Deadly Pedigree

11



The straitjacket of guilt paralyzed Nick. He didn’t know what to do. He spent much of Monday morning fishing the paper clips out of the rubber bands in an old tarnished silver box on his office desk. He was alone in his morass of guilt; Hawty was on campus attending to her own projects.

He tried to convince himself that, despite motive and ability, as well as his own strong intuitive suspicions, Natalie Armiger did not have Corban killed. Surely it was the suicide of a man who had endured one of the most horrible episodes of human history, a man whose grief finally had overpowered him. Nick desperately needed to believe he wasn’t working for a murderer.

But the dead face of Max Corban accused him; and the words that had seemed to float in the foul air of Max’s apartment still echoed through Nick’s memory: I fought them to the very end. You are a coward if you do not fight back. You are as guilty.

He called Artemis Holdings seven times throughout the morning, only to be told that his previous messages had been noted–in other words, bug off. Then he thought better of trying to get through to her. What if she told him she’d had no hand in the old guy’s death? Would that satisfy him? No. What if she said, “Yes, I killed him”? That would be even worse! He decided to leave things to the police. Ignorance was not only bliss but possibly life–his own, in this case. And no matter what happened, nothing he could do would bring Corban back to life.

Thus chained to a rock of moral catalepsy, he did nothing–nothing more, that is, than what he had been hired to do.



He sped west on I-10 across the postcard-view spillways and swamps toward Lafayette. At a suitably desolate stretch, somewhere in St. Martin Parish, he hurled his desert boots through the sunroof, into the water. He’d watched enough television mysteries to know about shoe-sole evidence. They were old friends, but it had to be.

At Lafayette he headed north on I-49 toward Natchitoches, mouthing as he drove what he remembered of the Jewish prayer of mourning, the Kaddish, for poor Corban.

It was over ninety degrees already, and his air conditioner was blowing heat; he rolled down the windows. Mountainous clouds boiled up from the hot farmland planted with corn, cotton, sugarcane, and soybeans. Every few miles he’d lean forward to let the air peel his soaked shirt off his back.



Natchitoches is a beautiful little town on the Cane River–now more a lake than a river, and called one, officially. Though La Salle and the Le Moyne brothers, Sieurs d’Iberville and Bienville, had for some years been dodging hurricanes and swatting malarial mosquitoes farther south, along the Gulf coast, a French soldier named Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, under Bienville’s command, claimed his paragraph in history as the founder of the oldest permanent settlement in the vast French Louisiana territory. It was 1714, and Fort St. Jean Baptiste was supposed to stand as a sentry to the expansionist dreams of the Spanish. Like Natchez, founded soon after by Bienville, Natchitoches bears the name of the Indians it displaced. When locals say it today, the name comes out “NAK-ah-tish.”

Exiting the interstate, Nick saw first the ugly, contemporary side of the town’s dual personality. He drove by the typical American hodgepodge of gas stations, chain restaurants, convenience stores, motels, and strip shopping centers clustered competitively within sight of I-49. Next he passed through suburban neighborhoods that had once fronted a sleepy state road and that now hung on along this busy artery between interstate and city. Many of the furry patches on the pavement must have been family pets, Nick thought with a shiver.

The road became two way where the federal dollars had stopped. On either side Nick saw buildings that had been built cheaply and quickly, probably in the fifties and sixties, to house small businesses. A profusion of letter signs, fast-food joints, washaterias, copy shops, computer stores, frat houses, religious centers, and bookstores told him he was now in the vicinity of Northcentral State College, the local branch of the state higher educational system. And there it was, to his right.

Northcentral had done its best to conform to the French-Spanish-Old South look, but Nick noticed that a few past administrators had favored concrete-and-steel boxes rather than handsome constructions of red brick and white columns. He would be visiting one of these buildings soon.

He arrived in the old section of town, and felt as if he’d come home. The accretion of centuries of human striving and failure calmed him. The streets narrowed further and bent unpredictably, as if, like New Orleans streets, they’d given up trying to follow the best-laid plans from the Age of Reason. He could almost believe he was threading his way through the car-choked Garden District or Faubourg Marigny. Except that it was hilly–unusual for Louisiana. He craned his neck to see old cemeteries jumbled together on shoulders of ground. He was sorely tempted to stroll through them, reading the genealogical tales written there.

Another day, maybe, when he was here on good faith, when his communing with the dead wouldn’t include stealing their lives.

Some of the old houses he drove by were modest buildings dating from the founding, with crude walls of cypress posts and the clay-and-moss mixture called bousillage; others were multistoried, elegant structures of the prosperous early nineteenth-century period, when cotton was king, lumber cheap, slaves plentiful, and the Red River cooperative. The river later changed course and cut off the town’s main transportation route, Cane River, leaving Natchitoches in a state of charming arrested development.

Driving along the becalmed, tree-shaded river, Nick remembered some of his students begging him to understand that they needed a few days off to travel here for the filming of Steel Magnolias; they had landed parts as extras. Fiction had nourished fact ever since: the popularity of the movie had revitalized the setting, giving tourists from around the world all the more reason to visit.

A huge gleaming tourist bus lumbered in front of Nick’s car for a few blocks. It leaned from one side to the other as the tourists inside shifted in unison for a better view.

Nick had been to Natchitoches once before, with Una. They and two other couples drove to Arkansas for a canoeing trip, and on the way they detoured for a day to amble along the downtown Natchitoches streets, admire the old riverfront buildings, and stroll through the quiet, oak-lined neighborhoods.

As he searched for his temporary base of operations, he yearned for those carefree, youthful days, when his life had been merely an academic exercise.



Cane Pointe Bed and Breakfast occupied a two-story building of the West Indies/French Creole style, circa 1823, according to a plaque in the lobby. The establishment was on Front Street, with a nice view of the sleepy river and the surprisingly busy old brick street, along which the early settlers had built their exchanges, banks, and stores.

Rebecca Barclay, an outgoing fortyish woman of robust complexion, ample flesh, and seemingly boundless energy, greeted Nick in a booming voice.

“Welcome to Cane Pointe, Mr. Herald! Oh, excuse me a sec. Darlene, honey, carry some more towels to twelve. Sam, here, take this money and go buy some more Shreveport Times–now, how was your trip, Mr. Herald? We have a lovely room waiting for you, with a complimentary basket of fruit and a bottle of champagne–well, sparkling wine.” She laughed at her small gaffe. “Got in beaucoup trouble last year when some French wine merchants heard me say that. Sharla, Sharla! Where is that girl? My daughter will show you up. Sharla!”

A woman who gets up before the alarm clock rings, Nick suspected, standing at the desk as she checked him in. Her unfussy appearance bolstered that idea: she wore a blousy tunic over leggings and had obviously devoted no more than five minutes to her makeup and curly permed brown hair.

Filling out the necessary forms and waiting for Sharla, Nick explained that he was a freelance writer doing an article on genealogical resources in the area. Inside of five minutes he knew just about everything about Rebecca Barclay and Natchitoches, including many local legends; purported illustrious ancestors; her husband, Bob, who “moonlights as a lawyer when I don’t need him to hammer something”; the awkward youths mangling his duffle bag and scrambling his account, who were “hospitality-industry interns” from the state scholars high school located on the college campus; the menu for supper and breakfast; and possibly dangerous eccentricities of the hot water flow in his room. And then came Sharla.

She was a creamy-skinned girl of about twenty-three, with lustrous auburn hair in bangs; freckles bridged her meringue-flip of a nose. Her lips were ripe strawberries. Her eyes were rock-like jewels of speckled green, yellow, and black. Nick had seen cockatiels with beautiful feral eyes like that, eyes that said, Yeah, I’ll come perch on your arm, but it’s going to really, really hurt. She wore demure shorts that were anything but, a prim embroidered cotton blouse that somehow looked lewd on her, sandals, and a straw boater with a red silk ribbon.

While a young fellow sprinted madly with Nick’s bag and briefcase up the several flights of stairs to his room, Sharla and Nick walked at a more leisurely pace. The young fellow soon sprinted past them on the way down.

“You’re from New Orleenz, I hear tell,” she said, looking back at him under the brim of her hat, proudly showing off her white teeth.

Real New Orleanians analyzed pronunciation like a code to determine who you were, and who your family wasn’t. “Orleenz” was something of a desecration; only tourists and singers were allowed to get away with it. Even though Nick was a relative newcomer to New Orleans, he felt an urge to correct her.

Sharla dawdled on each step. “I just love New Orleenz. I been to the Jazz Festival, once. You ever go to that? Goodness! I was wild, let me tell you. Me and a bunch of my girlfriends. I drank a lot of tequila, and got up on the stage and…” she stopped abruptly in front of Nick and moved closer to whisper in his ear, “took my top off in front of the whole crowd! Thousands and thousands.”

“Sorry I missed that. Did you get arrested?”

“Arrested?!” She grinned and her eyes sparkled in the sunlight streaming through the louvered shutters. “Shoot, no! The cops all asked me out and the crowd loved it. I got all of us into a party at the band’s hotel afterwards, too, down in the Quawta.”

They arrived at the room and Sharla conducted him inside.

“Well, here we are. You staying a while, Mr. Herald? I bet your wife doesn’t want a man like you away too long, though I notice you don’t wear a ring.”

“Oh, I’m not married,” Nick said, startled that he’d made such a personal admission. This woman had some strange siren-like power. He liked it. “Just here for a few days of business.”

“That’s nice, I guess. Well, you just call me if there’s anything I can do for you, okay? Anything at all.”

She took a proprietary stroll around the room, making one last check of the accommodations. Then, waving in her girlish way, she backed out of the door, gently closing it.

After a few deep breaths, Nick was eager to get started. His list of tasks jeered at him like a bully as he reviewed it. But he couldn’t help admiring the room. Rebecca Barclay and her handyman-lawyer husband had done a remarkable job converting the old building into a world-class inn. So what if the service was somewhat provincial. The place oozed character, comfort, and history.

An armoire dominated one wall. A splendid keyhole desk nestled against another. The four-poster, testered king bed made Nick feel like a Lilliputian. These were not repros. The plush ivory carpet was surmounted in half-a-dozen places by wonderful Oriental rugs, each with a couple of centuries of tales in their elaborate weave. There was wainscoting enough for a wing at Versailles, period wallpaper and light fixtures, ceiling fans nearly as big as windmills, and a lavish fireplace Nick regretted not being able to enjoy in the summer heat. He felt already in the midst of the nineteenth century–despite the modern appurtenances like the fax-phone, the television, and the hair dryer in the tastefully refurbished bathroom. He toyed momentarily with the idea of faxing Hawty to compliment her on her choice, but he didn’t know how to work the damn fax machine. And he certainly was dumbfounded by the printed gobbledygook that told the computer-packing guest how to get online via the phone jack.

Maybe he should call Sharla? Bad idea; you’ve got work to do, he reminded himself with a sigh.

First, he needed to learn as much as possible about Hyam Balazar.

Downstairs again, he asked Rebecca about the name, but she drew a blank. She admitted that she, unlike her husband, was not a lifelong resident of Natchitoches, and did not know all of the oldest families. But she knew of a structure called the Balzar Building.

“Balzar,” Nick said. “That may be it. I’ve probably got the spelling wrong.”

“The building is a historical landmark, like everything else in this town. Even me,” she said with a mirthful snort. “Empty now, about to fall to pieces. City can’t tear it down, and nobody seems to have the cash to renovate. My Bob and I are thinking of buying it and opening another B&B, if we can line up some investors. Interested?”

“Not me,” Nick said. “What I know about real estate you can’t dip an oyster in. The Balzar Building. Yes, yes, I remember reading somewhere that it once housed a title company. If there’s something left–old deeds and such–I really should put it in my article as a resource. Important material like that ought to be gathered and safeguarded.” A complete crock, but he hoped he was convincing enough in his preachiness to cover his real intention–stealing all the Balazar genealogical material he could get his criminal hands on.

Rebecca suggested checking with the Chamber of Commerce office to find out how to get in the building. Then she offered to guide him there herself. It was a few streets back from the river. He persuaded her that he was capable of finding the place on his own.

Nick stepped out of the cool lobby and into the prostrating midday heat. He navigated through knots of window-gawking tourists from many nations. Down on the river, packed party boats greeted each other in passing with a few pre-recorded bars of “Dixie.”

Balzar. He felt the proximity of important discoveries. Here was the family name that had drawn him to this town in the first place. Had it been mere coincidence that he’d focused on the surname Balzar, and that it so closely resembled his original target subject, Hyam Balazar? His intuition was leading him again, and he knew better than to ignore it. He wasn’t particularly a believer in the paranormal, but sometimes he couldn’t figure out any other way to explain a wild inspiration that paid off.

He would certainly want to find the living Balzars before he left Natchitoches, as he’d intended to do before Natalie Armiger started calling the shots. And he would also like to explore the building bearing the Balzar surname–a waste of time, maybe, but he was feeling uncommonly lucky.



At the parish courthouse, his story was that he was in town doing amateur family-history research. Just an ordinary guy, with a harmless hobby. Clerks got nervous and snippy if they thought you were researching their records for nefarious reasons, like trying to make a buck.

Nick proceeded to search through probate, deed, and tax books, and other public records beloved of genealogists. Two hours later, he had found no mention of Balazar. Weird. Frustrating. The records were misfiled or missing, or this was the wrong locality altogether.

There had been a fire at this courthouse, and a flood, for good measure; so the woman at the clerk of court’s office curtly told Nick when he asked for assistance. She was filling in for a regular worker who was sick, and was clearly impatient to get back to whatever she’d been doing before he disturbed her. Her coffee break, he assumed.

Some old records had been destroyed, or damaged probably beyond reclamation, she said, drumming her fingers on the counter. Nick suspected she was making up the story as she went along. A good liar can always spot a bad one.

“But most of it was just those St. Denis Parish records. Nobody gives a hoot about those,” she said. “Ancient history. We got us a parish government to operate, hon.”

Nick recognized the blind arrogance public office could bestow on certain people.

Stubbornly quizzing the woman further, he knew he was onto something.

Once there had been a small parish named St. Denis, very French and anti-American, just a few large landowning families. St. Denis Parish declared its ethnic pride by seceding from larger Natchitoches Parish in 1816; the old boundary was just a few miles outside of town. During the fifty years it claimed to be an independent parish, plucky St. Denis squirmed out of conducting decennial federal censuses–but it did conduct local ones. Natchitoches Parish never recognized the split. Thus the obscurity of the junior parish to all but specialists in the area. No map or reference book Nick had checked in New Orleans so much as mentioned the ephemeral offshoot.

Even the experienced researcher is humbled every day; and so he learns.

The two parishes decided to reunite in 1866. Over the years, less-determined researchers had swallowed the story that the records no longer existed, that they had been destroyed in the Civil War or later, after the two parishes had consolidated, in the fire and the flood at this courthouse.

It seems that many courthouses have suffered such disasters. Nick was ever skeptical of this excuse for missing records. He knew that often this was the way apathetic or overworked local bureaucrats handled pesky genealogists.

The dirty little secret of this courthouse was that much of the St. Denis Parish records had indeed survived, and it was rudely piled in boxes on bowed steel shelves in a large dank subbasement just off the stairway, where Nick’s reluctant guide now took him, after he had persisted beyond her endurance.

“Microfilmed? You got to be kidding!” she responded to Nick’s question. At certain moments, she reminded Nick of his seventh grade teacher, for whom he still held an abiding antipathy. “’Course they haven’t been microfilmed. Reagan blew out the candle on that project, and Bush took away the cake, hon. We don’t get funds to keep the place from leaking, these days. I don’t even know what all’s in here; nobody does, since old Juanita died; and if you ask me, we ought to have us a nice big bonfire and throw it all in. We close at four o’clock.”

She turned her lumpy backside to him and bounced toward the door, but turned to deliver one final warning: “Sharp!” And then she left.

Her gruffness didn’t affect Nick’s glee, which he had struggled to disguise. The room was crammed with undiscovered material–and not just from St. Denis Parish, either! A substantial cache of early Natchitoches records was here, as well.

Oh, Juanita, Juanita! He could have kissed her. Had she inherited this mess or caused it? Nick was grateful to her for at least saving it from oblivion.

He felt like one of the colonial adventurers who had wandered these lands two hundred and fifty years ago. How many bridges across how many impossible gaps could he find here, in these heavy volumes and moldy record packets? How much permanent damage a person of sordid motives could cause. Nick was such a person, and he had just under three hours to do it.

He worked quickly below naked epileptic fluorescents. Initially, he lingered over a few loose fascinating documents he found in unlikely places. But he knew the clock was ticking, and after a while, he was running frantically from box to box, shelf section to section, like a junkie looking for a misplaced fix or someone who’s won a five-minute shopping spree in a jewelry store. Fortunately, it was cool down here; but chunks of the concrete floor shifted under his feet and gurgled with smelly liquid; pipes wrapped in tape drooled on him. Did he imagine rats eyeing him warily or hungrily from dark corners? He didn’t have time to worry about that.

The Swiss Army Knife people really ought to advertise the wonderfully precise way their blade cuts fragile old pages out of ledgers and court minute books, Nick thought. His fourteen excisions were masterful and would certainly be the envy of any surgeon.

Hyam Balazar and his descendants didn’t feel a thing as Nick separated them.





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