The Body in Crooked Bayou

by O'Neil De Noux

The deep set eyes became wide and the old man’s lower lip trembled as he mumbled, “Sacré bleu. Mais John, is dat you?”

  Beau tried to smile as he opened the screen door.

  Luke took a step back and blinked twice, his eyes suddenly wet as he gasped and came forward, reaching up to grab Beau’s shoulders, pulling Beau down to kiss him on both cheeks, the old man’s beard rough against Beau’s face.

  They shook hands after, the old man’s grip still strong. “Mais, I am so surprise to see you. Come an eat.” Luke led the way through a front room cluttered with mis-matched furniture, a green sofa, tan recliner, crates used as end-tables and a large wooden guy-wire spool used as a coffee table. There was a portable TV with a rabbit-ear antenna atop a second guy-wire spool.

  The kitchen ran the length of the place with a long table at one end and gas stove at the far end, sink and cutting aisle along the center of the floor. Three black kettles sat atop the gas stove. Luke turned the burners off all three, pulling the smallest over to the aisle, lifting the lid to reveal steaming white rice.

  “Crawfish etouffee.” Luke explained the second pot as he pulled it to the aisle and waved to the third. “And Filé gumbo wit crab for later.” The strong scents smelled wonderful when mixed.

  Cooking enough for a week, Beau noted as he watched Luke pull two white bowls from the cupboard and spoons from a drawer.

  “You want a Dixie or a Bud?” Luke reached into the refrigerator.

  “You got Barq’s?” Beau sat at the table and wondered when he should start. Eat first, he thought. He let the old man serve him, pouring the etouffee over a bed of white rice. Hot and spicy crawfish tails floating in the soupy gravy, both men dipped slices of French bread into the etouffee as they ate. Beau washing his down with Barq’s, the root beer with bite.

  They ate in silence, Beau looking out the windows at the trees across the bayou and the blue sky beyond. He wasn’t sure when Luke noticed the emblem on the chest of his tee-shirt, but spotted the old man’s eyes checking it out twice before they finished.

  “You want more?” Luke got up for another bowl.

  “No, thanks.”

  Luke brought Beau another Barq’s, sat and took a spoonful of etouffee and said, “You wit’ de police now?”

  Beau leaned close and looked into Luke’s eyes. “That’s why I’m here.”

  Luke looked at his bowl as he ate, slower now. He spoke to the bowl. “I still remember dat game. De only I seen. Dat was a night.”

  Beau’s senior year. A big Catholic high school from New Orleans, the Archbishop Rummel Raiders, undefeated state champions of 5-A, came to play the small Catholic school along the bayous, 2-A Holy Ghost High School. Beau returned the opening kickoff ninety-seven yards, weaving through the Raiders, knocking two over as the crowd erupted in Abbeville Stadium.

  It was a gorgeous autumn night beneath a brilliant full moon, the November air crisp with nice low humidity. Beau threw a ten yard touchdown pass, ran another in from twenty-seven yards to tie the score in the fourth quarter.

  “I remember de play,” Luke said, still looking down at his bowl. “Dat won de game. People here still talk about it, mais yeah. Never seen yoar Daddy smile like dat. Like de jack-o-lantern.”

  Fourth down and inches on the fifty yard line. Less than a minute left. Beau handed off to their running back who raced toward right end, Beau drifting around left end, the running back stopping and throwing to Beau, the ball drifting high, Beau having to wait for it, catching it, running through three Raiders and hitting the afterburners, outracing everyone, even the speedy black defensive backs to the end zone.

  The Riders mobbed Beau in the end zone, the cheerleaders mobbed him on the sidelines after. Even the pretty blonde cheerleaders he adored from a distance were nice to him that evening. But he still had no date for the senior prom. He’d asked two of the cheerleaders but there wasn’t a girl at Holy Ghost who would actually go out with a dark-complected boy who lived in a swamp shack. Cheering was one thing. Kissing, quite another.

  Beau almost smiled to himself, thinking of those lonely nights. No problem with women now, although he still lived on water, in a houseboat at the edge of New Orleans, along Lake Pontchartrain’s Bucktown. Women found his place “quaint” and “charming.”

  Luke had a woman who lived with him a long time ago. Beau could almost see her face, but didn’t remember her name. She’s left when Beau was still small.

  Looking up, Luke said, “Dey sent you, huh?”

  Beau nodded and Luke put his spoon down.

  “Dey would send you. I won’ talk to dem, dey know it.” Luke picked up both bowls and spoons and took them to his sink, running water in the bowls, drying his hands with a dishrag. “I jus’ hire out de pirogue. Dat’s it.”

  “You going to start lying to me?”

  Luke grabbed another beer from the refrigerator and headed for the living room, Beau following with his Barq’s. Luke sat in the recliner, Beau on the sofa. Luke leaned back in the chair, putting his feet up, closing his eyes.

  Beau waited. One of the first tricks he’d learned in Homicide was to wait. Let them re-start the conversation.

  “Been hard times fo’ me, since de trust done give out,” Luke said, eyes still closed. He sucked in a deep breath. “It weren’t my idea, mais no.”

  “I figured. Whose was it? Dr. Shelton or Denise Le Boeuf?”

  Luke’s eyes opened and he stared at the ceiling, blinking twice before he said, “Denise is one pretty women, yeah.”

  He looked at Beau, eyes damp now. “She come to me all pretty at night. Kissin’ on me. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  The old man looked back at the ceiling. “She in love wit’ de doctor and he in love wit’ her. He give her de money and say he done want notin’ more do wit’ it.”

  Beau waited, knowing it was coming. Luke couldn’t lie to him. They both knew it. He felt his heartbeat rising and steeled himself again. A son of the Lakota always hid his emotions.

  Another deep breath and Luke said, “Denise bring Adam here and I take him out fishing for de catfish. At de front of the pirogue, I got de iron rail under de canvas and a rope tie to it. He dozed, like he always do, and I slip de rope on his foot and roll de rail over de side and it pull him in.”

  “He came up didn’t he?”

  Luke looked back at Beau, eyes narrow, and nodded.

  “Rope came loose?”

  Luke nodded again and leaned back. “I wait and he float up. Dead already. So I pull him over and see de rope come loose so …”

  Beau finished the sentence. “You sliced his belly to let the gases out, so he’d sink.”

  Luke suddenly sat up, the recliner folding under his legs. “He come right up de next day wit’ police comin’ up de bayou in de police boat so I point to de body.”

  Beau stood and stared at the old man, thinking even when the solution comes easily, it’s never easy. He had to take this man away from the only place he’d ever lived. Forever. Beau hid his heartache and narrowed his hawk eyes with a fierceness.

  •

  The Cannes Bruleé Village jail was behind the courthouse, a brick building with two small offices in front and two cells across from one another in back. Barbara Dreaux sat typing at the receptionist desk when Beau came in with Luke Fenice and the long-blade knife he’d used on Adam Le Boeuf. She bounced up and said, “I need to talk with you.”

  Beau asked Fenice to sit in the waiting area in front of the receptionist’s desk as he and Barbara stepped into the Chief’s office leaving the door open so he could watch Luke who sat staring straight ahead, arms at his side.

  “The timeline’s all wrong.” Barbara started excitedly, then lowered her voice. “Denise says she was home at nine o’clock and Shelton says she was with him at the drug store, having root beer floats.”

  Beau opened his mouth, but she wouldn’t let him cut in.

  “Both deny having an affair but both admitted seeing a lot of each
other. Shelton says he was playing marriage counselor. Denise claims he made moves on her, only she rebuffed him.” Barbara’s eyes were alight. “They haven’t had time to get their statements straight.” She suddenly pointed to Luke and asked, “How’d it go?”

  “You were right, sending me to talk with him.”

  “Yeah?”

  Beau raised the knife, blade pointed down, and said, “He copped out.”

  She bounced back. “He did?”

  Beau rubbed his chin. “We need to get his statement down. Ya’ll have a video camera?”

  “No. We have a tape recorder.”

  “Good. Let’s get started.” Beau pulled the Miranda Rights card from his ID folder as they brought Luke into the Chief’s office. The recorded statement started with Beau reading Luke his rights and Luke saying he understood each right and agreed to talk with them. The statement closed with Beau asking, “How much money did Denise give you?”

  “A tousand’ dollar. I got it here in my pocket.” Luke reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out ten, crisply folded one hundred dollar bills, laying them on the Chief’s desk. “Denise say dey got ‘em from de ATM ting dat mornin’.”

  Barbara called in the third Cannes Bruleé police officer, while Beau pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and slipped each hundred dollar bill into a separate clear plastic sheet protector.

  “Think their prints might be on them?” Barbara asked as she stepped back in.

  “Pretty new bills. The sheriff’s crime lab just might get a latent or two. You need to start on your arrest report.”

  Barbara filled out the form with Luke next to her, providing the pertinent details. The old man said he was born on the Marinneaux Plantation in Cameron Parish. “May twenty-firs’, nineteen and twenty-seven. Same day Lindberg land in Paris. mais, yeah. Plantation, she got wiped out in nineteen and fifty-seven by dat Hurricane Audrey.”

  Cannes Bruleé’s third cop was named Gaston Voison, a wide-body Cajun who looked a little like Dom DeLuise, without the sense of humor. He was asked to watch Luke.

  “I’m puttin’ him in a cell.”

  “That’s where he belongs,” Barbara agreed on her way out with Beau.

  •

  Dr. Shelton wasn’t home, so they went by Le Boeuf’s middle-class brick home. Turning the corner, they spotted a white BMW pulling away from the house. Barbara glanced at Beau who nodded toward the beamer. They ran the plate and it was Shelton’s all right, so they tailed it back toward his house, pulling it over a block away, getting Shelton into the police car headed back to the jail.

  “Sure, I’ll help all I can,” Shelton agreed but by the time they parked in front of the jail, Beau could see the doctor was nervous, his eyes batting around, a tic had developed on the right side of the man’s mouth.

  Shelton was over six feet, thin, with silver hair carefully parted down the center and wore a light gray linen suit and expensive looking black shoes, a thin gold watch on his left wrist.

  “I was just at Mrs. Le Boeuf’s,” Shelton volunteered as they sat around the Chief’s desk. “Consoling her.”

  Barbara shot Beau a look that read, “I’m sure.”

  She turned on the tape recorder as Beau read Shelton his rights.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “No. You are, however, suspected of a crime,” Beau said. “You wanna talk about it?”

  “Of course. I’ve nothing to hide.”

  Beau fought back a smile. He’d heard that line before.

  Shelton sat up straighter, the tic still clicking on his face as he signed the waiver of rights form.

  Barbara took over the interview, going over Shelton’s previous statement, catching him in several inconsistencies, which she pointed out, Shelton growing more agitated. He almost broke, but recovered, so Beau pulled a copy of the Louisiana Criminal Code Book from the shelf behind the Chief’s desk and read aloud the appropriate crime, “Revised Statute 14:30, First Degree Murder is the killing of a human being when the offender has specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm and is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated escape, aggravated arson, aggravated rape, aggravated burglary, armed robbery, or simple robbery …

  “There are five parts, I’ll go to the one that involves you.” Beau stared into Shelton’s eyes. Tic still going strong.

  “Part four, when the offender has specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm and has offered, has been offered, has given, or has received anything of value for the killing.”

  Beau closed the book and shrugged to Barbara. “A thousands dollars qualifies as anything of value, wouldn’t you say?”

  Barbara nodded, pulled her chair closer to Shelton and took over the interview again. Beau liked the way she was going with this, smooth, like a homicide veteran.

  “But Adam Le Boeuf wasn’t murdered,” the doctor contended. “He drowned.”

  “You can’t be that naive, doctor.” Barbara lowered her voice. “The cause of death was drowning. The manner of death was homicide.”

  She sat up. “You took a thousands dollars from an ATM Monday night. That’s high for an ATM. You must have a high allowance amount, doctor. ATM’s have cameras now. It takes pictures of people who withdraw money from them and pictures of anyone else in the car at the time.”

  She let that sink in a moment, then asked what he did with the money. “It’s going to have your prints on it.”

  Shelton covered his face, then sat back. “I gave it to Denise Le Boeuf. I don’t know what she did with it.”

  Barbara turned to Beau who leaned across the desk. “You’re insulting our intelligence, doctor. You gave her the money. She gave it to Luke Fenice and he turned it over to us. Along with you.”

  Ten minutes later, Dr. Shelton was playing Let’s Make A Deal, he’ll tell everything as a state’s witness against them. Barbara explained the District Attorney’s Office made deals, not cops. “We just investigate.”

  Shelton perked up and the tic went away. “I know the D.A. Play golf with him.”

  He told the whole story. It was all Denise Le Boeuf’s idea. They booked him, let him make his call to the D.A’s Office up in Abbeville. The D.A. wasn’t in at ten p.m., so Shelton called a lawyer friend who would meet him at parish prison in the morning. They put Shelton in the cell across from Luke. Neither man would look at the other.

  •

  Denise Le Boeuf wore a tan blouse and brown linen slacks. She’d brushed her lips with red lipstick, but didn’t have time for eye-shadow or blush. Beau couldn’t help thinking she was a looker, all right. A very attractive forty-year old woman, she was slim with sad, brown eyes and light brown hair, freshly brushed and hanging past her shoulders. He couldn’t help checking her out at the funeral earlier but had brushed those thought away. She was a widow then and now, a suspect.

  Denise didn’t respond well to Barbara as she was read her rights. Denise started talking to Beau, so he took over. He was about to play nice cop in this interview, until she flipped her hair and gave him that look that told him she was interested. He caught a whiff of her perfume and decided to come right out with it.

  “You’re under arrest for first degree murder.”

  She sat back as if slapped across the face.

  “Luke Fenice has given us a statement implicating you. Dr. Shelton corroborates that statement. They’re both in holding cells in the back. Shelton plans on making a deal with the D.A.” Beau stared into the brown eyes and saw them mist, before Denise wiped them and said, “I suspected Dr. Shelton may be involved in my husband’s death.” She leaned forward, conspiratorially, “He’s been infatuated with me for a while now.”

  Beau checked the tape recorder to make sure the tape was still running as he said, “Tell me about it.”

  She did, leaving out what she thought would make her look bad. Her relationship with Shelton was never consummated. She gave Luke Fenice the money because he was so poo
r. She loved her husband and had no idea what Shelton and Fenice had done. It all sounded smooth. Well rehearsed.

  •

  A pair of sheriff’s office cruisers drove Luke and Shelton to parish prison. Luke refused to look Beau in the eye and for a moment Beau remembered the man’s kindness, helping his father, teaching Beau how to hunt coons and swamp rabbits. He brushed the thought and feelings away. A man was dead. Barbara put a handcuffed Denise in the back of her police car, stepping back to Beau as he stood outside the jail.

  It was a beautiful night with a brilliant full moon and low humidity. A breeze brought in the familiar scents from Beau’s youth, the thick odors of the deep swamp, the musty smell of bayou water.

  Barbara bounced on her toes.

  “It isn’t a perfect case,” he told her. “But it’s pretty damn strong. Better get that ATM film.”

  “I will.”

  She bounced again.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

  “God, you know it.”

  “Always does when you nail them and you nailed them, lady.”

  “With your help.”

  Beau looked her in the eye. “I was just a tool. It was your idea to send me to talk with Luke. You did it. A little like Gale Sayers slicing through a defense.”

  “Yeah,” Barbara laughed. “A little.”

  As Barbara’s police cruiser drove away, Beau rid himself of the good feeling, on purpose, remembering his old teacher lying in a coffin, sealed in a concrete tomb built above ground because they all lived atop a marsh. Beau’s Daddy called it the floating prairie.

  Adam Le Boeuf was gone, but not forgotten. His name would echo through the courthouse when Beau came back for the trials. As Barbara’s taillights disappeared down Landrieu Avenue, Beau yawned and headed for the T-Bird, figuring he’d get to start on that Elmore Leonard book after all.

  The End

  FOR Eddy

  “The Body in Crooked Bayou” is a work of fiction. The incidents and characters described herein are a product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. No portion of this story may be reproduced by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright holder.