The Junior Detectives

I met Calvin behind Joe's Saloon next to his trailer of empty beer cans and bottles. Calvin sat on the trailer tongue and absently shooed the flies away from his head. The sun burned hot and heightened the smell of stale alcohol.

"Did you get it?"

"It came in this morning's mail." He fished out a crumpled white paper from his jean pocket and dangled it in front of my face.

"Mine came in, too. What does yours say?"

Calvin smoothed out the letter across his thigh.

"'Dear Junior Detective, by accepting this badge, you swear to uphold the laws of the great country of the United States of America, the great state of Louisiana, and the great parish of Ellison. You have volunteered and been accepted to act as the eyes and ears of the sheriff of Ellison Parish. Your duties are to report to me, or any of my representatives, anyone found to be breaking those laws. Thank you and congratulations.' It's signed by Sheriff Franklin."

"Mine says the same thing. What'd you do with your badge?"

"In my back pocket," Calvin said slapping his back pocket. "I don't have a wallet to put it in yet like they do on TV." Calvin pulled out his badge and held it in the palm of his hand. "I'm going to get me a wallet, though. First chance I get."

"Me, too." I pulled the thin chrome badge from the red bandanna I fished from my jean pocket and showed it to Calvin.

The badge was a five-point star. Across each point, printed in Latin were the words veritas, honestas, legis, fortes, and equitas. The Louisiana state seal, a mother pelican with wings outstretched feeding her brood, sat in the middle. Over the seal were the words "Ellison Parish." Beneath it were the words "Junior Detective."

* * *

The cotton gin was a huge wood and tin building housing great big gears, cogs, blades, teeth, fans, belts, and motors that separated the seeds, cleaned, and bailed the cotton using burlap and steel coils. It was noisy and dusty, and the men constantly shouted instructions to each other. Pete LaSache, the man Calvin and I had come to visit, worked on the loading platform where it wasn't as noisy. He carted and stacked the baled cotton onto the platform ready to load on the big trucks that hauled them off to bigger cities. Pete was a thin man dressed in saggy khaki pants, khaki shirt, and worn work boots. A John Deere cap, slightly askew, covered his balding head. He motioned us to sit on an overturned bale and sat across from us in an old slat-bottomed chair that he propped against another bale.

"Ya'll going to the Fourth of July Barbeque and Jambalaya Cook-off at the school?" he asked, as soon as he settled himself.

Yessir," I said. "We're going to help Deputy Pipe park cars."

"He's going to pay us," Calvin added.

Pete nodded, pulled out a sack of Bull Durham from the pocket of his khaki shirt, and shook a few grains of tobacco on a small rectangle of white paper.

"I hear the Knights of Columbus are going to donate all the profits they make to buy Christmas presents for all the children in Ellison Parish whose momma and daddies are on welfare. Kind of strange to be thinking about Christmas in July, but it's a real good idea." He paused to light his cigarette. "Reminds me of a story I heard once about Christmas in July."

Pete always had a story to tell, and usually, I loved to listen to him talk, but I was afraid he'd break into a story before we could show him our badges, so I interrupted him.

"We're sheriff's deputies," I said and unwrapped my badge. Calvin flashed his badge as they did on television. He had bought a wallet for it, and he snapped it shut with a satisfying slap.

"Well, look at that. You boys are sheriff deputies, huh? I got something you boys might be able to solve."

Both Calvin and I leaned forward. This could be out first case.

"Someone stole Hank's bull," he said, once he lit his cigarette. He worked for Hank Fontenot at the cotton gin. "Happened yesterday. Found out this morning."

"Big deal," Calvin said. "Who cares about a bull?" He patted his back pocket. "We're looking for a real case, like a murder or something. You know about any murders?"

"Non, don't recollect any murders happening recently, but Clarence is a prize bull and worth a whole lot of money." Blue smoke escaped from his nose and mouth. "Hank used him for breeding purposes. Brought in a whole lot of money for him."

"How much is he worth?"

"Hate to be pinned down like that, but I'd say that bull must be worth at least a couple of thousand dollars."

"Wow," Calvin and I said together.

"What did Monsieur Hank do?" I asked.

"What he could do. He called Jonel."

"Deputy Pipe?"

"The same one." Pete grinned, exposing a few rotten and smoke-stained teeth. "Jonel nosed around all morning, but didn't come up with anything. Hank said that he'd have to call in the state police if the sheriff's people didn't find anything."

"We're sheriff's people."

He nodded.

"Seems I recall you boys telling me that. Real nice badges." He ground his half-smoked cigarette under his boot heel and pulled out his Bull Durham sack again. "Course a badge doesn't necessarily make a lawman."

"Why not?" Calvin asked.

"What does?" I asked.

"This up here does." He tapped his head. "And here." He tapped his chest.

"Then how come Jonel Pipe is a deputy?" Calvin asked.

Pete grinned.

"That's a good question, Calvin. Jonel might not be the smartest deputy around, but he's fair. Sometimes that's more important than just brains. But I don't think people give Jonel all the credit he deserves."

"I think somebody kidnapped Clarence," Calvin blurted out.

Pete licked his cigarette, popped it into his mouth, and smiled around it.

I jumped up from my bale.

"Why don't we solve it, Calvin? We could go talk to Monsieur Hank."

"Okay."

"Don't you boys tell anybody where you got your information." Pete lit his cigarette. "I don't want Hank thinking I sent you boys over there."

"No, sir," I said, over my shoulder. "You're going to be our secret informer."

Calvin was already on the blacktop road. I ran and caught up with him.

***

Hank Fontenot lived in a large white house on the Serpentville blacktop, just outside the town. My mother called his house "the Serpentville Plantation" because it resembled some pictures she had once seen of antebellum homes with their columned porches. Calvin and I walked up the pine tree-lined driveway and climbed up the gallery steps.

I knocked.

Madame Fontenot came to the door. She wore a loose-fitting cotton dress with an apron draped over it. She was around forty and usually looked much younger than that, but she seemed older, as if she hadn't been getting enough sleep.

"Yes?" she asked, a frown creasing her forehead. Calvin poked me with his elbow.

"Yes, ma'am, we're junior detectives working for Sheriff Franklin." I pulled out my badge, took it out of the bandanna, and showed it to her. Calvin flashed his at her. "We heard that somebody stole Clarence."

"How did you get your information, boys? We only found out yesterday." Calvin tried to answer, but I interrupted him.

"We can't tell you that, ma'am. Junior detectives shouldn't reveal their sources."

"Oh, I understand." She hesitated a while before opening the screen door and leading us through a cool hall into her slightly warmer kitchen. She sat us at a rough wooden table. The table and the cowhide chairs looked much like the table and chairs at my house, but somehow, they seemed more elegant in her kitchen.

"Since you boys already know about it, I guess I can tell you what I know. It won't be much." I pulled out the pencil nub I kept in my front pocket and the tattered notebook I kept in my back pocket.

"I don't know much. Around five thirty yesterday morning, Hank came running in here yelling something about Clarence missing." She stopped. "Am I going too fast for you?"

"No, ma'am," I said. "Were there any clues?"

"No. Hank didn't say anything about clues." She walked to a window facing the rear of the house. "Why don't you go talk to him? He's out back, next to the barn. I'm sure he wouldn't mind at all."

"If you don't think he'll mind, we will."

"No. of course not, boys. Here." She walked to a pantry and opened a small door. She moved a small pair of rubber boots aside and walked in. "I have some cookies in here somewhere. You can take some of them with you." She reached into a jar and came out with a handful of oatmeal cookies.

She gave us each a few cookies and let us out through the back door.

Hank leaned against a wooden pen connected to his barn, a shiny new tin roof over rough cypress boards that weather had not aged, yet. Several cows, all Black Anguses, stood in the shade of an oak tree just beyond the barn.

"We're junior detectives, Monsieur Hank," I said, once we were near him. "Can we talk to you about Clarence?"

"What?"

"Madame Fontenot said you wouldn't mind if we talked to you about Clarence."

"I don't feel like talking, boys." He turned his back to us and looked off into the distance. I noticed several sets of tracks, human and animal, in the dust leading off in the same direction. They disappeared just beyond the pasture gate.

"We're junior detectives working for Sheriff Franklin," I said. "Maybe we can help you find out who took Clarence." He turned, faced me, and smiled briefly. He had even white teeth, and he wore his white cowboy hat at an angle.

"I have a school board meeting in an hour or so." He adjusted his tie under his blue coveralls.

"Monsieur Hank, I really think we could help you get Clarence back." I looked at Calvin, but he was chewing on a cookie and staring in the direction of town.

"How?" He pushed himself away from the fence.

"Suppose it was a kid that stole your bull? Don't you think we would have an easier time finding out who did it?"

"You know, maybe you have something there. What do you want to know?"

"Are those the tracks?" I pointed out the set of small footprints I had seen earlier.

"Sure are. Looks like small feet, and they lead off into the west there, into my pasture." He leaned against the fence. I pulled out my notebook and pencil. "I had my man check out the fence, but he didn't find any holes or anything."

"Maybe he jumped the fence," Calvin said.

"No way. That bull couldn't jump over an ant hill, he was so big."

"Did you check the pasture, Monsieur Hank?"

"Sure did. Every inch, but there's no place where he could hide. It's like he disappeared into thin air." He turned and stared off into the distance again.

"Do you mind if we look around, sir?"

"No. Go ahead. Look all you want."

I walked around the outside of the pen. I didn't notice anything out of place until I reached the gate leading into one of the barn stalls. In the soft manure was a footprint identical to the ones in the pen. I turned to Mr. Hank and pointed it out.

"Did anybody go inside the pen this morning?"

"No. Jonel didn't want anybody to mess up the footprints. He said he might want to take a plaster cast of them."

"Did anybody notice the one in the manure?"

"That one by the gate? Yeah, Jonel saw it. Said it was the way the thief got in. Figures he left with Clarence through that gate over there where the other footprints lead."

I motioned Calvin that I was ready to leave and walked over to Mr. Hank.

"I guess we're going to go now. We'll let you know if we find out anything."

'Okay, boys," he said with his back to us.

I caught up with Calvin and stopped him.

"I think I know who did it, Calvin."

"Who?"

"I want some more cookies before I tell you."

"But you didn't eat yours."

"It doesn't matter. I want some more cookies. Get me some, and I'll tell you who did it."

Calvin thought it over a moment.

"Okay. But how?"

"Why don't you just ask Madame Fontenot for some?"

"Oh, okay."

Calvin knocked on the backdoor.

Madame Fontenot appeared.

"Did Hank help you boys?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said.

"Well that's good. What can I do for you?"

"I just wanted to know if you'd let me have a few more of those cookies," Calvin spoke up. "They were so good, I ate all of mine."

"I guess I can scrape up a few more." She disappeared behind the screen door. I shoved Calvin.

"Go in," I whispered. "Go in."

He walked in, and I slid in behind him. Madame Fontenot stood before the opened pantry. I stood behind her and peered inside. In the corner, where she had moved them earlier, stood a pair of small rubber boots. One of them had manure stuck to the soles. She bumped into me when she turned.

"Excuse me, ma'am."

"That's all right. I didn't know you had walked in. You're very quiet."

She gave Calvin a few cookies, and he stuffed them into his pants pocket.

"There you go," she said and offered me a handful.

"Who fed Clarence, ma'am?"

"Why Hank always did."

"Didn't you?"

"No. Why?"

"No reason. Did you like Clarence?"

She gazed at me for a moment. She seemed startled by the question.

"I really never thought about it. Hank treated him as if he was a human being. I suppose I always thought of him as an animal like all the other ones out there." She nodded toward the barn with her head. "I'm sorry Hank feels so bad about that animal's disappearance." She shut the pantry and let us out through the front door.

"Thank you for your help, Madame Fontenot," I said, once we were on the gallery. She stood behind the screen door and nodded.

"No problem."

"Who did it?" Calvin asked, as soon as we were out of earshot.

"She did."

"Why would she steal her own bull?"

"It isn't hers, though. It's Monsieur Hank's."

"How do you know it's her?"

"The boots in her pantry. Small rubber boots with manure stuck to one of them."

"Why would she steal her own bull?"

"I don't know why."

"How do we find out for sure?"

"I don't know." We turned onto the blacktop toward Serpentville. "Maybe we should talk to Pete again."

"Why him? He's just going to tell us a story."

"Yeah, I know, but sometimes his stories tell us things."

"If you want to waste your time listening to Pete, go ahead. I'm going home. This isn't fun anymore."

We walked together in silence until we reached the cotton gin.

***

Pete was carting a bale next to a stack on the far end of the platform when I walked up. When he saw me, he lowered the bale and started rolling a cigarette. He motioned me over.

"Did you get to talk to Hank?"

"Yessir, we did, and I think I know who stole Clarence, too."

He licked his cigarette and stuck it in his mouth.

"And who's that?"

"Madame Fontenot."

He seemed surprised. He struck a match, put the flame to his cigarette, took a pull from it, and inhaled deeply before replying.

"And what makes you think that?"

"The footprints in the pen and the boots in her pantry with manure on one of them are the same size."

"Maybe she had to feed Clarence and got some of it on her boots that way."

"No, sir, I asked her, and she said she never fed Clarence."

He seemed to consider what I told him.

"That's fine junior detective work. Maybe I should tell you the story about Alphonse Thibodeaux. He stole, too."

I sat on a bale and looked up at him.

"This happened when Serpentville was still on the banks of Bayou Serpent and was still called O'Reilly after the guy who let the Cajuns into Louisiana, so you know it was a long time ago." He ground his cigarette and reached for his Bull Durham sack.

"Nobody had much in those days, and those who did were expected to share with those who didn't." He lit his cigarette and allowed the smoke to trickle out of his nostrils. "Pierre Thibodeaux had and didn't share. Alphonse got to thinking that it wasn't fair that his brother should have so much and not want to share with his neighbors, so he stole a pig from him, butchered it, and invited the whole town to a boucherie."

"Didn't Pierre notice that he had a pig missing?"

"You darn right he did, and he was madder than a hornet, too. There was nothing he could do, though."

"Did he suspect his brother?"

"Sure did. but like I said, there was nothing he could do."

"Why not?"

"Because he ate up all the evidence along with the rest of the town." He laughed. "That's why. Pierre suspected Alphonse, but what could he do? There weren't any witnesses, and if there were, they wouldn't have said a word. They were hungry."

"But didn't Alphonse break the law, Monsieur Pete?"

"That he did, boy. That he did. It isn't right to break the law by stealing, but is it anymore right to hold on to what you have, while those around you are going hungry?"

"What happened to Pierre and Alphonse?"

"This one has a happy ending. After a while, Pierre came to see the error of his ways and him and his brother got along together after that." He looked at me and smiled.

"I gotta go, Monsieur Pete.

He stood.

"Okay, then. Ya'll have a good time at the barbecue."

I stood and left the cotton gin. On the way home, I pulled out my badge and looked at it. Being a Junior Detective was proving a little more difficult than I first thought.

***

The next morning, I walked to Calvin's house, and together, we marched the half-mile to the school grounds. He and I parked the cars in the two open play areas in front of the school. Around mid-morning, Jonel walked over and told us we could stop. He told us to come back around three or four to help him steer the drunks out of the parking lot. We agreed and left.

***

The Fourth of July Barbeque took place behind the school. The Knights of Columbus had set up booths, inside the track, and people milled about going from one booth to another. Calvin headed straight for the food booth. I joined the crowd over by the pole vault pit, which gathered around a platform where Sheriff Franklin gave a speech about law and order. I made my way to the edge where Hank stood.

"Hello, Monsieur Hank," I said loud enough for him to hear me. He adjusted his tie and faced me.

"Oh," he said, as if he were trying to place me. "You're the Leclerc boy, the Junior Detective?"

"Yessir."

"How's the case going?"

"All right, sir. Are you going to call the state police if we don't solve it?"

He studied me closely.

"Well, I did a lot of thinking standing out by that empty pen. Clarence was an expensive bull, and it cost me a lot of money when I lost him. Still and all, he was only an animal. Maybe it's better this way."

He stared past me toward the line in front of the food booth. I followed his gaze. Madame Fontenot was serving rice dressing to the people in line. I told him goodbye and walked in her direction.

"Can I talk to you, Madame Fontenot?"

She turned to me.

"Oh, it's you," she said, a little surprised. "I'm busy right now. Could we talk later?"

"This is important, Madame Fontenot—Junior Detective stuff."

"Well if it's important, I suppose I can get somebody to replace me for a minute or two." She called to Madame Lebleau and asked her to take over.

"What's so important?" she asked, once we were away from the crowd.

"You stole Clarence, Madame Fontenot, and everybody here is eating him."

She seemed shocked at first; her eyes widened, and then she broke out in a huge grin.

"My, but you are a good detective. What gave me away?"

"Your boots were the same size as the tracks, and one of them had manure on it. You said you never fed Clarence."

She shook her head in awe.

"Amazing. What are you going to do with your information?"

"I don't know, ma'am. Monsieur Pete says that sometimes it's all right to break the law if the law gets in the way of something good."

"Pete makes a lot of sense, doesn't he?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She took my hand in hers. She smelled like a mixture of wood smoke and perfume.

"But you're still not convinced that keeping quiet is the right thing, are you?"

"No, ma'am. You broke the law."

"Let me tell you the whole story and then you can make up your mind." She let go of my hand and looked off in the direction of the platform. Sheriff Franklin still talked. Madame Fontenot turned back to me. "Hank is a good man, but money comes so easy to him that he sometimes forgets what it's like to do without. When the Knights of Columbus asked him to donate an animal for this barbecue, he refused. I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen, so I gave them Clarence."

"But Clarence wasn't yours to give. He was Monsieur Hank's."

"Clarence belonged to me. It had something to do with taxes."

"Does he know that you gave Clarence away?"

"I told him last night. He was angry, but he'll get over it." She glanced toward the platform again. "I didn't want to hurt him. I just wanted to do something good for those less fortunate than us. Hank and I can afford to do that."

"Just one more question, ma'am."

"Yes?"

"How did you get Clarence out without Monsieur Hank knowing?"

"I waited until he had a school board meeting and led Clarence out. One of the Knights of Columbus men came by, loaded him, took him to the Ellisonville Slaughter House, and butchered him. Hank didn't notice until the next morning. I was going to tell him then, but he was so upset, I lost my nerve."

I frowned.

"But the tracks led out to the pasture."

Madame Fontenot blushed.

"I'm not much of a criminal, am I? I was afraid Hank would come home early from his meeting and find out Clarence was gone and somehow get him back before the deed was done, so I practiced a little deception. I noticed that it was dusty in the pen, so I led Clarence out to the pasture and then back again. Then I erased the set of tracks where we returned and the tire tracks from the trailer. Of course, I had no idea that I had stepped in that manure. That was very perceptive of you to notice that."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"No, thank you for not saying anything until you were certain. That's a sign of maturity." She caught my hand in hers again, squeezed it gently and smiled at me. "Now I must go back and do my job."

"Yes, ma'am. Madame Fontenot?"

She turned to me.

"Yes?"

"I think he understands now."

"I'm sure you're right."

***

Calvin sat at one of the picnic tables, and chewed on a small steak pressed between two slices of bread.

"Aren't you going to eat anything?"

"No, I'm not hungry." I looked in the direction of the platform. Sheriff Franklin had finished his speech, and Hank was getting ready to make his. Madame Fontenot had walked over and stood at his side.

"I don't think I want to be a Junior Detective," Calvin said through a mouthful of steak. "It isn't fun anymore."

"I think I'll stick it out a little longer."

***

That afternoon I helped Deputy Pipe guide the cars out of the parking lot. When the last car left, I walked up to him and shook his hand.

"What's that for?" he asked, looking puzzled.

"Because you're a good deputy."

He squared his shoulders and nodded at me.