
is, too.”

Roosevelt took a step back. He hadn’t seen
his pen since he’d signed a birthday card for one of the patrol
officers almost two weeks before. He had been missing it and every
time he had used it he had thought of his Aunt Carlita, who’d
pressed him hard to finish college. Only last year had she
succumbed to lung cancer and he’d been heartbroken to lose that
pen. He’d torn up his house looking for it and practically
strip-searched every one who’d signed the birthday card for the
patrolman. Despite his efforts, the pen hadn’t materialized.

“It couldn’t hurt you any to check out
Whitechapel,
M’su
Detective,” said Leonie plaintively. “Just
go and talk to him some. Look and see does he have a record
of…hurting little children. That’s not too much to ask and you
don’t have to tell anyone who told you this.”

Roosevelt’s eyebrows drew together into a
scowl. A sneaky suspicion was beginning to form in his mind. It was
the kind of suspicion that cops got often, that they were being
lied to, and that the liar didn’t care what they said in order to
get something they wanted. “I get it. You got some kind of gripe
with this Whitechapel dude? Maybe your papa has some kind of money
problem with him? So you point a finger at him and he goes away for
a while and your problem is solved? Is that it? I don’t know how
you found out about my gold pen. Well, hell, I guess I asked enough
people about it, so that’s how, but this kind of stunt isn’t going
to get you jack-diddly-squat.”

Leonie folded her hands together on her lap
and waited for him to pause. When he did she said, “It’s in the
passenger seat of your wife’s car, I think it’s called a Jetta and
it’s this pretty green color. You were riding with her somewhere
and looking for a Kleenex, when it fell out and got in between the
seats. Call her. She’ll go out to look at her car and find it.”