Sheriff Ron Frost’s press conferences were private, invitation-only affairs. He invited only select newspaper, television, and radio reporters. Held in a Castle Grayskull room that was only slightly bigger than a walk-in closet, Frost dominated the setting. A few reporters had complained that the chairs were lower than standard chairs so that the sheriff could seem even taller and more imposing than he was. Their complaints fell on deaf ears.
I had never received an invitation and never wanted to visit the Castle. Too many chances I might not find the way back out.
The press conference led the six o’clock news. The camera showed Frost flanked by his leadership team.
“My brother, Lieutenant Amos Frost, was a troubled man,” he said. “The pressures of the job can wear on a man, and my brother took the responsibilities of his job very seriously.”
A Herald reporter asked the sheriff about his last phone conversation with his brother.
“He had recently separated from his wife and was tired after working nearly thirty-six hours without sleep on a special investigation. Then this article by Walker Holmes came out, questioning his character and professionalism. He offered to resign if I thought it hurt the sheriff’s office or me,” he added. “I told Amos to stop talking such foolishness and come into the office. I thought I had him settled down, and then the phone went dead.”
Frost appeared to be fighting back tears. He paused and gathered himself.
“We must do something about the sleazy tabloid journalism in this town,” Frost said addressing the reporters in the room. “Over a span of two weeks, we have had two suicides because of Walker Holmes and his Pensacola Insider. The man is a menace.”
The sheriff paused to let the words sink in. “Holmes hides behind freedom of the press and ruins lives and destroys this community. It’s time the law-abiding, Christian people of this county put this man out of business.”
I took two pain pills and went to sleep while I was thinking about the time I finally met Mari’s family.
Bringing your boyfriend or girlfriend home to meet your family was an Ole Miss tradition. No relationship was considered serious until that happened. Mari passed the test with my family effortlessly. Her dry sense of humor won over my dad, and her manners impressed my mom. When my younger brothers pranked her, Mari not only laughed it off, she pranked them back.
My family was easy. Mari’s would be a different story. She hadn’t brought many boyfriends home to meet her family—only two during her first two years at Ole Miss. The Rebel football player she dated before meeting me never was introduced to her family. There was a good reason. Mari’s father was a lifelong LSU season ticket holder for football, basketball, and baseball, and the boy wasn’t worth the headache it would have caused Mari.
She had chosen a different path, forgoing the Bengal Tigers for the red and blue Ole Miss Rebels. Her parents supported their only child and defended her choice to her grandparents, aunts, and uncles. But their love for Mari didn’t make it easier for the hated Ole Miss boys brought to Eunice, a little Louisiana town in the heart of the Cajun plains between Lafayette and Lake Charles.
Mari wouldn’t tell me much about her family. She said it would have given me an unfair advantage. This was a test, and she wouldn’t let me cheat.
The Gaudet family was old school. College boyfriends did not sleep under their roof with the daughter in a nearby bedroom. I would stay in the guest bedroom of Grandma Gaudet. Her family insisted I have breakfast with Mari’s grandmother Saturday morning. If she liked me, she would invite her twin sister and Mari’s uncles over to meet me. If not, I would pack my bags and head back to Oxford, like the last boy. Her dad would bring Mari back to the campus on Sunday.
We took my car to Eunice, arriving near midnight. I let her drop me off at her grandmother’s house, and her Uncle Tom, who still lived with his mother, showed me to my room.
At 6:00 a.m. I woke, showered, and found Grandma Gaudet sitting at the kitchen table impatiently waiting for me. In her sixties, she was dressed in a purple jogging suit with gold tennis shoes. Her eyes were the same bright blue as Mari’s, and her auburn hair had a little touch of gray at the temples.
“Good morning, Mrs. Gaudet. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
In a voice raspy from years of smoking Kools, she said, “Call me, Grandma.”
She poured me a cup of black chicory coffee. “Milk is in the refrigerator, sugar on the counter by the toaster.”
I drank it black, no need to complicate the morning any more than it would be. “Thank you, Grandma.”
She smiled. “Mari says you’re a writer. What have you written?”
I told her that I had interned with Commercial Appeal, the daily newspaper in Memphis.
“Did you cover any murder cases?” she asked.
I nodded and told her about a trial I covered that had garnered some national attention.
The case had started when two marines heard a woman screaming in the woods near the Millington Naval Base north of Memphis. Minutes later, a beat-up, green Mercury station wagon nearly ran them over. The car was familiar around the base. It was owned by an air conditioning technician who lived in base housing with his wife, an enlisted sailor.
A few hours later, law enforcement found the mutilated body of nineteen-year-old Lance Corporal Suzanne Marie Collins. Covered with over a hundred wounds, she had been violated with a tree limb that had been shoved so far into her body that it punctured a lung. The autopsy showed her skull had been fractured with a screwdriver.
The cops arrested the repair man. His attorney tried to convince the prosecutors that he suffered from a multiple personality disorder. All the networks picked up the story of the gruesome, senseless crime.
“You see the body?” she asked as she poured me a second cup of coffee.
“No, ma’am, but I did see crime scene photos and read the autopsy report,” I said, not mentioning how I almost vomited when I saw the photos.
She said, “Do you buy the story of his multiple personality that would mean he was too crazy to know right from wrong?”
“No, his story never made sense. He was wearing a bloody T-shirt when they arrested him. The screwdriver was found in his car. He claimed that he had been drinking at home. When he drove back to the liquor store, he accidently hit Collins who was jogging near the park, and he had offered to take her to the emergency room. He alleged that he couldn’t remember many details after she got into the car.”
I got up and added milk and sugar to my cup. “He said voices in his head told him to kill the girl. No one believed him, not even his wife and sister.”
Grandma Gaudet smiled. “You know, I once served on a jury in a murder case.”
It was then I knew I had won her over. Grandma Gaudet was an avid fan of true crime stories.
She told me about the trial. When she finished, Grandma Gaudet grabbed her gold handbag and said, “Come on, boy, we’re headed to the slaughterhouse to get breakfast. Everybody will be coming over soon.”
On Saturday mornings, locals crowded Eunice Superette & Slaughterhouse for fresh boudin. People lined up with coolers to fill with steaks and pork chops for grilling later in the day. We bought boudin for breakfast.
Grandma Gaudet spoke to everyone in line. They talked about the Friday night dance at the Knights of Columbus Hall and who drank too much and who left with who. She introduced me as Mari’s friend from college. After they shook my hand and moved on, she whispered to me juicy pieces of gossip about them.
Back at Grandma Gaudet’s house, I met her twin sister, Alice, and Mari’s uncles and their wives. The men worked on offshore oil rigs, one of the most dangerous jobs possible. They poked fun at me for being a liberal journalist but were impressed that I had spent the two summers before my newspaper internship working on road crews laying asphalt.
Their hands weren’t soft, and neither were mine.
Aunt Alice, the town librarian and family historian, gave me a quick tour of Eunice once we had finished our breakfast of boudin, saltine crackers, cracklin, and warm Pepsi.
The man who developed Eunice in 1884 had named the town for his wife, and in the center of town was a statue dedicated to its namesake. She looked like a Cajun Mary Poppins in a Victorian dress and hat.
Eunice’s claim to fame was the Cajun Music Hall of Fame. On Saturday nights, the locals headed to the Liberty Theatre for the best Cajun and zydeco musicians in Louisiana. WCJN radio broadcasted the performances across the state.
Alice showed me the town’s one-of-a-kind Nutcracker Museum, with a storefront that boasted the world’s largest collection of nutcrackers. We walked into a Cajun music souvenir shop located in between the theater and museum. The owner’s wife kept a sewing machine and spent her spare time making Mardi Gras costumes for everyone in town.
Around noon, Alice dropped me off at Mari’s home. I met her parents and the rest of her extended family. Grandma Gaudet kissed me on the cheek and gave me a warm hug.
Mari beamed when she saw me surrounded by all her relatives. She kissed me warmly and whispered in my ear, “Thank you.”
My alarm went off, and I awoke abruptly. I wanted desperately to go back to sleep and continue the dream, but no matter how hard I tried, I laid awake.