something about a baby that was given up for adoption." She arched an eyebrow when she said it, clearly suspicious of the practice and disapproving.
"That's right. Somewhere around the time that Max was born." She had delivered a son, Max Andrew, sixteen days before Jodi Taylor's birth.
'Tm afraid I don't know anything about that. I kept all my children, believe you me." Daring me to deny it. When she spoke, she kept both hands folded together between her breasts, as if she were praying. Maybe you did that when you were one of God's finest.
"Not one of your children, Mrs. Fontenot. Another woman's child. Maybe you knew her, or maybe you just heard gossip."
The eyebrow arched again. "I don't gossip."
I said, "Ville Platte is a small town. Unwed pregnancies happen, but they would be rare, and babies given for adoption would be still more rare. Maybe one of your girlfriends at the time mentioned it. Maybe one of your aunts. Something like that."
"Absolutely not. In my day, that type of thing wasn't tolerated the way it is now, and we would never have discussed it." She clutched her hands tighter and raised both eyebrows, giving me All-knowing. "Now, people don't care about this kind of thing. People do whatever they want. That's why we're in this fix."
I said, "Onward Christian soldiers."
She frowned at me. "What?"
I thanked her for her time and left. One up, one down. Six more to go.
Evelyn Maggio lived alone on the second floor of a duplex that she maintained six blocks south of the five and dime. Her duplex was a big white clapboard monster set high on brick piers in case of flood. Evelyn Maggio herself was a vital woman in her late fifties, twice married and twice divorced, with tiny teeth and too much makeup. She showed me the teeth when she let me in and latched onto my arm and said, "My, but you're a good-lookin' fella." Her words were long and drawn out, sort of like Elly May Clampett. She smelled of bourbon.
I was with her for almost forty minutes and in that time she called me "sugar" eleven times and drank three cups of coffee. She drank it royale. She put out a little tray of Nabisco Sugar Wafers and told me that the very best way to eat them was to dip them in the coffee, but to watch because they could get too soggy and would fall apart. She put her hand on my arm and said, "No one likes a limp sugar wafer, honey, especially not lil' ol' me." She seemed disappointed that it wasn't what I wanted to hear, and, when it became clear that she knew nothing about a child being given to the state, she seemed even more disappointed when I left. I took two of the sugar wafers with me. I was disappointed, too.
I spent the next twenty-two minutes with Mrs. C. Thomas Berteaux. She was seventy-two years old, rail thin, and insisted upon calling me Jeffrey. She was quite certain that I had visited her home before, and when I told her that this was my first time in Ville Platte, she asked if I was sure. I said I was. She said she was certain that I had asked her about this adoption business before. I asked if she remembered her answer, and she said, "Why, of course, Jeffrey, don't you? I didn't remember anything then, and I don't now."
She smiled pleasantly when she said it and I smiled pleasantly in return. I used her phone to call Mrs. Francine Lyons, who said she'd be happy to see me, but that she was on her way out and could I call later. I said that I could, but then she volunteered diat Mr. Parks had mentioned something about a child given for adoption and that she just didn't know anything about that, though, as she'd said, she'd be happy to see me later in the day. I told her diat that wouldn't be necessary and scratched her off my list. You either remember or you don't. Mrs. C. Thomas Berteaux, watching from her chair, said, "What's the matter, Jeffrey? You look disappointed."
I said, "Some days are more difficult than others, Mrs. Berteaux."
She nodded sagely. "Yes, Jeffrey. I know that to be true. However, I might suggest that you speak with Mrs. Martha Guidry."
"Yes?" Martha Guidry wasn't on my list.
"Martha was a midwife at that time and, if I remember correctly, quite a