crushed flat, probably by someone standing on top of it.
Her backup floppy disks had been scissored into small pieces. Her two notebooks and the hundreds of pages of blue calligraphy on them floated in a half inch of dark yellow urine at the bottom of a waste can. I opened my cell and punched in 911. When I finished the call, Molly was standing in the doorway.
“Ronald Bledsoe?” she said.
“Take it to the bank,” I replied.
I PARKED UNDER the live oaks in front of the recreation building in City Park and went inside. The floor of the basketball court was lined with cots, many of them piled with personal belongings, as though the cot itself had become a residence. Alafair was reading a book to a group of children who were sitting in a circle on the floor. I tried to seem relaxed as I walked toward her.
“Got a minute?” I said.
She put a marker in her book and went outside with me. I told her what had happened, my hand touching her arm. While I spoke, she stared down the slope at our house on the far side of the bayou, her face never changing expression.
“He destroyed everything?” she said.
“That’s the way it looks,” I replied.
“But there’s no evidence it’s Bledsoe? nobody saw him?”
“I talked with the neighbors. Nobody saw anything.”
“He urinated on my notebooks?”
“He’s a sick man. Why even talk about him?”
“You don’t have to tell me what he is.”
“We’re going to Lafayette this evening and buy a new computer and printer. In the meantime, the crime lab is at the house.”
“This guy’s a jerk, Dave. I send my work-in-progress file every day to a friend in Portland. I also send one to Ernest Gaines. My notebooks are in a floppy disk on top of my bookshelf. Did he get into my bookshelf?”
“No.”
“Like I said, he’s a jerk.”
“You’re quite a gal, Alf.”
“Don’t call me that name. Seriously, I hate that name,” she replied.
A TECHNICIAN FROM the Acadiana Crime Lab lifted full and partial prints from Alafair’s desk and computer but found none that matched the thumbprint Bledsoe had left on Clete’s license tag. Just before quitting time, Clete called me at the office.
“You won’t believe this. Bledsoe is back at his cottage,” he said.
“I believe it. Did you talk to him?”
“He invited me to dinner. He’s barbecuing on a grill under the trees. Jesus Christ, he just waved at me.”
I heard Clete pull the curtains.
“Somebody broke in our house today and tore up Alafair’s computer,” I said. “The perp also destroyed her work materials and put her notebooks in a waste can and urinated on them.”
“This guy is overdue for a home call.”
“I’ll think about it.”
I heard him fooling with the cell phone, as though he had walked from the window and was trying to organize his thoughts. “I got something real bad on my conscience, Streak. It’s eating my lunch,” he said.
“Courtney Degravelle’s death is not your fault, partner.”
“There’s something I didn’t tell you. We put all the insurance money in a mailbox like you suggested. I mean, almost all of it.”
He paused, waiting for my reaction. But this time I refused to fill in the blanks for him.
“See, Courtney was broke. Her insurance company was screwing her on her claim. She was already two months behind on her mortgage. She wanted to hold back a grand and wash it at a casino in Shreveport. I didn’t see the harm.”
I rubbed one temple and stared wanly out the window, stupefied by his lack of judgment.
“So that’s what she did. She and her sister drove up to Shreveport and unloaded the grand and won about seven hundred on top of it,” he said.
I didn’t want to hear it. Also, I didn’t want to fall into my old role as Clete’s enabler, either. But what do you do when your best friend is bleeding inside?
“Tommy the Whale dimed you with Sidney Kovick. Then Sidney ’s goons found out you and Courtney were an item. It was easier to take her down than come after you. Washing the money didn’t have anything to do with it,” I said.
“We both know better.”
I let it go. Courtney Degravelle had fallen into the hands of men who of their own volition dwell in the Abyss. Perhaps Clete had contributed to her fate. I was his friend. She was dead and so was Andre Rochon. With luck, we or someone else would nail the guys who killed them. What else was there to say?
I HAD OTHER problems to deal with, and choices to make that no cop on the square wants to make. Ronald Bledsoe had remained untouchable. Now he had invaded my home and left his ugly stain on my daughter’s life. We could roust and threaten him, but our best efforts would be of no value. Bledsoe was in our midst for the long haul, taunting us, pressing the stone deeper into the bruise with each passing day. Is it dishonorable to fight a war under a black flag in defense of those who cannot protect themselves? I thought not. Or at least that’s what I told myself as I considered my options regarding Ronald Bledsoe.
Chapter 21
IT WAS RAINING Friday night and Alafair and Molly were at a movie when Otis Baylor parked his car in front of our house and knocked on my door.
“You busy, Mr. Robicheaux?” he said.
“No, sir, come in,” I said.
He sat down in a stuffed chair in our living room and looked out the window at the rain falling in the light on top of our philodendron. “I’ve given some thought to a few things I’ve said to you. My manner has been abrasive and uncalled for. I think you were trying to be as forthright as you could. I should have given you a little more credit.”
“You were under pressure-” I said.
He interrupted me. “Your daughter told Thelma about the scrape she had with this fellow Bledsoe. She also told Thelma about the break-in at your house. It was him, wasn’t it?”
“That’s my belief.”
“Alafair says you can’t do much about it.”
“No, so far I haven’t been able to.”
“I’ve been in your shoes and I know the kind of thoughts you’re having.”
“I was never that good on going into other people’s heads, Mr. Baylor, so in turn I ask that they not tell me what my own thoughts are.”
“My family has a violent history. My father and his brother did things I’m ashamed of. Some of their violent tendencies have lived on in me. That means I can recognize it when I see it in others. I think you and I are cut out of the same burlap. If you go after Bledsoe on your own, you’ll be playing his game.”
“Oh?”
“In the insurance business all policies are written in terms of risk and percentages. It’s not guesswork, either. The only other industry as good at calculating profit and loss is the gambling industry. That’s why it’s not a ‘gambling’ industry. The player loses, the house wins. There’s no exception to the rule. You following me?”
