Louisiana Lament

by Julie Smith

  But on the off-chance Austin really was coming by boat, it was going to be the best place to wait, and it was pleasant here, except for the smell. Apparently, Austin had a little store on the dock where he sold fuel, a little bait, and a few soft drinks. Now and then a small boat, the kind used for sport fishing, came in and gassed up. Eddie sat in the shadow of the little store. He’d brought the book, and he was nearly halfway through it.

  How could such a short book be so famous? he wondered. A schoolchild could read it in a day. Maybe that was why it was popular.

  Still, he had to admit the author had something here. He was getting the hang of why Allyson reminded everybody of this Gatsby character, and he was willing to bet, if you found out by the end where Gatsby’s money came from, it had something to do with that guy who fixed the World Series. People like that were never on the up-and-up. He was pretty sure Allyson wasn’t.

  He liked the way the guy wrote. One thing especially reminded him of Allyson, probably explained how she’d ended up like she did: “Dishonesty in a woman is something you never blame deeply.”

  Until ya do, Eddie thought, and then the shit hits the fan. Gatsby was dead in his pool by two o’clock, and Eddie was pretty impressed. Nice, neat little plot—all those people who were sort of connected, but not really (the Wilsons and the rich folks) coming together at the end. He had to hand it to the guy.

  He closed the book and looked out at the horizon. No sign of a boat. He went ahead and read the last couple of chapters. After that, he fell into a mild doze.

  The sound of an outboard motor woke him, and he opened his eyes to see a good-sized fishing boat bearing towards the dock—one big enough to have a little cabin. He got up and waved, but he couldn’t see anyone on board.

  As it drew closer, though, he could see a man on deck. He waved again.

  The man threw him a rope. “Hey, could you take this line?”

  Eddie was at a loss. “Whaddaya want me to do with it?”

  “Cleat it down, could you?”

  “Do what?”

  “Oh, never mind. Could you just hold it till I get her in?” No question the man was Austin Edwards. He wore shorts, a wife-beater T-shirt, and—Eddie couldn’t believe it—a pair of Top-Siders. Pretty good disguise for a biker, Eddie thought.

  Except for the tattoos. The shirt let them show in all their glory, especially the red and gold fish swimming on his forearm.

  And except for the tattoos, he was a pretty clean-cut-looking guy, but slightly beefy. Maybe you had to be a certain weight before they’d sell you a Harley. Eddie watched him as he tied up the boat, legs and arms moving as if they’d done this a thousand times. Eddie had half expected a drunk. This guy looked healthy.

  When he’d finished the job, he turned to Eddie. “Austin Edwards. Are you the man from New Orleans?”

  So Broussard had announced him. “Ms. Broussard say what I came about?”

  He shrugged. “Just said you were here.”

  “Everybody’s lookin’ for ya back in New Orleans.”

  “Who? I don’t have a girlfriend. My mother? Surely not my mother.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged again. “She never calls me.”

  “Austin, I got some bad news for ya. Some real bad things have happened. Ya sister passed away.” He just couldn’t hit the guy with two deaths at once.

  All the energy left his face, and much of the color as well. “Arnelle or Cassie?” he asked quietly.

  “I’m sorry. It’s Cassie.”

  Sorrow hovered briefly on his features, or dread, perhaps, but anger replaced it in a flicker. “You’re lying! My mother would have called me! She would have sent out the Coast Guard. Somehow, she would have found me.”

  Eddie put a hand on his shoulder. “Ya mother’s gone, too, son.”

  “I just saw her!”

  “When was that?”

  “I just saw her! God, she’s a horrible driver.”

  “How’s that?” Eddie said, and then realized what he meant. “They didn’t die in an accident, Austin.”

  The rage and disbelief were beginning to ebb in the other man. He was starting to get limp and numb, the way people do when they get bad news. Eddie couldn’t have said whether his grief was genuine, but in case it was, the guy’s feelings were more important than the damn case.

  “Ya want to go in the office? Talk about this?” Eddie said.

  “No. Tell me now.”

  “Somebody shot ya mother.”

  Suddenly it seemed to occur to him that he didn’t have a clue who Eddie was. “Are you a cop?” he asked.

  “No, son. I’m a private investigator. I wasn’t kidding when I said everybody’s looking for ya.”

  Austin said, “I’m outta here,” and leaped back onto the boat before Eddie could stop him.

  Damn! This just couldn’t happen. Eddie leaped, too, but the boat drifted an inch or so as he did, just enough to make him miss his footing. He fell in the water, the boat in front of him, a shell-covered piling in back. He went under briefly, and came up coughing and snorting salty water, shells digging into his back. The water was surprisingly warm, but the boat was alarmingly close. He had no idea when it might decide to drift back towards him.

  “Help!” he yelled, hoping Austin had an ounce of decency. “Austin, help!”

  “Fuck!” Austin shouted. “Just fuck!”

  But he grabbed a boat hook, flipped it, and fended off the pier with the blunt end of the pole while he reached for a line to throw Eddie. “Grab this, and hang on for a minute.”

  Gratefully, Eddie took the line and let Austin float him over to the stern, where the fish guy once again fumbled one-handed to get the boarding ladder down. “All right. Come aboard.”

  Eddie heaved his sopping self up the ladder and onto the deck.

  “You all right?” Austin said.

  Eddie felt his back for damage. “Yeah, I’m all right. Ya got anything to drink around here?”

  The futility of trying to abscond physically, either from Eddie or the news he brought, seemed to dawn on Austin. But Eddie had just brought up another avenue of escape. “Yeah,” he said grimly. “I got something to drink. Let’s both have one.”

  He went below, giving Eddie a chance to take off his shoes and socks and sodden, gun-heavy sports jacket. Austin returned with a bottle of bourbon and two glasses. He didn’t offer Eddie any dry clothes, just a good half cup of straight-up whiskey.

  He drank his own in one swallow. Eddie cheered up. Maybe the worst was over. But he was soggy and he still had a horrible story to tell. “There’s no easy way to say this. Someone stabbed Cassie and then shot ya mother. Or maybe it was the other way around. The cops don’t even know which happened first.”

  Austin stared as if he hadn’t heard, set his mouth in a line, poured himself another drink, and tossed it down his throat. “They stabbed Cassie?” he said. “Who would kill poor little Cassie?” He sounded like he was talking about a character in a movie.

  “The police are tryin’ to find out. Surprised they didn’t call ya—ya mother must have had ya number.”

  “Goddamn it to hell! I left in such a hurry I forgot my cell phone. When did it happen? Yesterday?”

  “Monday night.”

  Austin leaned forward, fury in his eyes. “Monday night?” he shouted. “The hell it was Monday night! I was there Monday night.”

  “Who else was there?”

  Austin shrugged. “Just two kids who work for her. A girl who was doing some painting and a poet who lives in the carriage house. My mother and I had a fight—that’s why I left.” He paused, remembering. “Oh, shit!”

  “What?”

  “I was drinking that night. I—really said some things I shouldn’t have.”

  “And then what?”

  “I went back to my room and tried to watch television. Finally I said, ‘Fuck it!’ and left. Just came home.”

  “Hold it a minute. Didn’t you know about the hurri
cane warnings?”

  “Oh, hell. Walter Anderson rowed out to Horn Island and lashed himself to a tree in a hurricane—why the fuck would I be afraid of a little hurricane?”

  “That some crazy biker friend of yours?”

  “He was an artist. But you got one thing right—he was crazy.”

  “I hear ya live in Venice. Goin’ there in a storm’d be about the same as bein’ out in the Gulf.”

  “Yeah, well, I might be crazy, but I’m not as crazy as Walter Anderson. I slept here in the bunkhouse.” He indicated the cinder block building.

  “Anyone else there?”

  Edwards made a noise that may have been a laugh, but it was more like a yelp. “Fuck, man! Ain’ nobody else that crazy.”

  Eddie was really interested in one thing only. He asked the crucial question. “When ya left ya mama’s, were they all still there? All three of ’em?”

  Austin thought about it a minute. “No. Uh-uh. I don’t think the girl was. Rashad—he’s kind of Mother’s bitch—was out with Mother on the patio. Having some kind of serious talk.”

  Okay, that was it. The thing Eddie had come for. His client wasn’t exactly cleared—the police might say Janessa could have killed Cassie and then come back to Allyson’s and killed her, too—but at least Eddie had a witness to corroborate her story. If he could just get him back to New Orleans. “Ya gotta come back and talk to the police. They’re lookin’ for ya.”

  Another penny dropped. “They think I did it?”

  “I didn’t say that. But they can’t eliminate ya as a suspect till ya tell ’em ya story.”

  Austin tossed down another drink. He was growing calmer by the second, but Eddie could see the sadness starting to spread through his cells. His cheerful face had turned itself inside out, his features seeming now to point downward. Eddie had a long afternoon ahead of him.

  For a moment, Austin sat there, trying to put the puzzle together. Finally, he said, “Cassie was there, too? At my mom’s?”

  “No. She was killed at her apartment. The coroner discovered her body when he went to give Cassie the news.”

  Tears flowed down Austin’s handsome face. “Poor little Cassie. Who would kill poor little Cassie?”

  “Was Rashad involved with her?”

  “You know Rashad?” Austin asked.

  “No, I haven’t met him. Janessa found Allyson the next day—both you and Rashad were gone.”

  “Oh, man. Oh, man!” He picked up the bottle and drank till he gagged. Then he sank back in the cockpit and said, “Rashad killed them? Why would Rashad kill them?”

  “Nobody said Rashad killed ’em. Rashad isn’t there, that’s all. Like you.”

  “Tell me the whole story, okay?”

  So Eddie did, stumbling over the part about the swimming pool, but he managed to spit it out, and noticed that Austin’s wince was the first sign he’d cared for his mother at all.

  After that, Austin sat there, eyes glazed, while Eddie shivered in his wet clothing. When he finally spoke again, his voice was slurred. “So what are you doing here?”

  “I was hired to look into the murders. I want you to come back with me.”

  “I need you to leave.”

  “They can’t hold the funerals without ya, son.” At the “F’ word, Austin started sobbing.

  “Oh, God, not Cassie! If some bastard could do that to Cassie, there’s no good anywhere. D’you understand that? There’s no reason to live, because there’s no good left anywhere. If Rashad could do this—”

  “Ya think Rashad did it?”

  “He disappeared, didn’t he?”

  “So did you.”

  “But—I didn’t know.”

  “Nobody’s gon’ know that till ya tell ’em.”

  Austin picked up the bottle, which was about half-empty now, started to drink, then stopped, his eye caught by something on land. Eddie turned to see Marie Broussard walking toward the dock, a sheaf of paper in her hands—probably the payroll checks.

  He called to her. “Ms. Broussard. We need some help here. Need to get Austin off this boat.”

  And Austin picked that moment to dive off the boat and start swimming.

  “Ms. Broussard. Quick! Get somebody.”

  For a moment, Eddie contemplated jumping in after him, but then he heard the motor of a little fishing boat coming towards the dock. Broussard was trying to flag it down. “Virgil! Fred! Austin’s in the water.”

  One of the men aboard held his hand up to his eyes. “What’s he doing?” he shouted.

  “He’s drunk,” Eddie shouted. “I think he’s trying to kill himself.”

  Virgil poured on speed and hurtled toward Austin. Eddie threw a life preserver. “Hey, Austin, grab this!”

  The swimming man gave no indication he’d heard. To Eddie, it looked as if he was having a hard time, swimming against the current, maybe. Virgil and Fred drew up close and cut their engine. “Hey, Austin. Hey, man! Come on. Get in the boat.”

  Austin kept swimming.

  Broussard had reached the dock by now. She stood there with her checks in her hand, her face screwed up against the sun, and probably against the sight of a man trying to swim to his death. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He had some bad news.”

  “I thought you had good news.”

  “Turned out the person who died was his mother.”

  Broussard crossed herself and started to pray. Austin was still swimming, but it looked to Eddie as if he’d slowed down. The men in the boat had begun to row, just keeping abreast of him, waiting for him to tire enough so they could haul him aboard.

  They were a couple of hundred yards out by now, and the boat blocked his view, but Eddie saw one of the men jump overboard and start to grapple with Austin. Finally, the other hit Austin with the paddle, but he fought back. The fisherman hit him again, with so much naked force Eddie feared that, one way or another, Austin wasn’t going to make it back to dry land. But finally he went limp. Virgil grabbed him, but he didn’t seem able to hold him. “Fred! Fred, I’m losing him.”

  The other man jumped in the water, and, for a few minutes, they struggled to hold the unconscious man above water, dog-paddling back to their boat, which had begun to drift.

  Finally, one of them let go and swam back to the boat. He climbed in, turned on the engine and circled back to his buddy and the dead weight that was Austin. The other pushed from the water, and his buddy pulled, but the boat began rocking so precariously that they had to stop. Abandoning that plan, Virgil or Fred—whichever it was—simply grabbed the boat with one hand and held on, still holding Austin with the other, while his buddy slowly putt-putted in to the dock.

  If Austin wanted to drown, it looked as if he was getting his wish. Eddie tucked his gun in his trousers, threw his coat, shoes, and socks onto the dock. Then he scrambled off Austin’s boat and helped tie the little one up, then heave the fish guy onto the dock. As Austin rolled to his side, about a quart of water poured from his mouth, and he began to cough.

  “Crazy motherfucker!” Virgil offered.

  “Shoulda left him there,” Fred said in disgust.

  Abruptly Austin quit coughing, and looked around him. And just as suddenly, his eyes rolled back in his head, which hit the dock so hard it bounced.

  But his chest rose and fell rhythmically. “I’ve got to get him to a doctor,” Eddie said. “Y’all help me get him in the car?”

  Virgil was staring at a drowned pack of cigarettes. Disgustedly, he threw it in the water. “Mister, he can die for all I care.” He stomped off toward the building.

  Fred shrugged. “I’ll take his feet.”

  “I’ll help,” Broussard said.

  “Just grab my things, will ya?” Obediently, she picked up his soaked clothes, her glance straying nervously to the gun he’d stuck in the front of his pants.

  “It’s okay,” Eddie said. “I’m a private investigator.”

  She nodded as if it that explained things.


  When they arrived at the empty parking lot, Fred looked around, puzzled. “Where’s your car?”

  “Let’s put him down. I’ll get it.”

  “Gladly.”

  Fred was gone when he came back, leaving Eddie and Broussard to hoist the soaking, barely conscious dead weight into the back seat of Audrey’s Cadillac. At least it didn’t fight.

  “Ow!” Broussard groused. “Think I broke my back.”

  “Bye. Thanks for the help,” Eddie said, and took off. Doctor, hell. He turned the car around, negotiated the country roads back to the highway, and lit out for New Orleans.

  “Oh, man,” Austin moaned. “Oh, man.”

  Okay, he could talk. The worst that could happen, he’d get pneumonia. Eddie, too. He called Audrey. “Baby, I got a situation.”

  She’d heard that one before. “Oh, boy.”

  “I got a half-drowned suicidal wreck in the car. I might have to stay with him all night.”

  “Aww, Eddie,” she said. “I wanted to go to Jack Dempsey’s. Get some shrimp.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “The District’s on tomorrow.”

  “Sorry, kid, I’ll make it up to you. I’m in Port Sulphur. Call you when I get back.”

  Next he called Janessa. “You got a key to Allyson’s house?”

  “Why ya wanna know?”

  “I’ve got Austin. Meet me there in two hours.” He figured Janessa was strong enough to help him do what had to be done.

  But when they arrived, Austin had sobered up enough to walk, with a little help from his friends. He actually sat up in the back seat when the car stopped. “Where the hell are we?”

  “Ya mama’s house.”

  Janessa was already there, waiting on the front porch. She approached the car gingerly, like it might explode. Austin lit up.

  “Hey, Janessa. What’s shakin’?”

  She looked them both over. “Why ya wet?”

  “Took a swim. Austin, ya got clothes inside?”

  “Yeah, prob’ly. What the hell we doin’ here?” He seemed momentarily to have forgotten his troubles.

  Eddie gritted his teeth and opened the back door. “Janessa, help me, will ya, honey?”

  Austin said, “Hey, I can walk.”

  He teetered up the front walk, then the steps, then through the house to a room that was obviously a guest room, and that was it for Austin. He fell down on the bed and started snoring. Eddie said, “We gotta get him out of these clothes.”