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Authors: James Lee Burke
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said.
“I lost my shoes two days ago. We were on a roof that didn’t have no shingles. The nails were sticking out of the boards.”
“Where’s Jude, Natalia?”
“How you know my name?”
“Your brother is Chula Ramos. He’s a member of MS-13. He told me about you and Jude.”
She twisted out of my hand and faced me. Her sundress was glued against her skin, her forehead bitten by insects. A helicopter mounted with a searchlight swooped by overhead, chasing looters in the business district.
“Where’s my brother? You using him to get to Jude?” she said.
“You want to lose the attitude or go back on the chain?”
Her eyes roved over my face, one tooth biting on the corner of her lip. “He was trying to get people at Mary Magdalene to evacuate. But a lot of them didn’t have no cars. So we all went up to the church because it’s got a big attic. Jude saw a boat floating by, one with a motor on it. He swam after it, in the dark. That was two nights ago.”
I saw Helen waving at me. A fight had broken out on one of the buses and through the windows I could see men in silhouette flailing at one another.
“Go on,” I said.
“I saw him start up the boat and drive it back toward the church. I shined a flashlight on him so he could see better. It was a green boat, with a duck painted on the side, and I could see him sitting in the back, driving it straight for the church. He was gonna take everybody out of the attic. He’d got an ax from somebody and was gonna chop a hole in the roof, because the window wasn’t big enough for a lot of the people to go through.
“I could hear him chopping up on the roof. The water was rising and I didn’t know if he could cut through the boards quick enough. Then the chopping stopped and I heard lots of feet scuffling and somebody cry out. I think maybe it was Jude.”
The incessant blast of airboats, the idling diesel engines of buses and trucks, the thropping of helicopter blades were like a dental drill whirring into an exposed nerve. Helen clicked a flashlight on and off in my direction to get my attention, her tolerance waning.
“I have to go now,” I said. “After you get your feet treated, I want you to get on that truck over there. In a couple of hours it’s going to a shelter in St. Mary Parish. I’m writing my cell phone number on my business card. I want you to call me when you get to the shelter.”
“The ones who couldn’t get out the window drowned,” she said.
“Say again?”
“Almost all the people in the attic drowned. I dropped the children out the window, but I didn’t see them again in the water. Most of the others was too old or too big. I left them behind. I just left them behind and swam toward a big tree that was floating past. I could hear them yelling in the dark.”
I started to speak, to offer some kind of reassurance to her, but there are times when words are of no value. I walked away and rejoined Helen and the other members of my department, all of whom were dealing with problems that were both tangible and transitory.
When I looked for Clete Purcel, I could not see him in the crowd.
CHAPTER
8
OTIS BAYLOR WAS proud of the way his home had withstood the storm. Built of oak and cypress, with twin brick chimneys, by a clipper-ship captain who would later fight at the side of the Confederate admiral Raphael Semmes, the house lost no glass behind its latched shutters and developed no leaks in the ceilings, even though oak limbs weighing hundreds of pounds had crashed down on the roof. Otis’s neighbors were without power or telephone communication as the hurricane’s center plowed northward into Mississippi, but Otis’s generators worked beautifully and lit up his home with the soft pink-white radiance of a birthday cake.
By midday Tuesday he was clearing his drive of broken tree limbs, lopping them into segments with his chain saw, preparing to get his car out of the carriage house and make contact with his company’s
“I lost my shoes two days ago. We were on a roof that didn’t have no shingles. The nails were sticking out of the boards.”
“Where’s Jude, Natalia?”
“How you know my name?”
“Your brother is Chula Ramos. He’s a member of MS-13. He told me about you and Jude.”
She twisted out of my hand and faced me. Her sundress was glued against her skin, her forehead bitten by insects. A helicopter mounted with a searchlight swooped by overhead, chasing looters in the business district.
“Where’s my brother? You using him to get to Jude?” she said.
“You want to lose the attitude or go back on the chain?”
Her eyes roved over my face, one tooth biting on the corner of her lip. “He was trying to get people at Mary Magdalene to evacuate. But a lot of them didn’t have no cars. So we all went up to the church because it’s got a big attic. Jude saw a boat floating by, one with a motor on it. He swam after it, in the dark. That was two nights ago.”
I saw Helen waving at me. A fight had broken out on one of the buses and through the windows I could see men in silhouette flailing at one another.
“Go on,” I said.
“I saw him start up the boat and drive it back toward the church. I shined a flashlight on him so he could see better. It was a green boat, with a duck painted on the side, and I could see him sitting in the back, driving it straight for the church. He was gonna take everybody out of the attic. He’d got an ax from somebody and was gonna chop a hole in the roof, because the window wasn’t big enough for a lot of the people to go through.
“I could hear him chopping up on the roof. The water was rising and I didn’t know if he could cut through the boards quick enough. Then the chopping stopped and I heard lots of feet scuffling and somebody cry out. I think maybe it was Jude.”
The incessant blast of airboats, the idling diesel engines of buses and trucks, the thropping of helicopter blades were like a dental drill whirring into an exposed nerve. Helen clicked a flashlight on and off in my direction to get my attention, her tolerance waning.
“I have to go now,” I said. “After you get your feet treated, I want you to get on that truck over there. In a couple of hours it’s going to a shelter in St. Mary Parish. I’m writing my cell phone number on my business card. I want you to call me when you get to the shelter.”
“The ones who couldn’t get out the window drowned,” she said.
“Say again?”
“Almost all the people in the attic drowned. I dropped the children out the window, but I didn’t see them again in the water. Most of the others was too old or too big. I left them behind. I just left them behind and swam toward a big tree that was floating past. I could hear them yelling in the dark.”
I started to speak, to offer some kind of reassurance to her, but there are times when words are of no value. I walked away and rejoined Helen and the other members of my department, all of whom were dealing with problems that were both tangible and transitory.
When I looked for Clete Purcel, I could not see him in the crowd.
CHAPTER
8
OTIS BAYLOR WAS proud of the way his home had withstood the storm. Built of oak and cypress, with twin brick chimneys, by a clipper-ship captain who would later fight at the side of the Confederate admiral Raphael Semmes, the house lost no glass behind its latched shutters and developed no leaks in the ceilings, even though oak limbs weighing hundreds of pounds had crashed down on the roof. Otis’s neighbors were without power or telephone communication as the hurricane’s center plowed northward into Mississippi, but Otis’s generators worked beautifully and lit up his home with the soft pink-white radiance of a birthday cake.
By midday Tuesday he was clearing his drive of broken tree limbs, lopping them into segments with his chain saw, preparing to get his car out of the carriage house and make contact with his company’s
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