A Garden of Vipers

CHAPTER 35

“The DuCaines?” Harry asked the old man. “That was Maylene’s family?”

“Family ain’t the word. Carnival? Sideshow? That works better, the DuCaine sideshow. They lived over in Fairhope, had lived there since, I don’t know, the whole place started up.”

“First a social experiment, then an artists’ colony,” Harry said.

“The whole DuCaine family was a social experiment. How we hooked up with them was me and Buck Senior was in our thirties, prime beef, thinking it was time to do some planting.”

“Start a family?”

“Man needs something behind him besides money. I was partial to this girl about twenny-five, Cora, lived down the street from the DuCaines. Nothing ever come of it, ’cept me, a few times. Payoff wasn’t worth time invested.”

“Daddy!” Ella said, coming out the door with two sweet teas she’d brewed for Harry and me, plus Aubusson’s refill. Ella set down the tray, shook her head, retreated to the house. Aubusson grinned, turned back to Harry and me.

“But a couple times Buck had gone over to Cora’s with me and he’d seen this sassy little piece of fluff out walking. Stuck-up type, nose way up like she’s sniffin’ air the rest of us ain’t allowed.”

“Maylene?”

“She let herself turn into a fat ol’ bulldog shape today. But back then that hoity-toity bitch had a butt like twin melons bobbin’ in a tub. Lord, that woman had a shape. So we started going over to the DuCaine spread: four acres a few blocks from the bay, big house in the middle. One of those places with rooms sticking out every whichaway, added as needed. Cora never went over to the DuCaines, called it a nuthouse. She wasn’t the only one thought that.”

“A strange place?” I asked.

“You’ve heard about the crazy aunt in the attic? The DuCaines had one. You’d be over there and hear her upstairs-howling, laughing, cussin’ like a sailor. One time when I was there, she came screeching through the house, naked as a jay, feet slapping, titties flopping, and ran through the door to the porch. And I mean through the door, leaving the screen flapping in the frame. A couple of the servant types wrestled her down, but not before she kicked two teeth outta one of ’em.”

“The aunt went off a lot?”

“That wasn’t nothing. Most of the family seemed tore up in some way. One of Maylene’s brothers didn’t do nothing but sit in a chair and look out the window, his eye blinking like he was sending Morse code. Had a sister, young, already taking after Auntie-running in circles, ripping at her hair, pulling fits in the middle of the room. Had another brother who’d built a house in one of the live oaks, pretty much lived up there. When he came down it was to make fires. I never saw much of him. There was a retarded sister who just kind of walked around town touching things.”

“The mother of the family. Where was she?”

“She was an ar-teest. Spent most of her time painting things, carrying around one of those painting racks-”

“Easels?”

“That’s it. All she did, paint. By the bay, mainly. One time she’d paid a bunch of folks to frolic nekkid in the water, sat there painting away, ‘figure studies,’ I remember she called them. The police come and suggested maybe she’d do better to study at home with the blinds shut.”

“The father?”

Aubusson tapped his temple. “Smart. The brittle kind of smart that comes to a point at one thing. He sat around all day figuring out hard problems that use letters instead of numbers…”

“Physics, maybe?”

Aubusson nodded. “He was too brittle to work with people, but places sent him things to figure out. Like the government…whichaway rockets will head, stuff like that. Got paid good money, which kept the whole circus afloat. He never seemed to notice anything but the stuff in his head.”

“And Maylene invited people into this place? Her home?”

A wicked grin. “Oh Lord, no. We’d just show up. It was cruel, I guess, but Buck and me’d come pecking at her door, say we was thirsty, could we have a lemonade please, Miss Maylene? Then we’d hang around and catch the show: Brother drooling in his lap while his eye ticked like a clock, Sissy fighting with the servants, Auntie racing around with her bush showing, Tree-house Boy shoutin’ down from the branches. It was better’n anything Hollywood ever invented.”

“I’ve seen situations similar to that, Mr. Aubusson. Where everything’s out of control. Sooner or later…” Harry let the words float in the air.

“Yep. Bad things catch up, don’t they? The retarded sister disappeared one day. Police found her laying in a bare lot in Bayou La Batre, all cut up, messed up inside, too. She lived, but you couldn’t tell by looking at her.”

Harry looked into Aubusson’s eyes. “Finish it out.”

Aubusson leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, looked into the distance.

“Tree-house Boy…Jimmy? Jerry? I don’t know much but rumors that come to me years later. There were some problems around the DuCaines’ household. Dogs disappearing in the neighborhood, found all chopped up in the woods. Then the kid got whipped up, started fights, big yellin’ and screamin’ things. One day he took off in one of the cars. He stayed gone for a few weeks. It gets real clouded here.”

I leaned forward. “I’m used to the weather.”

Aubusson shot a glance toward the door. Lowered his voice. “It was said he killed a woman who’d once done gardening work for the DuCaines. Guess he’d gotten an obsession on her or whatever. Went at her real bad with a knife, then burned down her trailer. Nothing ever came of it-if it happened-and Tree-house Boy was never arrested that anyone noticed. But he was never seen again. And nothing was ever tied to the DuCaines.”

“No publicity,” Harry said. “No nothing.”

“Like it never happened,” I said. “Money can do that.”

Harry turned to Aubusson. “All this happened over the span of what, in terms of years?”

“All during the time Buck was courting Maylene. No matter what’d happen around us, she’d get up to get us another drink, whatever, keep them melons dancing. She knew what she had, she knew how to work it-she melted him into something she could shape like she wanted. Buck was her key out of crazy town.”

“A happy marriage?”

“Buck needed someone to run him, but she flat ran over him. Do this, do that, talk like this, dress like that. Took over every second of his life. All their lives.”

“Turned an out-of-control youth into a life of absolute control,” I said.

Aubusson clenched a fist until his knuckles turned white, held it up. “Control like this,” he said. “She finally got to shape the world like she wanted. A closed place, ain’t many invited inside.”

I said, “Daddy Kincannon isn’t even there anymore.”

Aubusson took a long drink of his whiskey, his face hidden behind the glass.

“I think maybe he found his own way free.”

“Pardon me?” I said.

“I don’t think he got the Alzheimer’s like they say. I think he let hisself go crazy ’cause it was a better way to live than with her.”

Aubusson shook the ice in his glass, empty. He set it aside. I figured he was about talked out.

“Tell me more about Maylene’s children, Mr. Aubusson,” I said.

“Never held much hope for the kids, myself. I remember being over there one time. One of the kids’ birthdays was going on in the other room, kid was eleven or twelve. Racine, or maybe Nelson, took a bite of Buck’s cake when he wasn’t looking, grabbed a forkful. I see Maylene motion Buck to her side, whisper in his ear. He turns and sees the missing bite. A minute later he marches over and punches his brother in the mouth.”

Harry said, “Don’t let anyone take from you. Not even your brother. That was the lesson?”

Aubusson sipped from his glass. “Or maybe Maylene just liked winding him up and setting him loose, her little soldier. Wasn’t no favoritism. Next time around it might be Nelson set loose on Buck.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t get in trouble growing up,” Harry said.

“They got in scrapes, but nothing too bad. A little money cured the problems. Strange thing is, for all their weird-ass upbringing, the kids are boring. The older ones, that is. No spark. Put you to sleep just listenin’ to them a few minutes. But Lucas had sparkle from the git-go. A fire in him.”

“Lucas?” I said, shooting Harry a glance. “Who’s Lucas?”

“Miss Maylene’s last boy. Came as a surprise when she was in her forties. Strange kid. Born too late to be a hippie, but had that hippie thing, you know? Questioned everything, argued about everything, hated everything. Took streaks where he’d get pissed off, yell about having to live with a bunch of capt’list pigs, run off across the country. Got all the way to California when he was fifteen, Maylene had to send private investigator types to bring him back.”

“Lucas sounds like trouble,” I said. Or, perhaps, decompensating: falling apart mentally.

“He was ten handfuls of trouble when he wanted to be, but everybody agreed he was whip-smart. Had his granddaddy’s brains, but didn’t get the brittle. Helluva lot brighter than his puddinghead siblings.”

“Puddinghead?” Harry said. “I thought the Kincannon brothers were business geniuses, growing the empire and all.”

Aubusson grinned. “A lotta folks assume that, but like the old song says, it ain’t necessarily so. Take young Buck. Boy’s not an ignoramus, he just ain’t sharp. Buck knows things about business…number one being what phone numbers to call for advice. The Kincannons hire the best advisors, best financial consultants, best lawyers. It’s hard to make money, a lot easier to hang on to it.”

“Let’s get back to Lucas,” I said. “He had a destructive side?”

“I know he busted some stuff up around the house. But the boy could be a charmer if he wanted, sweet. Even when he was ten, twelve years old, he could carry on a conversation better’n most adults. I liked the little monster, myself, even though he onct called me a running dog lackey for the system, whatever that meant. At least he had a personality.”

“Where is Lucas now?” I asked, keeping my voice even.

Aubusson drank the liquid from melting ice, flung the ice into the yard.

“I’d heard he was calming down, but nope. When he turned eighteen, he up and left. Ran as far as he could and won’t have nothing to do with the family, hasn’t been heard from in-what’s it been? — about four years now. Got himself chopped clean out of the will, probably what he wanted. I hear he’s up in Canada or Alaska, living in the mountains, doing things with beads.”

“Or maybe not,” Harry said, so quietly only I heard.