After a beat, he said, 'Alafair wants to be a screen writer. Tell her to write better lines for you.'
'You cut a deal. You thought you were going to pop Gable and have it all,' I said.
'Good try,' he said. But the confidence had slipped in his voice.
'Yeah? The same person who sent you to kill Gable gave orders to the Louisiana State Police to shoot you on sight. There are two Texas Rangers sitting outside my office right now. Why is that? you ask yourself. Because you whacked a couple of people in Houston, and these two Rangers are mean-spirited peckerwoods who can't wait to blow up your shit. You wonder why your mother dumped you? It's no mystery. You're a born loser, kid.'
'You listen-' he said, his voice starting to shake.
'Think I'm lying? Ask yourself how I know all this stuff. I'm just not that smart.'
He began to curse and threaten me, but the transmission was breaking up and his voice sounded like that of a man trying to shout down an electric storm.
I hung up the receiver and looked out the glass partition in my office at the empty corridor, then began filling out some of the endless paperwork that found its way to my basket on an hourly basis.
I tried TO KEEP my head empty the rest of the afternoon, or to occupy myself with any task that kept my mind off the fate of Letty Labiche or the razor wire I had deliberately wrapped around Johnny Remeta's soul. I called the jail in St. Martinville and was told Clete Purcel had thrown his food tray in a hack's face and had been moved into an isolation cell.
'Has he been arraigned yet?' I asked.
'Arraigned?' the deputy said. 'We had to Mace and cuff and leg-chain him to do a body search. You want this prick? We'll transfer him to Iberia Prison.'
At 4:30 I went outside and walked through St. Peter's Cemetery. My head was thundering, the veins tightening in my scalp. The sky was like a bronze bowl, and dark, broad-winged birds that made no sound drifted across it. I wanted this day to be over; I wanted to look at the rain-worn grave markers of Eighth and Eighteenth Louisiana Infantry who had fought at Shiloh Church; I wanted to stay in a vacuum until Letty Labiche was executed; I wanted to slay my conscience.
I went back into the department and called Connie Deshotel's office in Baton Rouge.
'She's taken a few vacation days, Mr. Robicheaux. What with the demonstrations and all outside,' the secretary said.
'Is she at Lake Fausse Pointe?'
'I'm sorry. I'm not at liberty to say,' the secretary replied.
'Will you call her for me and ask her to call me?'
There was a long pause.
'Her phone is out of order. I've reported it to the telephone company,' the secretary said.
'How long has it been out of order?'
'I don't know. I don't understand why you're asking me these questions. Is this an emergency?'
I thought about it, then said, 'Thanks for your time.'
I walked down to Helen Soileau's office and opened her door without knocking. She looked up from her paperwork at my face. She was chewing gum and her eyes were bright and focused with a caffeinated intensity on mine. Then one finger pointed at an empty chair by the side of her desk.
A few minutes later she said, 'Go through that again. How'd you know Remeta was working for Connie Deshotel?'
'The last time Alafair saw him he was sunburned. He said he'd been out on Lake Fausse Pointe. That's where Connie's camp is. Connie was Jim Gable's partner at NOPD back in the sixties. When Remeta tried to shake her down, she got him to hit Gable.'
'How?'
'He's a basket case. He's always looking for the womb.'
'You sure of all this, Dave?'
'No. But Johnny went crazy when I convinced him he'd been betrayed.'
'So you set Connie up?' Before I could reply, she picked up a ballpoint and drew lines on a piece of paper and said, 'You'll never prove she was one of the cops who killed your mother.'
'That's true.'
'Maybe we should just let things play out,' she said. Her eyes drifted back on mine.
I looked out the window. The sky was the color of brass and smoke, and the wind was gusting in the streets.
'A storm is coming in. I have to get out on the lake,' I said.
Helen remained seated in her chair.
'You didn't do Gable. You want to nail Connie Deshotel yourself,' she said.
'The other side always deals the play. You coming or not?'
'Let me be honest with you, bwana. I had a bad night last night. I couldn't get Letty Labiche out of my mind. I guess it's because I was molested myself. So lose the attitude.'
Wally, the dispatcher, stopped us on the way out of the office. He had a pink memo slip in his hand.
'You wasn't in your office. I was fixing to put this in your pigeonhole,' he said to me.
'What is it?'
'A cop in St. Martinville said Clete Purcel wants to talk to you. It's suppose to be important,' Wally said.
'I'll take care of it later,' I said.
Wally shrugged and let the memo slip float from his fingers into my box.
Helen and I towed a department outboard on the back of my truck to Loreauville, a few miles up the Teche, then drove through the sugarcane fields to the landing at Lake Fausse Pointe. The wind was blowing hard now, and I could see waves capping out on the lake and red leaves rising in the air against a golden sun.
Helen laced on a life preserver and sat down in the bow of the boat, and I handed her a department-issue cut-down twelve-gauge pump loaded with double-ought buckshot. She kept studying my face, as though she were taking the measure of a man she didn't know.
'You've got to tell me, Dave,' she said.
'What?' I smiled good-naturedly.
'Don't shine me on.'
'If Remeta's there, we call in backup and take him down.'
'That's it?'
'She's the attorney general of Louisiana. What do you think I'm going to do, kill her in cold blood?'
'I know you, Dave. You figure, out ways to make things happen.'
'Really?' I said.
'Let's get something straight. I don't like that snooty cunt. I said she was dirty from the get-go. But don't jerk me around.'
I started to say something, then let it go and started the engine. We headed down the canal bordered by cypress and willow and gum trees, then entered the vast lily-dotted expanse of the lake itself.
It was a strange evening. In the east and south the sky was like a black ink wash, but the clouds overhead were suffused with a sulfurous yellow light. In the distance I could see the grassy slope of the levee and the live oaks that shadowed Connie Deshotel's stilt house and the waves from the lake sliding up into the grass and the wildflowers at the foot of her property. An outboard was tied to her dock, straining against its painter, knocking against one of the pilings. Helen sat hunched forward, the barrel of her shotgun tilted away from the spray of water off the bow.
I cut the engine and we drifted on our wake into the shallows, then I speared the bottom with the boat paddle and the hull snugged onto the bank.
The lights were on inside the house and I could hear music playing on a radio. A shadow crossed a screen window. Helen stepped out into the shallows and waded out to the moored boat and placed her hand on the engine's housing.
