Fog Count: Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

Memorial Day, 8:32 a.m.

“This is Willie Fontenot’s lucky day,” said Little Fontenot happily, banging his big meaty hands on the patrol car steering wheel.  “This really is my lucky damn day.”  He was cruising north on Main Street, headed toward Bonner Farm Road at the edge of town.  Actually, his true destination was a place in the woods beyond Bonner Farm Road, a place about two miles deep into the wet, wild woods.  A place that had no path or trail or road leading to it.

A secret place.

Little Fontenot liked having a secret.  He liked having a secret because it proved that he was smart.  He knew that everybody thought he was dumb -- just another big, dumb, Cajun good ol’ boy.  He knew that his nickname was a joke.  Ostensibly, he was called “Little” because his father was also on the force, so his father was “Big Fontenot,” but he knew the truth -- he knew that they really called him “Little” because he was so god damned fat.  He was a giant tub of lard, and he was slow-witted to boot,  and he knew it.  Everybody knew it, and everybody laughed about it behind his back.  But nobody would laugh if they knew his secret.

Little Fontenot pulled off onto the side of the road next to an old picnic table at the edge of the woods.  He wasn’t sure why there was a picnic table there; it wasn’t a park or anything, just a small clearing, and as far as he could tell, no one ever used the table for picnics.

He killed the patrol car’s engine, then heaved his bulk out of the creaking leather seat.  He slammed the door shut, stood in the clearing, and surveyed the area.  It was quiet here, and there wasn’t much traffic, but someone was bound to see his car parked so conspicuously, so he needed some excuse, some plausible reason for being here.  His eyes settled on the prison complex across the road.  He decided that, if anyone from the station asked him why his car had been parked here today, he would tell them that he had been searching for the escaped prisoner.  It was believable; just the sort of thing he would do if left on his own.

Little Fontenot turned toward the woods, found the tree with the red mark on it, and began walking into the forest.  As he passed the old wooden picnic table, he noticed once again that it was covered with graffiti, obscene and otherwise.  There were also symbols that looked… mystical.  He wondered about these as he walked on into the woods.

“It’s my lucky damn day,” Little Fontenot began saying -- almost chanting -- under his breath as he walked through the brush into the surprisingly dark woods.  He believed his morning had been filled with signs, the final one being the fact that he was allowed to patrol solo for the first time in his career.

Today was a day -- the day -- to visit Lady Belladonna.

Lady Belladonna was a woman Little Fontenot visited at least once a month.  She rolled the bones for Little Fontenot whenever he visited, and gave him guidance for his life.  She was an honest-to-God Voodoo Queen, and very few people knew how to get to her house.  In fact, it was rumored that unless Lady Belladonna wanted you to find her house, you couldn’t even see her little cabin out there in the woods.

As he slogged through the damp underbrush, Little Fontenot thought about the first time he had encountered Lady Belladonna.  He had met her five years before, on his thirtieth birthday.  

Some of Little Fontenot’s buddies from the department had chipped in to buy him a whore, since it was well-known at the time that he was still a virgin.  The whore his buddies had hired for him was a relatively high-class hooker from an escort service out of Alexandria.  She showed up at the birthday party -- held at the rented V.F.W. hall --  dressed as a fortune teller.  A very buxom, very sexy, scantily-clad fortune teller.  

Divination of all sorts had always held a strong fascination for Little Fontenot, so the boys in the department -- encouraged by his father, Big Fontenot -- had thrown him a fortune-telling themed party.   Oversized tarot cards were pinned up all over the walls, and crystal balls (actually made of hard plastic) adorned every table.  Everyone got plastic rune stone replicas and fortune cookies as party favors.

A local micro-brewed beer called Voodoo Brew was served at the party.  The gimmick behind Voodoo Brew was the fact that every bottle had a different fortune printed on the back label.  To set the stage for the arrival of the sexy escort, the guys made sure that all the bottles served to Little Fontenot had fortunes dealing with “getting lucky.”

When the escort arrived -- a surprisingly beautiful redhead calling herself “Margo the Medium” -- she flirted her way through the group of men until she reached the birthday boy.  She sat on the shy fat man’s lap and whispered that she’d love to give him a “private reading.”  He blushed, and stammered that he would love that.  She then took him by the hand and led him outside while the other men whooped and hollered and shouted out various lewd encouragements and carnal suggestions.  Big Fontenot whooped the loudest, happy that his only son would finally become a man.

Margo walked Little Fontenot to the squad car the on-duty officers had driven to the party.  “I never done it in a police car,” she told him, her voice purring with excitement.  “I think that would be so hot.  You know, with a strip search and handcuffs...”

He stared down at her pretty face, confused by what she was saying.  When he spoke, it was still with a stammer.  “Can’t you… can’t you do a reading without… without all the sexy stuff?  I mean, I understand, the boys want you to show me a good time.  I know that’s what you’re here for.  But… all I really want is a reading.  A real reading from a real, uh, medium.  So, can’t you just do a reading for me?  I’ll tell the boys whatever you want… I’ll tell ‘em you pleased me real good…”

Margo reached up and put both hands behind Little Fontenot’s thick, flabby neck.  “Sweetie, it’s your birthday, and you can have whatever you want,” she said cheerily.  “But I ain’t no medium.  I’m just a call girl who plays different parts -- nurses and naughty schoolgirls mostly.  Guys do love a girl in uniform.”

“So… you can’t really see the future?” Little Fontenot said, sadness sluggishly creeping into his voice.

“No,” Margo said, “but if you’ll take me for a drive, I’ll introduce you to the best damn fortune teller in Central Louisiana… probably in the whole state.”

“You’re just foolin’ me,” Little Fontenot said, pulling her hands from his neck.  “You’re gonna take me to the Oakwood Inn, and try to do all the sexy stuff.”

Margo patted him on his ample, flabby chest and said, “Sweetie, I’ve already been paid, no matter what happens.  You come with me, I promise you’ll get that reading you’ve been wishing for.”

Little Fontenot stared at Margo for a long while, sighed heavily, then finally decided to believe her.  He took her by the hand, led her to his old F-150 pick-up, and helped her inside.  He climbed into the driver’s seat, and started the engine.  She gently patted him on the knee and said, “Drive north, baby.”

And that night, she had led him to Bonner Farm Road, and to the clearing beyond the picnic table, and to the pine tree marked with red paint, and out into the dark woods.  She had taken his hand, and navigated him expertly through clusters of gnarled trees, over a wooden fence marked with hand-painted “No Trespassing” signs, to an unlit, ramshackled cabin.

The same unlit, ramshackled cabin stood before him now.  In the daylight, it didn’t look nearly so imposing and dangerous as it had on his first visit, but the place still had a haunted feel to it.  The ground around the cabin was covered with a gray mist, and the surrounding trees kept the tiny structure in a permanent twilight.

Little Fontenot sighed, heaved his portly body over the wooden fence, and approached the old shotgun-styled house.  Tall grass and prickly branches raked at his pants as he tromped toward Lady Belladonna’s cabin.

When he reached the porch, he leaned against a corner post to catch his breath.  The post cracked, and the building seemed to shift.  Little Fontenot pulled back quickly, horrified that he had damaged the home of his muse, his precious spiritual guide.

The cabin door opened, just a crack, and Little Fontenot saw a familiar silhouette.  “Mon cher,” the woman’s voice purred.  “I’ve been expecting you.”

He stepped up onto the porch, and Lady Belladonna opened the door a bit wider.  She laughed lightly -- a cold, tinkling sound, almost like wind chimes.  “Come inside,” she whispered.  “Today’s your lucky day, mon cher.  Your very lucky day.”

Little Fontenot blushed, giggled shyly, and shuffled toward the door.  The door swung open wide -- impossibly wide -- and the huge man bumbled through the doorway.  Then the door closed quietly, shutting out the light of day.

Fog Count: Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

Memorial Day, 8:30 a.m.

Joshua pulled into the parking lot of Jigger Wood’s bait shop, enjoying the sound his bike’s tires made on the uneven gravel beneath him.  He killed the bike’s engine, and looked up at Jigger, who was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of his shop.  Jigger was strumming his guitar, surveying the dark, menacing clouds hanging low in the southern sky.

“Sky doesn’t bode well for the outdoor concert tonight, Josh,” Jigger announced as Joshua approached the porch.

The chief considered his friend -- the closest friend he had in Oakdale, maybe his closest friend in the whole world now that he was so disconnected from everything in his past.  Jigger Wood was a lean and lanky man in his mid fifties.  His once-dark hair was mostly silver now, and it flowed luxuriously down well past his shoulders.  He maintained what seemed to be a permanent three days growth of beard, and he wore a perpetual smirk on his world-weary, handsome face.  Flannel shirts and faded jeans were the only garments he ever wore, even in the hottest weather.

“Well, weather changes faster here than anywhere else in the country,” Joshua replied.  “You know that better than I do.  Even if we do have a storm this morning, it could be completely dry and clear by evening.”

“Or the storm may not come at all,” Jigger said.  “Clouds could break up before they reach us.  Mother Nature might just be teasing us.  She can be an ornery bitch sometimes.”

“Guess that’s true,” Joshua said, climbing the porch steps.

Jigger moved his guitar so that the sound hole was closer to his ear.  He started strumming a more upbeat tune, then, once he seemed satisfied, he resumed his naturally relaxed position.  “So, you’re ridin’ like an organ donor today, I see,” Jigger observed.

“We used to call it riding like a squid,” Joshua said, running his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair.  “Some mornings, you just don’t feel like wearing a helmet, y’know?”

Jigger gave a thoughtful grunt, then nodded toward the motorcycle and asked, “You lookin’ to sell the Defender yet?”

“Never,” Joshua answered, shaking his head.  “The FXDP Dyna Defender is the finest bike ever manufactured by Harley Davidson USA.”

“Those words could start a hell of a bar fight,” Jigger said, laughing lightly.  “So, what can I do for you today, Josh?  And don’t tell me you’ve become a fisherman overnight.”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Joshua said, trying to sound casual.  “I just wanted to ask you something about the concert tonight.”

“You comin’ then?” Jigger said, tuning the guitar now.  “As you know, music is my real job.  This bait shop is just a tax right-off.”  He laughed again, then strummed a chord and sang, in his best broken Johnny Cash, “My em-pire of dirt…”

“Jigger,” Joshua asked, “Do you use dry ice in your stage show?”

Jigger leaned his guitar against the porch rail, brushed the steel gray hair out of his eyes, settled back in his chair and said, “Dry ice?  What, you think we use fog machines and spinning rainbow lights, too?  When’s the last time you went to a concert, 1978?”

“Dan Fogelberg was my last concert, I think,” the chief replied, ignoring the intended insult.  “The year he released the Phoenix album.”

“I979,” Jigger said.  “I wasn’t too far off.”

“Wait,” Joshua said, correcting himself.  “I went to see Wynonna at the casino, just this past year.”

“Casinos don’t count,” Jigger said.  “Besides, I’ll bet you didn’t see fog machines or laser lights at either of their shows.  What’s your interest in concert stagecraft all of a sudden?”

Joshua seemed lost in thought for a moment, then he muttered, “I think there were a few lighting effects at the casino.  Colored lights, maybe…”

Jigger stood up and said, “So… are you needin’ some dry ice?  Is that what this is all about?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s about the size of it,” the chief answered him.  “I need some dry ice.”

“Why didn’t you just come right out with it?” Jigger asked, marching into the bait shop, expecting Joshua to follow him.  “I don’t use the stuff in my concerts, but I keep some on hand in the shop.”

“Why?” asked Joshua, close on Jigger’s heels as he loped across the wooden floors toward the back of the shop.

“Different things,” Jigger explained, raising his voice to be heard over the humming and bubbling of the minnow tanks.  “Once in a while, some out-of-towner wants to ship a trophy fish back home.  We pack it in dry ice to preserve it.  It’s also good for makin’ homemade root beer.  How much do you need?”

Joshua thought for a moment and said, “I’m not really sure.  Five pounds, maybe?”

“I’ll just give you a cooler full,” Jigger said, opening the walk-in freezer.

“I didn’t bring a cooler…”  Joshua stammered.

Jigger pulled a styrofoam cooler from a stack next to the freezer door.  “I’ll give you one of these cheap styrofoam deals.  I got a shitload of ‘em.”  He shoved the styrofoam box at Joshua.

As Joshua took the cooler, he asked, “So, how much is this gonna cost me?”

“Not a cent,” Jigger said, steam streaming from his mouth as he stepped into the freezer.  “Just do me a couple of favors.”

“What favors?” Joshua asked.  “I don’t fix parking tickets.”

“No need for that,” Jigger said, laughing again.  “I don’t drive anymore, remember?  No, just come to the concert tonight.”

“Done,” Joshua answered, beginning to feel the chill of the frigid air.  “What else?”

Jigger met his eyes and said, “I want you to tell me what the hell’s in that helmet strapped to your Defender out there.  You’d never risk damaging that brainpan of yours without a good reason.”

Joshua almost objected, but after a moment, he sighed slightly and decided to trust  his friend.  And there, in the walk-in freezer of Jigger Wood’s bait shop, Joshua Cardiff widened the circle of his conspiracy as he shared the truth about the bizarre, flesh-and-bone cargo he was transporting.

Fog Count: Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

Memorial Day, 8:10 a.m.

“Just look on the label, ree-tard,” Broussard said.  “Prune juice is one of the main ingredients in Dr. Pepper.”

Little Fontenot took a big swig from his 20-ounce Dr. Pepper bottle and said, “So what?”  He then brought the bottle up to his face, squinted, and started reading the ingredients, moving his lips as he did so.

“So what?” said Broussard.  “Dr. Pepper is a laxative, that’s what.  That’s why you always gotta take four or five bathroom breaks during your shift.  Long, stinky, messy bathroom breaks.”

“What the hell do you care?” Little Fontenot asked, knocking back the rest of the contents of the plastic bottle, then producing a big, satisfying belch.  He tossed his bottle toward the trash can in the corner of the break room (which the chief insisted on calling the “staff room”) and missed it by a good six inches.  “Oh, and that label don’t say shit about there bein’ any prune juice in there.”

“I care, Little Fontenot,” Broussard said, speaking slowly, as if to someone slow-witted, “because I’m your partner.  What you do affects me.”

“We ain’t got permanent partners on this force,” Little Fontenot said.  “Remember what Chief said?  We’re partners with whoever we’re assigned to during a given shift.”

“Well, I don’t see nobody else here today,” grumbled Broussard, “so I guess today we’re partners, like 9 out of 10 times I come to work.  So today, Little Fontenot, I would much rather be able to keep cruising the streets for my entire shift, rather than taking bathroom breaks at the Stop and Shop every fifteen minutes.”

“I never go to the Stop and Shop,” Little Fontenot griped.  “You know that.  I always take my bathroom breaks at Ned’s Bayou.  Bathroom’s more private there.”

Broussard groaned in disgust.  He then stood up, walked over to the corner of the room, picked up the Dr. Pepper bottle and threw it in the trash, since it was obvious Little Fontenot was happy to let the bottle remain on the floor.   “I’d sure hate to be the fella who goes in that men’s room at Ned’s Bayou right after you.”

“Hey, I light a match,” Little Fontenot explained.

“I’m surprised there hasn’t been a methane explosion,”   Broussard drawled.

While Little Fontenot’s slow brain was forming a suitable retort, Chief Cardiff walked in the room, holding his clipboard.  “Mornin’, boys,” Joshua said cheerfully.  “Happy Memorial Day.”

Joshua knew it was important to act as if everything was normal, run-of-the-mill, and just like any other day.  He knew he shouldn’t do or say anything out of the ordinary.   But what was out of the ordinary?  He was the sort of person who talked about anything that came into his head.  Everything was interesting to him.  So, when it came to conversation, who could say what was normal and what wasn’t?

But Joshua wasn’t really worried about anything he might say.  No, he was much more worried about what he might do -- some odd mannerism or facial expression he was completely unaware of that might give him away.  He was still rattled by the fact that Emily had been able to tell with just a glance that something was wrong.  He didn’t want that same thing to happen with the officers on duty today.  It probably wouldn’t with these guys, though.   For one thing, they were guys, and Joshua subscribed to the belief that there really is an actual force in the world called women’s intuition, but he wasn’t convinced a corresponding power existed in men.  And for another thing, although Broussard and Little Fontenot were decent peace officers, they were both pretty dense.  Especially Little Fontenot (Little Fontenot’s personnel file included something called an “Administrative Override” attached to the I.Q. section of his police academy exam, which was sort of like giving a low-performing high school kid a passing grade in senior English to make sure he graduated).  Neither of these guys was what Joshua would consider detective material.  

For the next few minutes, Joshua simply wanted to maintain his casual, emotionally unburdened persona until he could get these guys out the door and on their way.  But he had to be careful;  he didn’t want to seem like he was rushing things.  Beneath his (hopefully) calm exterior, his mind and his emotions were screaming inside him, telling him to get rid of these guys as soon as possible so he could get on with everything he needed to do.  The sooner he got these men assigned to their daily tasks, the sooner he could begin his own private investigation.

“Happy Memorial Day back at ya, sir,” said Broussard.

“Whatever,” Little Fontenot said, sounding bored.  “One day’s the same as the next to me.”

“You sure about that?” said Joshua, casually walking over to the neatly-maintained marker board he used to schedule the shifts for the officers.  He pointed to an entire block of names with red dots next to them.  “Only reason I ask is, a full fifty percent of my police staff is made up of Fontenots, and all the other Fontenots, all of ‘em -- Big Fontenot, Baby Fontenot, Old Man Fontenot, Blue Blood Fontenot, and Regular Fontenot -- they all asked off today.  They’re all working the night shift, on account of the big annual Fontenot Memorial Day family reunion and barbeque.  Today sounds like a very special day for the Fontenot clan.”

“Nah.  Just another day,” said Little Fontenot.  “I can take it or leave it.”

Broussard started chuckling and said, “Tell the Chief why you ain’t goin’ to the reunion this year, Little Fontenot.”

“Shut your damn mouth, Broussard,” Little Fontenot shot back.

“Chief,” said Broussard, his voice pitched high with merriment, “Last year, Little Fontenot got drunk, and kissed his cousin Sally.  And not like a peck -- more like this gropy, messy kinda thang.”

“I said, shut your mouth!” Little Fontenot yelled, truly angry now.  “You don’t know what happened.  You wasn’t there.”

“No, I wasn’t there,” Broussard cheerfully agreed, “but Bubba Fontenot sent me pictures of the event from his cell phone.”

“Damn that Uncle Bubba,” said Little Fontenot, in an angry whine.  “Say, that reminds me, Uncle Bubba called me this mornin’ --”

“Now, now, Little Fontenot,” Broussard mock-scolded him, “you don’t get to change the subject.  Not before we get to the punchline, anyways.”

“There’s a punchline?” Joshua asked, trying to help the story along.

“Chief, do you know his cousin Sally?” Broussard asked.

“Don’t think so,” Joshua said.  “The only Sally I know here in town is the one over at Claudine’s Liquor Store.  She’s Claudine’s… girlfriend, I guess you call her.  Looks a little like that guy from Fargo.”

“Steve Buscemi,” Broussard says helpfully.  “Everybody says that about her.  Well, that lovely lady is his cousin Sally.”  Broussard burst into full-on hysterical laughter.  Little Fontenot began pounding him on the shoulder.  Between bouts of laughter and yelps of pain, Broussard yelled, “Little Fontenot kissed his lesbian cousin ‘cause he thought he could turn her straight!”

“I was drunk, dammit!” Little Fontenot yelled, pounding with both fists now.  “I didn’t know what I was doin’!”

“Blind drunk, I’m guessing,” Broussard said, fending off Little Fontenot’s punches with both hands.

“All right, guys,” Joshua said in a voice he tried to fill with authority, “Knock it off.  We’re wasting time, and I need to get you guys out on the street.”

“You expectin’ a crime wave, Chief?”  Broussard asked.

“We might ought to,” said Little Fontenot, immediately forgetting his anger.  “That’s what I was tryin’ to tell y’all before.  Like I was sayin’, Uncle Bubba called me this mornin’ before I left the house.  He’s a C.O. at the F.C.I..”

“Yeah, we know,” the Chief and Broussard murmured together.

“Yeah, well,” Little Fontenot continued, “Uncle Bubba told me they’ve had an ex-scape over at the prison this mornin’.  One inmate’s missing, and another one is dead.”

“One’s missing, you say?” asked the chief, feeling blindsided by this new information.

“Yep,” said Little Fontenot with authority.  “One missing, and one dead.”

Broussard rolled his eyes and said, “If they’ve really got an escaped prisoner, I’m surprised they ain’t contacted us with a BOLO.  That’s how they always did it in the past.”

“There’ve been escapes before?”  Joshua asked, unease creeping into his voice.

“Not real escapes,” Broussard said.  “Just guys walkin’ away from the work camp.  Never had anybody escape from the actual prison part before.  Not since I been here, anyway.”

“You’re right,” Little Fontenot agreed, “This is gonna ruin Warden Ponder’s perfect record, right before he retires.”

Joshua looked through the open staff room door toward the closed door of his office, thinking about what was still on his desk in there.  “An escaped convict,” he mused.  “Broussard’s right.  You’d think they would’ve contacted us by now.  Officially, I mean.”

“Well,” Little Fontenot said, enjoying his position as the source of information, “Uncle Bubba says the warden is thowin’ a real shit fit, makin’ ‘em double-check and triple-check everthang.  They wanna make damn sure he’s really gone off the property before they make any kind of announcement.”

“I guess that’s… prudent,” Joshua said, not sounding like he believed what he was saying.  “But we need to keep our eyes and ears open, just in case.”

“Got it, Chief,” Broussard said.  Little Fontenot nodded and gave a grunt.

“And you can’t tell anybody about the escape,” Joshua cautioned.

“Alleged escape,” Broussard said.

“Exactly,” said the chief, snapping his fingers and pointing at Broussard in agreement.  “Say nothing until it’s official.  I’m sure the F.C.I. is showing wisdom by being cautious.  It might be nothing.”

“We gotcha covered, Chief,” Broussard assured him.  “So… anything on the calendar today?  Any special assignments?”

Joshua looked down at the empty form on his clipboard.  “Not a thing today,” he said, trying to sound casual.  “Nothing special.  Just patrol at will.  I know everybody’s taking half-shifts today with the holiday and all, so y’all will be relieved at noon."

“Stupid rule,” Little Fontenot grumbled.

“Well, it’s my stupid rule,” Joshua said.  “It keeps the holiday pay spread around.  Instead of 6 people working 8 hour shifts and getting paid double, everybody on the force works 4 hours, and gets paid for a whole shift.”

“I miss the old days when I used to rack up all the holiday pay,” Little Fontenot said, almost under his breath.

“Yeah, and that was one of the problems the mayor’s office pointed out after last year’s city audit,” Jacob said, not really wanting to go over this tired argument again.  “Just a few people were getting all of the holiday pay.”

“Nobody complained about it,” Little Fontenot said, almost whining now.

“Like hell they didn’t,” said Broussard.  “Your name got drug through the shit every holiday.”

Joshua sighed heavily and said, “Let’s just drop this and get to work, all right?”  Little Fontenot and Broussard stood, nodded at the chief, then moved to their small lockers on the far side of the break room and began equipping their duty belts with various necessary (and not-so-necessary) paraphernalia.  As Joshua watched Broussard clip his police radio mic to the shoulder loop of his shirt, he suddenly had a thought.  “How would you like to be duty officer today, Broussard?  Just during your shift?”

Broussard looked at the chief, confused.  “But… I’m on patrol with Little Fontenot today, right?”

“Yeah,” the chief said slowly, thinking through his plan, “but I think today, half-shift and all, Little Fontenot could patrol solo.  What do you think, Little Fontenot?”

Little Fontenot grinned.  “Hell yes, Chief!”

“That’s okay by me, Chief,” Broussard said.  Then, after a moment, he added  nervously,  “But Chief, we ain’t supposed to patrol solo.  That’s an iron-clad rule.”

“You’re right about that, Broussard,” Joshua agreed.  “But there are some official things I need to work on… and I kinda need to get them done this morning.”  He stood staring awkwardly at his clipboard for a moment, then, thinking out loud, he said, “I guess I could call somebody in early…”

Broussard said, “You wanna find out about that escaped convict, don’t you, Chief?”

Joshua nodded, and said, “Yes I do, Broussard.”  It wasn’t a lie, exactly.  Surely when he investigated the murder of the other convict, he would discover the escaped convict was somehow tangled up in it somehow.  

“We gotcha covered, Chief,” Broussard said, unpacking his duty belt.   “I’ll mind the store while you go do what you’ve gotta do.”

“And I’ll do my first ever solo patrol,” Little Fontenot said, with a bit of a kid-on-Christmas-morning lilt to his voice.

Broussard laughed and said, “And don’t spend the whole damn time in the crapper at Ned’s Bayou, Little Fontenot.”

“Screw you, Broussard,” said Little Fontenot.  “I’m the one on patrol today.  I’ll go wherever I damn well please.”

“And this solo thing,” the Chief said, “it’s just this once, all right?” He began moving slowly but steadily toward his office.  “Don’t make me regret this decision.”

“Oh, I won’t, Chief,” said Little Fontenot, grinning at the car keys in his hand.  “You can trust me.  I’ll make you proud.  Besides, it’s not a whole shift; it’s just four hours.  What trouble could I get into in four hours?”

That question -- and the decision to break his own rule and allow Little Fontenot to go on patrol by himself -- would haunt Police Chief Joshua Cardiff for many years to come.

Fog Count: Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

Memorial Day, 11:20 a.m.

Connie Willis was a very big fish in a very little pond, and she really liked it that way.

Connie liked the little pond of Oakdale, Louisiana.  If Connie lived in a big city, like New Orleans or Baton Rouge, she would have competition from other attractive thirty-somethings; she ranked herself a high eight on the one-to-ten hotness scale, but she couldn’t endure any environment which could potentially include nines or tens.   So, a small town suited her just fine.  Here in Oakdale, she was the queen.  Compared to the plain janes, country girls, and doughy, mannish women that made up the bulk of the female population of Oakdale, Connie was Grace Kelly.  Even compared to the few former beauty queens married to what passed for prominent men in town, Connie was a stunner.

She knew this about herself, of course, and she used her attractiveness as a tool -- or sometimes, as a weapon.

Connie was sitting at a table by herself at the far end of the V.F.W. building.  The pancake breakfast had ended at 11, and Connie had wasted no time in finally serving up breakfast for herself.  As soon as the last customer was out the front door, she had piled up a tall stack of pancakes, which she had then covered with strawberries and whipped topping out of an aerosol can.

Connie “helped” at the Memorial Day pancake breakfast every year, which simply meant she moved quickly about the quonset hut, flitting from table to table, making small talk and acting genuinely interested in what people had to say.  She charmed children, commiserated with widows, flirted with old men, and tried to make the wives think she was just “one of the girls.”

She didn’t cook pancakes; the veterans did that.  She didn’t clean up after people once they were finished eating; local high school volunteers did that.  No, Connie did what she was best at:  she socialized.  She mingled.  She schmoozed.  Connie Willis was the floor show.

The pancakes Connie was currently wolfing down were, in her mind, a well-deserved high-calorie reward for the work she had just put in.  By helping out at the pancake breakfast, Connie was actually fulfilling the public relations component of her job as Associate Warden.  The more “normal stuff” the townspeople could see her doing, the better they would like her.   And the more they liked her, the better they would like the prison.  Connie’s goal was for everyone in Oakdale to love, love, love the prison.

Although the prison was the number one industry in Oakdale -- in point of fact, the only industry in Oakdale -- it was not a well-liked institution.  It had always been viewed by most residents as a necessary evil.  Connie wanted to change that perception.  She wanted people to see the Federal Correctional Institution -- Oakdale FCI -- as the heart of the town.  Volunteering at the Memorial Day pancake breakfast was one of the things she did to try to put a good face -- a human face -- a pretty face -- on Oakdale FCI.

Connie’s pink smartphone came to life with a personalized ringtone -- Stevie Wonder’s “Jungle Fever,” her own private little joke on Warden Ponder.  She pressed the talk button and said, “Hey there, stud.  You thinkin’ bout me?”

Flustered, Ponder stammered, “Connie, this isn’t --”

“‘Cause I’m sure thinkin’ bout you, sugar,“ Connie teased.  “I got a big stack of pancakes in front of me, covered with whipped cream and strawberries.  You remember what we did with whipped cream and strawberries at the Comfort Inn in Alexandria?”

“Christ, can anybody hear you?”  Ponder asked.

Connie giggled and said, “Now, don’t worry, baby.  The pancake breakfast is over.  The place is cleared out.  Just got a few of the old boys cleanin’ up, and they keep a respectful distance from me.  They just admire me from afar.”  She speared a particularly plump strawberry with her fork, gave it a lick, winked at an old-timer who was stacking plates in the sink, and spoke with a sultry whisper into the phone, “For some reason, they love to watch me eat.  Why do think that is, baby?”

Frustrated, Ponder said, “Connie, this isn’t the time --”

Connie moved from giggling to a full-on laugh, her lilting, little-girl laugh, and the old men all looked up from their work to smile at her.  They loved her laugh.  In fact, they loved everything about her.  The old veterans of Oakdale didn’t often have occasion to see women of Connie’s caliber in the flesh, so the morning has been filled with secret delights  for them — whiffs of her exotic perfume, her flirtatious glances as she passed near them, brief but meaningful touches from her… and, of course, her laugh.  “Why so serious, baby?” Connie asked, still in her teasing mode.  “Somebody piss in your bran flakes this morning?”

Ponder ignored her laughter and her teasing and said, “There’s been an escape, Connie.  We’ve got one escaped convict, and one dead inmate.”

Connie let her fork drop to the plate.  “Escaped?” she said in a suddenly tentative voice.  “Dead?  You’re sure, Darius?”

“Never been more sure of anything, Connie,” he said, feeling in control again now that he finally had her attention.  “Now get your ass in gear and report to the prison.  Make sure you’ve got your keys and your I.D. badge, and make doubly sure you know all the current codes.  We’re in full lock-down now.”

“I’m on my way, baby,” she says into the phone, her voice a bit shaky.  “I mean, Warden.  I’m on my way, Warden Ponder.”

“Thank you, A.W.,” he said, relieved she had finally taken on a serious, professional tone.  “See you in ten.  Sooner if you can.”  And that was the end of the phone conversation.

Associate Warden Connie Willis took a moment to compose herself.  She then stood, smoothed her appealingly short skirt, dropped her girly smartphone into her purse, snapped the purse shut, and walked toward the exit.  “Sorry boys,” she said loudly, putting a smile in her voice, “Duty calls.  I gotta go snap some whips and crack some heads.”

“You’re enough to make me wanna get arrested, Miss Connie,” said an old fat man in a wheelchair.  “I’d love bein’ in the jailhouse if you was my jailer.”

She turned to the fat man as she walked past him and said, “Just make sure you break a federal law, Jimbo.  You go breakin’ a state law, and you’re liable to wind up in Angola.  That wouldn’t be no fun, now, would it?”  Collective groans ensued as everyone in the building agreed quite vocally that Angola wouldn’t be any fun.

Connie waved to the veterans as she pushed the glass-paneled door open and walked through the doorway.  As soon as the door slammed shut behind her, the men all rushed to the door as quickly as possible (which, for most of them, wasn’t very quickly at all) so they could watch her walk to her car.

“What was that Bob Seger song, about Jane Fonda?” asked Jimbo, staring after the blonde beauty on her way to a gun-metal gray Land Rover.  “‘Oh, they do respect her, but… they love to watch her strut.’”

“I sure respect her butt,” said another veteran.  Jimbo chuckled at the intentional mondegreen, then all the men  laughed as they watched Connie Willis drive away.  Once she and her Land Rover were out of everyone’s range of vision, the veterans returned to their clean up work.

Jimbo wheeled his way over to the table where Connie had been sitting.  He gathered up her plate and silverware, and took it back toward the kitchen area.  Then, once he was certain no one else was looking, Jimbo scarfed down what was left of Connie’s breakfast, imagining that he was able to taste her sweet lips in every bite.