Super Sleuthing

Last Wednesday night I received a message from Regi. My attention was captured immediately and with that arrangements were made to fly to New Orleans. Of course all in the family know the relationship that I have with Terri and her family. Terri agreed to pick me up and drive us to Lafayette to begin our sleuthing. The first thing we did was to check into the Holiday Inn and precede to go through my phone and contact all of the people that Manny had programmed into the phone 3 years ago. Luck was not on our side with the numbers. We left numerous messages and waited for call backs. Much to our dismay, only 1 of his friends called us back and said that we would need to call Emily. I had of course tried her a few times and she had not returned the calls. Our greatest accomplishment was the information that was given to us from Regi. I owe her my gratitude and will thank her for the rest of my days. We met for lunch at the Blue Dog, which was very good and I recommend it to all who travel to Lafayette. I had the crab meat served with a bechemel sauce spiced with crawfish on a bed of spinach. Delicious. Regi brought us up to speed with the information that she had about Manny. I had not realized that he had been arrested. The arrest was a misdemeanor for possession of drug paraphernalia and a small amount of marijuana. This had happened over a year ago. Great! That was all I could think of. With that information, I knew that I had done the right thing by coming to Lafayette and finding Manny. This news made our "mission" all the more urgent. That afternoon after lunch, I continued the phone tags with Manny's connections. Finally Emily answered the phone. As I was explaining to her that it was necessary that I speak with Manny immediately, she stated "oh, he's walking in the door now, do you want to talk with him?". This was the first time that I had spoken to Manny since Mother's Day last spring. I did not tell Manny that I was in Lafayette, but just probed him with questions about where he lived and where Emily lived. After retrieving this information from him, I told him to make sure that he calls me soon. Terri and I then looked up in the phone book, yes, we were amazed that at that point, that the Internet was not going to help us. We found out where the "Courtyard" apartments were and then preceded to drive to that location. Well, when we got there it was an Assisted Living complex and I knew we were not at the right place. I then probed my memory regarding what Manny had said about the location of the apartment. Terri and I then went back to the area that Manny had lived in when he first got his first apartment in Lafayette. As we were driving to that address I pointed out that there it is. Regi had told us that Manny had a bomb sticker on his back windshield and we noticed that his car was there. Terri and I then went into the complex and just randomly picked a door and started to knock. The first door did not answer, even though I thought as I peeked into the window that someone was in there. We then went upstairs to start on those doors. The first was a no answer, but then we were surprised that the next door opened and the people told us that Emily lived on the 1st floor, it was the door that we had first knocked. Downstairs we went and banged on that door. My first meeting with Emily was with her wrapped up in a towel and a headful of shampoo. She yelled "Your mom is here Manny!" My what a surprise this was to all. If I had a camera, this picture would have been priceless. So now you all know how I was able to find Manny in Lafayette.