The Evidence Room: A Mystery (17 page)

“I have an appointment with Mr. Beaumont.”

The woman took both of Aurora’s hands in her own. “Oh, sugar. You’re just as pretty as your mama. You don’t remember me, do you? Miss Pearline?”

She was too young to have been one of Raylene’s friends, not much older than Aurora. A childhood playmate? Aurora smiled. “I’m so sorry, I don’t remember.”

“Well of course you don’t! Oh honey, I prayed for you so many times. I’m the one that found you that night your mama went to be with the Lord. At Margie Belle’s.”

This was the woman who had called the police. Her rescuer. Aurora reached back into her memory of that night, but there was only Doc Mason and the morgue, and before that a terrible blank space. This woman could not have been more than a teenager that night; she must have been terrified. Aurora squeezed her hands.

“Thank you,” she said, the words painfully inadequate. “For what you did, for helping me that night.”

“Oh, honey,” Pearline began, but she was interrupted by the screech of the phone. She tottered back around the desk.

“Mr. Beaumont’s just finishing up a conference call.” She pointed to a shiny leather couch. “Y’all make yourself comfortable. This phone’s been ringing off the damn hook all day!”

Aurora took a seat by the window next to an older woman reading the newspaper. Above the bayou, clouds were beginning to gather in gray spirals. From here, the mini-mart and boat dock were barely visible through the fog. She imagined her father carrying her there, leaving her on the steps to be found. Why had he spared her? And if Doc Mason was right, was he completely innocent? She’d spent her entire life coming to terms with the fact that her father was a murderer, fitting this horrendous fact into the confines of her life, and now it was possible that he wasn’t. More questions cropped up at every turn. She could feel a headache coming on, something in her brain beginning to pulse along with the beat of the music from Baboon Jack’s. Aurora leaned back on the couch and glanced upward, where a framed row of records decorated the walls.

“He was real famous, you know.”

“Excuse me?”

“Mr. Beaumont,” the woman said in a half-whisper, peeking around the newspaper. “You ain’t never heard his song ‘Where I’m Bound’? It went to number seventy-one on the country music charts. He went to the Grand Ole Opry and everything when he was just an itty bitty thing. That man had a voice sweeter than honey when he was a little boy.”

“Now, Pearline, you’ve got to stop bragging on me,” a male voice said. “You’re going to scare away all my clients.”

Royce Beaumont was what Nicky would have called a silver fox. A tall man in his fifties, he wore a brown cowboy hat and a large belt buckle. He could have played the role of a cowboy if they needed an extra at Baboon Jack’s.

“Royce Beaumont,” he said, pumping her hand with enthusiasm, his voice deep and manicured. “And you must be Miss Atchison. Forgive me for staring, ma’am. You are just as lovely as your mother.”

“Thank you,” Aurora said. She would never get used to hearing this compliment, and she would savor it every single time. “Congratulations on those records.”

“Oh, that was a long time ago,” he joked, but he beamed at her, obviously enjoying the praise. “Please come in, away from all that racket.”

Aurora sat across from him in a red wingback chair. “It’s not the best location for an office,” he continued, “but it’s better than my old spot above Tee Tim’s bar. Especially on quarter beer night.”

“Different crowd here,” Aurora agreed.

“You’d be surprised at the amount of overlap,” Royce said with a smile. “Now, you’re here about your grandfather’s estate, correct?”

Aurora rummaged in her bag. “Yes. Luna Riley gave me your name. She said you could help me, file the will and all of that.”

He reached for the papers. “Well, sure. Luna’s kin are from Kervick County, and I met her down here at a conference. She’s a great lady. I’ll take a look at all this paperwork. I’m not surprised Hunter knew what he was doing when it came to this stuff. Smart man, your grandpa. I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Aurora gave the stock response and felt the familiar burn of her grief rising up in her throat.

“And what about this property? Spotted Beebalm Drive?”

“I spoke with a few Realtors, and I decided to go with Renee Trosclair. She’s going to help me sell it.”

Royce laughed. “Renee’s been wanting to sink her teeth into that property for months. I’m sure she won’t have any trouble. Have you been staying over there? It’s a beautiful house.”

Except for the person threatening me.
“It is,” she agreed. “I wish I could stay.”

“Careful what you wish for,” Royce said. “I’ve tried to leave this place a bunch of times. Something about the bayou, it always brings you back.”

“Are you from here?”

“Born and raised up the bayou,” he said. “Went out to Nashville for law school and opened up shop here. Just can’t get enough of this place.”

He clipped the papers and wrote something on a sticky note. “I should be able to get these filed tomorrow, then we can go from there.” He stood up and reached for her hand. “It was really a pleasure, Miss Atchison. I’ll be in touch as soon as this gets taken care of.”

“I appreciate it, Mr. Beaumont.”

“Please. Royce.”

She hesitated at the doorway. “Royce, can I ask you something?”

“Anything at all, Miss Atchison.”

“You knew my mother—and did you know my father too?” It was the first time she had asked anyone about Wade. Everyone in this town had information that might help as long as she was bold enough to ask.

Royce nodded. “I knew them both. Your mother was a real Southern belle—she was the prettiest girl in the room, but she could shoot and haul shrimp nets too. She was something else.”

“And my dad?”

He paused, as though searching for the right words. “If you’ll excuse my language, Miss Atchison, I hope that son of a bitch is dead for what he did to her. He was a piece of garbage.”

The venom in his voice surprised her, and it looked as though Royce noticed. He straightened up to his full height. “I hope you’ll excuse my manners, Miss Atchison. All these years later, and—well, I don’t have to tell you. A lot of people around here still miss her.”

“That means a lot to me,” Aurora said, and it was true.

He walked her to the door.

“There’s an emergency exit around back,” he said. “In case you got enough of Baboon Jack’s the first time around.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

She opened the door into the sunshine and found herself a few steps away from the bayou, now almost completely shrouded in mist, the view of the boat dock obscured. She had settled the will; the house was about to be sold. She had taken care of what she needed to do here. There was no reason not to return to New York on the next flight.

She took a few steps down the bank and stretched her feet down to the earth-colored water. Royce Beaumont was right, the bayou did draw you back. She’d started asking questions, and she wasn’t leaving until she had the answers.

She started her car and began to drive towards the morgue.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“I need to know Doyle Hudson’s room number.”

The man behind the glassed-in front desk at the Sweet Salvation Motel ignored Josh and dug the earbuds further into his ears. Two miles east of town, the Sal had been the place Doyle holed up with his mistress during the summers when they came to Cooper’s Bayou. A flamingo pink atrocity that attracted the seedier element, the city council had been trying to shut down the Sal for years, but Josh knew half of those guys had been here with a woman at some point in their lives, and so the place persisted. Blackmail was almost as powerful as voodoo around these parts.

Josh remembered his dad bringing him and Liana and Jesse here as kids, rolling down the windows of the Oldsmobile and telling them to play in the car while he went to a “business meeting.” Back then, the place had seemed almost glamorous to Josh, with its waterslide and luminescent soda machine. Liana had known what their father was doing but hadn’t let on, telling Josh and Jesse that the car was a spaceship, making up stories about the people who walked by, peering in the windows. The Sal had always been one of his father’s favorites. He was here, Josh was sure of it.

“Hey. Wake up. I’m a
cop
.” He slammed his police ID up against the protective glass, and the man sat up straight. “Where’s Doyle?”

“Never heard of him,” he smirked, his eyes glued to the screen of his cell phone.

“You know, I think I saw a couple of hookers, couple of drug deals going down in the parking lot out there. Why don’t I just make a call? I can have this place swarming with uniforms in five minutes flat. That should be great for business, right?”

“All right, all right, man. Let me check our guest registry.” He ran a finger down the seam of a coffee-stained ledger. “Hudson. Room 203.”

“Great.”

He took the stairs. His father had had nothing but time in prison, time to find Liana, the person who had put him there. What if Josh was too late?

“Doyle, open the door.” Josh smacked the door with his open palm. “Open the goddamn door.”

When there was no response, he tried the handle, and the door creaked open to reveal an empty room, the bedside lamp illuminating rumpled sheets. The place smelled like Josh’s childhood: last night’s whiskey and the tang of the kind of cologne you could get from dispensers in the men’s room at a bar. Various vending machine snacks and papers were scattered across the bed, as though he’d been sitting there reading something. Josh rifled through them. Most were copies of release forms, lists of places that hired Craw Lake alums.

“Josh Hudson. Didn’t expect to see you here.” Burdette Crumpler filled the doorway.

“Burdette.” Josh stood.

“Well, did I miss the family reunion?” Burdette wheeled himself inside and parked next to the bed. His face was coated in a sheen of sweat, and there were deep hollows underneath his eyes. Pills, Josh guessed.

“Doyle’s not here. Why do you need him?”

“I told you before, me and your daddy was friends. I was gonna get him a job on the boat. You know, help him get back on his feet.”

“Well, that’s very kind. Y’all must be the last people in town Doyle doesn’t owe money.”

Burdette snorted. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“So you talked to him today? Did he say where he was going?” Josh was standing over him now. “Did he say anything about my sister?”

“No, man,” Burdette shrugged. “He left me a message, told me he was staying here. I don’t know nothing about your sister.”

Josh pointed to Burdette’s backpack. “Well, let’s see what you got in there.”

“C’mon, man. I ain’t bothering nobody.”

“Let’s go.” Josh snapped his fingers, and Burdette tossed him the backpack.

Josh unzipped it. A lighter, a pack of cigarettes, a prescription bottle full of oxy with someone else’s name on it. At the bottom, a plastic bag slouched to one side, heavy with powder and secured with a sticky note.

“Well, I don’t need Dewitt the steamboat psychic to tell me what this shit is,” Josh said. “So are y’all making your own crank out there, or what?” Josh pulled the bag out and folded open the note.

Spotted Beebalm Drive.

Aurora’s address. Josh opened the bag and held it under the light. Orange powder. Cayenne pepper.

He crossed the room in two strides and grabbed Burdette’s collar, half lifting him out of the chair.

“Is this what you and your shithead brothers are doing for fun? Scaring a woman who’s alone?”

Burdette widened his eyes. “Josh, I swear on my mama’s grave,” he said. “It wasn’t me. Look at me. How the fuck am I going to do that?”

“You’d better tell me everything you know, Burdette. Right now.” Josh pointed to the backpack. “You tell me right now, or hillbilly heroin is gonna be the least of your goddamn problems.”

“I told Lionel not to do it, I swear,” Burdette held his hands up.

Lionel was the youngest Crumpler, not yet eighteen but already making a name for himself in town for all the wrong reasons.

“What did Lionel do?” Josh let go of Burdette’s collar and sat on the bed across from him, watching his face darken with fear.

“He told me he got a call from this guy, told him he’d give him five hundred bucks to scare Miss Aurora. You know, crank call her, scare her a little bit.”

“Is that why you had the powder?”

“He was afraid,” Burdette said. “He’s just a kid, Josh. He got out there to her house and started to spread the powder around, and he said someone else was at the house, so he ran off.”

“What was the powder for?”

Burdette shrugged. “Some voodoo thing. He was scared he didn’t do it right and the guy would be pissed, but he paid up anyway.”

“And you got no idea who this guy is.”

Burdette wiped a hand across his forehead, and for a moment, Josh was afraid he was going to pass out. “I only found out who it was today, I swear,” he said. “I told him our kin ain’t got no business with him and that the cops were looking for his sorry ass.”

“Who is it?”

“The devil himself,” Burdette said in a half whisper. “Wade Atchison.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

When you try to understand the universe, it will knock you on your ass every time.

James’s father had spoken those words many times. A shrimper by trade, but a philosopher too. The words echoed through his brain, and he raised his eyes to the bayou outside, where a single shrimp boat cut through the water, a veil of nets trailing behind. How strange, he thought. After all these years, he could still feel the grief pulling a cord tight in his chest. How strange that he could step back from all the other tragedies he had seen over these last twenty years, but the Atchison case had marked him for life, and now he held the answer in his hands.

The dark parallel bands of the DNA profile covered the entire first sheet of the documentation from the independent lab. They had been able to get a sample from skin cells underneath Raylene Atchison’s fingernails. It wasn’t necessarily a direct link to her killer, but it was a start.