BROKEN BAYOU by Jennifer Moorhead, EXCERPT

BROKEN BAYOU

In this debut thriller, a troubled child psychologist returns to a small Louisiana town to protect her secrets but winds up having to protect her life.

Dr. Willa Watters is a prominent child psychologist at the height of her career. But when a viral video of a disastrous television interview puts her reputation on the line, Willa retreats to Broken Bayou, the town where she spent most of her childhood summers. There she visits her aunts’ old house and discovers some of her unstable mother’s belongings still languishing in the attic―dusty mementos harboring secrets of her harrowing past.

Willa’s hopes for a respite are quickly crushed, not only by what she finds in that attic but also by what’s been found in the bayou.

With waters dropping due to drought, mysterious barrels containing human remains have surfaced, alongside something else from Willa’s past, something she never thought she’d see again. Divers, police, and media flood the area, including a news reporter gunning for Willa and Travis Arceneaux―a local deputy and old flame.

Willa’s fate seems eerily tied to the murders. And with no one to trust, she must use her wits to stay above water and make it out alive.

Chapter One

Broken Bayou, Louisiana

August 2018

My hand hovers over the inside car-door handle but refuses to open it. Through my windshield, I study a pale brick building whose dirty front window announces boudin is on sale. Its torn awning flaps in the breeze, and above it, chipped cornflower blue letters read Sa k and Save Food Store. You’d think after twenty years they’d have replaced the c in the word sack, but I guess it sounds the same, so why bother? I wonder if Mr. Bendel is still behind the register inside. If the smell of Virginia Slims still permeates every wall. If the back door still leads to the alley where one could easily escape when shoplifting.

Yesterday, as the incessant notifications started on my phone, this trip seemed like a good idea. Now, though, after sneaking out of my Fort Worth high-rise like a thief, carrying a duffel bag full of pencil skirts and blouses way too formal for this sleepy little bayou town, I seem to have lost my momentum.

Blistering afternoon sun blasts through the windshield. I crank up the AC.

My eyes dart to the large coffee thermos in the seat next to me and, propped beside it, the letter with its creamy paper and crisp typed words from the law office of LaSalle, LaSalle, and Landry. Wings flutter in my chest. I stared at that letter for weeks, ever since my mother handed it to me. Throwing it away and digging it out of the trash several times. A letter notifying us some of my mother’s things were found in the attic of my great-aunts’ old house, Shadow Bluff. Things we may want to come get. Things left behind years ago. Forgotten. On purpose.

Then that television interview happened, and responding to the letter seemed like a better option than staying in Fort Worth. I don’t want to take a chance that a certain object in that attic falls into the wrong hands.

I kill the engine. I’m going in. I’ll get what I need for the few days I’m here: some snacks, a wheelbarrow full of Community Coffee, maybe some wine. That’s it. Except that won’t be it. Not here. Someone will remember me. Once I walk in there, the whole town will know Krystal Lynn Watters’s eldest daughter is back, and she may have fancy clothes and be a big deal back in Texas, but in Louisiana, she’s still the sad, messy-haired little girl who always tried to return everything her mama stole, clutching her little sister’s hand like she might float away. People in small towns don’t forget. They also ask questions. Questions like, Why’d you stop visiting Broken Bayou? Why didn’t you come to your great-aunts’ funerals? Why’d y’all skip town so fast that last summer you were here?

I take a deep breath and open the car door. The heat of a thousand suns smacks into me. Hotter than Texas. Despite the ground looking painfully dry, the air is wet with humidity. I wouldn’t be surprised if the people who live down here have adapted by growing gills. The air smells of the salty gulf, of my past. Even though I’ve only crossed one state line, I feel like I need a passport to be here.

My skin tingles under my long sleeves. Sweat rolls down my back. A tailored suit with a jacket may not have been the best clothing choice for this . . . errand. But this is the wardrobe I’ve grown accustomed to. The complete opposite of Krystal Lynn’s tube tops, bell-bottomed jeans, and bright plastic bangles. I saw what that wardrobe would get you and hauled ass in the opposite direction.

My cell dings as I slam the car door shut. Somewhere on the long bridge over the Atchafalaya Basin, I thought it’d be a good idea to turn my ringer back on. Part punishment for my stupidity, part motivation to keep driving.

It dings again. And again. Finally, I look. New notifications. Trending now: #1 Entertainment, Dr. Willa Watters, Fort Worth Live, hashtag honestly hot. A reality TV star from Dallas had retweeted the clip and tagged me, hashtag put me on your couch. A sour taste fills my mouth. But comments like that will wither on the vine soon enough. It’s the comments about my emotional stability that have the acid in my stomach building.

Dropping my cell in my tote, I teeter across the crumbling parking lot on my heels. I earned a full ride at Baylor, trudged through five years of grad school, and defended a dissertation on spectrum children being integrated into a traditional school setting. I wrote a damn book. I helm a successful podcast, for God’s sake. And now I’m being reduced to entertainment and hashtags on social media while working up the courage to shop in a Sack and Save.

I stop just as I’m about to open the store’s glass door. Something catches my eye, parked on the far end of the lot. My hand slips off the door handle. My pulse quickens. A white news van, off by itself. It’s not for you, I tell myself as I rub my sweaty palm on my jacket. Stay focused. In and out. No big deal.

As Krystal Lynn would say, time to cowgirl up.

__

Inside the store, I keep my head down, grab a cart, and start heading for the closest aisle.

“Well, forevermore, look what the cat dragged in.”

Four seconds through the front door, and a woman in a denim tent of a dress and a gray permed head works her way from behind the checkout counter. That must be a record.

Maybe I should have skipped this stop and driven straight to Shadow Bluff.

“Willamena Pearl,” the woman says.

Hearing my full name always makes me cringe. I better live to ninety so I can grow into it.

She wraps her meaty arms around me, then pulls back as if she’s been waiting on me and I’ve finally shown up. I don’t move.

“I mean Dr. Willa, now.” She beams; then her smile falters. “Sugar, it’s Johnette. Johnette Bendel. Mr. Bendel’s my daddy. I used to know the Aunts too.”

I search my memory for this woman but can’t place her. “Of course,” I lie. I smile. “Good to see you.”

“You haven’t changed a bit. Well, ’cept for the highfalutin clothes.” She sizes me up. “You must be scorching in that suit.” I nod, smiling again. I’m needing the wine more than the coffee now. A few patrons mill around us, pretending to look at canned peas and studying a Stove Top stuffing display, but I know they’re listening. They’re always listening.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” she adds, her smile faltering.

I swallow. I’m distracted and jittery from the long drive and can’t think of an appropriate response. I settle on “It’s been a long time.”

“Right,” she says. Her smile is gone now, replaced by an irksome smirk. This highfalutin city girl has offended her. I’ve unintentionally told her she’s not important enough to remember.

“How’s your mama?” she says. The glint in her blue eyes tells me this is a prod. Kudos to her. Mama is indeed the best way to taunt me.

“Fine,” I say because answering with She’s had four falls in three months, two broken hips, a broken collarbone, and COPD and somehow still managed to steal cigarettes from nurses at the Texas Rose Rehabilitation Center seems a little TMI. Mama’s laundry list of ailments reads like one for an eighty-year-old woman. Not a woman in her late sixties. But Krystal Lynn burned her candle at both ends with such intensity I’m amazed she made it this far. Seventy seems like a lofty goal for her.

“Good. Good,” Johnette says to my one-word answer. “So,” she adds, “what in the world are you doing down here?” Her right eyebrow lifts slightly.

What’s your game, Johnette?

“I’m just in Broken Bayou for a few days to unwind and relax.” It sounds ridiculous even as I say it, but ridiculous has become my new area of expertise.

Johnette tilts her head to one side. “Unwind? Really?”

My shoulders stiffen.

Johnette shrugs. “Odd time to be here, but I guess you might need a place to unwind after that live television interview yesterday. That was something.”

And there it is.

Shit. How has this woman, in this town, seen that? How viral was I? And if Johnette Bendel has seen it, who else has? It doesn’t bode well for my thinking this place would be a social media graveyard.

“Well . . . ,” I start, then finish with “I better get to my shopping.”

“Okay, sugar, let me know if you can’t find something. I’ll check the back.”

Nothing in her voice tells me she’ll do any such thing.

I push my small cart with a wobbly wheel toward the nearest aisle. Between the squeaky wheel and my absurd heels on the linoleum floor, I’m making quite a ruckus. I pause and look back at the end of the aisle. Johnette is gone, but her words linger in my head. What did she mean it’s an odd time to be here?

“Oh my God!” A woman’s voice booms through the store.

I jump and snap my head in the other direction. The aisle is empty. No one is standing there pointing a finger at me and laughing. I exhale. I’m too jumpy. I need to take my own advice and find a healthy way to navigate my anxiety. The seven-dollar bottle of chardonnay I’m putting in my cart is probably not the best start.

“We’re going to put that back,” a woman shouts in the next aisle over, and a loud, high-pitched scream follows. Definitely a child’s.

Two women round the endcap onto my aisle shaking their heads.

“Spoiled brat,” one whispers.

“He needs a good old-fashioned spanking,” the other replies.

I redirect my cart toward the sound and when I turn the corner and see the child, I know those women have it wrong. He looks to be about two or three. He’s sitting on the floor, flapping his hands, and screaming. A sound so specific that if your ears aren’t trained to listen for it, you’ll miss the root cause.

Two stock boys have gathered at the end of the aisle now, and it looks like one is videoing. Idiots.

“Honey, please stop,” the woman says, her voice cracking, her face red with embarrassment as her son starts biting his own arm.

I saw this behavior more times than I can count when I was in private practice. So much so that I kept a sensory kit on hand to help de-escalate the situations: soft things, shiny trinkets, snow globes.

His mom is combing through her tote and doesn’t notice me as I scan the shelves. He needs a distraction.

I abandon my cart and race back to the aisle with the salad dressing. I spot a clear bottle of Italian. Bingo. Next best thing to a snow globe. I slip it off the shelf, remove the label, and head back to the screaming child. I push my cart past them, shaking the bottle so the herbs, oil, and vinegar start to mix and change colors. The boy tilts his head, stops screaming. I shake again and he reaches for it.

“That should buy you some time,” I say to his mom with a smile as I continue past them, leaving her in stunned silence and me thinking how I’d put Occam’s razor up against a degree any day.

There is no bank of checkout lanes or self-checkout at the Sack and Save. Just good old Johnette behind the counter, currently occupied by a group of men and women huddled around her and looking down at something. I stop behind them.

“Oh, bless her heart,” a woman says.

The hairs on the back of my neck tingle.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw this,” Johnette says, leaning over the counter, pointing at what I now see is her phone screen. “’Member her? Used to visit here in the summers.”

Shit. I wonder again if that back door still exists and, if so, if it’s still unlocked.

“I do remember her,” one woman says. “Had that poor darling little sister.”

“Well, I can tell you this,” Johnette says. “She don’t remember any of us.”

The YouTube video has started. I hear my voice coming from the phone. I hear the perky voice of host Harper Beaumont say, “Good morning, Fort Worth, and welcome to Fort Worth Live. We have a special guest with us today.” Harper continues, “She’s here to talk about her new bestseller, Honest Healing: Parenting a Child on the Spectrum. A book that shot up the New York Times bestseller list after celebrity influencer Charlotte Dalton posted about how it’s helped her family on Instagram. Since then, the phrase honest healing seems to have caught fire, not only locally but nationally as well. Welcome, Dr. Willa Watters.”

Shit. Shit. I could run. Go to Shadow Bluff and hide. But it’s been a long two days, and I’m just too damn tired to run.

I stay where I stand and, in the words of another Krystal Lynn saying, take my licks. Which unfold in blinding HD at the checkout counter of the Sack and Save Food Store.

I watched old Fort Worth Live clips with Amy, my best friend and show producer, to prepare for my interview. The set was more cow town than glossy pretense, just like the city I chose to live in compared to its sister city, Dallas. It’s the reason Amy picked that show. “It’s a perfect fit,” she said, even though I wondered if that was true. The outfit I chose for that day screamed glossy pretense: pencil skirt, kitten heels, silk shirt.

Amy was hovering too close yesterday at the KTFW television studio. She sensed my nerves. But it wasn’t exactly nerves. It was something else. I was off kilter. A combination of the feelings that letter drudged up and the hangover from too many Texas Twisters, as the bartender called them, the night before. I clipped out of my thirty-fifth-floor apartment that morning with my . . . overnight guest, giving him a thumbs-up when we parted ways in the lobby of my building, his flip-flops slapping across the marble foyer. Flip-flops.

Getting hammered the night before my first live television interview and bringing home a stranger was classic self-sabotage. Willamena Pearl in her youth may not have known better, but Dr. Willa in her midthirties certainly did . . . and yet . . .

The makeup artist did her best with the beard burn I showed up with, and Amy did her best to assure me everything would go smoothly, and it did. At first. The mic techs wove a microphone through my blouse buttons and secured it to my bra and then to a Velcroed pack on my back. Harper stuck to the script, asking beautifully mundane questions.

“So after practicing child psychology for a few years, you switched to writing a column for the newspaper, then radio.” She added with a silly laugh, “Some of our viewers probably don’t even know what a newspaper and radio are.”

I gave her a courtesy laugh even though I couldn’t imagine she had even one viewer who didn’t grow up on radio and newspapers. That’s why I was there. Those were the people who would buy my book. Avoiding too much of a soapbox, I explained how dealing with insurance made it too difficult to maintain a private practice and how I felt I could reach more people if I expanded my scope. So I started a column for the Fort Worth Tribune, then was approached by execs at KWKP radio station about hosting a show. And it took off from there. The Honest Healing podcast was a natural pivot. A way to stay current.

Harper nodded and smiled and led me down a lovely risk-free path. We briefly discussed my lack of children, but it was nothing I hadn’t said before. My explanation simple and true. I raised my sister, and it was grueling and challenging. So instead of having children, I chose a career where I could focus solely on helping them.

“Awww,” the woman in the cutoffs says. The group nods. None of them look at me, though. Not the real me. They’re engrossed in the screen me.

I haven’t watched this clip yet. Too soon. I was waiting for the right time. So much for that theory.

Harper’s voice rings out: “I hear you’re headed to Good Morning America next. Glad we could catch you before you get too big for our little old show.” I laughed, politely.

Oh, the smugness in that laugh.

“Okay, how about we open up the phone to callers.” That was something I didn’t expect. That wasn’t on the script.

The calls were typical at first. A distraught woman with an estranged son, followed by a resentful woman whose husband refused to have their child tested. I referred to certain chapters in my book and told them what I tell so many: You can do this. Your child needs an advocate. Always.

I hear a voice on Johnette’s phone, and I’m back in that studio, under those lights, Harper staring at me. The caller on the phone is a girl.

Maybe I’ve seen enough. I start to slowly back up, but the cart’s bad wheel gives me away.

“Ho-ly mother-of-pearl,” the woman in cutoff shorts says when she spots me. Her gaze isn’t judgmental, it’s worse. It’s sympathetic. “What are the damn odds?”

Math didn’t have to be my best subject for me to understand the odds are staggering, for them, not me. For them, looking up to see me in the flesh as they watch Johnette’s screen is insanely shocking. For me, wandering into a group of random people watching me make a complete ass of myself on live television is now, unfortunately, highly probable. Johnette could have at least waited for me to leave the store. But what fun would that have been?

I smile at the group. I fucking smile at them. What is wrong with me?

“I need your help,” the girl on Johnette’s screen says.

Her voice sounds so young, so helpless. Something in it so familiar.

I see the group weighing their options now they know I’m here.

“Dr. Willa?” Harper Beaumont says on the screen.

The group turns back. Decision made.

“Can you repeat that?” I said to the caller.

“Can you help me find it?” the girl said.

I watch my face on the screen. I look frozen in a state of shock. I heard “Can you help me hide it?”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“I need help finding it.”

Again, in that moment, I heard the word hiding, not finding.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the caller. “Are you asking me to hide something?”

Harper tilted her head and blinked her spider-leg lashes. She smiled a painful smile. “She’s asking about your book.”

“My book?”

The caller drew out one word, one syllable. “Uh . . .”

My train of thought was so gone by that point that when the caller spoke again, I heard a word from my past. A word one child gave to another child. A safe word. One that should’ve made me laugh as an adult, but it didn’t make me laugh. It set my chest ablaze as if a hot brand was pressed onto it.

“Did she say okra?” I said to Harper.

Harper laughed an uncomfortable laugh and tried to keep her composure, but her voice cracked. “What?”

“Okra. Did she say the word okra?”

Harper looked at me like I was a complete lunatic.

“How do you know that word?” I said to the caller.

“Um.” Harper’s eyes darted around the room. For the first time, she looked her age. She fumbled over her words. “Maybe, um, we are all out of time.”

I sprang up, tugged at the microphone threaded through my shirt. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore. I need to go.” I detached the mic pack from around my waist as Harper gaped at me, but I still couldn’t unhook the mic and wire from my blouse. So I ripped it off. The mic, the wire, the pack. And my blouse.

I stood there on live television in my bra, claw marks from my manicured nails on my chest.

I looked down. “Fuck.”

And I ran away.

The clip ends. The gaggle of strangers in front of me, now silent, look up. My face flushes with heat. I choke down my bitter pill. “Can I check out now?”

—

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About Jennifer Moorhead

Jennifer graduated from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Geaux Tigers! She has written and produced three indie short films that each made top 20 at the Louisiana Film Prize and were awarded at festivals around the world. She lives in Louisiana with her husband, two daughters, two dogs, one cat, and plenty of horses, mini ponies, and mini donkeys in a place where swamps and winding trails are the norm. When she’s not writing, she’s on a tennis court laughing and providing job security for her coach.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing