Sandra Hill - [Jinx 03] (5 page)

“Hey, buddy, I know what bad press is like,” Lance said, patting him on the shoulder. “Just lay low for a while.”

John opened his mouth to protest, but gave up trying to convince them that the article wasn’t about him.

“Hah! The difference in your bad publicity, dear,” Brenda told her husband, not so sweetly, “is it usually involved a front page photo of a bimbo sitting on your lap looking at you as if she’d like to lube your engine.”

John laughed and Lance did his best not to laugh.

“Not anymore, honey.” Lance pulled Brenda into his arms, giving her a big wet kiss. When he was done, Brenda looked a little dazed.

Tante Lulu called everyone to the tables. “Come ’n eat, ever’one.”

They all dished up gumbo, Lazy Bread, sliced tomatoes warm from the garden, red beans and rice, corn on the cob, and a bushel of crawfish set by itself on a plastic cloth-covered table. On another table, she had arranged dishes, cutlery, napkins, glasses, a pitcher of iced sweet tea, and two Peachy Praline Cobbler cakes. There was also a cooler filled with ice and bottles of Dixie beer. An everyday Cajun feast.

“Everything looks wonderful,” Ronnie observed. “Should I wake up Jake?”

“Nah, let him and the little one sleep. Food will keep.”

Jake Jensen, Ronnie’s four-times ex-husband, was asleep on a nearby hammock with their three-year-old daughter Julie Ann sprawled over his chest. Jake was a professional poker player, taking a break from the circuit for a few weeks. Ronnie kept glancing his way, her eyes filled with love for the two of them. If Tante Lulu had her way, with a little help from St. Jude, Ronnie and Jake would be marrying again.

“You didn’t have to do this, Tante Lulu,” Ronnie said, even as she piled her plate with the delicious food. “Just because you’re an investor in the Pirate Project doesn’t mean you have to open your home to us rowdy folks.”

“Feedin’ my family and friends is a joy, dearie. Food, she is an important part of Cajun life. And I have plenty experience with rowdy folks, believe you me.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” He sneaked a peach off her cake and popped it into his mouth.

She smacked his hand away.

A companionable silence followed then as people dug in . . . until Tante Lulu made an offhand remark. “That newspaper story . . . it was written by Celine Arseneaux, weren’t it? I know her paw-paw, James Arseneaux. Her maw-maw died years ago.”

“Yeah,” he said hesitantly, not sure what direction his aunt was headed, but she had that wily gleam in her eyes which set up the red alert hairs on the back of his neck.

“She’s a good Cajun girl, ain’t she?”

John choked on his beer. “Part-Cajun, I think. She has blue eyes.”

His brothers and Charmaine burst out laughing.

“What’s up?” Famosa wanted to know.

“Yeah, share the joke,” Caleb added.

“No, no, no,” he said, but it was too late.

Tante Lulu grinned. “Me, I think I smell thunder.”

Chapter
4

Tante Lulu gaped at her rascal nephew whose face was flushed with pure panic.

“What’s goin’ on? I was jist teasin’,” she whispered to Charmaine.

“Tee-John
is
a bit flustered. I wonder why,” Charmaine whispered back.

“I heard that,” Tee-John said. “Don’t get any ideas about me and Celine Arseneaux, either one of you. Celine hates my guts.”

“How do you feel about
her
guts?” Luc asked. He had come up behind Tee-John without his noticing.

Tee-John flashed him a look of disgust.

“Mebbe St. Jude sent you and Celine ta that hanky-panky club t’gether fer a purpose. Mebbe she jist needs a thunderbolt ta jump-start her heart.”

“St. Jude and a sex club? I don’t think so,” Tee-John scoffed.

“Stranger things have happened,” Luc pointed out. “The ol’ guy got me with a love potion Sylvie concocted in her lab.”

“I got feng shued.” Remy winked at Tee-John, who still wore a frowny face.

“Val got kidnapped and dropped in my lap.” You could tell how pleased René was to tell them about that.

“I’ve got you all beat. I had to become a born-again virgin before I landed Rusty.” Charmaine’s announcement was met with stone-cold silence.

The Yankee gang was staring at them all, open-mouthed. That was Yankees for you. No sense of humor.

“Listen to me, Tante Lulu. I want nothin’ to do with Celine Arseneaux. Not now. Not ever. Did you hear me?”

“Holy crawfish! They heard you in Biloxi.”

“I’m too young ta settle down,” the boy continued, looking around him for support.

No one agreed with him.

He glared at each of his brothers and Charmaine, in turn, then muttered, “Traitors,” and walked away, down toward the bayou.

“Deader ’n a doornail,” Luc remarked to Remy, who nodded.

“Best I be warmin’ up my frottir fer the weddin’ celebration,” René said.

“Me, I’m gonna get Tee-John’s hope chest started, right quick,” Tante Lulu decided.

Tee-John screamed. Which was really funny. Tante Lulu couldn’t recall ever hearing a man scream before, except maybe Valcour LeDeux the time she hit him in the privates with a baseball bat.

Celine got a call later that night, from John LeDeux, of all people. Good thing her grandfather hadn’t answered the phone.

“What do you want?” she snapped.

“Hello to you, too, darlin’.”

“I don’t have time for your nonsense, John. I’m in bed.”
With a book. Darn it!

“Alone?”

Are you kidding? I haven’t had sex for so long I probably forgot how.
“That’s none of your business.”

“Jeez, Louise! I was just askin’. I figured we’re sorta friends now that we both hang out at sex clubs. Do you have a boyfriend, Celine?”

“A boyfriend? What, are we in high school again?”

“Okay, a lover?”

“
That
is definitely none of your business. I repeat, what do you want? Talking to you twice in one day is more than my system can digest.”
Actually, it’s kinda nice. Darn it!

“I
am
yummy.”

She rolled her eyes. “Why are you whispering?”

“Because I’m callin’ from my aunt’s bedroom. I don’t want her to overhear me.”

“Are you afraid of your aunt?”

“Damn straight!” He paused, then asked, “What’re you readin’?”

“What makes you think I’m reading?”

“Because if I was in bed with you, I wouldn’t be lettin’ you talk to some other guy. Wanna know what I’d be doin’?”

Yes.
“No.”

“So what’re you readin’?”

“
The Red-Hot Cajun
.”

“I’m a red-hot cajun.”

“How did I know you would say that? It’s a romantic humor novel.”

“Actually, I know that. One of the lieutenants on the force, Mollie Andrews, was readin’ it last week. Couldn’t stop laughin’.”

She yawned loudly. “Look, this is real pleasant and all, but why are you calling?”

“I just wanted ta warn you. If any of my family members approach you, run.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t pay any attention if someone mentions thunderbolts or St. Jude or a hope chest.”

“A hope chest? For who? Me?”

“Hell, no. For me. My great-aunt makes hope chests for all the men in our family.”

Celine couldn’t stop herself from laughing.

“It’s not funny.”

“Yes, it is. I never heard of a hope chest for a man.”

“It’s a LeDeux thing. Anyhow, just ignore anything they might say.”

“John, I haven’t seen any of the LeDeuxs, except for you, in years. And even with you, it’s been years.”

“Believe you me, baby, you’re probably gonna be seein’ a whole hell of a lot of them now. Just ignore the whole crazy bunch.”

With those words, he hung up.

Celine stared at the phone, and wondered if John had gone off the deep end. Maybe his job suspension was hitting him harder than expected. Or maybe he was just drunk.

But then an alarming thought occurred to Celine. She couldn’t have the LeDeuxs coming around here. For one important reason. Etienne.

Tomorrow she was going to send her grandfather and Etienne on a vacation to her cousin Julian’s ranch in Texas. They’d been talking about such a trip for ages. Now was definitely the time.

Damn those LeDeuxs.

Damn John LeDeux.

Veronica was impressed with the work René LeDeux had done for them thus far on the Pirate Project. Too bad the bayou ecologist, who taught school, didn’t want a full-time job.

They were all crammed around the table in Tante Lulu’s kitchen, except for Luc, Remy, and Lance, who’d already left. She and Jake would leave with Julie Ann after the project was launched, passing the reins to Adam. Project heads changed regularly so that eventually all team members got a shot at director. Jake had a poker tournament in Atlantic City, and she had work to do back in the Barnegat, New Jersey, office of Jinx, Inc.

Tante Lulu’s kitchen was a charming room with cypress cabinets, an old white porcelain sink, red and white checkered curtains, and a matching tablecloth over a 1940s style enamel table. Off the kitchen was a large pantry holding all of Tante Lulu’s
traiteur
remedies. Through the single pantry window, dust motes danced off the butcher block work table. The pantry’s pungent scents wafted into the kitchen and beyond: hanging dried herbs and shelves loaded with floor-to-ceiling glass containers, some of them antiques, with everything from chicken hearts to alligator tongues, along with normal herbs like basil and mint. Very, very impressive. The eccentric old lady was definitely more than she appeared to be.

But Veronica’s mind had been wandering. She picked up on René’s words.

“See here, the bottom transparency is the way the network of bayou streams looked two hundred years ago before erosion and dozens of hurricanes,” René explained.

“It looks like a spider web,” Veronica observed.

“Or a lace doilie,” Tante Lulu added. “Actually, Remy says that from the air it looks like a sheet of glass what’s been shattered.”

“But see how it changed over a hundred years.” René laid a second transparency on top of the first. Then he laid a third on top of those, from fifty years ago; a fourth from just before Hurricane Katrina; and finally one done last month. René was an expert on the environment, but also highly informed on the history and geography of southern Louisiana. Not to mention being a very handsome man. Not as handsome as Jake, of course, but still attractive.

“Holy shit!” Caleb noted. “Many of the streams have disappeared altogether and new ones have appeared. There’s almost no comparison, except for the major waterways, like Bayou Teche, and even those are different than they used to be.”

“Yep, the Louisiana coastline has been sinking for years, giving way to the sea at an alarming rate. Experts have known for decades that a Hurricane Katrina–type devastation was in the works. It was inevitable. And, believe me, there will be more of the same, not just here in Louisiana but coastal lands across the country.” He pulled out a large map of the Gulf Coast and told them, “Anything that happens on the coastline has a rippling effect here on the bayou. Loss of the barrier islands, oil drillin’, man-made canals, levees, all of it combined is killin’ what some people consider just a swamp, but we Cajuns consider paradise. The bayou, she is a dyin’ thing.”

“René could go on fer hours ’bout the bayous and how us folks are destroyin’ ’em, but we’s here ta find some treasure,” Tante Lulu said.

“Point taken.” René laughed. “Okay, here’s the deal. See this old map that Tante Lulu claims is the site of the Lafitte treasure.”

Everyone leaned forward to study the crackly paper that Tante Lulu said she had received from a descendent of one of the pirates who had served under Lafitte.

“This whole venture could be a wild-goose chase,” John cautioned. “Most people think that if there was any treasure, it would have been on Barataria Island, Lafitte’s main stomping grounds.”

“It’s a risk we take every time we start a new treasure hunt,” Adam pointed out. “That’s partly what makes it so much fun.”

“Hey, maybe there’s a little bit of the gambler in all of us.” That was Jake, of course, standing in the doorway leading to the living room, their daughter Julie Ann in his arms sucking on a lollipop. That remark was a jab at Veronica because she had always been critical of his gambling.

She stuck her tongue out at him to show she’d gotten the message . . . and wasn’t offended.

He just grinned.

“This project, she is a gamble, yes,” John said then, “but there’s evidence that Loo-zee-anna does have buried treasure. Some of it is legend, yes, but it’s also part of our history going back to the days of Spanish galleons.”

“Good God! The redneck sex cop is giving us a history lesson,” Adam teased.

His back to Tante Lulu, John mouthed a foul word at Adam, then continued, “There’ve been many discoveries of buried and sunken treasures over the past two hundred years right here in southern Loo-zee-anna, but mostly explorers have learned to keep their discoveries secret, to avoid the inevitable pile-on.”

René nodded, then put a forefinger on the old map. “The treasure, according to this old map, would have been located deep in the swamps of Bayou Black, about a quarter-mile from René’s fishing camp, right about here. But based on what I’ve just shown you with the overlays, that spot was once on land, but is now underwater.”

“So, we’re talking about a dive and a dig, both, right?” Veronica asked.

René shrugged. “Assuming there ever was a treasure. Assuming the treasure hasn’t moved with the current and various hurricanes over the years. Assuming what was buried wasn’t biodegradable.”

“Gold coins ain’t biode . . . bio-whatever-you-said,” Tante Lulu insisted. “And doan you be such a balloon pricker, René LeDeux.”

“A prick? Yer callin’ me a prick.” He grinned at his aunt, then ducked when she swung an arm to slap him a good one.

“A party pooper who’s allus prickin’ ever’one’s balloons,” she explained. “Behave yerself, boy, or I’ll whup ya so hard you’ll be burpin’ the first milk ya drunk as a baby.”

They all raised their eyebrows at that one.

“Listen, I know I’ve already said this, but I have real reservations about the effect on the bayou of a half-dozen adults trampin’ around the streams, cartin’ machinery. The least little thing can affect the balance of the ecosystem. And I’m not just sayin’ this because it’s my lodge.”

“We’re aware of your concerns,” Veronica said. “Please know we’ll do everything, and I mean everything, to leave that section of the bayou the way we find it.”

“Where did you get this old map?” Adam asked Tante Lulu.

“Lefty Delacroix from over Lafayette way.”

“
Mon Dieu!
Crazy Lefty . . . who claims he was once a pirate?” René was staring at his aunt with disbelief. To the others, he explained, “He even has an eye patch and a peg leg. Refused to get a prosthetic after the Korean War. Then, he lost his eye wrestlin’ an alligator during a drunken binge.”

“Thass prejudice,” Tante Lulu chastised René. “Makin’ fun of the handy-capped. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

“That’s all we need. Two crazies on this project. The Dingbat Duo. Oh, wait, that would be three crazies.” Adam gave John a smirk. “I forgot about the crazy redneck sex cop.”

John mouthed another foul word at Adam, which his aunt couldn’t see.

But Tante Lulu wasn’t paying attention to them. She was still glaring at René. “Doan ya be puttin’ down ol’ Lefty. He knows stuff. And ya cain’t say there ain’t no treasures in Loo-zee-anna, boy. Men layin’ pipelines through the bayou fer the oil companies find pirate gold all the time.”

“I’ll give you that,” René conceded, “although it’s not all the time. Occasionally.”

“And there’s lots of buried treasure on those old plantations, too. Hidden when the damn Yankees was comin’. My apologies to you damn Yankees.”

The damn Yankees present took no offense.

Veronica hoped the old lady wasn’t thinking that Jinx would be digging on those plantations. She had jobs lined up for the next two years. Besides that, she’d only been here one day and already she’d seen enough gators to last her a lifetime. And Caleb, who had an aversion to snakes, claimed to have seen thirty-seven today alone, some of them hanging from trees. She hoped he was exaggerating.

“Okay, we got a bit off course. Do you have a timetable for us, Caleb?” Veronica asked.

Caleb had been with Jinx since she took over six years ago. Although it had been a while since he’d been a Navy SEAL, he still wore his hair military short. She laughed to herself as she mused that at least he wasn’t growing a long Amish-style beard like his twin brother Jonas.

Caleb pulled out a clipboard. “Adam and I have already been out at the site, scouting the terrain. René has agreed to rent us his fishing camp, which is actually more like a lodge. The original camp burned down a few years ago, and he built this bigger place as a vacation home. Anyhow, even though it’s in a remote area, there’s electricity, thanks to a generator, and running water from a cistern. The lodge has two bedrooms which can sleep five, a pull-out sofa in the living room, and we have some high–grade tents that will keep out mosquitoes, snakes and other small animals.”