I WOKE AT FIVE-THIRTY the next morning to the sound of mockingbirds in the trees and a boat with a deep draft working its way downstream from the drawbridge at Burke Street. Our home was a wonderful place to wake on an early summer morning. Sometimes ground fog hung on the bayou, and inside it I would hear a gator slap its tail in the lily pads or a nutria or a muskrat roll off a cypress knee into the water. Sometimes I imagined I saw Confederate longboats, sharpshooters humped low inside, the oars muffled, floating silently with the current toward the Yankees’ skirmish line at Nelson’s Canal.
It didn’t matter what the weather was like. Morning with Molly and Snuggs and Tripod was always a grand time, and the arrival of the day had little to do with clocks. Just before first light I would hear the milkman crossing the lawn, fat bottles of cream clinking in his wire basket, then a solid thump on the ceiling when Snuggs dropped from an oak limb onto the roof, right above our bedroom. Molly would stir in her sleep, her hip rounded by the sheet, her hot rump brushing against me. I would put my fingers in her hair, trace them down her shoulders and back, and along the deep curve in her waist. I’d kiss her baby fat and the two red sun moles below her navel. I’d kiss her breasts and stomach and mouth and eyes, then slip her close against me, burying my face in the thick smell of her hair.
When she made love, she did it without stint or reservation or buried resentment because of a cross word or imagined slight. Molly’s charity and smile followed her into bed, and in the morning her skin gave off a warm fragrance just like flowers in a garden. In the blueness of the dawn I would hear the steady rhythm of her breath in my ear while Miss Ellen Deschamps called to her cats from her back porch, and I would start the day with the absolute knowledge that no evil could hold sway in our lives.
When I got to the office, the investigation into the murder of Tony Lujan awaited me in a way I didn’t expect. Wally had written a name and a cell number on a pink message slip and had put it in my mailbox. At the bottom of the slip he had penciled the notation: “Call him between 9:15 and 10.”
“Who’s J. J. Castille?” I said.
“Some colletch kid.”
“Which college kid?”
“He says you was at his fraternity house yesterday.”
“Wally, I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t present information in teaspoons.”
His shirt pocket was fat with cellophane-wrapped cigars, which he rolled around in his mouth but never lighted because of his high blood pressure. “The kid, J. J. Castille, says he’s in class till nine-fifteen. He says you saw him at his fraternity house yesterday but you didn’t talk to him. He says he wants to talk wit’ you now. That’s how come he called the office.”
“Thank you.”
“He also said not to call him at the fraternity house. He said use the cell. That’s why I wrote down the cell number on the note. Anyt’ing else I can interpret for you?”
“No, that’s just fine.”
“You sure?”
In the army or prison, you learn not to make enemies with anyone in records or the kitchen. In law enforcement, you don’t admonish your dispatcher.
As I walked to my office, I couldn’t put a face with the name on the message slip. But I did remember a thin- chested kid at Tony’s fraternity house who had hung in the background, his expression full of conflict. At 9:20 a.m. I punched J. J. Castille’s cell number into my desk phone.
“Hello?” a voice said. In the background I could hear music and many voices talking and the clatter of dishes.
“This is Detective Dave Robicheaux with the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Department. I’m returning a call made by J. J. Castille. Are you Mr. Castille?”
“Yes, sir. I need to talk with you.”
“Is this about Tony Lujan?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“It’s about him and Slim Bruxal. It’s about something they were saying at the house. Maybe it’s not important.” The pitch of his voice dropped when he mentioned Bruxal’s name.
“It’s important,” I said.
“I can’t talk here.”
“Do you have a car?”
“No, sir.”
“I’ll come over there. Where do you want to meet?”
He didn’t reply immediately. “I just thought I should pass it on.”
“I understand that. You’re doing the right thing, partner. Just tell me where you want to meet.”
“You know the UL campus?”
“I went to school there.”
“I’ll be between Cypress Lake and the music building.”
I checked out an unmarked car, clamped a magnetized flasher on the roof, and was at the campus in under thirty minutes. I pulled into a driveway between a cypress-dotted lake and the old brick music building known as Burke Hall. I saw a kid squatted down on the bank, tossing crumbs from a hot dog bun to a school of perch that popped and roiled the surface when they took the bread. His brown hair grew on his neck and hung in his eyes, and he wore a T-shirt that was washed so thin it looked like cheesecloth hanging on his shoulders.
He rose to greet me but didn’t shake hands. Instead, he looked over his shoulder at the elevated walkway that led into the Student Union.
“You going to summer school, J.J.?” I said.
“Yeah, but I work in the cafeteria, too. A lot of guys take off for the summer, but I want to get through premed early so’s I can go on to Tulane. I got a scholarship through the Naval ROTC program there.”
He had clean features and brown eyes that were too large for his face and a pronounced Cajun accent. He looked back over his shoulder again. Through the cypress trees I could see kids walking in and out of the building.
“No one is paying any attention to us, J.J. Want to tell me what this is about? My boss doesn’t want me gone from the office too long.” I tried to smile.
“I was studying across the hallway from Slim and Tony’s room the day Tony got murdered. Our doors were open and I could hear them talking about the guy who was run over on the road. Slim kept calling him ‘the wino.’ He said the wino died ’cause he walked out in front of a car.”
“Tony’s car?”
J.J. thought about it. “No, he said ‘a car.’ Slim said winos walked out in front of cars all the time and got killed and nobody cared. Then Tony said, ‘That’s not what happened, Slim.’”
He blew out his breath.
“What else did they say?”
“Nothing. Slim closed the door. Slim’s a rough guy. He’s not supposed to have the top room, but nobody says anything about it.”
I gave him my business card. “If you remember anything else, call me again, will you? But right now it’s important to remember you did the right thing. You don’t have any reason to feel guilty or ashamed or afraid. Do you know where Slim Bruxal is now?”
“He was back at the house this morning. He said he’d been in New Orleans with a girl.”
“Slim’s at the house now?”
“Far as I know. Am I going to have to testify in court?”
“I’m not sure. Would you be willing to do that?”
He cleared his throat and didn’t answer.
“Did you know Yvonne Darbonne?” I asked.
“She came to the house with Tony once or twice. At least I think it was with Tony. I really didn’t know her.” He looked at me briefly, then his eyes left mine. The wind was cool blowing through the cypress trees on the lake, but his skin was flushed, his forehead shiny with perspiration.
“What are you not telling me?” I said.
