“She almost killed my father. You think we should be focused on something else?”
“Story we heard is you did a fine job of coming to your daddy’s defense.”
“Thank you.”
“Like maybe you were ready…”
“Ready? For what?”
“Whole thing went down pretty fast is what I’m saying. Girl starts screaming, your father starts running like he recognizes the sound.”
“Screaming is hard to recognize?” Nova asks.
“Like he recognized who was doing the screaming.”
“What’d y’all find inside that shed?” she asks.
“What do you think we should have found?”
A flower, she thinks. A glowing flower that didn’t make any damn sense, something so crazy and surreal you wouldn’t be bothering me with this crap about Daddy if you’d seen it, and if you haven’t seen it, that means Caitlin’s hiding it.
Focus, she tells herself. Focus on where they’re trying to lead you and keep it from going there.
How many parties did that dumb skank work? Why were you so prepared to keep her from whacking his head off? How involved was your big black daddy with the pretty young white girl who for some reason tried to butcher him?
“Look, I saw Troy Mangier headed out to the shed with that girl—”
“But you didn’t see Troy come out?”
“Because he didn’t come out.”
“You didn’t see him—”
“I didn’t see him come out because he didn’t come out. There’s no back door, so unless he managed to dig his way out in about five minutes’ time, then I don’t know where you think he’s going to be.”
For the first time, her words have unsettled the two white men standing over her, and she’s willing to bet it’s the phrase dig his way out that caused Baldy to shoot his partner a nervous, fleeting glance.
“You still live with your daddy?” Baldy asks quietly. There’s a hurried tone to the question, as if he’s eager to get them back on script. And she hates the familiar way he’s referred to her father. Sure, she calls him Daddy in everyday conversation still. Most children of the South, white or black, do the same with their own fathers. But Willie is not this man’s father. (He’s not Caitlin’s damn daddy either, but watching them together most days, you would think so.)
“Not full time, no,” she answers.
“Where do you live?” Hairpiece asks.
“I’m at LSU. I told you.”
“Still, where do you live?”
“A dorm. Where do you—” She stops herself before she makes a joke about separate dorms for whites and coloreds. But the startled expression on the detective’s face makes the point for her. The ensuing moment is so awkward the two detectives can’t look her in the eye. It’s doubtful Hairpiece actually thought the dorms were segregated. But Nova figures these country detectives are so unaccustomed to dealing with black college students, they simply assumed all the terms would be different. Or they assumed that black people don’t use the word dorm.
For several years now, Nova Thomas has longed to join her father, Caitlin, and so many of the other people around her in their cozy dreams about the past. If only, like so many of the white people she goes to school with, she could look at the history of places like Spring House and see only singing, dancing African slaves freed from the burden of owning property and patiently awaiting the divine justice of President Abraham Lincoln. But college is deepening her long-held suspicion that she grew up being told less than one-quarter of the real story about Spring House, the real story of Louisiana itself, and she can’t help but wonder if all of this—this interrogation, not to mention washing dishes in Spring House’s kitchen on a regular basis—would be easier if she hadn’t sat down with Dr. Taylor during office hours a few months ago and helped her figure out the exact spot on the property where the sons of Felix Delachaise used to line up to rape the new female slaves.
One thing is for sure. She’s not telling these cops about that damn flower. She will, however, check out that shed as soon as they’re gone so she can find out why the idea of Troy digging his way out made Baldy look at Hairpiece like he’d farted. But if she’s going to risk angering the cops in one way, she might as well allow herself another. All right, voodoo queen’s out, she thinks. Time for uppity Negro.
“My father doesn’t have sex with white ladies,” Nova says quietly. “Ever. Don’t get me wrong. There’s been a lot of women since my mother died, and I wasn’t a fan of most of them. But none of them were white, and none of them carried an axe, and none of them were low-account trash that would go out to the shed with another woman’s husband at that woman’s birthday party. So how about y’all quit this scenario where my father’s bending over backward into crazy because some white lady might have paid him some attention? Then maybe you’ll find out where Troy Mangier really is.”
Her heart races. She can already feel the handcuffs closing around her wrists. But the sensation is fantasy and nothing more because, just then, Baldy turns and walks out of the room and Hairpiece thanks her for her time, and suddenly Nova is all by herself in the front parlor of Spring House for the first time, her hands still trembling even as she clasps them between her knees.
8
Blake Henderson is just a few paces from the automatic doors to the emergency room when he sees the father of the first man to die in his arms.
Vernon Fuller drives the same 1988 Chevy Suburban he did when Blake was a boy, with its boxy nose and fat navy-blue side stripe. The first weak light of an overcast dawn dapples the windshield with the reflections of oak branches, turning Vernon into a vague, baseball-capped silhouette behind the wheel. As usual, the SUV is parked in one of the metered spaces on Prytania Street just across from the entrance to Touro Infirmary.
It’s been a long night—five gunshots, one overdose, and two violent psych cases. The kind of night that would cause a normal person to grimace when they heard the list of admissions rattled off in sequence, but which leaves adrenaline-addicted nurses like Blake amped and incapable of sleep, even after fourteen hours on the floor.
So even though he’s fairly sure how this will go, Blake starts across Prytania Street, devoid of traffic at this early hour, and toward the Suburban. For a few seconds, the only sounds he hears are his tennis shoes slapping the pavement and his scrubs scraping against his legs. Then the Suburban’s engine starts up, and its headlights wink on, and it swerves to avoid Blake at the last second before speeding off in the direction of the Garden District.
If history is any indicator, Blake will spend the next few nights waiting for a late-night hang-up. Or an e-mail from an unfamiliar address. Any indication that Vernon Fuller wants something more than a predawn glimpse. Then Blake will forget about Vernon Fuller altogether until the next slightly menacing and unexplained visit. Vernon’s son, on the other hand, will live on forever in Blake’s memories and nightmares.
Especially the feel of his bound wrists as Blake tried desperately to free him before the black water rose to swallow them both.
When the phone rings and an unfamiliar number flashes on the screen, Blake is sure it’s Vernon, breaking their fifteen-year silence. He’s not sure what to feeclass="underline" dread or relief? Will it be a good thing? The old man has never allowed the only other man who loved his son as much as he did to join him in his grief, and maybe there’s a reason for that. A good reason. But when he hits “Accept,” the voice on the other end isn’t his dead lover’s father, but something quaky and female.