The Meriwether Murder

by Malcolm Shuman

  “I don’t have anything to say,” I told her.

  The videocam was aimed at my face and I knew it was running.

  “But you were hired by the Corps of Engineers to do archaeological work there, weren’t you?”

  “Well, yes …”

  “Is it usual for the government to do work on private land?”

  Oh, shit.

  “It’s for a levee setback. We’re working along the river. Look, you really ought to talk to the Corps.”

  “But you’ve been working on the plantation itself, haven’t you?”

  “We’ve been doing background research. You really need to talk to the Corps—”

  “Is it true that Lafitte’s treasure may be buried at Désirée?”

  “Lafitte’s treasure is buried all over the state,” I said sarcastically. “Also Jesse James’s money and Spanish gold.”

  “But you do think there may be some other kind of treasure on the plantation?”

  “Anything is possible,” I said.

  “You were there when the caretaker, Brady Flowers, was killed, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell us how you feel about that?”

  I said a rude word.

  She frowned.

  “Cut that part,” she ordered. Then back to me: “Do you have any idea who’d do something like that, or who’d want to burn down the plantation?”

  “The usual suspects, I guess.”

  She chewed her lip, frustrated. “Just one more question, then, Dr. Graham.” And to the cameraman: “I want a tight shot.”

  She was getting ready to slip me one …

  “Dr. Graham, do you think the police suspect you of any of this?”

  “Goodbye, Miss Goforth.”

  The sour note continued when two detectives from West Baton Rouge Parish appeared and went over my statement again in detail.

  “What do you think the killer was after?” one of them, a scrawny little man named Duplessis, kept asking.

  I said some old family papers mentioned a man who’d lived there before the Civil War and maybe somebody thought he’d buried something. I told them his will was in the LSU library, and I even had a copy, which I showed them. As they could see, the old man had nothing of value to bury. They shuffled out, unmollifled, and I called Dogbite.

  “How much do I have to tell them?” I asked.

  “Depends on what they ask. You don’t have to talk to ’em at all, if you think they have you in mind for the crime. Do they?”

  “I don’t really think so, but you can’t ever tell.”

  “You can say that again. If you’re the closest target you could just be the one they decide to grab.”

  “You always make me feel so good.”

  “Feel-good is for shrinks. I’m a lawyer.”

  “Yeah, I forgot.” I shifted the phone to my other ear and eyed my office door, to make sure there weren’t eavesdroppers.

  “Listen, I’m worried about what’ll happen if they get the idea there’s something out at Désirée that ought to be dug up.”

  A snort came over the line.

  “Yeah, when I was an assistant D.A. I saw what happened when cops try to do forensics anthropology. Well, if they ask you anything else, refer ’em to me. But if you say anything at all, make sure it’s the truth.”

  “Cross my heart,” I said.

  After I hung up I sat quietly for a minute, thinking.

  It was true I didn’t really think they considered me a suspect. But I didn’t want to give them the details of our research because I didn’t want our work spread all over the newspapers. It was bad enough I’d been ambushed by Sarah Goforth. If any of it aired, there was no telling what the killer would do next.

  I punched in Pepper’s office number, but all I got was her answering machine. I left a brief message asking her to call and then tried her apartment. Another recorded message. I hung up and tried her cellular. No answer.

  Anxiety started to gnaw me. What if the killer had decided to pay her a visit? What if he’d waylaid her on the road?

  Then I told myself to calm down: There were a million good reasons why she might not be in telephone contact.

  Suddenly I was resentful that she didn’t have a pager. But she usually put her cell phone in her handbag, so her failure to answer meant either that she was separated from her bag or the phone wasn’t on.

  Or that she was somewhere that microwaves couldn’t penetrate, or the battery had run down …

  Or that she’d been grabbed and the phone had been tossed out the car window …

  I stared at the mountain of work on my desk and then went out into the lab. To my chagrin the only worker present was the Mahatma, a late-blooming flower child in his mid-thirties who’d left Alabama for the West Coast fifteen years ago and never gotten past Baton Rouge. These days, he took occasional courses in anthropology and environmental science and lived in a rat trap on Chimes Street, when not communing at one of the local coffeehouses.

  “Is your car running?” I asked.

  The Mahatma smiled. “Absolutely.”

  I thought of the rainbow-colored VW van that was always jacked up in his driveway and wondered what that meant.

  “Then drop what you’re doing and go to the following addresses.” I wrote down Pepper’s office and apartment addresses on a sheet of paper. “Knock and see if anybody comes. Try the door. If you see anybody around, ask if they’ve seen Pepper Courtney. If you see anything suspicious at all, call back here. Or if it won’t wait, call the police.”

  The Mahatma, whose real name was Dean Callahan, nodded.

  “You think there’s something wrong?”

  “I doubt it. But I can’t get Dr. Courtney on the phone. If you read the paper this morning, you know I’m kind of nervous right now.”

  “I don’t read newspapers. Too many trees have to die to make them. But I think everything’s okay.” He touched the crystal hanging from his neck by a leather thong. “I have a sense when something’s wrong.”

  “Go,” I said.

  The phone rang in the outer office and a few seconds later a reserved Marilyn appeared in my doorway.

  “That was Mrs. Amadie reminding you about the talk this afternoon.”

  “What?”

  “Remember? You promised to give a talk to her class at one-thirty.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” I’d forgotten entirely. “What did you tell her?”

  “I said you’d be there. You can use my car.”

  “Bless you.”

  “Alan, where did Dean go off to?”

  “There was something I needed him to check,” I said vaguely.

  “I hope it was important. We’re short of workers and sending one of them off without telling me leaves a big hole in our schedule. According to the Gantt chart I showed you, meeting our deadline on this project requires everyone to stick exactly to the schedule I developed. And one person I expected already hasn’t shown up this morning.”

  “I apologize,” I said, wondering if Frank Hill would make it in today at all. “I’ll try to find more people.”

  “That would be nice. But I don’t know what you expect to pay them with,” she snapped and went back to her desk.

  I got my lecture materials from the file where I kept them. For talks such as this one I usually brought some artifacts, showed some slides, and handed out some pages with the Louisiana prehistoric culture sequence on them.

  For an instant I considered calling Rosemary and asking to reschedule, but I might as well get it over with. And talking to students often got my mind off whatever was preying on it at the time.

  By noon, when the Mahatma hadn’t come back, I was frantic.

  What if …?

  I called home and as the answering machine finished its message a sleepy voice came on the line.

  “Are you just waking up?” I demanded.

  “I guess so,” L. Franklin Hill admitted. “Where’s everybody?”

&nb
sp; I had him check for messages, but aside from Pepper’s calls there weren’t any.

  Half an hour later I left the office in Marilyn’s green Tercel, grabbed a couple of tacos at a cholesterol factory near the campus, and, against my better judgment, swung by Pepper’s apartment. No sign of Pepper, no sign of the Mahatma. Then I cut over to Perkins and stopped in the parking lot in front of her office. An ancient black hearse was taking up two spaces in front of her door. Not, I thought, a good omen.

  I was trying her locked door when a familiar voice startled me.

  “Hey, boss, what’re you doing here?”

  I wheeled and saw the Mahatma beaming at me.

  “Where’s the van?”

  “At home. I’m keeping the hearse for a guy who’s walking around the world for brotherhood. He didn’t need it.”

  “He might be surprised,” I said, turning toward Pepper’s door. “No luck, huh?”

  “The real estate guy with the office next door said he saw her this morning. She was in a hurry. Said something about having to meet somebody. A doctor friend.”

  “A doctor friend?” I gulped.

  “That’s what he said.”

  I swallowed my alarm.

  “Okay, Dean, thanks. Might as well get yourself some lunch and go back to the office.”

  I knew there was an explanation. People had doctor’s appointments all the time. Maybe, heh-heh, she just needed to get a birth control prescription.

  Or maybe she had an incurable disease.

  But why had she said a doctor friend? That didn’t sound like an appointment. It sounded more, well, social.

  Damn. I was acting like a teenager. I should be glad at least that she hadn’t been snatched by the killer.

  So why hadn’t she kept her cell phone on?

  The school was a Catholic institution in the eastern part of the city. The cars in the parking lot looked relatively new and there was no cyclone fence. The one-story brick building was less than ten years old and actually had windows.

  Rosemary Amadie met me at the office. We shook hands, and she told me she’d read in the newspaper about my horrible experience.

  “I just can’t imagine what you go through,” she gushed. “I’m allergic to bee stings and our last class field trip almost sent me to the hospital with poison ivy.” She pointed to a pink swatch on her arm, as if to emphasize her vulnerability. “I’m the world’s biggest buyer of calomine lotion. But here you are dealing with murderers.”

  “It isn’t by choice,” I assured her as we entered the hallway with its faintly wax smell. We passed a door that led into a neatly ordered library and one that showed a set of desks with computers. A well-furnished school, I thought, not like the public ones, with their sagging ceilings and flaking walls.

  The class was sixth-graders, all in neat uniforms with the school name stenciled on the boys’ shirts and the girls’ blouses. I set up the slide projector, handed out my information sheets, talked a little about prehistory and the tribes of the area, and passed around some artifacts for the kids to examine. When I was finished answering questions and the bell had rung, Miss Amadie walked me back to the car.

  “You don’t know how much it means to me to be able to get them involved,” she cooed. “There’s such a problem with young people today. No respect. They aren’t taught values at home.” She shook her head. “I was always taught my father was a great man and so many of them don’t even know who their fathers are!”

  “But this is a private school.”

  “Yes, it’s better here. But even here it’s hard to get them interested. They’re so used to TV. That’s why having you come here is important. It breaks the monotony. I’m a firm believer in the hands-on approach.”

  And, as if to emphasize the fact, she put a hand on my arm.

  “It works sometimes,” I said and opened the car door on the passenger’s side.

  “I hope you don’t get involved in any more murders,” she said, and I noticed my personal space had decreased significantly.

  “Me, too,” I said, placing the slide tray and the bag of artifacts on the car seat and shutting the door.

  “I hope you’ll come to the next meeting of the archaeological society,” she added, her face only inches from mine. “I’d love to have you as a speaker. Come to think of it, you haven’t given us a talk since I’ve been president …”

  “Give me a call,” I said and then, excusing myself, opened the car door and drove away. In my mirror I saw her staring after me.

  Poor woman. She was probably as frustrated as I was.

  I pedaled my bike home at five, resentful of the cars whipping past. There were no messages on my machine and Frank Hill had managed to find his way out. The place was still a wreck, and reeked of beer. I reflected on my good fortune in having friends to protect me.

  Worse, the refrigerator had been cleaned out and I vaguely remembered my visitors taking out frozen meals and opening cans.

  I considered Digger’s food, decided against it, and gave him a can.

  “You don’t know how lucky you are,” I told him and got a woof in return.

  I could always put on some red beans and rice, but it would take time and I was tired. Instead, I made myself a peanut butter sandwich, poured myself a glass of low-fat milk, and flopped in front of the TV, trying to block out the disaster zone around me.

  The pug face of Sarah Goforth greeted me, talking breathlessly into the camera, and I noticed with shock my office building in the background.

  “To many, the word archaeologist conjures up the image of a man wearing a pith helmet and cracking a bullwhip. And while archaeologists as a whole deny the accuracy of this view, it may not be that far off. Today we spoke with archaeologist Dr. Alan Graham about a murder that took place at a West Baton Rouge plantation, and about what he thinks may be buried there.”

  The picture flashed to a front view of Désirée in all its dishabille.

  “Saturday night, the caretaker of Désirée plantation, Brady Flowers, was found dead under mysterious circumstances. According to West Baton Rouge deputies, Flowers had been stabbed in the hallway of the plantation home and an attempt was made to burn the house itself.”

  There was then a close-up of yellow crime scene tape strung across the lawn and a clot of officials milling in the background.

  “A burglary? A crime of passion? The indications today are that there may be more to the story.”

  Back to my building.

  “This house, near the LSU campus, is the headquarters of a private archaeology firm known as Moundmasters.”

  Pan to our sign, at a slight angle where one of the wood screws had pulled loose.

  “Moundmasters is run by Dr. Alan Graham, a specialist in the field of environmental consulting. We asked Dr. Graham what might have been behind the murder of the elderly caretaker.”

  The face of a middle-aged man with glasses, looking slightly put-upon. My face.

  “… You do think there may be some kind of treasure on the plantation?”

  My expression was definitely surly.

  “Anything is possible.”

  “You were there when the caretaker, Brady Flowers, was killed, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Cut back to the pug dog.

  “Dr. Graham, do you think the police suspect you of any of this?”

  My face went red and I told her goodbye.

  “As you can see, Dr. Graham definitely did not want to talk to us. We’ll just have to wait and see what develops in this mysterious case of the old plantation and the murdered caretaker.”

  I punched the off button with a vengeance, just as my phone started ringing.

  “By God,” Dogbite Kirby intoned, “I never saw a guiltier look.”

  “You’re funny as a child molester in a Santa Claus suit,” I said.

  “Well, don’t admit to anything, Hoss.”

  “With you for a mouthpiece I wouldn’t dare.”

  I had t
o get out of the house before anybody else called. I changed into jogging shorts and got Digger’s leash. Fifteen minutes later I was standing next to the lake that stretches from the foot of the golf course to the university. The interstate, reaching from one side of the lake to the other, was reflected in the brown water and a flotilla of ducks paddled by a hundred feet from shore.

  Suddenly I found myself thinking about Louis again. When he’d been alive the lakes had been swamp, cut by a small bayou. Where I was standing now had been the back acreage of a plantation, and the only sounds would have been the cries of ducks and herons.

  Maybe, I thought, Louis had come here, paddling along the bayou in a pirogue, flintlock rifle in the bow. I tried to imagine him and conjured up the image of a lean, leather-skinned man in a cotton shirt, straw hat shading his face.

  He’d adapted, in spite of the blankness that was the first half of his life. But when he was alone in the pirogue, he must have had glimpses of another world.

  Or was it all a pretense? Maybe he really was running away and his amnesia was only feigned. Maybe he knew there were people who would kill him for what he knew. Maybe they’d already tried, and his only hope of escape was to pretend ignorance. Maybe, after years, the knowledge of having failed in his mission had driven him insane.

  Maybe …

  I jogged back, put Digger in the backyard, and checked my answering machine. Nothing but a credit card company. I erased it and went upstairs to shower.

  Midway through, as the warm water cascaded down over my head, I thought I heard movement in the bedroom. I turned down the water and listened.

  Imagination, I told myself. The old house settling.

  I finished the shower and stepped out onto the bath mat.

  A floorboard creaked.

  This time I knew it wasn’t my imagination.

  I fastened a towel around my middle and looked frantically for a weapon. But the only thing I could think of was my father’s old .32 Colt revolver, stuck away on a closet shelf with ancient shells that might not even fire.

  In desperation, I looked around for something heavy and grabbed a jar of multivitamins. At least I could throw it at the intruder and maybe that would give me a chance to get in a punch.

  Or run naked down the stairs.

  I tiptoed to the door and listened.