Voodoo River

by Robert Crais

  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 René 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 goldarned 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 somethin’ he could sell to the National Enquirer or one of those magazines. Only he found that thi
ng 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.”

  Sandi Bergeron crossed her arms over her middle. She said, “Am I going to get in trouble?”

  I looked at her. “Maybe, but not because of us. The cops are going to investigate Jimmie’s murder, and they may find you the way we found you, but it won’t be because we told them. We won’t.”

  She nodded and looked at her coffee. “I know that what I did was wrong. I’m really sorry.”

  “Sure.”

  “I think I’m going home. I don’t feel well.”

  We walked to the elevator with her. She pressed the button for up. We pressed for down. The up elevator came first, but she didn’t get on right away. She stopped in the door and said, “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not so. Jimmie Ray didn’t use me. He loved me. We were goin’ to get married.” She stood straight when she said it, as if she were challenging me to disagree.

  I said, “Sandi?”

  She stared at me.

  “I got to know Jimmie Ray a little bit before he died. You were all he talked about. He did want to marry you. He told me so.”

  She blinked hard twice and her eyes filled. She stepped backward into the elevator, the doors closed, and she was gone.

  We stood in silence for a moment, and then Pike said, “Is that true?”

  The down elevator came. We got aboard, and I did not answer.

  25

  We drove back to the Riverfront Ho-Jo, checked out, then called Lucy at her office and told her that we were on our way to Ville Platte. She said, “Do you know what you’re going to do when you get there?”

  “Sit on the Bayou Lounge and establish a pattern for Rossier and his people. It could take a while.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Yes. I guess it could.”

  “I’m going to miss you.”

  “Me, too, Studly. Try not to get shot.”

  At a little bit before two o’clock that afternoon, Pike and I took the same room I had used before in Ville Platte and unloaded our things. I changed into waterproof Cabela boots and a black T-shirt. Pike stayed in the same clothes, but took a Colt .357 Python out of his duffel and put it under his sweatshirt. I put my Dan Wesson into a clip-on holster, put the clip-on on the inside of my waistband, and left the T-shirt out to cover it. My T-shirt didn’t hide the Dan Wesson as well as Pike’s sweatshirt hid the Python. People would probably think I was wearing a colostomy bag.

  We went down to the Pig Stand for a couple of catfish poboys, then walked across to the little superette, bought a cheap Styrofoam ice chest, ice, and enough Diet Coke, Charmin, and sandwich stuff to last a couple of days. Pike went for the cheese and peanut butter, I went for the pressed chicken and Spam. Pike shook his head when he saw the Spam. He was shaking his head about the Spam even before he was a vegetarian. The woman at the register thought we must be going fishing, and we said sure. She said the sac-à-lait were biting real good. She said her husband went out just last night and got a couple dozen on the bayou just over there by Chataignier. We thanked her and said we’d give it a try. Walking out, Pike said, “What’s a sac-à-lait?”

  “I think it’s a kind of white perch. Like a crappie.”

  Pike grunted.

  I said, “They eat gar balls down here, too.”

  Pike gave me a look like, yeah, sure.

  Lucy had provided us with a current address for LeRoy Bennett. We got the Bayou Lounge address from Information. Pike and I decided to split our time between LeRoy’s and the crawfish farm during the day, then watch the lounge together at night. We went to LeRoy’s first.

  LeRoy Bennett lived on a narrow residential street on the west side of Ville Platte in a tiny clapboard house that was dusty and dirty and overgrown by weeds. All of the houses on the street were small, but most were well kept with neatly trimmed lawns and edged walkways. The St. Augustine at LeRoy’s place had to be a good eight inches tall, the crabgrass and weed sprouts even taller. Twin tire ruts were cut into the yard, with great black dead spots between them where LeRoy had parked the Polara and the engine had dripped. There was a drive, but why use the drive when you can park on the grass? I was hoping that LeRoy and his car would be there so that Pike could see them, but they weren’t. Of course, maybe they were hidden behind all the foliage. I said, “That’s LeRoy’s place.”

  Pike shook his head. “No self-esteem.”

  I stopped at the mouth of LeRoy’s drive. “He drives a gold Polara with a lot of sun damage.” I looked up and down the street. Cars were parked along both sides of the street. “Best place for a stake would be on the next block, under that oak.”

  Pike looked and approved. Next door to LeRoy’s, a man in his mid-sixties was working Bond-o into the side of a beige ’64 Chevelle. His home and his lawn were immaculate, but the weeds from LeRoy’s crappy yard hung over onto his property like shaggy hair curling over a collar. He looked at us, taking a break from the Bond-o, and we drove away.

  We went to Milt Rossier’s crawfish farm. I cruised the front gate to let Pike have a look, then parked the car on a little gravel road maybe a quarter mile away. We worked our way through the trees to the edge of Milt’s property and crouched by a fallen pine. We could see pretty much everything, from the ponds and the processing buildings on our left up to Milt’s home on the little knoll to our right. When we were in position and looking, I said, “Well, well. The gang’s all here.”

  LeRoy Bennett was talking to a heavyset woman by the processing buildings and Milt Rossier was driving a little golf cart between the ponds with one of his skinny foremen. LeRoy’s Polara was parked up by the house, and René LaBorde was at the house, too, sitting in a white lawn chair, either sleeping or staring at his crotch. Pike squinted when he saw René. “This is some operation.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  We watched as people waded into ponds, scattering what was probably crawfish food and pulling weeds and keeping the bottoms stirred. In other ponds, people used trucks with winches to seine o
ut slick gray catfish or dark red crawfish, emptying filled nets into little trailers with open tops. Some of the people working the ponds were African-American women, but most of them were short, blocky Hispanics. A couple of older, skinny white guys in wide-brimmed straw hats moved between the pools, telling everybody else what to do. Upper management. I said, “Seen enough?”

  Pike nodded.

  We made our way back to the Thunderbird, then drove to the Bayou Lounge, just west of Ville Platte off the State 10 near Reddell. It was a small, white building set back from the road in a little clearing carved into the woods. An abandoned bait shop sat nearby, its windows boarded over, painted ground to roof with ICE and WORMS in ten-foot letters. Both buildings were surrounded by crushed oyster shells and little patches of grass and weeds, and felt sort of like LeRoy Bennett’s place. Crummy. A rusted steel pole jutted up from the side of the bar with a sign that said SCHLITZ. The Bayou Lounge didn’t look like a hotbed of criminal activity, but you never know.

  We eased off the road past the bait shop, stopped, and looked back. It was thirty-six minutes after three. A blue Ford Ranger was parked on the side of the lounge and a Lone Star truck was parked out front. If there was a bayou around, you couldn’t see it from the road. A guy in a blue-and-white Lone Star uniform pushed a hand truck out the door, followed by a woman with a clipboard. The woman with the clipboard had a lot of bright red Clairol hair piled atop her head and red nails and red lipstick. Thin in the shoulders and wide in the butt, with white denim pants that were ten years and fifteen pounds too tight. She talked with the guy as he loaded the dolly onto his truck, then watched him drive away before she went back inside. Pike said, “I make it for her Ford. You want to check it, or me?”

  “Me.”

  We pulled around to the front of the lounge and parked by the Schlitz sign, and I went in. Six cases of Lone Star were stacked at the end of the bar, and the woman was frowning at a thin Hispanic guy as he lugged them one at a time behind the counter. Eight or nine small square tables were scattered around the place, all with upended chairs on top of them, and a Rockola jukebox was against the back wall beside a door that said RESTROOMS. An industrial wash bucket was by the jukebox, and the back door was open for the breeze. The woman looked over at me and said, “Sorry, sugah. We closed.”