beneath it. I moved across the kitchen and stood in the darkness, listening. Light from the upstairs filtered down the stairwell and put a faint yellow glow in Jimmie Ray Rebenack's bachelor-pad living room. I said, 'Oh, Jimmie. You goof.'
The imitation zebra skin couch was tipped over on its back and Jimmie Ray Rebenack was lying across it, head down and arms out, Joey Buttafucco boots pointing toward the ceiling. The living room phone had been knocked off its hook when the couch went over. I took out the Dan Wesson, held it along my thigh, and went past Jimmie Ray to the stairs and listened again. Nothing. I went back to Jimmie Ray and looked without touching him. His neck was bent at a profound and unnatural angle, as if the vertebrae there had been separated by some tremendous force. His neck didn't get that way by tripping over the couch or by falling down the stairs. It took a car wreck to do that to a neck. Or a four-story fall. His face was dark with lividity, and the big, stiff pompadour was crushed and matted on one side, the way it might be if someone with large hands had grabbed his head and pushed very hard to make the neck fail. Rene.
I went upstairs and looked in the two rooms, but everything was pretty much as it had been twelve hours ago, the magazines and posters still in their places in the back room, the bed still rumpled in the front room. The pants he had worn at Rossier's crawfish farm were soaking in the upstairs lavatory. Getting out the pee stains. The front bedroom's light was on, and the room showed no evidence of a search or other invasion. No one had come to search. No one had come to steal. Whoever had been here had come only to murder Jimmie Ray Rebenack, and they had probably done it not so very long after he'd called me. Maybe Jimmie Ray had finally realized that he was in over his head and had called for help. That was possible. A lot of things are possible until you're dead.
The message counter on Jimmie Ray's answering machine showed three messages. The first was a young woman who did not identify herself and who said that she missed Jimmie Ray and wanted to speak with him. The second message was from a guy named Phil who wanted to know if Jimmie Ray would like to pick up a couple of days' mechanic work. Phil left a number and said he needed to hear by Friday. The third message was the young woman again, only this time she sounded irritated. She said she thought that Jimmie Ray was rotten for not calling her, but then her voice softened and said she really did wish he'd call because she really, really missed him. She whispered, 'I love you, Jimmie,' and then she hung up. There were no other messages. So long, Jimmie Ray.
I left the upstairs light on and the rooms as I'd found them and Jimmie Ray Rebenack's body in its frozen position across the overturned couch. I wiped the kitchen doorknob and the places on the jamb I might have touched, and then I let myself out and went around to the front porch and wiped the doorbell button. I called the police from a pay phone outside a Winn-Dixie supermarket. I gave them Jimmie Ray's address twice, then said that there was a body on the premises. I hung up, wiped the phone, and went back to the motel where I called Lucy Chenier. Two hours ago I'd been feeling pretty good about things.
Lucy answered on the second ring, her voice clear the way it might be if she were awake and working. I said, 'Rebenack's been murdered.'
'Oh, Jesus God. How?'
'I think it was Rossier, but I can't be sure. I think he paid off Jimmie for the double-dealing.'
She blew a loud breath. 'Did you call the police?'
'Yes, but I didn't identify myself.'
'They'll want to speak with you.'
'If I talk with them I'll bring in Jodi Taylor, and I don't want to do that. Do you see?'
She said, 'Oh, my God.'
'Do you see?'
It took her a few seconds to answer. 'I understand. What are you going to do?'
'Wait for you to find out about Leon Williams.'
She paused again. 'Are you all right, Elvis?'
'Sure.'
'You sound upset.'
'I'm fine.'
'If you want to talk, I'm here.'
'I know. Call me when you find out about Leon Williams.'
We hung up, and in that moment my little motel room there in Ville Platte, Louisiana, became more empty than any room I have ever known. There were the sounds of crickets and frogs and the rumble of a passing truck, but the sounds seemed to heighten the emptiness rather than fill it. The cheap motel furniture stood out in a kind of stark clarity, as if everything were magnified through some great invisible lens, and the emptiness became oppressive.
I turned off the light and went out into the parking lot and breathed the warm air. I had come two thousand miles believing that I had been hired to uncover a woman's medical history, and now a man was dead. He was a goof and an extortionist, but somewhere near his final moment a young woman had called and said that she loved him. I wondered if he had played back the message. Jimmie Ray Rebenack was just the kind of guy who would have missed the message, or, if he'd heard it, wouldn't have listened. Guys like Jimmie Ray never quite learn that love doesn't visit often, and that even when it comes, it can always change its mind and walk away. You never know.
I went back inside and double-locked the door and wedged one of the flimsy motel chairs under the knob. The locks and the chair wouldn't keep out a guy like Rend, but there was always the Dan Wesson.
I lay on the bed and tried to sleep, but sleep, like love, is not always there when you want it.
CHAPTER 14
T he phone in my room rang at 9:14 the next morning as I stepped out of the shower. I had been up early, eating breakfast at the diner across from what used to be Jimmie Ray's office and waiting for the morning paper. A couple of police cars had been outside the fish market, but when the paper came there was nothing in it about Jimmie Ray's murder. Not enough lead time, I guess. When I answered the phone, Lucy Chenier said, 'I spoke with my friend at BRPD.'
'Could he identify Leon Williams?' I toweled off as I listened.
'Yes. Leon Williams was killed by a single gunshot to the head on May 12, thirty-six years ago, in Ville Platte.'
'Sonofagun.'
'There was an investigation by the Ville Platte police and the Evangeline Parish Sheriff's Department, but there were no suspects and no one was arrested for the crime. The case currently resides in the unsolved homicide file.'
'My first move in Ville Platte was to scan through the microfiche at the local library. The May films were missing.'
'Do you think it's connected?'
'Maybe. Maybe there's something in the local news coverage that someone didn't want us to see.'
She didn't say anything for a time. 'There's LSU. The School of Journalism keeps an extensive library of state papers. You might be able to find it there.'
'That sounds good. I'll check it out.'
She paused again. 'Have you heard anything about Mr. Rebenack?'
I told her about the cops at his office and the local papers. I left out the part about wedging the chair against the door because I was scared.
She said, 'Is there any way they can connect you to him?'
'I move with the silence of a stalking leopard. I leave less evidence than a passing shadow. I am invisible as is the breeze.'
She sighed. 'Yes, well, we have an able staff of criminal attorneys should you need us.'
'Hey, the fragile male ego needs constant reinforcement, not cheap humor.'
'My rates are anything but cheap, Mr. Cole, I assure you.' Then she said, 'I enjoyed myself last night, Elvis. I
