Murder Jambalaya. Lloyd Biggle jr.
have been. I took one step through the doorway, which moved me close enough to identify the initials on it—MDV. I had never seen it before, but I recognized it at once. I had tracked it—and Marc DeVarnay—across half the country before the trail fizzled out in Seattle. How it had got back here, and why, would supply food for cogitation while I waited.
I retreated cautiously, again following the wall. As I passed the kitchen corner, the pan on the camp stove caught my attention. It was a sturdy, stainless steel container with a copper bottom and a curved designer handle, and it looked brand new. It was another unlikely item for that address. Out of curiosity, I used my handkerchief and lifted its lid. The contents were covered with a mass of mold. A large spoon that lay on the table near the stove also was covered with mold; obviously it had been used to prepare the food. I took my pen knife and cleared the mold from a small surface area in the pan. I recognized the dish immediately from previous visits to New Orleans. It was a seafood jambalaya. I was able to identify shrimp and crawfish, rice, celery, and green pepper without stirring the contents.
For all I knew, every backwater Cajun had a personal repertory of favorite jambalaya recipes. The dish also can be thrown together without a recipe using whatever is at hand—ham or sausage instead of, or in addition to, seafood; a few chopped vegetables; rice; and all of the cook’s favorite spices. Even so, it seemed like an overly elaborate dish for Old Jake’s table, and that gave me one more thing to meditate.
I swiped three bottles of Blackened Voodoo Lager Beer from the carton of groceries, handling them with my handkerchief so as not to offend the fingerprint gurus. I managed to convince myself that Old Jake was a hospitable coot who would have approved. In any event, he wouldn’t be needing them himself. I took the beer outside, where I sat on the porch in Old Jake’s chair and sampled a bottle. It was heavy, dark, and full-flavored. It matched my mood perfectly. I was feeling heavy and dark myself. I had never experienced a case with such a damnable twist to it.
The MDV on the suitcase had to stand for Marc DeVarnay, the suitcase matched the description I had been given of the luggage the missing man had carried with him from New Orleans to St. Louis and then to Seattle, and there were at least three witnesses who had seen him with Old Jake. I sat there for a time sipping beer and trying again to imagine what Marc DeVarnay, a millionaire businessman who had no interest in either fishing or hunting, could have been doing down here in the swamp and bayou country. How had he managed to get acquainted with Old Jake? More to the point, why did he get acquainted with Old Jake? What business, either professional or personal, could a prosperous antique dealer have been conducting in Old Jake’s cabon? If his curiosity about Pointe Neuve real estate had been genuine, DeVarnay would have gone to a Realtor. Wandering about the area with Old Jake and asking passersby if any property was for sale would have been totally out of character for him.
As an exercise in deduction, this was like trying to work through a maze of one-way bayous, each of which wandered off into a swamp and vanished. They not only took me nowhere, but I kept losing my starting point. I could see only one certainty about the case. If I were to have the quiet, confidential conversation with Marc DeVarnay I so desperately needed, I would have to find him quickly. His mother was furious because the authorities were investigating his disappearance with what she considered ineptness and indifference. That was why she had hired expensive private detectives.
Even if it were true, it was no longer relevant. The moment the police learned DeVarnay had been seen with Old Jake, they would start looking for him in earnest. He would still be missing, but he also would be wanted for murder.
CHAPTER THREE
The idea of millionaire Marc DeVarnay hiding out in a fishing village had been startling enough, but it was nothing compared with the thought of him hobnobbing with Old Jake. After that, Old Jake’s body had provided the final, jolting climax, but it was actually just one more surprise in what now seemed like an endless series of surprises. The first had come a week earlier. I had gone to bed that night in Savannah, Georgia, replete—as the poets say—with plans for enjoying a lovely city I had never visited. Years before I had read about its intriguing pattern of squares, its historic waterfront, and its splendid old homes and gardens, and the place had fascinated me ever since. Finally my work had taken me there; unfortunately, it also kept me flitting about the suburbs with nary a glimpse of the central city.
The case involved missing heirloom jewelry, an unlikely assortment of heirs as suspects, a clutter of family feuds, and assorted nasty complications. One of the finest feats of my career was to deftly remove suspicion from a dearly hated daughter-in-law, a sweet girl who intensified the client’s enmity each time they met by having a mind of her own, and pin the crime on a much loved and trusted servant who had been with the client for twenty years.
I then brought off a much more difficult achievement by persuading my boss, Raina Lambert, to give me time off to enjoy Savannah. I planned my sightseeing agenda with more care than General Sherman had used in capturing the place in 1864, and I added several maneuvers the general hadn’t thought of such as discovering which bar served the best mint juleps and comparing dialects of southern fried chicken and candied yams at various restaurants.
I fell asleep thinking of appropriate elaborations such as the substitution of baked ham for the chicken and the extension of my research to pecan pie. When the phone rang, I stirred myself resentfully, picked up the receiver, and groaned, “Go away.”
Raina Lambert’s voice said, “I’ve made reservations for you. You can catch a night plane if you hurry.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told her. “Just this morning you gave me a week off. Remember?”
“That was then. Now you’re needed somewhere else. A New Orleans businessman has disappeared.”
“Not to worry,” I said. “Everyone disappears in New Orleans, but no one stays missing very long. People get confused by the fact that the bars there never close, and they lose track of time. Have you checked Bourbon Street?”
“The man’s name is Marc DeVarnay. He’s been gone for two weeks, and no one has any idea what could have happened to him.”
“Two weeks is a bit long for a binge,” I conceded.
“He has no vices at all. He even drinks with severe moderation.”
“Then he’s gone to heaven, which is outside our jurisdiction.”
Raina spoke in the firm tone bosses always adopt when they think an argument has gone on long enough. “Here’s the information on your flight reservation. I’ll have Mara Wilks meet you at the St. Louis airport with DeVarnay’s dossier and photographs.”
“St. Louis!” I exclaimed. “I thought you said New Orleans!”
“St. Louis,” she said firmly.
However remarkable the Gateway Arch may be, it is paltry compensation for losing both Savannah and New Orleans in one stroke. Resignedly I wrote down the details.
I made my plane with minutes to spare, but I had ample time during the remainder of the night, on planes and in airports, to mentally review all of the attractions I wasn’t going to see in the fascinating city of Savannah. At eight o’clock the next morning, instead of strolling down Bull Street to admire its historic squares, I was landing at the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, fairly launched on the wildest of wild goose chases, though I didn’t know that yet.
Mara Wilks, a thirty-five-year-old mother of three who could have passed for a high school student with some artful neglect of makeup and dress, was there with a thick envelope of material that had been faxed to her. A selection of photographs had been sent by overnight express.
“I’ll circle past the office and see if they’ve arrived yet,” she said.
While she drove, I occupied myself with reading about Marc DeVarnay. His credentials were the sort that make mothers of marriageable daughters drool—he was single, he was handsome, he was popular, he was successful in a business he loved, he came from a prominent old New Orleans family, and he was sole heir to ten million dollars.
Fate had been