Tom Hoke - Murder in the Grand Manor

Jim went down the front stairs, took a quick look at Lena and Aunt Annie's doors, slipped into his room and locked the door behind. He put a wooden chair under the knob just for fun. He had a lot of thinking to do, but he needed a drink, and he needed to do his thinking dry. Without turning on the light, he groped for the bottle and took a long drink.

He toweled his hair dry, wincing as he crossed the sore spot, pulled off his clothes, and stretched out on the bed. The bed was almost as uncomfortable as he had imagined.

The guy on the bed upstairs didn't bother him too much. From his acquaintance with him, he wondered how Durpey had lived so long. He supposed he could have rushed out through the downpour to announce the demise to the local police. It was most unethical not to do so.

However, the body would keep. Well, after a fashion it would, and morning was already here. He wondered sleepily what the late lamented Jerry Duprey was doing out in the middle of no place, running up and down a deserted and half obliterated graveyard with a flashlight. Obviously he was searching for something. His association with Duprey said it wasn't "hay"! Obviously, he could hardly ask Duprey now.

Within 24 hours Jim had indulged in a Mickey, traveled across a couple of states, taken on two half-zany females to protect, and been conked over the head. He had a few questions for Aunt Annie and Lena. But he had it for the day. He rolled over and went to sleep.

A tapping noise on the wall woke Jim, and he opened his eyes to horrible wallpaper. He groaned as he turned over in the sunk-in-the-middle bed. It was daylight, but hardly sunny, so he was surprised to see it was almost 9. He didn't have to review the past hours. They came in a rush. The wheels started going around…from Mrs. Benning to Jerry and the graveyard. He wondered if any unlikely person had come upon Jerry's remains and decided not. Nobody in the joint was unlikely in his book.

Jim tapped back at Aunt Annie, pulled his way into pants and a sport shirt, and spread tepid water on his face. If he didn't have a rugged constitution he would never have gotten out of bed. There was a knock on the door.

He opened it and both Aunt Annie and Lena darted in. Aunt Annie had on pink slippers, a scarlet flowered shirt, and large, round, gold earrings. Lena was sumptuous in a flowing, unbelted garment of gold lame plus a Mexican hat saddled with purple lei wound twice around the hat, which gave a rather top-heavy appearance. Aunt Annie handed him something warmish in a paper napkin. Lena was teetering a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Looking at Jim solemnly, Aunt Annie said:

"There are two red flags out today, Charlie!"

So here he was back in the wonderful world of idiocy. He shook his head to clear it and wished he hadn’t. Then he opened the paper napkin to discover a slightly soggy sweet roll, and took the coffee out of Lena's hand. He said, "Where is everybody?" Aunt Annie shrugged. "They seem to be having a clambake in the kitchen. You missed your breakfast with us," she reproved. Lena looked at Jim dolefully and flicked ashes on the floor.

He wondered what they'd do if he provided a full report on his activities the night before, probably head for the bar. He pulled together a smile and said, "Thanks for the sweet roll and the coffee, ladies. I'm sorry about breakfast." He wasn't half as sorry about breakfast as he was about the mess he had gotten himself into by listening to Beau Mitchell in the first place.

Lena reached over and helped herself to one of his cigarettes on the dresser, lit it from her own, and put the first delicately in the one ashtray. "What are you going to do?" she demanded, staring at Jim.

He looked through the window half-covered with ivy at a dull gray sky. At least, he thought, it wasn't raining. With the recent bash on the head, the body upstairs, and two unpredictable females waiting apparently with baited breath for his answer, he felt like saying,

"Shoot myself…what else?" but decided against it. One of them might have handed him a gun. The first thing he had to do was go back to the graveyard. So he said, "I have to run an errand. In broad daylight you two ladies will be perfectly safe. When I come back we'll think about getting out of here."

Aunt Annie grabbed Lena's arm and started for the door. "But the two red flags?" she said with a question in her voice.

Jim tried to make his voice patient. "Now, never you mind about the flags, girls. Take a nice long walk on the beach. I'll get back as soon as I can." He shut the door on them.

Slipping his wallet into a back pocket, he picked up his keys and went down the front stairs to find a deserted lobby. Where was the ever present Leddon? Probably he was in the kitchen with the rest of the crew. "Lucky, I guess," he mused aloud as he went out into the humid dull day and slid into his car.

Everything was calm, even the bay which looked like a bad watercolor because it almost matched the sky. There were a few cars speeding across the bridge and a couple of men pulling a skiff up to the road. They were shouting at each other and gesticulating wildly, but were too far away for him to make out what they said. Just a couple more nuts, he thought, and headed for Highway 90.

Anywhere else he had ever been the rain soaks into the ground or runs off it, at least overnight. Not here. The ditches on either side of the road were full of water. Any more and they would flood the road which was hardly dry. But he had more on his mind than that. He cursed for not checking the mileage while he was chasing Jerry the night before.

He made a couple of wrong turns before he found the road he had followed the previous evening.

The road went directly through the tall pines he had glimpsed last night and came to several man-made canals. A dilapidated sign indicated this was a subdivision, but it was minus houses with only a few tilted sticks to stake out what were supposed to be waterfront lots. The earth they had piled up to dig the canals was dead and bare. It would be a long time before lush green grass would take over these choice lots. And apparently somebody had come up with the idea of bulldozing down the trees that stood in the way of digging the canals. Cheaper, he guessed, but most unappetizing. He looked for the area where he parked the night before. He stopped when he saw it, and realized he had been parked on Harbor Drive, according to the sign which seemed to have stood up to the weather better than the subdivision sign.

As he backtracked to the spot where Duprey had turned off, another sign proclaimed the place where he had turned was Riviera Road.

He went on more slowly until he thought he was in line with the old cemetery. The road to the cemetery was Durnvie Dell road. The cemetery was off to the left. Unless you knew it was there, you would pass it up for sure.

Very depressing spot, he thought. Even for a cemetery. He got out of the car and looked up and down the road. Not a soul in sight. He walked over to the half-up, half-down fence and looked at the cemetery. What in the hell was Jerry doing out here in the middle of the night? Around the cemetery were half a dozen live oak trees which from their size dated back into the last century. Even in the daylight he could see no names on the grave markers.

Slowly he walked back to the car.

This time he had a bright thought. He wondered about the land and about the graveyard. He could find out who owned the land, if he knew where he was. He started back to Highway 90, checking the mileage to the city limits of Bay St. Louis. He knew the size of the town, having checked it when he was getting ready to get on Duprey's trail. So, it had to be big enough for a courthouse.

A green and white sign said Business District to the right of the highway. He turned down a straight stretch of asphalt and sure enough, the street sign said Main Street. Main Street seemed a likely place for a courthouse. But the first few blocks didn't give much of an idea of the city. Just some more pines, until he came to a ballpark on the right side of the narrow road. This was encouraging. Houses were straggling out on both sides of the street, and he stopped before a house where a man was struggling to carry a large sheet of plywood through a gate. "Can you tell me where the courthouse is, sir?" he asked pleasantly enough. The man rested one corner of the plywood on the ground and frowned at him.