Voodoo River - Robert Crais Page 0,22

A wet, flapping sound came from deeper in the house, and a raspy old man's voice yelled something about his pears. The black woman took a half-step out onto the porch, pulling the door so I wouldn't hear. "She doesn't live here, though. She only comes by in the morning and the evening."

I let myself look confused. A relatively easy task. "Did the Johnsons move?"

"Oh, Mr. Johnson's her daddy. She used to rent this place out, but now she lets him live here." She pulled the door tighter and lowered her voice, letting me in on the know. "He can't live by himself, and they didn't want to put him in a home. Lord knows he couldn't live with them." She raised her eyebrows.

"He's very ill."

I said, "Ah. So Mr. Johnson does live here."

She nodded, then sighed. "He's eighty-seven, poor thing, and he takes spells. He's a devil when he takes a spell." The voice in the house yelled again, something about the TV, something about Bob Barker and the goddamned pears.

I said, "How is Mrs. Johnson?"

"Oh, she died years ago."

Score another for Martha Guidry. "If I wanted to speak with Mrs. Boudreaux, how could I do that?"

"She'll be here in a little while. She always comes around two. Or you could go by her shop. She has a very nice formal wear shop on Second Street by the square. They call it Edie's. Her first name is Edith, but she goes by Edie."

"Of course."

She glanced back toward the house. "Twice a day she comes, and he don't even know it, most days. Poor thing."

I thanked her for her time, told her I'd try to stop at the house again around two, then drove back to the square. Edith Boudreaux's boutique occupied a corner location next to a hair salon, across from a little square filled with magnolia trees. I parked on the square, then walked back and went inside. A young woman in her early twenties smiled at me from a rack of Anne Klein pants suits. "May I help you, sir?"

I smiled back at her. "Just sort of browsing for my wife."

The smile deepened. Dimples. "Well, if you have any questions, just ask."

I told her I would. She finished racking the Anne Kleins, then went through a curtained doorway into the stockroom. As she went through the curtains, an attractive woman in her late forties came out with an armful of beige knit tops. She saw me and smiled. "Have you been helped?"

The similarities to Jodi Taylor were amazing. The same broad shoulders, the good bone structure, the facial resemblance. They were, as the saying goes, enough alike to be sisters. We would have to unseal the sealed documents to be sure. We would have to compare the adoption papers from the Johnson family to the Taylor family to be positive, but Edith Boudreaux and Jodi Taylor were clearly related. Maybe Jimmie Ray Rebenack wasn't the world's worst detective, after all. I said, "Are you Ms. Boudreaux?"

"Why, yes. Have we met?"

I told her no. I said that her shop had been recommended and that I was browsing for something for my wife, but if I had any questions I would be sure to ask. She told me to take my time and she returned to her stock. I browsed around the store another few minutes, then let myself out, walked to a pay phone on the other side of the square, and dialed Lucy Chenier. I said, "Well, I've done it again."

"Tied your laces together and tripped?" Maybe she had a laugh button, after all.

I said, "I have found a gentleman named Monroe Johnson. Thirty-six years ago on Jodi Taylor's birthday, his wife, Pamela Johnson, delivered a baby girl. They gave the child up for adoption. I saw his adult daughter, a woman named Edie Boudreaux, and she is Jodi's spitting image."

Lucy said, "You've done all this in two days?"

"It is not for nothing that I am the World's Greatest Detective."

"Perhaps you are." She sounded pleased.

"Also, Rebenack found them for me." I told her what I had found in his office.

"Oh." She didn't sound as happy about that.

I said, "I still don't know what Rebenack's interest in all this might be, but if these people are, in fact, Jodi's biological family, Edie Boudreaux should be able to provide whatever medical information Jodi wants." I gave her Bogart. "So it's all yours, shweet-heart."

"Was that Humphrey Bogart?"

Some people are truly cold.

She said, "The next step is to approach these people.