Voodoo River (1995) (36 page)

Edith straightened to see, and so did I. From where we sat you could see through the wide opening and out to the highway car. Parked in the killing field. Joel got out of the near side of his car and stood in the rain, and Berry and Dave Champagne climbed out the other side. I thought I saw a shadow slip from the rear of the car when Berry got out, but I couldn't be sure. Milt Rossier said, "Where's the other one?"

Bennett said, "Who?"

"The one knocked you on your ass, goddammit!" Pike wasn't with them.

Bennett squinted out into the rain. "We couldn't find him, Milt. He's still out in the swamp."

Rossier swatted at Bennett, his face etched hard. "You dumb sonofabitch! I said everybody!"

"We couldn't find him, Milt!" Whining. "Hell, we'll get him come light."

Milt Rossier said, "Shit!" then went to the big door and yelled, "Come on in here, Jo-el, and let's talk this thing out!"

Out in the rain, Jo-el yelled back, "Like hell, you bastard. You come out here. You're under arrest!" Boudreaux stayed where he was.

I heard something at the rear of the shed, out where they wash the blood and the scales. Pike, maybe. I worked my feet under me and rubbed harder at the tape, thinking that if things didn't work out I would try to put myself over Lucy.

Rossier yelled, "I got your wife, goddammit. Now get in here and let's talk about this."

Jo-el came forward and stepped inside the door. His side holster was empty. He saw me first, and then he looked at his wife and Lucy. He seemed older and tired, like a man who had run a very long race and had not been in shape for it. He said, "You okay, Edie?"

She nodded.

No one was looking at me. I got to one knee, the other foot beneath me.

Jo-el said, "How we gonna work this out, Milt?"

Rossier said, "Like this," and then he raised Tommy Willets's service revolver. I lunged forward just as Joe Pike stepped in through the back and shot Milt Rossier high in the left shoulder, spinning him around and spraying blood like polka dots across Jo-el. Edith made a wailing sound deep in her throat and came off the floor and into Milt Rossier as if she'd been fired from a cannon. Even with her hands and mouth taped she battered at him with her head and face, her eyes wild and rolling. Rossier dropped his gun and grabbed at his wound, making a high whining sound. Ren+! went for Joe Pike, and Pike shot him square in the chest two times, the .357 Magnum loads putting Ren+! down on his knees. Ren+! tried to get to his feet, and Pike shot him in the center of the forehead. Rossier tried to shove past Edith for his pistol, but I hit him low in the back. Prima fired his little revolver at Pike, but Pike dived to the side. The people outside were yelling. LeRoy screamed, "I'll get the sonofabitch" and stood up from behind one of the gutting tables where he'd run for cover. He aimed his .45 at me, his tongue stuck in the corner of his mouth like a kid trying to color between the lines, and then a tiny red dot appeared on his chest. He looked down at the flicker and said, "Huh?" just before his back blew out and something kicked him across the room in a spray of blood and bone and the heavy crack of a high-powered rifle rocked through the rain.

Donaldo Prima lowered his gun and looked confused. "The fuck?"

Pike rolled to me and used his .357 to bust the chain on my handcuffs. "Del Reyo." When my hands were free I ripped off the tape.

The red dot flickered on Prima's face like a firefly searching for a place to light. He swatted at it, and then his head blew apart and again there was the distant BOOM.

Pike said, "Flash in the treeline. Gotta be two hundred meters."

I said, "Rossier has people outside."

Pike shook his head. "Not for long." His mouth twitched.

There were more booms.

I drove into Edith, pushing her down, and yelled for Lucy to stay under the table. Berry was yelling, too, saying, "Somebody's shooting at us!" Pike shouted for him to crawl under the car.

Rossier climbed to his feet, still clutching his arm, and the dot found him. I pushed him aside just as something hot snapped past and slammed into the wall. Rossier picked up LeRoy's .45, scrambled to his feet again, and lurched out through the rear of the processing sheds, firing as he went. I went after him.

There was one more boom from the treeline, and then the rifle was silent. Behind the sheds, we were hidden. Rossier tripped and fell into the mud and got up and ran on, still making the whining noise. He shot at me, but with all the slipping and falling and the hurt shoulder, the shots went wild.

I yelled, "It's done, Milt. C'mon."

He fired twice more, and the slide locked back and he was out of bullets. He threw the gun at me and ran again, straight into the low wire fence that encircled the turtle pond. In the dark and the rain he hadn't seen it. He went over the wire sideways, hit the mud on his bad shoulder, and slid headfirst into the water. It was a flat silver surface in the rain until he hit it, and then the surface rocked. He sat up, gasping for air, and I stepped across the wire and held out my hand. "C'mon, Milt. Let's go."

Pike and Jo-el came up behind me.

Milt Rossier flopped and splashed, stumbling farther out into the pond. "He'p me! You gotta he'p me!

Jo-el said, "You're not drowning, you fat sonofabitch. Just stand up!"

His eyes wide and crazed. "He'p me! Please, Christ, get me out!"

The water swelled at the far side of the pond, and I remembered Luther.

I stepped into the water to my ankles. "Get up, dammit. Take my hand!"

Rossier tried to stand but lost his balance and fell backwards, farther out in the pond. I went in up to my knees. "Take my hand, Milt."

Something large moved fast beneath the surface, making a wake without breaking the rain-dimpled plane of the water. Pike said, "Jesus," and fired at the head of the wake. Jo-el Boudreaux fired, too.

I said, "Take my hand!"

Rossier made it to his feet, struggled toward me, and grabbed my hand. His grip was wet and slippery and I pulled as hard as I could, but then his left leg was yanked out from beneath him and he was pulled down into the water.

The screaming and the thrashing went on for several minutes, and maybe I screamed as loudly as Milt Rossier, but probably not.

Chapter
38

J o-el Boudreaux called in the state, and the state Drought its prosecutors and the crime-scene people, and by noon the next morning there were over three dozen parish, state, and federal officials up to their ankles in mud. The rain kept coming, and did not slacken. After the bodies were cleaned up and the statements taken, Jo-el removed his badge and told the young cop, Berry, to place him under arrest on a charge of obstruction of justice for failing to act against Milt Rossier.

Berry looked at the badge as if it were radioactive and said, "Like hell I will!"

One of the prosecutors from New Orleans shouldered his way in and said he'd be happy to accept the badge. He was a guy in his forties with tight skin and short hair, and he had spent a lot of time walking the area and shaking his head. When he tried to get the badge, Berry knocked him on his ass. A state cop from Baton Rouge tried to put Berry in a restraint hold, but Joe Pike moved between them and whispered something in the state cop's ear and the state cop walked away. After that, the prosecutor spent a lot of time sitting in his car.

Lucy spoke quietly to Jo-el for over an hour, pleading with him not to do or say anything until he spoke with Merhlie Comeaux. Edith said, "Listen to her, Joel. You must please listen to her."

Jo-el finally agreed, though he didn't seem to like it much. He sat in the front seat of his highway car with his face in his hands and wept. Jo-el Boudreaux was in pain, and ashamed, and I think he wanted to suffer for his sins. Men of conscience often do.

Joe Pike returned to Los Angeles the following day.

I stayed in Louisiana for a week after the events at Milt Rossier's crawfish farm, and much of that time I spent with Lucy. She spoke on a daily basis with Edith, and twice we went to visit.

With Milt and LeRoy Bennett out of the picture, the Boudreauxs could have kept their secret, but that wasn't the way they played it. They phoned their three children, saying that it was important that they see them, and the three daughters dutifully returned home. Jo-el and Edith sat them down in the living room and told them about Leon Williams and Edith's pregnancy and the murder that had happened thirty-six years ago. Much to the Boudreauxs' surprise, their children were not shocked or scandalized, but instead expressed relief that they had not been summoned home to be informed that one or both of their parents had an incurable disease. All three adult children thought the fact of the murder ugly and sad, but had to admit that they found the story adventurous. After all, these things had happened thirty-six years ago.

Edith's youngest daughter, Barbara, the one who was attending LSU, grinned a lot, and the grinning made Edith angry. Sissy, the oldest daughter, the one with two children, was fascinated with the idea that she had a half-sister and asked many questions. Neither Edith nor Jo-el revealed that the child she'd had was now the actress known as Jodi Taylor. Edith no longer wanted to keep secrets about herself, but other people's secrets were a different matter.

Truths were coming out, and the world was making its adjustments.

On the fourth day after the events at Milt Rossier's crawfish farm, I was waiting for Lucy in the Riverfront Ho-Jo's lobby when the day clerk gave me an envelope. He said that it had been left at the front desk, but he didn't know by whom. It was a plain white envelope, the kind you could buy in any drugstore, and "Mr. E. Cole" was typed on the front.

I sat in one of the lobby chairs and opened it. Inside was a typed note:

Mr. Cole, I regret that I am unable to return the photograph as promised. An associate identified the gentleman, and, as you know, we have acted accordingly. I hope you do not think me small for exceeding the parameters of our association. As I told Mr. Pike, the man with the rifle is always there. Regrettably, the child remains unknown, but perhaps now there will be fewer such children.

There was no signature, but there didn't need to be.

I folded the letter and put it away as Lucy crossed the lobby. The Ho-Jo door was flooded with a noonday light so bright that Lucy seemed to emerge from a liquid sun. She said, "Hi."

"Hi."

"You ready?"

"Always."

We went out to her Lexus and drove to the airport. It was hot, but the sky was a deep blue and vividly clear except for a single puff of white to the east. Lucy held my hand. She released me to steer through a turn, then immediately took my hand again. I said, "I'm going to miss you, Lucy."

"Oh, me, too, Studly."

"Ben, too."

She glanced at me and smiled. "Please let's not talk about the leaving. We still have time."

I kissed her hand.

We turned into airport parking and went into the terminal, still holding hands, walking as close as two people can walk, as if the most important thing in the world was to occupy the same space and share the same moment. We checked the flight information. I said, "The plane's here."

We walked to the concourse, and I didn't like it much. In a few days we'd make this drive and walk again, only then I would be leaving. I tried not to think about it.

We met Jodi Taylor as she came off the plane. She was wearing jeans and a satin vest over a red top, and she was clearly Jodi Taylor. Not hiding now. The pilot was falling all over himself to walk with her, and a guy in a charcoal suit was trying to cut in on the pilot. She looked nervous.

I said, "Pardon us, gentlemen," and led her away from them.

Lucy said, "How're you doing?"

Jodi nodded. "I'm okay." She didn't look okay. She looked the way you might look if you'd spent the past couple of days with an upset stomach.

A little girl in a Brownie uniform approached. She was holding what looked like a napkin and a ballpoint pen. Her mother had encouraged her. The little girl said, "Miss Taylor, may I have your autograph?"

"Sure, honey." Jodi signed the napkin and tried to smile, but the smile looked weak. Nervous, all right.

When the little girl was gone, I took Jodi's hand. "You sure you want this?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes, I'm sure."

"What about Sid and Beldon?"

Jodi's face grew hard. "I know what I want."

Lucy took Jodi's other hand, and we walked out of the airport.

We brought Jodi to pick up Edith, and then the four of us went to visit Chantel Michot. I had called in advance and Chantel was waiting. There was a lot they wanted to talk about.

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