Iberia Parish. Is this starting to gel for you, Helen?”
It was so quiet I could hear the air-conditioning in the vents. “We’ll have Bello and his son in custody by close of business,” I said.
“Good,” Lonnie said, rocking back in his chair, raising one finger in the air. “One other thing-I want daily updates on every aspect of this investigation. Any memoranda are eyes-only. All conversations regarding the investigation stay within our immediate circle. Any sharing of information with federal authorities will be performed by this office and this office only. Are we all on the same page here?”
“I’ll notify you as soon as we bring Bello and Tony Lujan in,” I said.
I had slipped his punch, but he didn’t seem to take note of it. “Helen?” he said.
Her face was thoughtful, even placid, before she spoke. “No, I can’t think of a thing to say, Lonnie. Nothing at all. But if I do, I’ll give you a buzz.”
THE NEXT MORNING, Friday, Bello Lujan was placed under arrest for destruction of evidence in a vehicular homicide. He was not told that simultaneously his son was being removed from a classroom at UL by me, a uniformed Iberia Parish sheriff’s deputy, and a Lafayette City Police detective. When Tony Lujan protested, we cuffed his wrists behind him and led him across the quadrangle, just as a bell rang and his peers poured out of the surrounding buildings and filled the colonnaded walkway that surrounded the main campus. Tony’s face was as red as raw hamburger.
We left him cuffed behind the wire screen in the cruiser and headed for New Iberia, with me in the passenger seat and Top, our retired Marine Corps NCO, behind the wheel.
“You treated me like I’m a rapist or a drug dealer in front of all those people. You can’t do that unless you charge me with something,” Tony said.
“We don’t have to charge you, because you’re not under arrest,” I said.
“Then why am I in handcuffs?”
“You gave us a bad time,” I replied.
“If I’m not under arrest, take the cuffs off.”
“When we stop,” I said.
I saw Top look into the rearview mirror. His red hair was turning gray and two pale furrows ran through it on each side of his pate. His mustache looked as stiff as a toothbrush. “I’m not as forgiving as Dave, here,” he said.
“What I’d do?”
“You stepped on my spit shine. You scratched the leather on my brand-new shoes. Those are forty-dollar shoes.”
“I’m sorry,” Tony said.
“How would you like it if somebody stepped on your new shoes?” Top said.
“This is crazy. I want to call my father.”
“Your father is under arrest. I don’t think he’s going to be of much help to you,” I said.
“Arrest for what?”
I turned around in the seat so he could look directly into my face. “Either you or he or your mother killed a homeless man with your automobile. Y’all thought you could get away with something like that, Tony? How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty.” The handcuffs were on tight and he had to lean forward on the car seat to keep from pinching them into his wrists.
“You’re studying to be a doctor?” I said.
“I’m in my second year of premed.”
“And you’re starting out your career with blood splatter all over you?” I said.
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
“How did the dead guy’s blood get on your headlight?” Top said.
“I’m not saying anything else. I want to talk to my father. I want to talk to a lawyer.”
“Glad to hear that, kid, because I’m very upset over what you did to my shoes,” Top said. “You just graduated from ‘friend of the court’ to ‘punch of the day’ in the stockade shower. I hear if you close your eyes and pretend you’re a girl, it’s not so bad after a couple of months.”
Then both Top and I turned to stone and watched the billboards and fields of young sugarcane slide past the windows. After we had crossed into Iberia Parish, I gestured toward a turnoff. We left the four-lane and drove through a community of shacks and rain ditches that were strewn with litter and vinyl bags of raw garbage that had been flung from passing vehicles. Thunderclouds moved across the sun and the countryside dropped into shadow. The wind smelled like rain and chemical fertilizer and dead animals that had been left on the roadside. Beyond a line of trees I could see the ugly gray outline of the parish prison and the silvery coils of razor wire along the fences.
“Stop here,” I told Top.
“He wants to lawyer-up. He’s a fraternity punk who deserves to fall in his own shit. Don’t end up with a bad jacket, here,” Top said.
“I’m going to do it my way. Now stop the car.”
I got out of the cruiser and opened the back door. Tony looked at me cautiously. “Outside,” I said.
“What are we doing?”
I reached inside and pulled him out on the road, then marched him toward a clump of cedar trees. He twisted his head back toward the road, his face stretched tight with fear. “People at UL know we left together. You can’t do this,” he said.
“Shut up,” I said. I pushed him into the shade of the trees. He began to struggle, and I shoved him against a tree trunk and held him there. “I’m going to uncuff you now. The conversation we have out here is between you and me. You’re being treated like an intelligent man. Try to act like one.”
I unlocked the cuffs, pulled them free of his wrists, and turned him around. His face was gray, his breath rife with funk.
“Your old man didn’t kill the homeless man, did he?”
“No, sir.”
“Did your mother?”
“She has bad night vision. She doesn’t even have a license. You can check.”
“So that leaves you.”
He was shaking his head even before I finished the sentence. “If I’d killed a homeless guy, it would have been an accident. Why would I want to hide it?”
“But it’s obvious you know when and how it happened.”
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
“You said your mother has bad night vision. How do you know the homeless guy was struck at night?”
He closed then opened his eyes, like a man who has just stepped on the trapdoor of a hangman’s scaffold. “You got to let me see a lawyer. It’s in the Constitution, isn’t it? I’m guaranteed at least a phone call, right?”
“Listen to me. A man with no name was killed by an automobile your family owns and drives. The dead man was probably a wino, a guy with few if any friends, no family, and no known origins. He was the kind of guy who gets bagged and tagged and dropped in a hole in ground, case closed. Except that’s not going to happen here. That guy had a right to live, just like you and I do. Whoever ran over him is going to be indicted and sent to trial. I give you my absolute word on that, Tony. You believe me when I say that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re a young man and young people make mistakes. Usually the cause is a lack of judgment. People get scared, they can’t think straight, they make bad decisions. They want to run from the deed they’ve committed because it’s almost as though it didn’t happen, it’s not them, it’s like someone else did it. If they could only go home, this terrible moment in their lives would be erased. That’s what happened, didn’t it, Tony? You just didn’t think straight. It’s only human in a situation like that. Tell us your version of events before somebody else does. Don’t take a fall you don’t deserve. That’s not stand-up, it’s dumb. Just tell the truth and trust the people trying to help you.”
He watched me carefully while I spoke, his face turned slightly aside, as though he didn’t want the full
