Voodoo River (1995) (23 page)

"Hm."

"And if he speaks, he will be direct. He won't say much. That's just his way."

"It sounds like you're warning me."

"Preparing. Preparing is a better word."

Joe Pike materialized in the file of passengers as if he were there yet not there, as separate from them as one photograph superimposed upon another. He came to us, and we shook. I said, "Lucy Chenier, this is Joe Pike. Joe, Lucy."

Lucy put out her hand and said, "It's a pleasure, Mr. Pike."

Pike's head swiveled toward her and he gave her the full focus of his attention. He is like that with people. You are either there to him, or you are not. If you are there, he gives you all of himself. He said, "Joe." He took her hand, held it for a moment, then kissed it. Gracious.

Lucy beamed. "Why, thank you."

"You're a couple."

That pleased her, too. "Is it that obvious?"

Joe nodded.

I said, "You can let go of the hand, now, Joe."

Joe's head swiveled my way, his eyes hidden and secret behind the black lenses of his glasses. His mouth twitched, and he let go of Lucy's hand. Joe will never smile, but his mouth will twitch, so you know he found this funny. He looked at Lucy again, then came back to me. The mouth twitched a second time. A riot, for Joe. Absolute insane hysteria. He said, "I've got a bag."

We collected an olive green duffel bag from the claim area, then picked up the car, and drove across town toward Lucy's office. Pike rode in the back and Lucy was in the front. She sat sideways so that she could see him. "Have you been to Louisiana before, Joe?"

Pike said, "Uh-huh."

"When was that?"

"A while back."

"Did you enjoy yourself?"

Pike didn't answer.

She twisted more in her seat to get a better look at him. "Joe?"

Pike was staring out the window, the passing scenery racing across the dark lenses. Immobile.

Lucy looked at me and I patted her leg. You see?

As we drove I brought Joe up to speed on Milt Rossier and Jodi Taylor and what Jodi wanted us to do. I told him what I had uncovered about Leon Williams, and how Rossier was using it against the Boudreauxs, and I told him about Jimmie Ray Rebenack and Sandi. "Lucy ran a DMV check on Sandi through her firm and got us a name and an address."

Lucy said, "Sandi's last name is Bergeron. She's twenty-eight years old, unmarried, and she works in the Social Services Department here in the capitol building."

I said, "A guy like Jimmie Ray couldn't get sealed state documents without help, so maybe that's Sandi."

Pike said, "Um." It was the first sound he'd made in fifteen minutes. "What about Rossier?"

Lucy took a 9 by 12 manila envelope from her briefcase and passed it to Pike. "My friend in the attorney general's office gave me a printout of Rossier's file. Rossier ran prostitution and intimidation rackets through the sixties and seventies until he was convicted of supplying methamphetamines to a local motorcycle gang in nineteen seventy-three. He pulled twenty-four months in Angola, then went into the fish farm business. The fish farm is legitimate, but its primary purpose is to launder money. He was indicted as a co-conspirator in two drug-related murders, and suspected of involvement in six additional homicides."

Pike looked through the file as they spoke. "So how come this guy's walking around?"

"Action was dropped on the indictments when the state's witnesses disappeared. They don't think Rossier pulled the trigger, but they believe he ordered it. They think LeRoy Bennett did the shooting, or a man named Ren+! LaBorde."

Pike offered the file back, but Lucy shook her head. "You can keep it if you'd like. Just be careful with it. My friend could get in trouble if anyone found out he'd given it to me."

I said, "He?"

Pike tapped my shoulder. Getting my attention. "You think Boudreaux is involved with Rossier in some kind of crime?"

"I don't think so. I think he's just looking the other way so that Rossier can do whatever he's doing."

Pike said, "But we don't know what that is."

I shook my head. "Not yet, but maybe Sandi Bergeron can tell us."

Pike went back to staring out the window. "Some great gig, helping people who don't want to be helped."

Lucy twisted around to again look at Pike. "Mrs. Boudreaux wants the help. She'd like to put this behind her. Jodi Taylor hired us to do that."

Pike said, "Us."

Lucy said, "Do you have a problem with that?"

Pike's mouth twitched. "Not at all." He squeezed her arm. "Thanks for the help."

I frowned. "What's your relationship to this guy in the A. G.?"

Lucy made a big sigh. "I love a man with raging hormones."

We dropped Lucy at the curb outside her office. She gathered her things and offered her hand to Joe Pike. "It was a pleasure, Joe. You're an interesting man."

Pike said, "Yes."

Lucy gave me a kiss, then let herself out and went into her building. I twisted around in the seat and looked at Joe. "She says you're interesting and you say yes?"

Pike got out of the back and into the front. "Did you want me to lie?"

We drove to the capitol building and parked in the shade of an enormous oak near the banks of a lake. The Louisiana State capitol building is thirty-four stories of art-deco monolith rising above the Mississippi River, sort of like the Empire State Building in miniature. It's the largest state capitol building in the nation, and looks like the kind of place that Charles Foster Kane would call home. Huey Long was assassinated there.

A tour group of retired people from Wisconsin were filing through the lobby, and we filed with them, slipping past a couple of guards who were laughing about the New Orleans Saints, and taking an elevator to the sixth floor. The Social Services Department was on the sixth floor. We could have phoned ahead and asked to speak with Sandi Bergeron, and Sandi might have been willing to talk with us, but you never know. Surprise is often your only recourse.

We went through a door marked Social Services and up to an older African-American woman sitting behind a high counter. You had to pass her if you wanted access to the rest of the social services offices, and she didn't look like she'd be easy to pass. I said, "I'd like to see Sandi Bergeron, please." Lucy's DMV check said that Sandi was something called an associate claims monitor, and that she worked in this office.

The woman said, "Is she expecting you?"

I gave her one of my nicer smiles. "It's kind of a surprise. Tell her it's Jimmie Ray Rebenack." She would either know he was dead, or she wouldn't. If she knew, she'd call security. If she didn't, she'd come out to see him.

The woman picked up her phone and punched some numbers. I said, "We'll wait outside in the hall."

The woman covered the receiver and said that that would be fine, and Pike and I went out into the hall.

We were there no more than thirty seconds when a woman in her late twenties hurried out. She had teased blond hair and thin shoulders and rings on both the third and fourth fingers of her right hand, just like the woman in the photograph I'd found at Rebenack's office. Sandi Bergeron, letting Jimmie Ray put a bag on her head and snap a nudie shot. She wore too much makeup, and her nails were the color of Bazooka bubble gum.

She glanced at me and Pike, then looked past us, first one way down the hall and then the other. Looking for Jimmie Ray. She frowned when she didn't see him and started back inside. I said, "Ms. Bergeron?"

She stopped. Confused. "Are you here with Jimmie Ray?" She didn't know he was dead.

"I've got some bad news, Ms. Bergeron. Is there someplace we can talk?"

She looked from me to Pike and back again. She looked nervous. "Are you the police?"

I shook my head. "No, ma'am."

"Where's Jimmie? They said he was here."

"He couldn't make it. Is there someplace we can talk?"

You could see the world slow down for her. You could see the ceiling lower and the end of the hall recede and the pounding of her pulse grow to mask all lesser sounds. She seemed to sway, the way a reed might in a soft breeze, and then she shook her head. "I'm sorry. I don't know you, and I don't think I have anything to say to you."

She turned back to her office. I took her arm and quietly said, "Jimmie's dead. Milt Rossier had him murdered."

In that instant she tried to pull away from me, but I held on, and, just as quickly, she stopped pulling. Tears welled and she blinked frantically, and pretty soon the tears were gone. People moved along the hall, in and out of offices, in and out of the elevators. I let go of her and stepped back.

I said, "We're not the police, and we're not from Milt Rossier. We won't hurt you."

She nodded.

"I'm a private investigator, and I'm not after you. I'm after Milt. He's the guy I want to hurt. Do you understand?"

She nodded again. Getting her breath under control. "He killed Jimmie Ray?"

"I believe so. Yes."

"It's about those files, isn't it?"

"We shouldn't talk in the hall."

She brought us two flights down to an employees' cafeteria that smelled of hamburgers and lima beans. We sat at a table with a view across the city and drank coffee while Sandi Bergeron told us that she had met Jimmie Ray ten months ago when he had come to her office to ask for Jodi Taylor's adoption records. Just like that, he had walked in and asked if he could have a copy. They'd told him no, of course, and turned him away, but Jimmie Ray had hung around out in the hall by the Coca-Cola machine, stomping about and fuming and convinced that "the Boss Bitch," as he'd called Mrs. Washington, was just looking for a payoff. Sandi had gone out for a Dr Pepper and had met Jimmie there when he'd asked her if she had change of a dollar. She was surprised when he'd phoned a few days later, tracking her down by calling the Social Services Department and saying that he'd like to speak with "the pretty blond girl." They had connected him with two other women before they put on Sandi Bergeron, who was not pretty, and never would be, and would always feel bad about it.

Three weeks later, when they were lying in bed, he'd asked what was the big deal with these sealed documents, did they keep 'em in a goddamned vault or somethin'?

Two weeks after that, when they were lying in bed, he'd asked if she'd ever seen one of these sealed documents and, if she hadn't, how did she know they were really there?

One week after that, when they were lying in bed, he'd asked if she could get her hands on Jodi Taylor's adoption records, and, if she could, would she give it a quick read and tell him Jodi's bio-mama's name?

He hadn't asked her to steal the file, she said, but by the time she had it in her hands she was just so gol-darned nervous that it was just easier to steal it than to stand there reading the thing. So she had.

I said, "Did you know that Jimmie Ray was working for Milt Rossier?"

"Not then he wasn't. He was just lookin' for some-thin' he could sell to the National Enquirer or one of those magazines. Only he found that thing about Leon Williams and that sheriff over there, and he took it to Milt Rossier."

"You knew about the blackmail?"

She looked defensive. "Jimmie Ray said Mr. Rossier was gonna put him on retainer. He said he wouldn't have to work as a mechanic anymore. Jimmie didn't want to be a nobody all his life."

Pike said, "He doesn't have to worry about it any more, does he?"

Sandi Bergeron stared at him, and then had some of her coffee.

I said, "Did Jimmie Ray tell you why Milt was blackmailing the sheriff?"

She shook her head.

"Did he tell you anything about Rossier's business."

"I'm sorry."

"Please try to remember."

She put down the coffee cup and picked at the table. The bubble-gum nails were long and French-tipped and probably false. She made a little shrug. "Jimmie didn't know everything that old man had going, and Jimmie Ray had spent a lot of time trying to find out. He told me so himself. He said that Mr. Rossier was so careful about all these things that he'd never get caught. He said he learned a lot from that old man."

"Like what?"

You could see her work to try to remember. "He said the old man never got involved himself. He had this other guy do that."

"LeRoy Bennett."

"Jimmie Ray called him a stooge. He said that if there was ever any trouble, it would all go back to the stooge."

"What else?"

She chewed at her lips, thinking harder. "He told me about this place called the Bayou Lounge."

"Uh-huh."

"Mr. Rossier owns it. Jimmie Ray said that the old man bought it so he wouldn't have to bring any of his bad business home. Jimmie thought that was just the smartest thing. He said the old man's stooge would go to the Bayou Lounge to take care of business. That way they didn't have to bring it home. You see?"

I glanced at Pike, and Pike nodded. He said, "If we're looking for something, maybe we should look there."