The Murder Artist

CHAPTER 37

On the drive back to Morgan City, Pinky’s OnStar phone rings. The system is hands-free and broadcasts over the BMW’s sound system.

“This is Pinky.”

“Mr. Streiber?”

“Jez – is that you? The fair lady of Plaquemines?”

“C’est moi.”

“I’ve got Alex Callahan in the car with me, so don’t talk dirty.”

“Hello, Mr. Callahan. Matter of fact, I’m calling about you.”

“Hello, Jezebel. What’s this about?”

“Mr. Streiber asked me to look and see if I could find the discharge order concerning Byron Boudreaux. ’Course, I couldn’t. It went up in flames when the courthouse burned down. But I found the next best thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Who’s that. A psychiatric nurse who worked out at the asylum. Worked there eight of the years Byron was there. Knew all about him.”

“Jezebel, you are a wonder,” Pinky says.

“Oh, yikes, it wasn’t hard,” Jezebel says. “I just asked my daddy and he asked his girlfriend and she asked her stylist. Anyway, like that. Finally I get to this person.”

“So who is she? You got her number?”

“Well, that’s the thing. She’s a little bit afraid of Byron. So I’m not supposed to disclose her name. I promised.”

“Jezebel-”

“I won’t tell you, so you might as well save it. A good reporter can’t disclose her sources. Place like this, nobody’s ever gonna talk if you give ’em out.”

“You’re not a reporter, Jez.”

“Well, I will be. I’m in training. Anyway, you interested in what I found out? Or not. Because I want to watch Sex and the City. It’s on in ten minutes.”

“We want to know,” I say.

“You still have to pay me,” she says, “even if the source remains anonymous. I spent three whole hours on this.”

“That’s fine,” I tell her.

“Here’s the deal. Wait a minute. Is this safe over the airwaves like this?”

“You said you weren’t going to disclose the source.”

“Right. So okay. Byron was a busy little bee while he was at Port Sulfur.” Her voice changes and it’s obvious that she’s reading from notes. “First thing, he earned his G.E.D. at eighteen – because he never did graduate, right. He dropped out. Six years later, he earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology – this is all by correspondence courses. Two years after that, he got his master’s. His thesis subject was ‘Prayer and the Placebo Effect.’ He led a Bible study class at Port Sulfur. Byron also had a lot of hobbies; the therapists are real big on that. One was origami. That’s folding up little critters and shapes out of paper, in case you’re not familiar. And he learned to be a magician – although Miz Ma – uh, my source – she said he already knew how to do lots of card tricks and stuff when he came in. Apparently, he just spent hours and hours practicing his tricks. And he had classes for the other patients. And they let him give shows and all. And at these performances, the staff came; they even invited guests – that’s how good he was. Professional level. My source told me everyone agreed that Byron was just about as good with a deck of cards as… let me see, I lost my place – oh, here we go… he was every bit as good as Ricky Jay.” A pause. “Who’s Ricky Jay? Never heard of him.”

“He’s a magician,” I say. “Quite well known.”

“Well, I guess that’s not part of my cultural matrix,” Jezebel replies. “Magicians, I mean. Anyway,” she continues, “Byron had lots of hobbies and he also read like a demon. And on account of he was enrolled in these university courses by correspondence, he could get books from libraries through the City University of New Orleans. They’d send them. My source, she couldn’t remember what all Byron read because it was soooo much, but he read lots about magic and history and religion. And psychology, of course, since that was his major.”

“Right.”

“He petitioned for release starting, like, the very first year he was in care, but he didn’t get anywhere until ninety-four. That’s the first time the release committee really considered his case, even though he was kind of a poster boy, getting those degrees and all. And according to my source, even though he did kill his own father, there were files and files and files about the abuse Byron’s supposed to have suffered at the hands of his daddy when he was a kid. They didn’t really believe that, but…”

“With the man dead, they couldn’t entirely discount it, either,” Pinky puts in.

“Right. So his case came up again the next year, ninety-five, but there was a holdout on the committee didn’t want to let him go. That person moved or something, or retired – my source couldn’t remember – so when it came up again in ninety-six, they decided Byron was sane, or sane enough anyway, and not a danger to himself or the community, that it was time to let him go.”

“What changed their minds?”

“Time,” Jezebel says. “More than anything else. It’d just been so long, for one thing. And there’s all that supposed abuse he’d suffered at Claude’s hands – this was still at a time when people were buying that as an explanation for all kinds of stuff. Plus he was a juvenile when he was committed, plus he’d done so well with his studies and all. They decided his act against his father was prompted by, let’s see, uh… ‘transitory conditions’ – and that he was not likely to commit similar acts.”

“Did Byron have any friends inside? Any special friends?” I ask.

“See, I knew you’d ask that,” Jezebel says.

“And?”

“Charley Vermillion, right? You want to know if he was a special friend of Byron? And the answer is that Byron did spend time with Charley. Charley was in Byron’s Bible study class, for one thing. And this was a real close group, according to my source. Byron was also some kind of nuthouse lawyer, mostly for the folks in his Bible group. Helped them file petitions and all. Helped them contact lawyers. I didn’t think to ask who all was in the group. You want to know?”

“Yeah, I would,” I tell her, “if you can find out.”

“You’re breaking up,” Jezebel says. “Whereabouts are you, anyway?”

“Near Houma,” Pinky says.

“I can’t hear you. I’m going to my friend Felicia’s now to watch TV. Call me tomorrow or something.” She hangs up.

“Hmmmm,” Pinky says. “That young lady is dynamite.” He makes a right turn. There’s no road noise with the BMW. I find this a little strange, as if we’re gliding through space. “Between Max and his friend Sam, and Jez, we learned a lot today.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe that list of Bible study people will give us a lead.”

“Maybe.”

“Why are you so quiet? You’re not thinking of going out to that witch doctor’s tonight, are you? Don’t be foolish, pardner.”

We roll past a gas station selling superrealistic framed artwork, paintings on glass so realistic they mimic photographs – except for the fact that every detail is in hyperfocus and the colors are unnaturally bright. Woodlands and birds and bright blue streams. The flag is a feature in many of them, along with the bald eagle. Each one has its own light source, and they glow brightly, attracting a mist of bugs. A couple of women contemplate one of the works while a man in shorts and a tank top sits on a folding chair, smoking a cigarette.

We roll on in companionable silence for some time. Pinky flips on the sound system. Half a minute of Beausoleil, and he flicks it off again. “I mean it’s one thing to throw caution to the winds,” he says, “and go all out looking for your boys. But it’s another thing to head to a shack in the swamp to spend the night with some motherfucker ain’t got no lip. And the only thing you really know about him is he was the only friend old Byron had, and – I might add – the likely source of the poison killed Claude.”

I don’t say anything.

“I’m going with you then.”

“I think it’s better if you don’t. That way, if I don’t come back, you can-”

“Call the po-lice? Jesus, Alex.”

“I just have a feeling Diment might have some idea where Byron is.”

“And he’s gonna tell you?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But I got the feeling he might help me.”

“I didn’t get that feeling at all. Those folk coughin’ away in that other room? All those things tied up with string. That spooked me out good. And you’re supposed to go there at midnight? Put yourself in his trust. Whoa! Not this puppy. Explain to me why you would trust him? What about the man seems trustworthy, pardner? Huh?”

“I know what you’re saying.”

Pinky lets out a jet of air. “How you plannin’ to get out there? You even remember how to go?”

“I was thinking… a cab. And maybe you could draw me a map.”

“I’ll draw you a map. But forget the cab. I’ll give you my car.”

“I can’t take your car. What about you?”

“I’ll be asleep. I’ll have me some breakfast right at the Holiday Inn. Read the paper. You don’t call or show up by noon or so, I’ll sound the alarm. Anyway, call it an insurance policy.”

“What do you mean?”

“First of all, it’s easy to track the car. OnStar has this GPS system. Second thing is that the po-lice around here might not jump into action if some guy from Washington, D.C., gets hisself lost in the swamp.” He glances over at me. “Some of our officers might not have the utmost respect for human life. But a sixty-thousand-dollar vehicle? Something like that goes missing, you see some action then, all right.”