Crescent City Murder Read online

  Crescent City Murder

  Alec Peche

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Also by Alec Peche

  About the Author

  Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Text Copyright © February 2018 Alec Peche

  Published by GBSW Publishing

  Cover art: Vila Design

  Author Photo: Rachael Paulsen Photography

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author and the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a review.

  Created with Vellum

  Acknowledgments

  Acknowledgements…Many thanks to my first reader and my editor for improving the quality of the story and my writing! Also, deepest gratitude to the medical examiner of New Orleans for granting me a tour of the facility and description of her work.

  Alec Peche

  Untitled

  The mist is risen like thin breath;

  The young leaves of the ground smell chill,

  So faintly are they strewn on death,

  The road I came down a west hill;

  But none can name as I can name

  A little golden-bright thing flame,

  Since bones have caught their marrow chill.

  Excerpt from “The Horn” by Léonie Adams

  Chapter 1

  Julien Cheval drove along a quiet road having left the interstate a few miles ago. He slowed looking at a field of soybeans. The leaves were brown on the edge, yet the soil looked moist. He studied the field and judged it was in the early stages of dying. His guess was the drift of a weed killer called Dicamba had damaged the field. The Louisiana Agricultural division had its supervisors on the lookout for such problems as lawsuits and sometimes even fist-fights developed between farmers. The weed killer's manufacturer had issued alerts about using the product, but still crops were damaged. He parked his truck, and walked back to its compartments to get his collection materials. He could hear the hum of insects and not much more in this vast array of farm acreage. Five minutes later he stood up, his collection bags sealed, preparing to move on to the next farm.

  As he straightened, he noticed a cloud of dust in the distance. Following the line of dust it appeared that a vehicle was coming toward him from a field access dirt road. He squinted trying to determine if the road belonged to the farm he was standing before or was it a neighbor's? He watched the approach of dust, still not clearly seeing the source of it as he placed his collection envelopes in the slot on the compartment. He finished and walked to the driver's side planning on leaving the area, when the source of dust popped up on the road in front of his truck. He stood there leaning against the driver side door waiting for the dust cloud to disperse. Waving at the dust heading his way in an effort to clear his vision, he finally saw the source.

  A large black pick-up truck with wheels more suited to a Saturday night monster truck jam appeared before his clearing vision. The grill on the front gave the impression that it was ready to eat him and his utility truck as a snack. Then he noticed two men in the back of the truck bed. They had the look of ex-military commandos in their dress, posture, and glare. They were seated behind rifles mounted in the truck bed like this field belonged in a war zone.

  'What the fuck?' Thought Julien. When had collecting plant samples become so dangerous?

  He stood there leaning against his truck door waiting for them to say something. He could feel sweat trickling down his back both from the humidity and his response to the appearance of the truck and its occupants. He could feel his heart racing and his breath accelerate. He saw one of the men in the truck bed pull something off his utility belt. Julien was worried that it was a gun and his thoughts drifted to his son that morning. Had he told him he loved him?

  The man brought something up in his hands and Julien's pounding heart momentarily squeezed feeling the impact of a bullet slamming into his chest as he closed his eyes. A few minutes later, when he heard no sound other than the click of the truck's engine he opened his eyes and stared as the commando raised a camera and took a picture of Julien's face.

  Julien wondered what kind of idiotic look he'd had on his face for the picture, given the shock and awe of the situation he'd found himself in. He was about to call out a question as to who they were and what they were doing when with a murmured word he couldn't hear, the monster truck spun around and made its dusty way back to whence it came. He let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding only to break into a paroxysmal of coughing as the new dust cloud entered his lungs and eyes. As soon as his vision cleared for the second time, he decided it was time to get the hell out of this area and return to more civilized surroundings. Ten minutes later, he was back on the interstate heading for his office building in the Louisiana capital. After the shaky experience that morning, he planned to stay in the office for the remainder of the day. He had plenty of paperwork to catch up on, and after the experience with the truck, he'd inhaled enough dust. If he ran into his supervisor, John, he'd tell him about the strange encounter.

  As he pulled into the parking lot of his office, he glanced around him at the traffic moving smoothly down the street in Baton Rouge. The episode with the truck had felt surreal, more so now that he was smack in the middle of civilization so he shrugged and walked into the two-story concrete building carrying his samples from the fields he visited that day.

  An hour later, he had his samples processed, paperwork completed, and envelopes to the testing lab in the out-box of his department. Julien connected with a friend from another division, and they walked down the street for lunch. Again as they walked, he thought about telling the friend of his strange incident with the truck and decided to see what he said.

  “Hey Keith, I had a weird experience this morning and I wondered if it had ever happened to you?”

  With a laugh, Keith replied, “I've had all kinds of weird experiences out in the fields. What happened?”

  Julien described his interaction with the monster truck. Keith agreed it was weird, but he hadn
't had any interactions with any large trucks, even though he saw any number of similar farms north and west of Baton Rouge.

  “Have you seen farms affected by Dicamba – wilted leaves on the way to the plants dying?”

  Keith nodded in response, “Not often, maybe once a month.”

  “Hmmm, well this field I'd stopped at had the classic signs of Dicamba damage. I was tempted to take a sample of the healthy field next to it, but I was distracted by the appearance of the truck.”

  “I admit I'd probably be shaken if I was alone with a monster truck filled with two men sitting behind rifles. I'll keep an eye out going forward and let you know if I have any strange encounters.”

  With that, the two men moved their conversation to football and their beloved local teams – the Saints and the LSU Tigers. Julien soon forgot his encounter of the morning once the two men were deep in discussion about LSU hitting a new low in the football world with a loss to Troy.

  The remainder of the week proved uneventful for Julien other than he felt like he was coming down with the flu, experiencing nausea after returning from collecting samples out in the field. He guessed that his luck was ending with never having the flu this year, or perhaps the vaccine wasn't as effective this flu season as he'd had his flu shot a few weeks ago.

  Julien felt better by the end of the weekend and had enjoyed teaching his son how to play T-ball. The flu receded and he was ready to tackle his role as a state agriculture inspector on Monday. His interaction with the truck and the samples he'd collected ended up filed in the deep recesses of his brain as he moved on to the current issues of his work and private life.

  The nausea continued off and on for the next couple of weeks and Julien assumed at first it was the lingering effects of that initial case of flu. Then he began to wonder if he'd been exposed to Dicamba in all the dust that monster truck had stirred up. He checked out the symptoms on the internet, and they matched what he was feeling except for the burning lungs, but he hadn't begun to feel really bad until about two weeks after his exposure to the farm dust of the truck, so that didn't make sense.

  It was getting hard to eat because of the nausea and he'd lost weight. He made an appointment to see his doctor and he'd begun to worry he might have something serious like stomach cancer which made him fret more. He felt a little better after he had lunch and then he returned to the field for the collection of more samples. It was a hot and humid day, and he thanked the state for affixing the water jug on the back of their state vehicles. If they hadn't, then Julien would have had to carry water himself. By the end of the day he was getting hit with another wave of nausea so bad that he found himself vomiting in the last field. He returned to his office, pale and tired, wrote a note to follow up on the samples from the field and went home.

  “Julien love, what's wrong?” asked his mom when he entered the house he shared with her and his son. Julien was thirty-three years old, thin, worried. His face had a haunted look to it with bloodshot eyes and deep dark circles under his eyes against his ebony skin.

  “I don't feel good. The nausea is so bad that I had to vomit before I came home. I'm just going to go lie down in my room. Thank god Jayden is with his mother, I wouldn't make a very good father right now,” he said as he turned away and headed toward his bedroom.

  “Do you want me to take you to the doctor?”

  “I've been to my doctor and he couldn't figure out what was causing my problem. I have an appointment next week with the stomach specialist so all I can do is wait.”

  “Maybe you should take some time off work to stay home and heal.”

  “I can't. I don't have much time on the books since I took time off three months ago for Jayden's appendectomy.”

  His mother frowned and looked on with concern as he walked up the stairs toward his bedroom, hand on his belly. She worried as he didn't look good and he'd lost weight. He had the appointment next week and perhaps that was all they could do – wait to see the specialist. She went into her kitchen and thought about what she might fix for him that would settle his stomach.

  She worked on making him Cajun ginger chicken soup and some ginger cookies. That would nourish him and the ginger would settle his stomach.

  Chapter 2

  The following week, Julien's health only got worse, he was continuing to drop weight and hallucinations began to occur. His mother was beside herself with worry. The visit to the specialist resulted in tests and medication being prescribed. Again he saw improvement over the weekend and so they both thought the new drug was working. Monday dawned hot and humid, and Julien had lots of work to catch up on in the field. He was feeling better this Monday than the previous week so it was time to get in his utility truck and collect more samples.

  He made a note and left it on his desk to follow up on the sample from a couple of weeks ago when he'd had that interaction with the monster truck once he returned from the field that afternoon. He didn't want to lose time powering up his computer to check now, besides he'd have time later when he returned to the office.

  The day started out great, but by lunch hour, the nausea had returned as bad as ever. He decided to return to the office and not go out in the field anymore that day and this whole week if he could get away with it. His supervisor might notice him being in the office a little too much, but the alternative was calling in sick to work. When he returned, he saw the note reminding him to look up the monster truck field sample as he liked to call it. He logged in and began searching for the results. The computer said the sample was still being processed.

  “That’s strange,” he said out loud.

  “What’s strange?” asked Kevin making Julien jump as he had no idea that he was close by and working in his cubicle.

  “Remember that experience with the monster truck I told you a few weeks ago?”

  “Yeah, did you have another meeting?”

  “No, but the sample I collected is listed by the computer as still processing. It never takes that long. I should have a result by now.”

  “Remind me what you took a sample of?

  “Dicamba contamination in a crop.”

  “Hmmm, you're right it should have been posted by now. I get those tests back usually in a week.”

  “I’ll call the lab and see what’s happening,” Julien said.

  Julien retrieved the paperwork on the specimen and looked up the number for the lab. Five minutes later he hung up the phone and called out to Kevin.

  “Boy did I get the runaround on that one. First, they told me it was still being processed, then they said it was delayed because the analyzer that processes that specimen was down for repairs which I challenged since I’ve gotten other results back after this specimen, then finally the lab asked me to get another specimen as they lost my first one.”

  “That's odd; they’ve never lost a specimen of mine.”

  “This is a first for me as well. Oh well, there’s nothing I can do today as I wasn’t planning on going back out into the field. I’m a little nauseous.”

  “You want me to collect it for you?”

  “Honestly, I’ve been wondering if my nausea is due to exposure to Dicamba in that field. It started the next day after I took that sample. I wouldn’t want to expose you to the misery I’ve been suffering from. I’ll collect it on the way to work tomorrow and resubmit it to the lab.”

  Julien continued to work from the office for the remainder of the day even though his nausea was distracting to his work. He took his utility truck home rather than his personal vehicle as it contained the equipment he needed to process another sample. He spent the one hour drive home thinking about his symptoms and wondering if it was Dicamba or was someone poisoning him.

  If he was being poisoned he needed to align the onset of symptoms with the food he ate and the water he drank. He thought about the water jug on the back of his truck. Maybe someone had put something in that. Tonight when he got home he would wash it out with bleach before using it the next day. He could
bring his own water, but the bottles didn’t stay cool like the water in the jug did and besides once he bleached it out, whatever bacterial or contaminate that was causing his nausea would be gone, and the jug would be safe again. He did as planned and his mother watched with worried eyes as she listened to his story of the nausea rebounding.

  “Julien love, have you thought about quitting that job if it’s making you sick?”

  “No mama. I’ve worked there over ten years and I’ve got good insurance and I had a job immediately after Hurricane Katrina unlike so many of our neighbors. I’m vested in the retirement plan and I like my work. It’s rewarding to help farmers with their crops.”

  “Yeah baby, but it’s making you sick. You were never thick to start with and now I would guess you’ve lost ten pounds in the past month. I’m really concerned. You had a good weekend and then you went back to work and immediately felt bad. Maybe it’s the building you work in.”

  “No mama, I’m not going to quit and I was out in the field when the nausea hit today so it’s not the office. I was drinking a lot of water from the jug because it was so hot and that’s what made me think that there was some contaminates in the water jug. Now that I’ve cleaned it a few times with bleach, I’ll be fine. I’m going to go lay down now. I’m worn out with nausea and then standing over the jug while washing it with bleach didn’t do me any favors.”