your own hook.'
He walked back toward me, the teeth at the corner of his mouth glinting in the purple dusk.
'People come to the geek act so they can look on the outside of a man like me and not look at the inside of themselves. You stick your finger in my face again and I'll break it, policeman be damned,' he said.
It stormed that night. The rain blew against the house and ran off the eaves and braided and whipped in the light that fell from the windows. Just as the ten o'clock news came on, the phone rang in the kitchen.
The accent was East Kentucky or Tennessee, the pronunciation soft, the 'r' sound almost gone from the words, the vowels round and deep-throated.
'There's no point in trying to trace this call. I'm not using a ground line,' he said.
'I'm going to take a guess. Johnny Remeta?' I said.
'I got a hit on me. Maybe you're responsible. I can't be sure.'
'Then get out of town.'
'I don't do that.'
'Why'd you call me?'
'Sir, you told folks I was a snitch. What gives you the right to lie like that? I don't even know you.'
'Come in. It's not too late to turn it around. Nobody's mourning Zipper Clum.'
'You've got to set straight what you've done, Mr. Robicheaux.'
'You're in the wrong line of work to demand redress, partner.'
'Demand what?'
'Listen, you wouldn't go through with the job at Little Face Dautrieve's place. Maybe you have qualities you haven't thought about. Meet me someplace.'
'Are you kidding?'
I didn't reply. He waited in the silence, then cleared his throat as though he wanted to continue talking but didn't know what to say.
The line went dead.
A hit man who calls you 'sir'?
11
AT EIGHT O'CLOCK Monday morning the sheriff stopped me just as I walked in the front door of the department. A small square of blood-crusted tissue paper was stuck to his jawbone where he had cut himself shaving.
'Come down the hall and talk with me a minute,' he said.
I followed him inside his office. He took off his coat and hung it on a chair and gazed out the window. He pressed his knuckles into his lower spine as though relieving himself of a sharp pain in his back.
'Close the door. Pull the blind, too,' he said.
'Is this about the other day?'
'I told you I didn't want Clete Purcel in here. I believe that to be a reasonable request. You interpreted that to mean I have problems of conscience over Letty Labiche.'
'Maybe you just don't like Purcel. I apologize for implying anything else,' I said.
'You were on leave when Carmouche was killed. You didn't have to put your hand in it.'
'No, I didn't.'
'The prosecutor asked for the death penalty. The decision wasn't ours.'
'Carmouche was a pedophile and a sadist. One of his victims is on death row. That one just won't go down, Sheriff.'
The color climbed out of his neck into his face. He cut his head to speak, but no words came out of his mouth. His profile was as scissored as an Indian's against the window.
'Don't lay this off on me, Dave. I won't abide it,' he said.
'I think we ought to reopen the case. I think a second killer is out there.'
He widened his eyes and said, 'You guys in A.A. have an expression, what is it, 'dry drunks'? You've got a situation you can't work your way out of, so you create another problem and get emotionally drunk on it. I'm talking about your mother's death. That's the only reason I'm not putting you on suspension.'
'Is that it?' I said.
'No. A New Orleans homicide cop named Don Batter is waiting in your office,' he replied. 'Bitter's Vice.'
'Good. Clear that up with him,' the sheriff said, and leaned against the windowsill on his palms, stretching out his frame to ease the pain in his lower back.
Don Bjtter.the plainclothes detective Helen called the gel head, was sitting in a chair in front of my desk, cleaning his nails over the wastebasket with a gold penknife. His eyes lifted up at me. Then he went back to work on his nails.
'The sheriff says you're Homicide,' I said.
'Yeah, I just changed over. I caught the Zipper Clum case.'
'Really?'
'Who told you and Purcel to question people in New Orleans about Johnny Remeta?'
'He's a suspect in a house invasion.'
'A house invasion, huh? Lovely. What are we supposed to do if you scare him out of town?'
'He says that's not his way.'
'He says?'
'Yeah, he called me up last night.'
Ritter brushed the detritus from his nails into the basket and folded his penknife and put it in his pocket. He crossed his legs and rotated his ankle slightly, watching the light reflect on his shoe shine. His hair looked like gelled pieces of thick twine strung back on his scalp.
'The home invasion? That's the break-in at Little Face Dautrieve's place?' he said.
'Little Face says you planted rock on her. She's trying to turn her life around. Why don't you stay away from her?'
'I don't know what bothers me worse, the bullshit about talking to Remeta or the injured-black-whore routine. You want to nail this guy or not?'
'You see Jim Gable?'
'What about it?'
'Tell him I'm going to look him up on my next trip to New Orleans.'
He chewed with his front teeth on something, a tiny piece of food perhaps.
'So this is what happens when you start over again in a small town. Must make you feel like staying in bed some days. Thanks for your time, Robicheaux,' he said.
I signed OUT of the office at noon and went home for lunch. As I drove down the dirt road toward the house, I saw a blue Lexus approach me under the long line of oak trees that bordered the bayou. The Lexus slowed and the driver rolled down her window.
'How you doin', Dave?' she said.
'Hey, Ms. Deshotel. You visiting in the neighborhood?'
'Your wife and I just had lunch. We're old school chums.'
She took off her sunglasses, and the shadows of leaves moved back and forth on her olive skin. It was hard to believe her career in law enforcement went back into the 1960s. Her heart-shaped face was radiant, her throat unlined, her dark hair a reminder of the health and latent energy and youthful good looks that her age didn't seem to diminish.
'I didn't realize y'all knew each other,' I said.
'She didn't remember me at first, but… Anyway, we'll be seeing you. Call me for anything you need.'
