Rumble on the Bayou

by Jana DeLeon

  "No, I didn't know that. I guess she's a pretty sharp businesswoman."

  "Got that right. Her and Jenny. Jenny's been cooking for residents of Gator Bait since elementary school bake sales. When her momma got sick and they needed help caring for her, Jenny opened the cafe. She doesn't have much free time, but her momma has a full-time nurse that lives with 'em."

  Richard finished his bottle of beer and put it back on the counter. Pete picked up the bottle and dropped it in a wastebasket behind the bar. Without even asking, he popped the top on another bottle and passed it to Richard.

  “Yeah," Pete said, rubbing his chin again. "Seems the women in this town have been the ones to really branch out. Change things for the better, you know? Stella, Jenny and Dorie, of course. Gator Bait wouldn't be the way it is today without those three." Pete nodded to Richard and moved to the other side of the bar to serve people who'd just arrived.

  Richard took a drink of beer and stared at the glass wall behind the bar. Three women, four men and an entire town beholden to them. Most likely, one of them was a felon.

  But which one?

  Dorie sat at the kitchen table on her boat, staring at the television on the bedroom wall but not hearing a word of the dribble coming out of it. The microwave dinner in front of her cooled rapidly, but she wasn't concerned about food at the moment. She was concerned about Shawn Roland. And more importantly, who Roland was working with in Gator Bait just in case Richard was right and the deal had already been made.

  She tapped one nail on the table and considered the possibilities. They weren't good. The local shrimpers and fishermen weren't smart enough to hide this sort of operation from her, so they were out. Besides, they had no way to launder drug money-not the size Richard was talking about anyway. Someone else might pay them to haul the product around, but they weren't making the initial deals, that was for sure. Jenny was out. Dorie picked up her beer and took a drink. Wasn't she?

  She dropped her beer back to the table and shook her head in disgust. Of course she was, but what about the others? This is why she had never wanted to work in Gator Bait. The odds were against something of this magnitude happening, but Dorie knew that when and if it did, she'd have to consider her friends and family suspects. At least in a big city, most people were strangers. It was easier to see things clearly and when the time came, not difficult at all to take people down.

  But this was different. This was her town. This was her family. And one of them might be a criminal. Dorie slumped down on the bench, the food and beer completely forgotten, and cursed the day she ran the print that brought Richard Starke into her town.

  CHAPTER SIX

  After a restless night, Dorie planned to go into the office the next morning and attack locating Richard's bad guy with a new resolve. More than anything, she wanted Roland captured and Richard out of her town before everything fell apart in front of her. Unfortunately, the state had other ideas and sent a mass of paperwork they wanted back the same day.

  So she put Richard to work looking at maps of the bayous and he had thankfully remained in studied silence the entire time. It took her most of the morning to process the forms when she realized she couldn't complete her obligations without a trip to one section of the game preserve for photos.

  Aggravated with the further delay, she told Richard in a clipped voice that whatever he had planned would have to wait until afternoon and started out the door. Richard, in an apparent fit of insanity, followed her out and asked to go along, leaving Joe standing in the front office window staring at them and shaking his head.

  Dorie drove in silence, the night's sleep doing little to improve her mood. In fact, if it was possible, she felt worse than ever. At least Richard was wisely keeping his mouth shut for a change, making her wonder why he'd bothered to come along at all. Not that she was complaining. She was in no mood to discuss the conclusions she'd come to last night after her third beer.

  She drove down a logging trail to a posted section of the preserve and took a couple of photos the state required, then jumped back in her jeep and headed back to town, eager to get started on the search for Roland. They were a few miles from the sheriff’s office when her cell phone rang. It was Joe.

  "I got a call from Mrs. Paulie," he said. She says there's a grill going at Boudreaux's, and they are not grilling burgers. Do you want to check it out?"

  Dorie clenched her teeth. "Don't have a choice. You can't arrest him anyway if he's doing what I think he's doing, and if he is, I'm going to use him for crab bait."

  “Problems in paradise?" Richard asked as she closed the phone.

  "A small one," she said as she wheeled the jeep around in the opposite direction. "And one easily solved. But I'm afraid we'll have to put off your investigation for a little bit longer. I have to go arrest an idiot."

  Richard grinned. "An idiot, huh? This should be interesting. I haven't seen one of those around here yet."

  Dorie's scowl turned to a look of mild appreciation. "Good one, Dick. You're coming right along on this cynicism thing. Maybe one day you can give the real professionals, like me, a run for their money."

  The conversation stopped short as Dorie turned off the paved road and onto an old logging trail that hadn't been used in some time. The jeep bounced through the holes and gaps in the broken planks that made up the low-lying parts of the trail. Dorie glanced over at Richard, who braced himself with the door and the roll bar of the jeep, and smiled.

  She bet this wasn't what he'd expected when he came looking for his bad guy. Richard Starke was getting a grade-A lesson in rednecks and good ole boys. He thought only the big city had issues. She smiled. A city boy like Richard wouldn't survive a weekend here alone.

  Dorie finally ended the agony by cutting left, directly into the marsh. She stopped the jeep in front of a dilapidated old cabin where three men sat outside in lawn chairs in front of a huge grill, the remnants of a massive beer-drinking party surrounding them. Richard took one look at the grill and turned to Dorie in surprise. There was no mistaking the twelve-foot shape rotating on the massive spit. He noticed her flushed face and was sure it wasn't with excitement. No, Dorie Berenger was mad, with a capital M.

  She got out of the jeep, slammed the door, and stomped toward the three men in front of the grill, who at least had the good common sense to look a little afraid. "Clint Boudreaux, how many times have we been through this?" she said to the man sitting closest to the grill. "I told you I had given you my last warning. This time you are going to pay, and you are going to pay dearly."

  Clint raised his hands in protest. "Now, Dorie, you know I would never kill a gator out of season unless it was in self-defense."

  She gave him a skeptical look. "Uh-huh, and what exactly were you doing that required defending yourself from an alligator?"

  Clint tried the wide-eyed innocent look. He didn't quite make it. "I was just watching TV. Honest. And she came busting right through the door. See?" He pointed to a mass of splintered wood and netting next to the cabin. "I'm gonna have to get a new screen door. I'm the victim here, I swear."

  Richard stared at the man and frowned. He wasn't sure exactly what was going on here, but he was positive Clint Boudreaux was no more a victim than any other repeat offender. He glanced at Dorie to gauge her reaction and didn't like what he saw. Her face was tense with anger, lips drawn tightly across her teeth. Her eyes were narrow and her hand hovered over her holster. For just a moment, Richard was pretty sure she would shoot the man.

  "Where are they?" she finally asked, the words coming through clenched teeth, one short syllable at a time.

  Clint held up both his hands in a surrender pose. "Now, Dorie, you know I wouldn't do anything like that-"

  Before he could finish his sentence, Dorie swore and strode off toward the dilapidated cabin, then barged through the front door and went inside. Richard looked at the group of men around the grill and considered his options. He could stay out here with three probable criminals or help Dor
ie with her breaking-and-entering job. Not that it was exactly breaking and entering. More like just entering.

  Finally, curiosity won out and Richard followed Dorie into the shack. He met her in the front room on her way back outside, carrying an ice chest and wearing an expression on her face he'd once seen on a serial killer. He hustled out of the way and let her pass, not even offering to carry the ice chest. Talking was probably at a premium at the moment, and Richard was pretty sure his talking wouldn't be advisable at all.

  He followed Dorie out of the shack and back over to where the men sat, where she placed the ice chest on the ground and opened the top. Peering inside, Richard saw five tiny alligators, wrestling around in the shallow water.

  "You're going down this time, Clint," Dorie said, obviously straining for control. "You're not getting another warning." She walked back to the jeep and returned with three sets of handcuffs. Tossing a set to Richard, she said, "I'm helping you, the least you can do is help me."

  "Hell, Dorie," Clint said, rising from his chair. "You ain't putting those things on me. Now, let's just talk about this for a minute."

  "I was done talking the last time, Clint," she said. "Now drop the bottle and put your hands out in front of you."

  Clint spat on the ground next to him and gave her a dirty look. "I ain't putting down my bottle for no woman."

  His last word still hung in the air when the shot rang out, the bottle shattered and Clint found himself holding what was left of the neck. Richard spun around to look at Dorie and saw her calmly placing her gun back in the holster.

  "Drop the rest of that bottle, Clint," Dorie said. "Or I'm taking the fingers with me next time."

  "Shit!" Clint said, still looking down at his hand in horror. "You could have shot my hand off, Dorie."

  "You know better than that. If I'd have wanted to shoot your hand off, I would have. Now drop that glass and put your hands out."

  Richard was fairly certain Clint was drunk, but apparently, he wasn't wasted. He threw the remaining piece of the bottle on the ground as if it were on fire and stuck his hands out in front of him. The other two men jumped up from their chairs and did the same. Dorie looked at the men for a moment, then down at the bayou.

  "Tell you what. I have a better idea." She motioned toward the pier at a large floating object made of Styrofoam and wood. "Head on down to the barge."

  The men looked confused, but weren't foolish enough to ask questions. When they reached the barge, Dorie motioned them all on board and instructed Richard to start cuffing them around a metal frame with nets attached to it.

  "Dorie," Clint protested. "You can't leave us here. For Christ's sake, we can't even reach our things to pee"

  "Should have thought about that before you tried to black-market alligators again. I don't have room for you three idiots and an ice chest of baby gators in my jeep. I don't suppose you have to ask which I consider to be more important. And I'm talking to Judge Harvey about garnishing your sales to pay the fines. For all three of you. If I have my way, the Gator Bait game warden will be taking a third of the cut you make off shrimping for a good long time."

  The three men began to curse and pull at the cuffs. Dorie fired her gun in the air and all noise and movement ceased. "Keep it up, gentlemen," Dorie said sweetly, "and I won't send Joe for you until tomorrow." She put her gun back in the holster and motioned to Richard to leave.

  Dorie lifted the ice chest and gently placed it in the back of her jeep, securing it tightly with rope, then jumped in the driver's seat, her face still flushed with anger. She looked over at Richard, who still stared at her, completely confused by the entire situation.

  "Are you coming or not?" she asked. Richard nodded and jumped into the jeep, glancing back at the men handcuffed to the metal frames. This option is better, he thought as he studied Dorie's face, but only barely.

  Dorie shoved the shifter in gear and tore out of the clearing. She strained to get control of herself but was pretty sure she was losing the battle. I’d better get a grip fast. The last thing I need is Dick thinking I can't handle things. Especially now.

  She glanced over and found him staring intently at her, which unnerved her a bit.

  "Are you all right?" he asked. The genuine sound of concern in his voice surprised her, and she felt some of her anger fade away, replaced with a feeling of uneasiness. What is his angle now?

  "Yeah," she finally answered. "I'm fine. I'm angry is all."

  "Don't you need a warrant to take those things from his house?" Richard asked, curiosity apparently overcoming good common sense.

  She shot him a derisive look. "You don't know much about other branches of the law, do you, Dick? As game warden, I can search and seize darn near anything I want in my jurisdiction. All I need is suspicion."

  He nodded and studied her face, making her even more uncomfortable. "You sure you're only mad? Because it seems like a lot more than anger to me. It seems almost personal."

  She blew out a breath, not wanting to get into her private views on life, but realizing that he probably wouldn't let up until he'd received a somewhat satisfying answer. "Look. I believe all infants have a right to parents, regardless of species. That gator you saw on the grill was the mother, and she tore through that screen door because her babies were in the shack. Females stay with their young for almost a year. Without a mother, they're goners."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The alligators in that ice chest are newly hatched. They're a prime target for most anything right now. At nine inches long, even birds will eat them. An alligator less than four feet long has a survival chance of less than seventeen percent."

  "So what will you do with them?" he asked and glanced back at the ice chest.

  “I don't know yet. I need to make a few phone calls. I'm hoping my friend at the zoo in New Orleans will be interested. If not, my options are limited. I don't want to send them to a farm. It goes against everything I believe as a game warden and the mother came from the preserve."

  "A farm? People farm alligators?"

  Dorie nodded, disgusted. "It's big business. The skin and meat are worth a ton of money, but no one wants the animal to become extinct, so hunting is only allowed at certain times and in certain areas. The farms fill in all the gaps."

  "Can't they be taken care of until they're bigger, then released in the game preserve?"

  "Sometimes, but it's hard to do. When I first took over down here, I tried that. The problem is, once they're used to a handout, they don't want to look for their own food. They ended up being a nuisance down at the shrimp house. We have to make a trip there at least once a month because Buster won't keep his traps in good repair, and the gators come up the chutes and into the shrimp house for a meal."

  Richard was quiet, and she glanced over at him. He appeared to be in deep thought. "I've got to deal with this," she said. "It can't really wait. I'm sorry, but we'll have to start looking for Roland later on. Maybe by this afternoon, I'll have everything squared away."

  He nodded. "That's fine. I've got a few phone calls to make and some paperwork to go over. I'll be at the motel. Give me a call when you're ready."

  Dorie blinked, surprised it had been that easy to get rid of him."You should stop by the cafe for lunch," she suggested. "Jenny knows how to run a grill. In fact, if you wouldn't mind, I could use a favor."

  "Sure. What do you need?"

  "It's almost lunch time and Joe's sure to be there. Tell him I said to pick up the guys at Clint's place but not anytime soon. And be sure and tell him to bring a handcuff key."

  "No problem."

  Dorie pulled the jeep in front of the sheriff's office and jumped out. She grabbed the ice chest from the backseat and started toward the front door. "I'll see you later," she said over her shoulder. Richard lifted one hand in acknowledgment and walked next door to the cafe.

  Richard pushed the door of the cafe open and the smell of grilled burgers and fries wafted over him, causing his stomach to rumble
. Maybe eating wasn't such a bad idea.

  He scanned the small room and spotted Joe sitting in the same spot Richard had found him on Sunday. He was still staring at Jenny, eyes glazed over. This guy had it bad. Not that Richard blamed him. Jenny was a joy to look at. The best-looking woman in town.

  Well, except Dorie.

  He shook his head and took a seat next to Joe. Where did that come from? It was probably because he'd already seen her half-naked. If he hadn't been so angry at the time, he might have been impressed. Dorie Berenger had a body on her that wouldn't quit. Unfortunately, neither did her mouth. And now that he'd seen her gun-wrangling abilities, he would have to think twice about pissing her off again.

  Joe looked over at him as he sat at the counter. "You finished at Boudreaux's already?"

  "Yeah, but we ran into some trouble. Dorie has an ice chest of baby alligators she has to find a home for. She asked me to tell you to pick up the guys, but not anytime soon, and be sure to bring a handcuff key. We cuffed them to some floating thing with nets on it."

  Joe's expression turned from bland to disgusted. He laid a couple of bucks on the counter, downed the remainder of his coffee, and walked out the door without a word.

  "Was it something I said?" Richard asked, completely confused.

  "Actually, yes," Jenny said as she turned from the grill and watched Joe pass in front of the glass storefront. "You want coffee?"

  Richard nodded and Jenny grabbed a cup and began to pour. "So what did I say that was so bad?" he asked.

  Jenny leaned on the counter, pushing back tendrils of long black hair that were escaping her ponytail. "It's not your fault. It's just that Dorie has this thing about all babies having parents. She's real adamant about every living creature being given all the opportunities to life that God meant them to have."