LeOmi's Solitude Read online

  Her answer was, “The best.”

  “The best? The best at what?”

  She said, “At everything I do.”

  Henry had a ranch just over the causeway. He bred and stabled horses and taught horseback riding. He gave her a job there as sort of a go-fer in the summer. That is where LeOmi found out how much she loved horses. Her favorite was called Fury, for all the right reasons but throughout the summer, they both mellowed. They calmed each other. Henry just called him “her horse” and she spent as much time with Fury as she could.

  “That horse has changed because of you.” Henry said as he approached LeOmi and Fury after a busy day at the ranch.

  “Why is it that you can care for that horse so much, yet you are so distant with the people who are right beside you?

  LeOmi continued brushing down Fury, then she said, “Fury doesn’t expect anything from me, yet he can be a true friend. It isn’t like that with people.”

  “Some people aren’t as bad as you make them out to be. We all run away from things—”

  “I’m not running away.”

  “Hah. You’re just like that horse was, irritated by people.”

  “I am just working, not running anywhere.”

  “I don’t mean your job, you are doing a fine job, and you’re a hard worker. No, I mean how you deal with people.”

  LeOmi kept brushing the horse, and brushing. Henry had been a good instructor and friend.

  He waited for her to answer, and waited.

  “I need to reach my goal, a goal that may be unattainable, through no fault of my own.”

  She threw the horse brush down into the bucket, startling Fury. She grabbed his mane and hugged him. “Sometimes it seems like life is so meaningless. So...empty.”

  “Yes.”

  Henry inspected the horse. “This is a fine animal, strong. He just needed someone to care for him, to believe in him, someone who could identify with him. That was you. Someday, you may find people that you can identify with.”

  “Not likely.”

  “When a mockingbird sings, it is imitating others, it can sound like a robin or it can sound like a hawk. What is its true voice?”

  LeOmi shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know.”

  “Sometimes, even the ones closest to it don’t know. Heck, it has sung those different songs for so long; maybe it doesn’t even know any more. But if we listen…”

  “We can learn?”

  “And understand. You…and I…still have a lot to learn.”

  Henry was an uncommonly honest guy. She tried not to get too close to him. Everyone she had ever felt any friendship for had simply gone away.

  As things worked out, time ran out for Henry. He died from bone cancer exactly three months before her twelfth birthday. She was there for him as much as she could be. His family, long ago estranged, slowly having a change of heart and coming back to him in the end.

  “I am alone again.”

  All she had learned, she kept close to her heart, the good and the bad.

  * * *

  When she wasn’t at the gym or jogging five miles a day, she was studying books in the local parish library.

  Things were quite a bit different in New Orleans from the chapel home at the Naval Base. Life seemed lazy and laid back. As long as she kept her mind busy she was okay. Thinking of home and the life that she had in Virginia was the worst thing she could do.

  Everything was close in New Orleans. Not only in walking distance—but also, everyone seemed to know what everyone else was doing. Grand-Mère seemed to have her spies everywhere. There was no need to talk about her day at the dinner table. Grand-Mère already knew. Everybody knew everything about everybody else, and every day seemed like the next. Mother must have had a horrible childhood here.

  No wonder she was so prepared to run off with my father—and then she just seemed to make a habit of it.

  LeOmi wasn’t surprised when her father called. She knew that the phone was going to ring, she could sense it.

  Chapter 2

  To Make War is Life or Death

  As LeOmi entered the house she heard, “There are only so many ways to look at things but the thing I keep coming up with is that nothing is ever easy.”

  Detective Sergeant Dominick Polaris was a large man. The slogan “bear of a man” must have been invented for him. He looked like he came by it naturally, mostly height and muscle, but you could see just the beginnings of the middle age roll forming on his hips.

  He had come to escort LeOmi’s father and Grand-Mère to the morgue to identify her mother’s body, and to see if any of them were suspects. It didn’t take Sergeant Polaris long to find out that her father could not have had anything to do with her mother’s murder. He came and left quickly barely even looking at her. He was back in Virginia before the next morning.

  Hannah tried to console LeOmi but she cringed away from Hannah’s attempt.

  “How could this happen Hannah, it wasn’t bad enough that she had been taken away...but killed.”

  Grand-Mère just seemed to have expected it to happen, as if it was inevitable. No one was saying or doing anything about her mother’s death—it was almost as if they felt that she had it coming to her.

  LeOmi heard Henry in her mind, “Did I get you riled up yet? You seem to focus better when you’re angry.”

  “I’ll find my own answers.” Her door slamming was the only sound in the huge old house.

  LeOmi went through everything in the room. Her mother’s scarf and old tattered book were all she had left of her. That and LeOmi’s memories.

  * * *

  LeOmi had the freedom to do as she liked—just as long as she was back every night for dinner—probably so Grand-Mère could report to her father that she was still alive, if necessary.

  Transportation to the other side of New Orleans was the hardest part to manage. If she took a taxi or the bus or even the trolley Grand-Mère’s spies would know. She would probably find out no matter what.

  The address was an old crumbling brick building, strangely out of place for the part of town that it was in. It was down in a bog area. Nothing but dead trees and other old boarded up warehouses, only a stone’s throw from modern townhouses and new condominiums. The sign that hung from a pole out front read The Celtic Wheel. A big ram’s head was painted on a plank in the old saloon style on the threshold above the front door.

  LeOmi stepped under the crime scene tape that wrapped around the building just as the sun was approaching three knuckles above the horizon and a nipping wind was howling from the north. The front door was a heavy solid structure, thicker than any door she had ever seen. LeOmi entered, trying to look natural and like she had been asked to come there.

  The building must have been a hundred years old and whoever built it must have used un-tempered mortar on the huge stone fireplace and chimney. The smell of old smoke struck her as she entered the large open room. It must have leaked terribly. There was an old coat of whitewash on the brick walls to try to cover up the stains—but nothing would be able to remove the smell and greasy smoke stains unless they pulled it all down and put new in its place.

  There was a section of the carpet missing, a rectangle that had been cut out. Within the hole there was her mother’s bloodstain that had seeped through the carpet to the cement slab. LeOmi could almost envision her mother lying there with the life pouring out of her.

  A man’s voice came from another room.

  “There is no truth in this place.”

  LeOmi moved closer to the sounds, but made sure to stay close to the wall. She could hear at least two people moving around in the back of the building. They appeared to be just walking and talking. At least one of the two was talking.

  “You would think that this place was a tavern at one time by the look of it—but it has never been licensed for that, although you can certainly tell that drinking is something that goes on here, license or no.”

  Sergeant Polaris.


  LeOmi recognized the voice of the detective who came to the house to talk with her father and Grand-Mère. Of course there hadn’t been much to be said. No one knew where her mother had gone. New Orleans was the last place that LeOmi had thought she would be.

  What was she doing in a place like this?

  LeOmi listened for a clue to tell her who the other person was. She only heard shuffling movements. She moved closer to the doorway, keeping concealed and out of their field of view.

  “Of course, New Orleans is an old place anyway—fully ensconced in tradition and any number of other types of ceremony.” The other person made no sound.

  “Why do you think she was killed here...?”

  Now they both seemed to have stopped. “Why do you ask me this Sergeant? I told you that she had returned here to New Orleans on her own. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “I was told that she had been researching something—having to do with...now how did she put it,” LeOmi could hear note pad pages turning as he searched for the information that he was looking for. “Sumerian Mythology, do you know anything about that?”

  “Sergeant, I’m sure that I have no idea as to what that is in referenced to.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Then I suppose that you were also unaware that she had just returned from overseas. Calcutta to be exact—I suppose that you know nothing about that either?” As the Sergeant spoke his voice became louder and louder until it seemed to boom.

  LeOmi heard the other man’s calm, well educated but impatient voice, “I have told you Sergeant, I don’t know anything about any of that. She had been gone for two weeks when I got the call from your department.”

  What kind of accent is that?

  LeOmi could hear that they were walking toward her.

  “Now if you are quite finished badgering me with your questions, I will be going.” He didn’t see LeOmi; he was so intent on getting out of the building. Sergeant Polaris stopped upon entering the room that LeOmi was in but he called after the man, “If you think of anything relevant let me know as soon as possible.”

  Again, no words from the other man. He just threw-up his right hand, not even bothering to turn around hurrying to get out as if he had to get out of there or be eaten by a...what did he say? … A badger.

  “Are you just going to let him walk out? He looks guilty to me.”

  Sergeant Polaris turned to face LeOmi. “Well, looky who’s here. It’s nice to know that you can speak. When I was at your grandmother’s house you simply stood there in the corner and said nothing.”

  “I like corners.”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  She stood against the wall but as he turned to look at her she pushed off from the wall, walked over and stood in the curve of the doorway. She watched as the other man easily ducked under the crime scene tape, got into his red sports car and drove away, almost clipping the back of the Sergeant’s car.

  Sergeant Polaris startled her when he spoke, he had come up just behind her and watched as the car drove to the corner, turned, and quickly sped out of sight.

  “Your name is LeOmi isn’t it?

  The car left a cloud of dust silently floating in the air about two feet off the ground before it settled. “You know that it is.”

  “Do you know who that man is that just left?”

  “Of course I recognize him. That is the man that my mother went off with two years ago.”

  Anger seemed to boil up into Sergeant Polaris’ face. Red blotches and deep creases appeared on his forehead as if it took all his concentration not to throw LeOmi out of the building and probably a good distance down the street.

  “What are you doing here? Don’t you know that they put crime scene tape up for a reason?”

  “Of course I know, but I had to see for myself.”

  LeOmi walked over and stood near where the carpet had been cut away. Sergeant Polaris followed. He reached for her, to try and keep her from seeing the spot, then he put his hand down when he realized that this was something that she was going to do no matter what he did.

  “I know that this is difficult for you but I need to know what you know. I am one of the good guys here—I’m here to help.”

  Wanting to put more distance between herself and the Sergeant, LeOmi walked over to the bar, close to the wall. The bar seemed to have been made out of a very large plank of old oak, just what you would see in the old TV westerns. “Are there any good guys? Everybody seems to have their own agenda—even you Sergeant.”

  “Whoa, so soon we have hate and mistrust between us and I haven’t known you for very long.”

  He gave her a quick grin then he looked her in the face, eye to eye and said, “I shouldn’t say, but I think that he had something to do with your mother’s death.”

  Then he turned and walked towards the stain on the floor.

  “I don’t usually confide such things, especially to a child of the victim, —but I can see that the normal way to handle things is not going to work with someone like you.”

  Turning, he walked towards her and at that point she could tell that he was very bow legged.

  “Sergeant, you can save the ‘I want to be your friend’ speech. We both are interested in one thing, and that is to get the person who killed my mother. You are all I have. I know that my father can’t or won’t do anything and my Grand-Mère gave up on her a long time ago—so it seems that it is just you and me.” She turned and this time it was her turn to look him in the eye. “You said that you think he had something to do with her death, but do you actually suspect that man of killing my mother?”

  They stood about six feet apart. He looked at her and rolled back and forth on the balls of his feet as if he was measuring her up.

  “Right down to business I see. Are there no pleasantries in this town—or parish or whatever they call it? ‘The City that Care Forgot.’ Give me a break; Care didn’t forget it, New Orleans simply chose to ignore Care. It’s easier to say I don’t care.”

  He turned away, as if to drive home his point by listing to the chatter on his police radio.

  He then retrieved from his pocket a large cigar and trimmed the end with his pocketknife. He carefully collected all his trimmings and dropped them into his cigar case. LeOmi watched in fascination.

  “Another nail in my coffin, don’t you know.” He pulled a large old-fashioned lighter out of his pants pocket, flipped it open and worked the little flint wheel with care, putting the flame to the end of the cigar.

  As he was puffing he said, “I got this lighter at an auction when I lived back east. See this crest with the symbols of a scroll and a quill, it has been added by a previous owner. Do you recognize it?”

  He held out the lighter so that she could see it.

  “No Sergeant I don’t think that I recognize that crest.” By this time, rings of smoke encircled Sergeant Polaris and the smell of the cigar was overpowering. Her eyes were watering.

  “I heard you say that my mother had been to Calcutta. Did you mean Calcutta, in India?”

  “Yep. She acquired a rare book, a journal actually, from the National Library of India. She had to pay an awful lot for it. Do you have any idea where she would have gotten that kind of money?

  “No!” Not unless Grand-Mère gave it to her—unlikely.

  Still holding the lighter in his hand Sergeant Polaris continued, “The crest was the thing that I was interested in on this lighter. That is something that you don’t see very often. Your grandmother recognized it though. I showed it to her and your father when they came down to the station— you know when I mean… anyway—she didn’t say that she recognized it but I just knew that she did.”

  His thumb rubbed over the signet, “But what seemed even more surprising to me…was that she was surprised to see me with it.”

  LeOmi shrugged and reached out to take the lighter from the Sergeant. The lighter appeared to be made of gold. The crest was probably gold also, a masterpiece, so intricate.


  “So what does this crest have to do with my mother or my grandmother?”

  “I hope this has nothing to do with you and your family or your mother’s disappearance. The people that carry this crest are of a sect called...the Neo-Phylum.”

  “And?”

  “I have another case that I have been working for a while that involves the people that are part of the Neo-Phylum. That is what brought me here to New Orleans. Now the interesting thing is that this man who just left is wearing a ring that has this crest.” He pointed to the crest on the lighter, on the side of that ring.

  “I tend to notice things like that.”

  “Coincidence Sergeant. A lot of people wear signet rings.”

  “Coincidence? No, not likely. Not this crest. I have been able to trace them to this place.”

  She handed him the lighter.

  “Now, do you know something that I don’t know?”

  “I doubt it. As far as I know, I am the only one who saw him when my mother left and that was a long time ago.”

  “But you’re sure that was the man?”

  “Yes –that’s him. What is he—Greek or something?”

  “A Turkish prince of some type—none the less. He is also some kind of financial wizard, absurdly rich.”

  “I’m not surprised. Does he have a name?”

  “Julian Compton.”

  “And you think he is a … Neo-Phylum?”

  “It means ‘new order’. It is Latin. I was told that it seems to have originated back in the days of Hammurabi. He was a Babylonian.”

  “I know who Hammurabi was, an eighteenth century BC Babylonian king who developed the oldest existing code of laws—supposedly by using the earliest form of written Greek, cuneiform.”

  “Well, what-do-ya-know. You’re a regular encyclopedia aren’t ya?”

  She gave him a grin and twist of the head that was usually referred to as a smirk.

  “Anyway these Neo-Phylum are idol worshipers, as far as I can tell, that don’t seem to hold to any code of law—cuneiform or no.”

  “So what are you saying about this man and what do these Neo-Phylums have to do with my mother?”