Chapter 17

TAKIN’ CARE OF BUSINESS

“Sid Ardoin might be willing to help y’all with Deslatte,” Earlene told me when I got to the office Monday morning. “He’s one of our best derrickmen. Know him, H?”

“Name rings a bell. I think I met him at the wake. Can we trust him?”

“Your daddy did. Sid was in charge of the night shift mud operation the night of the inundation. Stuck with it till the end. He doesn’t have much use for Victor, but I guess that’s no flaw,” she said.

“Can’t fault the guy for that. What’s his beef with Vic?”

“It seems Vic got a little frisky with Sid’s wife at the honky-tonk. Sid pushed him around a little. Upset your daddy at first, until he found out why. Then he just tried to hush it up…like every other scrape that boy got himself into.”

“Sounds like Father. Sounds like Vic, too, I guess. Well, I can’t hold it against Sid. Go ahead and get in touch with him.”

“Done. I already called him this morning. He’s been working in one of our jobs offshore since the inundation, but he got home for New Year’s. In fact, he’s on his way over here as we speak.”

“You’re a jewel, Earlene!” I said, grabbing her shoulders impetuously and giving her a peck on the cheek. “No wonder Father was crazy about you.”

“Goodness, H. Aren’t you the frisky one this morning?” she said, giggling.

“How about Ethel and Louis?” I continued. “Find anyone to stay out there?”

“I took care of that, too. Eric Arcenaux is passing by Ethel’s this morning.” She looked at her watch. “In fact, he should be there by now. I called Ethel to set it up, so she’s expecting him. I’m sure she’ll like him once she gets to know him. He was a mechanic on the rig. Good friends with Sid. In fact, Sid recommended I contact Eric. Real polite fella, and always cheerful, but scrappy enough no one’s going to mess with him. He said he’d be glad to help Louis with his chores while he’s there, too, to keep himself busy.”

“Fantastic! I think I met him at the wake, too. How’d Ethel take it?” I asked.

“She griped some, but I think she’s OK with it now that I explained it. Lord knows, they have enough rooms out there. It’s not like he’ll be underfoot. I just told her to have Louis put him to work because he’d rather be busy than sitting around. That perked her up some.”

Ten minutes later, I led Sid past the glass cubicles, where a few curious heads popped up, some calling “Hey” to Sid as we passed. I took him to the conference room at the end of the hall. I recognized him right away as the man leaving Morton’s office on one of my visits to MSHA. About a foot shorter than I, he looked uncomfortable wearing a sports shirt and slacks instead of coveralls, his muscular thighs and upper arms like pot roasts, nearly splitting the seams, his gait and demeanor reminded me of a man with a Napoleon complex, his face like beef jerky from years in the sun. He looked like he’d be able to hold his own, all right.

“We spoke at Father’s wake, didn’t we?” I asked, gesturing him to a chair at the conference table and taking the chair next to him.

“Yes sir, we spoke. Surprised I didn’t meet you before that.”

“Afraid I haven’t been around much the last few years,” I said. “I believe I saw you at Mr. Morton’s office, too. What brought you there, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Morton was askin’ me about that night of the inundation. Questioned all us guys individually, leastways the ones that hasn’t scattered. I just figured he wanted to see if our stories matched up. Told him the truth, that’s all I could do. Never heard nothin’ about what come of it, though.”

“No, I don’t really expect any of us will,” I said. “But at least it sounds like he’s investigating. I have my doubts about him, though. Anyway, Sid, Earlene tells me my father trusted you, and he didn’t dole trust out wholesale.”

“Thank you, sir. I did my best. I liked your daddy, too. He was a fair man. Hard-nosed, but fair. Yie, yie, I hated to hear what happened to him. Damn shame,” he said, looking down at his lap. “I’m awful sorry.”

“Thanks, Sid. Yeah, hard-nosed is no lie. Listen, Sid. The reason we called you here today, I’m asking you to go way out on a limb to try to clear Father’s name. Might be a way you can avenge your buddies’ deaths, too.”

“What’s the deal?”

“I can’t lie to you, it’s a big job and it’s dangerous. But there’s a respectable bonus and a promotion in it if you agree to it.” I kept my eyes on him for a reaction.

When he nodded, I went on to explain the plan I’d concocted. Sid’s job was to get himself hired by Deslatte, see what dirt he could find out about the operation with a little low-level snooping. “You’ll be jumping into the middle of a hornet’s nest,” I warned him. No sense mincing words, I thought. “I’d have done it myself, but Doucet is a dirty word in some circles.”

“Major Doucet, I should tell you, I had a little run-in with your brother once.”

“Yeah, I know all about that. Had a few run-ins with Victor myself over the years. But that could actually help you get your foot in the door. If Deslatte thinks you can’t take it with Vic anymore, now that Father’s gone, I figure he’ll jump at the chance to get you away from Doucet Drilling. If you’re willing, why don’t you bring your résumé by here tomorrow? We’ll get Earlene to update it a little and shoot it off to Deslatte.

“I need to make sure you understand what I’m saying here,” I continued. “There are people out there hell-bent on making sausage meat out of me. Understand? And I know for a fact they won’t stop at anyone else who gets in their way.”

“Yes, sir. I get it.”

“If one word leaks out that I put you up to this, …well, your life will be in at least as much danger as mine. You’ve got to let everyone there think the same thing—that you’ve had enough of Victor Doucet and you need to get away from Doucet Drilling before your beef with him escalates. Think you can do that?”

“No problem. I owe it to the guys we lost out there. Besides, I’ve got nine lives.”

He sounded as feisty as he looked, a positive sign. “That’s good. Just don’t get complacent about those nine lives.” I felt redundant, but I didn’t want to be responsible for any more loss of life.

I sat back down for a minute or two after he left to think things through. It occurred to me that, like Father, I was beginning to add people to my own inner circle. Had to be, I reasoned. And I felt good about Sid. I just hoped he didn’t end up dead.

When Placide and I drove over the levee at Henderson swamp later that afternoon to move out of our temporary digs, Placide noticed from a distance that some of the chairs on his aft deck had been overturned and a window was broken. He backed down off the levee and parked on the backside. “Wait here, H,” he said, pulling his snubnose .38 out of his ankle holster. He reached under the seat and tossed a .45 Ruger across the floorboards to me. “I don’t expect you’re packin’ your heat.” He was right.

“You got an arsenal under there?” I asked. He didn’t respond but slid out from behind the wheel and was over the levee like a shot.

I untucked my shirt and stuck the .45 in my belt. I jogged about 20 feet farther down the levee, sidled down to the batture, and crept across to the cypress tree closest to my boat. I could see that the glass in my cabin door had also been broken, but when I slinked aboard and peered in the window, I didn’t see anyone inside. I slipped in the door and had a look around. The place was a mess. Cabinets were trashed, files were scattered, clothes were strewn everywhere, but whoever had been there was gone. Luckily, my .44 was locked safely in my briefcase at Aunt Ethel’s.

I went back out on the dock in time to see Placide sucker punch some skinny-ass punk on his aft deck. A second wiry little shit with a durag tied around his head jumped on Placide from behind and straddled him like a bull. Placide spun around like King Kong, grabbing both the guy’s arms that were wrapped around his neck and slamming him backwards onto the deck floor.

I ran down the dock and onto the boat just as the first guy got his bearings and came up swinging, but he was no match for Placide. Meanwhile, I came up behind the guy on his back, struggling to get up. I poked the .45 in the back of his head. “Don’t even try,” I said. He sneered up at me and sat back down.

Placide yanked the other one up and stuck the .38 in his temple. “Sit,” I told them both, nodding toward the overturned deck chairs.

They looked to me like common punks, coke heads probably, glaring at us through hate-filled eyes. They both had stringy brown hair to their shoulders, tattoos from their wrists all the way up both arms, and an attitude as long as their hair. They smelled of marijuana and sweat. They picked up two of the deck chairs, and glared ferociously at me as they sat down, arms folded defiantly across their guts. “Who are you assholes working for?” I asked them.

“We don’t work for no one,” the skinnier of the two said, the one with the durag tied around his forehead. “We just saw no one was comin’ around here for a few days…”

“So, you cased the joint and thought you’d help yourselves,” I said. “Sweet. And you chose our two boats to ransack why?”

Meanwhile, a Henderson police car with flashing red lights and sirens came up over the levee. ‘Tee Jack must have seen all the excitement and called them. “We caught this swamp scum after they broke into both our boats,” I told the boys in blue while they looked at my fake I.D. “Don’t know if they’ve hit any other boats. Looks like they may have just hit ours.”

“Now why on God’s earth would you think they’d target you guys in particular?” the barrel-chested sergeant with a face that looked like raw hamburger asked while the other cop was cuffing the guys and hauling them to the car.

“No reason I can think of, sir,” I said, innocent as a child.

“Look, I recognize you, Doucet. I don’t know what you’re pulling with the alias. I’m a busy man, so I’m going to look the other way this time, just as long as you get your asses on back to New Iberia, or wherever you belong. We don’t want no trouble here in Henderson.”

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir. We already planned to leave. We’ll get out of Henderson within the hour,” I assured him. Our hideout was busted wide open now anyway.

After the pigs filled out their report, they hauled the two thugs away for questioning and probably a day or two in the slammer and a slap on the wrist.

‘Tee Jack came down the levee to where Placide and I stood. He had been watching from a distance after his phone call. “Be damned,” he said as the cops drove off, lifting his ball cap to scratch his head, then setting it farther back on his crown. “I don’t like to see no trouble down here, me. Nothin’ like this ever happened here before.”

“Common teenage cokeheads, I’m guessing, just looking for a little drug money,” I lied. They might’ve been junkies, but I figured they were probably hired by some of the upper crust scum we were shaking out of the woodwork. “I hope this and our deposits cover the damage,” I said, pulling out a few Jacksons that I figured would soften the blow and more than cover the windows they broke to get in. “We’ve both been gone for several days. They said they were eyeing the place while we were away. Has anyone come around asking a lot of questions?”

“Matter of fact, my wife did mention a couple of strangers in business suits asking a bunch of questions the other day about a guy named Doucet and a giant redbone. She told them she didn’t know nobody by that name or that description. Told me she just didn’t trust those guys.”

“Well, don’t worry, we won’t cause you any more trouble,” I assured him, hoping to avoid further explanation. I thanked him, then headed back to my boat to pack and load up all the stuff I’d accumulated as Placide turned to start packing his gear.

An icy breeze was stirring up the cove, swaying the docked boats as I stepped aboard. A lonely egret flapped its wings and lifted away to find more privacy. I started packing, throwing some of my food and equipment into a box and some grocery bags I’d saved. We could drop them off at the homeless shelter. I’d take the coffee, Tony Chachere’s and olive oil, and a few other things to Ethel’s house, see if she could use any of it. I was going to miss the swamp, I thought, with one last backward glance as we drove over the levee for the last time. My only peace since I’d been back in Louisiana had been anchored somewhere out in a cypress grove with a fishing line in the water.

Aunt Ethel looked stunned when we hauled our stash into the kitchen that afternoon. She was not one to eat anything out of a can unless she did the canning herself. But, like all depression survivors, I knew she was even less someone to waste food, so, as I predicted, she said she’d find a way to “use up” the canned peaches and green beans and tomatoes in some casseroles and cobblers. “It might come in handy since you’re going to have three extra mouths to feed for a while, Placide, me, and Eric Arcenaux,” I told her. That seemed to perk her up, or at least shut her up.

While Placide and I unpacked the food and helped Ethel find a place for everything in the pantry, Uncle Louis and Eric walked in the kitchen door after some bush hogging out back. Louis was still laughing about something Arcenaux had said. When Ethel asked him what was so funny, he said, “Oh, Eric’s a cut-up, him. Called the inundation a Cajun Mt. St. Helens. Know why? Because instead of blowing, it sucked!” That sent Louis into a fit of laughter all over again, as Eric beamed mischievously. Looked to me as if Louis and Eric were getting along just fine. I was pretty sure Ethel wouldn’t deny Louis a little pleasure, so maybe this was going to work out after all.

I remembered Arcenaux, but Placide introduced us anyway.

“Howdy, Eric. Yeah, we met at the wake,” I said, giving his hand a shake.

Arcenaux was a brawny guy, solid muscle, like everyone else who had worked for Father. He looked like he could snap a small tree over his knee, bust a bull in the head with his fist to the detriment of the bull. I wouldn’t want to tangle with him, that’s sure.

“Looks like you can rest easy, Ethel,” I joked, marveling at the size of Eric’s upper arms. Though she would never have admitted it, I figured she’d like having some company around besides Louis. And I knew Louis would appreciate the brawn and the sense of humor this guy brought with him. This side of beef would make her and Louis both feel safe.

When we’d unloaded the groceries, we carried our bags upstairs. Eric followed along to show us where he’d bunked, just across the hall from the two rooms Placide and I used over New Year’s. It was beginning to feel like my old college dorm days up there, but without toga parties or beer bashes in the offing.

“So far, it’s been quiet, quiet,” Arcenaux told us after we dumped our bags and met back in the wide upstairs hallway.

“Beats hell out of the alternative,” I said. “How are you getting along with Ethel and Louis?”

“Oh, we’re doin’ fine. Louis put me to work out back soon as I got here, so he’ll keep me busy out there. And Miss Ethel cooked up some powerful gumbo for lunch. I even got a giggle out of her. Hell, it’s a nice little break from offshore for me, too.”

“Great. If you can make Ethel smile once in a while, you’ll be her best pal.” I filled him in on some of our earlier excitement at the dock. “So, we’ll be staying out here too, now. We’ll be able to relieve you on weekends.”

After dinner, the three of us pulled together a penny-ante game in the upstairs hall with Placide’s Elvis cards. Uncle Louis probably would have enjoyed it, but we didn’t dare invite him. Aunt Ethel would have sworn I’d “be the death” of her if she’d caught wind of it.

“By the way, what do you know about Dallas Matherne?” I asked him while Placide dealt. His smile faded.

“We were all pissed off when he called in sick and left us short-handed. Big-time gambler, Matherne. He’d lose his shirt then come crawlin’ to the guys with his tail between his legs when his rent come due. I fell for it early on. Never got paid back, though, so I didn’t make that mistake again. I don’t think none of the other guys did either. Old man Doucet didn’t think much of him either. Just a matter of time before he was history, I reckon.”

“That’s just about what I suspected,” I said.

“If it hadn’t been for Matherne, the day shift guys might be on the right side of the dirt today,” Eric said. “I had no use for the guy, myself. I doubt if anyone else does either, especially after that stunt. I’d be glad to testify against him if it comes to that. I’m pretty sure Sid Ardoin would too, and some of the others.”

He was still pretty shaken up, so I didn’t want to pressure him on the subject. And I suspected a sizable gambling debt and a penchant for the ladies would have made Matherne an obvious choice for some con men with unlimited funds and a load of dirty work to get done.

The next morning, the three of us helped Uncle Louis mend the old fence out near where I’d helped Louis dig that post hole.

Arcenaux kept Louis laughing with his Cajun jokes. “One time ole Boudreaux and Thibodeaux went duck hunting in Boudreaux’s bateau,” he said. “Boudreaux brought his retriever along, and when Boudreaux shot a duck, he sent that dog after it. But that ole dog walked right on top of the water, trip, trip trip, picked up that duck, and walked back to the boat, trip, trip, trip. Surprised, ole Thibodeaux said, ‘Boudreaux, yer dog can walk on water?!’ Boudreaux replied, ‘Mais oui, and I can’t tell you how embarrass’ I am. I never could taught that dog how to swim.”

We all had a good laugh; then Louis joined right in with a few of his own corny jokes, looking younger than I’d seen him this trip.

After we finished in “the back forty,” I sent Arcenaux home to visit his family for a day or two since Placide and I were stuck twiddling our thumbs at Ethel’s for now, waiting to see what Sid Ardoin could come up with.

We didn’t have to wait long. As I suspected, Deslatte jumped at the chance to hire someone away from Doucet Drilling. Sid had convinced Deslatte he couldn’t work for Doucet with Vic at the helm. It was an easy sell.

Deslatte hired Sid as an operator trainee on the night shift, in good stead to access all units since he would eventually have to learn the ropes in each. No stranger to working nights, he knew those guys notoriously slept or drummed up a poker game. He told Earlene, “I’ll have beaucoup de temps to get the goods once I get through a short training period.”

I knew they’d stalk him like a Cooper’s hawk over a field mouse, at least until Deslatte was sure Sid could be trusted. We assumed they’d bug his phone, so we added a few new lines to the code Placide and I used. He would call his wife Louisa in New Iberia, always from a payphone, routinely on Wednesday afternoon at 1500 hours, or any other time, of course, if he had an emergency. “I might be a little late Saturday morning,” meant, “Have H meet me at Maybelle’s at noon Saturday.” In the event of an emergency, “I’ll run by the Farmers’ Market on the way home,” meant, “I need H to get down here ASAP.” Our designated rendezvous place in Patterson was J & R’s Seafood on Main Street. His only other options in an immediate emergency were either to get the hell out of Dodge STAT and call when he was safe or to call 911. Now it was just a waiting game.

~

I called Candace Soileau at her boyfriend’s house on schedule that Sunday. “I’m glad you called. I may have something,” she said. “Can you meet me on my lunch hour tomorrow?” I agreed to meet her at Nino’s in a strip mall in Baton Rouge at noon.

She walked in just after 1200 hours, blue eyes peering out from under a spiky fringe of blonde bangs. She looked like an oblivious teenager with her tousled, clipped hair until she matter-of-factly set several pages of information from her briefcase onto the white tablecloth of our small corner table. “I made these copies, so they’re yours,” she said quietly. “I think you’ll find this information useful.” A gross understatement. Among other things, she had somehow managed to get her hands on a list of Louisiana’s latest major stockholders in Calco.

When the waiter brought our pasta dishes, Candace scooped the pages up out of his way, but not before I had learned that none other than Governor Mansur and Secretary of the Treasury Huff were among the major stockholders in Calco Oil. The Haggerty brothers, Armstrong, and Deslatte, also appeared high on the list. They had all been major stockholders in Sapphire Salt, too, until they sold out before the inundation. Calco Oil was the largest company contracted with Deslatte Shale Processors. DNR was monitoring Deslatte’s operations, but with Governor Mansur’s help and Joseph Haggerty’s conflict of interest, all the reports were coming back squeaky clean.

My guess was that Father had found out they had sold Sapphire stock and replaced it with Calco stock, and he was trying to let Gremillion know. Or maybe it was the other way around. No way to tell since both Father and Gremillion had met their maker at the hands of these thugs. And if the authorities had found any evidence to that effect in either Father’s or Gremillion’s files, they must have confiscated or destroyed it and vowed to eliminate anyone who got wind of it. The politicians were all in collusion, every last one of them, up to and including DNR, the governor, and the White House.

“How did you get your hands on this?” I asked in disbelief.

“Mr. Haggerty asked me to find everything I could related to the inundation. I expect he’s building his defense. I’m sure he never dreamed I’d find all this or know what it meant if I did find it.

“This might be useful, too,” she added, pulling out a file folder of copied letters with Carl Haggerty’s name on the letterhead of a powerful D.C. law firm, proving Carl, Joseph Haggerty’s brother, was the D.C. lobbyist and fixer. If a hedge fund needed insider information, Carl Haggerty was the one to ferret it out. Carl had a hell of a lot of clout in D.C. and a hell of a lot of interest in shutting down investigation of the inundation.

“Look, Candace, I hate to tell you, but this information puts you in grave danger if Haggerty ever gets wind you found it and passed it along. I’d better not contact you anymore. Here are my numbers, in case you need to contact me.” It was essential that Haggerty didn’t know I had possession of enough evidence to put him away for a long time, and more essential that he didn’t find out who ratted him out.

As she was leaving, I urged Candace to seriously consider resigning. “In fact, I’ll put in a good word with Earlene at Doucet. I’m afraid it’s too risky for you to stay on with Haggerty now.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“Think hard! You’re in danger.” I let her leave a few minutes ahead of me. I didn’t want anyone to make the connection, especially after this bombshell.

I had a crapload of information now on payoffs, insider trading, corruption, and fraud, but I still couldn’t definitively tie anyone to the inundation or to Father’s death. Or to at least two other deaths and a couple of failed attempts so far on my life. Not conclusively, anyway, and I knew any other way would just get me an escort to the curb. Still just circumstantial.

They could extradite Matherne if they believed me, but I had no doubt that the state and local officials were on the dole, too, most likely taking campaign funds or public works dollars for hush money at the very least. Had to be, or this thing would have busted open long ago, possibly years ago. Father might even still be alive. It was time to talk to Earlene, see what she’d learned from our attorneys, and also have her try to locate Dallas Matherne’s wife, even though I knew that might wake a sleeping giant. I called from a payphone before I left the little strip mall.

“I tried to contact Mrs. Matherne again yesterday, but that number’s no longer in service,” Earlene said. “Matherne worked closely on the night shift with Ted Romero, so I called him. His wife directed me to Sarah Beth Matherne’s parents, where Sarah Beth’s been staying since shortly after Dallas’s disappearance. I made you an appointment with her for tomorrow morning, 9:00, here at the office,” she said.

“Super. How did you get her to agree?”

“I just told her you had some news on Dallas to share. So, I hope you have some token to give her.”

“I’ll have a token, all right. Also, Earlene, I’ve got some more research for you to do. See what you can find out about Warren Armstrong’s dealings with Ideal Tractor and Sapphire Salt. I’m suspecting there’s some insider trading, at the very least. Also, see what you can find out about Joseph Haggerty at DNR and his brother Carl Haggerty. Carl is a lawyer and lobbyist in DC. They’re all implicated.”

I got to the office early the next morning and helped myself to some joe in the break room. A few minutes after 0900 hours, Earlene informed me Sarah Beth Matherne was waiting in the conference room.

“I’m Major Doucet. Thank you for coming,” I said when I entered.

She bristled immediately. “I want to know where my husband is, Major Doucet.”

“Whoa, Ma’am. Believe me, I’m not involved. All I can tell you is that he is out of the country under a new identity. But it was none of my doing. I’m afraid I don’t know any more than that. I just happened to learn about it while I was investigating my father’s death. I have no idea where he’s been sent,” I said, only fibbing slightly. “My investigation has put my life in danger, so, I’ve got to ask you to please not alert anyone that we spoke.”

“Wasn’t your father’s death a suicide?”

“I have every reason to believe it was murder.”

“Murder! Major Doucet, my husband was not involved in no murder, I can tell you that!”

“Not directly, I realize. Possibly indirectly.”

“No way. Not Dallas.”

“Mrs. Matherne, I didn’t come here to accuse him of anything. I came here mainly to warn you that you might be in danger. These men your husband was working for are ruthless, and anyone who slows them down tends to end up in the obit column. If you hear from Dallas, you need to do whatever he says and not make waves, for your own safety and for his. If Dallas follows orders and you don’t cause a scene, there’s no reason to believe they won’t keep their word to reunite you two and give you a new identity. That is, if you want that.”

“A new identity?” she asked, a shocked look on her face. “Right now, I don’t know what I want,” she said, pulling her lips into a tight frown as tears started to form in her eyes. “This is all a terrible shock. I didn’t have no idea Dallas was mixed up in something dangerous.”

“He hadn’t acted at all strange lately?” I asked.

“Well…,” she thought a few seconds, her eyes aimed up and to the left, before she continued. “I just figured work was getting to him. Put a strain on our marriage, him stressed out all the time and taking it out on me.”

“What I need to tell you isn’t easy, and it isn’t pretty, but I think, as Dallas’s wife, you have a right to know some things that no one has bothered to let you in on. Bear with me,” I said, then began my story, leaving out the goriest details leading up to where we sat this morning.

“You see, Mrs. Matherne,” I added by way of summing up, “I have reason to believe that it was your husband’s job to make sure the inundation occurred, with the promise of a large bonus. Unfortunately, if he ever shows his face in the U.S., he could be indicted, even if the brains of the conspiracy get off scot-free. I’m not sure if he was blackmailed or acted out of desperation. But either way, he was just a disposable pawn in the scheme, whether he knew it or not.

“But the main reason I’m here is to ask you a few questions. And if you’re willing to help me get the brains of the scheme, I’ll do everything I can to reunite you and your husband. The alternative is, they get off scot-free and you may never see Dallas again. So, I sincerely hope you’ll try to help me. It would help us both.”

She dabbed at her cheeks and eyes with a napkin. “OK, I’ll try,” she agreed. “But I really don’t know anything about what Dallas was doing or why he even decided to come back to Louisiana. We were doing fine up there in Tennessee, where I’m from. I never wanted to come down here, but Dallas just had to have this job, for some reason I never understood. But then he got a nice raise, so that kept us here. My folks even followed us down here after my daddy retired, but they don’t want to be here either. They’ve been talking about moving me back up to Tennessee with them.”

“That sounds like a good idea, considering the danger you’re in here,” I said. “Look, I’m trying to find out about a map. Your husband came to the rig about the same time Calco Oil merged with Aloco Oil. Mysteriously, that’s the same time a new geological map showed up. The map came from DNR, and I believe it was a fake and that Dallas was responsible for making sure Calco followed it. All the Aloco people were replaced by Calco people, and my father’s drilling company was contracted to take over drill operations. Dallas was a mole in Doucet Drilling, I’m pretty sure, placed there to make sure the new map was followed. His so-called ‘raise’ was more likely a payoff by a third party. I’ve sifted through his employment records, and Father never gave him any raise. Unfortunately, the bogus map they introduced led to drilling directly into the salt mine. I believe that was the intended outcome and that Dallas knew it and made sure it came off as planned.”

“I don’t believe Dallas could have done anything like that!” she exclaimed. “He had his faults, but he wasn’t a crook! Anyway, that merger was a long time ago, two, three years.”

“I’ve heard Dallas had some gambling debts.” Might as well spit it out, I thought. “If a man is desperate enough, sometimes he’ll resort to behavior completely out of character to get his neck out of a jam. But if he was feeling some guilt about what he was doing, it might have been the reason he called in sick the night the rig went down. Or he might just have wanted to save himself from drowning like the others. Try to think back. Remember anything at all? If he was blackmailed, even the least significant sounding detail could help exonerate him.” Personally, I had not an ounce of sympathy for the scumbag, but I didn’t want Mrs. Matherne to know that.

She let out a long sigh that gave me hope she was ready to open up. “Well, Dallas had to travel to Baton Rouge on business one time when we first moved down here. Seemed nervous about the trip. He never told me what it was all about. Came back here all secretive and kept his briefcase locked. Before that, he didn’t hide anything from me. After that, he jumped on me for the least little thing. If I asked what was wrong, we’d get in a fight. I accused him of having an affair, even threatened to divorce him. That’s what my daddy hoped for. He never had no use for Dallas, and especially after Dallas dragged me down here to Louisiana. That and the fact Daddy told me he knew Dallas was a big flirt. He caught him flirting with some girl in a bar one night when we still lived in Tennessee.”

“I couldn’t say whether he’s having an affair or not, Mrs. Matherne. But he did know the danger of what he was doing, and the danger to you as well. My question is whether he was blackmailed. Either way, he was hired to do the dirty work so the big guns could keep their noses clean and reap the serious profits. Whatever they gave Dallas was probably a pittance in comparison. But I’m pretty sure he could clear his name if he’d agree to turn state’s witness and cooperate. You might put that bug in his ear if you happen to hear from him. Just so you don’t tell him where you got the idea. Do you recall anything anyone might have had on your husband? Any shady past dealings? Anything that could be used to blackmail him?”

“Not unless he had an affair. I know he had started gambling again, but I never thought it was serious!” she added.

“I’m afraid his gambling got a little more serious than he let on to you. Anyway, if he can prove he was blackmailed, his chances in court are fairly good. I’d like to bring down the brains of the outfit, though, and Dallas might be able to help do that.” I decided to dig deeper. “Do you remember anything else he did that seemed suspicious to you?”

“Only that he bought a bunch of stock in Sapphire Salt before we moved here. We had to take out a loan to do it. I was afraid, but he told me he got a tip on it. It went up just like he said it would. He sold it for a bundle right before the inundation. That’s what I’m living on now. I thought he was mighty lucky to sell it then!”

“I’m afraid it wasn’t luck,” I said, my suspicions confirmed.

“This can’t be happening,” she said. “He must have been blackmailed.” She kept her voice lowered, but I could tell she was running out of patience.

“I’m sorry to be the one to break this to you,” I said. Poor guy probably got himself roped into something bigger than he realized, and with a load of gambling debts, a deal with the devil would have been a tempting option. “I’d like you to contact me if you happen to hear anything from him or about him, OK?” I wrote Earlene’s and my aunt’s numbers on my notepad. “Tell him I might be able to help him if he’d call me. And seriously, I’d consider moving back to Tennessee! You’d be much safer there than here, I have no doubt, at least until this is settled. And promise me this conversation is just between us. In return, I’ll do everything in my power to clear Dallas’s name, or at least get him off light. He wasn’t the brains behind it, that’s sure. Just a pawn trying to make a little money to keep his head above water after he got too deep in debt.” I thought he might have to go into the witness protection program if he turned state’s evidence, but I decided not to drop that bombshell.

“OK, Major Doucet, I promise,” she agreed, appealing to me with her eyes. “I’m counting on you to help him.”

“I’ll do the best I can. Try to get him to call me.”

“Thank you, Major Doucet,” she said weakly, rising to leave.