Landry watched Conreco’s eyes dart around the room as he spoke. He’s lying. “Would you mind if I looked at the file on her case?”
“It’s an open case. Reporters don’t just stroll in here and look at open cases.”
“Do her parents still live around here?”
The sheriff seemed to have had enough. He pulled his pants up by the belt loops, leaned on the counter, and said, “You listen to me, Mr. Drake. The girl’s murder is an open case, like I told you. If you stick your nose in other people’s business — especially my business — you’re going to find yourself on the receiving end of an obstruction of justice charge. There wasn’t anything about that case that deserves a celebrity like you coming to our town and stirring everything up. Vermilion’s a nice quiet parish, and people like it that way. They don’t want people’s dirty laundry plastered all over the television.”
“So there is dirty laundry?” Landry interjected. That turned out to be the last straw.
“I’ve tried to be nice to you, mister big-city reporter. You’re going places you don’t want to go. You got no business in Asher. I don’t want to see you again in this parish. Consider yourself warned. If I catch you sneaking around, I’ll slap you so far behind bars it’ll take your lawyer a week to find you.”
On what charge? Landry considered pushing his luck, but he chose discretion. “You’ve been very helpful, Sheriff. Thank you for your time.” He left the building, went to Dupuy’s and had a crawfish platter. Instead of eating at the bar, Landry took a table so he could put his thoughts together. He wondered if the sheriff was serious about that “get out of town” talk. Landry had paid for a room tonight and he had at least one more stop to make. He was already here, so he’d finish what he came for.
The Hebert Funeral Home was just down the street. It reminded Landry of a church; everybody spoke in low voices, hidden speakers filled the rooms with soft organ music, and the furniture made it feel like a grandmother’s parlor.
Landry learned that David Hebert IV, the owner, was out at the moment. An associate escorted Landry into a small room, closed the door, and pointed to an overstuffed chair next to an end table where a box of Kleenex sat. The man took an identical chair opposite him. He introduced himself and asked Landry’s name. He didn’t appear to recognize it, which Landry thought was a good thing, given the reason he was here.
“Thank you for coming to Hebert’s, Mr. Drake. How may we be of service?” the fellow asked in the gentlest voice Landry had ever heard from a man.
Landry had several deaths to check out, but he decided not to reveal everything at first. He would start with the 1880 cult murders and then bring up the three girls.
“I’m looking for information. I read online that this is the oldest funeral home in Abbeville, dating back to 1875. Nowadays you conduct more services than the other establishments in town combined.”
“Yes, sir, that’s correct. We’re proud of our history; generations of families have put their trust in Hebert’s. We’re prepared to handle every need, which means less stress and worry for you and the family during a time of grief and sorrow. May I ask who is the deceased?”
“I’m not here about that. I’m researching some deaths that happened a long time ago, and I was hoping you could help me get information about them.”
The man’s brow furrowed slightly. “I doubt it, sir. We pride ourselves on the privacy of our clients.”
Unsure if the information was true, Landry assured him what he wanted to know was public information. “Seven men died in 1880. I can’t find out anything about them.”
“My, that was a long time ago. I’ll see what I can do. May I have their names?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t have their names. But I know they all died on the same night, May 26, 1880, in a town called Asher.”
“Asher? I haven’t heard of it. Is it in this parish?”
“Yes. It’s a ghost town today. Are you from around here?”
“No. I’m from Missouri. Mr. Hebert was looking for an associate and I ended up here in Abbeville.”
“If you were born in this parish, you might have heard of it. Asher was on the river around ten miles south of here. The town burned in a fire that night when the people died.”
“Oh, I see. They died in a fire.”
Not exactly, Landry thought, but he didn’t correct the man.
He continued. “I’d think your best bet is to search the courthouse records. Anyone who died in the parish would be recorded there.”
Landry said he’d tried there but wasn’t successful. He didn’t reveal these were cult members who kept their information to themselves.
“Let me see what I can find out,” the man offered. “If Hebert’s didn’t handle the arrangements, then there may be nothing in our files. But seven people on the same day, all from one little town — that’s beyond coincidental. So long as one of them is your relative, I think I can let you know what I find. Is that true?”
Landry nodded. There was nothing wrong with a little subterfuge to get information that should be public anyway.
He checked messages on his phone while he waited. Ten minutes later, the door opened and a tall, gray-haired man in his sixties, impeccably dressed in a dark pinstripe suit and maroon tie, stepped into the room.
His face was stern and his jaw set. “I’m David Hebert, Mr. Drake. I understand you inquired about some deaths, one of which was your relative. If that’s true, why don’t you know the name of the deceased?”
Landry stood and extended his hand, but the funeral director refused to shake it. “I wasn’t asking for private information,” he began, but Hebert interrupted him.
“This discussion is over, Mr. Drake. My establishment will not be party to the sensationalism you stir up everywhere you go. The problems down in Asher ended more than a century ago, and I doubt anybody in Vermilion Parish wants them aired again. You’ll get no help from me, and I’d suggest lying to get information isn’t how a professional reporter should go about it.”
“I asked for you first, and I wasn’t trying to hide anything,” Landry protested, but the man took his arm and steered him to the front door.
“Here’s some free advice,” Hebert said as he deposited Landry on the porch. “Forget you ever heard of Asher. The founding families of this town have long memories. If you open some doors, there’s no way to close them again. Poke around enough and you’ll find yourself in grave danger. Better safe than —” He paused.
“Than what, Mr. Hebert? Better safe than sorry?”
“That’s not the word. I’ve watched a few of your so-called documentaries. It’s nothing but sensationalism designed to give uneducated people the heebie-jeebies. I understand that’s what makes money for you people. But this is different. Asher’s no haunted house story you tell around the campfire. It’s no ‘ghost standing on the widow’s walk, waiting for her husband to come home.’ Asher is real. It’s evil — do you understand me? Pure evil. Better safe than dead. Get out of this parish and stay out. That’s my advice to you.”
“You talk like Asher still exists. It’s been gone since 1880. You must be joking.”
“I never joke, Mr. Drake. Stay away from Asher. The buildings may be gone, but that’s far from the end of that story. The Sons of Jehovah —” He caught himself, turned, walked through the front door, and closed it behind him.
Landry walked to his car, far more intrigued than when he arrived this morning. Most times when someone demanded he back off a story, there was something to hide. That was what appeared to be happening here, and everywhere he turned, someone new was in the middle of it.
Asher is still evil today? The buildings are gone, but that’s not the end of the story? And what was he going to say about the Sons of Jehovah?
When he set up this trip, Landry had thought about going down to Asher. Now it was an imperative. Other than his friend Grace, everybody he met was hell-bent on getting him out of this parish. Maybe if he saw
Asher for himself, he’d learn more about why.
_____
David Hebert closed the door to his office, picked up the receiver, and dialed a number he’d committed to memory over twenty years ago.
A man answered on the first ring. “What do you want?”
The man’s condescending tone always rankled him. “What do you think, Joel? I’m calling this number, and therefore we have a problem. Assemble the others.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The things that happened today puzzled Landry. He couldn’t believe Sheriff Conreco would lock him up just for spending the night in Abbeville. In the twenty-first century there were rules. Sometimes though, rules didn’t matter. Although he lived in the city, he’d grown up a rural boy, and he understood that things were different out here. He had to stay out of the sheriff’s way and obey the law so there would be no grounds for detaining him. But just in case, he sent his boss an email explaining the sheriff’s threat and what he was doing for the rest of the day.
Several hours of daylight remained — enough to go ten miles downriver if he could find a ride. He had to visit Asher.
Last time when he’d crossed the drawbridge into Perry, he’d seen a few ramshackle buildings and some boats tied to a dock. A sign along the road offered fishing-guide services, and today he turned onto a dirt road that led to the river.
The place seemed deserted. The first shack he came to had an old metal sign: “Catfish Guidry — Fishing and Swamp Tours.” Inside sat an unshaven man in his forties wearing a faded, torn T-shirt that read Mardi Gras 2004. He had his feet propped up on an old table, and he held a dog-eared copy of Field and Stream while nursing a beer. Landry glanced at his watch, thinking it was a little early for drinking, although he’d done it himself.
The man noticed his move. He closed the magazine, put it on the table, and drawled, “You late for an appointment? Or were you seein’ if I was open so you could buy yourself a beer? Or were you just being judgmental about people who think it’s five o’clock somewhere?” He broke out into a grin that showed he was playing around.
Landry laughed. “Apologies. None of my business. I’m looking for someone to take me down the river. I saw the sign. Are you Catfish?”
“That’s me. Fishing? Sightseeing? Shootin’ gators? Whatcha looking for?”
“None of the above. I want to go to Asher.”
“Asher? What the hell for? Damn place burned down. Ain’t nothin’ left of it.”
Not according to David Hebert.
“I’m doing some research. I want to poke around the ruins. How far is it?”
“Maybe twenty minutes away. You a writer?”
He doesn’t know who I am. It was refreshing to be anonymous. “I’m not a writer. I work for a TV station in New Orleans.”
“TV, huh? I ain’t watched TV since my set went out what — two years ago? Maybe longer. Hard to quit, but you don’t miss it once it ain’t squawking at ya all day long. Know what I mean?”
Landry paid Catfish a hundred dollars for the round trip to Asher. They climbed into an ancient wooden jon boat, Catfish loaded a cooler, and then he fired up an Evinrude outboard motor that looked even older than the boat. It died once and then again, but at last it caught. Landry wondered if the boat would stay afloat for twenty minutes, and he was both glad and surprised to find a life vest stowed under his bench. As they pulled away from the dock, Catfish told him to grab a couple of brews.
He took two Dixie longnecks from the cooler and passed one down. He took a slow draw while Catfish drank his in one long gulp and asked Landry for another. They headed south on the river, with the motor sputtering and coughing every few minutes as though the end of its life was near.
As they meandered down the beautiful countryside, Catfish talked about local politics, the best places for dinner in Abbeville, where to pick up what he called loose women, and how much nicer it was to live in Vermilion Parish than Orleans.
Catfish had an opinion for every subject. “Nawlins is nothin’ but drunk tourists,” he declared. “It’s sleazy, and the Mafia owns everything.”
Landry objected, saying every town had its drawbacks. “You’re saying New Orleans is nothing more than Bourbon Street, and that’s not fair. That’s one tiny part of the city. That’s not the real New Orleans. How about the rest of the French Quarter? It has culture, world-class cuisine, excellent music and entertainment. You can have all that without ever running into drunk tourists, sleazy bars or the mob.”
The guide shrugged, took out an unfiltered cigarette, and lit up. Landry glanced at a five-gallon gas can sitting an inch from Catfish’s leg, but the man didn’t seem concerned.
“Toss me another beer, will ya?” Landry handed it over; Catfish drank some and settled back.
“Is Catfish your real name?”
The guide laughed so hard he spit beer halfway across the boat. “My momma was a coonass for sure, but even she wasn’t redneck enough to name her kid Catfish. My given name’s Laurence, but I’ve been Catfish since I was in first grade. It suits me just fine.”
Landry agreed it fit him better than Laurence, and he switched the subject to Asher. “What do you know about it?”
“What’s there to know? They burned it down a long time ago.”
Landry wanted to hear Catfish’s version. “Who?”
“Accordin’ to my grandpa, who heard it from his daddy, it was some men from Abbeville, back in the eighteen hundreds. They come down one night in boats and torched everything. It was a decent-size town, I guess, but after their little visit there wasn’t nothin’ left.”
“Why would they do that?”
“’Cause Asher was some kind of cult town. The people called themselves the Sons of Jehovah. Somethin’ out of the Bible, grandpa said. They was like the Amish on steroids — they didn’t allow anything modern, their women never went to town, and there was Bible-thumpin’ and preachin’ all night long sometimes. People on the river could hear them yellin’ and stuff.
“Now and then the men would come to Abbeville for supplies. They scared folks with their long beards, strange old-fashioned clothes and such. I guess some men in Abbeville just had enough. They went down there to see for themselves what was goin’ on, they didn’t like what they found, and they burned the place to the ground.”
“Were they arrested?”
“Nope. Nobody to arrest, because nobody ever told who went. It’s a secret that lasts even now. Rumors went around as to who was there, but no one admitted anything. People in town didn’t really care; they was just glad that bunch was gone.”
Landry wondered if Catfish’s relative had been one of those who went to Asher. “So the cult disbanded after that?”
“Nobody knows. Some say that was the end of ’em, and they broke up and went every which way — north, south, east and west. Others say they went deep into the bayou and built themselves another town. Those folks say they’re still out there today, hiding in the swamp somewhere. Some people think that’s how the stories about Billy Whistler got started. Ever hear of him?”
Landry perked up. He’d kept quiet about Billy Whistler because he didn’t want Catfish to know the legend was the main reason Landry was sitting in a leaky old boat heading down the Vermilion River to a ghost town. Now that Catfish had mentioned him, Landry jumped in.
“Tell me about him.”
“It has to wait until the trip back. We’re here.” He eased the boat to shore, hopped out, and pulled the bow up on dry land. They came to a chicken-wire fence stretched across the shoreline, and Catfish used his all-purpose knife to cut a hole big enough for them to crawl through.
While they were poking around the ruins of Asher, Catfish cocked his head. “Listen! Hear that warbling sound? That’s Billy Whistler!”
“I didn’t hear anything.” They listened, but it didn’t happen again.
At that point Landry sent Catfish back, saying he wanted to check a few things out on his own. Catfish sat in the boat, thinking
that coming here was a waste of time, but it wasn’t his call. If this guy wanted to pay him a hundred bucks for a ride to a ghost town, that was fine with him.
After a while Landry returned and they cast off. It was a beautiful late afternoon as they headed back north toward Perry, and Catfish said he was getting hungry.
“You eaten at Cajun Claws yet?” he asked, and Landry said he hadn’t. “Best damn crawfish in the world. Like little lobsters they’re so big. People come from all over to eat there. It ain’t no fancy French Quarter place like you’re probably used to, but their food is the best. One piece of advice — don’t go in there wearin’ a nice white shirt. You’ll end up a mess when you dig into all them mud bugs.”
“Can you tell me about Billy Whistler now?” Landry asked, changing the subject while keeping Cajun Claws in mind for dinner. Catfish’s description of those crawfish had made his stomach rumble.
“I guess you’d better hand me another longneck, brother. I’ll tell you a tale that used to scare the shit out of me. You can’t make this stuff up, know what I mean?”
CHAPTER NINE
Before he began, Landry asked if Catfish had gotten this tale from his grandfather too.
“Not exactly. I mean, he may have told me, but kids grew up hearing this story. People in this parish have talked about Billy Whistler for — hell, I don’t know — way over a hundred years. His story’s all mixed up with the cult’s.”
A bad thing happened that night, he continued, even worse than the town’s destruction.
“You mean the murders?”
“Murders? What makes you think there was murders?”
“I saw an old article that said some cult members died that night. Have you heard that?”
“Maybe. Everything’s just rumors and whispers. People don’t talk about it, like I said earlier. Some said there was a hangin’, but to this day nobody knows for sure. Except them men that went down there, I guess, but they’re long since dead and gone.”
Billy Whistler Page 5
