Disembodied Bones Read Online Free Page A

weren’t really that. Some of
them lived in the Atchafalaya Basin and married into Cajun families
but most of them stuck to the lake, where they eked out a living
doing whatever they could. They kept to themselves and for the most
part stayed out of trouble, but they were reclusive people and
strange stories circulated about them. “What’s your name,
ma’am?”
    Leonie hesitated, but she knew she would have
to convince this man. “Leonie Simoneaud,” she said, pronouncing it,
“Lee-oh-nee See-man-oh.” Then she spelled the last name for him
because she knew he wouldn’t be able to spell it himself.
    “Is this Louis, your cousin, waiting for you
outside?”
    “ Non ,” she replied frankly.
    “Hmm,” Roosevelt said. He was beginning to
think that Leonie had seen some other little boy and mistaken the
child for Douglas Trent. He, himself, suspected Douglas had been
dead only hours after leaving the mall with a stranger. The child
couldn’t have been seen in some big, big house’s windows by Leonie
Simoneaud earlier today. “And your papa’s name?”
    “Jacques,” she said. “The French spelling.
The family prefers the French spelling.”
    Roosevelt patted Leonie’s slight shoulder. He
said, “I’m going to give your papa a call, if you’ll tell me the
name of the construction company he works for, and-”
    Leonie sat forward and put her hand on top of
his. The tiny white fingers didn’t even begin to conceal his
larger, toffee colored ones. He didn’t believe her. She had messed
up by coming here, but there might be some slight chance left that
she could convince him by other means. She grasped at the only
straws she had remaining and interrupted him. The words rattled out
of her mouth before she could take the time to think about how they
would sound. “There’s a man named Whitechapel. I don’t know his
first name, but he lives in the house. The address is 2345
Sugarberry Lane. It’s très beau . Very beautiful. This man
took Douglas yesterday, and Douglas is very afraid. He doesn’t have
much time left before the man will hurt him. The man is doing
something else right now and Douglas is all alone in a dark room.
He hears things that frighten him, even though the man has promised
him he will get to play games and eat as much candy as he
wants.”
    The little girl’s touch tingled on his
fingers like an electrical shock and Roosevelt’s eyes suddenly
widened in surprise. He couldn’t help himself. He jerked his hand
away from her and shook it midair as if it had fallen asleep and he
was reinitiating circulation in it. “How could you possibly know
that?” he whispered, not even realizing that his voice had lowered
in pitch.
    Leonie shrugged. It was a very adult movement
and she pressed her lips tightly together in concentration. “The
way I know anything at all. It’s just like I know the sky is blue
and within the black waters of Twilight Lake swims Goujon, the
great catfish who made the lake by thumping his large tail against
the ground and causing an earthquake.” Her gold eyes caught his.
“Just like I know you’ve been looking for a gold pen. It’s a Cross
pen that your aunt gave to you when you graduated college. You like
it so much because she gave it to you and she’s dead now. A gold
pen you haven’t been able to find for two weeks. I know where it
is, too.”
    Roosevelt took a step back. He hadn’t seen
his pen since he’d signed a birthday card for one of the patrol
officers almost two weeks before. He had been missing it and every
time he had used it he had thought of his Aunt Carlita, who’d
pressed him hard to finish college. Only last year had she
succumbed to lung cancer and he’d been heartbroken to lose that
pen. He’d torn up his house looking for it and practically
strip-searched every one who’d signed the birthday card for the
patrolman. Despite his efforts, the pen hadn’t materialized.
    “It couldn’t hurt you any to check out
Whitechapel, M’su