Chapter Twenty-Seven

“I’m in jail.” The words didn’t stick. They hung somewhere on the edge of my comprehension, tethered to an obligatory disbelief.

“Where are you?” I asked, a question mark inserted after each word, my voice up a couple of octaves.

Coupled with the doubt I heard her correctly, she was doing that whispering thing she does and I could barely hear her. There was some sort of loud racket going on in the background that could probably drown out screaming.

At least I didn’t think I had understood her.

“You have to speak up,” I prompted her.

I heard her huff into the phone. “In jail,” she repeated, this time shouting, she enunciated each word and syllable. “I said, I’m in jail.”

That’s what I thought she’d said.

I looked over at Rhett sitting next to Frankie, looking at pictures I’m sure he’d seen a thousand times. Still he sat patiently and looked at each one she held. I didn’t want to interrupt him with this crazy conversation. I turned my back, stuck a finger in one ear, and tried to whisper into the phone. “Auntie, what in the world are you doing in jail?”

“I got arrested?” she yelled. “How else do you end up in jail?”

“This is just too unbelievable.” I shook my head although she couldn’t see it.

“Too what?” she yelled.

“Too unbelievable.”

“Why is it unbelievable?” she asked. “I’ve been in jail before, Darlin’.”

My belly, which was already been doing somersaults, did a triple full twist making it almost impossible for me to get in enough air to speak. “I didn’t know anything about your criminal past,” I said breathily. “But I’m sure knowing that fact wouldn’t make me worry any less about you now.”

“Don’t worry, I’m fine. But I need you to come get me out,” she said. “Me and the girls.”

“The girls!” I wanted to squeal, but I let it out as calmly as I could. I glanced back at Rhett and moved further away from the two of them and stood in the doorway to the room. “Who is with you, Auntie?”

“The girls,” she said. “I just told you. You have to stop making me repeat myself. We don’t get but five minutes per phone call.”

Oh lord…

“Are Mark and Leonard Winston with you?” I asked.

“Yes.”

They were the most non-criminal people I knew. What had she done that she could drag innocent people into her mess?

“Who else?” I said, getting more concerned and exasperated by the minute. I was beginning to wonder how much this was going to cost me. I leaned into the doorframe, worried that my knees were going to buckle. “Delphine? Is she there?”

“Yes,” she said. “And Nora and Avoyelles.”

I could just picture the six of them in that big white boat of a car being pulled over by the police. I knew whatever had happened to get them tossed in jail had to have been instigated by my Auntie Zanne.

“Why are you there?”

“You have to speak up,” she said. “It’s noisy here.”

Like I hadn’t noticed.

“I said, why are you there?”

“I told you, we got arrested. My goodness, Romaine. I’m the one that shouldn’t be able to hear.”

“I mean what did they charge you with?”

“We were passing counterfeit money at the casino.”

“Oh my God.” I had to sit down. I put my shoulder against the wall and practically slid along it down the short hallway into the kitchen. With a shaky hand pulled out a chair from the table.

“What casino?” My voice cracking as I spoke.

“Naskila.”

“You were gambling with fake money?”

“Didn’t I just tell you that? Hold on…” Away from the phone’s receiver, she yelled something to someone—I guess a cellmate, her words muffled before coming back to our conversation.

“What is going on there?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Some people evidently weren’t raised to know that you can’t hear on the phone when they’re screaming in the background.” She said the last part loud enough for everyone in the whole jailhouse to hear.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Of course I am.” I noticed the background noises had calmed. “I had to get some order in this place. They act like delinquents.”

“Which they are,” I mumbled, with a chortle. “Which you are.”

“What did you say?” she said.

“I said, where did you get counterfeit money from?”

“I don’t want to say too much,” Auntie Zanne said, “they might be listening in on my conversation.”

“Who might be listening?”

“Big Brother.”

I rolled my eyes.

“But I’m sure it’s okay to tell this part because it proves our innocence,” she said. “We found it went we went through Eugenia’s stuff.”

“You took her money?”

“It isn’t hers anymore, she’s dead,” Auntie said, her voice seemed annoyed. Like she was irritated with me. “And it’s not money,” she continued, “don’t you know what counterfeit is?”

I rested my elbow on the table, holding up my head with my hand, I closed my eyes. I couldn’t think of any words to say.

“Are you still there?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, my voice starting to tremble. “You probably don’t even have a bail set yet,” I said, remembering the little law I’d learned working as an ME with the D.A.’s office back in Chicago.

Counterfeiting was a federal offense, although a state could enact its own laws, but I couldn’t be sure if the feds were on their way to pick her up. One thing I was sure, she was going to have to see a judge before she got a bail.

“They were going to let me out on my own recognizance since I’m a justice of the peace,” she was still talking, “and because I didn’t have any of that funny money on me.”

I let out a snort.

“But I didn’t want to leave without the girls.”

I was starting to feel faint.

“So you’ll need enough money to bail everyone out.”

“A bail has been set for them?” I asked, I sat up thinking perhaps I’d been wrong about the judge setting bail.

“No,” she said. I slumped back down. “They said everyone else had to see a judge. But if you bring one of those high-limit credit cards you keep hanging on to without ever using, I’m sure we can talk somebody into letting us all go.”

“That’s called bribery, Auntie.”

“That’s called business, Romaine,”

“If that’s the kind of business you conduct, no wonder you’re in jail.”

“You just let me worry about that. You just come get us. I’ll do all the talking.”

Lord give me strength…