The Body in Crooked Bayou Read online

  Cover Art Copyright 2012 © O’Neil De Noux

  The Body in Crooked Bayou

  O’Neil De Noux

  Copyright 2012 © O’Neil De Noux

  She’d been eye-balling Beau during the wake, but waited until the service was over at the cemetery to walk up and say, “I remember you, John Raven Beau.”

  Beau checked out the name plate pinned above the left pocket of her light green uniform shirt – Dreaux, then looked back at her hazel eyes, her face vaguely familiar.

  She smiled and extended her hand. “Barbara Dreaux.”

  She had a firm handshake, stood only a few inches shorter than Beau’s six-two, a full-figured woman, looked a few years older than Beau’s thirty years.

  “I was three classes ahead of you at Holy Ghost,” she said, pulling up her gun belt, nine-millimeter on her left hip, portable police radio in a pouch on her right hip. “Came back to watch you play a couple times. Heard you went off to LSU. What happened?”

  “Tore up my knee in the spring game, sophomore year.” Beau leaned to his right to get a better look at the blue patch on her shoulder.

  “Best running quarterback I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Ran a little like Gale Sayers.”

  He’d never heard that one before.

  “Cannes Bruleé Police Department? When did this happen?”

  “Last year. There’s only three of us. I hear you’re working Homicide. In New Orleans.”

  Beau nodded.

  Barbara took in a deep breath and said, “Can we get a cup of coffee? I need your help.”

  “OK.” He followed her through tiny St. Bernadotte Cemetery, past oaks dripping Spanish moss and white tombs built above ground because, like New Orleans, the water table was too high. Dig two feet and you found water.

  A sweet swamp breeze flowed over them, the familiar scents of home, Beau thought. And for a moment, his mind returned to that rickety house on Bayou Brunét where he grew up with his Cajun father and Oglala Sioux mother, living off the land and the water, fishing and hunting in a lush world of plentiful game. Beau thought he was rich in paradise, until he went to school and found out from the other kids he was dirt poor. Catholic Relief paid his tuition, even to Holy Ghost High where he excelled in the lonely world of sports, track and football, running away from everyone.

  “How well did you know Adam Le Boeuf?” Barbara stopped next to her police car.

  Beau looked back at the cemetery. “He was my favorite teacher. You take his classes?”

  “No, I never liked history.”

  For a moment, Beau could see Adam Le Boeuf standing in front of the class, explaining Caesar’s Gallic Wars, telling them all about the French hero Vercingetorix, a name Beau had never forgotten.

  “The Crazy Weasel, OK?”

  “Fine,” he said. “See you there.”

  •

  Beau parked his old, dark green ’79 Thunderbird in the shell parking lot of The Crazy Weasel Café, an aluminum building that looked like an Airstream camper with windows added along the side facing Landrieu Avenue, the main drag of Cannes Bruleé village. He took his notepad and pen from his black suit coat, leaving the coat inside the car. He slipped the pad into his rear pocket, the pen in the pocket of his white shirt before loosening his charcoal gray tie. Beau ran his fingers through his dark brown hair. He was a square-jawed man with hooded brows over light brown eyes and a sharp nose that gave him a hawk-like appearance.

  Barbara was waiting outside, hands on her gun belt.

  “Nice car,” she said. “I like the original T-Birds better, those little, sleek suckers.”

  Beau nodded. There was nothing sleek about the ’79 T-Bird, a big car with a long hood and a rocking V-8 engine. Barbara led the way in. They sat in the rear booth, Barbara facing the door, like a good cop. She was still in uniform after all, so Beau accepted facing the rear wall.

  A waitress with graying hair approached with menus and Barbara told her just coffees please. The coffees came fast, along with a stainless-steel creamer. Barbara sniffed the cream before pouring a thick slup into her coffee. Beau poured the cream, adding two sugars to his. The coffee was strong coffee-and-chicory and tasted freshly brewed.

  “You staying the night?” Barbara asked.

  Beau nodded. “At the Come Back Inn.” As if there was any other place in Cannes Bruleé. Seeing the determination in Barbara’s eyes, Beau thought, so much for the Elmore Leonard novel he’d brought to read out on the back verandah of Come Back Inn, overlooking the swamp, listening to the call of cicadas, letting the incessant chatter of insects and the musty scents of the swamp draw him back to the memories of his childhood.

  “So,” he sighed. “How can I help?”

  “We found a slash across Adam Le Boeuf’s belly when we pulled him from Crooked Bayou. Everyone said it was from a gator, but the pathologist in Abbeville says it was too clean, more like a knife wound. There were wounds from a gator along the back of the legs, but not like the slice along the abdomen.”

  “I thought he drowned.”

  “Drowning was the cause of death,” she said. “You and I are usually more concerned with the manner of death.”

  Beau took another sip of coffee. “It’s listed as an accidental death.”

  “Yep. But I think he was murdered.” The hazel eyes stared at Beau’s eyes.

  “What does your chief say?”

  “He’s in the hospital in Baton Rouge. Broken leg in a car wreck. Needs corrective surgery.”

  Beau looked out the window as a tractor-trailer rig moved slowly along Landrieu Avenue. “What does the sheriff’s office say about this?”

  Barbara reached into the top pocket of her shirt and pulled out a white business card, passing it to Beau who recognized the name, Detective James Atkins, Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office.

  “Says he knows you,” Barbara said.

  “Yeah, we spent an exciting evening on Bourbon Street last year tracking down a good ole boy from Pecan Island. Wife never let him go anywhere, so he beat her up, almost killed her, then took off for the big city. Wasn’t a homicide case, but I hate wife-beaters more than my ancestors hated the cavalry.”

  She gave him a quizzical look.

  He lifted his cup to his lips. “I’m half Sioux.”

  “I thought you were part Mexican.”

  Beau coughed up a mouthful of coffee, spraying the table, barely missing Barbara, who grabbed a napkin and started wiping up immediately. The waitress came with a towel.

  When Beau recovered, Barbara said, “Atkins is too busy to look into the case right now and told me, since I have as much jurisdiction as the sheriff’s office, go with it. So I’m going with it.”

  The waitress brought both fresh cups of coffee. Beau was more careful this time. Barbara too, waiting for him to finishing swallowing before asking, “Do you know Doctor Shelton?”

  “Heard of him. Never met him.” Dr. Shelton’s private practice catered to the more prosperous residents of the parish. His office was in a wing of his mansion on Landrieu Avenue, where patients could park in back beneath the magnolias, next to the large white gazebo.

  Beau waited for her to continue and she didn’t disappoint him, leaning closer, elbows on the table. “Mrs. Le Boeuf. Denise. Was seeing Dr. Shelton.” She paused a moment and lowered her voice. “Seeing him too often, for a normal patient.”

  Don’t tell me, Beau thought. Peyton Place South. “The doctor’s gotta be pushing seventy. How old’s Denise?”

  “Shelton’s sixty-one and Denise is forty. Have you ever met her?”

  Beau shook his head. “Saw her for the first time today. She’s a second wife.” Denise Le Boeuf was a thin, handsome woman with light brown hair.


  “Third actually. Adam was married for six weeks when he was eighteen. But I don’t need help lining all that up. I think I’ll be able to prove they were having an affair.” She set her lips, took in a breath and said, “I need help with Luke Fenice.”

  Beau tried not to react, tried to keep his face as expressionless as a good plains warrior; but he couldn’t stop the coffee from churning in his belly, sending an acidic taste up his esophagus.

  “You all right?”

  He picked up the small glass of ice water their waitress had brought with their first cups and drank it down.

  “What does Luke have to do with this?”

  Barbara lowered her voice. “Last couple years Luke and Adam became friends, if anyone can become a friend of Luke Fenice. Luke took Adam fishing. Adam visited Luke the night he died.” She let out a long sigh. “Luke was the one who found the body, in Crooked Bayou not a hundred yards from his camp.”

  The first suspect in any murder case was the person who found the body. Usually they weren’t involved, but they were the first one a good homicide detective looked at.

  “What does Luke say?”

  “That’s the problem. He won’t talk to me or anyone else. Wouldn’t even talk to us when we came to collect the body. He just pointed to it and went back in his cabin.”

  It was called City Primeval, the Elmore Leonard paperback Beau knew he’d wouldn’t get to start. Beau thought, this is sounding like village primeval by the moment.

  How had she put it? “If anyone can become a friend of Luke Fenice,” she’d said. Beau’s father had become a friend of Luke, so much Luke gave money to Beau’s family when they were hard-strapped for cash. Beau remembered his father explaining to his mother, late one night that Luke had a trust from his mother’s family from some old mine in Arizona. Not much, just a few bucks a month, but he passed some on to them when they needed money.

  Beau pulled out his notepad and pen and jotted several notes before asking, “What was Denise Le Boeuf seeing Dr. Shelton for?”

  “Migraines. Started seeing him once a week about a year ago. Been seeing him three times a week lately.” Barbara’s right eyebrow rose. “In a year he’s never written a prescription for her. No medication.”

  “You talk to Shelton’s nurse?”

  Barbara sipped her coffee. “My uncle is the only pharmacist here. He checked Abbeville all the way to New Iberia and Lafayette. I also talked to Shelton’s neighbors. Lady next door swears she saw Denise and Dr. Shelton in his upstairs bedroom window. Denise was in her bra.”

  Nothing like nosy neighbors.

  Beau kept jotting, didn’t look up as he said, “Isn’t that standard treatment for migraines?”

  When he looked up Barbara was smiling. “Does tend to make headaches go away.”

  Barbara said she would talk with Le Boeuf’s relatives and neighbors, as discreetly as possible, which wouldn’t be possible in the small village.

  “Sometimes,” Beau said, “stirring things up is the thing to do.”

  Motive was one thing; but a good homicide detective didn’t work from a motive. He or she went with the facts. Proving a love affair, or a sex affair, didn’t prove murder. They would need more. If was there more to this.

  Barbara insisted on paying the bill. Beau left a tip that matched the bill and thanked the gray haired waitress again, especially for cleaning up after him.

  “Think nothing of it, chér.” She smiled and scooped up her tip.

  “One more thing,” Barbara said as they stepped outside. “I forgot to mention the mark on the victim’s left ankle.”

  Beau stared into her eyes, waiting for her to go on.

  “Bruising actually. Looked like a rope burn.”

  Son-of-a-gun. It’s sounding more like a murder every minute.

  •

  Beau checked into Come Back Inn, getting the promised room at the rear of the long, one story building that was once a cotton warehouse. Along with his room key, Beau was handed a brochure explaining how the old warehouse was converted into an inn back in 1921, how the verandah was added and the rooms constructed. The tin roof had been replaced three times after hurricane damage, the current tin roof painted dark green.

  In a room decorated as it was in the twenties with arched doorways and windows, black ceiling fans, cedar chifforobe, frosted glass lamp shades and a large, console Zenith radio, no T.V., Beau changed into a pair of faded jeans. He opted for his light blue Police Association tee-shirt with its white NOPD star-and-crescent badge across the chest and white tennis shoes. He decided the direct approach with Luke Fenice would be best, rather than trying to worm information from the old man. Just ask him, flat out.

  Sitting on the double bed with his notebook and pen, he opened the small phone book from the nightstand and called the Vermilion Parish Coroner’s Office. When he was put through to the pathologist, Beau introduced himself in the usual way – NOPD Homicide.

  Pathologist Samuel Bristow had a slight New England accent. “Yes, I performed the autopsy on Mr. Le Boeuf. What can I do for you, Detective?”

  Beau asked about the slash along Le Boeuf’s abdomen and learned it was a very sharp cut, straight, as if done with a long-blade knife. “It will be in my autopsy report. The wound was post-mortem,” Bristow explained, occurring after death.

  “How long after?”

  “Not long, but definitely post-mortem. There were also post-mortem wounds consistent with animals bites. Alligator most likely.”

  “Did you notice any bruising on the body?”

  “Yes.” Bristow explained and Beau took notes, Bruising around the left ankle.

  “Could it have been a rope burn?”

  “Could have. I plan on filing a revised death certificate, listing the manner of death as undetermined pending investigation. Now I have a question for you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Why is the New Orleans Police Department looking into this case?”

  “I’m assisting the Cannes Bruleé Police,” Beau said. “Adam Le Boeuf was a friend.”

  “Well, if I can be of any further help, just call.”

  Beau thanked him and was also thankful Bristow was so talkative. Coroner’s reports were public record, but most pathologists were too closed-mouth or just too weird to talk to anyone. Beau half-expected the pathologist to just say, “See my report.”

  Beau slipped his nine millimeter Glock into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back and pulled on a pale blue, short sleeved dress shirt, leaving it hanging out to cover his weapon.

  He rolled down the T-Bird’s windows on his way to Luke Fenice’s camp, letting the warm, marshy air flow through as he passed the familiar oaks and magnolias along Landrieu Avenue. The white masonry façade of his old high school looked freshly painted, the grass still sparse beneath the huge oaks out front. The long Spanish moss beards hanging from the oaks blocked out most of the sunshine. Between the oaks stood a large white sign with red and dark blue letters reading, “Go Riders!”

  He passed Dr. Shelton’s place with its white columns and circular drive and three car garage, one door open with a white BMW parked inside. As the houses fell away and the avenue wound through stands of cypress trees, Beau took a right on narrow blacktop Crooked Bayou Road. A mile down the twisting road, the blacktop gave away to gravel. Slowing to avoid pot-holes, the T-Bird followed the roadway along the curves of the bayou.

  The humidity grew denser as the trees closed around the road. Beau smelled the brackish bayou before seeing it through the trees, sunlight glittering off the brown water. The dark foliage was broken only by the occasional snowy egret standing along the banks of Crooked Bayou.

  As the bayou bent to the left, the road rose to the right and Beau pulled over at a flat area, parking beneath a tremendous magnolia, the largest he’d ever known, a tree he’d climbed many times when he was young. He stretched as the high-pitched squawking of a crow echoed, followed immediately by the chirping bark of mockingbi
rds. Shielding his eyes, he spotted them, two mockingbirds chasing a large crow, diving at it, like fighter planes strafing a bomber.

  Crossing the road, Beau started down the timeworn wooden planks leading to the bayou and Luke Fenice’s camp. The canopy of trees closed over him, tall bottom-land hardwoods – oaks, cypress and sweetgum trees, an occasional elderberry and sugarberry tree.

  Keeping to the right to avoid the prickly palmetto bushes, he could almost hear his Daddy’s voice telling him how its fruit was favored by raccoons, back when they hunted coons and squirrels and large swamp rabbits. Stopping beneath the last oak before the land fell away to the bayou, Beau leaned against the long trumpet vines dangling from the oak’s thick branches.

  Fenice’s camp, a one story wooden structure with a rusted corrugated-metal roof, sat perched on creosote pilings a good ten feet above the edge of the bayou. The gallery running around the place was dotted with nets drying in the sun, crab nets, crawfish nets, fish nets. Beyond the place stood a ramshackle dock with three pirogues, those so-familiar flat-bottom Cajun boats.

  He took a moment to steel himself, to strengthen his mind in the way his Oglala ancestors emboldened themselves before battle. His mind must be sharp. He must control his emotions, something the Oglala were so good at, something his Cajun ancestors could never master. Every time Beau envisioned his father’s face, it was always smiling, while his mother’s lovely face was always set in grim determination.

  Beau stepped away from the oak to the half-broken steps, knowing which ones to avoid even after ten years. Hand on the tilting rail, he saw how the wood had silvered beneath the unrelenting south Louisiana sun.

  A warm breeze washed over Beau, bringing the strong scent of highly-seasoned cooking from the camp. His jittery stomach flinched as he realized he’d eaten nothing all day. The door was open and he saw Luke inside, moving from the kitchen into the front room. He looked much older, his salt-and-pepper hair mostly salt now, his face sunken with age, brown age splotches dotting his craggy complexion as he stepped up to the screen door and blinked at Beau. Luke was in his late sixties now.