All the Devil's Creatures (3 page)

Framed photographs and letters covered the remaining walls. Geoff thought it looked like an exhibit of Texas political history from Sam Rayburn to Ann Richards. Most striking was a signed photograph of LBJ. It read: “Congratulations John on your election. You’ll do your father’s name and your county proud. President Lyndon B. Johnson, November 1966.”

The sheriff saw him looking. “It was daddy who won East Texas for Lyndon when he first got elected to the Senate in ‘48. They went way back.
His
father, my grandfather, used to play poker with Lady Bird’s daddy.”

“Is that right?” Geoff hesitated before sitting down. “Forty years in office—impressive, Sheriff.”

Eileen shot him an impatient look, but Geoff leaned back in his chair and grinned, ready to palaver with this old character. He started to think he could get through this.

Seastrunk said, “I was working my way through law school at Texas when my father died. Some good people in this county talked me into coming home and running.”

“Well I’ll be.”

“Never did finish that law degree,” the sheriff said, eyes still gazing toward his prized presidential letter. “No regrets. Spent most my time in Austin drinking beer and playing guitar anyway.”

“You still play?” Geoff could talk politics and music all day.

But Eileen cleared her throat. Seastrunk glanced at her and back at Geoff. “It’s not pretty but I guess we do need to get down to business. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble for y’all to come down here—”

“Not at all,” Geoff said as he glanced at Eileen.

“Good. Dr. Kim, I understand you were the victim’s employer.”

“That’s right, Sheriff.” Eileen explained to Seastrunk the nature of her business and Dalia’s role.

When she finished, Seastrunk turned to Geoff. “So, Mr. Waltz, what can you tell me about this litigation?”

Geoff rubbed his chin and scratched his ear. Knowing that all plaintiffs lawyers need an elevator speech to describe their cases in thirty seconds—concise, conveying the justice of the claim—he plunged for his and let it flow out in a stream. “Sheriff, the company is letting pollution seep into the lake illegally. It’s a toxic soup coming out of there—nasty stuff. My clients are a group of concerned people who live up on the lake—they eat its fish, it waters their gardens. So we’ve brought a private action, called a citizen suit, under the Clean Water Act to force Texronco to clean it up.”

“So this is some kind of environmental do-gooder thing?” The sheriff seemed neither skeptical nor very interested.

“Sure,” Geoff said. “You could put it that way.” Somehow (as it often did, though he never expected it) the act of describing his work brought forth that old despair. Geoff swallowed bile and fought to focus. The despair often presaged rage, unless he staunched it with drink. But he could hold himself together, could function as a professional, until nightfall. Until he was alone.

He rubbed the back of his head as the bad moment passed. “You know, Eileen here’s the environmental scientist. She’s the one who first got me into this stuff years ago.”

Eileen spoke in measured tones, but Geoff could still sense the stress coming off her like static electricity.
Tell him about Dalia’s call—let the old man decide if it’s relevant.
But he lacked the will to defy her and do so himself. Especially since she had still given him no clue as to what Dalia had discovered.

“I referred Mr. Kincaid to Geoff. He contacted me at Tulane when—”

“Wait—
Willie
Kincaid?” The sheriff leaned forward.

“Yes, why—”

“What the hell does that ol’ swamp rat have to do with your case?”

“Well, he’s my lead client, Sheriff,” Geoff said, not liking the lawman’s sudden sharp tone. “He speaks for the group. This lawsuit was his idea. He discovered the pollution, called Eileen—”

“I’ve been researching the lake’s ecosystem.” Eileen looked back and forth between the two men. “He found me on the Internet.”

“That joker’s been on the Internet?” The sheriff sounded incredulous but then waved his own question away. He looked down at his desk with his hands clasped before him, as if gathering his composure. Then he looked up and said, “You do realize it was Kincaid who discovered Ms. Bordelon’s body?”

Eileen seemed nonplussed as Geoff felt heat rising up his neck and into his cheeks. “No idea, Sheriff.”

“Well why the hell didn’t Kincaid mention he knew the victim? This is awfully—”

“Sheriff—”

“I mean, to withhold information like this—”

“Sheriff, please,” Eileen said. “Kincaid didn’t know Dalia Bordelon, had no reason to know who she was. I sent Dalia up here to get samples. She analyzed them at the lab. But mine is the only name he knows.”

Geoff silently cursed Kincaid and Eileen both. “Listen Sheriff, Willie might get on the Web at his daughter’s house, but he’s a bit of a hermit. I think it took it out of him to call up Eileen. And driving to Dallas in his daughter’s old Pontiac to see me and pitch his case—it just about wore him out. He doesn’t like to talk.”

“Yes, he’s a strange bird,” Eileen said. “But he’s passionate about the lake and the marvelous biodiversity you have here.”

Seastrunk said, “Okay. But that still doesn’t explain why he wouldn’t mention he was mixed up with anything to do with the refinery. He even told me he’d seen the gal, Ms. Bordelon, going in and out of there, that he’d seen other folks going around, taking samples as you say. Don’t y’all think he could have let me know that, just maybe, he had an idea what they were up to?”

“Sheriff Seastrunk, Mr. Kincaid is a hermit, yes, but it’s a bit more than that. He’s, well, a little bit …”

“He’s paranoid,” Geoff said, shooting a sharp look to his consultant. “Half nuts to tell the truth. Now, he’s got a solid case and he knows his stuff. But it doesn’t surprise me one bit that he wouldn’t open up to law enforcement about his involvement in a lawsuit against Texronco. He’s skittish.”

“So, what—you think he thinks somebody at Texronco might have murdered Ms. Bordelon because she was involved in all this environmental business?”

“Maybe he thinks that,” Geoff said. “But like I said, he’s paranoid.”

Seastrunk considered. “Well. I might just need to have another conversation with the old fella. I suppose you’ll want to be present, Mr. Waltz?”

Lord no
, Geoff thought. “Look, I’m not a criminal lawyer—” He caught Eileen’s glare. “But, yeah, please do contact me.”

“Okay then, now I’ve got to ask y’all—Mr. Waltz, Dr. Kim, can you think of anyone from the company who might have done this?”

Eileen rushed to answer first. “From Texronco? Sheriff, obviously the …
degenerates
who did this killed Dalia based on race hatred. I don’t think the company, or our lawsuit, is involved.”

“Dr. Kim’s right.” Geoff said, eyes on Eileen.
And you’d better be. ‘Another facility,’ Dalia said. But if you’re hiding something that suggests this is linked to the refinery ….

Yet Geoff realized that in truth he did not want to know if she was.

He turned his eyes to Seastrunk. “This lawsuit is peanuts to a multi-national like Texronco. The company will write off any loss as a business expense. It’s all just business to them. Now, they can be real jerks in the courtroom, but I can’t fathom in a million years how this murder would have anything to do with the company or this lawsuit. I mean, for context, look at the numbers: Texronco’s revenues are in the tens of billions of dollars. If they lose this case, they might have to spend three-hundred thousand on remediation, max. And maybe, if we prevail on all our claims, a hundred thousand in fines.”

“We all know what this murder was, Sheriff Seastrunk.”

“A hate crime, I know it.” Seastrunk looked past them, leaning back in his chair, his fingertips together before his chin. “Now, the old fella did mention something about critters having something to do with this. And his boy there …”

“Critters?” A momentary fear pass over Eileen’s gaze, almost terror. “And what boy?”

“His grandson …” His voice had gone distant, his brow furrowed; he looked to be recalling some unpleasant thing.

“Joey,” Geoff said.

“Right.” The old man snapped to. “The poor kid was there, is all—they were out fishing when they found the body.”

Eileen looked into her lap and took deep breaths, as if a banal sadness had forced aside her taut wariness. “Oh my.”

“And as for the critters,” Seastrunk said. “There’s been stories for years of strange creatures out in those swamps. I guess that’s what Kincaid was talking about. He didn’t elaborate, and I just took him to have a screw a bit loose.”

“I’ve heard the legends.” Eileen seemed to regain control—though her voice had softened. “Fishermen’s tall tales. Not that the lake isn’t amazingly rich in wildlife. But nothing supernatural or otherworldly.”

“Shoot, I know that’s right. And like you said, the sons-of-bitches who did this left their motive pretty clear at the crime scene.”

•

Walking down fluorescent-lit corridor to the annex building’s exit, heels clacking on worn institutional tile, Geoff said, “You know if it starts to look like there’s more to this, we’re going back to the sheriff—”

“Fine, I—”

Eileen stopped short as they rounded a corner, passing a slick-looking little man with a grin that seemed painted on and hair like something chiseled from obsidian—Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Robert Duchamp. Geoff feigned nonchalance. He knew this was Duchamp’s home turf, his district back when he was in Congress, but he still found it shocking to come face to face with a figure so infamous. The reactionary demagogue had made him sick back when Geoff still cared about politics; the very sight of him on television had been enough to throw Janie into fits of apoplectic rage.

But he did not allow himself a moment’s curiosity as to the ex-Congressman’s business with the sheriff.
This damn case is giving me plenty to worry about as it is.

•

Back in Geoff’s car, Eileen said, “Is that a new legal strategy—describing your client as ‘half nuts’ to an officer of the law?”

Geoff went around the courthouse square to get back to the two-lane blacktop that led to the lake. The Art Deco county courthouse loomed over them. The storefronts on the square, if not empty, housed antique stores and tea rooms that catered to the out-of-town visitors to the lake. Geoff saw no drug store, and the five-and-dime sat shuttered, its bright red ampersand hanging askew. Victims of the big box stores on the edge of town. He did spot one holdout—a hardware store—as he tried to think of a response-of-least-resistance to Eileen’s prodding.

“I’m sorry. But Willie
is
crazy. And this case will hinge on your credibility, not his.”

“And what’s this: ‘I’m not a criminal lawyer?’ Maybe not, but maybe it’s best not to be so dismissive of your client when there’s a murder investigation on.”

“It would help if I had all the facts, Eileen.” He tried to give her a stern glare, but she only stared out the windshield. And anyway, he no longer felt angry or annoyed—just very tired. “In any case, Willie’s not a suspect.”

“Who knows with a redneck like Seastrunk in charge. He might be
fishin’
buddies with the cretins who did this, for all we know.”

“I don’t think so. I like Seastrunk. And like I said, we’re not going to hide—”

“Whatever. Don’t you know any criminal defense lawyers, at least?”

Geoff pictured his drinking buddy Tony Abruzzo, holding forth on his bar stool at the neighborhood dive. “Sure.”

“I mean, maybe, just once, you could—I don’t know what to say to you, Geoff. I don’t want the sheriff digging around in our case. Not now. So hold Kincaid’s hand till the murder investigation moves on. We can’t have the old man spouting anything that would … would …”

“Would what? Arouse suspicion? For God’s sake you’re sounding guilty yourself.”

He looked over at her burning eyes. He braced for a punch. Instead, tears came. “Just drive.”

And he did, in silence.

After a while, Geoff turned off the highway onto the road that led to his motel, just a couple of inches of asphalt over red clay dirt. Eileen’s clean rented Chevy waited, showing up Geoff’s old Mercedes. As he threw the car into park, she said, “Dalia was so sweet. And brilliant. She had deep New Orleans roots—an old, old Creole family. After all they’ve been through …”

“I’m sorry.”

With her hand already on the door handle, she turned her head to face him. “Then call T-Jacques.”

N
o sooner had Seastrunk shown the Dallas lawyer and the scientist out than his receptionist buzzed. “Sheriff, the Speaker’s here to see you.”

Seastrunk was neither happy nor surprised at the call. “All right, send him in.”

The door opened and Robert Duchamp walked in behind his outstretched hand, wearing his signature down-home ear-to-ear grin. The sheriff didn’t return the smile.
Out of office five years, and to this day he always looks like he’s campaigning.

“Howdy, Sheriff!”

“Congressman.” Seastrunk had never gotten used to Duchamp’s fake Texas twang.

Duchamp made mild small talk for a glad-hander’s requisite interval before letting his face fall to a frown of abject sadness. “I do have a specific reason for this visit. I hear that a girl was found killed on the lake yesterday.”

“I’m afraid you heard right.”

“An
African-American
girl.”

“Yes.”

“Sheriff, you remember Jasper?”

“Of course.” The lynching of James Byrd had occurred barely a hundred miles to the south. It had crossed his mind. In the pause that followed, the men’s eyes locked—Duchamp’s unreflective gaze betrayed both his birth privilege and his mental mediocrity.

“Sheriff, we can’t afford a big, salacious national news story painting us as a bunch of murderous, cross-burning, racist hicks. We’re trying to attract business down here—”

“I can’t bury this story, Congressman.” He allowed a warning, authoritative note to enter his level tone.