lives.”
“We through here, Mr. Robicheaux?”
I felt my old enemy, anger, flare in my chest. My daughter and wife had almost lost their lives the previous day and I had been forced to shoot and kill their assailant. Regardless of what he had suffered himself, I was tired of Otis Baylor’s recalcitrant attitudes.
He was studying my face, perhaps finally aware that other people have their limits.
“No, we’re not through. And it’s Detective Robicheaux. Why do you think we came down on you with both feet?” I said.
“Bad luck?”
“Because your neighbor gave you up.”
“Tom Claggart?”
“He said the night the looters were shot, you made a statement about ‘hanging black ivory on the wall.’ You remember saying that?”
“Yeah, I do. But I don’t blame Tom for telling you that. He’s a simpleminded man who wants to please authority. He went to the Virginia Military Institute or the Citadel or one of those military colleges. I don’t see what this has to do with anything.”
It has to do with the fact you’re unteachable, sir, I thought. But I kept my feelings to myself.
MY GUESS WAS that Ronald Bledsoe had already left town. Wrong again. Two other detectives went to his motor court early Monday morning and were told by the manager that Mr. Bledsoe could be found at an assisted- care facility next door to Iberia General.
One of the detectives, Lukas Cormier, called me on his cell phone from the parking lot outside the facility. He had a bachelor’s degree in business administration, with a minor in psychology, and was a good investigator. “You want to come over here?” he said.
“I’m supposed to be on the desk till IA cuts me loose,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“When we went inside, this guy who looks like he was squirted out of a toothpaste tube was reading a Harry Potter book aloud to a roomful of Alzheimer patients. He goes, ‘Hi, my name is Ronald. What’s yours?’”
“What’s his alibi for yesterday?”
“He says he was in Barnes and Noble in Lafayette, buying books for his Alzheimer friends.”
“Does he have any purchase receipts?”
“No, I asked him.”
“How about the Humvee? You got anything on it?”
“Zip. We tried all the rentals and talked to a couple of dealerships. But without a tag number I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere on the vehicle. You want us to bring him in?”
“No, let him think he’s slid one past us.”
“He’s got no sheet at all? Mental institutions, stuff like that?”
“None. Bledsoe is a blank. Not so much as a traffic violation.”
There was a beat and I knew what was coming.
“Dave, I don’t want to seem casual about your experience with this character, but are you sure we’ve got the right guy? I don’t see this guy as New Iberia ’s answer to BTK. Guys who try to whack a cop and his family don’t hang around. They also have histories. By your own admission, Bledsoe doesn’t fit the job description.”
“BTK had a university degree in criminal justice and worked as an animal control officer in Wichita, Kansas. He also installed security systems in people’s homes. He was also an officer at his church. He also tortured people to death, including children, for twenty years. Happy motoring, Lukas.”
I hung up, more angry than I should have been, I suppose. But when you are on the receiving end of a fist, you are less inclined to be sympathetic toward those who are disingenuous at your expense.
I called Sidney Kovick’s flower shop. Eunice answered the phone.
“Is Sidney back from New Iberia?” I asked.
“I never said he was in New Iberia,” she replied.
“Right, I forgot that. Since I talked to Sidney on Saturday, a friend of Ronald Bledsoe tried to kill my family and me. I tried to stoke up Sidney so he’d take down Bledsoe for me. But I want Bledsoe alive and I want the people he works for. Please ask your husband to call me.”
It took a moment for my statement to sink in. “You tried to get Sidney to do your dirty work?”
“Not exactly. But I wouldn’t have objected.”
“Then shame on you.”
I felt my face burning. “Will you pass on my message?”
“Sometimes you strike me as absolutely clueless. It’s Sidney who needs your help. He just called. He’s worried about Marco and Charlie. They went into the Atchafalaya Swamp Saturday and didn’t come back to the motel. They don’t answer their cell phones, either.”
“What were they doing in the Atchafalaya Swamp, Eunice?”
“I’m not sure.”
Right, I thought. “Maybe they got lost. Marco Scarlotti and Charlie Weiss probably couldn’t find snow in Antarctica. You want to get straight with me or see Sidney in a box?” I said.
“They were following Ronald Bledsoe.”
“I’m at the Iberia Sheriff’s Department. Tell Sidney either to come in or call me. You’re a reasonable person. I want you to think hard about the following question. Don’t answer it, just think about it.”
Eunice had grown up in the fiefdom of Plaquemines Parish and knew firsthand that justice is indeed blind, at least when it involves political corruption. I let the spring wind itself tight, then I used the interrogator’s classic trick of posing a question that appears based on a premise. “When Bo Wiggins goes down, do you think he’s going to take the bounce by himself? A guy with hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts? When it comes to money and status, Bo Wiggins has the humanity of a feral pit bull. What do you think he’s going to do to Sidney?”
“I don’t know, Dave. I’ve never met the man. I’m not sure Sidney has, either. I’ll ask him to call you. You don’t need to call here again.”
My time in the dead zone seemed open-ended.
BUT SIDNEY did not call and I began to believe that both he and Eunice were much more vulnerable than I had thought. As I mentioned before, I never quite understood Sidney. Historically the men who ran the Mafia rose to power through treachery, betrayal of friends, and assassination of their superiors. Their skill lay in their ability to manipulate others, particularly those who were good “soldiers” and had ferocious levels of physical courage that their leaders lacked.
This was not the case with Sidney. He wasn’t afraid and I never saw him betray one of his own. Actually I think Sidney had a peculiar kind of secular theology at work in his life that was similar in many ways to those who conflate nationalism and religion and business. For Sidney, “sin” and “failure” and “poverty” were the unholy trinity. If there was a perdition, it was the home on North Villere Street where he had grown up.
Unfortunately for Sidney and the men who worked for him, evil sometimes comes in a package that has no label on it.
SIDNEY’S OPPOSITE WAS Clete Purcel, a man who was born and raised in the same privation as Sidney and, worse, exposed at an early age to his father’s rejection and unnecessary cruelty. Why does one man turn out to be a gangster and the other a beer-soaked, blue-collar knight errant? I didn’t know the answer. I was just glad that Clete was my friend.
As soon as Clete heard about the shoot-out, he had come to my house. He stayed until almost midnight, then, instead of leaving as he said he was, he pulled his Caddy into the driveway and went to sleep in the backseat, determined that Bledsoe wouldn’t have another run at us. We had to argue with him in order to make up a bed for him on the couch.
He came to my office on Monday morning, shortly after I had talked to Eunice Kovick. “So Sidney hasn’t called you, huh?” he said.
“He’s not going to admit he’s painted himself into a corner,” I replied.
