Chapter Thirty-Six

I had Pogue meet me out on Highway 87. I figured that way I wouldn’t have held onto what I’d found in the dysfunctional furnace long enough for chain of custody to make a difference. And Auntie could keep her word to Rayanne about no law enforcement coming to her place. Not that Pogue would have initiated any kind of investigation just by looking at the expensive chandeliers hung everywhere.

He was going to take what we’d found straight to the lab, he said and stick around to see if they could pull any fingerprints. I don’t know if that would make a difference. I had thought about everyone else being the suspect and not the girl even though I had witnessed her doing the deed.

But I had committed to following the clues and not jumping to conclusions like Auntie Zanne.

We’d see where these clues led to.

In passing the bundle over to Pogue, and him pondering about lifting fingerprints, I had to hope they wouldn’t find any of Auntie’s. I had to all but hold her down to keep her from going through the bag. I had only peeked in to make sure it was what we were looking for. It was amazing how much stuff was in the shoot to go to an incinerator that didn’t work. Rayanne definitely needed to put a lock on it.

And I definitely needed a shower.

“Julep doesn’t care what you smell like,” Auntie Zanne protested all the way to our small detour to the house so I could freshen up. “Heck, she’s smelled you worse than this.”

Auntie Zanne had her nose scrunched and she kept it pointed toward the window.

“You can’t even stand to smell me,” I said.

“Just roll down all the windows,” she said. “Let the breeze hit you.”

“I am not,” I said.

“I have a vote to get to.”

“You’ve got plenty of time,” I said. “Rayanne just told you the room won’t be ready for three hours. And I hope when we get to Aunt Julep’s you won’t rush me.”

“I’m not going to be hanging around with Julep all day. Just so you know.” She looked at me and gave me a nod. “I never did get along well with her after more than five minutes, especially after she starts talking her Run Down Garden Funeral Parlor.

“Her funeral home is called Garden Grove, Auntie.”

She waved a dismissive hand at me. She always gave Aunt Julep’s establishment some made-up bad name.

“And,” she kept talking. “I have to see to the caterers who are serving at tonight’s voting. You can’t get a bunch of women together and expect anything constructive to come out of it if you don’t feed them.”

“You get along fine with Aunt Julep, so don’t give me that. And when did you have time to call a caterer?” I asked. I’d been with her all day. She hadn’t made any plans.

“I had Rayanne call for me as soon as we worked out a room assignment yesterday.” She glanced over at me. “Good thing I did,” she said. “I wouldn’t have been able to coordinate anything from jail.”

I doubted if that was true…

I pulled into the driveway of the funeral parlor and put the car in park. “You know going to jail was not a good thing, right?”

“Of course I know,” she said. “I’m not bragging about it, just stating a fact. Oh look, I forgot all about—” her voice trailed off as she got out of the car. Didn’t take much to distract her.

There was a man in our driveway with a truck that was a moving billboard. The truck was midnight blue with large, bright lettering on the side that read, Clean & Go. Mobile Car Wash and Detailing.

“Auntie, what are you doing?” I asked. “I thought you were in a hurry.” She was digging in her purse and talking to the man in the truck.

“I forgot all about telling Pete to come and do the cars.”

“The funeral home cars?”

“Yes. They could use some sprucing up,” she said. “This is Avoyelles’ nephew.”

“The one you’ve been talking about for the past two days?”

“Yep. One and the same.”

“And that didn’t remind you that he was coming today?”

“Plum skipped my mind,” she said.

I shook my head. “You’re going to have to start doing crossword puzzles or something. Make sure the hippocampus can keep doing its job.”

“Using all your big words that nobody knows doesn’t impress me,” she said. “My memory is sharp as a tack.” I smiled. I knew she knew what I was saying. “And I thought you were going to take a shower. You smell like Rayanne’s dumpster turned over on you!”

  

Auntie kept sniffing me the entire ride over to Aunt Julep’s.

“What?” I asked.

“I just wanted to make sure you smelled better. That smell lingered even after you left. I was embarrassed for you. Pete will probably never want to date you. He probably thinks you always smell like that.”

“I’m not trying to date Pete,” I said. “And I didn’t smell that bad.”

I turned up in the driveway to Aunt Julep’s house and pulled all the way in. I’d always gone in the back door that led into the kitchen whenever I visited.

My Aunt Julep lived alone, and it showed on the outside of the house. It could stand for a few repairs, and I’d even mentioned it to Pogue. I’d have to bring it up to him again.

We knocked and it took a minute for Aunt Julep to open the door. As soon as she saw her, Auntie Zanne hugged her like she hadn’t seen her in years. I knew that wasn’t true, they were in the Red Hat Society together. That met once a month.

My Aunt Julep, in contrast to my Auntie Zanne, looked all of her eighty plus years. Her shoulders slumped, dark circles under her eyes made her look weary. She barely picked up her feet when she walked. Aunt Julep was dark, and her declining health from diabetes didn’t help her complexion. Where her skin was once bright and shiny, now it was dull and ashen.

Still standing in the door, Auntie Zanne held Aunt Julep tight, rocking her back and forth, she kissed her on each cheek. I just shook my head, the way Auntie Zanne talked about my Aunt Julep anyone would think that she didn’t like her, or anything about her. Especially her funeral home.

We stepped inside the door and stopped. The kitchen was as old and worn as Aunt Julep, but she kept it clean, even sitting in a kitchen chair to sweep and mop the maroon and white checkered linoleum floor. She called her refrigerator an icebox, and it looked like it had come from the century old retailer’s catalogue when it was still called Sears & Roebucks.

“How’s my Julep?” Auntie asked.

“Oh, fair to midland. Fair to midland,” Aunt Julep said with a nod. “C’mon, now. Y’all come on in. Don’t just stand here in the door.” She stood back and waved us through.

“So good to see you, Sugarplum,” Auntie Zanne said, calling her by a name she usually reserved for me. “I brought you some tea. Something to help you feel like a kid again.” Auntie Zanne patted her purse.

She must’ve picked up some of her brew when I was taking a shower. She hadn’t known for sure when we left going to Nola’s that she’d be able to talk me into coming to Aunt Julep’s.

“Oh thank you, Babet,” Aunt Julep said. “I’ve been feeling kinda low these last couple of days. That’s gonna really help me. Much appreciated.”

“Oh don’t think nothing of it, Auntie Zanne said. “You should have called me.” She took Aunt Julep’s by the hand and led her further into the kitchen. “Come on now, you sit down and I’m going to fix you some tea.” Auntie guided her to a chair at the table.

“And how is my baby?” Aunt Julep, sitting in the chair, spread her arms out wide to embrace me in a hug.

“I’m good,” I said. “You not feeling so good?”

“I’m okay. Don’t you worry none about me,” she said. No matter what was going on with her, nothing could beat that big wide grin she had whenever she saw me. “Don’t nothing make me feel better than seeing you.”

Auntie Zanne and Aunt Julip had this pseudo-rivalry when it came to me. Both wanted to raise me when my parents died. But Auntie Zanne had been the first to arrive in Beaumont. She got there almost as soon as the sheriff had gotten off the phone telling her about the accident. My mother wasn’t the first sister she had had to bury, but she was her last. We were all that was left of the St. Romain’s.

Likewise, my father, Earle Wilder was Aunt Julep’s only sibling, leaving only her and Pogue as my relatives on that side. Neither one of them was a Wilder, I was the only person left with the name.

Now I wasn’t so sure if that was true anymore.

Auntie started flitting around the kitchen, opening shelves and putting water on to boil. She was as familiar with this kitchen as she was with her own. She knew where everything was.

“We would’ve brought you something to eat,” Auntie Zanne said, “but time just got away from us.” She pulled open the refrigerator and poked her head in. “But I see you got something I can whip up for you to eat.” She turned to Aunt Julep. “How about if I do that?”

“I ain’t much hungry,” she said. “Don’t have much of an appetite.”

“Well,” Auntie Zanne put her head back in the refrigerator, “you gotta eat.” She stood back up. “It’ll be done in a minute.”

“Okay,” Aunt Julep said and smiled. I think she just liked Auntie Zanne fussing over her.

“We came by because Romaine’s got something she wants to talk to you about,” Auntie Zanne said.

There she goes, I thought. She was making a racket pulling out pots and opening cans. But that didn’t stop her from poking her nose into things. I knew why I was there, she should have just given me time to get to it.

“What you want to talk to me about, Baby?” Aunt Julep asked.

Auntie Zanne stopped what she was doing and came over to the table. She shook her head slowly and made her eyes all sad. “Something that’s got her all worked up. We need to help her.”

Auntie Zanne was like a chameleon. Wherever she was, whoever she was talking to, she’d adapt their manner of speaking and acting. She said it made others more comfortable. Her idea of Aunt Julep was the nurturing old grandmother, so that’s how she acted.

“I can talk for myself,” I said.

“Well, then go ahead and do it,” her fake sad demeanor gone in a flash, she went back to the stove.

“Aunt Julep,” I said, and sat across from her at the table. “I met this woman named Frankie.”

“Frankie?” she said. That made me realize that I didn’t know her last name.

“Yes,” I said. “She’s a friend to a friend of mine.”

“Rhett Remmiere,” Auntie Zanne interjected over her shoulder. “You know. The guy who works for me.”

“Oh,” Aunt Julep said and nodded her head. “And don’t that beat all, another woman with a man’s name. They don’t name folks like they used to.”

“She’s older,” I said. “And I think it may be short for something else.”

“Uh-uh,” Aunt Julep said, I guessed trying to be patient while I got to the point.

“She owns this juke joint—bar—down in Peterson.”

“In Peterson?” She cocked her head to the side. “Wait. Hold on now. You talking about Frankie Averly?” Aunt Julep said, sitting up straight. “Oh my, I plum forgot about her. I know her. Sure didn’t dawn on me who it was until you said she owned a juke joint.” She nodded, her eyes lighting up with the memory. “That’s the name of it ain’t it?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Lady Frankie’s Juke Joint.”

“The,” she said correcting me. “It’s The Lady Frankie’s Juke Joint.”

“Right,” I said remembering the words on that neon saxophone out front.

“Your father used to play there.”

“I know,” I said. “She had a picture of him. Him and his guitar.”

“He didn’t go anywhere without it,” Aunt Julep said, her eyes sparkling at the memory.

“She didn’t know Daddy had died,” I said, hedging around what I really wanted to say. “She thought he’d gone off to find some…” I took in a breath to finish, but she finished my sentence for me.

“Some family. Is that what she told you?”

I nodded.

“I remember that,” Aunt Julep said. She folded her hands on the table and looked pensive. “He came back real excited about it. Saying he’d found out something about our family. You remember that Babet?”

“Vaguely,” Auntie Zanne said. She didn’t even turn around when she said it.

I gave her a look. She had never hinted to me that she’d heard about it. All she said was that I should ask Aunt Julep about it. But now it was obvious that she knew something.

“You knew?” I asked Auntie Zanne.

“Didn’t you just hear my answer?” she said, answering my question with one of her own.

“Yeah. I remember,” Aunt Julep said, not giving me a chance to continue my interrogation of Auntie Zanne. I’d have to talk to her later. “Came by here all excited. He had a name. What was that name?” She looked at Auntie.

“Can’t say that I recall,” Auntie Zanne said.

“Oh Babet, you remember what it was. Some uncommon name for black folks.” I glanced at Auntie and waited for her to answer. Nothing. So Aunt Julep continued talking. “Well, I can’t remember it, that’s for sure. All I know is that he wanted me to go with him. Said they were right on the border of Sabine County.”

“Did you go?” I asked.

“Oh no. Far as I was concerned my family was all dead and buried. If my Ma and Pa adopted me, I can tell you that I don’t care one nary bit. They were all that mattered to me.” She studied my face. “Are you telling me that you care?”

“Of course she does,” Auntie Zanne said, this time she turned around. “Romaine has always tried to figure out who she is. That’s why she ran off to Chicago. Trying to be somebody else.”

“Did she now?” Aunt Julep said.

“You know it, Julep,” Auntie Zanne said. “How many times did you ask me when you called to check on her, ‘who is Romaine trying to be today?’”

“You said that Aunt Julep?” I asked.

“Now, I can’t say that I recall…”

“Come on, Julep,” Auntie Zanne said, a big grin on her face. “Tell the truth and shame the devil.”

Aunt Julep hung her head and laughed. “She was always trying to be something.” Admitting to it seemed to entertain her. “You remember that time she’d only speak French?”

“For a whole week!” Auntie Zanne said. “Teachers were calling, I had to go up to the school, sit in class just so I could translate what she said.”

“Sure did,” Aunt Julep said.

“I don’t think—” I started.

“Everyone thought she’d lost her marbles,” Auntie Zanne said, cutting in. “Only kid that put up with her was Catfish. I think he’s still the only friend she’s got.”

“Catfish is not—”

“I sure did like that boy. Where is he now?”

“He’s still around,” Auntie Zanne said. “Still pining over our girl.”

I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. They had started talking about me as if I wasn’t even in the room. I decided to just sit there and let them have at it.

“That’s the one you should have married,” Aunt Julep said, turning to me. I didn’t say a word. “He’s down to earth, he would’ve made you realize that all the stuff you need is right here at home.”

“I’ve decided to stay—”

“Don’t worry none about her,” Auntie Zanne said interrupting me again. “I got something cooking that’ll turn her right around.” She nodded her head toward the teapot that sat on the stove.

“Some of your brew?” Aunt Julep asked.

“Mmm-hmmm,” Auntie Zanne nodded. “Even threw a little love potion in it. Won’t be long now, Julep.”

“We gone have some young’uns running around here?”

Auntie Zanne put a big grin on her face and nodded. “A whole mess of ’em!”