Chapter 30

30

There were no slow nights at the Goal Post sports bar, Louisianians being as sports obsessed as they were. Even in the middle of the week the bar was hopping. The building sat out on one corner of the parking lot shared by a newer strip mall that included a Rouses supermarket and an Ace Hardware, all of it built in the last ten years to service the trendier western neighborhoods of Bayou Breaux.

At a glance, it seemed like exactly the kind of place Marc Mercier would hang out—modern, popular with the upwardly mobile—and not the kind of place his brother, Luc, would frequent. But even a hard-ass like Luc Mercier had to succumb to the lure of college football on giant state-of-the-art TV screens.

A missing poster showing Marc Mercier was taped to the front door glass with help us find marc! printed in big red block letters on a second piece of posterboard. The smell of hamburgers and onion rings filled the air as Nick walked into the bar. Basketball filled the TV screens.

The décor was industrial-meets-gymnasium with lots of exposed pipes and ducts in the high black ceiling. The two full-size bars on either side of the space were faced in corrugated tin. The floor was an actual blond wood gymnasium floor complete with the painted lines of a basketball court. The bartenders and waitresses were dressed as referees in black-and-white-striped tops with whistles hanging on lanyards around their necks.

Nick singled out the most senior bartender—a thirtysomething Black woman with LSU purple and gold braids woven through her hair. Devonta Williams. He recognized her as one of the parent coaches from Justin’s T-ball league. She spotted him as he made his way toward the bar.

“Detective Fourcade!” she said with a big smile. “How’s that little ballplayer of yours?”

“He’s well,” Nick said. “How’s yours?”

“She’s on to flag football now. That girl is as sports crazy as her mama. She runs me ragged. What can I get for you?”

“Nothing for me, Devonta, thank you,” he said. “I’m here on business, I’m afraid.”

“Is this about Marc Mercier?” she asked. “We put the poster up as soon as we got it.”

“Do you know him?”

“Marc? Sure. He’s in here all the time, holding court. Everybody loves Marc.”

“So I hear. Were you working Saturday night?”

“Are you kidding me? LSU versus Florida? It was all hands on deck!”

“Did you see Marc that night?”

“Sure, he was in here. Him and his henchman, Dozer Cormier.”

“Why do you call him that?”

Devonta shrugged. “It just always looks that way to me. There’s Marc, all smiles, glad-handing everybody like a politician, and Dozer right behind him, the Bayou Bodyguard, looking like he eats iron and spits out nails. Don’t nobody mess with Dozer.”

“They were both here Saturday night?”

“Yep. Marc was here until the end of the game. Dozer left early.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“It was a madhouse in here, but I remember because Marc’s brother was here, and it looked like the three of them were having words. I keep an eye on Dozer because he gets nasty when he’s drunk, and I don’t want no trouble in here. This is a nice place. We don’t put up with fights and shit like that. You wanna ass up? Go elsewhere. I see someone making a problem, they’re outta here,” she said, gesturing like an umpire throwing a baseball manager out of a game.

“I heard Marc was flirting with a blond girl,” Nick said.

Devonta laughed. “A blonde, a brunette, a redhead. My hundred-year-old grandma could come in here, and Marc would flirt with her, too. He’s just like that. All charm. He don’t mean nothing by it. He’s sweet. He finds something nice to say to all of them, not just the pretty ones. All the girls love Marc.”

“Did you recognize this blond girl?”

“No, can’t say I did. Twentysomething. Hair like a mermaid. I think she was with a bachelorette party or something like that.”

“I’ll need to have a look at your security video from that night. Indoors and out.”

“No problem,” she said, letting herself out from behind the bar. “I’m manager tonight.”

She caught the attention of the next senior bartender. “Kirk, you’re up! I’ve got to go back to the office.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

She led the way down a hall, pulling a set of keys off her belt and sorting through them for the right one to open the office.

“I sure hope you find him alive and well,” she said. “I worry about all my customers, you know. I worry someone is gonna have just one too many and slip out of here without anyone the wiser. Next thing you know, y’all are fishing their car out the swamp with them in it.”

“We’ll hope not,” Nick said. “He’s got a wife and baby waiting on him.”

“?’Course the rumor is he’s that dead body y’all found down the bayou, and that the wife and her lover did him in.” She cut him a look over her shoulder. “Is there anything to that?”

“Not so far.”

“Not that you’d tell me if there was,” she said. “You’re like the damn sphynx, you are.”

She unlocked the door and let him into the office, going around behind the desk herself to wake up the computer and open the security program.

“Here you go. This is all the video from Saturday night. Eight cameras. Four inside and four outside. Good luck. I hope you find what you need to bring Marc home.”

Nick thanked her and settled in at the desk.

“I’m gonna bring you a club soda and a veggie burger,” Devonta said on her way to the door. “And I don’t want any sass back from you about it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Nick said, but his eyes were on the video screen, and food was the furthest thing from his mind.