Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 07 - The Swamps of Bayou Teche (4 page)

I nodded, understanding her implication. “So he
didn’t have any enemies that you know of?”

“Not of the sort you mean”

“I see. Now you say he took a client to the Bahamas. Can you tell me who this client is?”

She smiled up at me with pained tolerance. “I
can’t do that, Mr. Boudreaux. Mr. Hardy would not
approve”

I grinned. “It was a shot. How about the phone
number in the Bahamas? Can you give me that?”

“Why certainly,” she replied briskly, reaching for
her address book. She inadvertently knocked over a
stack of mail, spilling it on the floor.

“Let me,” I said, kneeling to gather the half dozen
or so envelopes. Scooping them up, I handed them to
her. I noticed the return address on the top envelope
was from Antigua. “Here you are”

She smiled shyly, a blush on her cheeks. “Thank
you. Now, let me get that number. Like I said, he called
from the Bahamas with this number where I could
reach him.” She jotted it down and handed it to me.

“That was after the hunting trip.”

“Yes. It was a spring turkey hunt. A special hunt,
John said.” She smiled warmly.

“I should have come a little earlier,” I replied, with
a smile of my own. “I do a little hunting myself.”

She arched an eyebrow.

I continued, “I’m not much of a hunter, probably not
as good a one as your boss. But I enjoy being outdoors”

Laura Palmo laughed softly. “To be honest, neither
is Mr. Hardy. It had been so long since he’d been
hunting, he had to go out and buy new clothes, waterproof boots and all.”

“Thanks for making me feel better,” I replied.
“Now, can you tell me the name of the hunting camp
near Morgan City? I’ll drive down and see what I come
up with. Maybe I can get enough to satisfy his mother.”

“I hope so,” she replied. “It’s Benoit’s Hunting
Lodge down in Terrechoisie Parish. Can’t miss it. A
big sign this side of Morgan City shows the way” She
smiled sadly. “But I hate to see you make the trip for
nothing. That’s all it will be, a waste of time.”

“Have you talked to him since he called?”

She smiled warmly. “No. He instructed me to call
only in an emergency”

I believed her. From what I had learned from Laura
Palmo, I could see no reason for Mrs. Hardy to worry.

She continued, “But I can understand Josepphine
did retain the services of your company and you must
fulfill the contract for payment. Money, she make the world go around,” she added with an affected Cajun
lilt and a charming smile.

I grinned at her sheepishly. “Sounds kind of cold
when you put it like that. The money, I mean.”

She laughed, a warm, throaty chuckle.

I nodded. “Thanks for the information.” I hesitated. “By the way. How long have you worked here for John
Hardy?”

Her eyes opened wide in mock surprise. She
pressed one hand to the base of her throat, and a
wildly exaggerated Southern-belle drawl, said, “Why,
is little old me under suspicion, Mr. Boudreaux?”

“Of course not” I laughed. “And call me Tony.”

“All right, Tony. I’m Laura. I’ve been here nine
years. Mr. Hardy hired me in ‘96 into the secretarial
pool. Then four years ago, I became Mr. Hardy’s and
Mr. Gate’s personal secretary.”

“You’re not from around here though.”

She hesitated for only a fleeting moment, just as
fleeting as the tiny frown that knit an eyebrow.

I continued, “You don’t have the accent of the natives.”

Laughing, she nodded. “You’re right. From up
north. Minneapolis. Grew tired of the cold and ended
up here. And I don’t plan on ever going back, despite
the hurricanes that come through every once in a
while,” she added.

I glanced around, then lowered my voice, “You’ve
known Mrs. Hardy for four years, you say?” She nod ded, and I continued, “Well, something’s been puzzling me about her.”

Laura, with an arch of an eyebrow, replied wryly,
“Josepphine puzzles a lot of people.” She slapped her
fingers to her lips. “I didn’t say that,” she whispered,
her eyes laughing.

“And I didn’t hear it.”

“So, what about her?”

I blurted out, “Why are there two p’s in her name?”

She studied me a moment, then rolled her eyes.
“That’s just her. You know this town is named after
one of their ancestors” I nodded, and she continued,
“From what I heard, over forty years ago, she decided
that since she was not a common person, her name
should not be spelled as such. So-” She arched her
eyebrows as if to say, “that’s why”

“And that’s it, huh?”

“That’s it. At least, that’s what Mr. Hardy told me.
Just an affectation, nothing more.” She paused a moment, a quizzical arch to her eyebrows and a crooked
smile on her lips, “Satisfied?”

I shrugged. “I suppose” I studied her a moment,
and with a wry grin, replied, “Makes you wonder why
someone would do something like that”

She gave me a look that screamed you’ve-got-tobe-kidding. “You’ve met her. Why do you think? By
the way, is she still driving her white Mercedes convertible?”

“Mercedes?” I shook my head, then chuckled as I understood just what Laura Palmo was implying. “She
was tooling through Austin traffic in a cherry red Jag
Roadster last time I saw her.”

Laura held her hands out to her sides. “I rest my
case. She really is a sweet old lady, but she likes to be
noticed and wants to keep her son tied to her apron
strings. That’s the real reason she hired you.”

I glanced at the notes in my hand. “Like you said,
the trip on down to Morgan City is probably a waste
of time.”

By the time I reached the glass doors at the front of
the bank, I had made up my mind to head back to
Austin. There was nothing here except a worried
mother. I glanced back across the lobby at Laura
Palmo behind the railing separating her desk from the
lobby. She smiled and waved. I waved back, and as I
left the bank, I glanced at the telephone number she
had given me. The Dolphin Bay Country Club at
Freeport on Grand Bahama. Telephone 1-800-739-
xxxx, room 417.

I would call John Hardy and insist he contact his
mother. And then my job was done.

Folding the sheet of paper into my shirt pocket, I
started down the sidewalk to the Cadillac.

Then I froze.

Hastily, I fumbled in my pocket for the paper with
Hardy’s telephone number. I reread it, then stared off
into space, mixed thoughts tumbling through my head.

But foremost was the idea that perhaps the trip to
Morgan City might not be a waste of time after allthat perhaps there was more to this case than simply a
doddering old woman wanting to keep her son tied to
her apron strings.

I pulled out my cell phone and punched in the telephone number Laura had given me. I listened carefully as the operator at the Dolphin Bay Country Club
in the Bahamas answered. After a moment, I said, “I
beg your pardon. I have the wrong number.”

For several seconds, I stared at the small silver
phone. Now I knew something was wrong.

To confirm the gut feeling nagging at me, I called
information, then once again Dolphin Bay Country
Club. I asked for room 417. Moments later, I hung up,
my gut feeling verified.

First stop-Benoit’s Hunting Lodge, Morgan City,
Louisiana.

Jack started the engine as I slammed the door. “Where now? Back home?” He grunted.

I hooked my thumb south. “Morgan City.”

A sly grin slid over his rotund face as he backed out
of the parking slot. “Found something, huh?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied with a shrug. “But maybe
down there, I can make two plus two add up to four.”

He just nodded and gunned the engine. The powerful car leaped forward, heading for Morgan City on
Highway 87, the scenic route, tagged by the state as
the Bayou Teche Scenic Byway.

Not only could Jack live with absolute nonchalance
in the squalor of empty beer cans and greasy boxes
filled with pizza crumbs, he also was blessed with an intellectual curiosity equaled only by a toad frog. So
the fact he didn’t ask me to explain what I had discovered to send us on down to Morgan City gave me time
to sort my thoughts while we sped down the quaint
road, lined with mossy trees and dark, deep swamps.

I didn’t have much information, but what little I had
only took a few minutes to organize. First, Hardy had
not returned on schedule. Second, the last verifiable
time he had been seen was at Benoit’s Hunting Lodge.
And third, he was not at Dolphin Bay.

The wind was blowing my hair, and the warm sun
chased off the last of the night chill of the swamps. I
scooted around in the seat. “Are you wondering why
we’re going on down to Morgan City?”

Jack shrugged. “Not particularly.”

I couldn’t help grinning, imagining just what shape
our world would be in if everyone possessed Jack’s
unquenchable thirst for knowledge. “You know, I told
you this guy was supposed to be in the Bahamas”

“Yeah, but his old lady doesn’t think he is.” He
looked around at me.

I nodded. “Well, she was right. He isn’t. At least,
not where he’s supposed to be”

“Huh?” He frowned at me. “How did you find that
out?”

“Keep your eyes on the road, and I’ll tell you. It was
simple. I called. John Hardy isn’t registered at the hotel where he said he was going to stay. He was sup posed to be in room four seventeen, but there isn’t a
four seventeen.”

He glanced at me, a puzzled frown on his face.
“Didn’t his old lady have the number? Why didn’t
she call?”

I shrugged. “I long ago gave up trying to figure out
the fairer sex”

“So what made you decide to call?”

“The phone number his secretary gave me” I read
it off to him. “One, eight hundred, seven-three-nine …
room four one seven”

He gave me a blank stared and shrugged. “So
what’s the big deal?”

“So, for hotel chains, eight hundred and eight
eighty-eight exchanges are usually informational and
reservation numbers. Stop and think. Have you ever
called an eight hundred number to reach an individual’s room in a hotel?”

Nodding slowly as the explanation sunk in, he said.
“So, when you-Hey! Look at that, would you? That
city limits sign.”

I looked around in the direction he was pointing. A
large sign by the side of the macadam road announced
the city limits of Maida, Home of the Bayou Teche
Loup Garou Festival! At the bottom of the sign was a
caricature of a sway-backed horse chewing on a fence.

Jack shook his head. “What are they talking about?
What’s a loup garou?”

Laughing I explained that it was an old French myth. “Supposedly it claims that witches can change
men into animals.”

He rolled his eyes and flexed his fingers about the
steering wheel. “Like a werewolf, huh?”

“Not exactly,” I replied, remembering stories from
the old ones whispered around a fireplace on cold
winter nights out on the Louisiana prairies. “Different
animals. Not all loup garous were bad. I remember
one story about a white eagle loup garou”

“A what?” He responded in disbelief, thinking I
was pulling his leg.

“White eagle. The way the story went was this man
was gone from his family for a long time. He wanted
to see them, so a witch turned him into an eagle so he
could fly back and see his wife and children, which he
did. Men are turned into horses or cows or just about
anything. Whatever the witch decides.”

Jack blew out through his lips. “Weird. You know,
these people are weird. Nice and friendly, but weird.”
He paused, then added, “I don’t know about you, but
I’m hungry.”

“Then find us a place to stop,” I said, nodding to the
little town ahead of us.

Later, a mile beyond the Maida city limits, we
passed the Louisianne Casino on Highway 182. A few
miles farther, we found the sign marking the turnoff to
Benoit’s Hunting Lodge, exactly where Laura Palmo
had said it would be. I expected a clamshell road, but instead a narrow macadam road twisted back through
the cypress and wateroaks of a vast swamp sprawling
over several hundred square miles between the IntraCoastal Canal and Highway 182.

The brown water of the swamp lapped at the edges
of the asphalt road. The thick shadows cast by the
canopy of leaves overhead held in the heat rising from
the earth. The appearance of a swamp is deceiving,
not cool as perceived, but instead suffocating, for there
is no breeze to stir the air, to dissipate the heat. And the
fetid stench of the tepid water clogs the nostrils.

After a few miles, we emerged from the trees into a
sea of water cane ten feet tall, lining the road on either
side as far ahead as the eye could see. The macadam
road made a wide curve to the left and then twisted
into several smaller dipsy-doodle curves.

Jack grunted. “Sure hate to have car trouble out
here.” He paused. “Think there’s many alligators
around?”

I laughed. “Think dogs got fleas?”