Dead to Her(104)
“Mama Laveau was an old voodoo queen of New Orleans at the end of the nineteenth century,” Marcie said. “Her daughter took her name and kept on practicing as the original Laveau. One daughter married a white man, by the name of Glapion. Was he your daddy, Elizabeth Glapion? Is your mother the current Mama Laveau? The old woman with the crazy umber hair?”
“Bloodlines,” Elizabeth said wryly. “The rich think only theirs matter, but the poor have history too. Our blood runs deep. Do you know what they call me? The real people of Savannah?” Marcie said nothing, and so Elizabeth continued. “They call me the White Voodoo. My pale skin hides my blood. But yes, Mama Laveau was my grandmother. Her blood is mine. Mama Laveau and Dr. John, old John Bayou? Well, they ran New Orleans back in the old days. Rivals. Mama Laveau, she had voodoo in her soul. She could do it all. Just like my mama. But Dr. John—do you know what power he had?” Marcie stayed silent and she continued. “He understood the power of information. He had servants in his pay all over New Orleans and they told him everything about the people who lived in the big houses—all the secrets only servants knew, so when his rich clients came knocking for his help and he already knew their business, they thought he was the most powerful voodoo doctor. I have some of my mother’s magic. I can curse with a spit if I so wish, but I prefer Dr. John’s methods. Times don’t really change. To William, I was simply an assistant. But he trusted me with everything. Funny, isn’t it? I know all his business. Most of his friends’ business. Most of his clients’ business. Some of them have actually become mine and Mama’s clients. So, Mama takes care of the voodoo and I take care of the information and between us we have made a little fortune of our own. Eleanor knew. Eleanor loved and respected us. Eleanor believed in the power of our magic.”
Marcie looked at the half-dead figure in the bed. “You did this for Eleanor, didn’t you?”
Elizabeth sighed and squeezed William’s hand. “Eleanor was going to murder William herself. That’s why she had the morphine and the needles hidden away. She’d put them to one side and she was going to kill him in his sleep.”
“Why? Because of the waitress?” Surely Eleanor wouldn’t have resorted to murder over someone as obviously trashy as Michelle from Michigan?
“No, of course not. Because of what the waitress represented. His lack of respect. His lack of love or care. You weren’t there. You didn’t see how much it had taken from Eleanor to forgive him for Lyle. Lyle was her heart. Oh, he was such a beautiful boy. He deserved a long and happy life. If it wasn’t for William, he might have had one. His death nearly destroyed Eleanor. It broke my heart, but that was nothing next to watching her pain. But she was a good person and she wanted to forgive William, not only for Lyle’s death but for making him join up in the first place, for something so opposite to his nature. She made herself forgive him. She locked Lyle away in a box so William wouldn’t feel guilty and she strived to make the marriage work. And I guess on some level it did.”
“But then Eleanor got sick,” Marcie said.
“Yes. And it became clear very quickly that William wasn’t good with illness. He hid from it, barely spending time with Eleanor, sleeping in a guest bedroom. And then, when Eleanor was diagnosed as terminal, and not even Mama or I could do anything to stop it, he started his fling with that girl. As if Eleanor wasn’t suffering enough. I didn’t blame Eleanor for wanting to kill him, but I couldn’t let her do it.” She looked up at Marcie and smiled. “She was a beautiful woman inside and out. I wouldn’t let her ruin herself—her soul—for William. I stopped her. I had planned to retire and go back to New Orleans with Mama once Eleanor had passed. I’d made enough money through our private services to the wealthy of Savannah. Tarot readings. Love spells. Advice. Curses. When you can get that stuff right, people will pay you anything you want. Plus, Eleanor hadn’t left me forgotten in her will. We were like sisters after all.” She smiled again, softly but sadly this time, remembering her friend.
“So yes, I was looking forward to relaxing into a quiet comfortable luxury of my own, but although I wouldn’t let her kill William, neither could I let her die without peace of mind. So I promised her on her deathbed that I’d take care of all of it. I’d kill William for her. It was her dying wish.” She paused. “There’s a lot of power in a dying wish.”
“Maybe not so much,” Marcie said. “He’s not dead.”
“I’m not as kind as Eleanor.” Elizabeth laughed. “There are some fates worse than death. William’s alive on a whim. Watching him when Eleanor was dying I learned a lot about that fat old man. Dying terrified him. The weakness of it. The becoming irrelevant as life moved on. He wanted a quick death, which, to be fair, is what Eleanor was planning to give him. But he didn’t deserve that. Why should he get a clean death while Eleanor had to rot slowly? No.” She shook her head. “Eleanor and Lyle deserved more than that after so many years of having him controlling them. But look at him now—trapped here, locked in the dark of his own mind, no power at all. The visitors will stop coming. All he has is me, sitting here, whispering to him about Lyle and Eleanor and how he failed them and how this whole situation is his own fault. He’ll live awhile but eventually, if his organs don’t fail entirely, the machine will be turned off. Then he’ll be dead. That will be the moment of mercy.”