Billy: A Tale Of Unrelenting Terror (7 page)

His mother, Evangeline Theriot Vizier, wasn’t nearly as heartbroken as her only son. She was pissed off. The sorry excuse for a man she had made the mistake of marrying was a poor provider, a terrible husband, a lousy lover, and an absent father. He left his own son waiting night after night for his return without so much as a goodbye. Once again, he left the dirty work to his wife. The family was already three months behind on the rent, and by this time, their landlord’s patience had run out. Abandonment or not, eviction was inevitable.

Mrs. Vizier moved her and her son to a trailer park right outside of Plaquemine and managed to obtain work in a domestic capacity for one of the elderly ladies that lived up the road in an oversize plantation style home. She worked hard for long hours to give her son a stable environment at last. One of her proudest moments came when little Nicky was accepted into the Louisiana State University over in Baton Rouge. By this time, her poor child’s heart had been broken a second time when his high school sweetheart ran off with his best friend; once again, he was abandoned without so much as a note. Little Nicky had always been a misfit, never quite fitting in, always an outsider. Evangeline hoped and prayed that he would find happiness in his new life, wherever that might lead him.

When Nicholas left after graduation to seek his fortune in the quagmire of New Orleans, Evangeline worried about her son. He pursued a career in law enforcement in a city that knew ugliness and violence in ways that the small towns she was accustomed to could not fathom. He visited only rarely, the memories of his painful childhood too strong for him to bear. Evangeline understood. When her friends and neighbors commented on how sad it was that he abandoned his mother, she remained silent and never took it to heart. They didn’t know her son like she did. They could never understand what it was like for her son to never belong, to never have a real home.

When Nicholas arrived at the St. Gabriel Nursing Home, he learned once again the importance of timing. The staff quietly informed him of his mother’s passing two months prior. They assured him that every attempt had been made to contact him, but with the arrival of the two hurricanes and their aftermath, no one was able to get in touch with him. Nick stopped listening to their feeble explanations. He just wanted to know where she was buried.

He brought a small bouquet of fresh daisies, his mother’s favorites, and placed them at the site where her remains were laid to rest. Only a small cement stone in a field of stones indicated that his only relative had ever existed. It dawned on Nicholas that when his turn came, there would be no one left to mourn his existence. He didn’t care; there was nothing he had accomplished that warranted recognition, but his mother had been a saintly woman. She had given much more than she ever had received. She sacrificed her happiness and comfort for a husband who abused her and a son who abandoned her. He felt guilty for his shameful and selfish actions. He hoped that she understood how grateful he was for everything she had done for him and how much he had loved her.

"
Pauvre
’
Defante
’ Evangeline," Nicholas whispered into the wind as tears rolled down his cheek. "My poor sainted mother."

Chapter Ten

Welcome Back

"
B
obby’s in the back. Just wait here a minute and I’ll let him know you’re here. Mr. Vincent?" the deputy asked.

"Vizier, Nicholas Vizier," Nick corrected the man before sitting down in one of the uncomfortable wooden chairs in the lobby.

Deputy Arceneaux disappeared into the back room of the Sheriff’s Office for a few minutes and left Nick alone with his thoughts. He wasn’t sure if this was a good move on his part as he was certain some of his ill-gained notoriety followed him. Lieutenant Foster called ahead and gave him a good recommendation, Nick was sure of it, but he knew that the sheriff would make a few calls of his own. Louisiana law enforcement was a close-knit community and word got around quickly, particularly when it came to ‘rats’. Even so, Nicholas reasoned that no matter where he went, his reputation would follow him.

"Sheriff Galliano will see you now," the deputy called out, motioning toward the big office in the back.

Nick walked toward the sheriff’s office, pretending not to notice the stares from the other officers who, in turn, were pretending not to stare. Bad acting seemed to be a prerequisite for small town policemen.

"Mr. Vizier, pleased to meet you," the sheriff said, extending his hand.

After their introductions were completed, the two sat down, Nicholas trying to appear relaxed while the sheriff glanced through some file or another.

"Lieutenant Foster called," Galliano said aloud. "He gave you a glowing recommendation."

Nick just nodded and remained silent. He knew what was coming next.

"Of course, I made a few calls of my own," the sheriff continued. "Doesn’t look like you made many friends over in Orleans Parish."

"Internal Affairs never does, Sheriff," Nick answered.

"Nope, I don’t suppose they do. All the same, I don’t really think I have a need for any internal investigators at this time."

"I figured as much. That’s not why I’m here. My specialty is missing persons. My stint in the rat patrol was done as a favor to the previous police chief. As you probably know, the NOPD has had numerous problems with corruption and unfit officers. When some of my fellow officers began to end up on the wrong end of a gun, I was asked to help. I make no apologies for my actions. I did my duty. The investigations I was involved in were successful, which is why I have been maligned and despised throughout the unit. So be it."

"Then tell me, Vizier, just how successful are you with missing persons?"

"I haven’t solved them all, but I sure have made a dent, Sheriff. Sometimes you never find people. That’s just the way it is. I do, however, know what I’m doing and my record reflects that."

"Yeah, I checked on that, too. It does. The problem is, this ain’t the city. We are surrounded with swamps out here. It’s a whole different thing searching for folks in the swamp."

"Yes, sir, I suppose it is. I have been in the swamp plenty, Sheriff. I grew up out here. I might not be some swamp rat
coonass
with a hound dog nose, but I am resourceful."

"Well, you’re gonna have to be. We got a big problem ever since those storms came through. We have a backlog and not enough manpower or resources to tackle them."

"I look forward to the challenge, Sheriff. Does that mean you’ll take me on?"

"Now hold on, I didn’t say that. I might consider giving you a run and see how you do, but there are a few things we need to get straight first. Everyone ‘round here knows your rep. Not many people are going to be too happy to help you out. On top of that, seems you have a history of abandoning your priorities whenever things suit you."

"Now, just wait a minute, Sheriff."

"Don’t interrupt me, Vizier. I wasn’t finished. I did my research. I know all about you taking off and leaving your mother to languish out here all alone, college boy. It was my department that made sure she got the proper funeral, one in which you were nowhere to be found. I also know that you happened to be far, far away when Katrina hit. Your home was underwater and your precinct needed you. You were high and dry in the Rocky Mountains. Now, I am sure you have all kinds of reasons and excuses to back you up. I don’t want to hear them. Just understand one thing – you better be around when we need you. Got it?"

"Got it, Sheriff."

Nick was livid, but didn’t show it. He had a much better poker face than these rednecks; he needed one back in the city. Fuck this backwards hick, he thought. What the hell did he know?

"When can I start?"

"Right now. Deputy Arceneuax will show you to your desk. Don’t get too comfortable there either, I expect you to work for a living. I’ve got enough desk jockeys around here as it is."

Nicholas walked to an open area with several desks scattered around. The deputy brought him a box filled with assorted files.

"Good to meet you, Vizier. As you know, I’m Deputy Arceneaux. You can call me Dean. We got a doozie here for you to start on. It should be right up your alley."

The deputy unceremoniously dumped the heavy box on Nick’s desk and smiled to himself as he walked away. Nick was sure that he was being set up for failure; it was common to be initiated with a case no one wanted on your first day. It wasn’t the first time he encountered some impossible-to-solve cold case or followed up some mishandled clusterfuck of someone else’s making. It’s okay, thought Nick. I’ll just have to show these backwoods
coonasses
what a college-educated city-boy can do.

Chapter Eleven

Missing

I
t didn’t take long to understand why Galliano hired him on the spot, or why the sheriff needed Nick to start right away. There had already been a considerable backlog of missing persons files prior to Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, and now there were ten times the number. The region had been hit hard by the two storms, and resources were stretched thin.

Organization was an even bigger problem. Much of the population had been displaced, moving from here to there and back, which made it almost impossible to find any particular person at any particular location when needed. State records were often missing, many of them destroyed by the widespread flooding throughout the state, and although an influx of volunteers poured in from the rest of the country, sometimes this only made things more convoluted.

The current box on Nick’s desk attested to this. The more he read about the timeline of events and people involved in the case, the more Nick shook his head in dismay. Whatever could go wrong evidently did go wrong.

The trouble seemed to start when a family of ignorant
coonasses
refused to evacuate to higher ground prior to Katrina. When they were never heard from again, a rescue party was sent to find them. Naturally, the family lived deep in the swamp where only a few select and unavailable locals could find them. This did nothing to discourage the college-aged out-of-state volunteers from securing a boat and setting out into the wetlands without any idea of what they were getting into. Generation Millennium was the name the group gave itself at the time – proud of its mission and sure of its successful completion.

Nick almost found it amusing thinking about the ill-fated mission. He wondered how long it took them to get lost and how long after that before they realized what a terrible mistake they’d all made. Ah, the confidence and ignorance of youth, thought Nick. He could imagine some of his college buddies doing something just as stupid and how quickly things would have gotten terribly out of hand. The difference was, most of the people he went to college with were from Louisiana and had enough sense to stay out of the swamp.

When the search party never materialized again, a Coast Guard chopper was sent in to look for them. By the third day, the search was called off. Another hurricane was looming on the horizon. Hurricane Rita slammed into the coast on September twenty-fourth, less than a month after Hurricane Katrina made ground. By the time the worst was over and the water had subsided, too much time had passed to hold out much hope for the missing crew. The Coast Guard did their best, but nothing was ever found.

Nick leafed through the folders, each one containing a short bio and photo of the person missing. There was Corey Phillips, a twenty-four year old man from Akron, Ohio, who recently graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Biology. Probably the leader of the ill-fated mission, thought Nick, who imagined the boy mistakenly thought his classroom time and fresh diploma gave him some kind of expertise in the foreboding environment of the Atchafalaya Wetlands. Jeremy Wilson was a twenty-year-old Junior at Brigham Young University, a bright young man with a bright future who had lived his entire life in the deserts of Utah and had no business whatsoever trampling about the swamps in the Deep South during hurricane season. Margaret Evans was even younger, a nineteen-year-old girl from Iowa, who delayed her first year of college to volunteer with her church group to help the survivors of the devastated region recover as best they could. Ashley Gilmore rounded out the group. Ashley, a twenty-two-year-old pre-pharmacy student from Franklin, Tennessee, had expressed an interest in attending Xavier University in New Orleans and readily volunteered her time and energy in the area’s recovery with the realization that it might be her future home while she worked on her graduate degree.

Nick felt sorry for the missing volunteers and their families. Each of them had a bright future to look forward to, and each of them had made a valiant effort in giving their time in order to help others. It was sad that, in the end, they gave their young lives in the process. Nick knew that, by this time, the chances of any of them surviving in the hostile environment was pretty slim, as were his chances of finding out their fates. He shook his head as he rifled through the rest of the files in front of him. If it weren’t for those damn Cajuns refusing to evacuate, none of this would have ever happened, he thought. Finally, Nick found what he was looking for. He quickly determined that the source of all of the problems and the place where he would begin his investigation was one and the same.

"The St. Pierres," Nick said aloud to himself. He was determined that he would get to know them well.

Chapter Twelve

Dit Mon La Verite’

N
icholas started his investigation from his desk. He asked his fellow deputies what they knew about the missing youths and the St. Pierre family. Turns out, they didn’t know much. They all knew what everyone else knew about the missing kids, namely, that they went out into the swamp in a rented boat without a guide and a clue as to what they were doing and promptly got lost. Hurricane Rita came right at their heels and eliminated any chance of survival that they might have had. As yet, no trace of the group had been found. Nick was hired to find them, and as Sheriff Galliano put it, "he wasn’t going to find them sitting at his desk."