An Unmarked Grave (6 page)

"Any idea where he might be?"

He squinted at me through eyes covered with a gray film.
"Reckon I do. What's in it for me?"

"I'm a PI" I handed him my card. "I don't know how
much, but there will be rewards to those who help me find
him."

Nodding slowly, Bones cleared his throat. "When I last
talked to the boy, he tolds me about a place called Elysian Hills, somewhere north of Fort Worth" He grunted and
shook his head. "He must've had too much booze, 'cause
he claimed a spaceship landed there over a hundred years
ago and the town buried the pilot in the town cemetery." He
toked again. His glazed eyes lost their focus. "I didn't believe him. He's done talked all about those things for years.
You might find him up there"

"Thanks."

"Just don't forget who told you"

"No sweat. How do I get in touch with you?"

"O'Brien Agency here in Dallas. They can find us"

I started to leave, then turned back. "Has anyone else
asked you about Justin lately?"

He squinted at me, a frown on his forehead. "No. Why?"

"Just wondering."

At that moment, a stagehand stuck his head in. "Showtime, fellas"

Just as I hit 1-35 in downtown Dallas and headed northwest, I glanced at the dash clock. It was almost one, so beyond the city limits I pulled into a Day's Inn motel. After
compiling my notes for the day, I climbed between the sheets.

Next morning, after checking out, I pulled into a Valero
self-service station next door to fuel up. Behind the station
ran some railroad tracks. While the tank filled, I idly watched
a slow-moving train of coal cars with open top hoppers, acid
cars, and boxcars clattering past, heading northwest.

As I entered the on-ramp to the interstate, I glanced at
the train one last time-and froze. I blinked my eyes and
squinted at the hobos hopping into the open door of an
empty boxcar and disappearing back into the shadows.

The face had disappeared. Or maybe I had just imagined
it. Still, I drove along the shoulder of the interstate, matching
the freight's speed and sneaking glances at the open door.

At first, I thought I had spotted my old man, John Roney
Boudreaux, who left Mom and me when I was around seven.
Over the years, I'd run across him a few times. Last time I
spotted him was in the French Quarter in New Orleans a
few months earlier.

I never ceased to be amazed how the old man managed
to stay alive all those years bumming across the country.
While he is my father, and I have helped him several times
over the years, if anyone existed who personified amorality,
it was he.

He believed in and only in John Roney. All others existed to benefit him. I was in my midthirties before I finally
accepted his nature and stopped lying to myself and making excuses for him. That's why the few times he stayed
with me, I never felt a single pang of guilt about locking
various items in the garage so he couldn't pawn them.

After a few miles, I pulled back to the inside lane and
kicked my Silverado up to the speed limit.

Elysian Hills lay in the rolling hills and Post Oak Savannah sixty miles or so north of Fort Worth. It was a small
community stretching for half a mile or so on either side of
Farm to Market Road 1287. On both sides of the macadam
road, horses and cattle grazed in pastures dotted with oil
wells pumping the proverbial black gold from the earth.

I looked out over the pastoral hills, remembering my
Greek mythology. The Elysian Fields were the final resting
place of the souls of the virtuous and heroic. Mythology located the fields on the western fringe of the earth. The
relatives of the gods were transported, without tasting death,
there to the immortality of heaven. Those less fortunate
skirted Elysian to face the perpetual torment of purgatory in
the Fields of Asphodel.

Not to my surprise, I would once again witness the fact
that sometimes the Fields of Asphodel lapped over into
those of Elysian more than one wanted to believe.

The old clapboard homes sitting on the crest of hills indicated the area had at one time been a successful farming
community. The newer brick homes pointed to a burgeoning bedroom community, a short drive, by Texas standards,
from the Fort Worth-Dallas metroplex.

I drove slowly through the community, noting two convenience stores, three churches, a small school, a feed and tack
store, a welding shop, a lube shop, an automotive garage,
sheriff's office, and, to my surprise, an old green building of
concrete blocks with a sign in front that read:

UFO MUSEUM,

OPEN TUES. AND THURS. 12-3.

I turned around and headed back, pulling in at the sheriff's
office. The tan metal building housing the office was one of
those prefabricated, cream-colored buildings so ubiquitous
along the side of the road today.

A mature receptionist smiled up at me. "Yes, sir?"

Glancing around, I spotted a nameplate over a door.
SHERIFF PERRY.

"My name's Tony Boudreaux. I'd like to see Sheriff Perry
if I might."

She nodded and picked up the phone. Moments later she
nodded to the door. "In there, sir."

A redheaded man in his late sixties with bony shoulders
the width of an axe handle looked up from a desk when I
entered. His hands were red, his neck was red, his face was
red, and even the freckles on his face were red. I suppressed
a smile when the random thought darted through my mind
that if anyone deserved the nickname Red, it was he.

In a guttural voice, he said. "Yes, sir?"

"Sheriff Perry?"

He nodded. "Yeah"

I introduced myself and pulled out the snapshot of Justin
Chester. I quickly explained about the inheritance. "I heard
he might be around here"

Perry studied the photo, his frowning face a field of
wrinkles, then handed it back to me. "I haven't seen any
long-haired hippies like him around. Of course, every day
more and more city folk are moving in. He might be one of
them"

I shrugged. "Might be. You know, one guy over in Dallas
told me that Chester was interested in UFOs and that one
was supposed to have landed around here. He said the pilot
was buried in your cemetery"

Perry stared at me a moment; then a wry grin creased his
craggy face. "Hoax. Over a hundred years ago Elysian Hills
was a big town, but the post office was moved to Reuben,
and we started losing population. The mayor and a couple
other of the town fathers made up the story."

Back on the highway, I pulled in at the first convenience
store on my side of the highway, Hooker's.

Inside, I stopped in front of the checkout counter that sat
in the middle of the store. Several newspapers with the
banner The Rueben Journal were stacked next to the cash
register. On one side of the store were grocery items and,
on the other, a lunch counter and several tables, around two
of which were seated several old-timers sipping coffee, perusing the Journal, and idly chatting.

It brought back memories of my youth in Church Point before my old man ran out on us. When it came to farm work,
he left it all to his pa, my grandpere, Moise Boudreaux.
Whenever Mom or PawPaw wanted John Roney, they could
find him at the pool hall, playing forty-two or dominos.

The old-timers shot me a glance, then turned back to
their discussion.

A matronly woman in jeans and an oversized sweatshirt
nodded from behind the lunch counter. She wore no lipstick
or nail polish. Liver spots covered her hands. Her grayflecked hair was pulled back into a ponytail bound with a
red band bearing the Confederate stars. "Be right with you,
mister."

Wiping her hands on a dish towel, she hurried over. With a
wide grin on her plump face, she bubbled, "Howdy, stranger.
Welcome to Hooker's. I'm Mabel Hooker. What can I do for
you?"

Handing her the snapshot of Justin Chester, I said, "Would
you happen to recognize this gentleman, Mabel?"

Her smile faded. Her brow knit as she tentatively took
the picture. She studied the photo. "I don't know"

"He was fifteen years younger there. Could have changed
his whole look" I paused, then added, "And I'm not the law.
His father passed away, and the family wants me to find him"

She studied it again, then ambled over to the crowded
tables and handed around the photo. A roar of laughter
erupted from the tables, a roar that puzzled me.

With the smile back on her face, she returned. "Finas over
there says that, without the long hair, this fellow favors the
janitor down at the school" She handed me the picture. "I
guess he does business down the road at Fuqua's. I don't
know him. Finas over there can tell you more about him."

All the old-timers were watching me as I approached. I
nodded. "Good morning, gents. Which one of you is Finas?"
I searched their faces.

A weathered old man in khakis and a blue jean jacket
grunted. "That's me" He pointed to the picture in my hand.
"You must be from the loony bin"

he others roared with laughter again.

I grinned sheepishly. "Why? Should I be?"

A second old farmer spoke up. "We reckoned you was, if
you be looking for Chester there"

The third one joined in. "Maybe he ought to see old Harlan Barton. Take the two in together"

They all laughed again.

Thinking back to what Bones had said, I replied, "You
mean about the UFO stuff?"

For a fleeting moment, the merriment in their eyes cooled
but then rekindled as one responded, "Yeah"

I hooked a thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the
museum. "Don't you have a museum down the road about
the UFO? I figure you might get your little town some tourists
that way"

"A few, but they don't stay long"

Finas snorted at his friend. "Look at what we got over
there, Carl. How long would you stay?"

Carl grinned and held up his thumb and forefinger half
an inch apart. "About this long"

They all laughed again.

Another old-timer spoke up. "Mr. Chester there-he a
friend of yours?"

"Nope. I work for a private security firm in Austin. Mr.
Chester's father passed away. The family hired me to find
him"

The laughter fled their faces. Finas spoke up. "Sorry to
hear that" He gestured down the highway. "Mr. Chester
works down at Elysian Hills Elementary School. You can
catch him down there" He looked across the room at Mabel.
"What's the principal's name down there, Mabel? I forget"

She snorted. "You ain't forgot, Finas. She's your daughterin-law. Georgiana Irvin"

Finas grinned and chuckled, drawing another round of
laughter from his cronies. "Maybe that's why I forgot. Yeah,
Georgiana Irvin. She's the principal."

Eyes twinkling in mischief, the old man at Finas' elbow
spoke up. "Just tell Georgiana that Finas sent you. She'll
make you real welcome"

They all laughed.

I laughed with them and replied, "I was born looking
like this, fellows, but I ain't that dumb"

They roared again. They were my kind of folks.

Georgiana Irvin greeted me graciously, gesturing to one
of the two chairs in front of her desk. When I explained my
job and that a sizeable inheritance awaited Justin Chester, she nodded slowly. "Justin is an excellent employee. I certainly would hate to lose him" She paused, and her eyes
looked through me into the past. "Would you believe," she
said, "I found him sleeping in our boiler room?"

When she saw the surprise on my face, she continued. "I
thought he was a bum, but when he explained that he was just
a footloose man looking for work, I had second thoughts. He
was clean, well educated, and I needed a custodian. I had the
sheriff check for any criminal records. There was none. Oh, I
think one or two minor infractions years ago, but nothing
else"

She continued talking, but I was scrolling back in my
mind to an hour earlier, when the sheriff had denied knowing Justin Chester. Why?

"Anyway," Georgiana said, "I offered him the job, and
he took it. He's been a delight to work with. I hate to lose
him, but I'm thrilled by his good fortune" She frowned, realizing what she had said. "I don't mean about the death of
his father, but-"