Bayou Blue

by Raquel Byrnes

  “Y –Yes.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t say that sooner. I left before you woke up this morning.”

  “No, I left early. I had to drive into Thibodaux.”

  “Why’s that?” His brow furrowed over his dark eyes.

  “I went to see Everest Jones.”

  “The activist guy?”

  “Yeah, I went to show him this…” I dug in my purse and pulled out Randy’s letter. I pointed to the symbol I burned over the light bulb. “It’s made out of milk.”

  Jake took the letter, squinted at the symbol, and looked at me. “What is it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “But you showed evidence to a member of the media?” He shook the letter at me. “You showed this around?”

  “He’s not a member of the media, Jake, he’s an activist.”

  “Whose face shows up on the news every two days?” He muttered something under his breath.

  I didn’t like his sudden annoyance for such a small thing.

  “Yes. I showed it to him, why is that so terrible?”

  Jake shook his head and threw the letter on the dashboard. “Your name is all over the news, Riley, as a possible accessory to the plant explosion, and now this?”

  That’s right. Sierra just said that.

  “Where is this accusation coming from?” I didn’t understand. “Why now, and not a month ago?”

  “I got a call from the Staties. They want to know about your stay here prior to us finding Dauby.” He shrugged, concerned. “Sheila said the FBI called this morning, too.”

  “They’re running down rumors, Jake.” I waved his worry away. “Probably some reporter desperate to break a big story.”

  It bothered me that I struggled to reach the truth while others, apparently, printed whatever juicy tidbit came their way.

  Jake looked at me, frustrated. “Yeah, well it doesn’t matter to the FBI, does it?”

  My voice hitched up. “What is the matter? I showed Randy’s symbol to one guy…” Then I winced.

  “What?”

  “I sort of asked him to show it around to his volunteers.”

  Jake pressed the heel of his hand to his right eye, sighing. “Aidez-moi,” he breathed.

  “What?”

  “I said, help me,” he snapped. “Help me, Riley, to understand why you keep sabotaging this investigation?”

  “I’m not.”

  Jake leaned towards me, stopped himself, and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “I’m trying not to lose control of this whole thing and you go around showering the airwaves with confidential information.” He looked at me like I was a stupid child. “Did you leak to the news? Was that you?”

  “No. I wouldn’t do that.” I was shocked and hurt.

  “You just did with that Everest guy, why not Channel Five?” He picked up his radio, but I pulled on his sleeve.

  “Who is Faulk?”

  Jake shook his head. “No.”

  “You can’t freeze me out, Jake. You can’t.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing for now, Riley. This goes further than your brother, now. It got that boy, Dauby, killed, and me almost beheaded.”

  “Jake, you can’t shut me out of the investigation. I can’t walk away from this, not now.” I fought to keep the tremor from my voice.

  “Did you and I just witness the same disaster in there?” He nodded towards the Mr. Sudsy.

  “That wasn’t my fault.”

  “It’s not a matter of fault.” He looked sad again. “You being here, you make things…harder, for us.”

  “Us,” I repeated.

  Jake and his parish, no room for anyone else.

  I chided myself for hoping for more.

  “Maybe you should just…maybe you should just step back and let the authorities investigate.” His words cut through me, tearing at my heart.

  “You want me to leave?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I want.” He looked down, his face pained.

  “What about what I want?” I touched his face with trembling fingers. “What if I’m not ready to leave here?”

  “I told you, the investigation—”

  “What if that’s not the only reason I want to stay?”

  He brought his hand up, took my fingers, and brushed his lips across my palm. The anguish in his dark eyes made my heart stutter.

  “Je suis désolé, Riley,” He answered. “I’m sorry.”

  “Jake,” I breathed, wounded.

  He didn’t answer, he just let go of my hand, gripped the steering wheel, and shook his head slowly.

  My breath caught. I blinked the tears back and gathered my things. I walked ramrod straight to the rented sedan. As I pulled out of the lot, I caught a glimpse of Jake.

  He had his elbows on the steering wheel, his head in his hands.

  My phone buzzed and I pulled it out. Reyna’s number and picture flashed on the screen.

  “Hey Reyna,” I said, through sniffles.

  “Uh-oh,” she said slowly. “Bad time?”

  16

  I wondered how the police did surveillance, as I sat squirming in my seat outside of Dr. Faulk’s offices in a small parish outside of La Foudre. I drank too much coffee and now I needed to use the restroom, but didn’t want to miss Faulk if he left.

  Still near tears, I replayed my argument with Jake on my way back to the Lightning Bug. Something he said tickled at the back of my brain and I focused on that instead of the pain over his words.

  A note scrawled on the little chalkboard next to the fridge said that Citrine was out picking up Michelle from band practice.

  I printed out the documents Reyna sent on the printer at the front counter.

  I read through it all, my mind ticking, and then I saw it.

  A charge on Randy’s credit card to Byron Faulk, M.D. A dermatologist. I didn’t picture Randy needing acne treatments or a Botox injection, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to check. I looked up the address and drove out. That was two hours ago.

  Seven other cars were here when I first parked. Now down to four, I wondered when I would start to look conspicuous.

  The gray haze and cloud-muffled mid-day sun might make it hard to pick out the silver sedan, but not for long.

  Sipping the iced coffee did little to combat the sticky warmth of the car.

  The weather grew increasingly odd. Warm, but raining, with chilly winds.

  I didn’t know if I should wear a coat or a pair of shorts.

  I didn’t want to just charge into his office. I didn’t know if the FBI already took all of Randy’s records or if Dr. Faulk would even talk to me. I peered outside at the steel clouds hovering low. The weather station said lightning storm. I didn’t want a replay of my night in the library with the Chicken Guy.

  A sloppy rain started, the drops slapping against my windshield. I pulled a coat onto my lap in case I needed it, and watched.

  Over the past two hours, the nurses left, as did the receptionist. I guessed the only expensive car in the lot belonged to the doctor, so he was still inside.

  I’d just about decided to leave when a short, pudgy man, with a wispy brown comb-over and coke bottle glasses, emerged from the front doors. He hurried out to his car with his briefcase over his head. He started the car.

  I debated whether or not I had the skills to follow someone without being caught, and let him drive away. Odds were, what I wanted wasn’t in his briefcase, anyway.

  In the adjacent parking lot, a self-storage place, a car started. Headlights blared through the raindrop prisms on my window, temporarily blinding me.

  The car passed me to follow Faulk and I caught the profile of one of Jake’s deputies. Rick, I thought, or maybe Dan? Either way, I saw him before at Dauby’s.

  Jake told me that Faulk was nothing, that he wasn’t important.

  I wondered what else he didn’t tell me. Guilt stabbed, but I shook it off. I was about to tell Jake about Reyna’s file, before he yelled at me fo
r visiting Everest. I wasn’t keeping secrets from him…it was the other way around.

  Jake didn’t have the man power to have more than one deputy sitting on Faulk. I also considered the fact that what I planned to do put me far beyond what Jake could handle, and found a certain nihilistic bliss in that.

  I was on my own. I knew where I stood and that was fine with me. I rocked in the driver’s seat trying to keep my legs from falling asleep.

  “Just go, you pansy,” I said aloud.

  Hesitating for an instant, I dug in my purse for my lock-picking kit. I practiced with Millie, the same girl who taught me to lift wallets. It was her version of a well-rounded education. The tools were her gift to me after I’d finished with my series of interviews on small-time theft. I looked down at the black leather pouch. I kept them in my office back home. They were a novelty, not a tool. Yet, I’d packed them when I came back here to La Foudre. Back when I didn’t know what I might have to do, or face, to find the truth.

  I took a breath and bolted out of the car.

  Most small offices put expensive locks on their front doors and their drug cabinets, but not their back doors. At least that’s what a former cop told me when I went to him for crime statistics early on in my reporting career. Back doors that opened into alleys usually had the stock lock that came with the rental property. A door where thieves could work obscured from view, was the door that needed the best lock of all.

  I strode around the back of the building and hopped a four-foot wood fence which enclosed a long patio shared by all the offices. In the center of the Spanish tile, a tiny fountain cherub dribbled water into a basin via the jar in his arms. Raindrops splashed the water at his feet and tittered on the overhanging roof. White plastic patio sets peppered the rest of the space save for a free standing trellis tangled with honeysuckle that blocked an air conditioning unit.

  I hesitated again. I’d never broken and entered before.

  If I do this and get caught…

  I quelled doubtful thoughts. I never had these debates with myself before. Kneeling at the doorknob I inserted the tension wrench into the bottom of the keyhole and inserted the pick into the upper part, feeling the pins and testing their tension. I adjusted the wrench, forcing the stubborn pin up until I felt it set.

  I made sure to misalign the pin so it wouldn’t fall back in its hole. I did the same until all the locking pins were set. Millie told me door locks generally had five to eight pins. I poked and prodded until I was sure I’d set every one. Taking a breath, I gave the tension wrench a final turn, unlocked the cylinder, and pushed the door open.

  I rocked back, shocked that it worked.

  Remembering Millie’s warning about silent alarms, I eased the door open and searched the walls for a security panel. I scanned the ceiling for sensors, but Dr. Faulk didn’t seem to hold security in very high regard.

  Worried that rainwater on the inside floor might alert someone I pulled my jacket off and dropped it outside under the overhang. I wiped my wet shoes on my pants’ legs. I tried to think of anything else that might get me into trouble, aside from the actual breaking and entering.

  The late afternoon sun didn’t provide much light through the slate clouds that swept across the sky so the inside of the office was dark.

  I called out. Feeling dumb, I pulled the mini flashlight from my pocket.

  From interning at the law office in college, sometimes receptionists locked up and sometimes the bosses did. However, some of the lawyers, while working on sensitive cases, would lock up their offices and kept the keys. I banked on Faulk, as a doctor, taking the same precaution for his patients.

  I walked quickly to Dr. Faulk’s office.

  He stored the patient records in low metal file cabinets with more locks.

  I never learned how to do the pop-out kind. Jangling the set in my hands, I tried to remember my time with Millie.

  She spewed technique advice like a country club golf pro.

  “People are generally both forgetful and lazy,” she’d quipped over chai tea. “So I usually look in easy-to-reach spots that seem clever, but really aren’t. People over-think these types of things.”

  “OK, Millie,” I whispered. “How would a middle-aged, very well-nourished, dermatologist over-think things?”

  If Faulk didn’t keep them on his person, then chances were the keys were in this office. A doctor who took care to lock up his patient files probably wouldn’t give the key to his receptionist, so I decided to restrict my search to Faulk’s area.

  I lifted up his plants, dug in the candy dish, and moved books around. Frustrated, I was ready to admit defeat, when I tried one last tack. I went through the motions of leaving, as the doctor, locking up for the night. I sat in his office chair, pushed back, walked to the file cabinets and pretended to lock them. Then what?

  “You get your coat, right?”

  There, to the right was an empty wood coat rack.

  “Come on, Faulk,” I breathed. “Talk to me.”

  Groaning, I leaned on the coat rack and heard a small tinkling noise. I ran the beam of the flashlight over it. Hanging on a nail about halfway down the back of the rack stand was a set of small shiny keys.

  “Thank you, Millie.”

  I opened the cabinet with the label, A-M, and ran my fingers along the alphabetized tabs. One was labeled, “Drake.” Lifting it out, I let it fall open and flipped through it.

  Just the standard intake form with Randy’s personal information in his all capital writing.

  I paused, feeling guilty for spying on my own brother.

  He’s gone, Riley. He’s gone and he wouldn’t mind now, anyway.

  I kept reading. Under reason for visit, he wrote “burn.”

  Huh.

  I flipped to the next sheet and deciphered Faulk’s notes.

  He noted that Randy had second degree chemical burns on his left hand as a result of a work-place injury. On the bottom of the sheet, in a blank space for comments, the doctor wrote: Patient declines to file worker’s comp claim. Patient will pay medical expenses out of pocket.

  Work injury? Randy didn’t work. He went to school and taught undergrad classes. And even if he did take a job here, engineers worked with tools and rulers and paper. How could he get a chemical burn from that?

  I reread the page and the ones before it, looking for the name of Randy’s employer, but didn’t find one. I had to ask Reyna about that. I needed a bank statement. The file also didn’t state what kind of chemical burn it was. That would be good information to have. I chewed on my thumbnail, thinking.

  Randy’s burns were chemical. He said he’d gotten them from work, but wouldn’t file a report. This didn’t sound like exonerating evidence.

  Stomach twisting, I leaned back and pulled the file with me as I sank to the carpet.

  Might as well get the whole picture.

  I turned to the last page. A form listed A. Apis as the emergency contact. Randy always used me as his contact, because I was the only one in our family who didn’t leave for long periods of time. Who was this, now?

  Whoever it was paid the bill in cash.

  Randy received ointment and some antibiotics for his injury. A follow-up appointment was cancelled by my brother, according to Faulk’s notes.

  Thunder rumbled outside.

  I reached the bottom of my reserve as far as nerves went. Closing the file, I slipped it back into place, and closed the cabinet drawer. I made sure to push in the lock and replace the keys before leaving.

  I grabbed my coat, locked the back door, and ran back to the car. I stared out the window at the streams of water running down the glass and clutched the wet coat, shaking with the feel of dying hope. I couldn’t stop the sobs that tore out. The deeper I dug into his life, the more it seemed Randy murdered those people. Breath hitching, I started the car and headed back to La Foudre to pack.

  I had no reason to stay anymore.

  17

  Jake

  Jak
e leaned way back in his wood chair and propped his boots up on the corner of the desk, a scowl on his face. He held his sheriff’s star by two points and flicked it. He dropped it on the desk, watching it spin like a top until it fell over with a clatter.

  Noise from the harvest festival, now in full swing down the road, didn’t make him less grouchy. The festival organizers hired their own private security out of Thibodaux so he let his deputies off for the night, except Toughie, who always worked the bar in case things got rowdy.

  “It’s only for three days,” Jake muttered. “The festival will be over by Monday.”

  He turned on the tiny television and tried to catch the weather forecast through the fuzz from the bad reception.

  Tropical storm Erin had picked up speed over the day. The weather guys over at NASA bumped her up to a level 1 hurricane and issued a Watch for southeast Louisiana. With the storm still out at sea, no one seemed too excited just yet, but in Jake’s experience these storms had a mind of their own. He should talk to Toughie and the Mayor about a possible evacuation plan.

  The phone on his desk rang. It was the coroner’s number, so he picked it up.

  “Ayers.”

  “Jake, hi.” It was the coroner’s assistant, Hammet LeBeau.

  “Hammet, is Paul back already?”

  “No, but I have some news for you on the La Roche case…Dauby.”

  “Oh,” Jake said, disappointed. With Paul still gone, the Staties would use their own coroner and it might take weeks to get any results. “What do you need, Hammet? You want me to bring Ida and Pilkey by?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Paul continued. “I just wanted to know if you found anything weird at Dauby’s.”

  Jake sat up straighter. “Weird, how?”

  Hammet rustled some papers before answering. “I got some weird stains on Dauby’s fingernails. Chemical residue. And he had on some of those rubber covers on his shoes.”

  Jake paced the room. “Dauby worked the docks, did shrimping, and some oil platform work.”

  “No, this is harsher stuff. Like uhm…” More rustling of papers. “A corrosive, I think. Do you know if he worked at the plant? Did you find any pay stubs?”