Bayou Corruption

by Robin Caroll

  He chuckled. “Not hardly. I’m a reporter.”

  New Orleans. Reporter.

  Why hadn’t she trusted her gut instinct about not liking him? Why hadn’t she made the time to Google him as she’d intended? Her breath froze in her lungs. “What paper?”

  Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.

  “The Times-Picayune.”

  She felt as if swamp water flooded her heart.

  “Alyssa?”

  She studied him. The eyes that had so mesmerized her were what had made her sense she’d seen him before. Could he be? No, surely not.

  “How long have you worked for the Times-Picayune?”

  “About five years, but was promoted to investigative reporter a year or so ago.”

  The memories rushed over her as if it were yesterday. Her first time applying at the paper where her mother had worked had been when she was straight out of college, five years ago. They’d gone with a man then. A year ago, she’d read where they had an opening for an investigative reporter and had applied. The editor had told her they ended up promoting from within their own staff. She’d seen the man who’d stolen her position when she’d gone back to follow up on another position.

  Jackson Devereaux.

  How could she have ever forgotten his name? And those eyes? The same ones that pierced her now.

  “Alyssa?”

  The ghost of her mother mocked her, causing every nerve in her body to zing. “I don’t know what you expect from me, Mr. Devereaux.” She shoved to her feet on shaky legs, scraping the chair against the chipped tile floor. “I can’t help you.” She took a step backward. “I won’t.”

  Her feet couldn’t move fast enough as she ran out of the sandwich shop and across the street to the hospital. He called her name, but she refused to look back. Tears already blurred her vision, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of crying in front of him. Again. He might not have recognized her as the girl who’d broken down in tears at the death of her dream last year, but her heartache would all come out if she had to speak to him again.

  She didn’t stop her mad dash until she’d reached Grandmere’s door. Alyssa paused in the hall, fighting to get her anguish and breathing under control. Why hadn’t she recognized him immediately? She’d vowed that day to prove herself a better reporter than the lackey they’d promoted. Hadn’t she committed his face to memory?

  The door to Grandmere’s room whooshed open, and CoCo skidded to a stop. “Al? What are you doing standing out here?” She laid a hand on Alyssa’s arm. “Why, you’re pale as a magnolia in full bloom. What’s wrong?”

  She couldn’t confide in her sister about the mortification she’d endured. CoCo had never understood how much Alyssa had wanted that job—how she’d craved success so badly she could taste it rinsing out the tang of the bayou in her mouth. The job symbolic of her mother’s legacy at the paper. When she’d been turned down, she suffered her worst humiliation. Even more so than the kids in school who’d taunted and tormented her because of her grandmother’s position in the voodoo community.

  “N-Nothing. I just got a little winded, I guess.”

  “The elevator still bother you?” CoCo’s face filled with sympathy.

  The last thing Alyssa wanted. CoCo couldn’t realize Alyssa didn’t have claustrophobia. No, Alyssa’s fear derived from the small elevator car’s similarity to a compact automobile. Being in the confined space made her hear the crunching metal, smell the smoke and fire.

  “I’m fine.” She fumbled for the lip balm to soothe her personal reminder of the crash. “How’s Grandmere?”

  “Eating lunch. I was about to run to the cafeteria and grab a bite. Want to come with me?”

  Food was the last thing she wanted, but she didn’t need CoCo getting suspicious. That would only lead to more questions—ones Alyssa refused to entertain. “I’m not really hungry, but I could use a cold drink.”

  Her sister broke out into a smile that lit up her tanned face, laced her hand through Alyssa’s arm and led her down the hall. “We have so much to catch up on. How’d it go at the police station this morning?”

  “They called in the FBI. They don’t want me to leave until the case is wrapped up.” Alyssa said the words without emotion, but her heart hammered. She certainly wasn’t going to tell her sister about the strange sensations of being watched she’d been experiencing.

  “You’ll get to stay longer?”

  “I suppose. I hope it’s not an imposition.”

  “Don’t be silly. This is your home, too.” CoCo opened the door to the cafeteria.

  No, the bayou wasn’t—it never had been. She gritted her teeth. CoCo didn’t seem to notice her angst, and charged ahead to the food line.

  Alyssa had no choice but to follow.

  Women were nothing if not confounding.

  Jackson stared at his notes for the umpteenth time. What had he missed? He and Bubba had written out details of everything pertaining to the found money and the ensuing investigation. There had to be something here.

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and chewed on the pencil as he lifted his gaze. Outside, the wind kicked up a notch, tossing leaves in the air. Bubba’s house seemed too quiet with him in the hospital. The silence distracted him. Speaking of distractions…Jackson couldn’t get Alyssa LeBlanc out of his mind.

  Replaying the scenario in the sandwich shop didn’t give him any answers. She’d appeared interested, excited. Then something had changed. Her eyes had hardened, and she’d run out on him. He couldn’t remember a time when a lady had actually fled from his attentions. Not that he’d revealed his interest to Alyssa. At least, he didn’t think his attraction had been obvious.

  What had he said to cause her to do such an about-face? He’d confessed to being a reporter, but that shouldn’t have made a difference. They were in the same profession—she should understand his honesty in digging out the truth.

  Jackson dropped the pencil to the coffee table. He stood and ran a hand over his hair. Had he ever written an unflattering story about her, or someone she cared about? Most of his articles weren’t shining endorsements of the subject matter. He had a reputation for exposing people and scams, which had been the main reason Bubba’d called him to Lagniappe.

  Buzzzzz!

  His pocket vibrated. Jackson jerked out the BlackBerry. Ah, he had a message from his friend in the FBI.

  SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAVE SOMETHING INTERESTING GOING ON IN PODUNK, U.S.A. OUR FIELD OFFICE SENT TWO AGENTS THERE TO INVESTIGATE ASSAULT ON A POLICE OFFICER. DO THESE RELATE? CARE TO SHARE?

  NO BLUE PONTIACS HAVE BEEN REPORTED STOLEN IN VERMILION PARISH IN THE LAST MONTH.

  ALYSSA LEBLANC. LOTS OF BACKGROUND. SEND FAX NUMBER AND I’LL SEND DETAILS.

  WHAT ARE YOU MIXED UP IN THERE?

  Jackson reread the message. So the car wasn’t stolen. At least, not in this parish. Did the attackers use one of their own vehicles? Of course, they could’ve stolen the car from another parish. He’d have to check on that.

  He stared at the last part of the message. The journalist in his gut urged him to send the fax number and get the details. Maybe the information could shed some light on Alyssa’s bizarre behavior. But the Holy Spirit convinced him that sending the fax number wasn’t the Christian thing to do. Getting information in this manner would be prying into someone’s personal life. Yet, wasn’t that what he did for a living—dig into people’s private lives until he exposed the truth?

  Had God called him to be a reporter, or had revealing people’s darkest secrets always been in his nature? All this time, had he responded to the sins of the flesh, rather than walking in obedience to what his Lord and Savior had asked of him? Jackson dropped to his knees in the middle of Bubba’s living room and lowered his head.

  “Father God, I ask for wisdom in what You’ve called me to do. I’m not sure if I’m just nosy by nature. Have I been putting on airs and acting self-righteous when I have no right to?” His vo
ice cracked as emotion clogged his throat. “Lord, I pray that right now, right this second, You cleanse my heart of any iniquities and impure motives. Let my life honor You. In Jesus’s precious name, Amen.”

  He had no idea how long he sat on the worn carpet, but he refused to move from his prone position until peace enveloped him. When serenity finally came, he felt the answer he sought. He typed a reply to his friend’s e-mail.

  THANKS FOR THE INFO. MIGHT NEED YOU TO SPEAK UP FOR ME WITH THOSE TWO AGENTS.

  DESTROY THE INFO ON ALYSSA LEBLANC. DETAILS NOT NEEDED.

  He jammed the BlackBerry into his back pocket and headed to the door. Time to go to work. He should get his chance to get into the office tonight. Getting closer to the truth fed his excitement as he drove to the port.

  Night enveloped the docks. Water spray layered the wooden and concrete ports in slick mist. The crew of thirteen men loaded flats into cargos. Their off-color jokes and rowdy laughter crowded the air. Frank Thibodeaux, the man Bubba had set him up with to help him get temporary work, motioned him toward the office. Apparently, he’d passed Burl’s “tryout” and would be put on payroll.

  He slumped in the chair as he filled out the forms. His social security number would expose him. Jackson passed the forms across the desk to Frank. If he calculated correctly, the filing of his social security for taxes would come back within two weeks, and the jig would be up. He’d have to get the information he needed before then.

  Frank slipped all the forms into a plain folder. “We’ll leave it here for Brenda to enter when she comes in the morning.” He stood and pulled on work gloves. “We’d better head on out before Burl wonders what’s keeping us.”

  Jackson moved toward the hall. “Gotta use the facilities first.”

  Frank tossed him a concerned look, one that said he knew what Jackson was going to do, and opened the office door. “Hurry it up. I’ll let Burl know we got you all squared away.”

  Once the man had trekked down the gangplank, Jackson yanked open the middle drawer of the metal filing cabinet. While he’d filled out his paperwork, he’d read the drawers’ notations. The middle drawer held all the bills of lading.

  He flipped through the folders, silently thanking the woman he’d never seen who did the office work. She filed the bills in numerical order. He pulled the three numbers matching the bags of money, and slipped them into the copy machine. Jackson glanced out the window. No one approached the gangplank. He let out a short sigh of relief.

  Grabbing the copies and shoving them into his jacket pocket, Jackson quickly refiled the bills and closed the drawer. Movement out the window caught his attention.

  Burl.

  Coming up the gangplank.

  Jackson glanced down. The copies couldn’t be hidden well enough in his jacket to stand up to his boss’s scrutiny.

  He shoved the copies under the edge of a drawer and ran to the bathroom, barely having time to shut the door before he heard the squeak of the office’s entrance opening. He flushed the toilet, turned on the faucet and ran his hands under the cold water.

  “You sick?” Burl asked when Jackson stepped into the hall.

  “I’m fine.”

  Burl grunted. “Then get to work. Lots of shipments coming in tonight.”

  “Yes, sir.” He’d have to wait until later to retrieve the copied bills of lading.

  SIX

  Could life, for once, be so easy?

  The morning sun teased around the edges of the kitchen curtains. Alyssa shook her head and dialed the number listed in the white pages. In Shreveport, politicians didn’t have listed home numbers. Apparently in Lagniappe, they did. How convenient.

  “Mouton residence.”

  They had someone to answer calls on a Saturday, too. Very cool. “This is Alyssa LeBlanc. I’d like to speak to Mr. Mouton regarding my mother, Claire LeBlanc.”

  “Please hold.”

  Who had music on their home hold option? The Moutons, that’s who. Alyssa ran a finger over the scar under her lip, hoping the use of her mother’s name would at least get her a response. The kitchen counter dug into her hip.

  “Ms. LeBlanc? This is Edmond Mouton. How can I help you?”

  Her stomach knotted. Oh, yeah, she’d gotten a response all right. From the senator himself. Alyssa gripped the phone tighter. “Senator Mouton, my mother was a photojournalist, Claire Le—”

  “Yes, yes. I remember Claire very well. Lovely woman. Tragedy what happened to her. A crying shame. What can I do for you?”

  Every single line she’d mentally prepared flew out of her mind. “Er, well, I’m, uh…” Oh, she needed to snap out of this. She straightened her shoulders. “I’m a reporter with the Shreveport Times, and I wondered if you’d grant me an interview.” There, she’d said it.

  “And you thought using your mother’s name would encourage me to comply with your request?”

  Busted. What could she say? “Well, yes.”

  His laugh came as suddenly as his words. “Very good, young lady. Your mother had the same kind of spunk. I like that. How about Monday at ten, here at my house?”

  Alyssa scrambled to write down the address on a scrap of paper. “Thank you, Senator Mouton.”

  “Don’t disappoint me by being late.”

  She replaced the phone, adrenaline zipping through her veins. She had a scoop! That would prove her better than Jackson Devereaux and his single dimple. She danced a jig in the middle of the sunny kitchen, barefoot and all.

  “What’s got you in such a happy mood?”

  Alyssa spun and faced her younger sister. “Tara!” In two steps, she pulled the young woman into her arms and gave a stiff hug.

  Tara laughed, stepping out of the embrace. “What’s up with you, Al?”

  “I just got an exclusive interview.”

  “Good for you.” Tara moved to the icebox and grabbed a soft drink.

  Alyssa took notice of her sister’s outfit—a pair of ratty jeans and a T-shirt that had seen one too many washings. She would have thought Tara was in for the night, except that she wore a pair of scuffed sneakers, a telltale sign she planned on going out, since Tara never wore shoes if she could avoid them. “Where are you going?

  “Out.”

  “Dressed like that?” The words jumped out of her mouth before she could insert any tact.

  A disgusted smirk crossed Tara’s pretty face. She set her can on the counter with a resounding thud. “Yeah, dressed like this.”

  “Is that really proper attire for a bookkeeper?” Why couldn’t she just shut up? Tara worked in a jazz club after closing, for pity’s sake.

  “For me it is. Got a problem with my clothes?”

  Just. Don’t. Say. Anything. “Uh, no.” Alyssa ran a hand over her own jeans, with creases still neatly down the front. “Maybe we can do something together and catch up.”

  “Al, don’t tell me you’re going to get all mushy like CoCo. Don’t go there.”

  “I just want to visit with you for a little while.” Did her voice sound as whiny as she thought?

  “Before you hoof it back up north, ya mean?” Tara flipped her long straight hair over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes. The rivalry between north and south Louisiana glared in her eyes. “You don’t care about what’s going on here in Lagniappe. You never did.”

  She couldn’t argue that point even if she wanted to—her tongue felt four sizes too big for her mouth. Alyssa swallowed and cleared her throat. “It’s not that I don’t care about y’all—” there she went again, resorting to the slang she detested “—I just don’t care for this backwoods town.”

  “You proved that by running away as soon as you could.” Tara’s eyes, so similar to Alyssa’s own, were nothing more than slits in her smooth, tanned face.

  “That’s not fair. I had to get out, do something, make something of myself.”

  “Because you always thought you were too good for Lagniappe.”

  “We’re all too good for this hick town. Can�
��t you see that?” Alyssa’s voice went up an octave.

  “No, this is my home, Al. It’s a pity you never understood that.”

  “It’s not home. We were all born and raised in New Orleans, Tara. Even you, although you like to pretend you were born in this forsaken bayou. Playing around with Grandmere’s voodoo and such.” Alyssa shook her head. “Momee would be ashamed of you and CoCo. She wanted more for us, all of us. She set out to make something of herself. Something big. Why do you think she never moved here after she and Papa married?”

  “For someone who belongs to an organization that thrives on heritage, you sure want to bury yours.”

  Ouch. That hurt. “The United Daughters of the Confederacy are committed to preserving the heritage of our ancestors who fought for the Confederacy, and—”

  Tara held up her hand. “Stop. I’ve heard your spiel already. You’d think with what CoCo uncovered about Grandpere’s heritage, you’d steer clear of all that.”

  Of course, the revelation a couple of months ago about her grandfather’s involvement in the Ku Klux Klan had been a cause of embarrassment to her, but she didn’t want to share that with Tara now. “Just because Grandpere belonged to the Klan doesn’t mean we should ignore the men who stood up for—”

  “You go play in your white dresses, hats and gloves, and I’ll deal with the spirits. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  Alyssa opened her mouth to argue, but Tara had already spun around and stormed from the kitchen. The screen door slamming indicated she’d left.

  That went well. Alyssa had wanted to reach out to her younger sister, show her that she’d waste away in this horrid place. And the influence of Grandmere’s voodoo ways were corrupting her little sister’s mind, just as it had CoCo’s. Fortunately, CoCo had come to her senses a few years ago and stopped dabbling in such nonsense. But not Tara. She’d taken up experimenting full force.

  Alyssa sighed. She’d managed to anger Tara, further alienating herself. Why did this family thing have to be so hard? Was she some kind of reject, not even able to bond with her sisters, her own flesh and blood?