'Sure,' he said. 'It was the lie detector test got y'all looking at somebody else?'
'Lots of things, Tee Bobby,' she said.
' 'Cause I ain't raped or shot nobody,' he said.
I turned in the seat and searched his face.
'Why you staring at me like that?' he asked.
'I get a little perplexed about your choice of words.'
'What you talkin' 'bout, man? These are the only words I got.' His brow furrowed, as though his own statement held a meaning he had not yet sorted through. 'I need to stop and use the bat'room somewhere. I ought to wash up, too. Maybe get some candy bars.'
'We'll get you some from the machine at the office,' Helen said.
Tee Bobby stared silently out the window for the rest of the way into town, his face twitching as last night's dope and booze wore off and he realized the day waited for him like a hungry tiger.
We parked the cruiser and walked him straight into an interview room and closed the door behind us.
Around the corner, in the convivial atmosphere of his office, Kevin Dartez was talking to Jimmy Dean Styles. Styles was sitting in a chair, his knees slightly spread, squeezing his scrotum, enjoying his role as participant in the process. Dartez had started the tape recorder on his desk and was reviewing his notebook as Styles talked, nodding respectfully, sometimes making a small penciled notation.
'So without provocation, Dave Robicheaux, of the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Department, attacked you in your place of business, known as the Carousel?' Dartez said.
'You got it, man,' Styles said. Through the Venetian blinds he watched a black woman in an orange jumpsuit being led in handcuffs down the corridor. He grinned and touched at some mucus in the corner of his mouth and pulled a Kleenex from a box on Dartez's desk and wiped his fingers.
'And you say Detective Helen Soileau hit you with a baton?'
'That's the way it went down. That bitch got shit in her blood.'
'That's a serious allegation against Detective Soileau. You're sure that's the way it happened? You made an idle remark and she swung a baton in your face? This could do a lot of damage to her career, Jimmy. You want to be sure what you're telling me is correct.'
'I ain't gonna say it again. Put it down in your report or leave it out. It don't matter to me. But you got an out- of-control bull dyke on your hands.'
Dartez nodded agreeably and wrote in his notebook.
'Doesn't Tee Bobby Hulin play at the Carousel sometimes?' he asked.
'I try to throw him some work. But Tee Bobby hard to hep, know what I mean?' Styles said.
'Look, this is not related, but you know what nobody around here can understand?' Dartez said. 'Why's a kid with so much talent get in all this trouble? How come he never made it in Los Angeles or New York? I don't know anything about music, but-'
'I don't want to speak bad of a guy that's on third base, okay? But Tee Bobby's a hype and a ragnose. Ain't nobody can talk to him. He got a thing for white cooze, too. Which mean he don't respect himself.' Styles glanced at his watch. 'Say, man, I ain't s'pposed to be gone from my bar too long. My bartender get a li'l generous pouring to the ladies, know what I'm sayin'?'
'Got you,' Dartez said, dropping his eyes to his notebook again. 'Okay, so you didn't in any way put your hand on the person of Detective Robicheaux? You committed no form of assault or what could be interpreted as such, no threatening gesture?'
'No, man, I tole you, he's a sick, violent motherfucker been beating up people around here for years. He done it, just like some crazy person been wanting to hurt somebody a long time. Hey, you ax me if I'm bothered about that cunt, what's her name, Helen Soileau? Anything happen to her, man, she deserve. Now, that good enough? 'Cause I got a bidness to run.'
'Thanks a lot, Jimmy. I need to go to the rest room a minute. Stay cool and I'll be back to check a couple of fine points with you, then you'll be on your way,' Dartez said.
He popped the cassette tape out of the recorder and walked around the corner to the interview room and tapped on the door. When I opened it a crack, he wagged the cassette in the air and winked.
Tee Bobby sat at the interview table, leaning forward on his forearms, his hands balling and unballing, a twitch at the corner of one eye. He peeled a candy bar we had bought him from the machine by the courthouse entrance and began eating it, his eyes busy with thoughts that he did not share.
'You want another cup of coffee?' Helen asked.
'I got to use the bat'room,' he said.
'You just went,' she said.
'I ain't feeling too good. You said I was s'pposed to identify somebody.'
'Be patient, Tee Bobby. Come on, I'll walk you down to the rest room,' Helen said.
While they were gone, I went to my mailbox, picked up the cassette tape that Kevin Dartez had placed there, and walked down to my office, where Mack Bertrand, from the crime lab, waited for me.
Dartez's interview with Styles was not a long one. We listened to it in a few minutes, and it was easy to isolate the material that I thought would be most helpful to Helen and me.
'Can you excerpt those few lines and get them on another tape without too much trouble?' I said.
'No problem,' he said, his pipe inverted in his teeth.
'I'll go back to the interview room. When you've got it, just bang on the door, okay?'
'Call me up later in the day and tell me how all this came out,' he said.
'Sure,' I said.
'Whenever I run into Amanda Boudreau's parents I feel guilty. Our twins are going to graduate next year. Every day of our lives is a pleasure. The Boudreaus did all the things good parents are supposed to do, but their ' daughter is dead and they'll probably wake up miserable every morning for the rest of their lives. Just because some bastard wanted to get his rocks off.'
'Thanks for your help, Mack. I'll call you later,' I said.
I went into the rest room and washed my hands and face and blew out my breath in the mirror. I could feel the adrenaline pumping in my veins now, in the same way a hunter feels it when a large animal, one with a heart and nerve endings and mental processes not unlike his own, suddenly comes into focus inside a telescopic sight.
I dried my hands and face with a paper towel and went back to the interview room. Tee Bobby was drinking coffee from a paper cup, the soles of his shoes tapping nervously on the floor.
'You going to make it?' I asked.
'Make it? What you mean 'make it'?'
I pulled up a chair across from him. 'Remember back there in the cruiser, you told me you didn't 'shoot' anyone?' I said.
'Yeah, that's what I said.'
'You used the word 'shoot,'' I said.
'Yeah, I said I ain't shot nobody. Is that hard to understand?'
'You didn't say you didn't 'kill' anybody.'
'This is bullshit, man. I want to go back home,' he said.
'Why do you avoid using the word 'kill,' Tee Bobby?' I asked.
'I ain't playing no word games wit' you.' His eyes fluttered toward the ceiling, where he examined an air duct as though it were of great complexity.
'You want another candy bar?' I said.
'I want to go. I ain't sure this is a good idea no more.'
There was a tap on the door. I opened it and Mack Bertrand handed me a cassette recorder. He was wearing a raincoat and a hat, and his ascetic face looked hard-edged and dark under the brim of his hat. He walked away without speaking.
'Who's that?' Tee Bobby asked.
