Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 07 - The Swamps of Bayou Teche (22 page)

He frowned. “Pellerin? No”

“Karen Pellerin Babin’s brother.”

“Oh, you mean the crackpot that ran off into the
swamp after she burned up in that car wreck? I heard
about him, but I never met him.”

I studied him a moment.

A sly look filled his eyes. “Come on, Boudreaux,
we’re both adults. Be smart. There’s plenty for the two
of us. I don’t know who this Rouly woman is, but
you’re welcome to Hardy’s share. You can live the rest
of your life in luxury.”

I stared at him in disbelief for several moments,
wondering if he were truly as dumb as he sounded.
“You really think you can escape Joe Vasco? He’s got
eyes all over the world.” I shook my head. “Sorry, pal,
but I’m going to turn over what I found to Sergeant
Emile Primeaux of the Terrechoisie Parish Sheriff’s
Department. What he does with it is up to him.”

I turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm, his eyes
begging. “Please. I’ll be ruined.”

Shaking his clutching fingers loose, I shook my head.
“Whatever you’re going to do, you better move fast”

During the drive back to the motel, I considered the
unwelcome idea that had popped into my head a few
minutes earlier. Ridiculous. Laura Palmo would never
involve herself in such a scheme. Still, the idea
nagged at me, stirring the hair on the back of my neck.

While waiting at a signal light, I spotted a red pickup
with the logo Deslatte Construction on the door. On
impulse, I called Moise Deslatte on my cell phone.

He greeted me jovially, then chuckled. “You find
that Hardy yet?”

“Not yet,” I lied. “But I have a question for you”
Before he could object or refuse, I continued, “You’ve
lived around here all your life. You ever know a family
by the name of Rouly?”

“Rouly? Let me think. There me some up in Lafayette. Other than that, I don’t … hold on. Rouly.
Oui, that also be Karen Babin’s name.”

I frowned. “Rabin. I thought her maiden name was
Pellerin. Wasn’t Thertule her brother?”

“Mais no. Thertule, he be her half brother. Karen’s
mama, her, she married Carl Pellerin when Karen, she
be a tiny bebe.”

I thanked him and punched off. So Karen Babin
was a Rouly. I pondered the ramifications until suddenly, a car horn behind blared.

My next step, I figured as I sped across the intersection, was a visit to Lafayette and see what I could find
out about the Roulys.

Back in my motel room, an e-mail from Eddie
Dyson made me second guess my assumption about
Laura Palmo.

Laura Palmo was not born in Minneapolis as she
said, but Maple Grove in 1961. I frowned, wondering
why she had deliberately lied. His description placed
her as a petite woman around five-two or -three.

I reread the first line of the e-mail again. Born in
1961. That put her at forty-five. Ten years older than I
guessed. I couldn’t resist grinning. She had certainly
taken good care of herself, I thought as I read the remainder of Eddie’s report.

The next line was like a punch in the solar plexus.
She had a rap sheet a mile long, and at twenty-two, ended up in the Louisiana State Prison for Women
where during a riot, she had several teeth knocked out.

According to her supervising officer, upon her parole, she had several clerical jobs, and each she fulfilled responsibly. Two months after she completed
her parole in 1991, she was in a car wreck in which
her former cellmate, Karen Babin, was killed.

My eyes must have grown as wide as pie pans when
I read the last sentence. Karen Babin! Could it be that
was the same Karen Babin who had embezzled the
two million dollars? It had to be.

So, why had Laura refused to admit she knew
Karen Babin when I questioned her the previous Sunday at her house? Unless …

I had a hollow feeling in my stomach as I stared at
the e-mail, refusing to admit the next logical step in
the deductive process that perhaps Laura Palmo was
in reality Karen Babin.

Thinking back to my visit with Deslatte, Marcel
had said that Karen Babin was a big woman, almost
two hundred pounds with blond hair and shaped like a
barrel keg. I cursed myself for not asking how tall
Babin was.

Grabbing my cell phone, I punched in Deslatte’s
number, but all I got was voice mail. I left him word to
call and punched off. Still, I told myself, her description in no way fit the petite Laura Palmo I knew. But
then, what about the teeth?

Palmo’s were broken off during a riot according to
the e-mail, but when I spoke to Laura in the bank just
this past Monday, she said her teeth were perfect,
never even a filling.

I didn’t want to believe she was involved, but evidence doesn’t lie. It just waits to be discovered and interpreted, and as much as I hated to admit it, I felt I
had interpreted it correctly this time.

Then I remembered the scars on her face, the ones
she covered with locks of her raven black hair. Could
those have come from the accident?

I couldn’t help the feeling that I was somehow betraying her as I tried to figure out how to prove she had
switched identities without spooking her into running.

And then I knew.

But first, I tried Deslatte once again. This time, he
picked up the phone.

When I hung up, I leaned back in my chair and
studied the notes on the desk before me. According to
Deslatte, Karen Babin was a short woman, around
five-two, which was the same height as Laura Palmo.
She had been sent to the Louisiana State Prison for
Women. He heard she had been released around 1990,
and according to Eddie’s e-mail, that was a couple
years after Laura Palmo’s parole.

Could it be that Babin survived the wreck, took
Palmo’s name, then coldly planned her revenge on
John Hardy, the one she probably blamed for her husband’s death and her later imprisonment?

As personal secretary to Hardy and Gates, she
could have discovered the offshore accounts. Then,
using her maiden name, Rouly, she could have set up
her own account.

And she was a southpaw, and she smoked, and she
could have been the one to tear the matches from the
left side of the matchbook that I found in the Suburban.

Normally, I would be ecstatic when I came up with
a sound theory like this one, but for some strange reason, I felt guilty. No, there was nothing strange about
my feelings at all. I knew why I felt guilty. I liked
Laura Palmo, and I didn’t want her to be guilty of
John Hardy’s murder.

Still, I had to try to prove my theory. And I’d be lying if I said three-quarters of me hoped I was wrong.

Behind me, Jack was sprawled on the bed, snoring,
a half dozen empty Big Easy beer bottles on the floor
by him. I glanced at my watch. May 5. Tomorrow was
the first night of the Loup Garou Festival in Maida.

Laura Palmo had promised me a dance, and during
that dance, I would show her the e-mail and ask her to
submit to a DNA test to confirm her identity.

At that point, she would either agree or, if my theory were correct, she would react, perhaps even bolt,
but not if Emile Primeaux and a couple of his men
were around.

But first, I needed to find Palmo’s family for the
DNA test, if there were one. I dialed information in
Maple Grove, Minnesota, and asked for John Palmo, figuring there is always the given name John in every
surname.

To my surprise, there were no John Palmo, but there
were a couple J. initials, so I copied them down. With
the second J. Palmo, I struck gold. It was Laura Palmo’s
sister-in-law. “Who is this?” she demanded when I
asked to speak with Laura Palmo. “Where is she?”

I identified myself as an insurance investigator.
“There was a car wreck thirteen or fourteen years ago
in which a woman by the name of Karen Babin died.
Your sister-in-law was in the same car. The Babins ran
across an old insurance policy on Ms. Babin and have
filed a claim. We’re just trying to get to the bottom of
it.” I paused, then added, “I’d appreciate it if I could
speak to Ms. Palmo, ma’am.”

There was a long silence. Finally, she replied, “We
don’t know where Laura is. When she was released
from prison, she vanished. We didn’t even know about
the car wreck. Where was it?”

“Louisiana is all I can say” And then I quickly got
off the line. “If I find out anything about Ms. Palmo,
I’ll let you know.”

“Wait, wait! Can’t you tell me anything about her?
My husband was frantic with worry, and now, after all
these years . . ” Her voice died away.

This was the one part of the business I hated, raising hopes only to have them crash once again. “I’m
sorry, Mrs. Palmo. I’m trying to find her myself, but if
I do, I’ll have her get in touch with you”

“Thank you,” she replied in a feeble voice. “My
husband, Jeremy, has been looking for his sister for
years”

I never liked lying, but sometimes it was necessary.

After hanging up, I called the Terrechoisie Parish
Sheriff’s Department. The officer answering put me
through to Emile. I told him what I had, and he agreed
while it appeared solid, it was circumstantial, nothing
really competent, and certainly not conclusive.

“What if I can get her to agree to a DNA test with
Palmo’s family?”

“She gots family?”

“Yeah. In Minnesota. I just talked to the sister-inlaw.”

“Oui. That sound good”

“All right. I’ll meet you tomorrow night at the festival.”

Cajun festivals are throwbacks to the county fairs of
the early 1900s: exhibits of livestock, farm goods,
crafts, hobbies, and as always, displays of pictures
drawn in crayon by elementary students.

The brightly lit midway usually had four or five
rides, a half-dozen games of chance, and a dozen
booths hawking food, everything from pork-a-bobs to
roasted corn to blooming onions. Oh yes, and as always, the ubiquitous beer garden, complete with tables and a half dozen spigots filling Styrofoam cups
with frosty beer.

And at the end of the midway was the dance floor, a
dozen or so 4’ x 8’ sheets of plywood thrown on the
ground. Invariably, the band was made up of a couple
fiddlers, an accordion player, and a guitar strummer.

Despite the heat and humidity, whole families attended, and while the kids rode the rides, Mom and Dad
danced, drank beer, and visited with family and friends,
reminiscent of the early days of the Cajunfais do do’s.

Jack was instantly captivated by the gaiety and
laughter. He bought a roasted ear of corn at the first
booth, and headed for the beer garden.

I glanced around and spotted Emile with two
deputies, all in civvies. “Get us a couple beers, Jack.
I’ll be right back.”

He grunted. “Here, carry my corn.”

So, with an ear of corn in my hand, I hurried over to
Emile. He eyed the corn quizzically. “It’s my
friend’s,” I said. I offered it to him. “Want a bite?”

The three laughed. “What you gots in mind,
Boudreaux?”

“I’ll bring Palmo back here to the beer garden. You
and your boys take up two tables at the back. When I
bring her in, move away from one of the tables so we
can take it. You’ll be at the next table, close enough to
hear us.”

“Good. Me and Louis here, we sit at table. Walter
there, he take other table. When he see you come, he
go out.”

I crossed my fingers and held them up. “Hope this
works.”

Moments later, Jack came up with our beer. “Now
let’s go see the sights,” he exclaimed, excited as a tenyear old with money burning a hole in his pocket.

“This is fantastic,” he babbled as we allowed ourselves to be jostled along with the slow-moving throng.
“I’ve never been anyplace like this except the state fair
up in Dallas. And it wasn’t half the fun this is.”

Three levels of bleachers had been erected on two
sides of the dance floor. We climbed up to the third
level to watch the fun. Within seconds, our toes were
tapping the bleachers in time to the bouncy rhythms
of Cajun music.

Cajun dancing is as different from classic ballroom
dancing as a horned toad is from a prime Brahma bull.
The two-step and Cajun jig are both done to the same
speedy two-beat music, depending if the dancers prefer smooth, graceful movements or the discombobulated bouncing of a puppet on a string.