Burial Ground (15 page)

Frank frowned. “You mean after they left Trudeau?” He shook his head. “No. Why, somebody think they found it?”

“I dunno. There’re rumors.”

The boy stepped forward. “We don’t want anybody digging up any more of our ancestors.”

“I know. I’m not talking about myself. I thought maybe somebody might have come around here, asking.”

“They have. You.”

“If the wrong person finds it, they’ll dig it up, just like they did the first time,” I said.

Frank LeMoine patted me on the shoulder and tried to laugh. “It’s a sensitive subject, Alan. We haven’t figured out yet who the wrong person is. Is it some Angola guard? Or an archaeologist?”

“You know no reputable archaeologist would risk his career breaking the law.”

Ben Picote shook his head: “Is there such a thing as a reputable archaeologist?”

I’d touched a nerve and all I could do was back off.

“I’m not the enemy,” I said quietly.

“Not Alan Graham, no,” Frank said. “But what Ben’s talking about is
Doctor
Alan Graham, and that could be something different.”

“You have to make that judgment yourselves.”

The curator cocked his head and put a hand under his chin, pretending to consider. “Hmmmm. White eyes speak with forked tongue—sometimes.” He winked at his assistant. “I think we better feed up this one so when we eat him there’ll be some flesh on his bones.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Come on, I’ll take you to lunch.”

“Thanks, Frank, but I’ve got to get back,” I said.

He didn’t argue, because we both realized the bonhomie had been shattered by the memory of events that stretched far beyond our own individual lives. As I left, I felt Ben’s eyes on me, burning into my back.

F
IFTEEN

I got back to town just in time to beat the afternoon rush and drove over to David’s apartment. He hobbled to the door and smiled when he saw me. I realized Elizabeth hadn’t returned from work yet and felt a flush of guilt at having disturbed him, but he seemed glad for the company. He flopped back into his easy chair and propped his leg on the footstool. I told him about my trip to the clerk’s office, my conversation with Aaron Chustz, and then about my drive to Marksville.

“I couldn’t think of anything else to do,” I said lamely. “I guess I was hoping something would jump out at me, but it didn’t.”

“They never found old Absalom?” he asked.

“Nobody seems very concerned. I get the feeling he’s done this before.”

“And the competition?” It took a few seconds before I realized he was talking about P. E. Courtney.

“Haven’t heard from her,” I said.

“Archaeobitches,” he sneered. “Why do we have to be surrounded by them?”

I remembered the suddenly vulnerable look on P. E.’s face as we stood in her office and I gave a little shrug.

“I’m not sure she’s so bad.”

“That’s what you said about Bombast, and then she canceled the scope of work for the Terrebonne project.”

“There’s that,” I admitted grimly. “But to compare her to Bombast—”

“Be warned.” He lifted a hand. “You’re always giving people the benefit of the doubt, especially women. But take it from an old married man: You heard it here first.”

I left him ensconced and went home with a sour feeling about everything. He was probably right: I
was
being too soft. P. E. Courtney had materialized from nowhere and tried, unabashedly, to steal our project. What did I owe her? Why did I even care what she thought? After all, she was competition, in a field where there was room for only so many competitors, and it was unfair for her to use her sex—I caught myself there. She
hadn’t
used her sex, and maybe that was what bothered me, because I’d grown up in the South, where it was expected. Women were supposed to bat their eyes, coo, and flounce, but P. E. Courtney did none of these. So to me she came across as cold—except for the instant when I’d seen her with her defenses down.

I fed Digger and asked him afterward what he thought of her. He crawled into my lap, put his paws on either side of his nose, and gave me a sad look.

“What do you know?” I asked him. “You haven’t even seen her.”

I opened the refrigerator and saw more of the overcooked jambalaya from Saturday night. Time to throw it out, I told myself. But I wasn’t in the mood to start another culinary project, so I pulled out some frozen tamales and then went back outside and stood on my sidewalk, watching the cars pass along the shady boulevard. I’d grown up here, spent years away, and then come back. I knew how it was to be in a strange place.

Oh, hell, there I went again. Soft, like David said.

Restless, I went to the Blazer and unlocked it. I slid behind the wheel, sat there a moment, and then made up my mind.

Sam
. Sam would know what to make of it all, both of the attractive P. E. Courtney and of the strange business of the Tunica artifacts. And if he didn’t know, I’d at least come away feeling better.

He lived on the River Road, about ten miles south of the university, in neighboring Iberville Parish. It was a rural setting, with the nearest house a half-mile away, and fifty acres of grazing land for cows and horses. In his second retirement, Sam now lived the life of a country squire, and once he told me he thought he was the reincarnation of the man who had owned the land during the Civil War, but that was only after a few rounds of J. W. Dant, which could make Sam say anything.

So why wasn’t I headed down the River Road?

Because, I told myself, Sun Tzu said intelligence is the essence of winning wars. Or something like that. And if he’d had a P. E. Courtney on his case, he’d have made damn sure where she was before he took off.

She’d probably left her office two hours ago. There wasn’t a thing for her to do there, anyway, but stare at the posters and polish her nails. That was
if
she polished her nails…

I turned into the lot and saw the white Integra, sitting there like a ghost in the gloaming. There was a light in her window. She hadn’t left.

So I’d pinned her down. And that was when my plan materialized from the warm night air (As if it hadn’t been in my unconscious all along!).

I’d take her to Sam and see what he thought. Eyeball to eyeball.

After all, he was the one who’d coined the term
archaeobitch
. How many times had I heard him rail about “damn women in archaeology”? The perfect sexist, seventy-five years old, and knowing he could say anything he damn pleased.

I’d bring him a bottle of Dant’s, hundred proof, along with a not so fine P. E. Courtney.

I got out and went to the office door.

It was locked.

I knocked three times and then pounded twice. A voice from behind the wood asked who it was.

“Me,” I told her. “Alan.”

The handle turned and the door opened.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I always lock it when I’m here alone.”

“It’s okay. I came to ask if you wanted to go to a seminar.”

“A seminar?” She frowned.

“Well, informal-like. In a friend’s house.” I played my trump: “You know Sam MacGregor?”

“Dr. Sam MacGregor, who dug at Poverty Point and who worked at Baytown and who—”

“That one,” I said. “A good friend of mine. We hoist a few every now and then and—”

“Where is he?”

“At his house,” I said, hoping it was true. After all, I hadn’t bothered to call ahead, and for all I knew Sam and Libby were out of the country. “I have a standing invitation.”

“He won’t mind if you bring someone?”

“I’ve done it before.”

“I’ll get my bag and lock up.”

Which was how I found myself on a lonely road at just after dark with P. E. Courtney, the Girl Most Likely to Succeed in a Man’s World, and a bottle of Dant’s I’d picked up at a K&B drugstore.

A few cyclists were still out, their flickering headlamps shimmering like fireflies in the new darkness. I was tired from all the driving and I rolled down the window, hoping the blast of air would wake me up. A hot wind slapped my face, and in it I caught a whiff of cows and hay.

“This is pretty rural,” P. E. ventured and I nodded.

She pointed at the barely visible embankment on our right. “This levee goes all the way to New Orleans, I take it.”

“All the way,” I said. “They built it in bits and pieces during the last century, as the plantations sprang up along the River Road.”

“
They
,” she said.

I turned my head to face her.

“Pardon?”

“You said, ‘They built it.’ I’m sure what you meant was that the slaves built it.”

“Slaves, convicts, whoever was available.”

“Which was slaves, mainly, and some convicts. Yes. Another version of Wittfogel’s Oriental Despotism.”

“Well, I don’t think the slaves wanted to drown, either.”

“Didn’t they?”

“Well, most of ’em didn’t.” Unless, I thought, Old Massa’s daughter was like P. E. Courtney.

She started to reply but I was already slowing for the driveway ahead. I turned off the asphalt, through the brick pillars and onto the shell drive. Relief spread through me as my headlights picked out Sam’s Mercury station wagon, parked beside Libby’s Lincoln Town Car.

I stopped behind the Merc and shut off my engine. Silence settled over us and then I heard the crickets and, from what seemed far away, the sound of a radio or television.

“Well?” P. E. Courtney demanded.

I got out and saw a figure framed against the soft light from inside.

“Who is it?” It was Libby’s voice, carrying an uncharacteristic quaver.

“It’s Alan,” I said. “I was just driving around and—” It sounded too lame even for me so I stopped in mid-sentence.

“Oh, Alan…” Libby came down the steps toward me, hands outstretched, expression serious. “I’m so glad to see you. I thought for a minute it was Dr. Sonnier.”

“Who?”

“Sam’s been feeling badly lately. I just can’t get him out of bed. It started with the flu but then…” She looked around and realized there was someone else in the car.

P. E. opened her door.

“Mrs. MacGregor, I’m sorry …” she began, shooting me a reproachful look, but Libby waved dismissively.

“Don’t be. Sam will be so glad to see you. I’m sure part of it’s just being retired, not having people come by like they used to.”

“But—” My protest was brushed away.

“Come in, come in. I don’t think Dr. Sonnier’s coming, anyway. I twisted his arm to make a house call and he gave me a bunch of gobbledygook. You’d think my own niece’s husband …”

She extended a hand to my companion.

“Hello. I’m Libby MacGregor.”

“This is Prunella Courtney,” I said quickly. “She’s a new archaeologist. I was trying to orient her.”

P. E. started to say something, then wisely clamped her jaw shut.

We followed Libby into the house. The door had just closed when a voice rumbled down from somewhere above.

“Lib? Is that the goddamn doctor? I told you I didn’t want to see him.”

The little woman turned her face up to the stairs. “No, dear, it’s Alan and a lady friend.”

P. E. reached into her bag and brought out her card case.

My groan was drowned out by the bellow from above:

“I’ll be right down.”

I looked over at Libby. “Maybe we ought to go.”

But Libby shook her head: “Alan, he’s refused to leave his bed for the last week. This may be better for him than a trip to the Mayo Clinic.”

Seconds later I heard a shuffling from the top of the stairs, then a cough and a muttered oath. In another five seconds a pair of slippered feet appeared, and then the bottom of a plaid robe. Hands grasped the banister and Libby went forward to help, but the hands left their supports and waved her away.

“I’m not dead yet.”

Libby moved aside and Sam MacGregor stood at the bottom of the stairs, beaming at us.

“Better keep away,” he said as I came forward to take his hand. “I’ve got the galloping consumption.”

I shook his hand anyway. It felt clammy.

“Have you got fever?” I asked.

“Hell, no.” He rubbed a hand across his white beard and then his eyes fixed on P. E.

“Well, please introduce me …”

She was about to thrust a card at him when I lurched against her and knocked them to the floor. Before she could bend down I’d picked them up for her.

“This,” I said, turning back to Sam, “is Prun—”

“Pepper,” she blurted out then, her face a brilliant red. “My name is Pepper Courtney. I’m an archaeologist, I just came down from Harvard, I’m setting up to work here, and I don’t know Dr. Graham well, in fact, not at all, so …”

“
Pepper
,” Sam murmured, reaching out to take her hand in both of his. “What a charming name. I’m so happy you came to see an old has-been like me.”