know you got this—”
“Aileen! Aileen, go on in the kitchen, honey. Now.”
The girl huffed, dropped Delpha’s hand, and grabbed up the begging dog. “Any-way. Nana Nana Bo Bana doesn’t have what you came here looking for. That thing’s not at our house, thank you, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” She scooted through the side door rocking the pug in her arms.
Mrs. Kirk was still standing behind her desk, which Delpha read as a sign she should leave. She couldn’t yet. “What’d she mean by all that?”
“Just one minute here. What fib did you tell me, Miss…what was your name?”
“Delpha Wade. I work for a private investigator, not a lawyer, and we’re looking for someone, just not how I explained it to you. That was the lie. Your granddaughter see either of those single men you sold to?”
“I don’t know. She’s in and out the office. Listen, Aileen had some troubles in her little life ‘fore we stepped in and took her away. Sometimes she makes remarks we…we don’t understand what she means. That’s nothing I care to discuss with a stranger. Now is there anything more I can do for you today?”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Kirk. I apologize for lyin’ to your face.” Delpha stuck out her hand.
“Well. Guess that’s part of your business.” Mrs. Kirk wrinkled her nose, but she shook hands, one businesswoman with another. When Delpha offered her a cramped smile, admitting, “Have to say that it is,” the woman dropped the unfriendly expression.
Delpha’s smile became fuller. Not a grudge-holder by nature, Mrs. Kirk.
“Truth is, I don’t mind so much Aileen runs in and out of here. What am I doing so important? We’ve raised her since she was seven. Turn around, she’ll be grown.” Mrs. Kirk straightened some papers. “Her granddad and I discourage the funny thoughts Aileen gets. Scares him. Me, too. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe her. She’s been right too many times.” Mrs. Kirk jutted her chin.
Delpha took that in. “Not judging, believe me. Knew a girl once could read a worried person’s mind. But your Aileen’s in a bigger league. Thank you, ma’am.”
Mrs. Kirk’s smile quavered with gratitude and dread.
Aileen was not drinking a restorative glass of water. The rain had paused, and she was out in the oil-spotted driveway peering into the Dodge. “I like this car, lady,” she said. “Fast. Is it yours?”
“No.”
The red-haired girl’s gaze passed over her. “Not fibbing about that.”
“No, I’m not. Answer me something, OK?”
Aileen skittered away from the car window into the yard. Poked both sets of fingers into her tight jean pockets and looked off across the street to where an optimist neighbor was pinning wet sheets to a clothesline.
“If I can. But only if I want to.”
“Fair enough.” Delpha leaned against a fender. “That black thing you were talking about. Was it on the man or was it loose? Is that—can that black cave get on the inside of people?”
“You did see it. I knew it!” Expressions tumbled over Aileen’s freckled face: satisfaction, vindication, a shudder. The girl’s gaze attached to Delpha. “Inside of a person? Man, I don’t know. Wasn’t in you.”
She stood for a good minute, eyes unseeing, nose up, as if sniffing a patch of air that was a channel to the air of everywhere else.
Delpha felt a mild jolt. Aileen reminded her of herself in the hospital, lying still, gazing through the windows to green treetops so as to leave behind pain and clatter.
The teenager turned to Delpha. “The point is, duh lady, I wasn’t sposed to see it. It was an accident. Now you, seems like it showed itself to you.” The smooth brow furrowed as she stared, the emphasis of the double beauty marks startling. “But, look, there’s a…you know a little tiny girl’s following you?”
Delpha didn’t move. Softly, “No, Aileen, I didn’t know that.”
“Welp. Not now. But I swear she was there in Nana’s office. Wore a little blue smock.”
“Who is she?”
Aileen angled away as if to escape, and then irresistibly back again, so that she appeared to perform a rippling dance move. “I wouldn’t know if you don’t. Hey, you come again let me drive that car, OK? Friday I’m a get my learner’s permit.”
She twirled away. “Bye.”
VIII
PHELAN HAD DECIDED that an hour or so spent on Louisiana birth records might not be a waste of time. Might provide a fallback in case the house search did not uncover Rodney. By finding baby boys born two years apart in the New Orleans area, 1898 and 1900; they could find the Bell brothers—Rodney’s real name, parents’ names, maybe an old address.
Phelan hit up 4-1-1 to ask for the number of the Louisiana Vital Statistics Office. After hearing his request, Vital Statistics informed him he needed State Archives, which resided at the Secretary of State’s office. He duly connected with this office, was transferred, and held while Louisiana Archives in Baton Rouge searched out the proper clerk.
A voice like a trellis twined with honeysuckle identified herself as Louisiana Archives and wished him a good morning so fragrantly that September 10, 1973, rainy or not, became a very good morning. Phelan gave her the name of his business, his location, and said what he wanted.
The clerk interrupted his request: he wanted wha-at? All Orleans Parish births for 1898 and 1900? Couldn’t he just supply her a surname? He was afraid he couldn’t. Ga lee, he didn’t know this was gonna run him a arm and a leg?
State office. Why wasn’t it free?
“Oh, honey. This is Louisiana. Nothing’s free to Texas.”
“All righty then. Tell me what I owe you. Who’d begrudge you a dime, Miss?”
A laugh. “Watch out who you Miss-ing, Sugar-mouth. I got eight kids. Listen, gimme your number, I’m on have to call you back just to tell you how big a check to send us. Gotta count the pages.”
When Mrs. Louisiana Honeysuckle called back with the amount, Phelan jotted the number and squinted at it. Not a fortune, but sure seemed steep. He grimaced and, equipped with a Louisiana-addressed envelope, trotted off to the bank to buy a money order so they wouldn’t have to wait for a check to clear. Shielded his head with newspaper on his run to the car, which took care of reading any unpleasant headlines about the White House today. Phelan slotted the envelope with the money order into a mailbox and skidded into the office just in time to catch the ringing phone.
On the line was the manager of Bellas Hess, a rambling store that aimed to be your one-stop shopping. Except it didn’t sell liquor or food, so that threw a lot of its Beaumont, Texas customers into two or three-stop shopping.
High-ticket
