Chapter 11

LITTLE CAPITOL

The sundry old men looked like regulars, solving the world’s problems at their usual tables and booths in the Little Capitol truck stop, where I was to meet Maurice Gremillion from DNR this morning. The younger men were no doubt scattered throughout the multitude of oil or seafood industries in the area at this hour or home asleep after the night shift. The women were likely puttering in gardens or kitchens much like Ethel’s.

In my cowboy hat, jeans, and flannel shirt, crumpled now from a few days mucking around at the swamp’s edge, I hoped to blend in with the regulars. I’d have to spot Gremillion because he’d never single me out of the crowd, so I found an obscure corner table by the window and kept my eyes on the parking lot. Nobody even slightly resembling a DNR official appeared. At about 1045 hours, I realized he probably wasn’t going to show. I walked to the pay phone out front to call Placide.

“This is Hank,” I told him. “Call Gremillion’s office. Find out what time he left and get right back to me here.” I read him the number off the phone.

“Yessir, Hank,” he said, catching the cue to my new alias.

I paced impatiently until the pay phone rang a few minutes later. “Hank! Bad news. There was an accident on the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge. Gremillion’s car ran through the guardrail and into the swamp. DNR got word he was DOA.”

“My God!” I blurted. They were dropping like flies in my path. I wondered why they hadn’t been successful yet in eliminating me. Worst of all, I didn’t even know who “they” were! Maybe they just wanted to watch me flail around awhile, like a hunted deer, see what I could stir up that might be useful to them before it was my turn to fly off a bridge or take a bullet to the temple. I had to collect my thoughts for a few seconds before I continued. Could they have learned of Gremillion’s meeting with me? How? I needed Placide back by my side ASAP. Striking out alone had been a huge mistake, and now was no time for mistakes.

“Um…OK, Placide, get some cash from Earlene. Buy, rent, or borrow a car, throw in enough clothes and fishing gear to stay awhile, and drive to Whiskey River Bar on the levee in Henderson.”

Back in my car, I sat still for a few minutes, my head and both hands on the wheel, waiting for my pulse to slow down and the immediate shock to wear off. Did it have something to do with the map I was carrying? Was someone in Louisiana DNR involved in the scam? And if so, what could have been the motive? I didn’t know where to turn anymore. Everyone I had contact with seemed to turn up dead. The police were mysteriously absent. Finally gathering impetus, I eased out of the parking lot and headed back out the two-lane to the levee road and my operating base, keeping one eye on the rearview.

While I waited at the table next to the window at Whiskey River Bar, I jotted a sketchy plan of action and made a copy on a separate sheet for Placide. It had been dangerous to try to go it alone. I needed him nearby.

I stifled a laugh when he drove up in an old turquoise Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon, faded fake wood grain slapped on the sides. He stomped through the dirt parking area and onto the rough plank floor of the bar. I didn’t avert my eyes but kept staring out the window after Placide walked in. I heard him order a Bud, then take a table between me and the exit. I just kept looking out at the parking lot. When I finished my beer several minutes later, I walked past him and tipped my hat as I let a note drop on his table on my way out— “Rent a houseboat at the Turtle Docks.”

Thirty minutes later, I was casting off the bow with a basic ledger rig when Placide carried a duffle bag to the other vacant houseboat up on the boat ramp end of the dock. Eyes straight ahead, I kept casting, occasionally pulling in a bream that I threw in the ice chest. Looked like I’d have company to eat my fish tonight.

After dark, I carried a mess of steaming bream I’d just pan-fried over to Placide’s boat. I handed him the game plan I’d scribbled, and he glanced over it as he silently and single-handedly polished off several pounds of fried fish. I picked at a few myself, but my appetite had been off ever since the news of Gremillion. I knew I was also a pawn in someone’s deadly game, and it would take some canny footwork to escape flying off the same bridge whenever they decided it was my turn. At least for the moment, I felt my whereabouts were unknown.

Placide nodded his tacit approval as he looked through my notes. I figured the map showing that the drill would have pierced the salt dome was the accurate one because that’s exactly what happened. The price for a map indicating that the drill would not pierce the dome, simply deleting that section of the salt dome from the map, would have been steep, which meant the rewards would have to be astronomical. If that map came out of DNR, then someone in DNR must have been bought off. I didn’t figure it was Gremillion, based on his willingness to meet Father and then me, followed by his untimely death. But there was someone else who didn’t want him talking. That person had to have ties to whoever wanted those maps, so that was the first person I needed to locate. I was pretty sure Gremillion hadn’t simply lost control of his vehicle on a clear, crisp Thursday morning on the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge without a little outside help. I wondered if that “help” drove a Chevy Blazer with a steel reinforced bumper.

Placide’s first assignment on the list was to find out all he could about whether another vehicle was involved. If so, to see if he could find out who was driving or what kind of vehicle it was. His second assignment was to have Earlene get me a fake ID. I knew she had done it for Father on more than one occasion, so I didn’t figure it would be too much trouble for me to become Hank Lee for a while. I gave Placide my driver’s license so Earlene could copy the picture and other details.

I emerged from my cabin the next morning as Placide’s old Vista Cruiser bounced like warm putty over the rough levee road and onto the batture. He nodded in my direction as he carried the newspaper to his houseboat. I walked over, ducking into the cabin, where he was seated at the table with the paper spread in front of him. He slid it to me when I sat down.

As I suspected, according to the only eyewitness with the balls to come forward, Gremillion had been run off the road by a hit and run in a black Chevy Blazer, which the cops were still trying to locate. Or so they’d have us believe. The witness was quoted saying he had been following those two vehicles from a distance on the bridge, staying far back because the Blazer was weaving in and out of Gremillion’s lane. Thought he was drunk. Then the Blazer smacked the front corner of the white Ford Galaxy state vehicle so hard that the Galaxy jumped the curb, crashed right through the guard rail, and plunged over the side into the swamp below. The Blazer picked up speed and disappeared. The witness said he never got close enough to read the plate.

My suspicions were confirmed. I’d considered going to the police with what I knew, but I didn’t trust anyone by this time. I was afraid now that anyone I talked to would either end up dead or make sure I did. It wasn’t enough that the guys in the Blazer were looking for me; now I was looking for them, too. And there was no “olly olly oxen free” in this game.