The Murder Artist

CHAPTER 32

Days in the LaPlace courthouse, nights in the local Comfort Inn. Poring through the records, I drink gallons of coffee and work to keep the name Byron in the forefront of my mind. It would be easy to run right by the citation the way I’ve missed my turn and driven right past Ordway Street on my way home from work.

The third day, I’m on my way back to the motel when my cell phone rings.

It’s Pinky. “You in your car?”

“Yes.”

“Pull over.”

“What?”

“I’m excited and chagrined and a little disappointed, my man,” Pinky says, with a little bray of a laugh.

“What?”

“This search coulda really helped out with the unemployment statistics here in Louisiana.”

“Pinky.”

A sigh. “Yeah. Deal is I hired a woman to work St. Mary’s Parish. She’s off visiting her sister in Houston until today, but she’s worth waiting for because this lady is really smart. Schoolteacher. Anyway, the assignment from me is waiting on her fax machine when she gets home. Bingo. She calls me right off. Turns out, she knew the sumbitch. ‘Byron B.,’ she says to me. ‘Pinky, you can only be talkin’ ’bout Byron Boudreaux.’”

“You’re kidding.”

“‘Oh?’ sez me,” Pinky continues. “‘I think so,’ she says. ‘See, I grew up in Morgan City and right across the river they had this crazy kid name of Byron Boudreaux did some terrible stuff. I remember when they put that boy away because we all slept a little better. And it had to be round about 1983 or so because I was in high school at the time and I graduated in eighty-five. I think it’s just gotta be him, Pink.’ Sounds like it, I told her. So how ’bout that?”

I don’t say a thing. Byron Boudreaux. Having a name for the man who abducted my sons has in some way given focus to my torment and for the moment, I’m so inundated with emotion, I can hardly see. Byron Boudreaux. I’m going to squeeze the life out of him.

“Alex? You there?”

“Yeah,” I manage. “Good work.”

“Blind fool luck is what,” Pinky says. “By the way, Miss Vicky went ahead and put in for that commitment order, which is good because there might be other information on there of use to us. But it’s gonna take a couple days to get our hands on it. You gonna get yourself over here?”