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“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 thebayou, 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.”
