Michael Lister Omnibus by Michael Lister & Michael Lister (ed.)

Author:Michael Lister & Michael Lister (ed.)
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Anthologies, Suspense, Historical, Thriller
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 46

That evening, with the sun beginning its descent behind St. Louis Cathedral, I bought a bag of beignets and a large coffee at the Café du Monde, crossed Decatur to Jackson Square, and found an empty bench on which to enjoy them.

Slowly, the sounds of jazz bands were dying out, the street artists, mimes, and magicians being replaced by fortunetellers, tarot readers, and guides for vampire, ghost, and graveyard tours.

The breeze blowing off the Mississippi filled the air with a briny pungency and humidity that mixed with the cooking food and confections of the Quarter, riding on its currents the soft, sad sounds of a lone saxophone coming from Pirates Alley.

With the crowds and noises of the day gone, I had hoped to think about the case, integrating what I knew with what I had learned since arriving in New Orleans, but it was not to be.

Both the bag and the beignets were filled with powdered sugar that stuck to my fingers and face, a light dusting of which was accumulating on my clothes. I was trying to wipe it off when Bunny Caldwell walked up.

“I heard you and Bobby Earl talking at the house,” she said.

She was wearing dark shades and a hat that hid much of her face, her nervous moves and paranoid glances highlighting the fact that they were intended as a disguise.

“How?” I asked.

She looked confused.

“That was a crack about its size,” I said. “Have a seat.”

Glancing around furtively, she sat down next to me without trying to avoid the powdered sugar covering the bench.

“Bobby Earl grew up poor,” she said.

“Well, he’s making up for it now.”

She smiled. “Trying.”

“Except you can’t,” I said.

“You can’t make up for anything you didn’t get in childhood, can you?”

“Sounds like maybe you’ve been trying, too,” I said.

She nodded. “Yeah,” she said, more to herself than to me, and I knew some of what I had heard about her was true.

Across the way, a homeless man rose from where he had been sleeping on the grass, walked over to the fountain, and began washing his face and hands.

Figuring there was a reason she had sought me out, I didn’t prod, but instead waited for her to tell me in her own time what she had to say.

“There’s a few things I want you to know about Bobby Earl,” she said.

“Okay.”

“He’s not like me,” she said. “When he gave his life to the Lord, he did it all the way. He really is a new creature in Christ. I’ve never seen someone change so completely. I mean, yeah, he spends too much money and he’s still a kid in many ways, but he really is one of the good guys now.”

The woman sitting next to me was different from the one I had met in the institution just two weeks ago, as if in addition to aging her, grief had stripped her of all illusions. She was now disillusioned in the most positive, if painful, sense of the word.

“He judges people—especially inmates—by what happened to him,” she continued.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.