From an article in Deadman Detective, ‘I Killed 3 Men and 2 Women on the Ole Miss!’, August, 1971, written by William ‘Bayou Billy’ McCall, edited by George Hathaway, pg. 16:
I Confess!
I killed 3 Men and 2 Women on the Ole Miss!
Bayou Billy Tells All From Inside a Federal Prison!
I killed my first man in 1930. His name was Bob, as I don’t recall his last name, and he aimed to take my coffee and beans from me. I took a sharpened screwdriver that I used for protection and used it upon him, not stopping until the man no longer wanted to steal from me. I don’t even remember what state I was in at the time. It was during this time that I rode the rails and the river boats, worked for whatever farmer or dock boss who would have me, and slept under the stars. In the winter, I went south, as far as New Orleans. In the summer, I went as far as Minnesota once, and it’s as cold as a witch’s elbow even in the summer time. Many folks were starving and more folks wanted to take from you what you had. I stole when I had to steal, when I was hungry, and when I needed something I couldn’t get any other way. Bob, as I recall, was one of those men who would steal anything from anyone. Not because he needed it particularly, or because he was desperate. It was just the way he was, and up until that point in time, Bob and I got along just fine. It didn’t matter to him at all that the coffee grinds had been used three times before or that the beans were a week old and smelling poorly. So he attacked me in the night whilst I slept. I took the screwdriver from under my pack where I lay my head and stabbed him while he attempted to strangle me. If the situation had been reversed I would have hit him over the head with a large rock and then he would have no chance of defending himself with a weapon such as the shiv that I had. It pays real good to have the advantage over a fellow who wants what you’ve got.
The Present
Friday, July 14th
Albie, Louisiana
The plan was simple. Ophelia Rector would go to Shreveport and as the owner and head funeral director of Rector Mortuary, she would claim William Douglas McCall’s body before anyone got a notion in their heads to do anything else with him. After all, the order of priority was clear. The manner in which events were occurring was utterly wonderful. The day was like a fresh breath of spring air. It felt absolutely glorious to be alive.
“So where is his will?” she asked absently. Of course, there would be a will, with a clear executor, who would merely need the proper incentive to put the man where he rightfully deserved to lie in his eternal slumber.
Tom Carew, the mayor of Albie, Louisiana, dithered. “I don’t know,” he said, at last.
Ophelia perked up and not in a good way. It was Friday morning. The sky was brilliantly blue. Albie’s City Hall building looked clean and alive as she had entered it, greeting people amicably, and Tom had seen her immediately, as if he knew exactly for what she had come. After all, he’d very likely read The Sawdust City Journal the day before. It was the only local newspaper for the two towns and included news on both sides of the Sabine River.
“You don’t know,” she said slowly. She was standing in Tom’s office, looking at his framed bachelor of arts in underwater basket weaving diploma or whatever the major had been, and creating Bayou Billy’s astonishing monument in her head. Ophelia turned and gave Tom a look that would have frozen solid the devil’s ass in an instant.
Tom shivered involuntarily. “Bill always said he wanted to be buried here,” he replied feebly.
Ophelia pursed her lips. On this particular day she was dressed in a bashful pink Ralph Lauren linen jacket which covered up a pink lace tank top and she was wearing matching bashful pink linen pants with a pair of gold metallic sling back sandals. Her purse was a Kate Spade calfskin hobo. Her makeup was skillfully applied and she appeared to be ten years younger than she actually was. If a passing stranger had seen her, then they might have guessed she was a wife of a wealthy land owner, a socialite, a woman of means, and little to do but play at charities and the political event. They would have been drastically wrong in their assessment.
“Do you happen to know anything about funereal law in the state of Louisiana, Tom?” she asked carefully, calmly transferring her gaze to her hands as she examined her French manicured nails for chips.
Tom scooted forward in his seat and cautiously considered his answer. “Well, I buried my daddy last year. You remember. You took care of the details. A right fine event. Daddy would have liked it himself.” He chuckled weakly as if he hoped the sentiment would be catching. It wasn’t.
A wintry smile crossed Ophelia’s lips. Repeat business was the best way of keeping Rector Mortuary going that there was; people were always going to continue to pass into the great unknown. Just as Tom Carew’s father, Earnest, had done. Just as his wife, Francine Carew, had done a few years previously. Just as Bayou Billy had done.
“Was there any disagreement about what was to be done with your father’s mortal remains, Tom?” Ophelia finished her fingernails and turned back to face the mayor of Albie. It was a rhetorical question, but Tom felt as if he had to answer anyway. The first and major rule of being a politician was to say as little as possible, but when it came to speaking with Ophelia Rector, inane words spilled forth helplessly from Tom’s mouth.
“No,” he said. “Sis and I were agreeable on that. Daddy wanted to be right next to Mama in Albie Cemetery. Not cremated or anything like that. Solid oak coffin. Memorial service at the Methodist Church. The church choir singing some of Daddy’s favorite hymns. He pretty much spelled it out years before. You know that, Miz Ophelia.”
“I do know that,” she admitted firmly. “And William Douglas McCall stated to you that he wished to be buried in Albie, as well?”
“Many times,” Tom said. An uncomfortable expression crossed over his visage as he was about to admit something that he would have never admitted to doing in public. “In exchange for…certain liberties.”
Ophelia frowned. “Liberties.”
Tom shifted painfully. It appeared as though he had hemorrhoids and no anti-itching cream in sight.
“Liberties?” Ophelia prompted.
Tom looked around him as if something would happen that would save him from having to answer to Ophelia Rector. Perhaps a meteor would fall from the sky. But there was nothing and he finally spat out the words in a vomitive heap. “We didn’t bill him for light, water, or trash in the last decade or so. He also didn’t pay a dime of city taxes.” Shrugging his shoulders with disgust, he paused and then went on apologetically. “Once a person reaches a certain age their taxes are rescinded indefinitely. He was a thousand years old, for God’s sake. It would have been like taking a Milk-Bone away from a Cocker Spaniel puppy.”
“You made an arrangement with him,” Ophelia let the words roll of her tongue with a sniggling amount of pleasure of the information. “Tit for tat.”
“Well, his dead tit for our free tat,” Tom nodded. “We knew from the beginning that having Bill’s body here would be good for tourism. Bill wanted it that way, and we thought it was a good investment.”
“But you don’t know if he put it down in a will,” Ophelia said.
“I’ll call his lawyer. I know I recommended the guy when Bill divorced his sixth wife, or was it his fifth?” Tom said quickly. He reached for his phone so quickly he knocked it on the floor. While he held the phone receiver in one hand and flipped through his rolodex with the other, he said, “Can I get my girl to get you some coffee, Miz Ophelia?”
Ophelia didn’t say a word. She merely stared at him.
“I guess that’s a no,” Tom said. His eyes focused on the little Rolodex pages. “Okay, here we go. John Heggenstaller. He’s got a little practice in Natchitoches. He’s…uh…” Tom’s eyes came to rest on Ophelia’s face and his words died out. He dialed the number as speedily as he could.
Precisely ninety seconds later, Tom had his answer. It wasn’t the one he wanted. He said goodbye to John Heggenstaller, Esquire, and reluctantly put the phone back into the base unit.
“No will,” Ophelia said coldly.
“John says that Bill didn’t care for the idea of a will, although he tried to get him to write one on more than one occasion.”
“Then were there instructions as to the disposition of the corporeal vestiges?” Ophelia went on benignly.
“Corporeal vestiges?” Tom looked confused. “Oh, you mean Bill’s body. John said that Bill never told him one or the other. All John did was to handle the one divorce and a property dispute with one of his neighbors. I believe he also used John to sue someone about a girl who had slapped him upside his head when he grabbed her…uh. Never mind.”
“Then we come back to our original question that I posed to you,” Ophelia said quietly. “What do you know about Louisianan funerary law?”
“Not much,” Tom said pathetically, wishing he was a hapless, brainless mushroom blithely growing in a faraway rain forest.
“I’ll explain it to you.”
“Oh, good.” The words came out exactly the way Tom meant them, slightly tinged with cynicism and more than dripping with reluctant acceptance that he had categorically no choice in the matter.
“I’m quoting to you from Title 8, Chapter 10 of the Louisiana Revised Statute, ‘Except in cases of lawful dissection or where a dead body shall rightfully be carried through or removed from the state for the purposes of interment or cremation elsewhere, every dead body of a human being lying within this state, and the remains of any dissected body, after dissection, shall be decently interred or cremated within a reasonable time after death.’” Ophelia looked carefully at the diamond ring on her left hand. It needed to be cleaned. Two karats was just the correct image she wanted to project, but it didn’t work if the diamond didn’t glitter intensely.
“Okay,” Tom said. “Bury him fast.”
“Correct. Then most importantly, ‘The right to control interment, as defined in R.S. 8:1(26), of the remains of a deceased person, unless other specific directions have been given by the decedent in the form of a written and notarized declaration, vests in and devolves upon the following in the order named: (1) The surviving spouse, if no petition for divorce has been filed by either spouse prior to the death of the decedent spouse.’”
Ophelia paused and said, “Mr. William Douglas McCall had no written, notarized declaration, and no surviving spouse, so that’s that with that section.” Then without hesitation, she resumed quoting, “‘(2) A majority of the surviving adult children of the decedent, not including grandchildren or other more remote descendants.’”
Ophelia stopped again. “All of Mr. William Douglas McCall’s children are deceased and that’s the end of that.” Then she went back to the quoting, “‘(3) The surviving parents of the decedent.’ Well, he was 110 years old and that’s more moot than a serial killer saying he’s sorry to his murder victims.
‘(4) A majority of the surviving adult brothers and sisters of the decedent.’ Ditto for that. Mr. William Douglas McCall’s siblings are all deceased and have been for a long time. And finally, ‘(5) A majority of the adult persons respectively in the next degrees of kindred as established in Civil Code Article 880 et seq,’ which is the nitty-gritty of the matter.”
“You memorized all of that,” Tom said incredulously. “Holy shit. I had a hard time with the National Anthem.”
“It’s my job,” Ophelia said scathingly.
“So how many adult persons do we have to find?”
“In order of descendants, parents, siblings, siblings’ descendants, ascendants starting with the deceased’s grandparents, and finally collateral relatives, in the nearest degree of kinship to the decedent.”
Tom looked blank. “Do you have to find all of them? I mean, can’t you find one grandkid that doesn’t give a flapping, flying crap and get that one to sign over the body to the town?”
Ophelia thought about it. The day wasn’t as wondrous as it had been before. There was a shade of bother to it that hadn’t been there before. It seemed as if the swift collection of William Douglas McCall’s earthly residue wouldn’t be as unproblematic as she had anticipated. “Do you know any of Mr. McCall’s grandchildren?”
Tom scratched his head. “Bill had a way of…alienating folks. Especially relatives. That’s why he had so many wives. The only reason that the last one stayed married to him so long was that she was mostly deaf. Apparently real forgiving, too.”
“She lived in Sawdust, right?” Ophelia asked the question but didn’t really need the answer.
Nodding Tom, added, “Bill’s mistress lived in Albie. Once Bill went into the home in Shreveport, Lenore, that’s her name, cleared out and went to California to live with her daughter.” He grimaced. “On account that Bill didn’t want to marry her. Guess he’d had enough of that particular institution. Seven times after all. I draw the line at once, myself.”
“That’s just peachy,” Ophelia said acerbically. “We need blood relatives, preferably grandchildren.”
“I’ll call John back,” Tom said weakly.
After another ten minutes Ophelia was reading a book on the mayoral duties of a Louisianan citizen and wondering if she could borrow it for the rare occasion that she had trouble getting to sleep at night. Tom hung up the phone with a tired wheeze.
“Wow,” he said, examining his scribbling on his desk calendar. “Bill had ten children. The oldest was born in 1920 and the youngest in 1964. All are dead, as you’ve said. The ten children had six grandchildren, some of whom were older than various uncles and aunts. Five of those grandchildren are dead, too. John said that Bill’s siblings had children, that would be Bill’s nieces and nephews, and he doesn’t have a clue where they would be located. I’ve got the name of a historian who specialized in Bill’s family. I believe he wrote a book about Bill. And perhaps we can talk to Lenore, Bill’s last mistress, to see if she knows where Bill’s relatives can be located. We could look in his house just as soon as-”
Ophelia slammed the book shut and threw it unceremoniously upon Tom’s desk. He flinched and wondered if his paperwork was all in order. He thought that perhaps it wasn’t and sincerely hoped to live through the day. She looked at him again and the anger cooled somewhat with her reflection. She said with deliberation, “So if none of these children, grandchildren, et cetera, are about, or were of a mind to be family-like with William Douglas McCall, then they won’t be rushing in to claim the body.”
Tom didn’t think that was a question but he nodded regardless. “Wouldn’t they have to prove a relationship?”
“Of course, they would,” Ophelia said with an abrupt bright smile. “Surely they would. Unless their last name was McCall, and they had birth certificates, marriage certificates and assorted official paperwork, they would be hard pressed to do so.”
“So what happens to Bill in the meantime?”
“The state searches for relatives,” Ophelia said carefully, thinking about the process. “When they can’t find any, and I’m not sure if they’ll have better luck than we would. In fact, I think they would probably give up after a cursory search and question period, with perhaps a write-up in the paper, then the state or parish is obligated to bury the body in a pauper’s grave, unless someone offers to pay for the funeral and interment. Perhaps it would be someone who has the proper facilities and means to give said honored and deceased individual the farewell that his legend deserves.”
“O-kay,” Tom said. “I reckon you mean Rector Mortuary.”
“Of course, I do,” Ophelia said with a snap. “Who else would want Bayou Billy?”