Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 07 - The Swamps of Bayou Teche (20 page)

But before I visited Babeaux, I wanted to stop in at
the bank and talk once again with Laura Palmo. I was
still puzzled over the early morning call on the twentysixth, the one she had neglected to tell me about, and I
also had two or three other questions for her.

I felt a tinge of guilt in thinking she was involved,
but over the years in my business, you become jaded
and suspicious of everyone. Still I hoped she could
shed some light on my concerns.

“You want to go with me?” I asked Jack.

He looked around from the movie on TV. “Where?”

“The bank, then on down to Maida.”

“Naw. I don’t care about sitting outside the bank,
but I’ll ride down to Maida with you. You take the
Caddie to the bank and then come back and pick me
up. Okay?”

Laura Palmo greeted me with a bright smile and a
teasing arch on an eyebrow. “Still waiting for the
DNA results, I see”

I grinned. “That’s what they pay me for.” I winked at
her. “To be honest, I hope it takes the rest of the week.
I’ve been looking forward to the Loup Garou Festival.”

She smiled wickedly. “So have I” She rose and
headed for the lounge. “How about some coffee? We
can talk without anyone disturbing us”

I followed her eagerly, reminding myself she was
probably not craving being alone with me as much as
she craved a cigarette.

She poured two cups of coffee and slipped in at one
of the formica-topped tables, and as I expected, lit up.
“You get in touch with your party last night?” she
asked, referring to the call I made to her.

“No problem”

“So, what brings you here?”

Her perfume drifted across the table to me. I don’t
know what kind it was, but the fragrance was pure
Laura Palmo. “Would you be disappointed if I said I
just came to see you,” I replied in what I hoped was a
suave manner.

She laughed, a bright tinkle. “Would you be hurt if
I said I thought you’re fibbing?”

I laughed with her. “No. Truth is, I wanted to visit
with Gates, but according to his housekeeper, he
won’t be back until tomorrow.”

A tiny frown knit her forehead. “I can put you in
touch with him if it’s urgent”

“No. It can wait until tomorrow, but I do have a couple points you can clear up for me”

Her features tightened almost imperceptibly. “Oh?
Such as?”

“First, do you know a woman around here by the
name of Joan Rouly?”

She pursed her lips and after a moment shook her
head. “I don’t know of any Roulys around. Not here in
Bagotville.” Her brow knit in concentration. “And I
don’t remember any down in Maida either.”

I sipped my coffee. It was delicious. Thick, black,
and syrupy. If I’d had a slab of hot homemade bread, I
would have been in heaven. “I’ve missed coffee like
this back in Texas,” I said, smacking my lips.

“We have plenty of it.” She indicated the almost full
carafe. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. When we first talked, you said Hardy bought
a complete outfit of hunting clothes, including waterproof boots”

Her eyes narrowed faintly. “That’s what he told
me,” she replied. “I didn’t see them.”

That made sense to me. “And you said he called you
on the twenty-fifth and twenty-seventh. Is that right?”
I deliberately left out the call on the twenty-sixth.

She inhaled deeply and blew a stream toward the textured ceiling. “Yes, but you didn’t mention the one on
the twenty-sixth. He woke me up around three or so”

I played dumb. “The twenty-sixth? I don’t remember that one”

“Oh?” She arched an eyebrow. “I’m sure I told you
about it. If I didn’t, I apologize. I hope I didn’t cause
you any problems.”

“What did he want?”

She hesitated and glanced around. “I shouldn’t say
anything.” Her cheeks colored. “I mean, if the ah …
the man in Lafayette is really John, I’d feel guilty talking about a dead man”

I understood how she felt. “Don’t worry about his
character. If the call was important, I need to know.”

With a toss of her head, she replied, “It wasn’t important. He was drunk, and he was angry at one of the
bank’s customers. I tried to calm him down”

Suddenly two pieces clicked together. “You
wouldn’t be talking about Moise Deslatte, would you?”

She nodded. “Mr. Deslatte is a good customer. I’d
hate to lose his business. He’s one of the backbones of
Maida, and he has a lot of friends up here in Bagotville.”

That made sense to me, so I asked my last question. “Did either of the partners have offshore bank
accounts?”

She frowned at me, a puzzled expression on her
face. “You mean personal accounts?”

“Yes,” I replied, watching her facial expression for
any hint of deception.

She slowly shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

I cringed inwardly. Had she lied to me? Just as I
started to ask about the mail I had seen on her desk
that first day from Antigua, she continued. “But, we do
have a bank customer from Antigua, the Antigua Import/Export Company”

I sighed with relief.

She arched an eyebrow. “Anything else?”

“That’s it,” I replied. “Thanks for the coffee”

I drove back to the motel, relieved that Laura Palmo
was not involved in the scheme.

The day was blistering hot, so Jack left the top up
and turned on the air.

Just outside of Maida, we stopped at Zolte’s Fast
Stop convenience store to gas up. Jack pulled up at the
pump and eyed the building warily. Zolte must have
built it from hurricane debris, for almost every imaginable type of construction material was evident.

After filling the tank, Jack went in to pay, and I followed him inside for directions.

Three dark-complexioned men looked up from a
card game. A small, balding man, whose wrinkled
face looked like a plowed field, sighed, rose to his feet
and shuffled over to an ancient cash register behind
the counter.

“Good morning,” Jack said cheerfully, handing him
a credit card.

He shook his head. “Me, I don’t take no credit
cards. All be in cash”

Jack shrugged and pulled out his wallet.

The other two had been watching us warily. I had
the eerie feeling that we had somehow stepped
seventy-years into the past when cagey moonshiners
eyed federal revenuers suspiciously.

While the old man made change, he mumbled,
“You ain’t from around hereabouts.”

I spoke up. “Nope. We’re trying to find out where
the Babeauxs live.”

Suddenly the two behind us started muttering to
each other.

I glanced around, and they were both staring at us
with wide eyes.

“Something wrong?” I took a step toward them, and
both made the sign of a cross. I stopped and looked
around at the old man.

He shook his head. “Babeauxs, that be bad place
to go”

Frowning, I asked, “Why?”

“Babeaux’s woman, she be a cauchemar.”

I laughed, but the expression on the old Cajun’s
face told me he was deadly serious.

Jack almost gagged. “Tony, isn’t that … isn’t that
one of those things you told me about? Huh?”

Ignoring Jack, I shrugged. “Can you give me directions to her place?”

He shook his head sadly. “Sometimes, men go out
there, and dey not come back.”

I arched an eyebrow skeptically. “We’ll take the
chance, but I would certainly appreciate it if you’d tell
me how to reach their place”

Jack shot me a horrified look. “We?”

I ignored him.

Gesturing with both hands, Zolte gave me a set of
complicated directions. When he finished, he wagged a
bony finger. “Don’t you be getting off the road for
nothing. The loup garou, he can change from a tree and
grab you. He bites you on the neck, and you be dancing
through the swamps with the other werewolves.”

Jack gagged. “Tony!”

I continued to ignore him. “Tell me, would you happen to know Louise Babeaux’s cousin, Janelle Bourgeois. She used to live here”

One of the men at the card table nodded. He shoved
his gimme cap to the back of his head. “Oui. Me, I
know her from the time we learned catechisms.”

The other one agreed. “Her, she come in here not
long ago.”

Jack grabbed my arm, but I brushed his hand away.

“Yeah,” the old man behind the counter put in.
“Her, she be driving old Felix’s pickup.”

Gimme Cap laughed. “Me, I don’t know how that
Felix, he keep that piece of junk running.”

“About what time was that?”

The owner arched an eyebrow. “It be six that afternoon” He shook his head. “The day, I don’t remember, but she was heading back into the swamp to her
cousin’s.”

Jack whispered harshly, “I’m not going out there.”

Continuing to ignore him, I asked. “Anyone around
by the name of Rouly?”

They shrugged.

Remembering the name of the man who had turned
the mugger loose on me last night, I asked. “What
about Pellerin?”

The three Cajuns froze. One made the sign of a
cross. “That be Thertule. He be loup garou. Babeaux,
she done make him loup garou”

Jack started choking.

I forced a smile. “Thanks. Come on, Jack, let’s go”

Outside, Jack started babbling. “I’m not going out
there. That’s what’s been after us, a loup garou. That
witch, she made him one. Didn’t you hear those old
men? That’s how he always knows where we are. She
probably told him.”

I just laughed as I climbed into the car. “There’s no
such thing, Jack. I told you, superstitions, myths.
Nothing more. Now, let’s go.”

He shook his head. “I’ll stay here. You pick me up
on the way back, okay?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” I snorted. “Get in and let’s go”

“I’m staying.”

Shaking my head, I glanced at the swamps surrounding Zolte’s. “All right, but remember what the
old man said. Don’t go wandering around. Stay away
from the trees. Can’t tell when one of them will turn
into a loup garou and bite you on the neck”

A worried frown wrinkled his forehead, and he
glanced over his shoulder. He grimaced. “All right,
but I don’t like it.” He slid behind the wheel.

Turning at the first intersection in town, we headed
for Bayou Teche. A few miles down the narrow highway, we spotted the Babeaux mailbox, which was
twisted into a grotesque shape by high school kids
constantly swinging at it with ball bats when they
passed. We turned down a dirt road that wound through
the swamp. The spidery leaves dangling high overhead
from the ancient cypress cast a chilling gloom over the
road that led ever deeper into the dark swamp.

A guttural ga-rump ga-rump sounded from the
black waters off to our left, followed by several responses all around us. Jack looked around me sharply.
“What was that?”

I couldn’t resist grinning. “Alligators.”

He gulped so hard that even beneath the fleshy
folds on his neck, I could see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down like a perch cork.

Just then an egret shrieked, and Jack jumped.

“They won’t bother you,” I said, laughing. “Just
don’t go wading out there.”

In a quaking voice, he replied, “You don’t have to
worry any about that.”

“That must be it,” I said, pointing ahead to a shack
on piers over the waters of Bayou Teche. A wooden
walk led from the shore to the square hovel surrounded on all four sides by a walkway. An old
pickup held together by rust was parked on the shore.
That must have been the one they talked about back at
the store.

We pulled up beside the ancient pickup, an old Ford
like my grandpere Moise drove back in the seventies.
As we came to a halt, a small man squatting by the
edge of the platform was pulling up a crab trap full of
big blue crabs, their pincers clacking ominously. He
looked around, then spoke over his shoulder to someone in the shack.

Moments later a tall, rawboned woman the color of
swamp water stepped out onto the walkway. She wore
a yellow blouse, a billowing, multicolored skirt that
dragged the ground, a bright red do-rag about her
short hair, and a scowl on her frowning face. Smoke
drifted up from the corncob pipe between her lips.

She spoke to the small man who darted inside the
shack and returned with a lever action rifle.

Jack wheezed. “Don’t worry about anything, huh?”

It was my turn to gulp. “All right, stay calm. I’ll get
out and talk to them” As an afterthought, I added,
“But keep this thing in reverse and the motor running.”

He didn’t answer, but I knew he was ready to stomp down on the accelerator. I stepped out with my hands
high and a big smile on my face. “Good morning,” I
called out, not moving from behind the open door.

The woman lumbered forward, her eyes narrowed.
“What you want? We don’t like company”

“I’m looking for the cousin of Janelle Bourgeois.
Louise Babeaux”

The small man stepped up to her side, the muzzle
of the rifle pointing in the general direction of my
feet. Taking a puff off the pipe, she said, “Why you
want her?”