by John Case
“Great.”
“I pay my subs twenty bucks an hour. Now, this could take a lot of hours. Or a few. You never know.”
“Right. I understand.”
“Ohhhhh-kay. So it’s Byron B. Commitment order to the Port Sulfur Forensic Facility. Entered the system in 1983.” He writes this down. “That’s it, right? That’s all you got. You know when he got out?”
“Ninety-six.”
“Okay, then, that’s all I need.”
“I might as well help,” I tell him. “If there’s somewhere you don’t have enough bodies, I know how to search records.”
“Dynamite. You just earned yourself a stint in St. John the Baptist Parish. Parish seat’s in LaPlace. My number one sub there just had a baby and my backup took a job at the new Target.” He pronounces the word as if it’s French: Tar-zhay. “It’s not far from here, actually. Highway 10 will take you right to it.”
“Okay.” I pull out my wallet, extracting a dog-eared check.
“Becky will deal with that. We do take Visa and MasterCard,” Pinky says. “Some folks like to get their miles.”
CHAPTER 32
Days in the LaPlace courthouse, nights in the local Comfort Inn. Poring through the records, I drink gallons of coffee and work to keep the name Byron in the forefront of my mind. It would be easy to run right by the citation the way I’ve missed my turn and driven right past Ordway Street on my way home from work.
The third day, I’m on my way back to the motel when my cell phone rings.
It’s Pinky. “You in your car?”
“Yes.”
“Pull over.”
“What?”
“I’m excited and chagrined and a little disappointed, my man,” Pinky says, with a little bray of a laugh.
“What?”
“This search coulda really helped out with the unemployment statistics here in Louisiana.”
“Pinky.”
A sigh. “Yeah. Deal is I hired a woman to work St. Mary’s Parish. She’s off visiting her sister in Houston until today, but she’s worth waiting for because this lady is really smart. Schoolteacher. Anyway, the assignment from me is waiting on her fax machine when she gets home. Bingo. She calls me right off. Turns out, she knew the sumbitch. ‘Byron B.,’ she says to me. ‘Pinky, you can only be talkin’ ’bout Byron Boudreaux.’”
“You’re kidding.”
“‘Oh?’ sez me,” Pinky continues. “‘I think so,’ she says. ‘See, I grew up in Morgan City and right across the river they had this crazy kid name of Byron Boudreaux did some terrible stuff. I remember when they put that boy away because we all slept a little better. And it had to be round about 1983 or so because I was in high school at the time and I graduated in eighty-five. I think it’s just gotta be him, Pink.’ Sounds like it, I told her. So how ’bout that?”
I don’t say a thing. Byron Boudreaux. Having a name for the man who abducted my sons has in some way given focus to my torment and for the moment, I’m so inundated with emotion, I can hardly see. Byron Boudreaux. I’m going to squeeze the life out of him.
“Alex? You there?”
“Yeah,” I manage. “Good work.”
“Blind fool luck is what,” Pinky says. “By the way, Miss Vicky went ahead and put in for that commitment order, which is good because there might be other information on there of use to us. But it’s gonna take a couple days to get our hands on it. You gonna get yourself over here?”
CHAPTER 33
“Tell you what,” Pinky says, once I’m settled into the Barcelona chair in his office. He’s given me the case file. Clipped to it is a map of Louisiana, the route to Morgan City marked on it, and an index card listing the various telephone numbers of Miss Victoria Sims. “Why don’t I come along?”
“Well, I-”
“Cajun folks is friendly but they can be a little twitchy toward outsiders. And truth be told, offshore rigs don’t make for a particularly orderly populace, so Morgan City can be a kind of rough-and-tumble place. It’s the second coming of shore leave when those boys come off shift.”
“Well…”
“You thinking about the money, don’t think no more. It’s on the château, so to speak.”
“Well, that’s-”
“Hold the applause. I been thinking about those two little boys of yours. ’Bout time for the Pinkster to do a little pro bono travail.” He gestures around the office. “Got nothin’ pressing here. Nothin’ can’t wait.”
Pinky’s office and expensive clothing denote the value of his time. “I appreciate it.”
“Oh, forget it,” Pinky says. “I need to get out of the office, pleasant as it is. And I know some boys out that way might prove helpful.”
We head out into the sunset in Pinky’s car, a silver BMW X5 SUV so new that it still has that smell. “Albinos generally have bad eyesight,” he tells me. “I’m the exception – I see pretty good, especially at night.”
It’s about a ninety-mile drive from New Orleans to Morgan City – where Pinky’s secretary booked rooms for us at the Holiday Inn. Despite the darkness, the way the lights are strung along riverbanks, clustered on shores, absent in large black expanses, conveys the constant presence of water. Going through Houma (“HOME-uh,” Pinky corrects me when I mispronounce it), we see faded remnants of patriotic support for the invasion of Iraq: tattered yellow ribbons and a big showing of the stars and stripes. When we swing around one corner, the BMW’s lights illuminate a marquee above a defunct gas station:
SADDAM? NEAUX PROBLEM
Vicky Sims meets us for the buffet breakfast at the Holiday Inn. She’s about thirty, with bad skin and a sweet, soft voice. “I located the case file at the courthouse in Franklin,” she tells us, “after I talked to you, Pinky. It’s in the public record, so there’s no problem with getting it, although some of the medical opinion leading to commitment is likely to be under seal. I did my best to hurry ’em up over there, but it’s going to take a couple days to retrieve and copy. Staff cutbacks, you know? Parish finances are just in terrible shape.”
“Same everywhere,” Pinky says. “Just pitiful. But why don’t we just start with what you remember your own self about Mr. Byron Boudreaux. Then Alex and I plan to go talk to people mighta known the guy, what folk may still be around.”
She dabs her lips. “Excuse me,” she says. “I consider grits a platform for butter and salt. It can get messy.”
“Obviously you don’t indulge too often,” Pinky says.
Vicky Sims smiles. “I don’t know as I can help you all that much with Byron. He lived in Berwick – across the river – so I didn’t really know him. Just knew about him – we all knew about him.” She frowns. “Good-lookin’ boy, and really smart, almost like a genius, or maybe really a genius. He had quite a following during his preaching days. He was the kind of kid could turn out to be a great man, or could turn out to be as crazy as a bedbug. Which was the way Byron went.”
“He was a preacher?” I ask.
“Boy preacher, oh, yes.”
“Really,” Pinky says.
“Oh, yes, he could preach up a storm, that boy. He was like a little Billy Graham. People came from all over to see him. He was at the Primitive Baptist Church over to Berwick. As I recall, he took up preaching after his little brother drowned.” She frowns. “I didn’t live here when that happened. We were still in Baton Rouge then, but apparently there were rumors.”
“Like what?” Pinky asks.
“Like it wasn’t an accident. Like maybe Byron drowned his baby brother.” She shakes her head. “But I don’t know – Byron was just a kid himself when it happened. And I can’t really remember whether people had suspicions at the time, or if it just came up later, after he killed his father.”
“Is that what he did?” I ask. “He killed his father?”
“Now, this, I do remember very well. And it’s what sent him away to the asylum. He murdered his crippled daddy.”
“You’re kidding,” I say, altho
ugh nothing this monster could have done would surprise me.
“I’m not. Byron was seventeen years old, and they were planning to try him as an adult. Then he was found incompetent. Which everybody figured was about right, because that boy was about as twisted as a corkscrew.”
Pinky drains his coffee. “His father was crippled?”
Vicky Sims dabs at her lips with a napkin. “Claude, Byron’s daddy – he worked out on the rigs for Anadarko. Had some kind of accident and surgery. He was on the mend, but he was still in a wheelchair at the time of the murder – which seemed to make it even more terrible.”
“What’d he do – shoot his old man?” To me Pinky adds: “We tend to be kinda heavily armed down here.”
“Oh, no, nothin’ that normal,” Vicky says. “Poisoned him in some sneaky way – through his skin, I think it was. Can that be right?”
“Transdermal,” Pinky says. “Hell, yes! But wow. How’d he get caught?”
Vicky frowns. “I don’t know as I ever knew that. It never did come to trial. But since it was poison – there was no question it was premeditated. So that’s why they were going to try Byron as an adult.”
“He pled insanity,” I say.
“Right. The lawyers said he was crazy, that he heard voices, that his daddy abused him from when he was a little guy.” She sprinkles some more salt on her grits. “Usual stuff. There’ll be more about it in the court records. Or in the paper – The New Iberian might be your best bet there. Come to think of it, I know the editor – Max Maldonado. You want his telephone number?”
We call from my hotel room, with Pinky on the extension. I explain who I am and what I want, and Maldonado says he’s on deadline but he was a reporter back in the day and of course he remembers the Boudreaux case. He’ll call me in the afternoon. I’m agreeing to that when Pinky weighs in.
“Shame on you, Max. Start talking right this minute. Surely you can spare five minutes of your invaluable time for two missing bambinos. Come on now.”
“Am I talking to the whitest private investigator in Louisiana?” Maldonado says. “Shit, Pink, why didn’t you say it’s you?”
“I’m testing your moral compass, Max.” He lets out a rumble of laughter at the protesting hoot from Maldonado. “I am. I’m not kiddin’. All we want is a heads-up on this fellow. Like where did he live, where did he work, somethin’ to go on. We don’t want to twiddle our thumbs while we’re waiting for them to find the damn court record.”
“My moral compass, huh? Well, all right, I’ll try to swing it around your way, Pink. Byron Boudreaux – why am I not surprised we didn’t hear the last of him?” A sigh. “I can give you five minutes now, all the time you want later tonight.”
“Great.”
“Well, let’s see. Byron’s family lived over to Berwick in a trailer park called Meadowlands. Kind of a dog-assed place, although chez Boudreaux was neat as a pin. I know that because at the time of Claude’s murder I was filling in for the photographer at the time and I took a bunch of pictures over there. Marie, Byron’s mother – she was a fine woman, to all accounts. Claude – he was a good man, too, is what I hear, a hard worker. Worked for Anadarko out on the rigs. Imagine being poisoned by your own son! That boy was just plain rotten through and through. Most folks didn’t believe that crap about Claude abusing the boy, that was a boatload of bullshit.”
“Like the Menendez brothers.”
“Just like that. Really – word was Claude was a stand-up guy. Let’s see – if I was y’all, I’d head over to Meadowlands. Good chance there’s still folk around knew the family. In the meantime, I’ll set someone here to pulling up the old papers covering the case.”
“Where do we find Meadowlands?” Pinky asks.
“Where are you?”
“Morgan City Holiday Inn.”
“You get on across the bridge to Berwick, go along about… hmmm… maybe half a mile. Meadowlands, it’s off… hmmm… Tupelo, maybe. Or Live Oak. One of the tree streets. You won’t have any trouble finding it.”
We hear a bunch of shouting in the background. Maldonado covers the receiver, but we hear him talking. Then he’s back. “Okay.”
“Does Boudreaux still have family there?” I ask. My voice sounds shaky. The emotion in it comes across so clearly that Pinky raises his sunglasses and shoots me a look from across the room.
“I don’t think so,” Maldonado says. “No family left I know of. Daddy died from the poisoning, mom died a few years beforehand. And – hang on.”
He’s interrupted again.
“Sounds like you gotta go,” Pinky says.
“I can meet you later tonight if you like – after we get this baby to bed.”
“Buy you dinner,” Pinky suggests.
“Deal,” Maldonado says.
We cross the expanse of the Atchafalya River (“’Chafalaya,” Pinky tells me) on the Huey P. Long Bridge, and find Meadowlands within ten minutes. Despite the bucolic name, there’s nothing resembling a meadow in sight. The complex consists of two dozen trailers, most of which have obviously been there for decades. Some are fenced in by stretches of chain link; most are patched together with slabs of plywood. A few stand out from the rest, with shutters and fresh siding, picket fencing, and plantings of flowers.
A sign shows a logo of children hand in hand and posts a speed limit of five miles per hour. The sign is bullet-pocked, with the concentration of hits within the silhouetted children. Brown plastic Dumpsters, most too full to allow their tops to close, sit out in front of many of the trailers. Ragged front yards hold plastic chairs, more seating in the form of inverted white buckets, kids’ bicycles, toys of all sorts, plastic wading pools, boat trailers, discarded tires. Every trailer seems to have a vehicle or two parked in front – most of them pickups.
Pinky rolls down the road and pulls up in front of number 14, a siding-covered trailer with an awkward bay window clapped onto the front. The BMW gleams on the rutted dirt like an alien spaceship.
CHAPTER 34
I rap on the door. A gray-haired woman with her hair in pink foam curlers (I’ve never seen this before, except on old TV shows) calls over from the porch of the trailer next door. “They ain’t home. Help you with somethin’?”
“We’re looking-,” I start, but Pinky takes over.
“How’re you doing today, ma’am?” he says.
“You selling something, sugar? ’Cause I don’t have a dime; I might as well tell you that right off. I got time, though, so y’all can practice on me if you want.”
“We’re not selling anything,” Pinky says. “We’re-”
“Pardon me but are you a albino?”
I start to say something, offended on Pinky’s behalf, but Pinky just laughs.
“Yes, I am,” he says in a booming voice. “I’m a genetic oddity standing right here in your front yard, ma’am. I know it can throw people off their normal manners at first, just like someone with an unfortunate deformity. In a funny kind of way, I think it’s a form of racism. Now, who would believe that here in Louisiana there’d be such a thing as being too white?” He smiles.
“Let me ask you something,” the woman says. “You get sunburnt easy?”
“It’s a big problem,” Pinky admits.
“I’m really fair myself, plus I have the rosacea and I burn right up. Lord, I put sunscreen on with a spoon. Why don’t you and your friend come on up here out of the sun, and tell me what brings you to Meadowlands.”
Up here is a rickety deck made out of plywood and elevated by cinder block columns. Metal folding chairs and an ancient wicker coffee table comprise the deck furniture. On the table is an ashtray and a plastic caddy of manicure supplies. The woman has given herself a pedicure, her feet in some kind of device, her gleaming red toes separated from each other by nubs of foam.
“I’m Pinky Streiber,” Pinky says. “And this is Alex Callahan.” Pinky extends his hand.
“Sorry, honey,” the woman says, holding her hands out, fingers splayed
so we can see the fresh polish on them. “I’m not near dry yet. I’m Dora Garrity,” she adds, then turns toward me. “I seen you on TV,” she says, “right?” And then, the light really dawns. “Ohmygod, you the daddy of them two little tykes. Oh. My. Sweet. Jesus.”
“We think Byron Boudreaux might be the one took those boys,” Pinky says.
Dora’s hand flies up and covers her mouth, the perfect red nails like blood against snow. “Oh, Lord.” I’m familiar with the emotion that pinches her lips and seems to make her face shrink. It’s fear. “That boy,” she says, after lighting a cigarette, and exhaling a long stream of smoke. “That boy was born bad. Bad to the bone.”
“Do you know where he is? Where any of his family is?”
She shakes her head. “Sorry, sugar. I can’t help you there. I haven’t seen that boy since they took him away. His folks’re dead, of course. I didn’t even know he was out of the asylum. When did that happen?”
“Ninety-six.”
“Well, I’m right glad he didn’t come home.”
“What about the people who live there now? Are they related to Boudreaux?”
“No. Claude and Marie, they didn’t own the home. It’s a rental, you understand. So there’s been a whole string of folk in there.”
“I just had a thought,” Pinky says to me. “There ought to be records. Claude must have left some kind of estate. We can check on that. Remind me.”
“Way I heard it, everything went to Byron,” Dora says. “Which royally pissed off Claude’s brother, Lonnie. Not that there was much of anything left by the time Claude got buried and all. Course, Lonnie was in a real temper over Byron getting anything, but there wasn’t nothin’ for it. The way it came out, with the insanity plea and all, legally Byron didn’t actually commit no crime.”