Blood on the Bayou

by DJ Donaldson

  This rather odd turn to the conversation was brought to a halt by the approach of the butler, Martin. “Dr. Broussard, you have a telephone call. Dr. Franklyn, Mrs. Duhon said that breakfast will be served in five minutes.”

  Broussard took the call on the phone in Claude’s study, an opulent room with a huge fireplace whose mantel was supported by life-size figures of heavily muscled men carved from gleaming mahogany.

  “This is Broussard.”

  “You learning anything over there?” the voice of Phil Gatlin asked.

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. We’ll be takin’ a look at the body of the victim this mornin’, if it doesn’t rain… and it looks like it might.”

  “Yeah, here, too. I hope while you were asleep in a nice soft bed, you were thinking of me up in that attic.”

  “Couldn’t get it out of my mind. Anything turn up?”

  “Not in the attic, but I did find something outside, hanging on that scaffolding.” He paused.

  “Make me ask, is that it, Phillip?”

  “Just wanted you to appreciate what I’m about to say.”

  “Better be good after this buildup.”

  “Somebody other than the guys working on the building lost a bracelet, which caught on the scaffolding. The inscription gave the owner’s initials as T.L.”

  “I dunno, Phillip. It wouldn’t necessarily have to belong to the killer. Could have been anybody climbin’ around there.”

  “Yeah, and maybe the trees won’t be full of cheap beads after Mardi Gras this year. It was dropped by the killer, all right.”

  “Well, I’m glad to see you’re earnin’ your keep. I wonder if you’d do me a favor?”

  “If I can.”

  They spoke for several minutes more, until Martin came in and announced breakfast.

  *

  Homer Benoit had been buried in Evangeline Gardens, the cemetery halfway between the interstate and the town and which they had all passed several times during their stay. As usual, Broussard and Bubba rode together in the T-Bird, while Kit brought up the rear in her Nissan.

  When they arrived at the cemetery, Sheriff Guidry was waiting at the entrance in a wrecker. Motioning for them to follow, he proceeded along a belt of black asphalt that wound between more moss-laden live oaks and a small city of above-ground crypts that, except for their simpler lines, resembled those in the Saint Louis graveyards in New Orleans.

  Deep into the property, the crypts gave way to a grassy expanse that bore only headstones. The wrecker stopped behind a parked black Cadillac and Guidry got out and signaled for them to do the same. At their approach, a stringy old man with a complexion the color of Olivia’s biscuit dough got out of the Cadillac and joined Guidry.

  “Folks, this is Buster Doucet,” Guidry said. “He was the one put Homer under. Buster, this is Dr. Broussard, Dr. Franklyn, and…”

  Never having met Bubba, Guidry paused. “Bubba Oustellette,” Bubba said, touching the bill of his cap.

  Apparently, Guidry never wore a sheriff’s uniform. He was dressed in black, much as the day before, except that today his T-shirt bore a picture of a cartoon burglar wearing a black eye mask and carrying a bag of coins. Around the picture was a red circle with a line through it. He still hadn’t shaved.

  By contrast, no Fortune 500 CEO was ever more elegantly attired than Buster Doucet—blue suit, pale blue shirt, crisp tie with a perfect knot, and black shoes so well polished they were obviously about to see their first grass of the day. All this finery on such an unhealthy-looking old man reminded Kit of the lacquer and brass on a cheap casket.

  “What are we up against?” Broussard asked.

  “Like most things, there’s good news and bad,” Doucet replied over his clasped hands. His voice was raspy, as Kit’s father’s had been for a month after his thyroid operation. “The good news is that it’s not a Gibson Coronado, thirty-six hundred pounds of steel-reinforced concrete with an epoxy seal that would require complete excavation of the vault, removal with a crane, and several hours labor with a jackhammer and a torch to get inside.”

  Doucet paused and cleared his sinuses, making a sound that would have caused the others to change seats had they been in a restaurant. “The bad news is that we used a nonsealable grave liner; an unreinforced concrete box with holes in it and a two-piece lid that simply sits on the lip of the box. I tried to explain to the family that the most appropriate casket to go with a grave liner in this part of the country is a Tyler Uniseal.” Doucet shook his head in admiration. “Now there’s a first-class casket. I once visited the factory in Illinois, where they have a pond with caskets that have been floating since 1972. Yessir, that’s—”

  “You’re sayin’ we’re gonna find water in the grave and the casket?” Broussard asked.

  “The liner already had water in it when we lowered him. And I could hear it bubbling into the casket even while the handling straps were being removed.” Doucet held up a cautioning finger. “But the good news is that it’s summer. We always use more embalming fluid in the summer. You understand… the heat. Not good for business if the corpse turns before the funeral.”

  “When can we get started?” Broussard asked.

  Doucet cleared his sinuses again and looked down the narrow road in the direction of the entrance. “I told those boys to be here at nine sharp. That’s the one thing about this business that’s going to put me in one of my own holes.”

  “I got a coupla shovels in the wrecker,” the sheriff said. “And I don’t mind usin’ one of ’em.”

  “Ah always been pretty good with a shovel,” Bubba said.

  “There won’t actually be all that much digging to do,” Doucet said. “The lid of the liner is only down a couple of feet.”

  Guidry got the shovels from the wrecker and handed one to Bubba. They all followed Doucet to Benoit’s headstone.

  “Here he is,” Doucet said. “We cut the sod in one piece, so you should be able just to roll it up and set it aside.”

  Guidry and Bubba got down on their knees at the end of the grave opposite the headstone and worked their fingers under the sod to get it started. Then they rolled it up like a rug. Even with this little bit of work, both had begun to sweat through their shirts.

  “I wish we had a piece of canvas or something to keep the dirt out of the grass,” Doucet said. “But I guess we’ll have to make do. Try, though, to keep the dirt in as small a pile as possible, will you?”

  As Bubba and the sheriff worked with their shovels, Kit turned to say something to Broussard but found he was no longer beside her. Surveying the grounds, she saw him standing beside one of the crypts that bordered the area of headstones. Curious as to what he was doing, she went to find out.

  “Anything over here I should—” The name on the gable of the crypt stopped her in midsentence. BROUSSARD. His parents.

  “Nice view of the grass from here, don’t you think?” Broussard said, looking back over Kit’s shoulder. “My father was a perfectionist when it came to the lawn. Mother would always say he paid more attention to the grass than he did to her. He’d look at me, wink, and say, ‘Well, next time I get out the hose I’d be glad to water you down, too.’ Then she’d pinch his ear until he howled.

  “… Mothers,” he said, running his hand along the crypt’s polished marble surface. “Did you know that the placenta produces a hormone that gives the fetus first claim on the mother’s blood glucose? Kind of sets the tone for the rest of the relationship, doesn’t it? Show me the mother of a Nobel winner and I’ll show you a woman that wasn’t surprised at the news.”

  His eyes took on that distant look that usually meant he was about to stroke his nose. “First to see the good and last to see the bad,” he said to himself. Then as quickly as he had turned inward, he was himself again. “And I’ll bet you haven’t talked to yours in weeks,” he said, shaking his finger at her.

  “Conservative estimate,” she replied, feeling appropriately guilty.

  “We’d better
get back,” he said.

  When they rejoined the others, they saw that the digging had exposed the paired metal handling rings on each section of the grave’s cement lid. A few minutes later, the sheriff brushed away the remaining dirt with the flat of his hand and pointed at the slab farthest from the headstone. “Let’s do this one first.”

  Bubba nodded and both men took up a position with their backs to the headstone. Guidry looked at Doucet. “How much this thing weigh?”

  “Forty… fifty pounds maybe.”

  “When we get her up, we’ll just take her a coupla steps straight ahead and drop her. Ready?”

  Kit didn’t know whether she wanted to look or not as the lid came off. Finally, she did, and what she saw looked like a shipwreck: pieces of wood and twisted loops of fabric floating on a sea of muddy water. Nothing she saw looked like a corpse, though. Apparently, they were going to have to fish for it.

  Doucet looked at the remains of the coffin and clucked his tongue. “Never pays to buy bottom of the line.”

  When Bubba and Guidry lifted off the second section of the lid, they found two empty beer cans bobbing amid the other flotsam.

  “Disgraceful,” Doucet clucked. “That’s what I’m up against with my help. I should have watched while the lid was put on.”

  “Might not be from your men,” Broussard said.

  “Who then?” Doucet asked.

  “Maybe whoever it was that stole the body.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “How do you know the body’s not under the water?” Kit asked.

  “We’ll have to look, but I’m sure it’s not,” Broussard said. He looked at Doucet. “How deep’s this thing?”

  “Twenty-eight inches.”

  “I’ll check,” Bubba said, grabbing a shovel. He put the blade of the shovel into the muddy water and slid it across the bottom of the liner. Then he raised everything it had caught: wood and fabric but no corpse. He repeated the procedure twice from different spots but still did not find Homer Benoit.

  “How did you know he wasn’t there?” Kit asked again.

  “I suspected it as soon as we walked up to the grave,” Broussard said. He pointed at the grass around them. “See how the grass is all bent one way by the ground keeper’s lawn mower? Over Benoit’s grave, it was bent in the opposite direction because someone had removed the sod and put it back wrong. Also, off to the side here, the grass is flattened. That’s where they put the dirt on a piece of canvas.”

  “Why would someone steal a body?” Doucet asked. Even Kit knew the answer to that one.

  “Not a body,” Broussard said. “It was Homer Benoit they wanted. So we couldn’t tie this murder to the ones in New Orleans. Actually, not a good move. With all the water in the grave, there was a chance I couldn’t have learned much of anything from the body. This convinces me that we’re on the right track. Sheriff, you might want to send those beer cans to the lab for prints.”

  Broussard turned at the sound of an approaching car: a BMW carrying Claude Duhon. He parked behind Kit’s car and joined them at the grave site.

  “You folks learned anything?” he asked. His eyes strayed to the grave and his face puckered. “That’s pretty nasty-looking.”

  “Somebody beat us to it,” Broussard said. “The body’s gone, probably taken last night.”

  “Bizarre.”

  “What brings you out here?” Broussard asked.

  “George Burke called a few minutes ago and said he needs to see you about something important. Wouldn’t tell me what. Since I was coming this way, thought I’d stop and deliver the message. And now that I’ve done that, I’m going to leave you all to sort this out. I’ll be here soon enough as one of Buster’s clients. No point hanging around now. Olivia’s expecting you for lunch at noon. And we’ll both want to know all about this. So be prepared. Sheriff, good to see you. You, too, Buster.”

  As Claude walked to his car, Broussard turned to Guidry. “Sheriff, I’m goin’ into town to see what Burke wants.” Then to Doucet, he said, “What do we need to do here?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of things. I’ll have my people put it all back like it was. No sense letting the relatives of any of our other clients see this.”

  Broussard looked at Kit. “You comin’ to Burke’s?”

  “I have to do something first. But it’ll only take a few minutes. I’ll meet you there.”

  Back in town, Kit pulled into a parking place on the square and got two dollars in change from the drugstore. She took the coins to a pay phone outside and called Broussard’s office.

  “Hi, Margaret? This is Kit… I’m fine…. Not sure. Things are still up in the air. Well, I’m sure you’re handling it all just right. Could you transfer me to serology? Thanks.”

  While Kit waited, she noticed a cute skirt and blouse combination in the little dress shop beside the drugstore. And it looked like an eight. Maybe when all this was over she’d… “Hello, serology? This is Kit Franklyn. I sent you a bloodstain yesterday for typing. Has that been done yet… No, I’d rather hold if it won’t take too long. See, I’m at a pay phone…. Thanks.”

  Serology had no music for those waiting. In fact, the phone sounded dead, no voices in the background, no chairs scraping the floor. Before witnessing the Benoit exhumation, she would have likened it to being buried in a coffin, but now she knew that even there you could hear dripping water and perhaps subterranean animals swimming. She shuddered, then quickened to a voice: “Your three minutes are up. Please deposit an additional dollar.”

  Kit fed the coin slot her last four quarters and resumed her wait. A young woman appeared in the dress-shop window carrying a folded screen that she put in front of the mannequin wearing the skirt and blouse Kit had admired. A few seconds later, the blouse lay draped on top of the screen. The skirt quickly followed. Kit’s pulse quickened. All her shopping instincts said the same thing: price reduction.

  Then from the phone: “Dr. Franklyn?”

  “Yes?”

  “The sample you sent tested out as type A.”

  Kit’s head whirled. “Type A? Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure.” The voice in serology had taken on a slight edge at her suggestion that it might have been mistaken.

  “Thank you.” Moving in slow motion, Kit replaced the receiver. Type A. Eddy Guidry’s blood was type A. But the killer’s blood was type B. She wandered back to her car, all thoughts of the skirt and blouse gone. There had to be a mistake somewhere. Either the original typing was wrong or this one was. It all meshed too well: Guidry in New Orleans that night, somebody with him when he left town, Eddy being “sick.” It all fit.

  *

  There were two people in Burke’s waiting room—a girl about sixteen and a man in a business suit. From her nervous manner and the way she tried to hide behind her magazine, Broussard thought it likely the girl was there for birth-control counseling, probably without her parents’ knowledge. His suit and the large sample case at the man’s feet pegged him as a drug rep. Patsy Burke appeared behind the pass-through counter at the end of the room.

  “Andy, George had to go out on an emergency but he left somethin’ for you in case you showed up. Come on back.”

  Patsy led him to Burke’s office and pointed at the old rolltop. “He found somethin’ in one of those smelly old books he’s been readin’ that he thought you ought to know about. Didn’t say what it was and I haven’t had time to read it myself. But there it is.” She then went to answer the telephone.

  Lying open on the desk was one of the old ledgers that Burke had shown him when they first got into town. Broussard made himself comfortable in Burke’s chair, slipped a lemon ball into his cheek, and picked up the ledger, whose entries were printed in a thin, wavering scrawl.

  The date at the top of the page indicated that this particular passage had been written fourteen years ago.

  A sad day. Two deaths, both of unusual circumstances. After having nearly drowned a year ago in B
uck’s Bayou, the oldest Arceneaux boy drowned today in a truckload of soybeans, confirming my belief that few occupations are more dangerous than farming. Then Bob Lague was found in the swamp near his home, beaten to death and with his throat ripped open. From the look of it, he had been hunting frogs by searchlight when he was attacked. The sheriff is looking for a vagrant with a dog, despite my belief that the throat wound was not made by canine teeth.

  Frogs by searchlight. The phrase leapt off the page at him. By searchlight… going boo-lie, as the locals called it. Never go boo-lie during a full moon. The memory associated with this warning came back to him. When he’d been ten years old, another man had been found in one of the local swamps, murdered in the same fashion as Bob Lague. His grandmother had told him that the man had been killed by a loup-garou, a werewolf that had been roaming the area for a hundred years.

  As a child, he had believed her. But as he grew up, he realized that much of what the old ones said was simply not the truth, and he had ceased to believe in the loup-garou. But now what was he to think? Nearly fifty years had passed since that murder in his childhood. Fourteen years ago, there had been another. And just a few weeks earlier, there had in all probability, been a third. Three similar cases, the first and last separated by nearly half a century. Of course, he hadn’t personally seen any of those bodies, so it could be that they weren’t related at all. But if they were, there was something in this town that had been here since he was a boy and possibly long before. Which was ridiculous… unless…

  He stood up, eager to head back to the cemetery. On the way out, he was surprised to find Henry Guidry sitting in the waiting room.

  “Henry! How you doin’, you old scoundrel?” Through Guidry’s naturally morose expression, Broussard saw a flicker of pain. But mostly he saw anger.

  “I’m not doing well at all. Hurt my back this morning pulling a bale of hay off a tailgate.” He raised himself gingerly in his seat and shifted positions. “Andrew, I have to tell you that I’m disappointed in the way you’re handling things over here… sending Franklyn to talk to Eddy behind my back. If there was anything you wanted to know, you should have come to me. I would have thought that after all the years we’ve known each other, that would have been the obvious thing to do.”