Under the Cajun Moon Read Free

policemen and one very dead body, here was another. I had a feeling that my life was about to be filled with all sorts of undo moments.
    Somehow, the cops had come there in response to a report of possible domestic violence, and they seemed intent on sticking with that first impression. I tried to explain, but they both seemed so sure, in fact, that it took a while for them to actually listen to what I was saying. I told them I had almost no memories of last night, absolutely no idea how I had gotten there in that hotel room, and that I had obviously been drugged and brought there without my knowledge or consent. Finally, they grew so frustrated with my adamant insistence about the bizarre nature of the situation that they told me to wait and save my complicated story for the detective.
    In the meantime, one of the cops led me to an empty suite next doorand told me to have a seat on the couch and wait for the arrival of the detective. Silently, he stood guard in the open doorway, keeping me safe. I assumed the other one was securing the scene.
    Still confused and incredibly frustrated, I was actually glad to have some peace and quiet to think things through. My brain still felt foggy and my headache was getting worse.
    As I willed the fog to clear, the realization that a man was dead began to sink in. The poor guy was dead! However it had happened, I mourned for his passing and for his loved ones, who would be finding out the sad news any time now.
    A cluster of curious hotel guests began gathering in the courtyard outside, trying to get a peek at what all the hoopla was about. Wishing they would all go away, I called the front desk and asked them to send over something for a headache. Soon a hotel employee appeared with a bottle of water and a packet of generic ibuprofen. I swallowed the pills immediately, leaned my head back against the couch, and closed my eyes.
    From the sound of things, the room next door was buzzing with all sorts of activity. As I continued to wait for the detective, I tried to grasp more memories from my befuddled brain.
    I remembered dropping Jenny at the office and then running home to pack after my mother’s call. I remembered racing to the airport, catching the flight that Jenny had arranged for me, hoping I would arrive while my father was still alive.
    I remembered descending toward the New Orleans airport several hours later, nervously holding my cell phone in my hand and waiting for permission to turn it back on so I could call to see where things stood. Outside, as the lights of the city had loomed into view, I had felt that odd disconnect of coming home once it wasn’t home anymore. Astounded by the unreality of the situation, I’d had to admit that I always expected one day my dad would die from a heart attack or a stroke brought on by a fit of rage at some poor dishwasher who had missed a spot on a plate, or a waitress who had given a patron the wrong kind of spoon. Never had I expected to hear that he’d been a victim of gunfire.
    But that was exactly what had happened. According to my mother,around noon today my father had been the victim of a hunting accident down at his favorite stomping grounds in the swamps of south central Louisiana, an accident that had left him with a gunshot wound to the leg. The bullet had struck an artery, causing him to lose several pints of blood before help had finally arrived. Paramedics had taken him to the nearest hospital, which was in Morgan City, gotten him stabilized, and then airlifted him to Oschner Hospital in New Orleans. Even as I had been en route to New Orleans myself, my father had been having major surgery.
    Reaching New Orleans at last, I dialed my mother’s number the moment I could after the plane landed, hoping she would report that my father’s surgery was successful and that he had regained consciousness.
    The call had gone to voice mail, so I simply told her I had arrived in New Orleans and would be at the hospital as soon as I