Blow Fly (Kay Scarpetta #12)(103)
"Dard," Albert says. "I have my own cell phone, but the battery's dead."
"I beg your pardon? What did you say your last name is?"
"Dard." He hunches a shoulder to wipe his face.
106
ALBERT DARD STARES DOWN AT the dirty sidewalk, focusing on dried gum, gray and shaped like a small cookie.
"Why were you in Houston?" Scarpetta asks him.
"To change planes." He begins to sob.
"But where were you first, where did you leave from?"
"Miami," he replies, increasingly distraught. "I was with my uncle for spring break, and then my aunt said I had to come home right away."
"When did she say that?" Having given up on his aunt, Scarpetta takes Albert's hand, and they walk back inside the baggage area, headed for the Hertz rental car desk.
"This morning," he replies. "I think I did something bad. Uncle Walt walked into my bedroom and woke me up. He said I was going home. I was supposed to be with him another three days."
Scarpetta squats and looks him in the eyes, gently holding his shoulders. "Albert, where's your mother?"
He bites his bottom lip. "With the angels," he says. "My aunt says they're around us all the time. I've never seen even one."
"And your father?"
"Away. He's very important."
"Tell me your home phone number, and let's find out what's going on," she says. "Or maybe you have your aunt's cell number? And what is her name?"
Albert tells her his aunt's name and his home number. Scarpetta calls. After several rings, a woman answers.
"Is Mrs. Guidon in, please?" Scarpetta asks as Albert holds her hand tightly.
"May I ask who's calling?" The woman is polite, her accent French.
"I'm not someone she knows, but I'm with her nephew, Albert. At the airport. It appears there is no one to pick him up." She hands the phone to Albert. "Here," she says to him.
"Who is it?" he asks, oddly. After a pause, he says, "Because you're not here, that's why. I don't know her name." He scowls, his tone snippy.
Scarpetta does not volunteer her name to him. Albert lets go of her hand and balls up his fist. He begins smacking it against his thigh, punching himself.
The woman talks fast, her voice audible but unintelligible. She and Albert are speaking French, and Scarpetta stares at Albert with renewed bewilderment as he angrily ends the call and returns the cell phone to her.
"Where did you learn French?" she asks him.
"My mom," he gloomily says. "Aunt Eveline makes me talk it a lot." Tears fill his eyes again.
"I tell you what, let's get my rental car, and I'll take you home. You can show me where you live, can't you?"
He wipes his eyes and nods his head.
107
BATON ROUGE IS A SKYLINE of black smokestacks of different heights, and a pearly smog hangs in a band across the dark horizon.
In the distance, the night is illuminated by the blazing lights of petrochemical plants.
Albert Dard's mood is improving as his new friend drives along River Road, not far from LSU's football stadium. Along a graceful bend in the Mississippi, he points to iron gates and old brick pillars up ahead.
"There," he says. "That's it."
Where he lives is an estate set back at least a quarter of a mile from the road, a massive slate roof and several chimneys rising above dense trees. Scarpetta stops the car, and Albert gets out to enter a code on a keypad, and the gates slowly open. They drive slowly to the classical-revival villa with its small, wavy glass windows and massive masonry front porch. Old live oak trees bend over the property as if to protect it. The only car visible is an old white Volvo parked in front on the cobblestone drive.
"Is your father home?" Scarpetta asks as her silver rental Lincoln bumps over pavers.
"No," Albert glumly replies as they park.
They get out and climb steep brick steps. Albert unlocks the door and deactivates the burglar alarm, and they enter a restored antebellum home with hand-carved molding, dark mahogany, painted panels and antique Oriental rugs that are threadbare and dreary. Wan light filters through windows flanked by heavy damask draperies held back with tasseled cords, and a staircase winds up to a second floor, where someone's quick footsteps sound against a wooden floor.
"That's my aunt," Albert says as a woman with bones like a bird's and unsmiling dark eyes descends the stairs, her hand gliding along the smooth, gleaming wooden banister.
"I am Mrs. Guidon." She walks with light, quick steps to the entrance hallway.
With her sensuous mouth and delicate nostrils, Mrs. Guidon would be pretty, were her face not hard and her dress so severe. A high collar is fastened with a gold brooch, and she wears a long black skirt and clumsy lace-up black shoes, and her black hair is tightly pinned back. She appears to be in her forties, but her age is hard to determine. Her skin is unlined and so pale it is almost translucent, as if she has never seen the sun.
"May I offer you a cup of tea?" Mrs. Guidon's smile is as chilly as the stale, still air.
"Yes!" Albert grabs Scarpetta's hand. "Please come have tea. And cookies, too. You're my new friend!"
"There will be no tea for you," Mrs. Guidon tells him. "Go up to your room right this minute. Take your suitcase with you. I will let you know when you can come down."