Chapter 3 Ma Chérie

Chapter 3

Ma Chérie

We spent the hour-long drive back to the camper in near silence. I didn’t like the feeling of being put through a two-day job interview by Kenneth LePine II and Cecilia Lachaussee, but I had stepped outside the world in which my team and I were well-respected—and even feared—tactical professionals capable of handling almost any situation anywhere on the globe. I was learning that in the world that revolved around the bayou, everything had its own pace, and outsiders—boogaloos like us—were regarded with extreme caution and even distrusted…possibly for good reason.

When we pulled into the tiny speck of dry land beside the LePines’ three-room shelter that would never qualify as a house anywhere else in the country, Kenneth said, “Build a fire. I’ll be back in a minute, me.”

A collection of cypress logs stood on end around a rock-lined pit that had clearly been the site of far too many fires to count. Gator gathered wood while I lit a few pieces of kindling. By the time Kenneth came back, we had a respectable fire popping and cracking. We each claimed a stump, and the old Cajun handed me a stack of small scraps of paper. The moon was still a day away from being full, but it cast enough light to barely see the sketches on the slips of paper.

Kenneth pulled a stick from the fire and held it beside the papers. “Dem be hard to sees by only da light of dat ol’ moon.”

I drew the small light from my pocket and illuminated the sketches.

Kenny tossed the burning stick back onto the fire. “Ain’t dat handy?”

I carefully studied each sketch before handing it off to Gator. The detail was incredible and macabre.

I said, “Mr. LePine, who made these drawings?”

He sat upright. “Me did. Ain’t gots no camera, me.”

“You drew all of these?”

“Dat’s right.”

Gator shuddered at the sight of each drawing and quickly handed them back to me.

“Did you find these bodies somewhere?” I asked.

The old man slowly shook his head. “No, dey founds me, dey did.”

“They found you?”

“That’s right. When ol’ Keef first saw them floatin’ on da bayou, I didn’t thinks dey was real, me. Dey was pale and all swole up, dem. And I says to myself, I says dem can’t be real, no. Why not da gators be eatin ’em if dey real?”

“And you think these body parts came to you?”

He nodded. “Me knows it don’t make no sense to yous, but I was in da war and folks be dyin’ all ’round. When dey left dey bodies, dey spirits came to me ’fore dey went on to Heaven. I knowed dey goin’ to Heaven ’cause we done been tru hell in dat jungle.”

“Vietnam?” I asked.

He nodded slowly. “Dat musta been a tousand years ago, but sometimes, it was just yesterday inside me old head.”

As the firelight danced in his one dark eye that could’ve been obsidian, I could almost see the Southeast Asian jungle rippling in the glassy sheen.

“How long were you over there?”

He held up his good hand and spread his fingers.

“Five months?”

He shook his head. “Five tours. Me goes the first time as a private soldier and comes home from the last tour a first-class sergeant, me. I hads two good eyes back den, and ol’ Keef sees more death than any man ought to in all of his life, yeah.”

I suddenly wished we were still at the previous night’s party eating crawfish and listening to zydeco music, but reality had consumed the fantasy of laughter and dancing.

I pulled up my pants leg and exposed the state-of-the art prosthetic extending from my knee into my boot.

Kenneth leaned toward me and ran his fingertips across the piece of medical wizardry. He whispered, “You too young to been in da war, you.”

“For those of us who volunteer to fight it, the war never ends, Mr. LePine.”

He looked into the heavens as a billion stars flickered beyond the dancing specks of floating embers from our fire. “Dat be da truest ting any man ever said. We was fightin’ when that Boy King David flung dat rock at da big ol’ giant, and we’ll be fightin’ when da good Lord come back for dat final battle at Armageddon, Him.”

I sat in silent awe of the wisdom inside the man most people would disregard as crazy. The more I listened, the more I wanted to study his sketches. The gruesome detail called to me as if the same spirits that visited Kenneth in the sweltering jungle were now clawing at my soul and beseeching me to free them from whatever torture was consuming them second by second and eon by eon.

“Where did you see them?” I asked.

“Out on dat same bayou where we killed dat gator yesterday. It was yesterday, right?”

“Yes, sir. It was yesterday. When did you see them?”

He motioned toward the scraps of paper. “It’s on da back.”

I flipped over the papers and found odd-looking, simple sketches of a round object with arced slices removed from the orb. “What does this mean?”

He pointed toward the moon, and I suddenly understood. “You don’t know what day it is, do you, Mr. LePine?”

His bony shoulders rose and fell. “What dat matter, huh? A day is a day, just like another day. It don’t matter whats you call it, no. Men who tinks dey know better than e’rybody else write dem calendars, but le Bon Dieu put dat big ol’ moon up der for a fine calendar what don’t never have to be wrote down, no.”

The absurdity of his concept of time fascinated me, and the more I tried to shoot holes in his theory, the more I came to believe he was right. “Who else saw these body parts?”

“Don’t know, me. I hopes don’t nobody sees ’em.”

“So, you’re the only person who saw them, is that right?”

He shrugged again. “I done tolds you I don’t knows who saw dem ’fore me, but nobody sees ’em after me. Dat’s for sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“’Cause I burned ’em up when I founds ’em, I did.”

“You burned the remains? Why would you do that?”

“Dey had evil on ’em. Even da gators know it. Dey won’t eat ’em.”

Gator finally spoke up. “Did you call the police?”

Kenneth stared into the fire for a long moment. “Kenny didn’t tell you ’bout his ol’ pappy, do he?”

“What do you mean?” Gator asked.

Kenneth said, “When ol’ me was young likes you, a boogaloo puts his hands on Kenny’s mama, and I see it wiff dese two eyes o’ mines when I had two good ’uns, and I cuts him tree ways.”

Gator furrowed his brow. “Tree ways? What does that mean?”

Kenneth said, “You knows. One way, two ways, tree ways.”

“Oh, three ways.”

“Das right. Tree ways—long, wide, and deep. He don’t touch ma chéri never ’gain, him.”

“Did you kill him?” Gator asked.

The old man shook his head. “No. He kills him own self when he tinks is fine to put hands on my Veronique. I just helped him along a little.”

Gator grimaced. “So, you think because you’ve been to prison, the police won’t help you.”

“What da parish sheriff gonna do when I says to him ol’ Keef gots a gris-gris on me dat be callin’ spirits to me, and dey bring what left of dem mortal bodies too, huh?”

Gator suddenly looked as if his brain was turning to mud, so I said, “Let me make sure I understand what’s going on. You found some body parts out on the bayou that the alligators didn’t eat, so you picked them up and burned them because they were somehow cursed. Is that right?”

Kenneth nodded, and I continued. “And you didn’t call the parish sheriff because you think he won’t believe you. Am I still on the right track?”

“Dat be ’bout right.”

“So, what is it you want us to do?”

He looked back at me with the look of a disappointed father on his weathered face. “What you mean? Kenny’s pretty wife, Earline, done told me you da best in all da world at finding out what’s going on when can’t nobody else know.”

I held up the sketches. “May I keep these?”

Kenneth said, “Only if you’s gonna helps me figure out who dem parts belongs to.”

I glanced at Gator and then back at Kenneth. “I’ll tell you what. Let me keep these for twenty-four hours. We’ll talk to some people, and I’ll let you know tomorrow night if we can help.”

“Dat’s fair ’nuff, but no sheriff, no.”

“We won’t tell the sheriff. You have my word.”

Mr. LePine stood and turned to go, but he paused long enough to say, “Me knows how crazy all dis sounds to you, but you hear me when I tells you dat somebody be out der fais du mal , and he be draggin’ ol’ Keef right into his mess.”

Gator and I sat alone by the fire, and I had a thousand questions burning holes in my head.

Finally, Gator said, “What on Earth was that?”

“I’m not sure. What did you think of his story?”

He glanced over his shoulder at the shack barely standing behind us. “I think he’s crazy. That’s what I think. He lives by himself out here in…God knows where we are, and he believes the spirits of dead people come to him before they go to Heaven. You’re the psychologist, but that sounds like the textbook definition of crazy to me.”

“What about the drawings?” I asked.

“Okay, he can draw severed body parts. I’ll give him that. But that doesn’t mean he’s actually seen them out there on the bayou. It could be flashbacks from Vietnam or something.”

“You could be right,” I said, “but I’m not ready to walk away yet. Earl believed him enough to send us out here to meet and talk to him.”

He huffed. “No disrespect, but she’s at least as crazy as he is. You’ve got to admit that.”

I chuckled. “Maybe Earl isn’t the poster girl for psychological stability, but she wouldn’t send us all the way down here for nothing. Maybe she’s just trying to get you hooked up with Cecilia.”

He almost blushed. “If that’s what this is, I’m all about it. And thank you, Earl!”

We watched the fire flicker and burn out. On the way inside the camper, Gator asked, “What does fais du mal mean anyway?”

I said, “Who knows? Maybe you should ask your girlfriend.”

“Maybe I will.”

I gave him a playful shove. “Get some sleep, and we’ll start fresh in the morning.”

“Start on what?”

“I don’t know, but if there are body parts floating around in the bayou, there’s no way Mr. LePine is the only one who’s seen them. I say we poke around a little and see if we can get a bite. Maybe you’re right and the old man is crazy, but when was the last time our cup wasn’t running over with crazy?”

I lay in bed after another subcompact shower and stared at Mr. LePine’s drawings. After half an hour of studying every detail, I decided that photographs would’ve been less graphic.

My watch said it was almost eleven o’clock. That meant it was only nine in L.A. and not too late to make a call.

My wife, Penny, had been Hollywood’s golden child for a little over three years. She’d written thirty screenplays, including four that had become Oscar-winning movies. I made an extremely comfortable living traveling the world and pinning bad guys to the wall, but the bacon I brought home barely paid the taxes on what Tinseltown paid her.

“Hey there, my little bayou boy. How’s it going down there?”

“It’s getting weird,” I said.

She laughed. “When was the last time things didn’t get weird for you?”

“Touché, but this one is really weird. Gator and I are the only two people who speak English. There are trees that have been underwater for a hundred years. We’ve eaten stuff we can’t pronounce. And to top it all off, I think Gator’s in love with a cute little Cajun girl.”

She giggled. “He’s young. He’ll get over it. Have you figured out what you’re supposed to be doing yet?”

“It’s starting to trickle out, but that’s even stranger than everything else that goes on down here. For some reason, Kenny’s father thinks the spirits of dead people come to him on their way to Heaven.”

Her laughter came but trailed off. “Uh…okay. That is weird.”

“Believe it or not, that’s not the weirdest thing. Apparently, there are human body parts floating around in the bayou and the gators won’t eat them because—get this—there’s some kind of evil on them.”

Penny said, “If I wrote a screenplay of your life, every producer in California would write me off and ship me back to Georgia. Nobody would believe this stuff.”

“I live it, and I don’t believe it.”

“So, what’s your next move?”

“I want my next move to be onto Aegis with you so we can sail off into the sunset and finally take our honeymoon.”

She said, “We live on the East Coast, sweetheart. That makes it impossible for us to sail off into the sunset.”

“My head hurts. I’m going to bed. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Don’t get tangled up with any spirits or dead bodies. I love you.”

Sleep was the one thing I wanted more than anything else at that moment, but it wasn’t in the cards. The second I closed my eyes, someone yanked open the door of the camper, and I leapt to my one remaining foot with my pistol in hand.