I moved across the room to get away from the cloud of Raid. "I don't think you're supposed to breathe that stuff, Ms. Guidry."

She waved her hand. "Oh, hell, I been breathin' it for years. You want a Pepsi-Cola?"

"No, ma'am. Thank you."

She waved the Raid at the couch. "You just sit right there. It won't take a moment." I guess she was going to give me the Pepsi anyway. When she was in the kitchen there was a sharp slap and she said, "Gotcha, you sonofabitch!" The thing about this job is that you meet such interesting people.

She came back with two plastic tumblers and a single can of Pepsi and the Raid. She put the glasses on her coffee table, then opened the Pepsi and poured most of it in one glass and a little bit in the other. She offered the full glass to me. "Now, what is it you want to know?"

I lifted the glass but noticed something crusted down in the ice. I pretended to take a sip and put it down. "Mrs. Berteaux said that you're a midwife."

She nodded, eyes scanning the upper reaches of the room for incoming bugs. "Unh-hunh. Not in years, a'course, but I was."

"Thirty-six years ago on July ninth a baby girl was born in this area and given up for adoption. Chances are that the child was illegitimate, but maybe not. Chances are that the mother was underage, but maybe not."

Her eyes narrowed behind the thick lenses. "You think I birthed the child?"

"I don't know. If not, maybe you heard something."

She looked thoughtful. "That was a long time ago."

"Yes, ma'am." I waited, letting her think. Probably hard with all the nerve damage from the Raid.

Martha Guidry scratched at her head, working on it, and then seemed to notice something in the far corner of the room. She put down her Pepsi, picked up the Raid, then crept across the room to peer into the shadows behind the television. I got ready to hold my breath. She said, "Goddamned ugly bugs," but she held her fire. False alarm. She came back to the chair and sat. "You know, I think I remember something about that."

Well.

She said, "There were some folks lived over here around the Nezpique." She was nodding as she thought about it, fingering the Raid can. "They had a little girl, I think. Yes, that's right. They gave her away."

Well, well. "You remember their names?" I was writing it down.

She pooched out her lips, then slowly shook her head, trying to put it together. "I remember it was a big family. He was a fisherman or somethin', but they might've cropped a share. They lived over on the bayou. Right over here on the Nezpique. Wasn't no bastard, though. Just a big family with too many mouths to feed."

A name?