back and clang their batons on the bars.
You ask permission to use a toilet. When you run out of cigarettes or matches, you beg them off a screw through the bars. Your
That afternoon I finally got Dana Magelli on the phone.
'Clete says the entry wounds look like they came from a.22 or.25,' I said.
'Thank him for his feedback on that.'
'He didn't do it, Dana. It was a professional hit. I think we're talking about Johnny Remeta.'
'Except Purcel has a way of stringing elephant shit behind him everywhere he goes.'
'You want me to bring him in?'
'Take a guess.'
'We'll be there in three hours.'
There was a long silence and I knew Magelli's basic decency was having its way with him.
'IAD has been looking at Ritter for a month. Tell Purcel to come in and give a statement. Then get him out of town,' he said.
'Pardon?'
'Janet Gish confirms his story. We don't need zoo creatures muddying up the water right now. You hearing me?'
'You're looking at some other cops?'
He ignored my question. 'I mean it about Purcel. He's not just a pain in the ass. In my view he's one cut above the clientele in Angola. He mixes in our business again, I'll turn the key on him myself,' Magelli said.
I replaced the receiver in the phone cradle on top of the counter in the bait shop. Through the screen window I could see Clete at a spool table, watching an outboard pass on the bayou, his face divided by sunlight and shadow. I walked outside the bait shop and looked down at him.
'That was Dana Magelli. You're going to skate,' I said.
He beamed at me, and I realized all the lessons he should have learned had just blown away in the breeze.
The next day NOPD matched the.25-caliber rounds taken from Don Ritter's body to the.25-caliber round that was fired into Zipper Clum's forehead.
That night Alafair went with friends to the McDonald's on East Main. She came home later than we expected her and gave no explanation. I followed her into her bedroom. Tripod was outside the screen on the windowsill, but she had made no effort to let him in. The light was off in the room and Alafair’s face was covered with shadow.
'What happened tonight?' I asked.
'Whenever I tell you the truth about something, it makes you mad.'
'I've shown bad judgment, Alafair. I'm just not a good learner sometimes.'
'I saw Johnny. I took a ride with him.'
I ran my hand along the side of my head. I could feel a tightening in my veins, as though I had a hat on. I took a breath before I spoke.
'With Remeta?' I said.
'Yes.'
'He's wanted in another shooting. An execution at point-blank range in a car wash.'
'I told him I couldn't see him again. I'm going to sleep now, Dave. I don't want to talk about Johnny anymore,' she said.
She sat on the edge of her bed and waited for me to go out of the room. On the shelf above her bedstead I could see the painted ceramic vase Remeta had given to her, the Confederate soldier and his antebellum girlfriend glowing in the moonlight.
The call came at four in the morning.
'You told your daughter not to see me again?' the voice asked.
'Not in so many words,' I replied.
'That was a chickenshit thing to do.'
'You're too old for her, Johnny.'
'People can't be friends because they're apart in years? Run your lies on somebody else.'
'Your problems began long before we met. Don't take them out on us.'
'What do you know about my problems?'
'I talked with the prison psychologist.'
'I'm starting to construct a new image of you, Mr. Robicheaux. It's not a good one.'
I didn't reply. The skin of my face felt flaccid and full of needles. Then, to change the subject, I said, 'You should have lost the.25 you used on Zipper Clum. NOPD has made you for the Ritter hit.'
'Ritter gave up your mother's killers, Mr. Robicheaux. I was gonna give you their names. Maybe even cap them for you. But you act like I'm the stink on shit. Now I say fuck you,' he said, and hung up.
At 9 A.M. I sat in the sheriff's office and watched the sheriff core out the inside of his pipe with a penknife.
'So you got to see the other side of Johnny Remeta?' he said, and dropped the black buildup of ash off his knife blade into the wastebasket.
'He pumped Ritter for information, then blew out his light,' I said.
'This guy is making us look like a collection of web-toed hicks, Dave. He comes and goes when he feels like it. He takes your daughter for rides. He murders a police officer and calls you up in the middle of the night and tells you about it. Forgive me for what I'm about to say next.'
'Sir?'
'Do you want this guy out on the ground? It seems you and he and Purcel have the same enemies.'
'I don't think that's a cool speculation to make, Sheriff.'
'Let me put it this way. The next time I hear this guy's name, it had better be in conjunction with either his arrest or death. I don't want one of my detectives telling me about his phone conversations with a psychopath or his family's involvement with same. Are we clear?'
'There're pipe ashes on your boot,' I said, and left the room.
Ten minutes later I received a phone call from a woman who did not identify herself but just started talking as though I already knew who she was. She had a heavy Cajun accent and her voice was knotted with anger and dismay and a need to injure.
'I t'ought you'd like to know what you done. Not that it makes no difference to somebody who t'inks he got the right to twist a sick man up wit' his words,' she said.
'Who is this?' I asked.
But she kept wading in. 'You was a lot smarter than him, you. You know how to put t'oughts in somebody's head, make him full of guilt, fix it so he cain't go nowhere in his head except t'rew one door. So it ain't enough leprosy eat him up and turn his hands to nutria feet. Man like you got to come along and push him and push him and push him till he so full of misery he gonna do what you want.'
Then I remembered the duck-shaped blind woman who had been hanging wash behind the cabin of Bobby Cale, the ex-constable, down by Point au Fer.
'Did something happen to Bobby?' I said.
She couldn't answer. She started weeping into the phone.
'Ma'am, tell me what it is,' I said.
