A Free Man of Color - Barbara Hambly [57]
“I told that dirty policeman how it was! Told him about the injustices That Woman had perpetrated on my innocent, before she hounded her to death! And he as much as told me they weren’t going to investigate, they weren’t going to prosecute … they weren’t going to lift a finger to avenge my child!”
She threw back her veils to display a puffy, tear-sodden face framed by large earrings of onyx and jet, an enormous gold crucifix on her black silk breast. Obviously reveling in the role of tragedy queen, she turned to January, her lace-mitted hands clasped before her. “Ben, for the love of your own sweet mother, help me bring That Woman to justice, who witched my girl and brought down death on her. I beg you.”
“What?” said January, horrified. Lack of sleep slowed him down, and the delay was fatal; Euphrasie stepped forward and enveloped him in a heavily scented embrace and laid her head on his breast. He stared wildly around him, at Euphrasie’s friends, his mother’s friends, all gazing at him as if waiting for him to agree to the absurd demand.
Then Livia’s voice cut the silence. “Phrasie, don’t ask my son to do anything for love of me. Just because somebody put a piece of voodoo trash in your daughter’s bed doesn’t mean her death has the smallest thing to do with her man’s wife, much less does it give you leave to drag poor Ben into what isn’t his business, or yours either.”
“It is my business!” Euphrasie whirled, drawing back from January but keeping a hold on his hands. “My only child’s murder is my business! Bringing the murderess to justice is my business! That policeman—that American—would let That Woman get away with the crime as if she’d strangled her with her own two hands—which I’m not sure even now she didn’t do!”
“Madame Dreuze—” bleated the priest.
“Tell him.” Madame Dreuze’s plump finger, glittering with a diamond the size of a pigeon’s eye, stabbed at Dominique, and the jewel sparkled in the gray winter light. “Tell him what you got this afternoon! Tell him about the note from that policeman—that illiterate Kaintuck usurper!—that the police have no further need of your testimony, of anyone’s testimony, because they’re not going to take the matter further!”
Shocked, January’s eyes went to Minou, beautiful in exquisitely cut spinach-green silk with sleeves that stuck out a good twelve inches per side. “Is that true?”
She hesitated for a long minute—probably out of a general unwillingness to agree with anything Euphrasie Dreuze said—then nodded. “Yes. He didn’t say in so many words the investigation was being dropped, but I can read between the lines.”
“Well, I won’t have it!” Euphrasie threw up her arms, as if pleading with heaven, and her bulging eyes fixed on January. “I won’t have it! My daughter must be avenged, and if you won’t do it, Benjamin January, I will find someone who will!”
NINE
“Oh, Ben, don’t tell me you’re actually surprised!”
“Of course I’m surprised!” January dished greens onto Minou’s plate, and jambalaya, and handed it to her where she sat at the table, barely conscious of what he did. He wasn’t merely surprised but deeply troubled.
Beyond the tall windows of Dominique’s exquisite dining room, the small light that got past the wall and rooflines of the houses behind them was fading, though it was barely six. Knowing he’d have to be out at a ball in the Saint Mary faubourg for most of the night, January had slept a few hours after the funeral, but his dreams had been unsettling. When he came down to the kitchen, Dominique was there, an apron over the spinach-green silk, sleeves rolled up, helping Bella and Hannibal wash up tea things. “Mama’s over at Phrasie’s,” she said. “I told Bella I’d get you supper.”
“You’ve been in Paris too long,” said Hannibal. He raised his wine glass to Dominique in what was mostly a