Chapter 8

BEALE STREET BLUES

Bald cypress and tupelo trees in the swamp below the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge reached for the sky beside us and between the four-lane. Spanish moss draped across the branches like tattered lace. A roseate spoonbill stood ankle-deep in the basin, then arched its neck and lifted lazily into flight beside the highway. A few bateaus and pirogues sat motionless in the shallow water, their lonely occupants bent optimistically over fishing rods. The primordial life-forms below had become accustomed to the constant thwack, thwack of tires overhead, oblivious to the threat big oil posed to their habitat atop the rich oil deposits.

Despite heavy truck traffic, we made decent time in the left lane until we neared the perpetual bottleneck that was Baton Rouge. Apparently, there had been an accident ahead on I-10, so we headed north to highway 61 instead of sitting in the vast interstate “parking lot” that wound like a serpent as far as we could see.

“Let me know if you want me to drive for a while,” I offered after we had escaped the jam-up.

“Thanks, H. But I’m used to being in charge of the wheel after working for your daddy all those years.”

“You won’t get any complaints here!” Settling back to look through my notes, I wrote down a few questions I hoped to ferret out answers for over the next couple of weeks. What reason did Armstrong give for leaving Ideal? How about Matherne? Did they know each other? And what connection did either Armstrong or Gremillion have to Father? What about the map I found in the safety deposit box? How did Father happen to get his hands on that map, and was it the accurate one? And what did Matherne have to do with any of it, if anything?

Thirty miles north of Baton Rouge sat historic St. Francisville, a town that fortunately Union soldiers had once deemed too beautiful to burn. The town, with its renovated antebellum homes, recalled a place time forgot, one less complicated than our current one, yet one both made possible and permanently scarred by the tragic flaw of slavery.

Thirty minutes north of St. Francisville, just outside of Woodville, Mississippi, Placide pulled into a truck stop so we could fill up and take advantage of the facilities. I grabbed a couple bags of Doritos and two Styrofoam cups of joe to keep us alert. Then we hung around outside to stretch our legs for a few minutes. The air had gotten much cooler than back in New Iberia, so I zipped my jacket and turned my back to the north wind. Two or three vehicles pulled in while we stood there, Placide mentally noting each driver.

“Did Father ever mention the names Armstrong or Matherne to you?” I asked. We started heading back in the direction of the car after a gust of wind whipped the tops of trees and sent a shiver up my spine.

Placide scratched his head. “No, H, those names don’t ring no bell.”

“What about Gremillion?”

“I know some Gremillions, me.”

“This one works for the Department of Natural Resources.”

“Mais, non,” he said, rubbing his chin to help him think. “I don’t recollect hearing nothing about him.”

After we returned to the car, I continued, “Father was supposed to meet Gremillion the day after he died. I think he might have set up the meeting from Aunt Ethel’s house while you were in the kitchen. Do you remember bringing Father to Ethel’s house that day?”

“Oh, sure, I remember that day. He made a couple of calls while we was there. He was some upset that day, him. We all was.”

“Did he tell you anything at all about the calls?”

“Your daddy had a policy. He always said, ‘Listen here, Placide. What I don’t tell you can’t come back to bite you.’ So he pretty much never told me nothing. Said it was to protect me. I usually didn’t know where we was going till we got there. ‘After all,’ he told me, ‘if you know too much, and someone comes back and hurts you, then how are you gonna protect me, henh?’”

“He must have had reason to believe someone wanted to hurt him. That’s pretty good evidence of foul play, if you ask me.”

“Your daddy was a cautious man, him. Always was. Even before the inundation.”

“Yeah. Look where caution got him,” I grumbled. “Placide, any idea who the man was that you met in Jackson the night Father died?”

“No, H, but he had Tennessee plates on his truck. I remembered that when you said we was going to Tennessee. Think there could be some connection?”

“I think there’s a good chance, Placide. Did you happen to catch the numbers on the plate?”

“No, it was dark out, and I just seen his truck from a distance when he peeled out. He drove a light blue pickup, though, and I seen the Tennessee outline on his plate. He had on some fancy alligator boots. That’s how I was supposed to recognize him. I remember noticing them fancy boots when he walked toward the car. Had a beer gut too.”

Probably just a hired delivery driver, I figured. This guy didn’t sound like your run-of-the-mill white-collar criminal. So far every road led to a dead end. I let my head flop back against the headrest and turned my focus to the landscape out the side window.

The highway snaked ahead of us through the rolling Mississippi hills, making me drowsy enough to nod off. I woke up as Placide slowed near Natchez, drowsy thoughts taking me back to a childhood trip here I hadn’t thought about in a couple of decades. I couldn’t remember how Father ended up in Natchez. He was never one to take vacations, at least not with family. Probably a business trip, maybe when Aunt Ethel had gone up to Shreveport to help out when her niece’s granddaughter was born. I remembered riding through downtown Natchez in a horse-drawn carriage, like the ones for hire along North Peters in New Orleans. Victor and I, no better friends then than today, punched each other sporadically in the back seat of the carriage, fighting over who knows what now, or maybe just for the hell of it. I must have been around eight or nine at the time. I remember Father buying us ice cream cones and pinwheels on that trip. The ice cream cones kept our mouths occupied for a while and watching the pinwheels spin in the breeze in the back seat of the carriage kept our hands and minds occupied for a few minutes. Of course, it didn’t take Victor long to figure out we could dive bomb each other’s pinwheel while we made the screeches and explosions of war with our mouths, until Father reached back and took them from us for the remainder of the ride. I had kept that pinwheel for several years, stuck into the headboard of my bed, maybe as a memento of the father I rarely saw, until I got angry at him that time he missed the Dixie Youth game he’d promised to attend, smashed the pinwheel, and threw it in the trash.

It occurred to me that Father must have had a lonelier existence than I had ever considered. I began to feel closer to him here, where I had a few pleasant recollections of him, than I ever did when he was alive in New Iberia, the way we are sometimes visited by the dead, our own imperfections illuminated from our new vantage point. Unfortunately, my youthful resentments, instead of mellowing with time, had blossomed into angst and intolerance. But for all his flaws, I was beginning to realize that Father was basically an honest man, just trying to stay afloat in the corrupt world of big oil. While his was a world I had never wanted to inhabit, I could appreciate how his perseverance in the industry and his unfailing integrity had been key to his success.

I still wondered if it had ever occurred to him that, while he had lost a beautiful young wife, Victor and I had lost both a father and a mother. I could see the toll it had taken on Victor, and I was finally beginning to see the toll it had taken on me. Midge was right. I was the carbon copy of Father, at least his cynicism if not his determination.

Once we got past Vicksburg, the Mississippi hills flattened into patient fields harrowed for spring plantings of corn, soy, millet, or cotton. We passed more tiny nondescript churches than houses in northern Mississippi, the heart of the Bible Belt. Apparently, anyone who could afford a cross, a square cinder block building, and a collection plate was in business. But it was a mystery where the congregations traveled from to get to these tiny churches that dotted the terrain like push pins. I pictured large families in modest farmhouses across the countryside washing faces and dressing in Sunday-best clothes for the long trip to church in the station wagon; little boys finally corralled, their hair painstakingly parted and slicked down; little girls proud to wear their black patent leather Mary Janes and socks with lace edges neatly folded over.

The sun was settling lower in the west, casting red and gold streaks across the western sky and signaling a clear day tomorrow, a cold one judging from the wind gusts that still tossed the trees along the edges of pastures. When we got as far as Memphis, the Atlas directed us to the motel, our base of operations for the next couple of days.

“Pull in up there on the right, Placide,” I said, pointing out the lighted blue and yellow Days Inn sign. As it turned out, the motel was just across from Graceland, the whole area crawling with tourists, an inconvenience that had not occurred to me. When we got to our room, I grabbed the phone book and ordered a large pizza. Placide picked up the TV remote, and we settled in for the evening.

The next morning, we headed to Ideal Tractor. Placide stopped at a 7-Eleven for directions and a couple cups of joe.

“Follow Third up there to Carolina,” the pimply teenager behind the counter told us. “Cain’t miss it. Big building right on the corner.”

We drove past block after block of run-down shotgun houses that signaled broken dreams, broken promises until Placide spotted the parking lot at Ideal Tractor. It looked as if it had seen better times, as did most of the city we had seen so far. Weeds grew out of the cracked pavement in the parking lot, a large portion of which was in disuse. The neighboring buildings were also run-down, some even boarded up.

An attractive middle-aged receptionist greeted us at the front desk, wearing subtle makeup and a headset over carefully coifed golden blonde hair. She brought Babette to mind strictly by contrast.

“May I he’p you gentlemen?” she asked in a slow Tennessee drawl.

“Yes, ma’am. My name is Major Doucet,” I said, showing her my I.D. “I’d like to speak to someone who has information about a former employee.”

“I see. And is this an emplo’ee you are considering hiring?”

“Um…yes, ma’am,” I fibbed, thinking that might be the only way to get my foot in the door.

“Let’s see. I believe Mr. Dawkins might have a moment. Excuse me, sir,” she smiled, turning to the switchboard.

“Mr. Dawkins, two gentlemen are here to discuss the possible employment of a former Ideal emplo’ee,” she said into the mouthpiece on her headset. “Mm Hmm. Mm Hmm. Yes, sir.”

She turned back to us. “Mr. Dawkins will see you gentlemen now.” She pointed to her right, “Down that hall, third door on your left.”

We passed two vacant offices to where Dawkins’s door stood slightly ajar. I rapped gently, then stuck my head around the door.

“Come in, gentlemen,” Dawkins boomed. He was a large, round-faced man with beefy jowls and jet-black hair, graying at the temples and slicked tightly back with some sickeningly sweet pomade, possibly for a slimming effect that failed.

“My name is Major Doucet,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand. “This is my assistant, Placide.”

“Have a seat, gentlemen,” Dawkins replied in the slow drawl of a southern land baron, motioning us to two leather chairs that faced his oversized walnut desk. Nothing shabby about his office, I thought.

“Mr. Dawkins,” I began, not sure how to broach the subject without getting us thrown out on our asses. “I have a question about a former employee. In fact, I am wondering about two former employees.”

“I’ll help y’all if I can. We do have some confidentiality issues, of course. I understand you are considering hiring these former emplo’ees?”

“Actually, well, …no.”

Dawkins frowned at my reply, shaking his heavy jowls. “Well, then, I…”

“You see, the thing is,” I continued, unwilling to let him stop me once I had got this far, “their names have come up during an investigation of my father’s death. The cops are dragging their feet, so I’ve decided to try to hurry things up a little, see how I can help them. Placide and I drove up here from Louisiana, and I’m just not prepared to leave without some information.”

“I do sympathize, Major Doucet, but you see, company policy and all, my hands are tied.” He paused, continuing to look me in the eye as though he might want to add something, instead effectively ending the conversation.

“I see.” My eyes never left his. After a silent moment, I added, “Well, here’s where Placide and I are staying, in case you think of anything.” I jotted the room number on the back of the business card I had picked up in the motel lobby. Somehow, I felt that if I could get this guy away from his desk, he just might spill his guts. It wasn’t necessarily anything he said, but something about his unflinching gaze gave me the feeling he wanted to tell me something.

“Yes. All right, gentlemen,” he said, glancing at Placide for a moment before his eyes met mine again. “By the way, what did you say the gentlemen’s names were?”

“I didn’t, but they’re Warren Armstrong and Dallas Matherne. Coincidentally, they both left Ideal within the last four years.”

“Well, not such a coincidence, really. We’ve had lots of turnover in the last few years. Times have been tough. Armstrong, you say?” he asked, raising his bushy eyebrows.

“Yes, sir. And Matherne.” I paused another moment, staring, hopeful. Nothing. “All right, then. Thank you for your time.”

“Sorry I couldn’t be more help, gentlemen.” He turned his attention to some papers on his desk.

As we walked back past the receptionist’s desk, she asked, “Did you find what you were looking for, gentlemen?”

“No, ma’am. I’m afraid not.”

“Well, maybe you’d like to check back in a couple of days?”

“We might just do that,” I said, sensing a slight ray of hope in her voice.

“Looks like we have a day or two to kill,” I said to Placide on the way to the car. “Let’s go up toward town and see if we can find a place to grab a bite.”

Placide drove north until we found Beale Street. It was a tourist attraction, but why not, I thought. We found a parking place a couple of blocks away, zipped up our jackets, and walked down Beale to Dyer’s Burgers, a casual lunch spot. While Placide worked admirably at putting away his giant double combo and fries, I finished my single combo, sipped on a Bud, and began leafing through my notes again. I would have to go back out to Ideal in a day or two, see who else I could cozy up to. Or find out if the receptionist was hinting at something. We were here and we weren’t leaving. Not yet, anyway.

Tourists and what looked like a few regulars had poured into Dyer’s Burgers and were filling the room with chatter. Unable to hold my train of thought in the din, I gave up on my notes and raised my head just as one tall, self-important redneck with a cowboy hat, boots, and a beer gut bumped into our table rudely on the way past and muscled up to a stool at the counter.

“H, it’s time to leave,” Placide said quietly out of the blue, his combo unfinished. Without a word, I put enough cash on the table to cover more than the tab, and we walked out.

“What was that all about?” I asked after he had hurried me down the street, turning to look behind us.

“The man that give me that envelope the night your daddy died,” he responded.

“Where?”

“The cowboy that just come in and set at the counter.”

“You sure it was him?”

“Yep. I recognized them alligator boots right off. It was him all right. He seen us too.”

“Damn. We’ve been spotted all the way up here in Memphis?” I exclaimed. We decided to head back to the motel and lay low for now. In the Graceland corridor, tour buses heading to the King’s house and pedestrians heading to the souvenir shops slowed us down. Placide dropped me off at our room, then pulled around behind the building to park the car out of easy sight since that cowboy would have recognized the car from the meeting in Jackson.

“I could pass by that souvenir store yonder, see if they got some playing cards,” Placide said when he let himself into the room.

“Good idea. Maybe I can beat you out of a few dollars while we’re stuck here.” I dug out my wallet and handed him a twenty.

When he let himself and a gust of cold air back in, he carried a bagful that he began emptying onto the counter by the sink. A few Cokes and Buds, some Tostitos and French onion dip, two decks of cards with Elvis photos on the backs, and a couple of Motor Trend magazines. Picking up the ice bucket, he headed back out the door, letting another chilly blast into the room.

After he put the Cokes and beer in the sink, he dumped the bucket of ice on them, then took a seat at the table by the window, popped open one of the Cokes, and just slipped the drape back a sliver so he could keep an eye on the parking lot. He took his piece out of his ankle holster and set it on the table by the window.

“How about some penny-ante five-card draw?” I asked.

Placide flashed a grin and began shuffling the cards. I splashed a little water on my face and popped open a Bud. In less than an hour, I was down three bucks and Placide was happier than I’d seen him. I could tell he’d had some practice at poker, probably all those years at the tables beside Father.

Our next hand was interrupted by the phone ringing, just as my pair of nines was about to get beat. Placide and I just looked at each other for a few seconds before I got up to answer it on the third ring. “Hello,” I said, my eyes still on Placide.

“Major Doucet?” boomed the voice on the other end.

I recognized Dawkins’s large voice. “Yes, Sir,” I replied, trying not to show too much elation.

“Henry Dawkins. I wonder if y’all could meet me.”

“Name the time and place.”

“You see Brooks on your map? Drive east on Brooks about a mile, mile and a half, until you get to Airways. Turn left. In about, oh, two miles, you’ll see the Shrimp King on y’all’s left. Giant neon shrimp out front. Park in back. Got that?”

“Got it. Where are you calling from?” I asked.

“I’m at a pay phone.”

“OK, good. Yes, Airways. I see it on the map.”

“It’s a country place, if you get my drift, so if y’all have casual dress, y’all will fit right in.”

“OK, I have some jeans.”

“I plan to walk in around eight. Wait till 8:30; then find a table. I’ll come to y’all.”

“We’ll be there.”

I hung up and repeated the plans to Placide. “Go grab a couple baseball caps,” I said, fishing my wallet out and handing him a couple more twenties. “Try to find a fishing or Skol cap, anything like that. No Elvis caps.”

“Yessir, H,” he replied, rising to take the money and pulling his jacket back on.

I changed into my jeans and flannel shirt while he was gone. In a few minutes, he let himself back in with two baseball caps, a washed black Skol cap, and a camo Ducks Unlimited hat.

“Perfect,” I smiled, grabbing the camo one for myself. Placide tried to suppress a grin when I tried it on. He lengthened the strap on the Skol cap to fit his oversized head and tried it on. Now it was my turn to suppress a grin.

“Color-coordinated with your Dockers,” I joked as he scowled at me from beneath the brim.

We still had the afternoon to kill, enough time for Placide to win another five bucks. Then we set off for the Shrimp King, no clue what we might learn, but with a glimmer of hope that we might finally learn something.