34
Heather was awake when I got back and was sitting by the motel room window sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup. “So,” she said with a pout, “do you need me on this case?”
“More than you know. But you were deep asleep, practically unconscious. Besides, I thought my first meeting with Pastor Ventrie ought to be solo. I didn’t want him to feel double-teamed.”
Satisfied she wasn’t being cut out, Heather perked up. “Find out anything useful?”
“Predictably, the pastor sought legal advice. He can’t talk unless that church member of his gives him the go-ahead. It sounds like the member thinks his telephone line might be tapped.”
“Not legally. Unless there’s a warrant.”
“Good grief, do you think this church member’s involved with child abduction?”
“Don’t know. If he is, right there is a basis for the warrant. But maybe there is no warrant, and someone just thinks he knows too much.”
“Why don’t the cops bring him in for questioning?”
“Deputy St. Martin could be playing this cagey. He’s a member of the pastor’s church.”
“Sure . . . or maybe he’s covering this up, just like I suggested. An interchurch conspiracy.”
“Then why would the pastor invite me to breakfast and discuss it with me? And why would Deputy Ben St. Martin make that call to the pastor right in front of me? I’m seeing transparency, not conspiracy.”
She didn’t look convinced.
I said, “I’m not pressuring you to believe the way I do. But there’s no need to be so suspicious. Not every person who uses ‘Jesus’ as a proper noun rather than a swearword is a crackpot.”
“I’m not a raving secularist.”
“Of course not. But you do cast a jaundiced eye at all of us Bible-thumpin’, devil-fightin’ members of God’s army of crazed zealots . . .”
I got a smile from her.
I said, “I think these are good people down here. Trying to do the right thing. They may be facing an enemy of overwhelming force.”
“You want to elaborate on that?”
I suggested that we cruise around Port Sulphur. We had a little time to kill while waiting to hear whether anything would come from my meeting with Pastor Ventrie.
We drove down Levee Road, past the little clapboard church that was Pastor Ventrie’s. I slowed to take a long look at the greenish-brown water of the Mississippi on the other side of the road. And as I did, I had a thought. Something had to be checked out, but I needed a place to park. The small parking lot of the church was as good as any.
I had Heather pull the travel map out of the glove box; then I asked her, “Show me where the river ends, due south from here.”
A minute later, with her finger on the spot, she said, “Port Eads. Like we said before.”
“It makes sense.”
“Meaning . . .”
“Funny. Always wanted to compete in the famous billfishing tournament there, down where it pours into the Gulf of Mexico.”
“You’re thinking about fishing? In the middle of this case?”
“Not really. I’m after bigger fish.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a man strolling toward us from the church. It was Pastor Ventrie. He bent down at the driver’s-side window, waved to me, and then eyed Heather. I rolled down the window, said hello, and explained that I was using his parking lot to study our travel map.
By the look on his face, he had a crisis on his mind. “This must be providential, you being here. I was on my way to your motel. My church member . . . He was here this morning, waiting for me. This is so hard for him . . . but urgent, too. It just weighs heavy on the heart, Mr. Black. This whole thing.” He glanced at Heather.
I introduced my daughter and explained she was my “investigative assistant.”
The pastor launched into it. “His name is Henry Bosant. He’s a boatman and ship’s mechanic. Worked the river from here up to New Orleans. He was known as pretty much of a roughneck around town. He served time in jail. But praise God, he has come to Christ. His heart’s burdened; the Spirit’s been whisperin’ to him. Now, he wants to talk.”
He plucked a piece of paper out of his pocket and quickly sketched a map, giving us directions north up Highway 23 to a location where Henry said he would be waiting for me.
“It’s off 23, along Diamond Road, and then straight toward the banks of the Mississippi until you see a sign for an old cemetery.”
“We’re meeting in a graveyard?” Heather blurted out.
“Not really,” he said. “But it used to be. Back in the 1940s there was a major flooding of the river, and when the water subsided, they decided to dig up all the graves and move them farther inland. Folks call it Dead Point.”
I asked, “Why are we meeting there?”
“An expression of remorse on his part, I truly believe.”
I thanked him. He pledged to “pray us all the way to Dead Point.” His last words were “Be careful. Be safe. These are dangerous times. So you be of good courage, Mr. Black.” Then addressing Heather, he said, “And you too, young miss.”
It was a short drive from Port Sulphur north along the river and just past Fosters Canal, where we turned off 23 and onto Diamond Road and cruised slowly with the Mississippi on our right, bursting into view from time to time through the overgrowth. We drove until we spotted a dirt road cutting through a tangle of scrub brush. We could see, fifty feet away, there was a sign made of gray, warped metal that arched over the dirt road. At close view the lettering on the sign was legible, but only as a ghostly trace.
River Bend Cemetery.
There was a rusted gate made of metal tubes, like a farmer’s gate, and it could have blocked us from entering. But not that day. The gate had been swung open.
After we bumped along the root-infested dirt path in our Mustang, the scrub brush disappeared and the river lay before us. A white utility truck was already parked there at the banks of the river. A man was leaning against the truck, smoking a cigarette.
I parked and turned to Heather. “Stay in the car. Let me do the talking. If I give you the signal, you can join us. But not before I signal you. Understood?”
She agreed, and I trotted up to Henry Bosant, a short man in his fifties with a tan, creased face and fingernails darkened with grease.
As we shook hands, I said, “I understand you have something to tell me.”
Henry took one more drag, then tossed the cigarette down and crushed it. “Gotta kick that ol’ habit now,” he said. “My body’s the temple of the Holy Spirit. Goin’ to quit. But not today. Too much on my mind . . .”
I invited him to tell his story any way he wanted.
He didn’t have a problem telling it. To me, even though I was neither a policeman nor a priest, it felt as if I was hearing his confession. And it became clear, almost immediately, why he had picked that particular spot to tell it.
“You know, Mr. Black, why they call this place Dead Point?”
I explained the little history I knew about it.
“Well,” he continued, “this was the very spot where I knew it for sure. How I knew my soul was stone-cold dead inside. And all them others? Well, they was dead too. They just didn’t know it.”