Chapter Forty-Seven

“Edmée,” Raven said. “Don’t.”

“Oh, don’t ‘don’t’ me, darling. I am so tired with the following around. Besides, my heart has been breaking. I simply must talk to you.”

“You put a gun in my back because you simply want to talk to me?” Raven said in a low voice.

“Because you’ve always been stubborn, my Rave girl. And I am sick of you wasting your time when you should be out trying to find Noe. Walk with me. People are starting to stare.”

Edmée walked Raven down Texas Street before turning down one of the smaller side streets. She made several more turns until they were in a narrow alley. Raven instinctively put her hands in the air.

“Don’t be foolish. Put your hands down.”

“I would, Edmée, but you holding on to my hoodie isn’t exactly making me comfortable.”

“I’m not stupid. If I let you go you’ll put some move on me.” Edmée kicked an empty soda can with her high-heeled shoe. “I don’t want to get the dirt on me. This is a new skirt and it’s so hard to get stains out of the white.”

They exited the alley onto a street that ran behind the restaurants and stores. Beyond them lay the back of the Red River, the unmoving water the color of powdered rust.

Edmée sat Raven down on a tattered picnic bench behind one of the boarded-up restaurants.

Raven could see the gun at this point, a Smith & Wesson limited edition with ‘We the People’ written in calligraphy on the barrel.

“That’s a fancy gun, Edmée.”

“Yes, very fancy, pretentious for something meant to shoot people. I don’t like it.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Oh, don’t be stupid, I know you know everything. Do you know that bastard tried to shoot me with this very gun? Serves him right that I have it now.”

“You mean Ronnie True?” Raven asked. “You killed him?”

“Not on purpose. It was an accident.”

“Accident?”

“I lost my temper.”

“I’ll say. Is that why you went there with a bolt gun? To help you with your temper?”

“Oh, Raven, please. Put your silly hands down. They’re making me distracted. I didn’t know how he would react, so I just slipped the bolt gun in my purse before I went to see him. I had no intention of using it on him. But he was just standing there with all of his stupid excuses. Not even the Virgin Mother would have been able to help herself.”

“Where did you get the bolt gun, anyway?” Raven asked. “That’s not something people usually have lying around.”

“I had it with me ever since I left the farm I lived on with my cousin. She used to wave it around at me, threaten me with it. Terrified the shit out of me. When Child Protective Services finally came and got me, I took the bolt gun with me. I kept it. I knew she was going to jail, but in my mind back then I thought if I had it, she could never hurt or threaten me with it again.”

“How did you even know who Claude DeWitt was? That it was your son who had died?”

“Are you kidding me, Raven? I made it my mission to find him. When I found out who had my son, all I could think of was that poem I studied in high school about the mother who aborted her babies, how she would never be able to return for a snack of them with one gobbling mother-eye. I thought, my baby is not dead. I would always be able to keep one eye on him. And I did.”

“But why did you tell everyone that you aborted him?”

“They made me say it, the lawyers. I was so young, Raven. Scared. When it was time for the truth it was too late. All the explanations would have given me a big headache.”

Edmée had lain the weapon down on the table in front of her. Dark rain clouds were rolling across the sky with a low rumble of thunder. Raven reached for the gun, but with the injuries to her body, she wasn’t fast enough. Edmée got there before her and was now pointing the Smith & Wesson at her chest.

“Haven’t you learned by now that you will never win, Raven?”

“Go ahead and shoot me if that’s what you want to do. But don’t let Noe die.”

“Noe?” Edmée said, sounding genuinely confused. “What are you talking about? How could I let Noe die?”

“No games, Edmée.”

Edmée’s eyes widened. “You think I am this Sleeping Boy killer? Raven? You? After all we’ve been through?”

“You’ve got a gun on me, Edmée.”

“The only reason I’m holding a gun is I could tell when I looked back that you were about to do something crazy,” Edmée said. “I have nothing to do with these killings. I did kill Ronnie True. I confess it to you, but you will not tackle and roll around on the ground with me in a big spectacle. I will not go into custody covered in dirt and filth. Who was on the phone anyway?”

“Rita,” Raven said. “She wanted to tell me that they traced the soil samples back to the farm you grew up on.”

“You lie,” Edmée said. “The state took that place long ago from my cousin. Turned it into protected wetlands. I’d be surprised if it were even there anymore.”

“And where is there, Edmée?” Raven asked.

“A hateful place. Near where Kingfisher Road starts to run out, just on the edge of town. Nothing there now but a crumbling farm house and that hateful shed where my cousin whored me out.”

Raven remembered the place Stevenson had taken her when he was pretending to be a location scout all those weeks ago. While gazing at the wide and flat water all around the abandoned farm, the new life Raven was trying to build was as near as her own breath. And now with this, Edmée’s revelation, Raven realized that all along she was living in a mirage of her own making.

“What is wrong with you?” Edmée said. “You’ve gone all quiet.”

Hearing Edmée’s voice brought her back. She looked into Edmée’s dark eyes, tried to find the connection between them that was once there. “It’s no use,” Raven said. “We have other evidence.”

“By we, you mean you,” Edmée said. “But tell me, please. I could use entertaining right now.”

“For some reason, you took the bear taxidermy from True’s office. Was that a souvenir?”

“Who would want such a souvenir? No, the stupid thing fell on his head, so I picked it up and smacked him with it again. The thing smashed all up. My fingerprints were all over it, so I threw it in the first dumpster I found. I was so upset that I didn’t realize I had taken a piece of it with me to the car. I threw it straight in the garbage when I got home. How was I to know people like to steal the garbage?”

“Clyde and Noe were at your house the Friday before they went missing.”

“Yes, I’m afraid they were. Clyde was helping me clean up the garden, and he brought Noe along. It was late. We didn’t have a lot of daylight left, but he was upset. I let them pull weeds, and fed them pizza. I’m sure that he didn’t tell his mama because I’m afraid June Darling doesn’t like me very much.”

“If you didn’t have anything to do with the killings, why didn’t you tell anybody that the boys were there?”

Edmée looked out at the water. “I’m not proud of it, but I knew it would make me a suspect. And then they would start looking into my past and Billy Ray….” She stopped.

“Would find out.”

“Yes, he would find out everything.”

“Why should I believe you?” Raven said.

“Because I tell you the truth. The boys came over, helped in the garden before I insisted they catch the bus back home.”

“Clyde told his mother that he wouldn’t be home until late Monday because he had another job,” Raven said.

“How am I to know what other work they were doing?”

“So, Dr. Long and Karen were there? They lied for you?”

“My husband was not at home. As for Karen, we pay our help very well.”

“You’re telling me on Friday night, it was you, Karen, Clyde, Noe, and the junkman Ozy who stopped by trying to return the bear paw? If I ask Karen again, would she agree with that?”

“No,” Edmée said. “I’m afraid that she wouldn’t.”

“Why is that?”

“Because my stupid cousin came over shortly after the boys left. She’s been trying to make up to me. Sends me flowers, letters. Saying that she begs for my forgiveness one day and threatens to spill my secrets the next. She’s not begging for forgiveness. She’s just trying to get at my money. The place she’s at now isn’t doing so well.”

When Edmée said that last piece about not doing so well, Raven’s thoughts zeroed in on Stella Morning. What had she said about selling the blood of her slaughtered animals? She needed every penny she could get. That tall, rawboned woman in the all-weather work boots standing on her porch welcoming her and Stevenson in a lilting voice so she could tell them about her process. That same woman with the stark living room and a slaughterhouse in her backyard.

“Where is your cousin, Edmée?” Raven asked.

This time Edmée did put the gun down. She put both elbows on the table, cradled her face in her hands. “She should be in the jail, shouldn’t she? For what she did to me? But no jail time. Her clients were too powerful. They helped make her a deal with the prosecutor. She got another farm by tricking my grandparents, and later taking my aunt to court. She lives far, but not far enough because she always comes to town for the torture.”

Raven leaned forward. Edmée put her hand over the gun, but in a tired way that said all the fight had left her. Raven ignored the movement. She said softly to her friend, “What’s her name?”

Edmée’s answer was like a groan. “Stella. Stella Morning. Such a beautiful name for such a bitch.”

“You mean the same Stella Morning who came to Noe’s birthday party?”

“Who else would it be? Yes. That waste of flesh.”

“But why bring her if you hated her? Why let her volunteer at Heron House?”

“Because she makes me do these things for her. She says if I don’t, she will tell, and everyone in town will know what a whore I was. That’s one of the reasons I drank so much that night, stayed away from her. Every time I saw her face, I wanted to vomit.”

Raven jumped up from the table and started walking back through the alley. She barely heard Edmée’s voice behind her asking about the confession, the arrest, wanting Raven to be the one to take her in. It was right there in her face the entire time. Stella Morning was the Sleeping Boy killer.