“Catch a night flight if there is one,” she said firmly. “Call me back and give me your flight information.”
She was still the boss. I hung up and dialed an airline.
So I arrived in New Orleans and was immediately launched on a second wild goose chase. During the three hours I spent sitting on Old Jake’s porch, guarding his corpse and communing with undiluted nature, I had ample time to ask myself why I didn’t find a job that occasionally made sense.
CHAPTER FOUR
The police took an unconscionable amount of time getting there, and it seemed much longer than that because I had nothing to do but wait. They also took their time in getting around to dealing with Tosche and me, and we almost had to find our way back to Pointe Neuve in the dark.
They weren’t quite finished with us then. A deputy met us at the dock, and, after we had refilled the motor’s gas tank and located Ed to return his key, we were escorted into the presence of the sheriff himself. He had set up a temporary headquarters at his parked police car, and he was directing the questioning of every Pointe Neuve resident about the stranger Old Jake had been seen with.
He looked more like a folksy used car dealer than an officer of the law, but he certainly was no one’s fool in police matters. He already knew all about me from reports his men had radioed, but he wanted a peek for himself.
From his questions, I gathered that all of the local residents except the witnesses we had already talked with were disclaiming any knowledge of either Old Jake or the stranger.
First he cross-examined me on my testimony. Then, as though he half suspected I might have dented Old Jake’s skull myself, he turned his attention to my own movements two weeks previously.
“Jay Pletcher?” he asked finally, giving me a searching look. “Is that J-A-Y?”
I’d had a long, exhausting day, and I definitely had not received my money’s worth for the time invested. The deputies at the cabon had been downright miserly in passing along information.
“It’s ‘J’,” I said. “The letter ‘J.’ I was named J-A-G-D after my German great-grandfather, but no one can pronounce it, so I just call myself ‘J’.”
He decided to ignore that. “You’re staying at the Hotel Maria Theresa?”
“I haven’t stayed there yet, but I’m registered there.”
“Just so we know where to find you. Better plan on sticking around for awhile.”
“I’ll be here a lot longer than that,” I promised.
Tosche and I trudged back to his jeep. Fortunately it had stopped raining.
“This pretty much nails down the rumor about DeVarnay being seen down here, doesn’t it?” Tosche asked as we drove off.
“The police certainly will take it that way,” I said. “To me, it’s just one more damned complication. The fact that a man’s suitcase is there doesn’t automatically prove he arrived with it. It would help to know what was found in the cabon in the way of fingerprints, but I’ll get that eventually. If DeVarnay left them all over the place, that, of course, settles it. If not, there are other possibilities, and all of them will have to be looked into. The most urgent problem right now is to find out what could have taken a millionaire antique dealer down to Pointe Neuve in the first place. According to his personal history, it wasn’t hunting or fishing, and from what I saw of Old Jake and his cabon, it couldn’t have been business.” I thought for a moment. “I’ll have to talk to a customs officer.”
“You mean—he could have been smuggling something?”
“It’s a possibility. I don’t know enough about the sources of antiques to know whether there would be any profit in smuggling them. Or in smuggling something else, such as drugs, under the guise of importing antiques. I’ll have to ask about it. A customs officer is the logical place to start.”
“You’d want a special agent,” Tosche said. “My brother knows one.”
“A special customs agent?”
“Yeah. Dick—that’s my brother—sometimes comes up with tips for him.”
“What’s your brother’s business?” I asked.
“That’s hard to say. Mostly he buys and sells. He knows where and how to dispose of things. You show him something, he knows who might be interested. He sells some of the stuff himself in the flea market at the New Orleans French Market.”
“Can he make a living that way?”
“He seems to. He isn’t getting rich, but he gets along all right, and he enjoys what he’s doing. If you have any investigating you want done in the French Quarter, he knows it inside out. He can arrange for someone else to look after his tables at the market when he’s busy with other things, and it’d give him something different to do. My brother gets bored easily. Until he started this buying and selling kick, he never held a job long.”
“If he’s available, I’m sure I can use him,” I said. “Just for a start, I’d like to meet this special customs agent as soon as possible. If DeVarnay has stuck his foot in something, I want to know about it.”
“I’ll call him now,” Tosche said.
We stopped at a gasoline station, and he called his brother. When he came back to his jeep, he announced, “He’ll give his friend a call and see if he’s available tonight. Either way, he’ll be waiting for us in your hotel lobby.”
Neither of us had much to say for the remainder of the ride. Eventually the lights of New Orleans appeared on the horizon, and we crossed the Greater New Orleans Bridge and plunged into them.
The streets of the New Orleans French Quarter are not the world’s best-lit thoroughfares. Streetlights are infrequent and sometimes oddly placed—they may be located some distance from intersections where one would expect to find them. The French Quarter’s numerous galleries, or balconies, further complicate the lighting. If the lamps were located at the height common for them in most cities, French Quarter sidewalks would be deeply shadowed by the galleries. Perhaps this is the reason the lights are placed lower than usual, but that further reduces their effectiveness.
The principle streets are well-lit despite this because each business establishment lights its own store front and the adjacent sidewalk with floodlights attached beneath the building’s second floor gallery. On side streets, however, such as the one where the Hotel Maria Theresa was located, gloom may prevail.
Although the hotel was small and family operated, its security was commendable. The lobby’s outside door was kept locked at all times. One rang the bell; the duty clerk pressed a button that sounded a buzzer and released the lock. Then he checked to see who was entering. We passed the test and left the dim street for a small, warmly lit lobby, where we found Tosche’s brother, Dick, waiting for us. If it hadn’t been for Dick’s height and sturdy build, he would have looked like a high school kid. His blue eyes, slow grin, and rugged good looks echoed those of his brother. The only clashing note was produced by his long hair, which made him look like an exceptionally robust hippy. He gave his brother an affectionate hug, and then he very politely shook hands with me.
“He’ll tell you all about it,” Charlie told him. “I’ve got to run.”
They exchanged hugs again, Charlie turned at the door, gave us a wave, and disappeared into the gloom outside. I hadn’t offered to pay him. He had made his deal with Raina, and I had no idea what it was, so I left the obligation for her to settle.
In that casual fashion, I found I had switched guides. Dick said, “The customs agent will be waiting for us in a bar near here.”
“Does the bar serve food?” I asked. Since