CHAPTER 12

I double-locked the door and showered, letting the hot water beat into me until my skin was red and burning and I began to feel better about things.

I was out of the shower and getting dressed when Lucy Chenier returned my call. She said, "Sorry it's taken so long. I was trying to find out about Milt Rossier.

"I just came back from Milt's. Before that, I broke into Jimmie Ray Rebenack's home and found what I believe to be the entire state file on Jodi's adoption. I found other things, too, and I learned some things at Rossier's that we need to talk about." Maybe there was something in my voice that the shower hadn't washed away. She didn't say anything about the break-in.

"Can you drive back to Baton Rouge this evening?"

"Yes."

"I have to leave the office soon to be home for Ben, but you could meet me there and we could have dinner. Is that all right?"

"That would be fine."

Lucy gave me directions to her home and then we hung up. I dressed, then got the papers together from under the mattress, and drove back to Baton Rouge. I brought flowers.

The late afternoon was clear and bright when I found my way through a gracious residential area east of Louisiana State University to Lucy's home. The streets were narrow, but the houses were large and set back on wide rolling lawns amid lush azaleas and oaks and magnolia trees, worthy digs for doctors and lawyers and tenured professors from LSU. I slowed several times for families on bicycles and young couples with strollers or elderly people enjoying a walk. Two girls and their dad were on one lawn, trying to launch a blue kite with no breeze; on another, an elderly man sat on a glider, gently swaying in the evening shade beneath an oak tree. Everything seemed relaxed and wonderful, the ideal environment in which to escape the realities of lying clients, enraged snapping turtles, and the loneliness of being far from home. Maybe I should move here.

Lucy Chenier lived in a brick colonial with a circular rock drive and a large pecan tree in the front yard. A knotted rope hung from the tree and, higher in the branches, several boards were nailed together into a small platform. Somebody's treehouse.

I crunched into the drive, got out with the flowers and the documents, and went to the front door. When I had stopped for the flowers I had picked up a folder in which to hide the documents. Can't very well be seen sneaking stolen documents into an attorney's home. Might get her disbarred. The door opened before I reached it and a boy with curly brown hair looked out. He said, "Hey."

"Hey. My name's Elvis. Are you Ben?" He was looking at the flowers.

"Yes, sir. My mom's on the phone, but she says you can come in."

"Thanks."

He opened the door wider and let me in. He was still with the flowers. Suspicious. "Are those for my mom?"

"Unh-hunh. Think she'll like 'm?"

Shrug. "I dunno." Can't give stray guys too much encouragement, I guess.

From somewhere in the house Lucy called, "I'm on with the office. I'll be off in a minute."

I called back. "Take your time."

Ben stood straight and tall in cut-off jeans shorts and a gray LSU Athletic Department T-shirt. Every kid in Louisiana was probably issued an LSU T-shirt at birth. He led me through a spacious home that was neat and orderly, but still lived-in and comfortable and clearly feminine, with plenty of photographs in delicate frames and pastel colors and plants. The entry led into the family room and the kitchen. Everything was open and casual, with the family room flowing into the dining area, which looked out French doors across a brick patio and a large backyard. Tennis trophies filled the shelves of a wall-sized entertainment center in the family room, but pictures of Ben and books and ceramic animals were crowding out the trophies. I liked that. Balance.

Ben leaned against the counter that separated the kitchen from the family room, watching me. I said, "You play tennis like your mom?"

He nodded.

"She's pretty good, huh?"

He nodded again.

"Can you beat her?"

"Sometimes." He cocked his head a little bit to the side and said, "Are you a detective?"

"Doesn't it show?"

He shook his head.

"I left my trench coat at the motel."

"What's a trench coat?"

Times change.

He said, "Is it run?"

"Most of the time it's fun, but not always. You thinking about becoming a detective?"

He shook his head. "I want to be a lawyer like my dad."

I nodded. "That'd be good."

"He practices corporate law in Shreveport. He really goes for the jugular." I wondered where he'd heard that.

Lucy came through the family room and smiled at me.

"Hi."

"Hi, yourself." I held out the flowers. Mr. Charming. "I didn't want to come empty-handed."

"Oh, they're lovely." Her eyes crinkled nicely when she took the flowers, and I flushed with a kind of pleasure that made me return her smile. She was wearing khaki hiking shorts and a loose white cotton top and sandals, and she seemed relaxed and comfortable in her home. Looking at her made me feel relaxed, too. "Let's put them in water."

Ben said, "Can I set the coals?"

"Not too many."

Ben ran out the back, slamming through the French doors. Someone had set up a Weber grill on the patio, and he went to work with the coals. Lucy said, "I picked up potato salad and cole slaw from the market. I thought we'd grill hamburgers since we're going to work Something simple."

"Hamburgers are great."

"Would you like a glass of wine?"

"Please. That would be nice."

She took an unopened bottle of Sonoma-Cutre Chardonnay from her refrigerator, offered it to me with a corkscrew, and asked if I'd mind opening it. She put out two wineglasses, then used kitchen shears to trim the flowers before placing them in a simple glass vase. I poured the wine. When the flowers were finished, she said, "They're absolutely lovely."

"Drab. Drab and plain next to you."

She laughed. "Tell me, do all men from Los Angeles come on this strong?"

"Only those of us with an absolute confidence in our abilities."

The laugh became a smile, then she put on the red reading glasses and motioned at the folder, jammed with the documents and handwritten notes and phone bills. "Why don't you tell me what happened while I see what we have?"

I went through everything that had happened since I'd last seen her, up to where René and LeRoy brought me to Milt's farm. I had arranged the papers with the state documents on top, so she saw those first. As I spoke, a vertical frown line appeared between her eyebrows and she no longer looked happy and relaxed. She said, "These are real. These are court-sealed documents. How could he get these?"

"I don't know."

"Illegally possessing these is a felony under state law. They're numbered and referenced, and I can have their authenticity checked, but these are real. These papers do in fact show that Jodi Taylor was born Maria Johnson. I can't believe he has these."

"Had."

Ben came in to tell us that the coals were ready to be fired and Lucy went outside to make sure he did it safely. I sat at the counter with my wine, watching them, and found myself smiling. Ben struck the big safety matches and tossed them on the coals while Lucy supervised. They looked comfortable and at ease with each other, and you could see Lucy in his features and in the confident way he carried himself. Reflections. When the flames were rising and the grill was in place, Lucy returned and smiled at me smiling at her. She said, "What?"

"You guys look good together. Happy. I like that."

She turned and looked at her son. He had left the grill and was climbing into a pecan tree. A knotted rope hung from the limbs, just like the tree in the front yard, but he didn't use the rope. She said, "You seem to have passed the test."