The Meriwether Murder

by Malcolm Shuman

  “I talked to Mr. DeLage at lunch,” I said. “He doesn’t seem to have a problem with us being here. Neither does Miss Ouida.”

  “They ain’t taking care of the place. I am.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “Why don’t you call Mr. DeLage?” Pepper said.

  Flowers grunted. “I don’t have to call nobody.”

  “We were leaving anyway,” I said and took Pepper’s arm. I started toward the land bridge and then stopped and took out my wallet. “By the way, thanks for giving Mr. DeLage my card. Here’s another one.”

  I handed him my business card and when his eyes dropped to look at it I guided Pepper past him and back toward the levee.

  “Mr. Nick DeLage don’t do nothing for this place,” Flowers shouted after us. “I been here fifty years and he ain’t never done nothing for it. It belong to Miss Ouida, you hear?”

  We climbed back over the levee and down again, leaving the old man to his anger, and started back alongside the pond.

  Suddenly Pepper stopped and pointed.

  “Look.”

  I followed her finger to the fresh dirt that lay scattered at random on the surface, twenty feet off the path, between the dilapidated little chapel and the levee.

  “Somebody’s been digging,” I said, as we walked over to inspect the fresh excavations. “I guess we walked right past this earlier.”

  She nodded. “Somebody made sure to cover their shovel holes pretty well.” She bent and lifted a handful of dirt. “But they’re fresh. Not many leaves have blown on top of them. I’m willing to bet these were dug today.”

  “So that’s what Flowers meant by people digging holes,” I said and then, from the corner of my eye, caught movement on the levee. “Let’s get on before he comes over and raises some more hell.”

  We went back to the footpath. To our right a bass plopped in the pond, sending ripples across the surface.

  “I wonder what they did with the dirt when they dug this thing,” I said.

  “Used it for the levee?” she asked.

  “Maybe, but most of the levee came from the borrow pit.”

  “Then they would have probably spread the pond dirt in low spots,” she offered. “Look, the door of the chapel’s open. Wasn’t it closed last time we were here?” She frowned. “Do you think somebody broke it open?”

  “I doubt Flowers was in there praying,” I said.

  I glanced behind us and saw the caretaker standing beside the bee boxes, stick in hand, his eyes taking in our every move.

  “Come on,” I said. “I don’t want to cheat the bees out of a chance to sting the old bastard.”

  An hour later we were seated at the Library Restaurant on Chimes Street, just across from the university. They made good hamburgers, as well as the best muffaletta sandwiches in town, and it was a Friday tradition for the archaeological community to congregate there at the end of the day. The wooden building itself was probably fifty years old and the music could deafen a rock band. But up until eight or nine it was a pleasant place to be. Later than that, the freaks came out and Chimes Street wasn’t a good neighborhood if you carried much cash.

  Most of the faculty crowd hadn’t arrived yet and the only other customers were a trio of students playing pool. A television over the bar droned CNN news, but it wasn’t so loud that we couldn’t hear ourselves talk at our little table against the wall.

  “You remember the business about artichokes when old Louis was dying?” Pepper said, blowing on the foam in her beer cup. “I’m thinking he buried the box in his garden. And the pond is where his garden used to be.”

  I shrugged and popped a peanut into my mouth. “It’s a good possibility.”

  “Then what were the fresh holes for?”

  “Somebody obviously doesn’t see it that way,” I said.

  “So what could be so important about what’s in the box?” she asked. “It’s been a hundred and fifty years.”

  “I don’t know.” I swept the peanut hulls into a little pile and shook some fresh shells out onto the table. “It may be more a question of what somebody thinks is in the box.”

  “But if somebody knows enough to have found out about the box in the first place, they’re more than just your ordinary pothunter. They must have read John Clay Hardin’s journal and come to the part about old Louis asking Hardin to bring his box to the president.”

  “I agree.” I sipped from my bottle. “And that’s kind of interesting in itself.”

  She nodded and picked a peanut out of the pile.

  “I’ll say. It sounds like somebody thinks the old man’s ramblings ought to be taken seriously. And that means …”

  “Somebody with a good handle on the history of the times,” I finished and saw her nod.

  “But, Alan, that brings us back to who the man was and what he was doing on the Mississippi to begin with in 1811.”

  I pondered and took a another swallow.

  “Madison,” I said finally.

  “What?”

  “The president in 1811 was James Madison.”

  “That’s right. He was the president during the War of 1812, when the White House was burned by the British.”

  “What else do we know about him?” I asked.

  Pepper made a wry face. “You mean besides the fact that he was Dolley’s husband and that he wrote the Constitution? I can’t think of much. He was followed by Monroe, of the Monroe Doctrine.” She screwed up her face. “Alan, do you think the papers in the box had something to do with the war? Maybe something about the British? Do you think our man Louis was a spy?”

  “Could be,” I allowed. “Maybe artichokes was a password.”

  “Like for a secret group?” she asked. “A cabal of some sort. Aaron Burr and his people. Wasn’t the time about right for the Burr conspiracy?”

  I tugged an ear, trying to remember. “As I recall, Burr’s trial was five or six years before. He was accused of trying to take part of the Louisiana Territory and create his own country. He was tried before the chief justice of the United States, John Marshall, and acquitted. And if I have it right, he died at the start of the 1812 war. But he never stopped plotting.”

  “So it could have been a Burr group,” she declared.

  “Or any other group that wanted to carve out a slice of the pie. Kentucky was a pretty wild area then, and a lot of Kaintucks came down the river to New Orleans as adventurers. And St. Louis, where the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers meet, was the gateway to the whole Louisiana Territory. There were all kinds of people there—French, Spanish, British, Americans, Indians. There’s no telling what schemes were being hatched.”

  Suddenly I realized the young woman across the table from me was smiling again.

  “Do you always peel the label off your beer bottle when you lecture?” she asked.

  I looked down at the shreds of gummed paper in front of me.

  “Only when I get wound up,” I said, feeling my face flush.

  “That’s okay.” She reached out, put a hand on mine. “I like your lectures.”

  “Really.”

  “Mostly.” She slipped out of her chair as the bartender called my name, and before I could say anything she was retrieving our order from the counter.

  “God,” she muttered, setting the cheese fries on the table. “We’re both going to have to run a hundred miles to work this off.”

  “Fifty, anyway,” I said, popping a fry into my mouth. “Wait till you see the size of the muffaletta.”

  “I’m afraid to,” she said. “By the way, I hear you’re a pretty good cook.”

  “I do okay with your usual dishes,” I said. “Jambalaya, gumbo, things I can feed people when we have a poker game.”

  As soon as I said it I knew I’d screwed up.

  “That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about,” she said and I groaned inwardly.

  “Isn’t that your cheeseburger they’re putting on the counter?” I asked.


  “No, that’s somebody else’s.” She leaned toward me over the table. “Look, Alan, about the poker games …”

  I was saved by the door opening, spilling daylight into the dark room. To my surprise, I saw Esmerelda LaFleur standing in the entrance, red hair ablaze from the sun.

  “Ahhh, there you are!” she cried.

  “Esme, what are you doing here?” I asked, beckoning her to the table.

  “I’m looking for you two,” she said. “I called the office and Marilyn said you’d gone off together, which is fine and none of my business, because you’re both adults and single and healthy, but I thought you might be interested in what I found. So I asked Marilyn where you might be and she said to try this place and here I am.”

  “Sit down,” I said. “What can I order for you?”

  Esme slid into a chair and looked down her nose at the bar.

  “It’s a little early, but I’d take a sloe gin fizz.”

  I went to the bar, placed her order, and watched the barkeep shake his head.

  “I’m serious,” I told him.

  Two minutes later he handed me the glass and I returned to our table.

  “So what’s up, Esme?”

  She gave a catlike grin.

  “I’ve been in the archives at Hill Memorial,” she said. Hill Memorial was the oldest of LSU’s libraries and held rare materials and manuscripts.

  “You’ve found out something about Louis,” Pepper declared, her voice excited.

  Esme sipped from her cup and then pursed her lips, as if unsure whether the drink met her approval.

  “Yes and no,” she said.

  “Want to explain?” I asked.

  “Go get your food,” she ordered, as the barkeep called my name. I brought Pepper’s burger and my muffaletta.

  “You’re not going to eat all of that, are you?” Esme asked, incredulous.

  “I may take some of it home,” I said. “Now what’s the news?”

  “Can I try a little piece?”

  “Here.” I handed her half the kaiser roll. “Now, about the archives …”

  “Oh. I’d forgotten.”

  “Don’t lie,” I said.

  “You’re so rude,” Esme complained, lifting the bun to her mouth and biting off a small piece.

  “Esme …” I said.

  “I can’t speak with my mouth full.”

  She chewed another few times, swallowed, and wiped her lips with a paper napkin.

  “About the research …”

  “We’re waiting,” I prodded.

  “You remember, I told you I looked in the courthouse for the will and couldn’t find that any record of it had ever been filed.”

  Pepper and I nodded together.

  “Well, I found it in the Fabré Collection in Hill Memorial.”

  I set down my beer bottle.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Signed and witnessed?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Pepper and I looked at each other and she spoke for both of us: “Hallelujah.”

  Esme held up a hand.

  “Don’t get too excited. It doesn’t answer everything. Still, there’s at least one interesting thing about it.”

  “Did you copy what it said?” Pepper asked.

  “No,” Esme said primly. “I abased myself sufficiently that the archivist let me make a photocopy.”

  She delved into the canvas shoulder bag that served both as purse and document case.

  “It doesn’t provide an answer,” she warned.

  I took the paper and held it to the light, as Pepper bent her head to read the long, slanted pen strokes.

  Last Will and Testament

  Under the heading were only a few lines:

  Being of sound mind and sensible of the frailty of life, I hereby make this, my last Will and Testament.

  I leave to my friend John Clay Hardin my watch & my collection of natural history specimens.

  I leave to Judalon Hardin, wife of the above John Clay Hardin, my drawings & paintings, pore as they are.

  I leave my rifle to Louis Rayfield Hardin, my godson.

  I leave to Eleanor Hardin Fabré, wife of Pierre Fabré, the furniture I made with my hands.

  My money, & tools I leave to John Clay Hardin to dispose of as he sees fit.

  Signed at Désirée Plantation in the Parish of West Baton Rouge, in the State of Louisiana, on this Tenth Day of October, in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred & Fifty-Seven.

  But it was the signature that got my attention, because there, above the scrawl of John Clay Hardin, who had signed his name as witness, was a single name, and the spelling was unmistakable:

  Lewis

  SEVEN

  “L-E-W-I-S?” Pepper spelled.

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” Esme said. “It’s the only thing we have in his handwriting and he spells his name the Anglo rather than the French way.”

  I nodded. “So all the references to L-O-U-I-S in the journal and the spelling on the gravestone are based on how the Hardin family thought it ought to be spelled.”

  Esme smiled. “And since this is south Louisiana, they naturally spelled it the French way.”

  “Wait a minute,” Pepper said. “If John Clay Hardin witnessed the will, then he saw how the man spelled his name. Why would he spell it differently on the grave?”

  Esme shrugged. “Old habits die hard. And remember, orthography—spelling—as we know it was a lot less rigorous in those days. People weren’t nearly as concerned about how a word—or a name—ought to be written.”

  “True,” Pepper agreed. “But there’s something else about the will: It doesn’t mention the metal box.”

  “You noticed that, did you?” Esme said. “Good girl. Most wills have what’s called a residuary legatee, who gets everything that isn’t specifically mentioned. But there’s no clause like that in this one. He leaves certain specific things, but he’s very careful not to make Hardin the owner of the things he didn’t mention.”

  “So what do you make of it, Esme?” I asked.

  She picked off another fragment of my sandwich.

  “I’m not sure. But I know somebody who may be able to help.”

  “Oh?”

  “Shelby Deeds,” she said. “He retired from the University of New Orleans a couple of years ago. He’s a specialist in the early statehood period for Louisiana and Mississippi. He’s also an authority on the Natchez Trace.”

  Pepper nodded. “I think I read a book of his about the history of the Mississippi Territory,” she said.

  “That’s Shelby,” Esme said. “He’s living in Abita Springs now. It was so sad: He had to take early retirement because of his drinking. His marriage broke up years ago and he just sort of went to pieces after that.” She sighed. “But once he left New Orleans he got control of himself. He joined AA and I don’t think he’s had a drink for four or five years. I called him and he said he’d talk to us tomorrow. I told him we could be there right after noon.” She looked from one of us to the other. “We can, can’t we?”

  Pepper looked over at me. “Alan?”

  “Sure.”

  It was just past nine when I parked in my driveway. I disarmed the alarm, went inside, and dropped my attaché case beside the door. The house seemed unusually lonely, despite the dog pawing at the back door. I got out a big can of dog food, opened it, and let Digger in to eat.

  “I know,” I said. “It’s way past suppertime. I’m sorry.”

  But he was devoting his full attention to his bowl.

  I went into my study and for the first time in over a year took the little gold-framed photo of Felicia and me on our wedding day out of the drawer where I kept it and stared at the two happy people smiling up at me.

  Was it really over with? All the times before when I’d taken out the picture, it had hurt to see it. Sometimes I’d taken it out just so that it would hurt, as if hurting somehow reminded me that I was alive
.

  I’d dropped Pepper off just minutes before, found myself standing at the foot of the wooden steps that led up to her tiny garage apartment.

  “Alan …”

  I knew she was going to invite me up, but I needed time to sort out my emotions.

  “Tomorrow,” I said and gave her a quick, brotherly hug.

  Now I was telling myself I was a fool, that all I’d had to do was hold the hug a second longer. I could be with her now, instead of by myself in a house that was more like a museum than a home.

  Sure, and then what? I’d had flings since breaking up with Felicia. There was Peggy Lipscomb, the spacey biologist who wore a crystal to bed and whom I’d found, one morning at six, after a night of torrid lovemaking, seated in a yoga position on my back porch, stark naked. There was Yvette, who was driven by her biological clock and wanted nothing so much as to snare a man before it was too late. And there was Lucy Moran, who, after I’d gotten to know and like her, had confessed to some bizarre notions about religion and race.

  I’d broken up with all of them and hadn’t really regretted it. But now I was beginning to wonder if I hadn’t chosen them for their eccentricities in the first place. Maybe I hadn’t been ready for something permanent, and now perhaps I was.

  I took Digger for a late-night walk to City Park and back, feeling safe in the umbrella of the camphor trees that lined the silent boulevard. When we got back, I showered, had a light scotch and water, and went to bed.

  In my dreams, Bertha Bomberg pushed a line of chessmen who resembled Roman legionnaires inexorably along a levee, the pawns in the front of the column falling helplessly into the waters below.

  She was down to her rooks and a bishop when the sound of Digger barking shook me out of my sleep and made me sit up in bed.

  There was a noise downstairs.

  I fumbled for my clothes and tried to clear the sleep out of my mind. How could they have gotten past the alarm?

  Then I heard a car start on the street and I realized they must have been on the front porch. I grabbed the heavy walking stick, left over from an old field injury to my leg, and raced downstairs, taking the steps two at a time.

  I jerked open the front door and looked out. The porch light spilled into the front yard and there was no one there.

  I walked out of the house and down the sidewalk.