Chapter 10

HENDERSON SWAMP

It had turned colder, and a piercing wind blew snow across the highway, so we wasted no time getting out of Dodge, stopping only for gas and a late lunch at a Burger King in McComb. Placide made much better time on I-55, while I spent the hours recording every detail I could remember, in case I was called on to testify in a future courtroom.

I walked in the house that evening, relieved to discover that Ethel and Louis had called it an early night, so I wouldn’t have to come up with some cockamamie explanation about Father’s car exploding until morning. I had decided during the trip that I’d move out of Aunt Ethel’s before I put their lives in danger, too, and I wasn’t excited about telling Ethel that bit, either. When I flicked off my bedroom lamp a little later, my mind stayed in high gear, with visions of exploding cars and overweight cowboys in $300 boots rattling around in my brain, both while I was still awake and in my dreams for a few restless hours of sleep.

“Aitchie!” Aunt Ethel exclaimed, startled when I came downstairs around 0800 hours. “I didn’t even know you was home! You’ll be the death of me yet, boy.”

“Sorry,” I said, hugging her on my way to the coffee pot. “It was late and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“No harm done I suppose. Next time, though, mind you,” she scolded, shaking her index finger at me, recalling a lifetime of that wagging finger over some childish infraction, such as leaving the milk on the counter. Of course, Victor and I had figured out early that it was an empty gesture. Louis, now, that was a different story. If he said, “Next time,” we knew there’d better not be one.

“OK, Ethel,” I promised. I plopped down, elbows on the table. “Look, Ethel, I need to talk to you. Something has come up.”

“Now what?!” Ethel turned off the flame and sat across from me, concern contorting her face.

I proceeded to tell her things I had never expected to have to tell anyone, least of all Aunt Ethel. Of course, I left out some of the messiest details, but it didn’t soften the blow.

“I’m afraid some people are angry with me. I’ve discovered that foul play was responsible for Father’s death. People would rather I not nose around.”

Her expression changed from worried, to tears, to wide-eyed disbelief as I continued my grim saga. Sometimes she just shook her head and clucked her tongue. Occasionally she interjected, “Oh, Aitchie!” or “My lands!” As distressed as she was, I knew she was a tough old bird. Hell, hadn’t she survived the Great Depression on this old farm, World War II with Uncle Louis in Italy, and the turbulent Civil Rights 60’s in a small southern town? She’d take this in stride.

“Anyway, Aunt Ethel,” I continued, “I’ve got to move out of here for a while. I’ve put your lives in danger, as well as my own. Once I’m gone, I’ll feel a whole lot better about your safety.”

“Oh, Aitchie, where will you go, cher? What will you do?”

“I spent a good part of last night mulling over that very question. I just don’t have an answer yet. I won’t be far off. Anyway, if I were to tell you my plans, it would keep you in danger. I’ll lay low and contact you when I think we’re all clear. I’m sorry, Aunt Ethel. I didn’t want to have to worry you with all this.”

“Aitchie, I wasn’t just yakking when I said you need to settle down, hear? Now, I don’t understand what you’ve gone and got yourself into, but mind you, I don’t want no more Doucet funerals, you hear me, boy? It’s time you found you a good woman, instead of running all over creation getting into God knows what kind of trouble,” she scolded, as angry as I’d seen her since I got caught feeding my Brussels sprouts to the dogs when I was a kid.

“I understand, Aunt Ethel.” The less said about the danger we might all be facing, the better. And that went for my decision never to get involved with women again as well. I ignored the implication of her emphasis on the word good woman.

Handkerchief in hand, Ethel followed me to the car when Placide pulled up. “Mind what I said, now, boy. And stay in touch. You know how I worry.”

“If I know nothing else, I do know that! But this is something I have to do…for Father.” I threw my bag in back, hugged her, then slid in the passenger seat. I didn’t look back to see her tears. I just didn’t have the heart.

“Placide, I spent most of the night thinking,” I began once we got on the highway. “I’m afraid you and I will have to part company for a while. I need to disappear, and it’s pretty tough to fit a giant bodyguard into the woodwork. I’m going to leave you and Earlene in charge of getting this rental returned and replacing Father’s LTD. I’m also leaving you in charge of keeping an eye on Ethel and Louis.”

“Yessir, H,” he said side-eying me. He wasn’t sold on the idea.

“That means you’ll have to come up with an explanation to Earlene. I’ve already explained it to Ethel. I need to buy an inconspicuous used car, rent a room in another town, and lay low for a while.”

“Fugitives been known to disappear in Henderson Swamp,” Placide said.

That thought hadn’t occurred to me. I recalled bass fishing with Uncle Louis, and of course Victor, when I was a boy. I knew every inlet and cove. Fish and bird species enough to keep Darwin busy for decades inhabited this forgotten paradise. My mind raced to the logistics of such a move.

“Good thinking, Placide! Let’s start by getting me into a car.”

“Best keep a piece with you if you plan on being alone out there,” he said, sliding a .44 Magnum out from under the seat and handing it to me. “Don’t worry, in Louisiana, you don’t need a permit, unless you carry it concealed.”

I sat turning the gun over in my hands reluctantly, wondering how the hell my life had devolved to this. Louis took Victor and me duck hunting when we were teenagers, but killing things never caught on with me. Handling guns in the Air Force was one thing, but a handgun against civilians in my own country was a new ballgame. I was beginning to feel like we were entering into our country’s war against itself, and that whoever won would also lose.

By that afternoon, after promising Placide to stay in touch, I drove up the levee to the Turtle Docks Marina in a nondescript 1969 beige Ford Torino I had picked up for a song and 500 bucks. I walked up the wooden porch steps to the Turtle Bar. Inside, a couple of old Cajun fishermen sat over a beer gabbing in the local patois.

I ordered a Bud, opting to eavesdrop awhile before showing my hand.

“Ma frien’, vas tu en collines prés de I-10, te trouveras les sac-a-laits en patate.”

“Mais, yeah, mon ami, j’attrape les perches beau en cyprière ce matin, moi. En hameçon, juste des vers de terre.”

They were just swapping fishing lies, oblivious to the newcomer in their midst. So, I quietly asked the middle-aged brunette washing glasses behind the bar, “Got any houseboats for rent?”

“ ‘Tee Jacques’s the owner. He’s down at the dock working right now. Tall, black-haired fella. You can go talk to him if you want. He might have you one to rent.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Be right back,” I added, pointing toward the full beer I left sitting on the bar. She nodded her understanding as her hands continued pushing glasses up and down on the stationary brush in the soapy water.

I found ‘Tee Jacques working on one of the houseboats tied to the slips along the basin. It looked as though most of the twenty or so boats tied there were used as weekend retreats, but the first few looked as if they might be vacant.

“Howdy, ‘Tee Jacques. Name’s Hank Lee,” I lied, picking the name out of thin air as I held out my hand to shake his. “Your waitress told me you might have a houseboat to rent for a month or so.”

“My old lady, you mean. Yep. You can rent either one of these first two,” he said with a nod toward the two ramshackle boats.

“What’s a boat like that cost a month?” I asked, looking at the first one, the one with the name Hermit Crab painted in black letters across the stern, appropriately enough, I thought.

“Can let you rent her for $300 a mont’,” he said with a firm nod that indicated I might as well not haggle.

“Can I take a look inside?”

“Mais, yeah. Step aboard.” He motioned toward the deck and followed me onboard. “Got a little refrigerator, cook top. Got your small appliances, pots ‘n pans, a few utensils. Look around.”

“Any chance you could give me a slip farther down the dock? I’m a writer,” I fibbed again, “and sort of a hermit crab myself. Probably take her out some, but I might spend some time at the dock, too. I hate to be right beside this boat ramp, especially when the weekend crowd gets here.”

“I hear ya,” he said good-naturedly. “There’s a couple of slips farther down there. We can set ya up yonder.”

I made a mental note of what was aboard and what I would need to buy for subsistence living, then shook hands on the deal and we went back up to the marina to settle the paperwork.

After scribbling my new alias, I handed him cash for a deposit and the first month’s rent. Luckily, he didn’t ask for any ID. I’d have to remedy that with Earlene later. I took another gulp of my beer, then headed back out the lone road to a marine supply and grocery store I had spotted on my way in.

Muscling a shopping cart with one stationary wheel through the narrow aisles, I grabbed everything I saw that I might need: a parka, rubber boots, and also some lace-up boots with rubber soles. On a whim, I grabbed a cowboy hat and a few modest fishing supplies to complete my new image; it couldn’t hurt to catch myself an occasional dinner out of the swamp. I stocked up on survival supplies: canned goods and an opener, cooking oil, cornmeal, milk, eggs, Tony Chachere’s, Community coffee, and a six-pack of Bud. By the time I got to the checkout, my basket was heaped to overflowing. Of course, most of it could be tossed or given to Father’s favorite homeless shelter when I came out of hiding, hopefully in a couple of weeks. Aunt Ethel would make good use of any Tony’s or coffee I had left over.

I grabbed a newspaper at the checkout and carried it with me into Deanie’s Cajun Kitchen down the road for a plate of étouffée, so I wouldn’t have to cook my first night there. By the time I left there, it was nearly sundown, so I drove back up the levee to settle into my new digs before dark. I’d worry about moving her tomorrow. I waved at ‘Tee Jacques and carried two bags at a time down to the dock. If I couldn’t lay low here, my name wasn’t Hank Lee, I thought, as I found cabinets and cubby holes to stash my quarry. But the realization that my own survival depended on laying low unsettled me.

My first night on the water was less than ideal, what with the screeching tree frogs and cicadas, the plaintive hoots of an owl or two, and the haunting thoughts of the deaths of Father and now Dawkins. I left the .44 on the bed beside me.

Feeling agitated the next morning, I walked up the levee to the payphone and called the Memphis cops to see what they’d found out about my would-be assassin. “This is Major Doucet,” I told the dispatcher. “Is Major Gordon available?”

“I believe he just walked in. Hold, please.”

“Doucet?” said the voice on the other end a few seconds later.

“Yes sir. Wondering if you found anything out about that explosion.”

“I’ve been trying to contact you. We have an APB out on that pickup. Pretty hard to trace without the plate. It’s probably another color or even out of the country by now. But we did figure out the explosion.”

“Oh? What was it?”

“A homemade pipe bomb. We’ve seen ‘em before. Not too often, luckily. They can make ‘em easy out of a few odds and ends laying around the house. A piece of galvanized pipe, gunpowder, batteries, flashbulb, wire, and a string with a heavy weight on the end. The weight hangs on the ground, so that when the car moves, a little piece of plastic pulls out, setting off the flashbulb embedded in the gunpowder. Bam goes the car and anyone settin’ in it.”

“Well then, why did it go off before we got in?”

“We think one of them cats that hang around the dumpster there must have played with the string attached to the weight. No need to tell you about the cat entrails we found mixed up in the remnants of y’all’s car. No doubt it was supposed to go off after ya’ll got in. They were gunning for y’all, that’s one thing we know for sure.”

“Look, I have a confession. I didn’t give you the full story that night. In fact, we did speak to Henry Dawkins earlier that day, out at Ideal Tractor, and again at the Shrimp King the night of the explosion.”

“Withholding evidence. That’s a pretty serious offense, Major.”

“Yeah, well the only way he would talk to me was with the promise of complete confidentiality since he knew he was in imminent danger. I was just keeping my word. And of course, I had no idea he was meeting his maker as we spoke. After his death, I figured it was a little too late for confidentiality to do him any good. That was no suicide, Major, I’d be willing to stake my life on it. I just thought you should know in case you wanted to dig into a possible murder.”

“If that’s the case, we may be calling you back up here to testify at some point. I could just charge you for concealing information.”

“Yes, Sir. You could choose to ignore the real crime here. But I figure you’re too smart a guy for that. Especially with a killer still on the loose.”

I was disconcerted if not surprised about the car bomb. Someone still at Ideal Tractor had to have a link to someone at Sapphire. I was reasonably sure the guy with the alligator boots and the old pickup wasn’t the mastermind. Probably just a hired gun and errand boy earning some drug money. Or maybe just beer money, judging from the looks of that gut. But I was just as sure that whoever wanted me dead wasn’t giving up easily, and that those two goons in the Chevy Blazer had their slimy hands in it somehow. I wondered what kind of wasp nest Father had stumbled into. Or that Placide and I had stumbled into now, in Father’s place.