The Devil's Footprints

“Are you talking about Derrick Fears?”

She nodded, her eyes gleaming with scorn. “I’d see him out on the sidewalk sometimes, watching the house. I’d try to run him off before Mr. James catch him, but he wouldn’t budge. Just stand there and mock me. Sometimes he’d cup his hands to his mouth and squeal like he was real bad hurt. You ask me, there’s something bad wrong with a body who’d do something like that after what this family went through. Something done took that boy’s soul a long time ago.”

“Did you ever call the police when you saw him out there?”

“Nothing the police could do about it. Ain’t no law against standing on the sidewalk actin’ a fool, is they?”

“Do you think it could have been Derrick Fears you saw on the roof last night?”

“They still got him locked up, last I heard.”

“No, he’s out.”

“Out?” She said the word as if she couldn’t quite comprehend its meaning.

Lukas nodded. “He paid his debt to society and they set him free.”

She slammed the iron down so hard on the board, the rickety legs threatened to fold. “Now don’t that just beat all? He slices somebody up in a knife fight and don’t get as much time as my boy Robert did for stealing some blamed old car. That don’t seem right to me.”

“It doesn’t seem right to me, either, but I’m not here to argue the shortcomings of our judicial system,” Lukas said. “I’m trying to figure out who was up on that roof last night and why.” He walked over to the window and glanced out.

The path from the cottage led straight up to the DeLaune house, but trees blocked the view. How well could she have seen the roof in the middle of the night, even if the moon had been out?

As Lukas studied the back of the house, a slight movement in one of the upstairs windows caught his attention. He kept his gaze on the same spot, but when he didn’t see anything else, he wondered if he’d glimpsed the reflection of a bird or the play of sunlight in the glass.

He glanced over his shoulder where Esme was noisily putting away the ironing board. “No one’s living in the house right now?”

“No one left but Mr. James. And he won’t be coming back home, bless his heart.”

“What about the daughter? Sarah.”

“She lives in New Orleans. Her and Mr. James don’t get along, but since he took sick, she’s been coming around more than she used to.” In spite of the overheated house, Esme plucked a sweater off a hook and draped it over her scrawny shoulders.

“Miss Esme, were you here the night Rachel DeLaune was murdered?”

Her gnarled hand clutched the sweater to her bony chest. “Why you asking me about that? It don’t have nothing to do with somebody being up on that roof, does it? Besides, I don’t like thinking about that night.”

“But you do think about it, don’t you? Everyone in this town thinks about it. Because no one ever paid for that girl’s murder.”

“Your daddy did everything he could to find out who did it. He went to his grave still looking for her killer.”

“But he never found him, did he?”

Esme trained her penetrating gaze on Lukas. “And you think you can find him, I guess. You think you can do what your daddy couldn’t?”

Lukas was surprised and a little unnerved by how easily she’d read him. “I just want to do my duty by this town.”

“Humph.”

He ignored her dismissive response. “Tell me about the night they found her body,” he said. “Where were you?”

“I was right here at home, that’s where.”

“How did you hear about it?” When she didn’t answer, Lukas said softly, “Look, I know this is hard for you. You’ve worked for the family for years. You helped raise those girls. It was a terrible thing that happened, and a dark cloud has been hanging over this town ever since. I’ve read all the police reports, been over them I can’t tell you how many times. But right now, I’d really like to hear about that night from you.”

She pressed her lips together. “It won’t help you. Might even do more harm than good stirring up that mess. You ever think of that?”

“What I think is that Rachel DeLaune deserves justice. I don’t care how long it’s been. You were there that night, Miss Esme. You may be the only person in town who can still help me piece together what happened. Will you do that?”

She was silent for a moment. “I still say no good can come from digging up the past. Sometimes it’s best to leave a body resting in peace. But I reckon you’ll keep after me until I tell you what I know.”

Lukas smiled. “I have been known to dig in my heels.”

“Oh, I can see that stubbornness in your eyes. Your daddy had it, too.” She sighed wearily. “I’ll tell you what I can remember, but then I don’t want to talk about it no more.”

Lukas nodded.

Esme gazed out the window. “I was just fixin’ to turn in when Miss Anna called me. She said something bad had happened to Sarah.”

“To Sarah?”

“That’s what she said. A neighbor had found the child walking down the side of the road, covered in blood. They didn’t know if she was hurt bad or not because they couldn’t get her to talk. Wouldn’t say a word to nobody. Only thing they knew to do was bring her home. Mr. James finally got it out of her that something had happened at the old Duncan farmhouse. He grabbed his pistol and took off over there. Miss Anna called the doctor and then she called me.”

“Was your grandson still living with you then? Where was he during all this?”

An infinitesimal pause before she lifted her chin and said haughtily, “My boy was right here in his bed where he belonged. I didn’t see no need in waking him up. Nothing he could do.”

“What happened when you got to the house?”

“Miss Anna had Sarah in the bathtub washing the blood out of her hair.”

“Why would she do that? Didn’t she realize she could have been destroying evidence of a crime perpetrated against her daughter?”

“She wasn’t thinking about nothing like that. She just wanted to get her baby girl clean as fast as she can.”

“What did she think had happened to Sarah?”

Esme pursed her lips. “Wasn’t my place to ask questions. I just tried to help the best way I knew how.”

“What did you do?”

“I gathered up the dirty clothes and took them downstairs. That’s when I heard Mr. James come back. He’d found Rachel at the farmhouse and carried her all the way back home. Even if he cut through the orchard and came across the field, he still had to pack her close to a mile.”

The blood on one daughter had been washed down the drain while the other daughter’s body had been removed from the crime scene. Evidence hadn’t just been tampered with in this case…it had been trampled on.

“Judge DeLaune knows the law as well as anyone. Why would he remove his daughter’s body from the crime scene?”

“The doctor was already on his way to the house to see about Sarah. Makes sense Mr. James would want to get Rachel home as fast as he can, don’t it? He was too late, though. I took one look at what they’d done to that poor baby and I knew she was dead. Nobody could live through that. Mr. James knew it, too. He took her into his study and laid her out on the divan. Told me to go call Sheriff Clay, tell him to come quick. As soon as he arrived, he went into the study with Mr. James and they stayed there for a long time. When they finally came out, I heard him say he was going over to arrest Derrick Fears.”