Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

with Saint Christopher, the Virgin Mary, and all that other stuff Faye couldn’t decipher.
    Cedrick had been in Abby’s tiny high school class, so he clearly knew her. Cyril had said something about his brother’s last known whereabouts. What was it?
    She fingered the necklace at her throat. Oh, yes, Cedrick went to work in the oil fields off the coast of Louisiana. She hadn’t remembered because it was such a common ambition for young men who weren’t college bound. The oil fields required no qualifications beyond the grit to work terribly hard for seven days at a stretch, spend a day driving home, enjoy five days there, then drive back and do it again. It was hard on wives and families, but it was a good living.
    Cedrick had been gone from town for hardly more than a month when Abby was killed, but Faye was willing to bet that he had vanished from the radar of local law enforcement officers who were obsessed with proving Douglass Everett guilty. She would lay odds that no one had ever even bothered to find out who Cedrick worked for and whether Abby disappeared while he was working or during his week off. Seven days would give a man all the time he needed to cover his tracks.
    She noticed Cyril studying her and she flushed, embarrassed by how she must have looked, staring off into space. She felt as if he somehow knew she was developing an elaborate scheme to prove his only brother guilty of murder. He reached across the table and took her necklace gently between his thumb and forefinger.
    “Where did you find this?” he asked, turning the pendant over to examine the back.
    “It’s amazing, the things you can find in junk shops. And they’re especially cheap when they’re marked with somebody else’s monogram,” she murmured in the voice women once used to say, “You like my dress? This old rag?”
    “Those places always make me sad. People die and their treasures become worthless. Instantly. I especially hate all the old photographs staring down at me. There hangs the face of somebody’s grandfather, but nobody cares. Nobody even knows his name.”
    He released his hold on her necklace and took her hand. “Somehow, I think the woman who owned that necklace, the one whose initials were CSS, would be glad to know someone appreciated it enough to rescue it from the junk shop.”
    The moon had risen as they talked, and its calming light was telling Faye to keep her suspicions quiet. She could hardly give Cedrick’s religious medal to the sheriff without also turning over its companion piece, Douglass’ watch. The ensuing circus would hurt Douglass, who might not deserve it, and it would hurt Cyril, who assuredly did not. Why drag his family into the spotlight, with its violent father, runaway mother, and perhaps murderous brother? Abby was murdered when Cyril was a scrawny, undergrown little boy. His constituents shouldn’t hold her death against him, but they would. No district could be expected to send the product of such an upbringing to represent them in Washington.
    She thought of the face in his fourth-grade yearbook picture. That face had suffered enough.
    The waiter checked their water glasses and deferentially asked, “Is there anything else, Senator Kirby?”
    Faye froze and looked her escort up and down. He wasn’t hiding behind a baseball cap or sitting incognito in a deserted, seedy park. He was in a public place, graciously nodding his head at other diners who felt that their social status was vicariously enhanced by the presence of someone a little bit famous.
    He took her hand and she recovered herself. He doesn’t mind being seen with me, she realized. No, it’s more than that. He likes being seen with me.
    Cyril casually caressed her hand as he stared out over the Gulf. The music was live. The wine was red. The evening star was sliding helplessly toward a horizon that had already swallowed the sun.
    Faye was a smart woman who was well aware that, having lost her father at such a young age, she was over-receptive to the attentions of authority figures. And she realized that being rejected for her skin color made her vulnerable to just about anyone who accepted her as she was. These facts made it wise for her to fall in love slowly, but facts and red wine do not mix.

    For history buffs, the Historic American Buildings Survey— HABS for short—was one of FDR ’s greatest New Deal investments. Jobless folk fanned out across the country, seeking old buildings, photographing