Billy Whistler

by Bill Thompson

  Two strikes against me, Landry thought as she guided him down a hall to a long table.

  “What years would you like to see?”

  Since the men destroyed Asher on May 26, 1880, he asked for twelve months of records beginning with that month.

  Grace brought him a large ledger titled “Burnt Records” and said he could go through the entries. If he found a listing, there would be a record. And she gave him an important bit of information he hadn’t known about.

  “My grandfather said everyone in that cult belonged to one of two Acadian families. Every person’s last name is either Savary or Lafont. They kept to themselves and never allowed their kids to interact with outsiders. You can imagine what happened: most of them ended up related to each other because of inbreeding. Granddad said after a few generations some of them might have been so different that people thought they were rougarous.”

  Everywhere Landry turned, the rougarou legend came up. They were a kind of Cajun werewolf, half man and half animal, who prowled the swamps and snatched up children. They were Louisiana’s answer to Bigfoot, but with a dose of malevolence thrown in.

  “I’d be surprised if the parish has birth and death records for rougarous.” He laughed.

  She turned serious. “Like I said, it could be that people called them rougarous because they didn’t know what to make of them. I think all that inbreeding took a toll on future generations.”

  She just might be right, he thought.

  Grace left him to it and returned to work, although the clerks didn’t get a lot done with a TV star in their midst. Mostly they whispered and took sly photos with their phones.

  He spent over an hour, but there was nothing. He’d hoped to find death records for seven murdered cult members, but there were no reported deaths that week in the entire parish. Then he searched for records for Auguste Dauphin and his wife. Nothing. They were still unaccounted for today.

  After perusing a year of birth and death entries, he gave up. There were no Savarys and no Lafonts because the cult didn’t send records to the parish seat. They were reclusive and clannish, and they weren’t the kind to reveal anything about themselves.

  Landry called off his fruitless mission as the clerk’s office was closing. He promised to visit them when he returned. That night Grace called all her friends to brag about helping the famous ghost hunter.

  Neither of them knew that the assistance she gave him would earn her a visit from an irate sheriff with a bone to pick. Outsiders had no business poking around in parish secrets, or so some people believed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Landry drove two blocks north to Caldwell House, an early twentieth-century bed-and-breakfast and the first brick home in Abbeville. He always hoped to find historic B&Bs in old Southern towns, and this one promised to be very interesting. The manager had called earlier to say he’d be the only guest tonight; he’d have the entire six-bedroom mansion to himself. She left a key under the mat and said she’d drop by around cocktail hour to make sure things were good.

  The minute he stepped inside he knew he’d made the right choice. The home was spacious and grand, with high ceilings, tall windows and beautiful period furnishings. His room — the master suite — sat downstairs at the front of the house off a wide entry hall. He poked around and found two more bedrooms on the first floor and three upstairs along another wide hallway.

  At 5:30 Landry listened as the back door opened and a friendly lady named Darlene met him in the front parlor. She had her son and granddaughter with her. “Evie wanted to meet you, Mr. Drake,” she announced as the enthusiastic girl shook his hand. “She’s a huge fan of ghost hunters, and she’s seen every episode of Bayou Hauntings!”

  Ten years old, Evie was an outgoing and precocious girl with a winning personality and a big friendly smile. They talked for a few minutes about why Landry came to Abbeville, and it surprised him that even at her young age she knew about Asher and the night it burned.

  “She reads everything she can get her hands on,” her grandmother crowed. “She really likes history, and it’s even better if there’s a ghost involved.”

  Darlene walked him through the house, showed him where the coffee pot was, and provided a few spooky stories about the old place. She also offered to stay the night if Landry didn’t feel comfortable alone in a creaky old mansion.

  “I bet I already know what your answer’s gonna be,” she said with a grin, and he confirmed it, assuring her a night alone in a haunted mansion sounded perfect.

  “It’s right up his alley, Grandma,” Evie said. “He’s looking for ghosts!”

  Once they left, Landry drove along Pere Megret Street, one of the town’s oldest, and came to a drawbridge. He crossed the Vermilion River and pulled into the parking lot of Shucks, the rival dining destination to Dupuy’s, where he’d had lunch. He walked into a beautiful old bar, took a stool, and ordered a Belvedere and tonic. He started a conversation with the couple next to him, and as usual they asked if he was in Abbeville to hunt ghosts.

  He had an answer, one that was true but revealed nothing. He was looking into some historic stuff that had happened in the parish after the Civil War, and he was especially interested in records that had survived the courthouse fire.

  These people were locals like just about everyone else there, and they wanted to tell Landry about spooky places nearby. He got his drink, and as they toasted, his phone rang. It was Cate returning his call.

  He excused himself, took his drink to a nearby table, and gave her an update on his day of searching for records that didn’t exist. He told her about his upcoming night in the old mansion, and that he had an interview in the morning with an old man who knew a lot of history. He’d be home tomorrow night and they could talk then.

  The bar was more crowded now, but the folks he’d sat beside saved his place. They offered a couple of suggestions of not-to-be-missed sights near Abbeville. One was Mouton Cove; its cemetery was interesting because when Hurricane Rita slammed the area in 2005, rising water caused the graves to open up and caskets to float out. Things were back to normal now, but ghostly stories abounded.

  The other place was Bancker, a spot near Mouton Cove that had once been a thriving community amid large plantations. A cave in the old cemetery built in the late 1800s by Acadian settlers was a replica of a French grotto dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes.

  Thinking they sounded interesting, he said he’d check them out when he came back. They chatted as he ate one of the best bowls of seafood gumbo he’d ever had — and that was saying a lot for a Cajun kid from the next parish over. He bought them a last drink, said goodbye, and walked out through the now-packed bar.

  It was well after dark when Landry got back to the house, parked his car, and went inside. Light from some table lamps cast eerie shadows down the hallway and onto the stairs that led to the second floor. His bedroom was dark, and he fumbled around until he located an old lamp on the nightstand.

  He climbed into the comfortable bed with his laptop and entered notes about the events of the day. His mind was buried in details when he heard a noise — a kind of thump that seemed to come from upstairs. He waited a moment, but there was nothing else. Old houses made noises; in his business he’d heard plenty of them.

  Around eleven Landry sat straight up in bed. It took a moment to orient himself — he’d fallen asleep with the light on, and his laptop lay on the covers. He wondered what woke him. Was it that same sound? Looking around his room, he saw nothing out of the ordinary, so he stepped into the hallway. The lamps were still lit, but the shadows down the hall toward the stairway seemed darker and deeper now.

  There was a sound, maybe a scrape, like someone was dragging something.

  There it was again, coming from the second floor.

  He couldn’t pass up the opportunity, and he went back to the bedroom to put on his shoes, but they weren’t where he thought he’d left them earlier. He looked everywhere: the closet, which he hadn’t opened unt
il now, the bathroom, and even under the bed, but he didn’t see them.

  That’s strange. Where are they?

  He heard it again. Barefooted, he walked to the end of the hall and flipped a light switch. A huge old chandelier that hung from the fourteen-foot ceiling in the hallway bathed the staircase in a soft light. Halfway up the stairs, in the middle of a tread and lined up exactly next to each other, were his shoes. He picked them up and noticed the laces were tied in bow knots. He always untied them when he took them off.

  Could I have left them there and not remembered? I didn’t have too much to drink, I don’t sleepwalk, and I locked my door. No, it wasn’t me.

  He put them on and went up to a landing, with another stairway on either side. The second-floor hall was shrouded in half darkness, its only light filtering up from the downstairs chandelier. He couldn’t find any wall switches, and he wished he had his phone. He stood silently, listening to the usual old-house creaks and groans. Tree branches scratched against the second-floor bedroom windows.

  He opened doors and peeked into bedrooms filled with antiques. Each window was adorned with heavy curtains that extended to the floor. In two rooms they were drawn tight, and the darkness was near total. In the others the drapes were tied back, allowing outside light to filter in from State Street. The effect was surreal, like a haunted mansion on a movie set.

  He gave up, returned to bed, and slept until 6:30. He turned the latch on his bedroom door and walked into the hall, heading to the dining room and a coffee pot. He glanced at the stairs and wasn’t surprised to see his shoes there again. This was paranormal activity — perhaps a poltergeist — and it was exciting.

  He kept his shoes in the bathroom while he showered, shaved and dressed. Even before he opened the bedroom door, he smelled something delicious wafting through the house. Darlene was in the kitchen, making cinnamon buns and frying up crisp bacon and an egg casserole.

  She asked how things had gone, and he explained he’d heard thumps and scrapes from upstairs, but nothing was there. He also told her about the shoes, and she laughed.

  “Nobody ever died in this house, Mr. Landry, so our ghosts aren’t evil or scary. Other guests have heard bumps and thumps like you did. I’ve heard them too, and I think it’s Mr. Caldwell moving furniture around upstairs. Come with me and I’ll introduce you to him.” They went in the parlor and she pointed to a portrait hanging on the wall. A stern-looking man in formal dress stared stonily ahead. “You can thank him for keeping you up,” she joked.

  “I think I can explain your shoes too. Mr. Caldwell had a little girl he sometimes punished by locking her in a closet under the stairway.” She took him down the hall and opened a small door. Behind it was a small room lined with shelves. It was a storeroom for vacuums and brooms, but on one shelf there were dozens of dolls and teddy bears.

  “Guests used to hear someone crying in that closet, so we started putting toys in there and it stopped. I’ll bet that precocious little girl took your shoes and left them on her stairway where you’d find them. You didn’t feel afraid, did you?”

  Landry admitted to being unnerved, but no, nothing that happened was that scary.

  Darlene said, “All’s well that ends well, and at least you don’t have to go down to the Walmart in your sock feet and buy a new pair of shoes!”

  “What do you know about Asher?” he asked over breakfast and coffee, and he saw her frown just a little. She’d been outgoing and chatty to this point, but now it was different.

  “Not a lot. It’s been a ghost town for ages. Nobody knows much about it. There’s nothing left of it and nothing to see. I can give you more interesting places to explore.”

  He noticed how smoothly she had manipulated the conversation away from talk of Asher.

  He lingered almost an hour over coffee, listening to her fascinating stories about the house, the town and the parish. At last it was time to go. He thanked Darlene for her hospitality, loaded his car, and drove a few miles to Perry.

  He really enjoyed Caldwell House and promised himself he’d stay there again. Darlene had been friendly and helpful, like everyone he met, except the two who wanted him out of the parish.

  His only question about his visit with Darlene was why she wouldn’t talk about Asher. Grace said it was Vermilion’s best-kept secret, and maybe she was right.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Perry was a tiny community just south of Abbeville on highway 82. He followed the caretaker’s directions, click-clacking across another drawbridge that spanned the river and separated the two towns.

  There were few streets, and Landry passed newer brick homes interspersed with old frame ones. Almost all of them were well-kept and had yards full of flowers.

  He made several turns and took a dirt road that dead-ended near the river, and he came to an old three-room shotgun house perched on concrete stilts to protect it from flooding. It needed a new roof and a paint job. A rotting shrimp boat lay on its side close to the house, and Landry wondered if it had swept up off the river when Rita or Ike blew through years ago.

  An old man sat in a wheelchair on the front porch, a cigarette in his hand. A black lady in a starched white uniform rocked in a swing next to him. She stood when Landry walked up the rickety stairs.

  “Mr. Landry Drake! It is you! I recognize you from the TV. I’m Miss Ruby. Pleased to meet you, and welcome to Perry!” She flashed a broad, friendly smile and shook his hand. “This here’s Mr. Lee Alard. Mr. Lee, say hello to your impo’tant guest. He came all the way up from Nawlins to see you.”

  Until now the old man hadn’t seemed to realize Landry was there. He stared into the distance, causing Landry to wonder if he was lucid. But when the caregiver spoke, Alard jerked his head up, sending long strands of white hair flying everywhere, and looked at Landry. His bright eyes shone with excitement.

  “I know what yer here for, Mr. Landry,” he croaked in a voice forever altered by decades of smoking. “If yer lookin’ for spooky tales, you come to the right man.” He coughed violently, and Ruby helped him expectorate into a tissue. He took a long puff from the cigarette and wheezed so much Landry wondered if he had emphysema.

  Ruby didn’t seem concerned. She patted his back and said, “Who tipped you off that Mr. Lee could help you?”

  “A man at the cultural center said Lee’s forgotten more about this parish than most people will ever know. And I needed someone who could remember things going way, way back. I’m doing research and I’m hitting a lot of dead ends.”

  She clapped her hands together. “Research! I knew it! You’re gonna do a story ’bout our parish, right? Mr. Lee and me, we’d love to be on the television.” She paused, thinking she’d gone too far. “If it’s okay with you, that is. I didn’t mean to sound pushy.”

  Landry laughed and assured her it wasn’t a problem. He also said it was far too early to know what might come from his research. On this trip he was looking for information about Asher.

  “Which part of Asher — the rougarou or Billy Whistler?” Lee asked, his mouth twisting into a grin that revealed toothless gums. “It’s always one or the other, ain’t it? Ain’t nothin’ else about Asher that’s very spooky.”

  “I haven’t put my finger on what it is, because I’m just getting started. I’d like to know about the Sons of Jehovah and what happened the night the vigilantes burned the town. I’m hoping you know something, and if Billy Whistler’s involved, I’d like to hear that too.”

  “Hell yes, he is,” the codger snorted. He turned to Ruby and demanded another cigarette.

  “Let’s wait a bit, Mr. Lee. This man wants to talk to you, and if you smoke another one, you’re just gonna start coughin’ and you won’t be able to tell him anything.”

  “Damn woman,” he growled, although he wasn’t serious; he seemed to appreciate Ruby very much. “Okay, fire away.”

  “May I record this?” Landry asked as he took out his phone.

  The old man nodded.

  “Is
your full name Lee Alard?”

  He sat up proudly, gave a stern glance at Ruby, and answered, “My name is Robert E. Lee Alard. I’m named for —”

  She smiled and interrupted. “I think we all know who you’re named for, Mr. Lee.”

  “How old are you?”

  “A hundred and fifteen.”

  Ruby burst out laughing and gave him a light slap on the arm. “You old coot! You quit foolin’ around right this minute. You ain’t never gonna get on TV if you keep this up!” She looked at Landry. “He’s ninety-seven. Born in 1922 right across the river in Abbeville, now ain’t that right, Mr. Lee?”

  “Whatever,” he grumbled. “You tellin’ this story, or am I?”

  Landry continued. “So the incident in Asher occurred fifty years before you were born.”

  “Yep. I heard about it as a kid from Paw Paw — my grandpappy. He knew a lot. Sometimes I think he might have known a little too much, but the ones who went that night never admitted they was there. If he had been one of ’em, he woulda kept it quiet. Paw Paw told me lots of stories. If he wasn’t there himself, he knew who was.”

  “Let’s start at the beginning. I’d like to know about Asher. What did they do that made people mad enough to burn their town?”

  “It goes way back. Asher’s in the Bible: he was king of one of them lost tribes of Israel. The Sons of Jehovah cult thinks they’re descended from him. Nobody knows where they came from, but they showed up in this parish before the War of Northern Aggression.” He stopped and shot a grin at Ruby, who shook her head in mock disgust. “Depending on when they arrived, Abbeville and Perry might have already been here. But the cult folks didn’t seem to want to socialize. They went downriver from civilization and built a town all to themselves.”

  The history lesson might end up being helpful, but Landry didn’t have time to waste. “If the cult built Asher years before the men burned it in 1880, what did they do to make people so angry?”