home, everything was squared away, his nails in capped jars on his workbench, his tools oiled and sharpened and hung in rows on the walls, his paint cans and petrochemical containers arrayed neatly on a polyethylene tarp so they wouldn’t form rings on the floor.
“My pick ain’t here,” he said.
“I see. Could it be somewhere else?”
“No, suh. I hang it between them two nails. It’s been hanging there since last spring, when Yvonne and me put in a vegetable garden.”
“Does anyone else have a key to the shed?”
“No, suh.”
“Would you mind coming down to the department and being fingerprinted?”
It was dry and bright inside the shed, and the rain was slanting outside the door and clicking on the roof. The inside of the shed had a pleasant, warm odor to it, like leaves and field mice and oats in heavy burlap bags. “Sir?” I said.
“I don’t mind,” he said. He wiped the rainwater out of his eyes with his left hand.
“If you don’t mind my asking, how did you get those scars on your arm?”
“Duck-hunting accident ’bout twenty years ago. Just like all this, a big dumb accident. One t’ing turn into another and you cain’t turn none of it around. All she wanted to do was go to colletch. Everyt’ing gone to hell just because she wanted to go to colletch. She met that Lujan boy and t’ought she was gonna be his sweetheart. How come she didn’t tell me none of this? I wish I wasn’t never born.”
Chapter 23
WHITEY BRUXAL’S CAPACITY for deceit and cunning was not to be underestimated. On Friday morning his attorney, a dapper grimebag by the name of Milton Vidrine, called Helen Soileau at the department. Milton had put himself through law school as a bug exterminator, then had made a good living chasing ambulances in Baton Rouge. In fact, he became known as “Twilight Zone” Vidrine because he was an expert at showing up in emergency wards and intensive-care units and convincing half-comatose accident victims to sign settlement agreements and liability waivers that often left the accident victims destitute. Vidrine said he wanted to talk to Helen and me simultaneously. Coincidentally, I was sitting in her office when the call came in. She clicked on the speakerphone but did not tell him that I was there.
“What’s this about?” she said.
“Mr. Bruxal wants you to have a clear understanding about a situation that is not of his making and over which he has no control,” Vidrine replied.
“What might that be?” Helen said.
“I’d like Detective Robicheaux to be present.”
“I’m the administrative authority in this department. Do you want to tell me what this is about or do you want to put it in a letter?” she said.
He paused a moment. “Detective Robicheaux has a reputation as a hothead and a violent man. His alcoholic history is no secret in Lafayette. But Mr. Bruxal wants to make sure Detective Robicheaux is not harmed in any way. This call is more a matter of conscience than legality.”
Helen was standing against the glare of the window, her face wrapped in shadow, but I could see her laughing silently at the absurdity of a man like Milton Vidrine referring to matters of conscience.
“I’m right here, Mr. Vidrine. Thanks for the character assessment and for getting in touch,” I said, leaning forward in my chair.
Milton Vidrine might have been disarmed for two seconds at the revelation that I had been listening to his remarks, but no more than two seconds. “Mr. Bruxal has fired his employee Thomas Leo Raguza and wants to inform all parties concerned that he takes no responsibility for this man’s actions,” he said.
“I’m not sure how I should interpret that,” I said.
“You gave Mr. Raguza a severe beating, Detective Robicheaux. Mr. Bruxal has no knowledge about your previous relationship with Mr. Raguza or why or how he provoked you. But Mr. Bruxal does not want to employ anyone who bears hostility toward any member of local law enforcement. He’s also concerned that Mr. Raguza could be a threat.”
“Say that last part again,” Helen said.
“My client believes Mr. Raguza is unstable and should be considered potentially dangerous.”
“Bruxal just recently made this discovery?” I said.
“I’m passing on the information as it was presented to me,” he replied.
“Here’s some more information for you. Lefty Raguza and your client were involved in the murder of a friend of mine. His name was-”
Before I could continue, Helen propped her arms on her desk and leaned down to the speakerphone. She placed her thumb on the phone’s “memo” button. “As of this moment this phone conversation is being recorded. Your statement about the danger posed to a member of the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Department by Thomas Raguza is duly noted. I’m also at this juncture informing you that I consider this information a disguised conveyance of a threat against a member of my department.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he said.
“Every white-collar guy we slam the cell door on uses those same words,” she said.
“I’m going to have a talk with the district attorney, Mr. Marceaux.”
“Good, you two deserve each other. Now, you keep your goddamn distance from my office,” she said.
Helen pushed down on the disconnect and shut off the speakerphone. She realized I was smiling and gave me a look. I dropped my eyes and examined the tops of my fingers. “I’m sick of this bunch wiping their feet on us. Was it you or Purcel who said most of the world’s ills could be corrected with a three-day open season on people?”
“It was Ernest Hemingway.”
“I’ve got to read more of him.” She sat down behind her desk and brushed at a spot above her eyebrow with one knuckle, the anger subsiding in her face. “What do you think they’re up to?”
“Disassociating themselves from Raguza and at the same time pointing him in my direction.”
She seemed to think about what I had said, her eyes wandering around the room. But that wasn’t it. “We’re anybody’s punch,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“Every corrupt enterprise in the country ends up here. They fuck us with a Roto-Rooter and make us like them for it.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Anybody with a checkbook.” Then she blew out her breath. “What’s the status on Cesaire Darbonne?”
“He’s getting printed as we speak.”
YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE IN SOMETHING. Everyone does. Even atheists believe in their unbelief. If they didn’t, they’d go mad. The misanthrope believes in his hatred of his fellow man. The gambler believes he’s omniscient and that his knowledge of the future is proof he is loved by God. The middle-income person who spends enormous amounts of time window-shopping and sorting through used clothing at garage sales is indicating that our goods will never be ashes blowing across the grave. I suspect the drunkard believes his own self-destruction is the penance required for his acceptability in the eyes of his Creator. The adherents of Saint Francis see divinity in the faces of the poor and oppressed but take no notice of the Byzantine fire surrounding themselves. The commonality of all the aforementioned lies in the frailty of their moral vision. It is also what makes them human.
Most cops and newspeople, usually at midpoint in their careers, come to a terrible realization about themselves, namely, that they are in danger of becoming like the jaundiced and embittered individuals they had always pitied as aberrations or anachronisms in their profession. But when people lie to you on a daily basis, when you watch zoning boards sell out whole neighborhoods to porn vendors and massage parlor owners, when you see the most expensive attorneys in the country labor on behalf of murderers and drug lords, when you investigate
