Night Watchman (The Tubby Dubonnet Series Book 8)

by Tony Dunbar

  “There are a couple of choices.”

  “Do they sell wine?”

  “Are you kidding? Even the gas stations around here have full bars. Gus’s is the best food in Folsom, but it’s mostly breakfast and po-boys. We’re only a hop and a skip from Covington, and we could get a table at Del Porto or Ox Lot 9.”

  * * *

  The meal at the Ox Lot, named for an earlier, more rustic period in the town’s history, was over the top. They drank chicory-infused Manhattans and Premiere Cru Bordeaux, and they ate Oyster Patties, Whole Roasted Red Snapper, and Grilled Colorado Venison, which was prepared with the sort of things that make a chef’s eyes sparkle, like rutabaga puree, roasted baby turnips, Tangipahoa Parish kale, beech mushrooms, and green pepper jus. Tubby was feeling pleasured beyond belief. Peggy was stroking his ankle with the pointy toe of her high heels. This restaurant was in an old and beautifully restored railside hotel, once the town’s center, and Tubby was leaning closer to suggest that they get a room. But before he could pounce, she got a grip on herself and said, in a tone not to be argued with, that it was time to go home.

  Almost always a gentleman, he steered them to his black muscle car, and they set off on the two-lane blacktop northward. They laughed most of the way while listening to greatest hits on the radio. He was proud of getting her home without incident, though he had some doubts whether he could sail through a sobriety test.

  Pulling into her driveway, she asked, “Do you think you can make it back to New Orleans?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he proclaimed, before realizing it was a trick question. “Honestly, I do think I can. But would you like to do this again sometime?”

  “I’d love to.”

  Peggy popped out of the car. “Let’s see whether you can get out of the driveway.”

  As a matter of fact, he did very well, only flirting with the lawn twice.

  “I should have handled that differently,” Tubby told himself as he drove down the dark lonely road. But he was actually quite satisfied with the evening. Important groundwork had been laid. She wanted to see him again. The black sky was full of amazing stars. You couldn’t see a show like this in the city.

  These country people drive like maniacs, Tubby thought. There was a pick-up truck, or maybe a large SUV, racing from behind him. Tubby braced himself, afraid that he was going to get rear-ended. The crazy driver slowed just in time. He was prevented from passing by a sharp curve in the road and a double-yellow line and settled in a few yards behind the Camaro’s rear bumper. Tubby drove erratically, almost blinded by the high-riding vehicle’s blazing headlamps.

  “What the hell!” he cursed. The blacktop straightened out and the truck could pass, but it hung onto Tubby’s tail for another painful quarter-mile before suddenly pulling around. For a few seconds it travelled beside the Camaro, long enough for Tubby to see that he was aside a black Lincoln Navigator. Then the Navigator tried to force him off the highway into a ditch. Tubby swerved to avoid contact and floored it. The Camaro was old, but it was fast. The Lincoln, however, effortlessly kept pace. It swerved to tap his front fender, knocking Tubby off-kilter and onto a nonexistent shoulder. Tin cans and rocks banged against the Camaro’s undercarriage. He was zooming straight at a row of mailboxes marking the turnoff to a side road.

  A loud crack and a flash in the night. “They’re shooting my tires!” he thought. Right before crashing into the mailboxes he yanked the wheel hard to the right. He took out at least one of the posts, doing untold damage to his car’s bodywork, and gyrated madly down the side dirt road with all four tires still in commission.

  Tubby simultaneously cut his headlights and gave it lots of gas. Sightlessly he went flying into a web of farms and fields with no illumination other than the moon and the dots of burglar floodlights standing watch over distant garages and tractor sheds. Thick woods crowded in from both sides. There were no people here.

  He stuck to the middle of the rutted roadway, hearing stones ricochet off his pan, seeing and then not seeing the headlamps of the pursuing vehicle. He picked the left fork at a crossroads, then took another left into a grassy path marked “No Trespassing. Occidental Tree Farm.” He quickly bashed into a dense stand of scraggly pine plantings, where the car came to a rest. Tubby turned the engine off.

  The pursuing vehicle was out there somewhere. Tubby could almost hear it. Far away a semi downshifted and gunned its engine on the highway. In time, these human sounds faded away. Insects and cicadas buzzed.

  Tubby gave his car a good long rest. The night’s noises, crickets and tree frogs, and what might have been a barn owl, got louder. Way off, he thought he heard a woman’s voice calling— maybe telling someone it was time to come inside for bed. He got his breathing under control and swatted a bug.

  After another fifteen minutes he turned the key and was a little surprised that the Camaro started up. It was almost buried in the shrubbery. Backing out without lights, he no longer cared about scratches on his paint. Worse things could and probably would happen. Very slowly he tried to retrace his steps, but was soon lost on the dirt roads. At least he was alone. Finally, aided by luck, he reached Highway 25 and had a decision to make. He did not believe that his assailant was an insane stranger who just liked shooting at people. He believed him to be a calculating murderer from New Orleans who intentionally wanted to kill him. If so, danger was to the city in the south, and refuge was to the horse farm in the north, back toward the protective arms of Peggy O’Flarity.

  Tubby made his turn and went a mile in the dark before an oncoming truck beeped at him until he flipped on his headlamps. Driving slowly, checking all his mirrors, he found himself again at the O’Flarity driveway. Carefully and cautiously, he turned in. The house was dark when he parked out front, but a security lamp automatically switched on when he got out of the car.

  There was a rustling noise inside when he rang the bell. A curtain by the door parted, then the door opened. She was wearing a plush white robe, and her hair was mussed up.

  “Uh,” he said and held out his hands.

  “You want a cup of coffee?” she asked. “You look like you’ve seen the loup-garou.”

  XXII

  A lot happened while Tubby was away. On that same Saturday morning while he was lingering over eggs at the diner, Cherrylynn found out that her boyfriend, Rusty, had not come home during the night. She knew he wasn’t in her bed, obviously, but neither was he on the sofa, where he sometimes crashed if he came in plastered. She thought about calling him up and speaking her mind then and there, but it dawned on her that she just didn’t care. This had been going on for too long, ever since he quit his offshore job. To say it straight, she was over him. This was a liberating revelation.

  Delivering the news to Rusty wasn’t going to be much fun though. He had never dared to get violent with her, but he sure could get loud. Cherrylynn pondered this over a cup of herbal tea and made up her mind. She stuffed all of her boyfriend’s clothes and junk into the suitcase and duffle bag he stowed in a closet, then put them outside onto the apartment’s tiny front porch. She set the deadbolt on the front door so that it could only be opened from within.

  Suddenly she was in a hurry to get out of there and avoid a confrontation, with all the yelling and door-pounding that might entail. She ran to grab her purse, a banana, and a yogurt and exited out the back. She had never given Rusty a key to that door.

  Cherrylynn jumped into her Civic and, under a canopy of pink crape myrtles, she bumped out onto the street. Where could she go to kill a few hours? One of her girlfriends was in Atlanta for the weekend, and the other one wouldn’t be up this early on a Saturday. Might as well go to the office where there was Wi-Fi and parking. On the way she could drop off Tubby’s decibel register at Raisin’s girlfriend’s house.

  * * *

  Also on Saturday, before lunch, Jason Boaz went to Confession. His church had a new priest. He was a young guy whom Jason hoped he could relate to on a contemporary and worldly basis.
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  The penitent had to bide his time in the pews until a blue-haired woman finally emerged from the confessional, looking chastened and tired. There is nothing that woman could possibly need to confess, he thought to himself, but perhaps he was wrong. As soon as the light turned green, he hurried up the aisle and into the box.

  Through the grill, he could make out the faint features of the priest.

  “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, my last confession was two years ago,” he began.

  “All right, my son, have you denied your faith?”

  “Not at all, Father.” He would never do that.

  “Have you profaned the use of God’s name in your speech?”

  “Not very often, Father.”

  “How about honoring Sundays?”

  “Guilty, Father.”

  “Sexual thoughts about someone to whom you are not married?”

  “Yes, Father. I know that’s wrong. I mean, I guess. Whatever. But what I want to confess to is that think I may be killing somebody.”

  “That’s very serious. In what sense do you mean that?”

  “In the literal sense, Father. You see, I’ve built a miniature explosive device, which I’ve given to a man, and it’s set to go off and kill him under certain circumstances.”

  “What circumstances?”

  “Loud music. Actually, any very loud noise. You see…” and here Jason prattled on for a few minutes about how the device worked.

  The priest let him talk until he wound down.

  “Why did you do this?” the clergyman finally asked.

  “It’s a long story,” Jason said, wanting to rush through this part, “but I was told to do it by some people that, frankly, I’m very afraid of.”

  “Do you mean to say that you fear for your life?”

  “Yes, I do,” Jason said earnestly.

  “Well, you’ll just have to trust that the Lord will protect you. But you know that you absolutely have to stop this thing from blowing up.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” He knew this would be the answer.

  “Good, because if you don’t intend to call it off, I may have to tell the police about this Confession.”

  Jason was astounded. “I thought this was private!” he exclaimed.

  “There’s an exception to everything,” the young priest said.

  “That certainly settles it then. I’ll get in touch with the man as soon as I walk out of the church and tell him to drown that phone in the sink.”

  “You will have to take the consequences of this act as your penance. What else do you wish to confess?”

  “I guess that’s about it,” Jason said.

  “All right. Do your penance and you will be absolved. Go forth and sin no more.”

  “For His word endures forever,” Jason mumbled as he hastened away.

  But he couldn’t reach Tubby on the phone. The lawyer was at that moment out of cell phone range, riding a horse over the hills of St. Tammany Parish.

  * * *

  Cherrylynn leafed through the small file she had created on Mr. Dubonnet’s strange interest in the old shooting. She knew that her boss’s conversation with the policeman whose father had originally investigated the matter, Detective Kronke, had failed to produce anything useful. But maybe she could use her feminine smarts to make something happen.

  There was that handwritten name on a piece of paper found in the old police records— Bert Haggarty— and there was the scribbled impression of the name Carlos Pancera. She knew that Flowers, Tubby’s private detective, was already making inquiries about Pancera. The possibility that she might cross paths with this investigator was very enticing, yet Tubby might not like her to be interfering. But what about this Haggarty? The note said “Indiana” beside his name, so she started there.

  It was amazing how many oddball possibilities Google offered for that name. Scores, maybe hundreds. She thought about going into Westlaw but, at fifty-nine dollars per individual profile, Mr. Dubonnet would have a cow. She searched for the big cities in Indiana, since personally she couldn’t name any, and then ran through the White Pages available for Indianapolis, Bloomington, Evansville, etc. That gave her nearly two hundred more Haggarties, but only one Bert, and he was in Fort Wayne. Of course Bert may have been the name of the victim, or the victim’s now-deceased parent, or Bert might live in the country and not be in the city directories, or he might not have a phone, or… the chances were poor that this one name could be her guy. And what was she supposed to say when she called him? “Sir, do you know anything about a boy that got shot in New Orleans forty years ago?”

  Why not? All it took was nosiness and nerve, and she had both. She called the number. A man’s voice said, “Hello?”

  “My name is Cherrylynn Resilio. I work for a lawyer in New Orleans. Do you possibly have any connection with a shooting that occurred in this city in or about the 1970s?”

  “What did you say?”

  She repeated her question.

  “Of course not. What are you selling?”

  “I’m not selling anything.”

  “Well, quit bothering people. I’m in the middle of changing diapers.”

  “So sorry…” was all she got out before the line went dead.

  I guess I could do that two hundred more times, she thought, but that would be no fun. What if Bert Haggarty had moved to Minnesota or Montana, which in Cherrylynn’s recollection were the states next to Indiana. The exercise was pointless.

  Back to Carlos Pancera? She consulted Google again and had much better luck. He had been on the Board of the Latin American Cultural Society and had attended a gala given by Caribbean Freedom touted as a “Cuba Libre and Lime Night,” music by Bodega Brass, tickets $250. He was an elder of the St. Agapius Catholic Church. He had received an honorary degree from Loyola University in recognition of his contributions to cultural understanding, presented by the Dean of the College of Social Sciences.

  Now that was an interesting lead. Cherrylynn was taking a course on “The Politics of Rock and Roll” in that very department and her teacher, a young assistant professor named Mister Prima, possibly had a crush on her. They addressed him as “Mister,” but his first name was Oliver. He gave all the students his home number.

  “Oh, hi, Cherrylynn.” Her name must have popped up on his phone since she had called him once before about a reading assignment.

  He said he didn’t mind talking to her on a Saturday, and, yes, he knew who Pancera was. There was a lot to the man’s story, more than could be covered on the phone, and anyway Oliver was busy at the moment.

  But, as it turned out, he would be free later. He was in fact in his office all day, catching up on some research. He could see her in the evening, on campus. She was so satisfied with this outcome that she hummed a tune to herself while checking her hair in a pocket mirror.

  She was on a roll. She figured that Officer Sandoval would not be working today, since the Police Records office was undoubtedly closed, but she did have his cell number.

  “Yeah?” His voice was as brusque as she remembered it. Just like a cop should sound.

  “Hi, Officer. This is Tubby Dubonnet’s assistant, Cherrylynn?”

  “Yeah?” he said again, but his voice seemed to soften a little.

  “I did appreciate your finding that old file for us, but there really wasn’t much in it.”

  “You got all there was.”

  “I don’t suppose there is anyplace else you could look?”

  “Not a chance. I don’t know much about how records were kept back then. I was just a young man myself.”

  “One of the names in the report was Carlos Pancera. Is it possible that there would be some material about him?”

  “I don’t know the man.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t suggesting that you did. I just wondered if you might look.”

  “You think I’m a librarian for a living? I’m a cop, and right now I’m frying catfish for a bun
ch of people.”

  “I know you’re a policeman, and I know you are stuck in a job below your skills, but if there is any way you can help me I’d be really grateful.”

  “Maybe,” he said grudgingly. “I’ll look on Monday.”

  “Thank you so much. Shall I spell the name?”

  “No. I got it. Bye.” He hung up.

  XXIII

  Professor Prima’s office was on the second floor of the Academic Building, and it wasn’t big. He was sitting behind a very neat desk reading a small red book, which for no reason Cherrylynn thought might be poetry, while listening to soft Baroque music on the radio. His little window looked out upon a towering palm tree.

  “Ah, Miss Resilio,” he began. The professor was thin and metro in all ways. He was meticulously clean-shaven, and his black hair was neatly combed above his ears. He had on a loose-fitting blue Northface V-neck sweater, which revealed the hint of a silver necklace on his chest.

  “Hi, Oliver,” she said, sitting down. “Thanks for taking time to see me.”

  “I keep office hours almost every day, though I think you are the first student I’ve ever seen on a Saturday. Did you say you were interested in Señor Pancera?”

  “Yes. I saw that he got an honorary degree here last year, and I thought maybe you could tell me something about him.”

  “Why the interest?” The professor closed his red book and swiveled around in his chair to put it in the bookcase built below the window. Cherrylynn thought he had surprisingly broad shoulders for a thin man and a college teacher at that. Maybe he had a personal trainer.

  “His name came up in a case my boss, Tubby Dubonnet, is working on. He’s a lawyer downtown.”

  “Don’t guess I know him.” Mister Prima spun back around. He gave her a bright smile. “Does the case have anything to do with Cuba?”

  “Not that I know of. I think it is a homicide that happened a long time ago. Carlos Pancera probably had nothing to do with it. His name was just written on the inside of a file.”

  “Really.” The professor inspected his fingers. “Pancera is a prominent Cuban refugee who has been very generous to the Catholic church and to this university. In fact, he is a big contributor to our department.”