Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 07 - The Swamps of Bayou Teche (5 page)

He gulped.

Jack whistled when we pulled up in front of
Benoit’s Hunting Lodge. I was just as surprised, for
instead of a weathered camp with rundown buildings
and a battered fleet of aluminum boats, we were staring at a well-maintained two-story lodge constructed
of logs perched several feet above the water, on H-bar
piers sunk in concrete.

Beneath the lodge gently rocked a fleet of camouflaged boats that appeared to be equipped with the latest in technology.

But what was even more surprising was the obviously affluent clientele. I spotted a Hummer, three extended cab pickups, and a Lexus, all new. In fact, one
of the extended cabs still had the dealer’s license in
the rear window. Parked at the side of the lot were the
lodge vehicles, three four-wheel drive GMC extended
cab pickups, two Cadillac sedans, and four Jeeps, all
painted white with identical logos depicting a hunter
pulling down on an incoming brace of ducks.

“Fancy,” Jack muttered.

“Yeah,” I whispered.

Inside, the accommodations were on the second
floor, which was reached by a broad staircase hewn
from great logs. If the room appointments were as
elaborate as the furniture and decorations on the first
floor, then I figured they were way too pricey for a
P.I.‘s salary.

Charley Benoit and his wife, Marie, were amiable,
down-to-earth Cajuns, having worked for twenty
years to build the lodge from a single shack to one that
catered to a dozen clients daily and was booked up for
the next eighteen months.

The permanent grin on Charley’s weather-worn
face faded when I mentioned John Hardy. “Mais fois,
do I remember that one” He shook his head and blew
through his lips. “He be nothing but trouble.”

Clearing his throat, Jack pointed to the bar. “If you
don’t mind, Tony, while you’re busy here, I’ll be busy
over there”

I waved him in that direction. “Now, how’s that, Mr.
Benoit? What kind of trouble?”

“That one, he don’t come to hunt the turkey. He
don’t even bring no boots. He gots to buy some from
our store. He come to drink and mess with the lady.
He don’t like to go in the boat to the blinds on the
prairie.”

“Lady? What lady is that?”

“The one he come with. Cullen be her name. Sue
Cullen. She owns some business in Maida.” He
paused and frowned up at me. “Why you ask all these
questions?”

I quickly explained why I was there.

He nodded. “Gone, huh? You think he be dead?”

His question surprised me. “I don’t know. Do you?”

“Who can say? He cause fight. Big argument.”

“Fight? With who?”

“He fight with just about everyone. This Cullen
woman, she tell Hardy she shoot him, and then another of the clients, Deslatte, Moise Deslatte from
Maida, he say this Hardy shoot the shotgun too close
to him, that the shot hit the blind. On top all that, he
claim Hardy, he cheat at cards. They start to fight, but
Thiboceaux, he stop them. But not before Deslattehe be good old boy-but he tell Hardy the same like
Cullen do.”

“He threatened Hardy?”

“Oui. He do that when Thiboceaux, he be stopping
the fight.”

“Thiboceaux? Who’s he?”

“Louie Thiboceaux. He work for me. He be guide
too. Good guide. This Hardy, when Thiboceaux, he
stop the fight, Hardy be accusing Thiboceaux that he
don’t give him good spot to shoot turkey. They argue
more. Deslatte, he threaten to shoot Hardy if the man
don’t leave him alone. Hardy, he want to fight more.
That’s when I tell Hardy I give his money back, and
he leave. Right then”

A small man in jeans and a plaid shirt descended
the stairway carrying an armload of dirty linens.
Charley brightened up. “There Thiboceaux now. Hey,
Thiboceaux. Get yourself over here, mon”

Charley introduced us, and the curly-headed man
told the same story as Charley.

“And Hardy left that night after the fight, huh?”

A slender, sinewy man, Thiboceaux shook his head.
“Not right then. He be too drunk. He decide then he
want to fight me” A sneer played over his lips, revealing two missing upper teeth. He grinned at Charley.
“That be big mistake, I think.”

Charley agreed. “That man, he be drunker than a
shrimper on Saturday night, but he do leave before the
sun, it come up next morning.”

After Thiboceaux disappeared into the bar, I studied the wiry man before me, at the same time thanking my lucky stars that I had decided to come on down to
the lodge. More and more loose ends were showing
up. I handed him my business card. “There’s my cell
number, Charley. If you think of anything more about
Hardy, I’d appreciate a call”

When I left well after dark, I had a stack of notes
that would take me half the night to sort and catalog.
While my computer is much faster, I still prefer scribbling notes on the little 3” x 5” cards. That way I can
mix and match. It is surprising how sometimes by
simply putting one card next to another can change
the entire complexion of a theory.

By the time I concluded my interview with Charley
Benoit, Jack was too drunk to drive. While I had been
questioning Charley, Jack had been spiking his drinks
with tall tales from the old bartender about loup
garous.

By the time I managed to get Jack down to the
Cadillac, he had spotted a half-dozen loup garous
lurking in the shadows. He stopped at the car door and
stared up at me. With affected pomposity, he drew
himself upright and announced, “Now that I think
about it,” he mumbled, slurring his words, “I might be
a loup garou, an alcoholic loup garou made this way
by a jealous witch.” He paused and winked at me.
“Whose name we both know, but as a gentleman I decline to speak her name even if she is your ex-wife.”

With that, he opened the door and screamed.

“What?” I shouted, startled.

“Look!” He blubbered, pointing to the front seat”

There in the middle of the white leather seat was a
muddy human footprint.

“Loup garou! Loup garou!” Jack babbled.

It took me ten minutes and another straight bourbon
to coax Jack into the car, but not into the front seat,
only the back seat where he promptly passed out.

Charley Benoit shook his head and grinned at Jack.
“Kids, I figure. We got some kids around the place.
They probably fooling around this big car here while
you be inside.”

“Loup garou, my eye,” I muttered in disgust as we
drove away.

Overhead the stars lit the cane on either side of the
road with a bluish-silver light, but when we entered
the trees, the darkness seemed to press down on us.

I cocked my head, straining to pick up what
sounded like the faint sound of metal against metal,
but the wind twisting through the feathery cypress
leaves played havoc with the sound.

Suddenly, I caught movement through the passenger’s side of the windshield. I instinctively slammed
on the brakes as a large tree toppled across the road
directly in front of us.

Clenching my teeth, I spun the wheel and stood on the brake pedal, hearing the tires squealing through
the roaring in my ears.

From the corner of my eye, I caught movement in
the shadows, but when I looked again, all I saw was
the forbidding darkness of the swamp.

That’s when the rain began, and by the time Charley
Benoit and Louie Thiboceaux cut the tree in two and
dragged it off the road with the four-wheel GMC
pickup, it was midnight.

We were soaked from the steady rain.

Jack stood silently at my side, sobered by the close
call.

Shining a bright halogen beam over the thick trunk
of the cypress tree as water dripped from the bill of
his cap, Charley muttered, “You be lucky, mon ami.
This cypress-she fall few seconds later, the car, it
and you be flatter that the beaver’s tail.”

“Maybe luckier than you think,” I exclaimed.

“What that you say?”

“Shine the light back to the base of the tree”

The intense beam swept along the fuzzy trunk of
the huge cypress, halting at the clean cut at the base.
“This sucker didn’t fall, it was cut,” I muttered, taking
the light from his hand and wading into the ankledeep water. My clothes and shoes were already soaked
so a little more water made no difference.

“Cut!” Jack exclaimed. “What do you mean cut?”

I grunted impatiently. “What does anyone mean by
cut? Cut! Sliced-as opposed to diced!”

Two-thirds of the base was sliced cleanly. On the
perimeter of both the tree and the stump were matching creases in the light-colored flesh of the cypress,
indicating that a wedge had been driven into the cut.
On the opposite side, a V-shaped wedge had been
chopped out of the trunk just below the cut. A professional job.

“See what I mean,” I muttered, holding the light on
the creases and remembering the faint sound of metal
against metal.

“Mere sainte! Holy Mother!” Charley exclaimed. “Someone, he don’t care none much for you, my
friend.”

Ignoring his observation, I shined the light into water the color of weak coffee.

“What for you look?”

I grunted with satisfaction and pulled a V-shaped
wedge of iron from the water. “This,” I replied, holding the wedge for all to see, remembering the movement in the shadows just as the tree fell. “Whoever tried to make us part of the asphalt knew what he was
doing. Lucky for us, his timing was off.”

Charley muttered in surprise. Jack stuttered, “You
mean-you mean, someone tried to kill us? Both of
us?”

I nodded, glancing at Thiboceaux who seemed to
be bored with it all. “You got another explanation?” I
muttered.

On the way into Morgan City, I couldn’t help wondering about Thiboceaux. The man didn’t seem at all
surprised about the obvious attempt on our lives. Of
course, to give him his due, Jack and I were strangers,
outsiders. We could drop dead in the morning, and it
would mean nothing to Louie Thiboceaux or Charley
Benoit.

Still I had learned much from Charley and his client
records. Sue Cullen owned a small, four-store chain of
interior decorators headquartered in Maida with the
trendy name Interiors by Suzanne. She and John
Hardy checked in at the same time at the lodge,
though arriving in separate cars. She was the client to
whom Laura Palmo had referred. And she had threatened Hardy.

Then there was Moise Deslatte of Maida, the client
with whom Hardy had fought. He also had threatened
Hardy. Deslatte owned a construction company. Well
known to Charley Benoit, Deslatte was a regular client
at the lodge.

I hoped a brief visit with each the next day would
provide sufficient information to determine the
whereabouts of John Hardy, at least sufficient enough
to satisfy his mother.

Unfortunately, the only motel in Morgan City with
a vacancy was the Empire Arms Suites, an ostentatious name for a battered row of rooms that appeared
to be sagging in every direction. The sleepy clerk informed me there was only a single vacancy, but at one
o’clock in the morning, I couldn’t afford to be choosy.
Luckily, there were two beds, otherwise, I would have
slept on the floor.

After depositing my luggage, I went outside for better reception and called Marty’s voicemail, making
sure he knew where I was. When I went back inside,
Jack, fully dressed, had sprawled across one of the
beds and was snoring like a chainsaw.

After a quick shower, I climbed between the sheets,
which remarkably, were clean. I was asleep as soon as
my head hit the thin pillow.

The jangling of my cell phone cut through the deep
slumber into which I had fallen. Sleepily, I fumbled
on the nightstand for it. “Yeah,” I muttered, my eyes
still closed.

“Tony. This is Marty. How far are you from
Whiskey River?”

I groaned. “Hundred miles or so, I guess”

“Well, you’re going to find out.” The excitement in
his voice cut through the fog in my head. “Just heard
from my cousin in Baton Rouge that the sheriff’s department in Iberville Parish reported that John
Hardy’s Suburban has been pulled out of Whiskey
River below Interstate 10”

Suddenly, I was wide away. “When?”

“About two o’clock this morning.”

I glanced at the clock on the TV. Three thirty-three. What was the old superstition about threes-bad things
happen in threes? I hoped this wasn’t one of them.

Marty continued. “Get over there and find out
what’s going on. Call me as soon as you hear anything. It looks like this could be more than some rich
guy taking off on a lark” What he didn’t say was that
he was already counting the thirty thousand Josepphine Hardy had promised if her son had been
harmed.

The rain had eased to a mist.

We packed quickly.

“I’m ready,” said Jack, opening the door. “Let’s go”

Suddenly he screamed and jumped back into me,
knocking me backward. “What the-”

“Snake, snake, snake,” he screamed, hiding behind
me and pointing at the door.