Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 08 - Death in the French Quarter (2 page)

When I made it back to Austin after dodging a dinner date with Louisiana alligators in which I was to be
the main course, I swore to my boss, Marty, that nothing other than a death in the family or winning the state
lotto would lure me back across the Sabine River before Thanksgiving.

Although I’m a native of the state, I’d had my fill of
romantic Louisiana. For several harrowing days along
Bayou Teche, a devious killer who played the loup
garou stalked me. On top of that, I had the stomachchurning experience to witness a partially decomposed
body that had been cut from the belly of a sixteen-foot
alligator. And if that wasn’t enough, I had lain helpless
on the ground as a beautiful woman walked into a
whirling propeller.

After those terrifying encounters, all I wanted to do was return to my apartment on Peyton-Gin Road in
Austin with my new roommate AB, short for Alligator
Bait, an appropriate sobriquet for the little kitten I
snapped up from two backwater Neanderthals who
were planning to hook him and go alligator fishing.

All I wanted to do was relax and let the world wobble
on its axis for a while.

And the last place I cared to visit was exotic New Orleans. Sure, I’ve always appreciated the charm and bewitching ambience of the French Quarter and the
Garden District, but there is in “the City Care Forgot” a
menacing underbelly that has dumped more than one
unlucky Joe Sixpack in the Mississippi.

Of course, what can you expect in a city where the
sun rises over the west bank and sets over the east; that
gives up Tabasco sauce for Lent; and brags of more
haunted bars than any municipality in the world?

I had no idea of the conundrum in which I would
later find myself when Emerente Guidry walked into
Blevins’ Security that sunny July day and offered my
boss, Marty Blevins, $25,000 to uncover the person or
persons who had murdered Paul-Leon Savoie.

I had been working at my desk on an insurance fraud
case for Great Southern Insurance Company when a
slender woman in a neat brown business suit entered
the office. She was a stranger, but still there was something familiar about her long dark hair, black eyes, high
cheekbones, and copper-hued skin that tugged at some
hidden cubbyhole in my memory. She paused to speak to Al Grogan, our resident Sherlock Holmes, who
pointed her to Marty’s office.

With shameless curiosity, I watched through the
glass walls of his office as she spoke. When Marty
jerked forward, I figured she had mentioned money.
When he started nodding eagerly, I knew money had
definitely been brought up. And when he waddled
around the desk to offer her a chair, I knew it was big
money.

I pursed my lips in concentration, trying to put my
finger on what was so familiar about her, but the
thought remained just beyond my grasp.

In the midst of my confused musings, Marty pointed
me out to her and crooked his finger, signaling for my
presence. At that moment, my thick brain managed to
grasp that ethereal thread of familiarity that had been
evading me.

I’m not much on gambling, but at that moment, I
would have given a hundred-to-one odds she was a
Melungeon, a culture that some call Louisiana Redbones, mixed races; the average person could never discern any such mixture.

Marty waved impatiently.

“All right, all right,” I muttered under my breath.
“I’m coming.”

“Meet Miss Emerente Guidry, Tony,” gushed Marty,
a pleading look in his eyes. He continued as she smiled
warmly and offered me a slender hand. I nodded in return. “Miss Guidry wants to retain our services to find the person or persons who killed Paul-Leon Savoie
three years ago. She-”

Emerente interrupted, “You don’t remember me, do
you, Tony?”

Tongue-tied, I just stared at her, knowing there was no
way I could have ever forgotten such an attractive
woman. Slowly I shook my head. “I, ah, I’m sorry, but-”

“Emerente Guidry. My brother was Louis Guidry.”
She paused, staring up at me, a wry smile on her lips as
if to say `Do you remember now?’ She handed me a
snapshot. “This is Louis last year.”

I studied the snapshot. The name had a familiar ring,
but then again, the only name in Louisiana more common than Louis is Guidry.

Emerente nudged my memory. “Seventh grade.
Church Point.”

The image of a small, curly haired boy flashed into
my head. I stared at her in amazement. “You don’t
mean Lulu?”

She laughed. “Louis always hated that nickname.”

My amazement turned to disbelief. “And you’re little
Ermy? Why, you were no bigger than this,” I exclaimed, holding my hand waist high.

Nodding vigorously, she said, “You’re the reason I’m
here. The only reason,” she added, glancing at Marty.
“I live in Morgan City. Sergeant Primeaux of the Terrechoisie Sheriff’s Department told me how you found
those who murdered the banker, John Hardy. So that’s
why I came to you”

I remembered Primeaux well, along with Jimmy
LeBlanc of the Iberville Parish Sheriff’s Department
by Whiskey River. The three of us had worked together
to find those who fed Hardy to the alligators.

Marty gushed. “Tony did a bang-up job on that one”

Ignoring him, Emerente continued. “As I explained
to Mr. Blevins. My brother was convicted of the murder, but he was innocent.”

I arched a skeptical eyebrow.

A knowing smile played over her lips. “I know what
you’re thinking, Tony. Everyone claims they’re innocent. But this is Louis.”

Mixed feelings tumbled through my head. On the
one hand I wanted to help, but on the other I recognized
the chilling fact that people do change. Why, even Jack
the Ripper was a boy once, and for all we know, perhaps a very pleasant little guy. “You said it, Emerente,
not me, but you’re right. Prisons are full of innocent
people. Just ask them”

The smile on her lips quivered, and her brows knit at
the sarcasm in my tone. “I wish I could ask Louis,
Tony, but I can’t. He’s dead”

I grimaced. “I’m sorry. Truly, I’m sorry”

She straightened her shoulders and tilted her chin.
“We were in the process of appealing his conviction
when he was stabbed to death in Huntsville over a pack
of cigarettes. I can’t continue the appeals process, but I
can clear his name”

Studying her a moment, I told myself I was looking at a Don Quixote much more attractive than the original. But, as far as I was concerned, she was tilting at the
same impossible windmills as he. “Look, I don’t mean
to hurt your feelings, Emerente, but how do you know
Louis was telling you the truth?”

She tilted her head. “You never did have any brothers
or sisters, did you, Tony? You were an only child as I
remember.”

“Only one.”

“Then you can’t know, but brothers and sisters have
very few secrets, if any, from each other. At least, in the
families of our culture.”

I nodded slowly. “I remember that your family was
always close-knit.”

“We had to be. Many in the town didn’t care for us.
We’re Melungeons, what some call Redbones”

Marty frowned at me. I ignored him.

I took a chair next to her and laid my hand on hers.
“Look Emerente. Louis is . . ” I cleared my throat,
searching for the right word. “Deceased. So, why go to
all this trouble?”

Her black eyes bored into mine. “You know our
background, Tony. We’re mixed blood.” She chuckled.
“I doubt if even the Blessed Virgin knows how many
different races of blood flows in our veins. But, my
family is a proud family. If Louis had killed Savoie, he
would have admitted it to us, and we would have found
a way to live with it. But he is innocent, and we want
the world to know.” She shrugged. “Call it foolish if
you will, but that’s how we feel”

Before I could reply, she turned to Marty. “I’ll pay an
extra ten thousand dollars for Tony to find the person or
persons who killed Paul-Leon Savoie. That’s twentyfive thousand altogether.”

Marty choked, remembering how I had sworn I
wasn’t going back to Louisiana. But, twenty-five thousand dollars. Well aware of Marty’s psychopathic lack
of shame when it came to money, I grimaced, trying to
figure out just how I could refuse the assignment and
still keep my job. Quickly, I ticked off the reasons in
my head. I didn’t want to go back to Louisiana; Emerente was wasting her money; I didn’t want to go back to
Louisiana; Louis was dead; I didn’t want to go back to
Louisiana; there was absolutely no sense in spending
twenty-five thousand dollars just so people would think
better of a dead man; and to top it off, I still didn’t want
to go back to Louisiana.

Call me cynical, but it had always been my belief
that the ones who wanted to think the worst of a person
did so regardless of evidence. And the same with those
who wanted to think the best. In other words, don’t
confuse me with facts.

Emerente’s next revelation changed my mind. “Savoie
was murdered here in Austin.” When I heard those
words, I relaxed. The job would keep me in Texas. Then
her next words jarred me so that I would have journeyed
around the world to find the killer, even Louisiana. “The
week before Louis died he told me he believed that whoever killed Savoie was working at a business called
Austin Expediters.”

An electrical charge surged through my veins. I tried
to suppress my excitement. Austin Expediters was the
company for which my cousin, Stewart, was working
the previous December when he was executed, gangstyle. It was a clean hit. Two neat holes in the back of
the head. No evidence, no gun, no nothing. A typical
mob job, surgical and neat.

No one had ever been arrested, and like so many of
the gang-related murders, it was relegated to the back
burners because of a lack of evidence and an influx of
new crimes.

“Austin Expediters? Are you sure that was the name
of it?”

“Positive”

“Was Louis working there?”

“No, but he had some business dealings with Savoie
who did work there. Louis swore he was in Melungo,
Louisiana, visiting a friend when the murder took
place, but the friend, Al Mouton, denied it.”

“Savoie own the place or just work there?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Why did Louis think the killer had something to do
with Austin Expediters?”

“Two employees of the business, Kahlil Guilbeaux
and Sebastian Mancini, testified at the trial they heard
Louis threaten Savoie the day the old man was killed.
They had to be lying since Louis was in Melungo.”

I wanted to say, `Since Louis said he was in
Melungo,’ but instead, I said, “Where’s Melungo?”

“On the Sabine River north of I-Ten. It is predomi nantly a Melungeon community. There’s a few there
like Mouton who give the rest of them a bad name, but
Melungeons, as you know, are like most Louisianans.
All they want is to do the best for their family and mind
their own business.”

“I know.”

Marty stepped in. He looked at me, his eyes pleading. “I think we can handle this to your satisfaction,
Miss Guidry. Don’t you, Tony?”