Chapter 5

GRITS AND GRIT

The familiar greasy spoon hadn’t changed a stick of flatware in the years since I’d lived here. Same smudged silver tiles on the wall behind the counter, same 60’s booths, same Neptune blue vinyl on the benches and stools, now cracking and tearing in a few places. Same Formica countertop, with the same old specials board, prices scratched out and higher prices scribbled in with felt tip pen. Same odor of old grease and fried bacon. Looked like the same old men hanging butt cheeks off the occupied stools, though I realized it had to be a new crop of flesh-eaters.

A few booths were free, so I grabbed the one next to a couple of swinging dicks I remembered from Father’s wake, the suits who had shut up when they saw me approach. This morning, they stood out like aliens from Mars in their dark suits and shellacked comb-overs among the blue-collar workmen in coveralls and bib overalls. Deep in conversation, the two suits lowered their voices when I sat down.

Someone had left the sports section on my table, so I feigned interest in Friday’s Westgate Tigers football game while straining to hear the hushed conversation behind me. “Coffee, Suh?” the large black waitress boomed from beside my booth.

“Thank you, Chantelle,” I said, reading her name tag as I turned over the cup that sat upside down in a saucer. “I’ll have two eggs over easy, biscuits and grits, please.”

She hollered over the counter to the short-order cook, “Two over easy, biscuits, grits.” Then she stepped to the booth behind me to refill the two suits’ cups, while I turned to the sports page to read about Terry Bradshaw’s hopes to take the Steelers to Super Bowl XV in New Orleans.

“Yeah, bastard skipped that night,” the suit with his back to me said just above a whisper after Chantelle left their table.

“Hell, that don’t mean anything,” the suit facing him murmured under his breath. “Guys miss work all the time.”

“Not Matherne. Never missed a shift except when his daddy died three years ago.”

“Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to pick up on that.”

“I hope you’re right. You ready?”

“Yeah. Here, I got the tip.”

Turning my head toward the window, I watched peripherally as they paid at the register, then went out to their black late-model Chevy Blazer with a reinforced push bumper. I had parked Aunt Ethel’s Grand Prix next to them. Oddly, they didn’t recognize me from the wake, or at least it hadn’t registered yet, maybe because I was dressed in cords, a Members Only jacket, and a ball cap, instead of my only sport coat and tie. When I finished my eggs, I’d head back to the island, see if I could find out anything about this Matherne guy.

When I edged up to the barricade for the second time, the security guard grumbled, “Hell, maybe you want a pass to come in here half a dozen times a day? These folks in here got better things to do than listen to you, ya know.”

“It’s just that I told Mr. Morton I’d get something right back to him. Had to go get it, is all.” I smiled up at him innocently.

“Well, you could’ve given me a heads up when you left here an hour ago. All right, go on, go on,” he scowled, as if I were interrupting his demanding job beside a roadblock.

Babette greeted me with the same painted-on red grin, her cologne sticking in the back of my throat.

“Sorry to interrupt again,” I said. “I have one more question for Mr. Morton.”

“Oh, no problem, Major Doucet. I don’t often get a chance to play receptionist. It gets lonely around here at times,” she said with a girlish pout.

“Glad I broke the routine, then.”

“Feel free to break my routine anytime,” she said. “Mr. Morton is in a meeting right now, but I’m sure it won’t be long.”

I flashed a benign smile and picked up a Field and Stream from the table between the two straight chairs in the corner. While I was skimming an article about the best crankbait for catching bass, a short Cajun with Popeye forearms bulging from the rolled sleeves of his navy-blue work jumper emerged from Morton’s office and nodded toward me on his way to the door. I recognized him instantly as a guy I had spoken to at the wake, a guy from the rig. But I had spoken to so many, I couldn’t recall his name. He might know Matherne, I thought, just as Babette signaled for me to go on in.

“Well, Doucet. We meet again,” Morton said when I entered.

“Yes, Morton. Sorry to bother you again, but I’ve come up with a question.”

“Earl,” he corrected me, motioning me toward the chair.

“H,” I responded. “I’m trying to find out what I can about a guy named Matherne. I don’t have a first name. I believe he either worked on the rig or in the mine.”

“Classified. You understand.”

I didn’t budge or respond. I just sat there, staring at him, trying to see if he had the balls to look back. He didn’t.

“So, if that’s all, Major,” he said, shuffling some papers awkwardly.

“OK, then. I’ll be back as soon as I get a subpoena,” I threatened calmly as if I actually could. Then I stood and turned to leave.

He didn’t call my bluff, not right away. When I reached for the door handle, though, he said, “All right, Doucet. I’ll see what Miss Stewart can round up. Come by tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks. Be glad to. Oh…that guy that just left. I believe I spoke to him at Father’s wake, but I can’t recall his name. I think he might have worked for my father. He may have known Matherne.” I knew I was pushing my luck.

“Oh…uh…could be, H,” he said, returning his gaze to something on his desk. “Tomorrow, then, say around eleven?”

“Eleven it is.”

Morton’s reaction when I mentioned Matherne’s name convinced me he was hiding something. And he didn’t want me knowing the name of the guy who just left, either. After I left his office, I decided to spend some time checking out some of the other folks I’d met at Father’s wake, see what skeletons I could scare up. I grabbed my Day-Timer off the car seat and fished out Jack Brouillette’s card. Bereaved widow, I thought as I turned to the number on the back. Might be willing to spill her guts to a sympathetic listener. I figured she lived in or near New Iberia, so I headed back that way.

Bourbon Hall on Main was already opening up by the time I got back to town. Only in Louisiana, I thought, but hell, I decided, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere. Might as well stop in and see if any of the town drunks were getting talkative yet. I parked and walked in just as one old fella was settling in for the day, so I grabbed the second stool down from him.

“Morning,” I said. He just grunted and lit up a desert dog with a cough that started at the bottom of his gut and worked its way up. The underage barmaid carried a draft beer to him without being asked, so I knew he was a regular. I figured I’d better give the old codger time to down some hair of the dog before I asked him any questions.

“Can I get you something?” the waitress asked me, looking far too young and innocent to end up in a place like this. Then she bent over to wash some glasses and I saw the name Josh tattooed on the top of her left breast. Too late, I thought. Not innocent anymore.

“Have you got grapefruit juice?” I asked.

“Sure thing.” She walked over to the cooler, her firm, ample hips rotating her paint-on blue jeans in all the right directions. She’d been around the block, all right. She returned with a quart bottle of juice and poured me a glass.

The old guy next to me sat silently for a while, slurping from his beer mug every minute or two, puffing on a second desert dog when he put the first one out, until the beer was half gone.

“Mornin’,” he finally said in a gravel voice.

“You live around here?” I ventured after a strategic pause.

He grunted an affirmative-sounding grunt.

“Hear about the inundation?”

“Oh, hell, yeah. Everybody’s yappin’ about that. Me, I’m just glad they laid me off four years ago. Some shady dealings going on, y’ask me. Yep,” he added, returning to his smoke.

“Shady how?” I prodded.

“Oh, well, I just rode down the cage every morning and up every night. Never asked no questions, me.”

I sipped my grapefruit juice in silence as I waited through another coughing spell. After another long draw, he doused what was left of the butt and continued talking, smoke escaping from his nose and mouth as he spoke. “But when they hired that new boss,” he said, “from up there in Tennessee somewheres, well, it hurt us all after that. Laid off a lot of key personnel, ‘to save overhead during the recession,’ they told us. Sent me on my way, a year before I was supposed to retire, so I didn’t get my full thirty. And that’s when it started getting worse for the guys still down in the mine, what they told me. Quotas went up, people was gettin’ hurt. All I know, they sure screwed me.” He ended with a flourish of his skeletal right arm, then resumed his beer. He pulled out another desert dog and tapped it on the pack.

“You happen to know the new boss’s name?” I asked.

“Oh, hell, no. Not my business to know nothin’.”

“How about a man named Matherne? Did he work with y’all?”

“Didn’t know no Matherne in the mine. Done told you all I know.” With that, the old codger lit his smoke and effectively ended the conversation. I decided it was time to move on.

It was nearly 1030 hours, so I walked to the pay phone in back, pulled out the card with the widow’s number on the back, and plunked in some change. After three rings, Mrs. Daigrepont picked up.

“Hello?” came the breathless voice, as though she had run from somewhere to grab the phone.

“Mrs. Daigrepont?”

“Yes. Who’s this?” She sounded impatient.

“This is Major Doucet. We met at my father’s wake, day before yesterday. Do you remember me?”

“Yes, I remember you.” She didn’t sound glad I called.

“Well, Mrs. Daigrepont, again, I’m sorry for your loss, and I know you’re still grieving. But after Jack Brouillette suggested we talk, I thought I’d see if you’d agree to see me. I have a couple things I’d like to ask you. And I might be able to help you figure some things out, too.”

“Oh, Major Doucet, I don’t know. I’m getting awfully tired of all the questions. I’m about to stop answering my phone. I honestly don’t have anything more to say to anyone except my attorn…”

Hoping to keep her on the line, I interrupted, “See, Mrs. Daigrepont, I believe your husband and my father lost their lives needlessly. I can’t prove anything yet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that something…uh…unsavory is going on, for lack of a better word. Maybe I’m paranoid, but so far, I don’t trust anything any official tells me, and you shouldn’t either. Any information you could give me might help us both get to the truth that they’re not about to let us in on. I know it could be painful, but wouldn’t you want Charles to do the same for you if the situation were reversed?”

“Well…I suppose I could at least listen to what you have to say,” she agreed, her voice softening.

“Fantastic. Thank you. Could you meet me at Provost’s Restaurant for lunch today, my treat? Say about one?”

“Um…I suppose, …OK, Major Doucet.”

“Great! Oh, and you can call me H.”

“OK, H. I…I guess you can call me Marlisa, then.”

“Thanks. See you at one, Marlisa.”

I still had a couple of hours to kill, so I drove around New Iberia to see how some of my old haunts had disappeared or changed. I was pleased to see that East Main still had its integrity, an anachronistic village, surrounded by a sea of strip malls and big-box stores on its outskirts. Feeling a wave of nostalgia, I crossed the bridge and pulled into City Park, a favorite haunt of mine as a kid, where I had played Dixie Youth baseball, got beat at tennis a few times as a teen, got my indoctrination into the wonders of the female body with Midge on more than one occasion.

I parked under a canopy of live oaks facing Bayou Teche beneath some clouds that threatened rain. A couple of red-headed black and white Muscovy ducks waddled along the water’s edge, while a few more graceful snow-white ducks skated by on the Teche. I rolled down my window to breathe in the fresh air that smelled like rain. I zipped my jacket but left the window down so I could hear the ducks squawking and the saw grass and elephant ears rustling in the breeze. I leaned my head back and shut my eyes to let the knot that had been building up in my gut subside.

In the past, these old oaks had temporarily replaced my adolescent angst with a sense of calm. I guess I was hoping for the same today. But today the park just brought back memories of Midge, the nubile seventeen-year-old, pliable in my awkward teenage arms half a lifetime ago, and more recently in our bungalow in North Carolina. These ageless trees had witnessed generations of other couples embrace and later part. Likely even see a few from the new crop of starry-eyed hopefuls tonight. These oaks would shade countless more unborn generations, witness more tragedy, more victory, more grief, and more joy. And somewhere in that conglomerate dwelt Midge and I, along with the nameless other souls, some possibly still together, most probably drifted apart, countless others buried now down near Father.

As it turned out, here I was, thirty-six years old, still wandering just as aimlessly through life as those two teenagers who used to grope feverishly under these oaks, still not knowing what next month or even next week had in store. But I was alone now, no woman to confide in, and yet, no woman quick to point out each one of my many shortcomings. Hell, maybe this was the perfect place in my life to be after all. At least until I figured some things out.

I cranked up Ethel’s old car, drove back across Bridge Street, and drove down Old Spanish Trail to the cemetery, following an urge to pay my last respects to Father. I parked and walked over to the mausoleum, still adorned by a few wilting flowers from yesterday. I knew Earlene and Ethel would take turns coming out here regularly to replace the flowers with either real or silk ones, just as they had for Mother and baby Faith all these years.

The mausoleum, shaded by live oaks, held Mamaw and Papaw Doucet, with Father and Mother side by side under them, and Faith below Mother. I noticed the places reserved for what was left of our branch of the family, shuddering at the thought of spending eternity next to Vic.

Unlike Earlene and Ethel, I had never been one who understood visiting cemeteries, but here I was, gazing dumbly at where my father had been interred twenty-four hours ago, murdered, I felt certain, for God knows what motive. Somewhere in the recesses of my cynical gray matter, the word greed flashed like a billboard. I stood there feeling a twinge of guilt for being a disappointment to Father until the end. Hell, I was a disappointment to myself. Maybe one day I would be able to make amends the only way left at this point, by proving he didn’t take his own life.

Glancing at my watch, I realized it was nearly time for my meeting with Marlisa. I said what I figured was my “last” last good-bye to Father, promised him I would clear his name, and trudged back to the car. For some reason, it was easier to say goodbye properly here, alone with Father, than it had been at the resplendent cathedral and gravesite eulogy, surrounded by mourners.

Shaking off the reverie of the past hour, I headed back to town and parked in front of Provost’s. The morning had deteriorated into a windy, drizzling December afternoon, and the air smelled like wet leaves and car exhaust. I picked up a copy of The Daily Iberian outside, then hurried to the warmth inside. The inundation was all the way back in section B now. Old news, I thought. Just a paragraph or two. Soon people not directly affected would forget about it, go on with their lives as if nothing had happened, adept as we all are at forgetting tragedy until it touches us personally. Not through callousness, I realized, but for our own self-preservation. No one can turn on the news without learning of another tragedy. If we held it all in, if we didn’t let some of it go, we’d need a nation of military bases and mental hospitals, and not much else. We had to let go of other people’s tragedies to make room for the next batch.

But people like Marlisa and the other family members who lost loved ones disturbed me. I knew those people wouldn’t forget. The loss would live on in them, become a part of who they are.

Marlisa walked in right on time, closed her umbrella, and leaned it in a corner by the door. Spotting me, she glided over to my table, stunning, even in the black mourning dress and jacket she still wore, her auburn hair piled hastily on top of her head in a loose ponytail, her transparent green eyes looking deep into mine as she said, “Hello, H.”

I fumbled to my feet clumsily, meeting her outstretched hand with my own. “Thanks for coming, Marlisa. Please, have a seat,” I said, pulling out the chair next to me. Her light hint of a musky jasmine perfume was intoxicating. I felt a twinge of pity for Charles’s loss.

“Yes. Well, I don’t have much to say,” she responded coolly, taking a seat. “I was never even in the mine. You’d probably be better off talking to Jack Brouillette or one of the others. Why did you happen to call me, anyway?” Her inquisitive eyes never left mine.

“Oh, I intend to talk to Brouillette,” I agreed, wondering myself why I had opted to call Marlisa first. Maybe it was because we had both just suffered losses. Maybe there was an ulterior motive, but I convinced myself that my motives were thoroughly honorable, logical even, and that it was no fault of mine that this woman was decidedly captivating.

“See, Marlisa, I feel that you and I have something in common. We both lost loved ones,” I said, never having used the word love aloud in connection with my father before, except maybe as a young child. “So, I thought we might have even more motivation than someone like Jack Brouilette to dig deep enough to get at the truth. I’m convinced there’s more to the inundation than an unfortunate drilling miscalculation. Have you ever felt that way?”

“To tell you the truth, I wonder how anyone could have made such a stupid mistake as drilling a hole in a salt mine,” she blurted angrily. “Charles always used to reassure me that an accident in the mine was virtually impossible. I wanted to believe him….I…” She trailed off, looking down at the table as though she might begin crying. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Marlisa. Let’s just decide what to eat for lunch,” I said, opening the menu. “Got any suggestions?” I continued, hoping to change the mood.

“I’ve always liked their redfish court bouillon.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said, signaling for the waitress and placing our order.

I turned my attention back to the inundation, even though I knew I was pushing my luck. I didn’t know if she’d ever agree to speak to me again, so I soldiered on but kept it lighter, away from the topic of Charles. “I heard that Sapphire was being run by a relatively new CEO. Do you happen to know his name or where he came from?”

She took a deep breath and let out a sigh. Then she fiddled with her napkin awhile, unfolding it and smoothing it across her lap, clearly perturbed. Finally, still looking down at her lap to compose herself, she said, “Yes, Charles complained about him. He took over several years back. Charles and I were married just a little over a year ago.” She paused and dabbed at her eyes with a Kleenex. “So I don’t know much before that.” Then she looked up at me again. “But Charles said things were a whole lot better before…oh, what was his name? …anyway, before he took over.”

“I heard there were some layoffs.”

I knew I had hit a nerve when she suddenly got talkative. “Yes, they said they were ‘restructuring.’ Some of Charles’s best friends got laid off,” she said. “Some of them still haven’t found work. The ones who were left were expected to take up the slack, with no pay increase, of course, and with two-thirds the work force. Naturally, the accident rate went up. Charles used to complain that they couldn’t make quota anymore. Then they’d get chewed out, even get docked in pay sometimes.

“Charles was a master electrician,” she continued after another pause for a sip of tea. “And the new boss never replaced any of the old equipment. Charles spent most of his time patching up old, broken-down machinery, trying to keep it running. I worried about him because he never slept well anyway, and the constant worry over quotas and outdated machines kept him awake lots of nights. He’d toss and turn, sometimes even talk in his sleep. Crazy stuff. Always about work.”

“And you can’t recall the new boss’s name?”

“Warren something or other, I believe. Yeah, that’s it. Warren…um…Warren Armstrong! That was it!”

“Any idea where he worked before Sapphire?” I asked.

“Charles never mentioned that, I don’t think. Look, Major Doucet, I know you’ve got some conspiracy theory, but I don’t want Charles’s name dragged through the mud. All I know is he never did anything wrong. He was an honest man. Can’t you just let him rest in peace?”

“I’m so sorry, Marlisa,” I said, feeling like a cad. I jotted down my name and numbers on the notepad I carried in my Day-Timer. “Here are numbers to my Aunt Ethel’s house and the office. Please, call me if you think of anything else that might help us get to the truth. It could bring you some peace.”

At least she didn’t crumple the paper and drop it on the table. Instead, she tucked it into the tiny black handbag that lay beside her plate. Then we focused on our steaming court bouillon without another word about Armstrong. After I paid and we got up to leave, she turned and said, “I’ll call you if I think of anything.”

Then, she just reeled and walked away.