Gator Aide (22 page)

A homegrown enmity between federal and state agents in Louisiana had developed into an “us against them” mentality. Just as with the folks in the bayou, I was considered the outsider coming in, trying to shove a law down their throats which they had no intention of following. State agents played by bayou rules. Sometimes they even made up their own.

“Then you have an advantage over me. Do I get to know your name, or is this part of the game where I’m supposed to guess?”

The man continued to sneer, shoving his hands deep in his pockets, his fingers wriggling about like a family of tiny moles trying to escape through the fabric.

“That’s a good idea. Why don’t you spend some of that free time of yours doing that.”

Nodding to Gunter, the man strode past me out the door. Gunter’s lips twitched, though his eyes remained as dead as ever.

“That was state agent Clyde Bolles, and I don’t believe he likes you, Agent Porter.”

“I’ll learn to live with it.”

Gunter wasted no time on small talk. “May I ask what you’re doing here, please.”

“I want to speak with Mrs. Williams. It won’t take up much time.”

Gunter looked toward the staircase before bringing his attention back to me.

“Who let you in, Agent Porter?”

“The butler, of course.”

“Of course.” Gunter sighed and motioned toward the stairs with a sweeping theatrical gesture, turning his body around as if to block any sudden moves on my part.

“I am so sorry, but Mrs. Williams is indisposed today. Perhaps you heard. Her dog took ill yesterday and died.” He gestured with the same hand that Fifi had taken a chunk out of, the white gauze still bearing telltale stains of dried blood.

“I heard the dog was poisoned.”

“Interesting. And I thought it was just a piece of bad meat.”

I was left with little doubt as to who the supplier had been.

Gunter moved in toward me until I found myself backed up against the front door.

“I’ll let Mrs. Williams know that you stopped by to convey your condolences. It will mean so much to her.”

Leaning in close, he turned the knob and opened the door behind me. Worried that Vinnie might pick this moment to come lumbering back in with the meat in his hand, I allowed the door to close in my face and then headed to the back of the house. Having refused this morning to put on the brace I’d been given to wear, a jolt of pain shot through my knee as I slowed to a hobble. But I didn’t have to go very far before I spotted Vinnie hidden behind a profusion of overgrown shrubs. The lime green of his shirt blended in with the plants, while his face peeked out from between the deep pink flowers of an azalea bush.

“This is the best I can do for youse.”

Thrusting a small foil-wrapped package into my hands, he turned and was gone before I looked up to thank him.

As I drove back toward
Canal, I wondered what kind of business a state game agent could have with Gunter Schuess. Clyde Bolles appeared to be a beneficiary of small-town political patronage—a favor that had been owed and paid off by supplying Bolles with a job.

Wanting to get a progress report on Terri, I stopped by a pay phone along Decatur Street. The news Dr. Kushner gave me was good. Aside from needing lots of rest, Terri was on the mend.

“Just keep an eye on him, Porter. He has this obsession with staring at himself in the mirror while chanting the names of top plastic surgeons like it was some sort of mantra. Why don’t you swing by the day after tomorrow and take him off my hands.”

That sounded like the Terri I knew and loved. Kushner added some more information that I’d hoped to hear.

“I also spoke to Sam Leonard, the vet I told you about. Seems he’s bored with his same old routine, so I filled him in on you. That was last night. He’s called me three times since, wanting to know why you haven’t phoned him yet. So do me a favor and give him a call before he pesters me to death.”

“Thanks. I’ll return the favor sometime.”

“You can buy me a drink when this is all over and we’ll call it even.”

With some free time on my hands, a pay phone in front of me, and a ball of raw meat thawing out fast, I decided to call Dr. Sam right away. A male voice answered on the third ring with the same impatient tone I occasionally found myself using.

“Yeah, hi. Animal Health Clinic here.”

“I’d like to speak to Dr. Leonard, please.”

“Well, I’d say that depends on who you are.”

Sam Leonard was in bad need of a new receptionist—one who didn’t abuse clients before the first appointment had been made.

“This is Rachel Porter. Dr. Leonard’s expecting my call.”

“You aren’t kidding. I’ve been waiting around hoping to hear from you all morning. How the hell are you?”

“Dr. Leonard?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You’d think I wouldn’t have to answer my own phone, but my receptionist is out to lunch so I’m doing double duty. So are you free or what?”

“You mean do I have some time available?”

“Yeah, like right now. Lucy’s due back in ten minutes. Let’s grab some lunch, and you can fill me in on what you have in mind, lay out the plans, hit me with the dirt.”

I hadn’t imagined working with a kamikaze vet champing at the bit to disobey the law. But I also didn’t have a wide range of candidates to choose from. I’d have to check him out and decide from there. We agreed to meet at Mother’s, a local spot on Poydras Street. It seemed a safe enough place since it was always jammed.

“How will I recognize you?”

“I’ll be the good-looking guy with the long grey ponytail, grizzled beard, and jeans. How about you?”

“I’m the tall strawberry blonde who looks like she just walked into a wall.”

Dr. Sam chuckled. “Yeah, Sandy told me about that. So, I’ll look for a Yankee decked out in red, black, and blue. See you in half an hour.”

I gave myself a quick once-over in the rearview mirror. Yellow bruises shone through my makeup, as if I’d contracted a bad case of hepatitis. Giving up on vanity, I turned my aggression on a Jaguar instead, beating it out for a parking space that was up for grabs. By the time I got to Mother’s, the line for a table was halfway out the door. I pushed my way up front, but no one fit Sam’s description. I started heading to the back of the line when a hand gripped me by the shoulder and swung me around.

“Hey, Rachel. Follow me.”

Grabbing my hand was a man already beginning to jostle his way through the crowd, looping himself in and out of bodies like only a true New Yorker can do. A long grey ponytail swung past his shoulders, hitting the back of a lavender tee shirt. Jeans were slung low on his hips. Air Nike sneakers gave a bounce to his walk, so that his head bobbed up and down like a duck at a shooting gallery. Dr. Sam had a table ready and waiting with a pitcher of cold sangria half polished off. I was impressed.

“How did you manage this?”

“The guy who owns the place, his dog’s a patient of mine. Hey, it’s that old New York adage of who you know.”

Taking a sip of sangria, I studied the man across from me. A coarse mass of salt-and-pepper hair was pulled back tightly. A beard and mustache covered the bottom half of a pockmarked face. Unruly eyebrows reached straight out toward me, hovering above hazel eyes which smiled from behind a pair of round tortoiseshell glasses. He was the classic sixties-liberal case study. A Dead Head graduates from school, decides to experience life on the road, travels around the country living in communes until landing in New Orleans, where he tunes into the ongoing party and then proceeds to tune out, never bothering to leave.

“So, you got it figured out yet, Rachel?”

“Sorry. You’re just not what I had expected.”

“Good. Okay. So you want to know what’s in this for me. Let’s run through it before we eat. I’ve got a bad stomach. I’m beginning to think it’s ulcers.”

Dr. Sam listed a political history that involved lab animal break-ins, spraying red paint on seals up in Canada alongside Brigitte Bardot, and harassing Soviet trawlers during whale hunts. But that had been years ago. Since then, his life had settled into the routine medical duties required for his practice. Restless and itching to do something he shouldn’t, he was looking for some trouble. I gave him the rough details of what I wanted him to do, which was basically to autopsy a gator found at the scene of a highly suspicious murder. I also told him I was looking to tie it into a scam involving heavy hitters whose names I couldn’t yet divulge.

Agreeing to help me out, Sam gobbled down a plate of shrimp étouffée in record time, ordering a piece of sweet potato pie before I had barely begun to dig into my seafood gumbo. His paunch attested to the fact that he’d been enjoying the good life more than climbing over the walls of any research labs, lately.

“So did I pass the test, chief?”

“Like an Eagle Scout with flying colors.”

“Great.” His hands massaged his stomach. “Man, this is just what the doctor ordered. I feel like I’ve been born again.”

I took out another Percocet and poured some more sangria. “Kind of like Hillard Williams, huh?”

“That scumbag running for mayor? His dog is a patient of mine. Now there’s your deep-fried couple. The wife’s a lush, which is understandable. It’s probably the only way she can get through each day with the man.”

I reached for my sangria as the Percocet caught in my throat. “You used to treat Fifi?”

“Still do. Nasty little bugger. But hell, I’d be, too, if I’d had a gator chomping down on me like some hors d’oeuvre.” Reaching into the bottom of the sangria pitcher, he forked out a maraschino cherry and popped it in his mouth, the red juice staining a few hairs on his beard.

“Sorry to have to tell you this Sam, but you just lost a patient. Fifi met with some foul play yesterday. I have reason to believe she was fed poisoned meat. In fact, I have a sample in my car. I was hoping you’d analyze it for me.”

Sam dipped his fingers into his water glass and wiped the cherry juice from his beard. “Yeah, sure. No sweat. Man, I wasn’t crazy about that dog, but she didn’t deserve a death like that.”

The remark conjured up visions of Valerie and Hook. “Will you be able to do an autopsy on the gator anytime soon?”

Sam picked at the fruit on the bottom of the pitcher, demolishing one piece after the other. “Sure. You got a way to get it over to me?”

It was the one piece of logistics I hadn’t stopped to consider. There was no way to transport a ten-foot alligator in my Crackerjack box of a car. Fortunately, Dr. Sam picked up on my panicked state of hesitation.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got a van. Tell you what, I’ll even help you carry the body. Feel better now, Rachel?”

“You’re a lifesaver, Dr. Sam.”

“Yeah. That’s what most of my patients tell me. So, what say we put this gig in motion and take the van out for a spin this evening? Is that copacetic with you?”

It was the best news I’d had all day.

I arrived at Sam’s at eight o’clock that evening, anxious to be on my way, get the deed over with, and hightail it back with the least amount of trouble possible. Getting out of my car, I was met outside his office door by a rottweiler as ferocious as any I’d seen. Pitch-black, with a head the size of a serving platter and a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth, the dog emitted a series of gruff barks, sending my adrenaline soaring. I froze in place, and felt the rough surface of a tongue lick the back of my hand.

“That’s Shep. A real killer, isn’t he? I’m trying to teach him to attack at the first sign of trouble.”

Sam stood behind his screen door, grinning broadly.

“How’s he doing?”

“Miserably. The dog loves everyone. He hasn’t yet realized exactly where it is that he lives. I mean, we’ve got the projects on one side, all the looney tunes from the strip on the other, and rednecks running the rest of the show. But I figure based on looks alone, he’s got to have some value as a deterrent.”

Dr. Sam wheeled out an ancient Chevy van painted in a wild array of colors, a piece of art history from the days of
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that riding through Slidell in such a kool pop was the equivalent of flashing a neon sign for the local cops to pull us over. Sam climbed into the driver’s seat and opened the passenger door from the inside, the outside handle having fallen off long ago. It creaked open with a high-pitched shriek.

“Don’t say it. I know what you’re thinking, but I can’t let it go. It would be like admitting I’ve grown old.”

I kept my mouth shut, understanding only too well. We barreled over the bridge across Lake Pontchartrain, a breeze passing through the windows as the wind picked up. Beaming off the black water, the light of a near-full moon was topped by whitecaps which danced across the lake, frothing like freshly whipped cream. We were heading directly into a squall.

As the rain began to pour down, Dr. Sam handed me a small piece of rope. I followed its length along the dashboard outside the window, to where it was knotted onto the windshield wiper on the right hand side of the van. Sam held an identical piece of rope in his left hand.

“Start pulling.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Your wipers don’t work?”

“I never actually drive this thing. It’s a relic. But you needed something large enough to stick a gator in—am I right, or what?”

The only thing good about the storm was the fact that not many police would be out looking to roust “undesirables” passing through town. The rain transformed the honky-tonk main drag of Slidell into a Fauvist painting. Fractured by the jerky movement of the wipers, brightly lit signs competed in a riot of color, blurring to soft edges so that McDonald’sBurgerKingWendy’s all became one. The rain battered the roof of the van, tiny snare drums in fevered competition. Pouring in through the open window, the rain soaked my pants until the fabric was almost sheer against my skin.

I changed the string from one hand to the other as my arm began to ache, continuing to tug at the wipers to a silent beat as I counted time in my head. Pulling out a bag of red licorice twizzlers, Dr. Sam handed me a long rubbery stick as I pointed out the building between drops of rain.