Eric Wilder's Blog, page 7

DAYS OF DISCO

In 1977, I was freshly divorced and working in a high-stress job as a petroleum geologist—"A new drilling prospect every week or you’re fired!" Nights would find me in a disco called Clementine’s, a club located in the basement of Oklahoma City’s Penn Square Mall. The place was dark, the music loud, the drinks and women loose. I was usually inebriated, or well on my way to getting there.

Yes, it was in the post-Vietnam, pre-AIDS era. Practically every night I'd spend hours line dancing to the anthems of Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer, and KC and the Sunshine Band. 1977 was the year I first saw the movie Saturday Night Fever and fell in love with the music of the Bee Gees.

There were two ways to enter Clementine’s: walking down a narrow flight of stairs, or sliding down a chute. Either way got you to a living fantasy.

You’d wind up in a huge open room illuminated by a rotating disco ball, colored strobe lights that warped your reality even if you weren’t yet drunk or stoned, and a few discreetly placed floor lamps that provided little more than dim haze. Most of all, there was a pressing multitude of warm bodies and the sounds of disco belting out the message of freedom, expression and free love.

A huge bar extended across the front of the room where three bartenders served drinks as fast as they could pour them. The dance floor of diamond-shaped black and white tiles was rarely empty; the occasional cooling fingers of vapor rising from grids in the floor made the swaying dancers seem like uninhibited creatures from Hell’s nether regions.

The dance floor was like hypnosis, insanity, and blasting sound. Bodies crushed together amid the beat of drums as ancient as the continent of Africa. Once, across the crowded dance floor, I saw a beautiful young woman staring at me. Our eyes locked. We danced toward each other. She passed me a note with her phone number. When I called her the next day she invited me for spaghetti. I showed up with flowers and a bottle of wine.

Marti was her name. At least that's what I'll call her. A single mother, she had a five year old son named Chris. We ate pasta and drank wine by candlelight. I helped her with the dishes and then she put Chris to bed. We made love in her bedroom.

"I want to thank you," was her unexpected reply as we lay in her little bed.

"My pleasure," I said.

"You don’t understand," she explained, sensing my flippancy. "I’m in remission from cervical cancer. You're the first man I’ve slept with since having the surgery. I’ve been so worried I would never have feelings again. You proved me wrong. I thank you for that."

Confused and too young, or stupid, to understand the depths of her message, I contributed little more than small talk before saying goodbye and disappearing into the night. I never saw her again and I don’t think she wanted or needed me to.

Those were the days of disco, my days of disco, for whatever that means. Some people have suggested that disco isn’t cool and people that liked it were somehow less than intelligent. I don’t think so. It was a magical era and we were just as human and vulnerable as any young person today.

And I know this. Whenever I hear Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer or the Bee Gees, I find myself back on that same dark dance floor, with wisps of vapor cooling sweat dripping down my neck as I pulsate to a message of love and coming together. And when I do, I feel like sliding down that chute.

END


Eric Wilder is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series. Check out all his books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook

WILD MAGNOLIAS - a short story

It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Wyatt Thomas, the French Quarter's favorite private investigator, finds himself in a whole heap of trouble.

**********
Mardi Gras rocked the French Quarter. A man on the sidewalk reminded me as much when I almost tripped over him. Still in costume, he busy throwing up in the gutter. It didn’t seem to bother the two speckled pigeons grousing over the cigarette butt he'd dropped.

I had something else on my mind as I hurried down Royal Street—a new client. The prospect of a paying customer, and bone-chilling March wind whistling down my neck, added purpose to my steps. The breeze carried the damp odor of mold, mildew and old masonry and reminded me I should have taken an allergy pill before leaving my apartment.

The short walk took me to a shop named Wild Magnolias, the name alluding to the all-black marching club that dressed in garish costumes during Mardi Gras. Wild Magnolias sold books, but wasn't exactly a Barnes & Noble Superstore. The woman behind the sales counter dropped her Picayune when the bell on the door rang, her relieved smile indicating she was glad to see me.

“I'm Sally Barthelemy. You must be Wyatt Thomas.”

“I got your message,” I said, shaking her hand. “How can I be of service?”

“I have a job for you. Please come with me and I'll explain.”

Sally Barthelemy didn't realize her announcement was music to my ears. I followed her down the hall to a room in back, a room not only bolted but also triple-locked. She opened the door using keys on a large brass ring, and then re-locked all the bolts once we were inside. Sitting behind an antique desk, she directed me to an empty chair.

“You're familiar with my little shop, Mr. Thomas?”

“I presume you're a bookseller.”

“Outside's just a façade, a few magazines and slick best sellers for the hicks from Beaumont and yokels from Little Rock. It's not where I make my real money.”

“I see,” I said, even though I didn’t.

Sally Barthelemy pointed to her racks of old books and said, “I generate my real money in this room. Wild Magnolias specializes in rare first editions, especially books with a New Orleans connection. That brings me to why I need your help.”

I glanced around the room as Sally Barthelemy explained. It was quite different from the shop in front. Instead of movie posters and linoleum, expensive wallpaper and a Persian rug dominated the decor. Real art, not cheap lithographs, hung from the walls. I began to appreciate the three locks on the door.

“These volumes are valuable,” she said. “I'll give you an example. Faulkner's first novel, The Marble Faun, is the type of book I sell. In perfect condition and with dust jacket intact it might go for ten to twenty thousand dollars. I have such a volume. It bears a special inscription, signed in New Orleans, in the author's own handwriting. One of my collectors is ready and willing to pay fifty thousand for it.”

“So what's your problem?”

“Someone took it and I need you to retrieve it for me.”

Sally Barthelemy poured herself a glass of sherry while she waited for my answer.

“I'm not a cop, Ms. Barthelemy.”

“And that's why I called you and not the police,” she said. “The bandit is also a valued customer of mine, one of the few collectors I allow inside this room.”

“That's unfortunate, but you know what they say about roses.”

“This rose happens to rank at the top of the City's social order. By local definition, she can only be a rose. The person that took my book is Lillie Hebert.”

Sally Barthelemy waited for my reaction and got a raised eyebrow for her efforts. Lillie Hebert was more than a person at the top of the city's social order. She was old guard, one of the elite, her family among the richest in the state, her father a former King of Rex. Mrs. Hebert had even reigned as Queen of Comus. Now I understood Sally's plight.

“If I accuse Lillie Hebert, I’ll be the one that ends up ostracized.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Get the book from her and return it to me.”

I paused before saying, “Any suggestions on how I might go about it?”

Sally topped up her sherry. “Mrs. Hebert has done this before. She's old and senile, as well as rich. I'm sure she slipped the book in her purse while looking at something else, and likely doesn't even remember having it.”

I was being facetious when I said, “So you want me to break into her house and get it for you?”

“I think not. Mrs. Hebert is expecting delivery today of a book I obtained for her. You make the delivery. While she is busy serving milk and cookies, slip the Faun into your jacket and return it to me. She'll never miss it.”

“Why not just do it yourself?”

Miss Barthelemy made a face and dusted her hands, as if she could not bother herself with such a banal task.

“My assistant usually takes care of these little problems for me. He’s on vacation. I need the book today and will pay you five hundred dollars to retrieve it for me. Are you interested or not?”

My landlord and all my other creditors already knew the answer to Sally Barthelemy's question.

***
Weather had grown warmer as the streetcar rumbled down St. Charles Avenue to the Garden District. I stared out the open window as masked revelers, heading for the French Quarter. Sally Barthelemy was the daughter of a prominent local family and graduate of Sophie Newcomb. She had served as a Maid of Court during the Rex Ball, and had “come out” with a group of important debutantes. I understood why she didn’t want to rock the boat of local social acceptance.

Almost noon when I exited the streetcar, I joined the crowd awaiting an approaching parade. A long night of festivities would conclude at midnight. It was Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras day. Before it ended, people would make love, fight and some, perhaps, even die. I was only interested in earning a much-needed five-hundred dollars. Lillie Hebert's large house was a long walk from St. Charles Avenue. I was alone and uncomfortable, carrying the valuable copy of Faulkner's Mosquitoes. When I reached her house, I was hobbling from a rock in my shoe. When Mrs. Hebert answered the door, I saw she was much older than the age suggested by her society pictures in the Picayune.

“Don't you have a car, young man?”

“No ma'am. I use public transportation. It sometimes has its disadvantages.”

“Well come in and take a load off.” Lillie Hebert led me down the hall. “Have a seat and I'll get you a glass of water.”

Plopping down in a divan, I stared at the large sitting room as Mrs. Hebert disappeared into the kitchen. The house was huge, gorgeous and worth millions. New Orleans is now the third largest film-making Mecca in the world. Mrs. Hebert likely didn’t realize that many of her neighbors were movie stars. Builders of her house had constructed it using the finest Italian tile and polished cypress. It was one of the brightest jewels in the fabled Garden District. The old woman returned before I had a chance to inspect her floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. When she appeared with no water and confused look, I understood how she might have taken Sally Barthelemy's book. She wasn't even suspicious of me, a complete stranger.

She did finally chirp, “Who are you, young man?”

“Wyatt Thomas,” I said, standing. “I brought you a book from Wild Magnolias.”

Lillie Hebert's eyes squinted as she studied me. “James usually brings my books.”

“He's on vacation this week. I came in his place.”

“Oh! Well would you like a glass of water?”

“I'm fine, thank you,” I said, handing her the copy of Mosquitoes. “You have so many great books. Mind if I take a look?”

“You honor me,” Mrs. Hebert said, beaming.

As I glanced through the volumes in the bookshelves, I thought about Lillie Hebert. She could have passed as Sally Barthelemy's mother. The resemblance was remarkable. Both were tall and with dark eyes and olive skin. Mrs. Hebert, like Sally, wore her hair in a bun, though hers was gray instead of jet. Unlike svelte Sally Barthelemy, the old woman sported a few extra pounds. Her flowered frock with no discernible waistline did little to hide them.

I spent the next half-hour letting Lillie Hebert show me the love of her life—her collection of first editions. When I finally managed to pry myself out the front door, I had Sally Barthelemy's copy of The Marble Faun beneath my jacket. Despite knowing the book was not the old woman’s property, I still felt like a two-dollar chump. As the old green streetcar rumbled back downtown, I realized Sally Barthelemy had been wrong about one thing. Lillie Hebert had not offered me any milk and cookies.

***
Culotta's is a quaint little restaurant near the river. The gumbo is good and you can watch tugboats and oil steamers heading to and from the Gulf while you eat. I was sitting by the picture window, enjoying my gumbo and watching natural gas flare on the horizon. I had just topped my gumbo with extra Tabasco when Detective Anthony Nicosia pushed through the crowded cafe. Outside, excited sea gulls chased a trash boat down the river.

Tony motioned a waiter and ordered a Dixie. When it arrived, he pushed aside the frosted glass and drank straight from the green and white can. After wiping his mouth with the back of his arm, he plopped his chubby elbows on the table and stared across the frosty can at me.

“Bowl of gumbo, Tony?” I said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

Tony was five-eight or nine and at least forty pounds overweight. His Irish Channel accent sounded straight from the Bronx, even though he’d likely never visited New York. He made continual swipes at any loose black hair daring to dangle on his forehead. When he finished his beer, he asked for another, his elbows never leaving the red and white plastic Purina tablecloth.

Finally he said, “You in deep trouble, Cowboy.”

“More than usual?”

“I ain't kidding. Some old woman filed charges on you downtown. Says you stole a real valuable book. And, Cowboy, this old lady has the stroke to send you to Angola for a lengthy vacation. We already got calls from the Mayor, the D.A. and the Governor. Couldn't you have been a little more selective and robbed one of them blind beggars up on Camp Street?”

"I didn't steal anything," I said.

"Then maybe you better give me your story."

Tony stared out the window at a passing towboat, shaking his head as I explained how I'd earned the cash still warming my wallet.

“We already contacted Miss Barthelemy and she says she never heard of you. She even invited us to search her shop if we thought she had the book. We didn't bother ’cause she's the Chief's first cousin.”

“This is a mistake, Tony,” I said, wiping hot sauce from my mouth with one of Mama Culotta's checkered napkins.

“May-be,” he said, drawling the word. “But I still got to take you in.” He smirked and said, “The Chief is looking forward to grilling you himself.”

“You forgetting the Saints tickets I gave you last season?”

“I ain't forgetting nothing, Cowboy. The Chief gave me orders to bring you in. That’s what I’m here to do. At least he sent me instead of a squad car.”

Like Tony, I had known the chief for many years. Sending a homicide detective to bring me in was his way of attempting to diffuse an explosive situation. Even though I was appreciative of his concern, I still didn't want to go to jail.

“Maybe you didn't find me,” I said.

“I'll get my short-hairs trimmed if I don't.”

“Give me until noon tomorrow. I'll come in on my own, I promise.”

Tony thought a moment before agreeing. ”Okay, but don’t screw me, Cowboy,” he said, chugging his Dixie and exiting the café without as much as a backwards wave.

I felt quite the fool as I walked out of Culotta's and headed toward the noise issuing from the French Quarter. Sally Barthelemy had suckered me and I had fallen for it like one of her hicks from Beaumont, or yokels from Little Rock. Despite the frivolity of Fat Tuesday, I was not a happy camper. Crowds of masked revelers thickened as I neared Canal Street. Mardi Gras, along with all the parties, festivities and gaiety associated with it, had begun weeks ago. Most of the lesser carnival clubs had already had their balls and parades. The ones reserved for Fat Tuesday were the richest and oldest.

One giant parade was in progress. Masked krewe members aboard colorful floats were busy tossing beads and doubloons to the crowd. The parade was snaking toward the Municipal Auditorium where the Rex and Comus Balls would soon begin. Lowering my shoulders, I pushed into the crowd.

As I did, masses of temporarily insane humanity, grabbing for tossed beads and souvenir doubloons, engulfed me. An inebriated college girl encircled her bare arms around my neck. Balancing her mask in one hand and a half-empty whiskey bottle in the other, she planted a sultry kiss full on my lips. Then, with a wanton smile, she yanked down her blouse to show me her lipstick-smeared breasts. I found the world's largest street party even livelier when I reached Bourbon Street.

Balcony drunks were tossing dollar bills as the frenzied masses fought for the floating bills. Crowds thinned when I turned off Bourbon and made my way through the relative darkness shrouding Rue Royal. Noise on Bourbon Street was a distant peal when I reached Bertram Picou's bar. The place was rocking, regulars, hip locals, and lucky tourists who had stumbled in by accident having their own celebration.

I was looking for someone in particular. Regulars that might have information and advice I needed.

“My man,” Bertram Picou said, giving me a high five from behind the bar. “I knew we'd see your homely face in here before the night ended. What can I do you for?”

Bertram's canned coon-ass accent was straight from the bayou. Before I could answer, he poured me a glass of pink lemonade from a special jug he kept just for me in the ice bin. Picou's bar was eclectic. Panties, bras, and boxer shorts hung from the silvered mirror behind the bar, or the ceiling above it. Mementos of lost inhibitions. Something tourists, and even locals, often misplaced in the French Quarter. I took a drink from the frosted glass and stared around the room at the throng of happy maskers.

“Good crowd, Bertram,” I said. “Something going on I should know about?”

“You don't already know, you be one cold fish,” he said in his inimitable Cajun accent.

A blond woman in a revealing pirate's outfit crawled over the bar, interrupting our conversation. When she proceeded to hump Bertram's thigh, I excused myself and pushed through the boisterous crowd to a booth in back. The two people I’d come to see smiled and let me slide in beside them.

“Wyatt, my man. How the hell are you?”

“Tolerable, Armand. You?”

“Smoking, man.”

Armand was doing just that, the pungent odor of marijuana mingling with stale air in the bar's dark corner. No one seemed to mind. I had known Armand for twenty years and I still didn’t know his last name.. He was more than eccentric. His shiny black blazer draped the black turtleneck sweater strangled around his scrawny throat. He also had slick black hair and a pointed goatee. He always wore black. His clothes pinned him as a throwback to the fifties—a stereotypical beatnik, if such an animal still existed. He wasn't alone.

Armand's companion hugged his arm, her velvet miniskirt riding high on thick, café au lait thighs. An imposing black woman, Madam Toulouse Joubert was Armand's physical antithesis. She had coarse facial features and shoulders like a linebacker. Almost blond, her bouffant hair pointed toward the ceiling. She was a woman that loved bright colors, and her puffed lips were red as oxidized blood.

Armand and Madam Toulouse knew more about the Quarter, and old New Orleans, than any two people I knew. She had long worked in the Notarial Archives, once located in the basement of the District Court. The Archives provided her access to the detailed history of the City from its beginning. She had expanded on this knowledge through the years. Now, she could quote the membership roles of the exclusive Boston Club and tell you who was in line to serve as next Queen of Comus.

Armand, a collector and seller of art and antiquities, complemented Madam Toulouse's knowledge. He knew the moneyed and powerful in the Big Easy on a first name basis. Together, they were formidable. I ordered them fresh drinks and explained my situation. When I finished my story, Armand shook his head in sympathy and killed his shot of Cuervo.

“You should have called earlier, Cowboy. We could have saved you some embarrassment. Everyone knows the volume of the Faun you stole belongs to Lillie Hebert.”

“I didn’t steal anything,” I said. “It was a mistake.”

Madam Toulouse didn’t seem to accept my plea. She wrapped her big hands around her Hurricane glass and sipped the icy pink concoction through a bright red straw.

After licking her lips, she said, “If you had just read the inscription inside the front cover, you wouldn't have had to ask.”

Armand's dark mustache twitched with his crooked grin. “It says to Lillie Hebert, my sweet benefactor—William Faulkner”

“Don't rub it in,” I said. “I feel bad enough already. Have any idea who Sally may have sold it to?”

Again, Armand's mustache twitched and he exchanged a knowing glance with Madam Toulouse. She winked and said, “Wyatt, you have a particular talent for seeking out the right person to question.”

“Then you know the answer?”

They nodded in unison. Madam Toulouse leaned against the padded booth, crossing her long legs. “Sally's assistant, James, has been busy all week. First, he visited the rare book room at the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane. And then the Notarial Archives.”

“Doing what?”

“Authenticating Lillie Hebert's copy of the Marble Faun, that’s what.”

“Why bother? She knows where I got it.”

“Because the person that's buying the volume is just about the richest and most powerful man in Nawlins',” Armand said. “Judge Henri Montegut.”

“Judge Montegut? How do you know that?”

“The person buying the Faun didn't trust James' authentication of the volume. She brought it by earlier this evening for my opinion.”

“Who brought it?”

“Electra Montegut, the Judge's wife. Electra's giving the book to the Judge tonight during the Rex Ball. Case you didn't know, the Judge is King of Rex this year.”

King of Rex, the most coveted crown in the Mardi Gras hierarchy. Only the richest and most influential men are even considered. Only then after a donation to the Krewe of Rex of at least a million dollars.

“The Rex Crown is one of two things Judge Henri Montegut covets most in the world,” Armand said. “The other is Lillie Hebert's copy of The Marble Faun. He is an avid collector of rare books with a New Orleans connection and has lusted after Lillie's edition for years. Of course, she doesn’t need the money and would never part with it.”

“Electra is a devoted wife,” Madam Toulouse added. “She plans to fulfill Montegut's second greatest desire tonight by presenting him with the Faun at the Rex Ball.”

“Then I'm shafted,” I said.

“Why hell no!” Armand said. “I got another copy of the Faun upstairs and I do a pretty good Faulkner forgery. I can let you have the book for five hundred dollars and that's cheap at twice the price.”

With great reluctance, I dug the five Bennies out of my wallet and handed them to him.

“Now what?”

Madam Toulouse gave Armand a high five and me the power sign. “Just sneak it in the ball and exchange it for Lillie's copy. You're good at that.”

After devising a slight variation on Faulkner's inscription, I agreed to the plan. We retrieved Armand's copy of The Marble Faun from their upstairs apartment. Madam Toulouse found a devil's costume left over from some past Mardi Gras for me to wear to the ball. Armand wrote the inscription in the book as I adjusted the flashy red costume in front of their mirror.

***
Bertram Picou's nephew was a security guard at the Municipal Auditorium, and Bertram arranged entrance to the Rex Ball for me through a door in back. The crowd would be so large that once I made it inside, no one would know I had crashed their party. It would be easy to switch the two books and get the hell out of Dodge before anyone discovered my ruse. At least I hoped so. Leaving Bertram's bar, I hurried toward the party.

Already well after dark, the town continued to rock. French Quarter revelers had pumped themselves into a drunken frenzy all the way down Rue Bourbon. Mardi Gras beads rained from the balconies, enticed by women, young and old, grinning and baring their breasts. Though it was the world’s wildest street party, I didn’t have time to enjoy it. Ignoring the masses of drunken maskers, I continued to my destination.

Several parties were ongoing in various ballrooms of the Municipal Auditorium, the Rex Ball by far the largest. After thanking Bertram's nephew for spiriting me through the back door, I stared in awe at the crowded ballroom. It was like something out of the Arabian Nights. A full orchestra wasn't succeeding in overcoming the dissonance of a thousand masked celebrants. Strobes and rotating balls lighted the otherwise dim room with dancing light. I spotted the King and Queen through the shadows as they sat on their thrones in regal splendor. Piles of gifts lay strewn about like shucked oyster shells behind Brennan’s.

Gold and ermine bedecked Henri and Electra. Both were soused, Electra and Judge Henri, by now, tippling straight from a Wild Turkey bottle. It made my job easier and neither of them paid any attention to the smiling devil pawing through their gifts.

I found Lillie Hebert's copy of The Marble Faun in a cheap gift bag tied with a red bow. No one noticed when I exchanged it for Armand's copy. I was halfway out the door when I decided to present the book to Judge Henri Montegut myself. Be there as he read Armand’s special inscription. Climbing back on the dais, I fumbled through the presents, found the book, and handed it to Judge Henri.

“King Rex, you one lucky man. Look what the queen got for you.”

Judge Montegut removed the book from the bag, fingering it in anticipation when he saw what it was. As he read the inscription, I felt his agitation and resultant ire, even though I could not see his face behind the mask. When he glanced up at me and tore the book in half, I knew for sure I had ruined his party. I didn’t wait around for him to thank me.

***
It was almost midnight when I reached my flat just north of Esplanade. Mounted New Orleans police officers were already dispersing the crowds. I had followed a group of real Wild Magnolias through the Quarter. Their elaborate feathered costumes may have cost less than Henri and Electra's did, but it didn’t matter. They still added up to a large part of their yearly income. Maybe they represented the true spirit of Mardi Gras. I wondered as much as I buzzed into the enclosed courtyard and climbed the steps to my apartment.

Tomorrow, Tony Nicosia could return Mrs. Hebert’s prized first edition. I would be off the hook with her, the Chief and even the Governor. As I unlocked the heavy door and went inside, my inscription in Armand's Marble Faun crossed my mind. I wondered what Judge Henri Montegut must have thought when he read it. What price Sally Barthelemy would have to pay to regain her spot in polite New Orleans society.

The inscription read To Judge Henri, my sweet benefactor—Sally Barthelemy.

END
Wyatt Thomas and Bertram Picou are recurring characters in Eric Wilder's French Quarter Mystery Series. Check out all the colorful characters on Eric's Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages

Bertram's Creole Oyster Soup - a weekend recipe

Though some people say, “there’s no free lunch,” they have obviously never been to Bertram Picou’s bar on Chartres Street, in the French Quarter. He usually has something for his customers to eat, and always for free. Here is one of my favorites.
Ingredients 
·         4 doz oysters, shelled·         4 Tbsp onion, finely chopped·         4 sprigs parsley, chopped very fine·         Oyster liquor, strained·         1 Tbsp vegetable oil·         1 Tbsp butter·         2 Tbsp flour, sifted·         1 qt boiling water

DirectionsAdd the vegetable oil to a soup kettle and heat over a medium fire. Add the flour, stirring constantly until the roux is light brown, and then add the chopped onions and parsley. Add the strained oyster liquor, mix thoroughly, and then add 1 quart of water. When the soup shows signs of coming to a boil, add the oysters and butter. Remove from the stove before water boils, and when oysters begin to curl. Though traditionally served with oyster crackers, Bertram often offers toasted French bread instead.

###
Bertram Picou is a recurring character in Eric Wilder's French Quarter Mystery Series. Please check out his books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook

Mama Mulate's Voodoo Dipping Sauce - a weekend recipe

INGREDIENTS
• ½ cup cold water
• 1 t cornstarch
• ¼ cup honey
• 2 T green onions, thinly sliced
• ½ green pepper, small, thinly sliced
• 1 T lemon juice
• 4 t prepared Dijon-style mustard
• ¼ t onion powder


DIRECTIONS
Pour water in a medium saucepan and mix in cornstarch to dissolve. Stir in honey. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and simmer until sauce thickens, about 15 minutes. Remove sauce from heat. Stir in green onions, lemon juice, prepared Dijon-style mustard, onion powder, and green pepper. Serve warm or chill in the refrigerator.


Mama Mulate is a recurring character in Eric Wilder's French Quarter Mystery Series. Not only is she an English professor at Tulane University, she is also a practicing voodoo mambo. Check out Mama and all the colorful characters in Eric's books on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages.

Southern Fried Murder - a short story

Morning haze, the last remnant of a two-day rain, hung over the bayou. Summer had returned with a vengeance. Eight in the morning, it was already ninety in the shade. Sheriff Harmon Antley wiped the back of his neck with a blue bandanna.


Beyond ferns and cypress trees fringing the bayou floated an object, face down, and half submerged in dark water. A body. Antley stared at it until a squawk from the radio in the nearby police car broke the morning silence.


"Velma, we got a body out here on Black Bayou, just south of Spillway Road."
Another squawk from the radio and Deputy Sam Tate responded to Velma's unheard question.


"Don't know yet. Can you get Doc Branson out here?"


Satisfied with Velma's answer, Tate signed off. and slammed the door of the black and tan ’56 Pontiac. Before joining Sheriff Antley, he wiped an invisible smudge from the roof-mounted red lights. Antley grinned when he thought about the thick horn-rims goggling the younger man's eyes. They seemed out of place with the strike khakis and matching ten-gallon hat he wore.


"See who it is, Sheriff?"


"Hell no, but she hasn't been in there long. Body's floating too low in the water."


Sam Tate spoke in a sing-song drawl, more reminiscent of east Texas than south Louisiana. To Sheriff Antley it sounded like a twangy country riff played on a steel guitar. Antley himself had no regional accent. Lost in Korea while serving in the marines. Lost also was a large chunk of his right ear, taken by a North Korean sniper's bullet. He kept the narrow brim of his Humphrey Bogart hat cocked in that direction.


A distant siren heralded the approach of a black Cadillac ambulance, which slid to a halt beside their car. Doc Branson and his assistant joined them as a flock of white cattle egrets, on their way to Jeem's bayou near the Texas border, flew by.


"Somebody drown?" Doc Branson asked, shielding his eyes as he leaned out over the water.


"You're supposed to tell me," Antley said.


The little doctor with wispy white hair shook off Sheriff Antley's brusque reply.


"Tank, wade out there and pull the corpse to shore."


Six-four and almost two-fifty, Tank Slade's name fit. After school and during summer break he worked for Doc Branson. His blithe smirk expressed his liking for the job. Not bothering to roll up his pant legs, he waded into shallow water, not even recoiling when he grabbed the turgid body. As he pulled it to shore, a school of silver shiners danced around his feet. He dropped the lifeless body in front of the awaiting trio.


"Recognize her, Harmon?" Doc Branson asked.


"Leola Jones. Harvey Jones's wife," Antley said.


"Harvey Jones, the welder?"


"One in the same."


"Sheriff and me had to cart Leola home more than once," Sam said. "Spent most every night out at the Red Hen."


Doc Branson prodded the body with his toe. "Barfly, huh? Maybe she got drunk, stumbled into the bayou and drowned."


Sheriff Antley squatted beside the body, probing beneath her long hair with his fingers. "It's five miles to the Red Hen from here. Don't see no car. And there's blood in her hair."


Doc Branson bent down to join him. "Maybe she bumped her head when she fell," he said, using his index finger to push his wire-rims up on the bridge of his nose.


"Don't think so," Antley said. "Unless she hit something real heavy that's shaped like a half dollar."


Sheriff Antley pulled back the dead woman's hair, exposing a circular dent in back of her skull. "I'm betting you won't find any water in her lungs either. Can you check it out?"


"Do the best I can, but with a Republican in the White House our budget is pretty well cut."


Antley frowned and said, "You have money enough to do one little autopsy."


"Do the best I can," Doc Branson said. Then he added, "At least I voted for Stevenson and Kefauver."


Sheriff Antley ignored his sarcasm and glanced up at the sun now high in the sky. Then he tilted his hat back and mopped his neck with the blue bandanna.


"Sam, take a good look around."


Sam patted the big .44 in his side holster, nodded a silent okay and started away in the opposite direction of the bayou.


"What do you expect he'll find, Harmon?"


"Murder weapon maybe."


At the mention of murder, Tank's piggish eyes grew wider. Folding his big arms, he glanced over his shoulder, as if the murderer might still be out there somewhere, lurking behind a tree. Antley brushed his hands and started for the cruiser. Doc Branson and Tank followed.


"Could be one of them bucks from darky town raped and killed her," Tank said.


Sheriff Antley frowned but kept walking.


"Maybe we should run up there tonight with some of the boys and find out," Tank persisted. "I wouldn't mind frying one of them bucks myself."


This time Sheriff Antley halted. After exchanging a glance with Doc Branson, he grabbed Tank's collar and slammed him against the ambulance. With his acne-scarred face inches from Tank's nose, he riveted his coal black eyes on the frightened lad. Grizzled forearms pinned Tank to the side of the vehicle.


"Boy, what you saw here is police business. I don't care what you think might have happened, you keep it to yourself. Understand me?"


"Yes," Tank said.


"Yes what?" Antley said, banging the boy's head hard against the roof of the ambulance.


"Yes sir, Sheriff Antley."


"That's better," Antley said, releasing his grip, backing away and brushing his hands again. “If I hear of anything happening to anyone on the other side of the tracks, you’re the first person I’ll come looking for. You got me on that?”


Tank looked at Doc Branson for support but got none. Instead, the old doctor said, "You heard the Sheriff. Now hustle up that body and pitch it in back of the ambulance. We got work to do."


A shout from over the hill diverted everyone's attention from Tank's red face.


"Sheriff, over here. I found something."


Antley patted Tank's cheek and started up the hill toward Sam Tate's shout. "Check her lungs, Doc. At least do that."


Despite disliking his political leanings, Antley knew Doc Branson would do a complete autopsy. He hurried away, upsetting a covey of quail as he reached the brush line. They scattered in a flurry of noise and beating wings. When he crested the hill and came out of the brush, he found Sam beside a red and white ’57 Chevy. It was empty and both doors open.


"Keys are in the ignition," Sam said.


Broken glass from the smashed windshield littered the car's hood. Something white protruded from the open glove box. Reddish-brown blood clotted the blue front seat covers. Antley grabbed the white object and held it to the light.


"What is it, Sheriff?


"Looks like Leola's girdle. And someone broke the windshield from the inside out."


Oil oozed from the holding tank of a nearby well, burnishing brown loam piled in a berm around it black. The walking beam moved up and down, screeching as it lifted metal rods in and out of the hole. There were also three sets of tire tracks in the dirt.


"Two trucks and a car," Sam said. "One of the trucks had wider tires and dug a deeper rut than the other."


"Carrying a heavy load," Sheriff Antley said.


Three turkey buzzards circled overhead in slow lazy loops. Harmon Antley watched them as he mopped his forehead with his bandanna. Then he started back down the hill to the cruiser and Sam Tate followed. When they reached the car, Antley said, "Call Velma, Sam. Have her get this place roped off and photographed, and a diver out here to check where we found the body.


The radio squawked as Deputy Tate called Velma. After replacing the receiver in its cradle he sat there, scratching his big hooked nose.


"Taking a break, Sam?" Antley finally said.


"No sir," Sam said. "Where to?"


"The Red Hen."


***


When they reached the blacktop, Sam cranked open the wind wing, gunning the engine to get a little cool air flowing through the hot car. Ten o'clock and one-oh-one. It made them both wish the Parish had opted for a swamp cooler instead of the fancy radio they provided it with.


Vegetation changed from cypress trees with waves of Spanish moss, to pines nudging the road. Sheriff Antley caught a glimpse of a snowy crane as the sleepy bayou disappeared in the rearview mirror. Sam continued along the winding hilly road, all the way to Bixley.


Bixley lay nestled in the crook formed by northeast Texas and southwest Arkansas. Three thousand farmers, roughnecks and businessmen. And retirees. A dozen honky tonks dominated the west side of town, just beyond the city limits. Texans and Arkansans surged across the border on Saturdays, drawn by wild times and no liquor restrictions. Most wore faded jeans, cowboy hats and pointy-toed shit kickers, though few were real cowboys. In the tri-state region of Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, many of the cattle were of the dairy variety. Miles of cotton, making the fields look like snow in July, grew instead of wheat.


Still, the area had more than a passing resemblance to the old west. Antley and Tate usually ended up on the strip, arresting drunks, breaking up fights, or escorting someone home. The Red Hen was the most popular honky tonk of all. Finding its graveled parking lot vacant except for the owner's white Caddy, they entered the front door.


Three slow moving overhead fans did little to stir the humid air, stagnant with the stale reek of beer. Their own boots echoed like tap dancer's as they crossed the faded dance floor to the wall-long bar, padded with red vinyl. There Mrs. Bea Hopkins, the Red Hen's owner, sat alone, a tall straight scotch in one hand and a half empty bottle of Chivas in the other. Sam and Sheriff Antley waited for the old lady to acknowledge their presence. When she finally looked up and saw them standing there, she grinned, her false teeth on the bar beside the bottle of Scotch.


"Little early, aren't you Sheriff. No drunks in here for another eight hours."


"Didn't come for drunks, Mrs. Bea," he said.


"Well, I know you tee-total so you didn't come for a morning toddy."


"We found Leola Jones floating face down in the bayou this morning. Answers are what we need, Mrs. Bea."


Antley's announcement of Leola Jones' demise didn't seem to faze the old woman. "Hell, Sheriff, I got lots of answers, but they might not be the ones you want."


"You knew Leola?"


"Sure, who didn't? Quite a looker."


"How often did she frequent the Hen?"


Mrs. Bea glanced at her watch. "Bout every night. Steady as clock work."


"Mr. Jones come with her?"


The old lady shook her head, causing the chicken skin on her neck to wriggle like an earthworm on a hook. "Works for hisself during the day and at the glass factory down the road at night. Only seen him in here once or twice."


"Lately?"


"Last week, maybe."


"They have two kids. Who cares for them when the parents are away?" Antley asked.
"Boy's thirteen. Looks after hisself, and his little sister."


Mrs. Bea poured another shot of scotch into her glass. Before it reached her mouth, her scrawny neck began to bend and her head drooped forward. Then her hand, still clutching the glass, sagged against the bar. For a moment Sam and Sheriff Antley thought she had passed out. When Sam cleared his throat, the sound echoed against the large open room's bare walls, and Mrs. Bea opened one eye and grinned again.


"Gonna swallow my teeth one of these days doing that."


Sheriff Antley ignored her flippancy and said, "Was Leola seeing anyone special?"


“What do you mean?”


“I think you know what I mean. Did she have a boyfriend?”


"Bobby Hartley."


"He from around here?"


"From up the road in Texas. Been sweet on Leola for a couple months now."


"Was he in here last night?"


Mrs. Bea didn't have to think about her answer. "He's in here every night."


"Did he leave with Leola?" Antley asked.


"No, but he weren't five minutes behind her after she did."


"What does Bobby Hartley drive?"


"Pretty little red Ford pickup."


Sheriff Antley edged closer to Mrs. Bea and rested his elbows on the bar. "Mrs. Bea, where did they go when they left here? You know, don't you?"


The old lady's green eyes flashed and facial skin wrinkled into her patented grin. "Sure. So does everyone else that comes in here. They go parking out on one of them oil well leases. Over by Spillway Road."


Antley pulled away from the bar. "Her husband know?"


"Sure he knew, but that didn't stop her."


"Ever notice any bruises on her arms or legs? A black eye, maybe?"


Mrs. Bea cackled. "No, but every now and then she'd get some mean dents in her car. That Chevy was her favorite possession. When Harvey got mad, he'd take it out on the car. Would make her real mad, too, and she'd give him the where-with-all. Have him crying like a baby. Forgetting why he'd done it in the first place."


Sheriff Antley pointed toward the door and Sam nodded. Mrs. Bea's head was now lying on the bar in a pool of scotch and they didn't bother saying goodbye. When they reached the squad car, the radio was squawking and Velma was on the line.


"Sheriff, the divers found something in the bayou."


"Like what?"


"A hammer."


"Claw hammer?"


"Ball peen. No rust but there's traces of blood on the handle."


"Good work, Velma," Sheriff Antley said, signing off.


Sam cranked down the windows and said, "Gonna look up Bobby Hartley?"


"Nope," Sheriff Antley said. "He didn't do it."


Sam pulled off his hat, combing the strands of damp hair off his forehead. Then he sat there, rubbing the tip of his nose and looking confused.


"Pardon me, Sheriff, but how do you know that?"


"You have a television, don't you Sam?"


"Sure. Almost a year now."


"Ever watch the Lone Ranger?"


"You bet I do."


Sheriff Antley paused as he scratched his chin. "Did you see the one where the Lone Ranger and Tonto were hot on the trail of three bank robbers?"


"Sure did. They was running from the posse and only had two horses"


"That's the one. How do you think the Lone Ranger knew there were three robbers on the two horses instead of only two?"


"Easy, Sheriff. Tonto got down in the dirt and studied the hoof prints. One set was deeper than the other."


"Exactly. Now lets go see Harvey Jones."


***


Sam was still digesting Sheriff Antley's story as he spun the car's tires in loose gravel. Leola and Harvey lived in a wood-framed house where Harvey ran a welding shop out of his garage. When Sam saw Jones' truck, heavy equipment weighing down its rear end, he understood the story's meaning. On the ramshackle porch, sitting in a swing, was Harvey Jones and his daughter Lila. Harvey Jr. peered out at them from behind the screen door. Harvey was a big man with thin blond hair bleached almost white by constant exposure to the sun. He was shirtless beneath his faded overalls. Antithetic to the rest of his body, his face was round and cherubic. It made him look about ten. As Sam and Sheriff Antley approached the porch, Harvey put his big face into his hands and began to cry. Lila tossed back her long brown hair, her mother's hair, and joined her father in his tears.


Sam and Sheriff Antley waited until Harvey Jones kissed his daughter's forehead and pulled away from her grasp. Harvey Jr. watched his father get out of the swing, holding out his wrists, waiting for Sam to cuff him.


"I'm ready, Sheriff."


"You okay, Harvey?" Sheriff Antley asked.


"My head hurts, but I'm making it." Harvey Jr. had come outside and was hugging the pine tree in the front yard.


"We need to see you downtown," Antley said.


"What about the kids?"


"Drive them to your sister's and drop them off. We'll wait for you at the station."


Harvey Jones hugged his daughter, who had joined him in the front yard.


"Thanks, Sheriff," he said.


Without waiting, Sheriff Antley retraced his steps to the squad car. Sam followed, still confused. The Pontiac started on the first crank and they headed toward town. Halfway there, a knowing grin spread over Sam's face.


"Now I know why he did it. Jealous rage, pure and simple. Everyone knew Leola was fooling around, and where she went when she left the bar. It wasn't hard for Harvey to find out, even though he didn't believe it at first. He followed Leola and Bobby to the lease road, grabbing his hammer from the truck when he saw the car."


"You're on the right track," Sheriff Antley said. "What else?"


"Velma was drunk but managed to wrestle off her girdle before passing out against the steering wheel. When they finished what they was doing, Bobby left her there and drove home. Harvey saw the girdle in the front seat and Leola's skirt hiked up to her navel and must have lost it. That's when he killed her in a jealous rage."


"You got it about half right," Antley said.


Sam took his eyes off the road, giving Sheriff Antley an appraising once-over. He returned his attention to the front of the Pontiac when a rabbit scurried in front of their path.


When he recovered his composure, he said, "If Harvey didn't kill her, who did?"


"Oh, Harvey killed her all right, but if he'd done it on purpose he wouldn't have knocked out the windshield and busted the dash. He just lost his temper and started swinging the hammer, but it wasn't Leola he intended to take his rage out on. It was her car. My bet is the poor slob nailed her by accident."


Sheriff Antley paused for Sam to digest his hypothesis.


"When Harvey realized he'd killed Leola, he likely bawled like a baby. When he thought of the kids, he carted her body down the hill to the bayou and tossed her in hoping we'd think she fell in and drowned. After sleeping on it, I guess he'd already decided to go ahead and confess."


After a moment, Sam said, "You think he'll come in on his own, Sheriff?"


"He'll come. He may well be a killer but he's not a liar."


As always, the sheriff's words rang true. After scratching the hook of his big nose, Sam gunned the engine and finished the short drive to Bixley in silence.


END


Eric Wilder is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series. Please check out his books on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages

A Short Geologic History of New Orleans

In 1718, Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville founded the colony that became New Orleans. Sieur de la Salle had claimed the territory for the French in 1682 and France was looking for an outpost from where they could take advantage of the resources of the vast domain. They desired a location with access to the Gulf of Mexico at a spot they could easily defend from possible hostility by other countries. These two factors, high ground and access, likely resulted in the choosing of the present location of New Orleans.

High ground, you say? Everyone knows that a portion of New Orleans is below sea level. This is true but much has changed since the City was founded in 1718. The fact is the mean elevation of Louisiana is only 100' above sea level. To put this into perspective, Morgan City is 7' above sea level, Lafayette 39' above sea level, Baton Rouge 60' above sea level and the far northwestern city of Shreveport only 177' above sea level. Why then did Bienville situate the City of New Orleans at the second lowest spot in the United States, higher only than Death Valley that has an elevation of 282' below sea level? The answer is, he didn’t.

There were no topographic maps or GPS devices in 1718. Still, seasoned explorers Bienville and his brother D’Iberville understood the concept of high ground. They had located and chosen the site for New Orleans on an expedition more than a decade before the City’s founding. Although no records exist to confirm this assumption, a look at present-day Louisiana geography and geology indicates New Orleans in 1718 may have been at or near the highest elevation at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

New Orleans is part of the Mississippi River Delta, a geographic region that encompasses 13,000 square miles, fully 25% of Louisiana. Deltas are comprised mainly of silt. A look at the mechanics of the Mississippi River explains why. The Mississippi River drops 1,475' from its source in Minnesota to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico. Water flows down river because of gravity. Along the way the Mississippi is intersected by many smaller rivers.

The Mississippi and the rivers that feed it transport many tons of alluvium picked up along the way because of erosion. The energy of the flowing river carries this alluvium in suspension. As the elevation nears sea level and this energy is dissipated, the river can no longer maintain its load and it is deposited in the form of silt. Often, extra silt is deposited at a meander in the river where energy is locally dissipated. This is a likely scenario for the location of New Orleans in 1718.

Just north of the small town of Donaldsonville the Mississippi turns abruptly eastward. Interestingly, Donaldsonville is near the point the modern Mississippi River threatens to abandon its present course and flow into the Atchafalaya River Basin. The Corp of Engineers has prevented this occurrence for many years by constructing special levees along the course of the Mississippi River. Near Donaldsonville, the Mississippi River flows eastward until it reaches a point just east of New Orleans where it again turns, this time abruptly southward.

Old New Orleans is located in a crescent-shaped bend in the river, a meander. The crescent that formed the Crescent City is really a meander. What happened in 1718 at this meander was a dissipation of energy that resulted in higher ground because of an unloading of sediment. Likely, New Orleans was the highest point near the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1718.

Why is much of New Orleans presently below sea level. The answer is subsidence. Geologically speaking, silt is very unstable. When loaded, it readily compresses and subsides. During the early days of New Orleans, there were no man-made levees separating the City from the Mississippi River. Because of this, the City was flooded with silt and knee-deep water every Spring. City fathers soon began building up the natural levees to prevent this from happening. The result is that much of New Orleans, without the yearly addition of silt from the river, has subsided in the centuries following 1718. Even with this subsidence, the French Quarter and the Central Business District, part of the original settlement, remains at or near sea level and was surely even higher in 1718.

Another reason Bienville chose the present site of New Orleans was because of access. Native Americans had shown the French a short cut from the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans - a strategic advantage over any foreign power that might attempt to wrest the region from France. This short cut came through a pass from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Pontchartrain, and then from St. Johns Bayou to present-day New Orleans.

Everyone is aware of the tremendous damage done in 2005 by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. How can we alleviate a future disaster without moving the venerable old City? Here is my suggestion. Cut the levees near Donaldsonville and let the mighty Mississippi follow its preferred course: into the Atchafalaya Basin to the Gulf of Mexico. Will it change history? Only time will tell.

Eric Wilder is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series. Please check out his books on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages.

BONES OF SKELETON CREEK - Chapter 1

P.I. Buck McDivit inherits a dog and a gory murder case.

Prologue


Three men on horseback stared up at the stark sky and rustler’s moon, their horses spooked by howls of prowling coyotes. The noisy creatures could do little harm to a horse. It didn’t matter because their nervous mounts didn’t know it. Somewhere ahead, a tortured creature’s tormented moans echoed through the darkness, a muffled pop finally silencing its whimpers of pain.

“What in cornbread hell was that?”

“Sounded like someone skinning a hog that weren’t quite dead yet.”

“Relax, Shorty. Probably just kids spotlighting coyotes.”

“Didn’t sound like no coyote to me,” Shorty said.

Full moonlight provided all the visibility they needed and they soon found a herd of cattle situated for the night. The dying creature had spooked them. When the man on the lead horse spotted a darkened silhouette, he dismounted and approached what looked like someone crouching on the ground.

“What is it?” the man named Shorty asked.

“You were right about the skinning, but it ain’t no hog.”

“Sweet Jesus!” Shorty said when he saw the dead creature.


Chapter 1


Buck McDivit exited the heavy glass doors of the Second Bank of Edmond, trying without success not to feel like someone had just kicked him in the gut. His banker, a man he had known all his life, had just rejected his request for a new truck loan.

“You got no steady job and not much in the way of assets. I can’t risk the bank’s money on this one,” he had told Buck.

Buck had stared at the little man with a voice much deeper than his size indicated and tried to reason with him. “I’ve never had a loan go south. You know as much, Jeb.”

“Things change,” Jeb Stuart Johnson had said, peering over his reading glasses. “The auditors would have my ass in a sling if I made this loan. Unless you put twenty percent down, that is.”

“I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Then maybe you don’t need a new forty thousand dollar pickup. You know what the monthly payments are on a loan that big? Hell, Buck, what’s the matter with the truck you got?”

“Two hundred thousand miles,” he had replied. “Maintenance is eating me up.”

“Then lower your standards because you can’t afford a truck costing forty-two grand.” The little man whisked his hand through his thinning hair before glancing at his watch. “Now I got another appointment coming in right after lunch so I’m leaving a little early. Anything else I can help you with?”

Buck didn’t bother answering because Jeb Johnson had already grabbed his overcoat and headed out of the office. He pulled the collar of his jean jacket up around his neck and followed him through the front door to Broadway, Edmond’s main street.

Buck’s boots were old but always polished and well maintained. He had long legs and his jeans and Western shirt made him seem taller than he really was. Two women passing on the sidewalk turned to give the handsome young cowboy with expressive brown eyes and dark wavy hair a second glance. Still upset about his meeting with Jeb Johnson, he failed to notice.

Edmond, a former train stop had grown into a north suburb of sprawling Oklahoma City. No longer a bedroom community for the wealthy, it was now the home of the third largest university in the state. It was also the third largest city in Oklahoma.

The thriving little metropolis had traffic that didn’t quite rival Dallas but was on its way to doing so. It also had a hundred fifty churches and at least ten Starbucks. Cold gusty wind whistled down the street, chilling the back of his neck, as someone tapped his shoulder.

“Sorry to bother you, Mister but I ain’t ate in two days. Can you spare a dollar?”

The economy, as in other parts of the country, had begun collapsing in Oklahoma. It seemed beggars populated every major cross street in the City but this was the first one Buck had seen in downtown Edmond. The man was scruffy, his clothes dirty and torn, but it was his dog that caught his attention. The man held on to it with a short strand of rope tied around its neck.

The young black and white Border collie wagged its tail and licked Buck’s hand when he reached down to pet it. He fished out his wallet and glanced at his last twenty.

“What’s your dog’s name?” Buck asked.

“Ain’t got no name.”

Buck handed him the twenty. “I don’t have anything smaller so I guess it’s your lucky day.” He pulled the bill back when the man reached for it. “You have to promise me part of this will go to feed your dog.”

The little man snatched the bill from Buck’s hand and stuffed it into his shirt pocket.

“He ain’t my dog. I was gonna tie him to a park bench and be rid of the little pest. If you want him, you better take him cause he ain’t staying with me.”

Buck frowned, thinking for a moment he should take back his twenty. He took the rope instead and watched the ratty little man hurry away, probably to the nearest liquor store.

He squatted and rubbed the little dog’s ears. The dog with no name wagged its tail and licked Buck’s hand.

“Maybe I can put an ad in the paper and find a good home for you.”

Feeling suddenly depressed because of his loan rejection, he wondered if he should move north to Logan County and the less pretentious town of Guthrie. Someone he recognized exited the coffee shop across the street, interrupting his malaise. Waving, he crossed the narrow street, the dog wagging his tail as he followed him.

Unlike sprawling Oklahoma City, no skyscrapers jutted into the clouds in downtown Edmond. Few structures, if any, exceeded more than two stories in height, those mostly squat brick and native rock buildings. The people walking along the sidewalks moved at the slow pace of what was once a small town.

Clayton O’Meara, his ex-employer and the former husband of Virginia, the woman for who he now worked, had apparently not seen him and was heading in the opposite direction. He stopped when Buck called his name.

“Trying to avoid me, Clayton?”

Clayton grinned, showing a set of teeth a little too perfect for someone his age. He stood several inches taller than Buck, probably six foot four, and he sported a full head of silver hair, complete with expensive salon highlights.

“Hey, Buck. Nice leash you got. What are you doing up so early?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing?” he said, ignoring Clayton’s comment about the dog’s makeshift leash.

Clayton answered Buck’s question with little more than a wry grin and the word, “Business. Don’t you ever feed that dog?”

“He’s not really my dog.”

“From the way he’s wagging his tail, I’d say he thinks he is.”

A wealthy oilman, Clayton O’Meara owned a large cattle spread in southern Logan County. He rarely left the showplace ranch and Buck couldn’t recall ever seeing him in downtown Edmond. Despite the chilling temperature, the older man wore no hat, probably so as not to distract from his full head of hair. Only an unzipped orange goose down parka emblazoned with the letters OSU covered his designer sports shirt.

Clayton was at least thirty years older than Buck but the sparkle in his hazy eyes made him seem little more than a teenager. Glancing at his Rolex Commander, as if the expensive watch somehow held the answer to some unasked question, he pointed to his car down the street.

“I’m sort of in a hurry.”

Buck recognized a brush-off when confronted with one and said, “Didn’t mean to hold you up.”

Clayton grinned and slapped Buck’s shoulder. “Sorry to rush, but I got an appointment and I gotta get. We can catch up on things later.”

Instead of hurrying away, he turned toward the door of the coffee shop he had just exited. Reaching for the handle as if he had forgotten something inside, he thought better of it. Pivoting on the heels of his polished snakeskin boots, he headed down the street to his awaiting vehicle. Buck watched as Clayton’s chauffeur opened the back door of a big white Mercedes for him. With tires squealing, the car hurried away, around the corner.

Buck glanced at the door of Café Oklahoma, the coffee shop a fixture in downtown Edmond for almost as long as he could remember. He knew Clayton well enough to know he wasn’t a coffee drinker. Curious, he opened the door and glanced inside.

Seeing a familiar face alone at a table, he completely forgot about Clayton as memories of a recent romance, ended too soon for his liking flooded his psyche. It was his former girlfriend, Kay Karson. Everyone called her KK. She turned around, as if expecting someone else. Seeing him, she folded her arms, frowned and glanced away.

“No greeting for an old friend?” Buck asked as he approached her table.

KK crossed her shapely legs, black lace hose and ankle-length boots the only concessions to the outside chill, considering the short leather skirt she wore.

 “You’re really full of yourself, aren’t you?”

Before Buck could answer, an employee said, “Sir, you can’t bring your dog in here.”

“I’ll only be a minute,” he said.

Buck and KK had been an item for almost a year. She liked line dancing, prancing horses and ice-cold Coors beer. Her slender legs looked great in tight blue jeans and cowboy boots. Honey blonde hair draped her shoulders, framing her slightly less than perfect but unforgettable face. She was, in fact, a beauty queen, having amassed three titles before the tender age of eighteen. Buck soon learned she thoroughly realized the effect she had on men. Now, at twenty-nine, she could focus her power on the opposite sex like an ICBM, with the same explosive result. Buck had found his dream woman. At least he’d thought.

KK’s father was a medical doctor in Tulsa, her mother a college professor at Tulsa University. She had never wanted for anything. Looking at her now, Buck could see she had acquired a few very expensive trinkets he doubted even her doting dad could afford. A diamond pendant graced her slender neck. The large diamond in an expensive setting had good color and was no fake. It was a companion piece to the diamond ring on her finger sporting an even larger and more ostentatious stone. Mink lined her gloves and the expensive jacket draped across the back of the booth.

“Just saying hi to an old friend,” he countered.

KK tipped over a half-empty coffee cup with her elbow. Dabbing at the spot with a napkin, she continued frowning.

“You call yourself an investigator. You don’t have a clue. I imagine you must have thought all you had to do was smile at me and I would jump back into your bed like a horny teenager. Well, we’re not in college, and you are not the star quarterback and campus heartthrob anymore. You don’t even have a real job. You may have a nice ass but it doesn’t compliment your lousy future.”

KK didn’t wait for his reply, brushing past him and appearing not to hear when he said, “Guess tamales and dancing Saturday night are out of the question.”

As she disappeared out the door without looking back, he wondered what he could have done to provoke such a display of anger. With a shrug to the employee still looking at him and the dog, he followed her outside, watching as she entered a brand new white Mercedes sports car, pulled out of her parking place and gunned away down the street.

“No problem,” he called out at the disappearing vehicle. “I can’t afford a date Saturday night anyway.”

Two rejections and a brush-off before noon, he thought as he considered where she had acquired the Mercedes and her expensive mink jacket. Their relationship had not ended badly. It had simply flickered out and died.

Buck had attended college for a time at OSU. He had dropped out to sign on with the O.C.P.D. One of his friends there had left to become an oil and gas lease broker during one of the many oil booms, and he soon followed him. His lucrative job ended during an unexpected, at least to him, reduction in oil prices. Since then, he had supported himself in many different jobs such as club bouncer, skip tracer, process server, and private detective. His opportunities for gainful employment had recently narrowed and he found himself using his meager savings to pay his bills. It didn’t help that his aging Dodge pickup needed repair almost weekly.

“Come on, Buddy. Let’s get you something to eat.”

When Buck reached his truck and unlocked the door, his cheeks burned hot. He’d never had an ego problem, even though gorgeous women often became speechless when meeting him. It didn’t matter because now he needed a drink, preferably something with whiskey in it. Shaking his head, he remembered he couldn’t afford one.

It was past lunchtime, his stomach growling. After stopping at a convenience store, he began searching for change in the truck’s console.

“You wait here. I’ll be right back.”

He returned a few minutes later with a hot dog. Giving the meat to the young dog, he ate the bun. The little Border collie gobbled down the wiener then curled up and went to sleep in the passenger seat.
Buck had not reached the horse ranch where he lived and worked part time when he received a call from the Logan County death investigator. One of his many jobs included assisting the investigator whenever a suspicious death occurred. He did not care for the often-gory work. It didn’t matter now. Because of his current financial situation, he could ill afford to turn down a job, no matter how distasteful.

A cowboy had discovered a body at a nearby ranch. Clayton O’Meara’s ranch. Buck pondered the coincidence as he turned his truck around and headed north, along with his sleepy passenger.




Bones of Skeleton Creek. Wilder is also the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series. Please check out all his books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages

Cruel Woman Blues - a Wyatt Thomas short story

The greatest free ride in America sits on the banks of the Mississippi River, not far from the heart of the Big Easy. The Canal Street Ferry. Free for pedestrians, one dollar round trip in your car, is a fine example of Louisiana politics in action. Carla Manetti's old Plymouth Duster had finally died and gone to Car Heaven up in La Place. Now we were on an evening test drive to Algiers Point in her new Mustang convertible. It included a side trip to the Jazz Palace, a local hot spot.

Behind us the river was the New Orleans skyline alit with neon. Chilly late December and Carla's sweater felt soft and warm to the touch. With only flickering lights across the river illuminating the upper deck, it was hard to know where her sweater began and her dark hair ended. It didn't seem to matter as she stared at the top of the International Trade Mart.

"What a view," she said. "Lights and river sounds."

"No place like it in the world."

"Wyatt, you just like it cause it's free."

"It's not free. I paid a dollar, didn't I?"

"I paid the dollar," Carla said.

Despite her chiding, Carla had a grand smile. When I put my arms around her, she leaned against me, resting her shoulders on my chest. "You know what I really like about the ferry ride?"

"Being with me?"

"I like the river,” she said, ignoring me. “It's like a giant, powerful being. I feel more alive out here than any place in the City."

A passing tug's whistle signaled proximity to the docking point and we hurried downstairs to the lower deck. After rolling off the ramp, we parked the car, needing it only for the return trip to the City, at a dockside meter. The ferry had made its last run for the night. Everyone knows about Jackson Square and the Cabildo, but there are other places in and around the Big Easy that tourists rarely see. The Jazz Palace is one such place and Jazz isn't the only language spoken there. Musical tastes, ranging from hip-hop to zydeco, are eclectic in the City. Tonight it celebrated the blues and one of the premier blues men still alive and performing.

His name is Snakebite Thompson. Mama Tujugue, owner of the Jazz Palace, had scheduled him for a single performance—one I had waited twenty years to see. Anticipation shadowed our steps as we tread the waterfront boardwalk to the Palace where dozens of blues fans had already gathered.

They were crowding into the converted warehouse as we arrived, hoping to secure a table close to the stage. Mama Tujugue met us at the door and let us in without charging admission. Her fine features highlighted the best aspects of all the many races contributing to her origins. She topped six feet in her stocking feet. Her very existence was an anomaly of life in the old South, more specifically, New Orleans.

Old New Orleans hierarchy embraced gradations in race and people of mixed blood often occupied places of special prominence. They even had names for these gradations. A mulatto is the offspring of one black and one white parent, a quadroon one white and one mulatto. There are dozens of distinctions—sacatron, octoroon, griffe and marabon, to name just a few—all specifically describing mixtures of blood.

Now, Mama Tujugue was simply a beautiful New Orleans businessperson—show business. She did not mind accenting her heritage to play to the crowd. Tonight her bright yellow peasant dress ballooned from waist to ankles. In the matching turban that crowned her precisely coifed head, she could easily have passed for a famous New Orleans woman, circa 1750. She led us to a table near the stage where a local group was murdering their rendition of Basin Street Blues. Carla ordered an Abita, a local amber beer brewed across the lake in Abita Springs. I made do with water.

The Palace was a converted warehouse, cheaply renovated to highlight music and not architecture. Jazz posters and Mardi Gras banners draped from its exposed rafters and provided the only decoration. From the smiles I could see, no one seemed to mind the seediness. A half dozen harried waiters and servers hustled to serve those gathered for the occasion.

Shortly after midnight, Snakebite's band took the stage and the crowd tempo quickly turned from raucous too frenetic. The band launched into a finger and lip-limbering number that ended with a drum solo that brought down the house. As applause streamed from the audience, Mama Tujugue sent over more Abita for Carla and a pitcher of lemonade for me. When overhead lighting dimmed, the room became very silent.

Amid suspense-heightening darkness, the drummer rolled out an expectant beat, the bass man joining with a three-note riff. Then, from somewhere on stage, vibrato strains from a throaty guitar began to immerse the room in electric sound, causing a wave of applause to swell through the audience. The spotlight, beam narrowed to a circle of blue, slowly began to enlarge, focusing on a point near center stage.

As the music grew louder, along with growing applause, Snakebite Thompson's face appeared behind a gooseneck microphone. His closed eyes and pockmarked cheeks combined in a contorted grimace, exposing the depth and pain of some unknown despair. Original black enamel, chipped but untouched, coated the old Fender strapped across his shoulder.

We watched, trapped in a timeless hypnotic trance, as Snakebite launched into his signature song, Cruel Woman Blues, his scratchy voice dueling with a pulsating melody produced by his throaty electric guitar. More applause erupted from the audience.

What a stylist. He was more than I expected, far exceeding his recorded performances on cheap vinyl. Snakebite Thompson was real, his effect momentous, but what occurred next sent everyone in the house into communal shock. A gunshot, fired from somewhere in the darkness, resonated through the warehouse and Snakebite's resultant scowl went without notice. Until he dropped the guitar and clutched his chest, that is.

The single gunshot awoke the audience from its trance, and no one waited around for the inevitable second shot. Rising in unison, they piled through the door, along with every member of the band. Everyone except Carla and me. Thinking better of charging into the line of fire, I wrestled her to the floor and under our table.

Wyatt, was that gunfire?"

Not answering her question, I rushed instead to center stage where Snakebite lay writhing on the floor, clutching his chest, blood pluming from beneath his hand. Anticipating another gunshot, I dragged him behind an electric speaker. The second shot never came. Wailing sirens, echoing from across the river, moved toward us. When they arrived, the old warehouse was almost empty. It didn't stop a dozen cops from bursting through the doors, pistols drawn. Rushing to the stage, they grabbed my collar, threw me facedown against the floor and crammed a shoe into the small of my back. One big cop almost yanked my arms from their sockets as he cuffed me. Taking a deep breath, I tried to relax and ignore the cocked .38 pointed at my head.

"He didn't do it," Carla said, lunging out from under the table. "He only tried to help. The person who shot him is up there."

All eyes followed Carla's finger as she pointed toward the balcony. I even managed to wriggle around and look myself. That is when I saw the woman standing there, a smoking pistol grasped firmly in her hand. Jimmy Don O'Rear was the burly police detective investigating the shooting. He was young, a full thatch of red hair covering his big head. He was not smiling and he had the look of a man that rarely did. He ordered his men to un-cuff me, although I could tell they did not like his orders. Still, they did have a prime suspect holding a smoking pistol.

Although situated across the river, Algiers is a precinct of New Orleans. A sedate precinct compared with the others. Jimmy Don O'Rear seemed like a good cop with something to prove. I wasn't sure exactly what. Maybe that he was every bit as tough as his brothers from across the river. It gave me cause to wonder as Carla and I watched O'Rear's men cordon the crime scene with yellow tape.

Snakebite cursed a blue streak when paramedics loaded him on an ambulance bound for Charity Hospital, across the river. At least he was still alive. Now everyone's attention focused on the woman in the balcony. Jimmy Don's men quickly had her in cuffs. Carla and I followed him up the stairs, along with Mama Tujugue, upset and becoming increasingly unable to contain her growing frenzy.

"How long will this take?" she finally demanded.

"Till we're done," Jimmy Don said.

The detective's accent was a strange blend of north Louisiana redneck and Irish Channel patois. It did not matter because he was all business, and now the only business worrying Mama Tujugue was her own.

"Well you better get done mighty fast," she countered. "Tomorrow's Friday. My biggest day. I got a zydeco band coming in all the way from Breaux Bridge."

Mama Tujugue's announcement failed to impress Jimmy Don. "Save it for the Padre. We may finish up Monday."

"My banker will own the place by Monday."

Jimmy Don halted, returned Mama's harsh stare and held up his hand. "Get off my case, lady and let me question the suspect."

At the mention of the woman in cuffs, Mama Tujugue looked at her for the first time. Appearing to do a double take, her mouth gaped and hands dropped to her sides.

"Geneva!"

"You know this woman?" Jimmy Don asked.

"Geneva Thompson, I've known her all my life."

"Thompson? Is she any relation to the victim?"

"His wife," Mama Tujugue said.

Jimmy Don exchanged a knowing glance with his second-in-command, a blue coat sergeant with snowy white hair beneath his police cap.

"Sarge, it looks like we have a motive," he said.

"Geneva wouldn't hurt a fly," Mama Tujugue said.

"Well apparently she did."

O'Rear broke away from Mama Tujugue's stare, turning his attention to Geneva Thompson. "Anything you want to tell us?"

Geneva Thompson was an attractive middle-aged woman, shorter and darker than Mama Tujugue, although about the same age. Mama put her arms around her and they both dissolved into tears. Jimmy Don waited until they regained their composure, and then cleared his throat to remind Geneva of his question.


"I did it. I shot my husband," she said.


"Now wait just a minute," Mama Tujugue said. "I didn't hear anyone advise Geneva of her rights."


"You a lawyer, ma'am?"


Mama cast Jimmy Don and the old sergeant a look that could kill before continuing her angry tirade. "No, but I suggest you do it right now and forget what Geneva just said." Then, with a harsh glare at Geneva, she added, "Now lady, you keep your mouth shut. Not another word, you hear?"

Through her tears, Geneva whispered, "I did it. I did it."

That's all Jimmy Don and the sergeant needed to hear. Nudging her toward the stairs, they prepared to haul her away in the patrol car.

"Wait a minute, Detective," I said. "This woman didn't shoot Snakebite."

All eyes were suddenly on me.

"Who are you?" Jimmy Don said, squaring his hips and staring down his Irish Channel nose at me.

"Wyatt Thomas. This woman is innocent. If you had eyes, you'd see it yourself."

"Look here, wise guy. I got a suspect with a motive and a smoking gun. What do you know about anything?"

"He's a former trial attorney and investigator and from across the river," Carla said, elbowing her way into the fray. "He's forgotten more about crime than you'll ever know."

Jimmy Don eyeballed Carla, then looked at me and sneered. "Lawyers, especially ex-lawyers, turn my stomach. If you don't have something concrete to add to this investigation, then get out of my way."

"This lady didn't do the shooting," I said. "A government sharp-shooter couldn't have made that shot from here. It came from the right side of the stage."

Jimmy Don glanced down at the fallen microphone, a good hundred feet away, and considered my remark. "How the hell would you know where it came from?"

Carla did not give me a chance to answer. Reaching beneath my jacket, she yanked the shirt loose from my belt, exposing the ropy layer of scar tissue on my stomach.

"Cause he knows what it's like in a fire fight. Can you say the same, Detective?"

Jimmy Don studied the scar a moment and said, "Gunshot?"

"You can see it is," Carla said. "Now do you believe him?"

I didn't let him answer. "The bullet caught Snakebite just below the heart, in his left side. Someone standing off-stage shot him, but it was not this woman. At least she didn’t shoot him from here."

"Then what's she doing with the pistol?"

"You might find out by having your men take a look down there."

"Who has access to that part of the building?" Jimmy Don asked, looking at Mama Tujugue.

"Band members and their families," she said. "A corridor leads to the stage from the dressing rooms. There are several tables at stage side for family members to watch the performances without dealing with the crowd."

Jimmy Don tapped the sergeant's shoulder and nodded toward the exit near the right of stage. "Tony, take some men and check those dressing rooms."

Sergeant Tony bounded down the stairs and disappeared with a group of police officers along the darkened corridor leading to the dressing rooms. They soon returned with a woman, a much younger version of Geneva Thompson. Streaked mascara and a puffy face revealed her present emotional state. Before she could speak, Geneva Thompson blurted another confession.

"Baby," she said. "I'm sorry I shot your daddy."

"You know each other?" Jimmy Don asked, directing his question to Geneva.

"Enid’s my daughter, and Snakebite's."

I didn't miss the knowing glance exchanged between Geneva and her daughter, nor the implied instructions of silence it carried with it.

"We found her hiding in the closet in one of the dressing rooms," Sergeant Tony said.

"What were you doing in the closet?" Jimmy Don said.

"My name's not Thompson, its Barnett," she said, earning another admonishing glare from her mother.


No one, including Jimmy Don O'Rear, missed the glance this time. "Is this your mother?" he said. Chastised into silence, Enid Barnett only nodded. "Then Mr. Thompson is your stepfather?"


Enid nodded again. Telltale tears began streaming from her eyes. Outside on the river, a passing tugboat blew its mournful whistle.


"Leave her alone," Geneva Thompson said. "She's grieving because I shot her father. I've confessed to the shooting and now I insist you take me downtown, or whatever you do with criminals."

Jimmy Don shrugged, glanced at Sergeant Tony and pointed toward the stairs. "You got a point, lady. Who am I to argue?"

Sergeant Tony nudged Geneva Thompson toward the stairway and Jimmy Don started after them, but stopped abruptly when I said, "Wait a minute."

"I don't have time for this, lawyer-man. We've had four hundred murders since New Years and I've worked my share of them."

"Then you know as well as I do that she couldn't have made the shot from here."

"Maybe she shot him from over there and ran up here to get away. Maybe her daughter saw her do it and hid so she wouldn't have to finger her mother. Whatever, I have a confession and a smoking gun. Unless you can convince me in thirty seconds or less I got the wrong shooter, then stand back and let me do my job."

Jimmy Don's soliloquy started six feet away from where I stood and ended with the hulking detective standing six inches from my face, his own red from anger. When he finished, I waited until he took a deep breath and stepped back a pace.

"I'm savvy. I know you are doing everything in your power. No one is blaming you or the Department for the murder rate. I just see no sense in you booking an innocent woman."

"I didn't twist her arm for no confession."

"Maybe she's pulling the old wounded bird trick on you."

Jimmy Don gave me a crooked look, but said, "What the hell are you jabbering about?"

"I’m talking about the way a mother bird feigns a broken wing to draw a predator away from the nest."

Jimmy Don's eyes closed. He took another deep breath and I held up a finger to prevent him from cutting me off.

"What if Enid shot her stepfather? Geneva saw her do it, followed her to the dressing room, took the pistol and had her hide in the closet. Then she went as far away as she could get. Right here on the balcony. She held up the pistol so everyone would think she did it."

Jimmy Don's big arms folded tightly against his chest, but he was obviously considering my story.
"What's the motive?"

"I’d say either anger or jealousy. Help us, Mama T. You know Snakebite. Why would his stepdaughter want to shoot him?"

"Snakebite's the kindest gentleman I ever met. Wouldn't hurt a fly, but . . ."

"But what?"

Mama Tujugue looked first at Geneva and then down at the hardwood floor. Another tugboat whistle pealed across the river before she finally spoke.

"Snakebite's a womanizer. He chases anything in skirts. Always has. It's a game with him."

"Even his stepdaughter?" I asked.

By now, both Enid and her mother were crying. "I'm sorry," Enid said, clutching the older woman's neck. "You always forgave his running around. I couldn't let him do it to both of us."

Sergeant Tony released the cuffs from Geneva Thompson, quickly transferring them to Enid's wrists.
"Mama," I said. "Call your lawyer and go down to the station with Enid. Carla and I will give Mrs. Thompson a ride to Charity."

***

Later that night we drove across the Greater New Orleans Bridge to Charity Hospital, Geneva Thompson huddled alone on the backbench of Carla's Mustang. Carla's attempt at small talk sounded more like exhausted babble. It didn't matter because Geneva had too much on her mind to respond. My own brain had also numbed to near total shutdown.

Even at this hour, barges and steamers plied the busy river and jazz and neon beckoned tourists on Bourbon Street. The crime we had witnessed was of no great consequence—no more than a family squabble compared with the rapid spread of violence and burgeoning murder rate in the City.

Great Babylon, President Andy Jackson's wife had called the Big Easy. Maybe so, but there’s no place like it on earth, and it's still home to the greatest free ride in America.

####

Born a mile or so from Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma with wife Marilyn, and continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. Wyatt and Carla are recurring characters in Wilder's French Quarter Mystery Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages.

Conjure Man - a New Orleans short story

Mama Mulate’s temples throbbed from a bad migraine. She’d thought about going straight home, but it was Monday, and she always went to Pascale’s for oysters and beer. Despite her headache and drumming of rain on her windshield, she felt ready for a break. One of her favorite ex-students shucked oysters in the bar, and that helped seal her decision.


She swallowed three aspirins and found a spot for her fully restored 1960 Bugeye Sprite in an empty parking lot. Cray Toussaint greeted her when she entered the restaurant.


“Professor Mulate, I didn’t think you’d make it tonight. The place is almost vacant because of the hurricane heading our way.”


“You think I’d let a little rainstorm cause me to miss hearing some of the best new poetry in New Orleans? Not on your life!”Mama took a stool at the oyster bar and gazed around the largely room.”You’re right. I don’t recall seeing the place this dead.”


“All the tourists have left town and gone to Memphis or someplace safe. There’s just a skeleton crew here to take care of the regulars.”


“Does that make me the only regular?”


Cray Toussaint grinned as he polished a beer mug. “There are a couple of diners in the main part of the restaurant. Sarah’s working the tables and Frenchy cooking. Maybe we’ll get busier as the night draws on. What can I get for you?”


“Two dozen freshly shucked oysters and a cold Dixie.”


Cray poured the local brew from the tap behind the bar. Before he handed the chilled mug to Mama Mulate, he shucked a single oyster and dropped the tasty mollusk into a vodka filled shot glass.


“Oyster shooter’s on me. You look like you need it. Hard day?”


“Not if you like grading essays from eighteen freshmen nincompoops.”


“Haven’t heard that word in a while,” Cray said as he began shucking Mama’s oysters.


Realizing she’d probably just dated herself, Mama killed the oyster shooter.”Better have another. And one for you. My tab this time.”


“Why not?” Cray said. “Guess I can make my rules tonight.”


“You bet,” Mama said. “The shooter was what I needed. My head’s feeling better already.”


“I’d have thought an authentic voodoo mambo would have a powerful potion to handle a little headache. Or maybe a strong gris gris.”


Mama grinned.” Vodka and aspirin are hard to beat.”


By ten, Mama and Cray had polished off three dozen oysters, half a dozen oyster shooters and a gallon or so of Dixie Beer. A window was half-cracked and curtains flapped in the breeze as they held hands and stared into each other’s eyes.


“Your last poem was superb,” Mama said.


“Then will you take me home with you?”


Mama was almost taken aback by Cray’s boldness. “I don’t date my students.”


“I dropped out two semesters ago.”


“Maybe so, but you’re not much older than my daughter.”


“I didn’t know you have a daughter. Is she here in New Orleans?”


Mama sipped her beer before answering. “I confess I don’t know where she is. We had a falling out and haven’t spoken in six months.”


Talk of Mama’s errant daughter brought a chill to the conversation, accompanied by a clap of thunder, along with wind and rain pounding windows and front door. Feeling the chill, Cray changed the subject.


“Nasty weather out there. Maybe I should take you home to make sure you make it okay.”


“And then what?”


“A nightcap or two while we wait for the storm to pass?”


“And if it doesn’t?”


“I’ll hold you in my arms and keep you safe.”


“You’re cute, but we need to get to know each other better.”


“I’ve known you three years and we were holding hands just a minute ago. Do you always hold hands with people you don’t like?”


“I like you a lot. I just need to think about this awhile. And no buts, understand?”


Despite Cray’s continued protests, Mama finished her beer and left the restaurant, driving alone to her old two-story house. She found a late model Land Rover parked in the driveway, a somber couple waiting in the front seat. As a voodoo mambo, Mama administered to the needy masses at almost any hour. This couple was white. They followed Mama through the rain to the screened front porch.


“I’m John McGinty and this is my wife, Susan. I know it’s late, but we need your help,” the man said as Mama pushed the creaky screen door shut with her shoulder.


John and Susan were an attractive, middle-aged couple—a financially successful couple from the looks of their expensive Land Rover parked in the driveway.


Despite the beer and oyster shooters, Mama Mulate was largely sober.


”It’s late and the weather’s getting worse by the minute,” she said.”Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”


Mama’s words caused Susan McGinty to start crying, and she hugged her husband.”It’s our son. We don’t know where he is.”


“Have you called the police?”


“Not that simple,” McGinty said.” What we need is information. We heard you could help.”


“I’m a practitioner of the Vodoun religion. What you probably call voodoo. I’m a mambo or priestess, but I’m not psychic. What you need is a seer.”


Susan McGinty stopped crying. “You know such a person?”


“Yes,” Mama said.”A man as old as time. His name is Zekiel. Those that know him call him the Conjure Man. He can tell you where your son is.”


“How can we find him?”


“You can’t,” Mama said.


“We’ll pay whatever it takes,” John McGinty said.


In the tradition of Marie Laveau and other famous New Orleans’ voodoo practitioners, Mama subsidized her Tulane English professor salary by accepting money for her voodoo spells and potions. Knowing without looking the amount would be sufficient, she took McGinty’s check and stowed it in her kitchen teapot. She returned with a large bottle of rum as thunder rumbled the walls of the house.


“Zekiel doesn’t take money. He does enjoy his alcohol. Let’s go before the storm grows worse.”


New Orleans below sea level, the streets had begun to flood as Mama and the McGinty’s leave the house. The sky was black, strong wind blowing up from the Gulf. They headed out of town, toward Gonzales, accompanied by only a few large trucks on the highway. An hour had passed before Mama spoke.


“Slow down. The bridge over the canal is hard to see, even in broad daylight, much less when your wipers won’t clear the rain off your windshield.”


John McGinty steered the Land Rover onto a dirt road, barely visible from the highway and crossed the raging canal on a wooden bridge. The road led through a desolate swamp. It was the city’s storm overflow area that diverted water when flooding occurred. McGinty followed the dirt road for two miles.


“Turn. Zekiel has a shack on a little hill in the woods.”


They found the shack around an abrupt bend. An old black man sat in a rocking chair on its covered front porch. A lop-eared hound sat at his feet, and a black cat whose tail looped like a question mark over its back.


The old man pulled himself up from the rocker and crossed the porch with the help of a cane. Stooping with age, he seemed to have no meat on his little body, just sinew, and tendons and furrowed skin stretched tightly over his ancient bones.


“Didn’t know if you’d make it tonight with the weather and all.”


The McGinty’s exchanged dubious glances, apparently wondering if they’d wasted their time and money.


“You knew we were coming?” John McGinty asked.


The old man chuckled. “Old Zekiel knows just about everything. Come inside before we gets blown away.”


Zekiel's accent was straight from the bayous of south Louisiana but imprinted with a hillbilly twang. Despite his obvious age, his voice was deep and clear, as were his anomalous blue eyes. Mama and the McGinty’s followed him into the shack. Semis passing on the highway melded with the wind whistling through pine boughs. The black cat rushed between Mama’s feet, slipping through the screen door before it shut.


“Watch out for Pancho,” Zekiel said.”He’ll trip you if you aren’t careful. The hound is Baxter. He don’t say much ’cept when the moon is full.”


As if acknowledging their names, Baxter barked, and Pancho rubbed against the old man’s legs. The shack was small and dark; weathered cardboard papered its thin walls. A flowered curtain suspended from a wire quartered the single room. An old army green cot marked the spot where Zekiel slept. There was no indoor plumbing.


A table of stained oak occupied the center of the room. On the table, a coal oil lantern flickered in an updraft. Scattered papers, various gemstones and an old microscope lay strewn on the table. Boxes of old newspapers and magazines littered the floor, and various bottles containing who-knows-what lined the walls with homemade shelves.


Zekiel ambled over to a squatty icebox in a  corner—a white porcelain icebox, chipped and yellowed with time. He returned with cold drinks for the McGinty’s and a ceramic jug. Removing the cork from the jug, he tipped it over his shoulder until clear liquid dribbled down his face. He handed it to Mama.


“I need your help, and you'll need a dose of shine for what we're about to do.”


Mama tipped the jug, instantly tasting some unknown fiery liquor. Zekiel gripped it in his gnarled hand, holding it until a near-lethal amount passed her lips. Then he took two dark stones from a cigar box on the table.


“I know you got strong doubts,” he said, gazing at John McGinty. “You must believe in me before I can help you. Let me show you something.”


He cleared a spot with his forearm and held the two stones about six inches apart. They clashed together with a loud click when he released them.


“Lodestones,” John McGinty said.


Zekiel nodded.”Powerful attraction. Agree?”


“Yes, and it comes with a scientific explanation.”


Ignoring McGinty’s skepticism, Zekiel said, “They have the same powerful attraction as between planets and stars.”


“Maybe . . .”


“Same powerful attraction the moon has on tides.”


“We’re here for answers, not a science lesson.”


Zekiel continued, ignoring McGinty’s skepticism. “You believe lodestones have power? You believe in the attraction of stars and planets and moon and tide? Why not believe in the power of all stones?”


“What power? Other stones have no such power, “John McGinty said.


“Yes, they do. So does every stone.”


Zekiel reached in his cigar box, this time producing a blood red gem. Next to the lamp sat a glass of water. Water in the glass plunked when he dropped the red stone into it.


“Bloodstone,” Zekiel said.”Gains power from water. Together they can suck a hurricane from a desert sky. “Distant thunder sounded outside the shack. “Storm's coming.”


Within seconds, heavy raindrops began pelting the shack's tin roof as lightning flashed across the dirty window pane. The fetid odor of damp soil and crackling ozone flushed like a wave through cracks in the wall.


“That doesn’t prove anything,” John McGinty said. “There’s a hurricane in the Gulf, not fifty miles from New Orleans.”


Zekiel reached across the table and clasped John McGinty’s fist in his gnarled old palm. “Son, you got lots of pain. It sticks out like a red flush on your face. Lose your doubt and help me find your son.”


Again, John McGinty glanced at his wife. This time her look was different. Zekiel drew a deep breath. Dark skin, visible through the vee in his shirt, stretched across his ribs as he removed a crystal ball from a wooden box. Metallic needles pierced the ball. Placing it on an ebony stand, he drank again from the moonshine.


“I needs your help,” he said.


“Tell us what to do,” Mama said, drawing closer to the table.


Zekiel cocked his head and stared at Susan McGinty as if waiting for an answer to an unspoken question. Throbs of glowing red danced on the shack's dark wall. Outside, rain pummeled the windows and drummed on the tin roof.


“Lock your gaze at the crystal. Won't nothing work till your eyes start to dim. Don't blink. Don't do nothing but gaze at the crystal ball.”


Zekiel kept up a low-voiced banter, imploring them to stare at the crystal ball. Soon, his words became a subliminal message. The crystal ball turned black. Clouds parted, and everyone’s gaze penetrated the sphere. In it they saw a vivid panorama into another place and time.


The image of a young man appeared. He was alone, draped in darkness and water up to his neck. As they watched, he closed his eyes and disappeared beneath the water’s choppy surface. An explosion of noise jolted them back to reality. Nearby lightning had struck a tall pine outside the window. As Mama watched, John and Susan held each other tightly, sobbing uncontrollably. Zekiel stood from the table and drew Mama aside.


“Their son drowned in an accident. Sometimes the only way to accept reality is to see it with your own eyes.”


***


The morning had dawned before the McGinty’s, and Mama arrived back at her house. The hurricane had moved west toward the Texas coast and had miraculously missed New Orleans. All that remained was a dark sky filled with darker clouds. Slow rain would continue throughout the day. Mama didn’t expect John and Susan McGinty’s reaction when.


“Thank you,” Susan McGinty said. “Now we know the reports of Robby’s death are true.”
“They never found his body. We thought he might somehow have survived,” John McGinty added.
“Now we can have a proper memorial service for him,” Susan McGinty said.


The McGinty’s had found their closure Mama thought as she watched them drive away. The experience forced her to consider her daughter. Later that day, she returned alone to Zekiel’s shack. This time she took two sacks of groceries, two bags of ice and a fifth of Jack Daniels. Zekiel, Pancho, and Baxter were waiting on the porch. The old man grinned when she stepped from her Sprite.


“Been waiting,” he said.”I already got the answer to the question you need to ask me.”


Mama followed Zekiel into the shack. After stowing the canned goods, she presented him with the bottle of Jack Daniels.


“Thanks, Mama,” he said.”My favorite.”


Mama held his shoulders as she stared into his deep blue eyes.”You know about my problem?”


“Your daughter. She’s waiting to hear from you.”


“How do you know?”


“I scryed it in the crystal ball.”


“Is she okay?”


“She’s waitressing at a restaurant called the Brown Hen in Mobile. She’s saved a little money to go back to college.”


“But I was paying for her college tuition when she ran away.”


“She wasn’t running away from college. She was running away from you.”


“But why? What more could I have given her?”


“No more buts,” Zekiel said.”You gave too much. She needed to experience things on her own, without a mother looking over her shoulder.”


“But I . . .”


“I said no more buts. Mama, the only thing you did wrong is to hold on too tight. You’re strong and imposing, and that makes it tough on a daughter. Give her space she needs. She’ll surprise you with how much you are alike. You could call the Brown Hen, though, and tell her you’re thinking about her.”


***


Storm clouds had cleared when Mama Mulate returned to New Orleans. She had lowered the top of the Bugeye Sprite to let her long hair blow in the breeze beneath a cloudless blue sky. When she got home, she would call the Brown Hen Restaurant in Mobile and talk to her daughter. Tell her she loved her and that she supported any decision about her life she may have made.
After that, an out-of-character Tuesday visit to Pascale’s, a dozen oysters, and cold Dixie seemed inviting. Who knows, she thought—maybe she would even invite Trey back to her house to recite poetry.



####



Mama Mulate is a recurring character in Eric Wilder’s French Quarter Mystery series.

Mama Mulate's Shrimp and Mirliton Casserole

Though mirlitons are originally from Mexico and Central America, they have found a home in Mama Mulate’s backyard. Mama teaches English literature at Tulane University in New Orleans. She’s also a practicing voodoo mambo, business partner and confidante to Wyatt Thomas, the French Quarter’s favorite private investigator. Mama and Wyatt come alive in Eric Wilder’s French Quarter Mystery series. Fictional maybe, but this is one of Mama’s favorite mirliton recipes.

Ingredients

• 4 medium mirlitons
• 4 tbsp. butter
• 1 lb. shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 cup green onions, chopped
• 1 onion, large, finely chopped
• ¼ cup parsley, chopped
• ½ cup celery, chopped
• ½ bell pepper, medium, chopped
• Salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste
• ½ cup bread crumbs

Directions

Boil mirlitons in salty water until tender. Peel and cube the pulp. In a skillet, using butter, sauté green onions, onions, bell pepper, celery and parsley. Add shrimp and cook 10 minutes. Add mirliton, garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste, and then mix well. Pour into large casserole dish, sprinkle with breadcrumbs. In an oven preheated to 350 degrees, bake the ingredients 30 minutes, or until top is golden brown. Enjoy!