boys’ father. She’d shown up in town big with child and refusing to name the father. Doc had given her vitamins and caution to rest, but Adele had seen him only once. As far as anyone knew, she’d delivered the babies on her own.
Adele’s parents had died, her father in the Gulf waters and her mother of infection almost eight years ago. It wasn’t much information, and none of it explained why Adele would think herself the
loup-garou
or why her sister would develop the wounds of the stigmata. Raymond walked into the sheriff’s office hoping Adele would be well enough to give him some answers to his questions.
Pinkney Stole stood up from in front of the potbellied stove when Raymond walked in. The old black man stared at Raymond, waiting for a command.
“She been mumbling,” he said. “Talkin’
‘bout the moon and such. None of it made a lick o’ sense.”
Raymond pulled a quarter from his pocket. “Would you get us some coffee, Pinkney? Take your time about it. Tell Mrs. Estella to feed you some pie.” He flipped the coin to the old man who deftly caught it with a toothless grin. Pinkney hung out at the jail because he had nowhere else to sleep. Like an old dog, his presence could be comforting or annoying. Now, Raymond wanted to be alone with the prisoner.
Adele lay on a thin mattress of cotton ticking. Her hand was cuffed to the bedsprings, but if she’d moved since he put her on the bunk the night before, he couldn’t tell. The gentle rise and fall of her chest told him she was breathing.
“Miss Hebert?” He called her name softly, surprised at the desire he felt to be gentle. There were moments when the past crept up on him and caught him unaware, making him wonder what kind of man he might have been. Such moments always cost him.
When she didn’t respond, he went in the cell with a dropper of the medicine Madame Louiselle had prepared. He gripped her jaw and forced her mouth open. The liquid gurgled between her lips, but she didn’t swallow.
Afraid she would choke lying flat on her back, he lifted her head until he saw her throat work. Her skin felt cooler to his touch, but she still had a fever. He wet a cloth and put it on her forehead as his mother had done to him when he was a child. The cold cloth made her sigh.
While Joe was captivated by the idea of a woman possessed by an evil spirit, Raymond worried about something far worse. Infantile paralysis. It came with a high fever, followed by the death of the limbs, and for some, the inability to breathe. Jail was not the place to be sick, but no hospital would take a person with polio, especially not a possible murderer.
He wiped her mouth and stood. He would’ve been uncomfortable for the sheriff or even Pinkney to see him ministering to the woman. There was no room for kindness or compassion in the world he’d chosen. Those things had been stolen from him by his own actions.
In the daylight, he studied Adele’s features. Dark, thick eyebrows grew with a slight curve over eyes set deep. Her skin was sallow, with grayish tints like old bruises beneath her eyes. The nose was sharp and clean. Spanish or French, he’d say. As he recalled, her eyes were gray, and fringed with dark lashes. If she gained about thirty pounds, she would be a comely woman. Someone had found her so and fathered twin boys on her. For all that she was alone now, she hadn’t always been.
Her eyelids fluttered, and he thought of young birds in the first flapping of wings. There’d been a blue jay’s nest outside his bedroom window, and each spring, he and Antoine had watched the eggs hatch and the fledglings grow. They’d been careful never to frighten the mother bird, fearing she’d abandon her babies. He could almost feel his brother’s breath on his forearm as they stood at the window, watching so carefully. Antoine was often with him.
Adele moaned, and Raymond leaned closer. “Adele?”
She looked at him and lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the
Kristene Perron, Joshua Simpson