Landweir House Chapter 16 - Tony Lane's Blog

Landweir House

Chapter 16

The Body of Evidence

As the filming for the next episode of HGTV’s “Renovating History” was under way, so was the plan to cut the concrete patio into six inch by six inch squares and sell them off with framed photos of the parties that had once been held on it. They were selling like hot cakes. The swelling sentiment of goodwill that had come over the country in the wake of Katrina fueled the interest. The entire season of Renovating History was so steeped in charity and goodwill that the Landweir house was becoming America’s house. People who had never watched HGTV were now tuning in to every episode. The plight of the young Landweir’s was the subject of TV and radio talk shows from coast to coast. How could everyone be centered on these yuppies when so many in New Orleans needed so much more? Or, how could they possibly have chosen that shade of green? It seemed that everyone had an opinion on the house and how it was being renovated. It was America being fascinated by the trivial while the sins of the nation got swept under the carpet. Only the Saints winning the Super Bowl could have brought more good will to the city of New Orleans. Most of the clutter that Robert Breen had left behind was now taken away to a warehouse and was being gone through by experts looking for historical treasure. The team was headed up by the show’s resident historian, the esteemed Dr. Mortimer Jacobs. This allowed the army of carpenters and TV people to come into the house and start their work. Sidebar stories had been televised showing the couple’s heroic efforts during the Katrina disaster, Lisa Marie working to exhaustion serving the medical needs of the community while Donald did the same transporting people and medical supplies in his truck. They became the symbol of what was right in America. It was very nearly patriotic to Watch HGTV.

But then they found them. The graves of three adults and two children below what had been the concrete patio were found when the backhoe started to dig the hole for the pool.

“Terry, how are we going to spin this?” Bart asked with more than a little exasperation in his voice. He knew that the money that had been coming in was based on the good feelings that the viewing audience was getting by watching the progress on this beautiful house. Finding skeletons in the backyard might put a damper on that.

Terry remained unruffled. You don’t become the director of your own show at twenty-seven years old by panicking. “That concrete was laid in 1951 so we know that those graves have been there longer than that, so unless you are going to tell me that Robert Breen was some kind of a kook who killed people and hid their bodies so he could still party with them, we should be OK. I think that we should get Dr. Jacobs down here right away to tell what he thinks happened here. It could be civil war you know. Civil War we can sell.”

Dr. Mortimer Jacobs was becoming America’s favorite historian. He had never been exposed to such popular adulation. The people of New Orleans were treating him like a rock star. Good seats in great restaurants and he hadn’t paid for a meal since HGTV had begun to telecast the episodes of the Landweir House. Normally a season’s worth of shows would be shot, edited, advertised before they would be shown but because the network wanted to catch the Katrina buzz that was being generated by the rest of the media, they were turning these around in two weeks and the good people of New Orleans were seeing the shows while the stars were still in town. Dr. Jacobs’ portion of the show was usually about five minutes of an episode as he would explain the historic significance of whatever time period that the house had been built or of an artifact that might have been discovered at the work site. He had his hands full with this one though and he had become the main focus of the show as he was asked to showcase various pieces of Hollywood memorabilia as well as the house’s antebellum and Civil War past. Skeletal remains in shallow graves however, that was a different matter, for this he would become Dr. Mortimer Jacobs, eminent historian rather than HGTV pitch man.

“These are the graves of the slaves that had once been a part of the staff at Landweir House. It is impossible to say just how they might have met their end. The way the bodies are laid out should offer us an explanation. Here we see two bodies, closely entwined, a husband and a wife perhaps. Here, two young children and an adult, perhaps a mother and her children. Child mortality rates were quite high back then. A scarlet fever epidemic could have caused all of this. These slaves were most likely beloved by the family and that is why they were buried so closely to the house. You can see that there is no clothing that remains but that there are remnants of their shoes. The leather has not yet rotted away. So human to find their shoes still on their feet after all of this time. They are not so different from us I think.” The doctor said and then hung his head as if in contemplative thought or perhaps prayer.

“Doctor, over here.” A workman called out from across the yard. “Here’s another one.”

“Oh dear, let me see.” Jacobs said as he made his way over to the pit. “Yes, yes, it is another one. What is that clutched in the hands?” He asked to the camera as he reached into the pit and took hold of a small leather pouch that was in the skeleton’s hands. “Why it’s a gris-gris bag. This slave was a practitioner of the art which is known as Voodoo.”

“Doctor Jacobs we need you up here right away.” Bart’s voice called out of a second floor window. “We’ve just fount the diary of Mrs. Emily Landweir the original owner of Landweir House. It was in a compartment behind a fireplace.”

The camera panned down to Dr. Jacobs again. “Isn’t history exciting? We’ll take a look at that diary and see if it can shed any light on just who these good people were when we come back.” He knew that this would make the perfect commercial break. Always the professional.