well-known busybody. Martha may know." Then she looked thoughtful. "Of course, Martha may be dead."
I let myself out.
Four up, four down, and nary a shred of evidence to show for it. I had three more women to see, and, if the results were the same, it was back to the drawing board. Not good. The key to all this seemed to be the sealed state documents. Maybe I should stop trying to investigate my way to Jodi Taylor's medical history and concentrate on unsealing those documents. I could shoulder my way into the appropriate state agency, pistol whip a couple of civil servants, and force them to hand over the documents. Of course, this method might get me shot or imprisoned, but wasn't that better than questioning women who called me Jeffrey? Of course, thirty-six-year-old documents would probably be buried under thirty-six years of more recent documents in an obscure state building long forgotten by any living person. You'd need Indiana Jones just to find the place.
I decided to think about it over lunch.
The Pig Stand was a white cinder block building with handwritten signs telling you what they offered and a couple of windows to order the food. The people on the sidewalk were mostly thin guys with crêpey skin and women with pale skin and loose upper arms from eating too much deep-fried food. Everybody was drinking Dixie beer and eating off paper plates and laughing a lot. Guess if you stand around eating barbecued ribs in this kind of heat you had to have a sense of humor.
An enormously wide black woman with brilliant white teeth looked out of the order window at me and said, "Take ya awdah, please?"
I said, "Do you have boudin?" I had wanted to try boudin for years.
She grinned. "Honey, we gots the best boudin in Evangeline Parish."
"That's not what they say in Mamou."
She laughed. "Those fools in Mamou don' know nuthin' 'bout no boudin! Honey, you try some'a this, you won't be goin' back to no Mamou! This magic boudin! It be good for what ails you!"
"Okay. How about a couple of links of boudin, a beef rib with a little extra sauce, some dirty rice, and a Dixie."
She nodded, pleased. "That'll fix you up jes' fine." "What makes you think I need fixing?" She leaned toward me and touched a couple of fingers beneath her eye. "Dottie got the magic eye. Dottie know." Her eyes were smiling when she shouted the order into the kitchen, and I smiled with her. It wasn't just the food around here that gave comfort.
Passing cars would beep their horns and diners would wave at the cars and the people in the cars would wave back, sort of like everybody knew everybody else. While I was waiting, a sparkling new white Mustang rag-top cruised past, top up, giving everybody the once-over and revving his engine. The Mustang circled the block, and when he came back around an older guy widi a thick French accent yelled something I couldn't understand and the Mustang speeded up. Guess the older guy didn't like all the engine-revving.
A couple of minutes later, Dottie called me back to the window and handed out my order on a coarse paper plate with enough napkins to insulate a house. I carried the food to the street, set the Dixie on the curb, then went to work on the food. The boudin were plump and juicy, and when you bit into them they were filled with rice and pork and cayenne and onions and celery. Even in the heat, steam came from the sausage and it burned the inside of my mouth. I had some of the dirty rice, and then some of the beef rib. The dirty rice was heavy and glutinous and rich with chicken livers. The rib was tender and the sauce chunky with onion and garlic. The tastes w ere strong and salty and wonderful, and pretty soon I was feeling eager to dive back into the case. Even if it meant being called Jeffrey.
The black woman looked out of her little window and asked, "Whatchu say 'bout dat boudin now?"
I said, "Tell me the truth, Dottie. This isn't really Ville Platte, is it? We're all dead and this is Heaven."
She grinned wider and nodded, satisfied. "Dottie say it'll fix you up. Dottie know." She touched her cheek beneath her left eye and then she laughed and turned away.
At ten minutes after two, I used a pay phone at an