'Let's find out,' I replied. 'Take a walk with me to the cruiser.
She hesitated, then set down her laundry and followed me through an alcove to the outside walkway. I stepped out into the rain and held my umbrella over the passenger's door and tapped on the glass.
'Hey, Doc, I want you to meet someone,' I said, making a rotating motion with my finger.
He rolled down the window and looked at me.
'This is a friend of mine, Ms. Guilbeau,' I said.
'Hi,' he said.
She folded her hands and lowered her eyes and said nothing in reply.
The ex-soldier glanced at me, unsure of what was happening.
'I'll be with you in a minute, Doc,' I said, then stepped back into the alcove with Marie Guilbeau.
'You know that fellow?' I asked.
'Yeah, why you bringing him here?'
'He's the man who made an inappropriate remark to you?'
'No. He's a homeless person. He walks all over New Iberia. Carrying his t'ings on his back. I seen him there,' she replied.
'Okay, take a look at these pictures,' I said, and removed a piece of mounting board from a manila envelope. Six mug shots were slipped into viewing slots in two rows of threes, one on top of the other.
It didn't take her five seconds to place her finger on one photo in particular.
'That's the one,' she said. 'He was nice at first. Then he got the wrong idea and said somet'ing fresh. Like he t'ought I was a prostitute.' Maybe it was simply the light, but the memory of the incident seemed to climb in her face like a bruise.
'You're sure this is the guy?' I asked.
'That's the guy. You better believe that's the guy,' she said, tapping the picture again, her eyes angry now. 'What's his name?'
'Marvin Oates. He sells Bibles,' I said.
'I'm gonna remember his name. I'm gonna remember his name a long time. It was him broke in my house, wasn't it?' she said.
'I don't know.'
'I t'ink you do,' she replied.
I turned the cruiser around in the parking lot and headed back toward New Iberia. The broken frond from a palm tree spun crazily out of the sky and bounced off my windshield.
As we drove under the oaks at the city limits sign outside New Iberia, I glanced across the seat at the ex-soldier. His face looked reflective, philosophical, a pocket of air in one cheek.
'You never told me what you wanted to talk about,' I said.
'Getting a job. I can do lots of different things. Run a forklift, clerk, fry-cook, swamp out your bait shop,' he said.
'I suspect we can work out something.'
'I sold the rest of the downers I been taking. I probably should have thrown them away, but I needed the money.'
'The V.A. has no record on you. How do you explain that?'
'Some of my records were burnt up in a fire. That's what the VA. says, anyway.'
'You're a man of mystery, Doc.'
'No, I ain't. If I live right, I get time off from the stuff that's in my head. For some people that's as good as it gets,' he said.
He cracked a piece of peppermint in his jaw and smiled for the first time since I had seen him in New Iberia.
He had no place to stay. I drove home and gave him the room in the back of the bait shop. It contained a bunk, a table with a lamp, a chest of drawers, and a shower inside a tin stall, and I put fresh linen on the bunk and soap and a towel in the shower. When I left the bait shop, he was sound asleep, with all his clothes on, a sheet drawn up to his chin.
I walked up the dock to the house, the wind almost ripping the umbrella from my hand.
CHAPTER 29
In the morning the rain had slackened when I arrived at work. I walked down to the sheriff's office and knocked on the door. He looked up from some papers on his desk, his face darkening. He had on a pinstripe coat and a silver cowboy shirt unbuttoned at the collar. His Stetson hung on a rack, spotted with raindrops.
'Real good of you to check in,' he said.
'Sir?' I said.
'You decked Perry LaSalle?'
'He swung on me.'
'Thanks for letting me know that. He's called twice. I also just got off the phone with Joe Zeroski. I want this stuff cleaned up. I'm sick of my department being dragged into a soap opera.'
'What staff?' I said.
'LaSalle says Legion Guidry intends to do serious harm to Barbara Shanahan and your friend Purcel. At least as far as I could make out. In the meantime, Joe Zeroski says Marvin Oates is bothering his niece again. What the hell is going on there?'
'Zerelda Calucci deep-sixed Marvin; I think he's a dangerous man, skipper. Maybe more dangerous than Legion Guidry.'
'Marvin Oates?'
'I think he broke into a woman's house in St. Mary Parish and molested her. I think he should be our primary suspect in the murder of Linda Zeroski.'
I told the sheriff the story of Marie Guilbeau. He leaned back and tapped the heels of his hands on the arms of his chair. He was thinking about the case now and I could see his irritation with me slipping out of his eyes.
'I don't buy it. Oates is simpleminded. He doesn't have any history of violence,' he said.
'None we know about. I want to get a warrant and take his place apart.'
'Do it,' the sheriff said. 'Are you going to talk to Perry LaSalle?'
'What did Legion say exactly?' I asked.
'I never got it straight. LaSalle doesn't sound rational. He says this guy Guidry isn't human. What's he talking about?'
Helen Soileau went to work on the warrant while I called Perry at his office. Outside the window I could see a round blue place in the sky and birds trapped inside it. Perry's secretary said he had not come to the office yet. I called his number on Poinciana Island.
'Legion threatened Clete and Barbara?' I said.
'Yeah, on the phone, late last night. He threatened me, too. He thinks I'm writing a book about him,' he replied. I could hear him breathing into the receiver.
'You told Barbara?'
'Yeah, she said she has a pistol and she's looking forward to parking one in his buckwheats.'
'Did you warn Clete?' I asked.
'No.'
'Why not?' I asked.
'I just didn't.'
Because he's of no value to you, I thought.
'What did you say?' he asked.
