Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 07 - The Swamps of Bayou Teche (17 page)

“You got it.”

“Where you heading now?”

“Maida. Got a lead on a man who might be able to
help”

Ten minutes later, we pulled away from the Jean
LaFitte Motel, bound for Maida. Jack had raised the
top on the Cadillac, and the cool air from the vents
was a welcome relief from the blazing sun. I planned
to call Marty later and bring him up to date.

I didn’t have to call Marty. He called me before we
reached the city limits of Opelousas. “Old lady Hardy
just called. A technician from the police lab showed
up at her house. He wanted to swab her mouth for a
DNA sample. What’s going on over there?”

“I’m ninety percent certain John Hardy is dead,” I
announced.

“What!” He shouted, and I could see him now. He
had probably jumped to his feet, his eyes bulging,
staring at the receiver. If he wasn’t already perspiring,
sweat would begin rolling down his flopping jowls and
dripping on his wrinkled shirt.

“There’s a body. They found a ring that could be his.”

“But what happened? The old lady is driving me
crazy.”

I hesitated and lifted an eyebrow at Jack who
glanced at me curiously. “It isn’t pleasant.”

“I don’t care about that,” he shot back. “Just tell me
what happened”

Marty gagged when I related the gory details of the
discovery of the body in the alligator’s belly. I suppose
I should be ashamed of myself, but I took a sort of perverted delight in embellishing the details of the grisly
death because I knew back in Austin, Marty’s stomach
was churning uneasily. I went on to explain about the
diamond ring with the initials, J.H., and the new boots
the corpse was wearing. “Unfortunately,” I added,
imagining I could hear his stomach gurgling, “you
couldn’t recognize the face because the alligator’s digestive juices ate it away” Then I added the coup de
grace, which was a lie, but I couldn’t resist, “All that
was left was his teeth grinning up at you and his eyeballs rolling around where his cheeks had been”

That last remark was all it took. I heard Marty start to heave and then the phone went dead. I clicked off
the cell phone and leaned back against the seat, wearing a satisfied, though somewhat guilty, grin at my little fabrication.

Jack shot me a quick glance. “What did he have to
say?”

Giving him a wry look, I replied, “Well, he didn’t
say it exactly, but what he meant was for me to keep
digging. You and I both know, the dead guy’s John
Hardy. Like I told you before, his mother hired us to
find him or those who killed him.” I leaned back and
stared at the light-colored convertible top. “So now,
Mr. Edney, you and I are investigating a murder, and a
murder, to steal from Agatha Christie,” I added with
exaggerated drama, “a murder most foul.”

He shook his head wryly and grunted. “Still the English teacher, huh?”

I grinned at him. “You know how it is. You can take
a teacher out of the English classroom, but you can’t
take English out of the teacher.”

As we wound our way along the Bayou Teche
Scenic Byway, a line of dark clouds loomed up over
the south horizon.

“Looks like some weather,” Jack muttered, flexing
his fingers about the wheel. He looked around at me in
consternation. “It isn’t one of your hurricanes, is it?”

I laughed. “No. Just a spring storm. If it had been a
hurricane, the story would have been all over the TV
and radio.”

We hit the storm around two that afternoon, a
steady rain that the dry ground quickly soaked up.
There’s something about the Louisiana swamps during a rain that carries me back to the antebellum days,
lazy summer days spent on the veranda sipping mint
juleps, watching the silvery rain slice through air laden with the sweet, almost palpable fragrance of
blooming jasmine.

Mid-afternoon we reached Bagotville and pulled up
at the bank. The rain had slackened to a drizzle. I
glanced at Jack. I was beginning to feel guilty about
keeping him away from Austin for so long, but I figured he’d let me know when he’d had enough.

Inside, Laura Palmo greeted me with a worried
frown wrinkling her forehead. Wearing a neat, dark
brown suit and a white blouse with ruffles about her
neck, she rose to meet me.

“Hello, Tony.”

I nodded. “Laura. Can we talk?”

She gestured to a closed door. “In there. The
lounge.”

Once inside, she turned to me, a look of concern on
her slender face. “What’s going on, Tony? The Terrechoisie Parish Sheriff’s Department came by my
house yesterday and asked me to identify John’s diamond ring.” She bit at her bottom lip. “Did that have
to do with the body you told me about-” She hesitated, unable to form the words.

“We don’t know, Laura. They can’t make a positive
identification without DNA testing.”

“DNA? That means … Mrs. Hardy…” She
closed her eyes and sagged to the leather couch. She
pressed her hands to her face. “I pray it isn’t John.”

“What about the diamond ring? Was it John’s?”

She nodded.

“You’re certain? No mistake.”

“No mistake,” she mumbled. “No mistake at all.”

I drew a deep breath. “As much as I hate to say it, if
the ring was his, then the body has to be John Hardy.
Odds are a hundred thousand to one that-”

The door opened, and Marvin Gates jerked to a
halt. “Mr. Boudreaux. I didn’t mean to intrude. I was
coming for my hat” He touched his finger to his jaw.
“I’ve got to have a tooth filled.” He shot Laura an angry glance as he closed the door behind him. “Have
they identified the body yet?”

“Not yet. They’re checking DNA”

He grimaced. “I heard the dentist’s office burned.
Shame-we’d know by now if it was John.”

I stiffened momentarily, then tried to relax. I joked,
“News travels fast. It only burned yesterday”

The portly man frowned, then smiled reassuringly.
“Yes, I know,” he replied glibly. “Someone mentioned
it this morning. I forget who it was. One of our customers” He grinned. “You remember the old saying
about the fastest way to spread news-telegraph, telephone, tell-a-woman? Well, around here, it’s tell-
a-Cajun.”

We all laughed. I nodded. “I guess you know Laura
identified John’s diamond ring. The DNA is just a legal formality to nail it down.”

He drew his stubby fingers across his forehead. “I
can’t believe it.” He paused, then continued. “John and I weren’t close friends, but he was the best businessman I ever worked with.”

Gates seemed sincere, but I couldn’t help wondering if he wasn’t already counting the money coming
his way as a result of his partner’s death. I fixed my
eyes on his. “As I understand it, you and Hardy organized the bank based upon a General Partnership with
Joint Tenancy agreement”

He blinked in surprise, and his face darkened momentarily. Quickly, he recovered. “Why, yes. A standard practice in the business world, Mr. Boudreaux.”
He glanced sidelong at Laura.

“I know.” I lied, not wanting to put him on the defensive. “Out of curiosity, what would have happened
it Hardy had been married? His family would have
been cut out of the business, right?”

He licked his lips, and he laughed half-heartedly. “If
he’d been married, he wouldn’t have agreed to a joint
tenancy. Nor would I have permitted him to,” he added.

“So I take it you aren’t married.”

He cut his eyes briefly at Laura, then shrugged. “No
woman would have me.”

With a touch of impatience edging her words,
Laura spoke up. “How long does the DNA testing
take, Tony?”

With a sigh, I replied, “Weeks”

“Oh,” she replied simply, a strange smile on her face.

Gates nodded. “So it will be quite some time before we know for certain if it is John Hardy?” I could have
sworn I saw a satisfied grin on his face.

“Yes. But as soon as I hear anything, I’ll let you
know.”

“I’d appreciate that.” He touched his finger to his
jaw. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get to the
dentist myself.”

When he closed the door behind him, I chuckled. “I
don’t envy him. I hate going to the dentist.’

Laura laughed and tapped a painted nail against her
brilliant white teeth. “I’m lucky. Never had a filling.”

I shook my head. “You are the lucky one.”

“So,” she asked, “I guess this means you’ll be leaving us?”

I studied her a moment, for some reason surprised
she should ask, yet not knowing why it surprised me.
“Not yet,” I replied.

She arched an eyebrow.

I grinned. “Didn’t you promise me a dance at the
Loup Garou Festival next Thursday? I sure wouldn’t
want to miss that.”

Outside the drizzle continued to fall from the dark
clouds scudding past. I jumped into the Cadillac.

“Now what? Find a motel?”

“Nope. Let’s go to Maida. Pirate’s Landing. I want
to talk to Fawn Williams”

During the drive to Pirate’s Landing, I jotted notes
on my cards, and I couldn’t help wondering about the identity of the customer who told Gates about the fire
in Lafayette.

Fawn Williams answered on the first knock. When
she opened the door and saw me, a look of disgust
curled her lips. She rolled her eyes, keeping one hand
on the door and the other on the jamb, telling me I
wasn’t the least bit welcome. “It’s you, huh? Now
what? I figured you’d be satisfied after talking to the
senator.”

Ignoring the venom in her words, I smiled at her,
then hit her between the eyes with, “I would have been
if you’d told me the truth.”

Her eyes grew wide. “What?” She sputtered. “I told
you the truth, you dumb-” She uttered a few expletives my grandfather would have knocked me on my
backside if I’d said them in mixed company.

“Sorry, but that’s not what the man said.” I glanced
up and down the covered esplanade. “Do we talk out
here where the neighbors can hear, or are you going to
invite me in?”

Her narrowed eyes spit fire. “Why should I? You’re
not the cops.”

I shot back. “No, but I’m working for them, and if
you don’t believe me, give them a call and see for
yourself.” I paused. I softened my tone. “Look, Fawn.
Maybe there’s some kind of mistake. I don’t know. All
I know is that your story and the senator’s story don’t
match. Now can I come in?”

Coldly, she studied me a few seconds longer, and
then with a groan of resignation, dropped her hand from
the jamb and stepped back, opening the door wider.

Plopping down on the tweed couch, she reached for
a cigarette. Her hand trembled as she touched the
lighter flame to it.

I sat across the coffee table from her. “According to
the senator, he was on a fact-finding tour of the New
Orleans’ levees all day”

She caught her breath and broke into a spasm of
coughs. When she recovered, she gasped. “That’s a
lie. I was there at ten o’clock. You saw my appointment book. He’s lying.”

“Why would he do that?” I asked innocently.

“I-I don’t know,” she stammered. “But he is.” Her
voice rose in pitch. “I’m telling you the truth. Freddy
is lying. I was there.”

Either Fawn Williams missed her calling as an actress or she was telling the truth. So I asked her, “Why
would he lie?”

She shook her head numbly, her cigarette dangling
from between her fingers, the ash growing longer and
longer. “I don’t know. I can’t believe he said that. Not
Freddy”

“He did, and that means you could have filled the
Cherokee at Venable’s at nine, had an accomplice
drive it back to the Atchafalaya airport while you
drove a rental car on to New Orleans. Then you flew
back on Friday and picked up your Jeep.”

She stared at me helplessly, the hard exterior she
had maintained crumbling.

It wasn’t the pleading look in her eyes, nor the
weary sigh that escaped her lips, but for some reason,
I believed her. Of course, none of what I had uncovered definitely linked her to Hardy’s death. It was
circumstantial-fairly solid-but still, circumstantial.

Tears glittered in her eyes. She blinked them
away and stared up at me. In a plaintive tone, she
said, “I don’t know what’s going on here, Mr.
Boudreaux. I don’t know who killed John Hardy. All
I know is I haven’t seen him in months. He had enemies. He had dealings with Jimmy Blue and the
laundries and carwashes. I don’t know any of the
particulars, but if he is dead, I didn’t do it.”

“Carwashes?”

“Yes. Jimmy Blue has several carwashes and laundries all the way from Morgan City to Lafayette”

“What did Hardy have to do with them?”

“I don’t know. But, a couple years back after one of
our … our appointments, he told me the laundries
and carwashes were making him rich. That’s when he
offered me the half-million-dollar investment fund”

Rich? From carwashes and laundries? Impossible.
But then an idea popped into my head and a half
dozen random pieces of information suddenly came
together.

I rose to my feet. “It may surprise you, Fawn, but I
believe you”