~ The Case Of The Mail Order Bride ~

by

John A. Broussard

"Dr. Johnson?" Mac asked as the door was opened by an African American man only an inch or so shorter than the sheriff.

"That’s right."

"I’m Sheriff McBain. I’d appreciate it if I could have a few words with you and your wife about what happened last night at the wedding reception."

"Come on in, Sheriff," Johnson said. "We’ll be glad to help all we can. Name’s Larry, by the way."

As he entered the room, Mac noticed a small, brown-skinned girl clinging to her father’s trouser leg. One large, beautiful eye peered out solemnly at the visitor from behind her father. Catching the sheriff’s eye, the apparition quickly vanished behind her parent’s protective figure.

"Have a seat." Johnson nodded toward one of the overstuffed chairs in the comfortable living room. Sitting down himself, he swept up the little girl, who immediately put her thumb in her mouth and buried her head in his chest. He smiled. "Tina’s shy with strangers, and be thankful she is. When she gets to know someone, she can’t stop chattering." Tina reacted to the sound of her name by digging her head in even deeper.

"Well, what can I do for you, Sheriff?"

"First, I wonder if you’d give me a rundown on what you remember of last night. Time is the most important element."

The veterinarian’s description of the previous night’s events corresponded with what Mac and his deputies had already heard from others. Larry admitted to having had "a little too much." He and his wife had left around 10 p.m., before the discovery of the body.

"I don’t often get even mildly sloshed, but Becky Dugas went all out with the liquor. I saw brands and varieties there I never knew existed. I guess I just over-sampled."

A tall, slender, dark-haired woman, wearing a heavy plastic apron and looking at some photos in her hand, came into the living room from the hall. "Lair, you should see..." She looked up and saw Mac. "Oh, sorry, I didn’t know anyone else was here." Tina flopped off of her father’s lap and ran behind her mother. "Careful, sweetheart, I have chemicals on my apron. No, don’t get up." She gestured at Mac. "I have chemicals all over my hands too."

Larry broke in. "This is my wife, Cynthia. Cynthia, this is Sheriff McBain. He’s here about what happened at the reception."

Mac noted Cynthia had become nervous, more nervous than even the unannounced arrival of a sheriff would warrant. She nodded.

"Actually, it was photos I wanted to see you about. Did you take any at the wedding or reception? If so, I’d like to see them. They might help us in our investigations."

In obvious relief, Cynthia replied, "Photos, I have plenty of. I went there for the specific reason of doing a photo story on the wedding. I do articles for a regional magazine, and a Loomis wedding seemed like a natural. Why don’t you come into the darkroom? I’ve just run off the last of them.

"In fact," she said, indicating the photos she had brought into the room, "these are some of them. If you want, I can run off copies of all of them for you. Be happy to give them to you. It’ll only take a half-hour or so, since the equipment’s all set up." She paused, and seemed to be pondering something. "Actually, I can drop them off at the station later, so you won’t have to wait."

Mac picked up immediately on the cue. Cynthia wanted to move him out as fast as possible. He decided to dig in his heels. "No. I don’t mind waiting at all. Go ahead and run them off. I’ll see to it the county reimburses you for them. In the meantime, I have a few more questions to ask of your husband."

Tina suddenly found herself left alone in the middle of the room. After a moment’s hesitation, she scrambled back up on her father’s lap, but now favored the sheriff with a full-face look. Mac could not have resisted smiling at the wide-eyed, somber child even if he had wanted to. No trace of response to his smile appeared on her face.

"I take it you knew the Loomises and Becky Dugas fairly well," Mac said to the veterinarian, who showed no sign of noticing his wife’s reactions.

Larry nodded. "As you probably know, I’m the only small-animal specialist in the county, and have been for years. Becky’s brought in her French poodle several times. She used to have a cocker spaniel, and I treated him too. I’ve met Noah a few times." As he mentioned the name, a flicker of some sort of emotion that Mac couldn’t interpret, crossed Larry’s face.

"Josh has a couple of race horses. Even though I don’t ordinarily handle large animals, since there are three other vets in the county who do, I’ve been out to his stables a couple of times to give advice. As for the other Loomises, I can’t say I know them at all."

He laughed. "Senator Loomis is pretty much out of my class. Besides, my family’s been Democrats since Franklin Roosevelt first took office. Dad would stop speaking to me if he knew I was hobnobbing with a bunch of Republican bigwigs." Talk drifted off into local politics. Mac finally decided to bring the conversation back to the reason for his visit.

"You say you met Noah a few times. Tell me about him. What did you know about him?" As an afterthought, he added, "What did you think about him?" Just then, Cynthia came back into the room with a stack of photographs, much sooner than the half-hour she had estimated. Mac was convinced she’d been waiting and listening in the hall.

Mac caught Cynthia flashing her husband a warning look. He responded with a barely-perceptible shrug of his shoulders. "He was an alcoholic. But then I’m sure that’s common knowledge. Everybody around here knew it. I didn’t think much of him."

Turning to his wife, and in an exasperated tone, he blurted out "Oh, hell, Cynthia, I might just as well tell him. He’s going to hear about it sooner or later anyway. Noah came to my office last week with Becky’s dog. It was on a Monday morning, the busiest time of the week, and it was even busier than usual. There were two emergency cases, my assistant was sick and Cynthia and I were the only ones there to cope with the crowd. Noah walked in, drunk as usual, with the poodle on a leash. Demanded to have her get her distemper shots right away. I told him he’d have to wait."

From the corner of his eye, Mac could see Cynthia cringing. Larry hesitated, then continued. "Then he became abusive." He glanced in Cynthia’s direction, and clapped a big hand over Tina’s exposed ear. "I may not be remembering his exact words, but he said something like, ‘You damn nigger. You fucking well better treat this mutt right now. If you don’t, I’ll see to it you never get a cent of Becky’s money.’ As I said, I may not have the wording down completely accurately, but I think you’ve got the gist of it."

Before he could continue, Cynthia cut in. Larry’s frank admission had broken the ice and relieved the tension. With a short laugh, she said, "You should have seen what happened then. Lair picked Noah up by his shirt collar and the seat of his pants, kicked the door open and threw him out in front of the Dugas limo. Everyone in the reception room applauded. The dogs started barking and the cats were meowing. It was bedlam for quite a while."

"I guess I got pretty mad," Larry admitted. "Even so, I had to laugh, seeing the chauffeur’s expression when Noah come tumbling out of the office. I yelled at the chauffeur. ‘Get this sonavabitch out of here before I kill him, and tell Becky I’ll drop her dog off after the clinic closes.’ The chauffeur was laughing so much he could hardly get out of the car to help Noah back in. Meantime, Noah’s meek as a lamb. He goes off without saying another word."

Mac couldn’t resist laughing aloud at the picture of Noah, no small fry himself, being pitched ignominiously out of the building. Larry’s face grew serious. "Actually I was mad enough that I might have done him in right there on the spot, and that’s what Cynthia’s worried about."

"No you wouldn’t have, and you know it," Cynthia turned to the sheriff. "Lair is the gentlest person I know. Picking up Noah the way he did was the nearest I’ve ever seen him to being violent."

Larry shook his head. "She’s overdoing it. Maybe, if I got mad enough, I might punch someone out, and maybe kill him in the process. I’ll tell you one thing, though, I would never knife someone who was lying there unconscious. No way!"

Mac decided he had a lot to mull over. As he was leaving, he turned to Larry and asked, "You say Noah threatened to keep you from getting Becky’s money. Or words to that effect. Any idea what he meant by that?"

"I imagine he meant the money for the hospital. Long ago, Becky said she liked the way I ran the clinic. She told me she intended to leave me some money to start an animal hospital. I never found out how much, or if she ever really did anything about it. I never gave it much thought, frankly, so Noah’s threat didn’t mean much to me."

Cynthia and Larry stood in the doorway with Tina between them, as Mac shook hands with the adults and thanked Cynthia for the thick package of photos. Larry looked down at his daughter. "Say goodbye to the sheriff, Tina."

Dark brown eyes flashed. She looked up at McBain and said accusingly, "You’re bigger than Daddy."