The Cottoncrest Curse by Michael H. Rubin Page A

he didn’t use the shotgun barrel. Couldn’t do it with this rusty old LeMat. After what happened to the General, seems to me that Augustine would have used something that he knew would do the job the first time, no mistakes. And he wouldn’t have used anything that was not in pristine condition. Of course, the LeMat nine-cylinder takes a.40-caliber bullet rather than a.36-caliber like a Colt, but even so…”
    â€œDoc, let’s just see what kind of bullet he used. Go ahead and dig it out for me.”
    Dr. Cailleteau couldn’t understand why Raifer was so insistent, but he picked up the scalpel and slowly walked around to the other side of the board, where Rebecca’s body lay.
    There was no way to tell from the dress, with the hardening blood clumping up around the laces, where the bullet had entered. Dr. Cailleteau sliced through the stays on the back of her dress and pushed the fabric aside. He cut through the waist cinch beneath the dress and pulled it back to reveal the gentle curve of her backbone and the soft rise of her posterior.
    Her skin gleamed like alabaster. There was not a mark on it.
    Dr. Cailleteau looked up at Raifer with puzzlement, and their eyes met.
    â€œI thought,” said Raifer, “that this might be the case. Now Doc, tell me one more thing. You knew the Colonel Judge longer than any of us. What hand did he write with?”
    Dr. Cailleteau wiped the blade of his scalpel on his trousers and put it back into the black case. “Right hand, of course.”
    â€œThen how could he have done it?”
    Dr. Cailleteau closed his case and sat down on a bale of hay, which, even though it was tightly bound, sagged under his weight. He took a long pull on his cigar and blew a vast cloud of smoke that drifted over the uncovered bodies. “Good question. Damned good question, Raifer.”
    â€œBucky,” Raifer commanded, “get back in that house and tell Marcus and the other boys I meant what I said. I want that place clean, and I want them to find that bullet. Probe the banisters and the staircase. Look at every wall. I want to know exactly where the Colonel Judge was when the shot was fired.”

Chapter 13
    The gathering for the cochon de lait had begun. More than thirty people were at Trosclaire Thibodeaux’s house, resting on the porch, sitting on logs in the yard, standing near trees and talking.
    Trosclaire’s oldest daughter, who was not yet fifteen, was frying some of the fish she had carried home in her basket at the front of the pirogue. She had cleaned them expertly, covered them with a mixture of flour and cornmeal, and was placing them in a big pot of boiling lard. The reflection of the fire played on her face and hair, and it caught her eager smile aimed at the skinny boy who stood next to her. The boy, his thick dark hair jammed under an old hat, took every opportunity to brush against her arm and touch her elbow as he helped her with the frying.
    Trosclaire took another swig from the jug and yelled from the porch. “Do not let the fish burn, Jeanne Marie.”
    Jeanne Marie just laughed. “Étienne, he is watching the fish almost as close as he is watching me!”
    â€œBut yes,” her mother, Aimee, replied from her seat on a nearby log where she was shucking peas. “The poudre de Perlainpainpain sure worked on him, cher. ”
    Jake had understood everything Trosclaire and Jeanne Marie and Aimee had said in French until this last phrase. He looked questioningly at his host.
    â€œAimee, this man, who wants to sell us a knife sharper than the teeth of that old alligator in the bayou, does not know what a poudre de Perlainpainpain is.”
    An old woman who was sitting next to Aimee and helping her shuck the peas shook her head in disbelief and said to Jake, “How can you speak so well and not understand anything?”
    Her face, a mass of deep wrinkles set in skin the color and texture of parchment,