leather, masks, chains, boots. Would you like more detail?”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“Because she hasn’t been an active part of the investigation of a crime committed in Iberia Parish.”
“That’s pretty disingenuous, if you ask me.”
And in that mood, not speaking, we parked the cruiser in front of the house and walked through the side yard to the tennis court, where we could hear someone whocking balls that were being fired over the net by an automatic ball machine.
Carolyn was wearing blue sweatpants and a sports bra and was hitting the balls two-handed, her platinum hair shiny with perspiration, her skin sun-browned with freckles, her baby fat wedging over her waistband as she put all her weight into her swing.
She wiped her face and throat and underarms with a towel and flung it on a chair by a table set with a pitcher of lemonade and glasses. She asked if we wanted to sit down.
“Not really, Ms. Blanchet,” Helen said. “We wanted to offer our sympathies at your loss, and to ask you a couple of questions, then we’ll be gone.”
“How you doin’, Dave?” Carolyn said, sitting down, ignoring Helen’s statement, pouring herself a glass.
“Just fine, thanks. You chased off the feds?” I said.
“No, the federal court in New Orleans did. Layton left behind a mess. But it’s not my mess. If somebody else wants to clean it up, that’s fine, but they can do it somewhere else.”
“Ms. Blanchet-” Helen began.
“It’s Carolyn, please.”
“We’re still investigating the death of Herman Stanga,” Helen said.
“Who?”
“A black pimp who was shot and killed behind his home in New Iberia. We wondered if you know a St. Martin Parish sheriff’s deputy by the name of Emma Poche.”
“Offhand, I don’t recall hearing the name.”
“Offhand?” Helen repeated.
“Yes, that’s what I said. ‘Offhand.’ It’s a commonly used term.”
“Do you know any female deputies in the St. Martin Sheriff’s Department?”
“No. Should I?”
“But you know Kermit Abelard, don’t you?” Helen said.
“I’ve read his books. I’ve been to one or two of his book signings. What’s the issue here?”
“There is no ‘issue.’ Did he inscribe a book to you?”
I stared at Helen incredulously because I realized the direction she was headed in, one that would expose the source of our information.
“We’re trying to clear up a question about Kermit and his relationship to Layton and their mutual interest in biofuels,” I interjected.
“What you need to do is answer my question, Ms. Blanchet,” Helen said, her gaze drifting toward me irritably. “Did Kermit Abelard inscribe a book to you?”
“I just told you I attended his book signing. That’s what people do at book signings. They get their books signed by the author.”
“Then why is your autographed book in Emma Poche’s house if you don’t know Emma Poche?” Helen said.
I could feel my pulse beating in my wrists. “Carolyn, it’s obvious we’re looking at a deputy sheriff for reasons that make us uncomfortable,” I said. “Someone may have planted evidence at a homicide scene. We had reason to believe you might know this deputy. We didn’t come here to offend you.”
I paused and then took a chance, hoping to create a distraction from Alafair and possibly force an admission by Carolyn Blanchet. “We have a report you may have met with Emma Poche at a motel outside St. Martinville. Your private life is your private life, but you’re telling us things that don’t fit with what we know.”
Carolyn was shaking her head even before I finished speaking. “I should have known. There’s no end to it,” she said.
“End to what?” I said.
“My husband was a paranoid. He convinced himself I was having an affair-in part, I think, to assuage his own guilt for screwing women all over the United States and Latin America. Evidently he hired a fat idiot of a private detective to follow me around, and this is what we end up with.”
“How could you be at the motel with Emma Poche and not know her?” Helen said.
“I didn’t say I was,” Carolyn replied.
“I think you did,” I said.
She touched her temples. “I must be having an aneurysm.”
The sun was over the trees now, and I could feet the heat rising from the concrete. “Emma Poche has a way of showing up in too many places or with too many people that involve either Layton or you,” I said. “I don’t believe Layton shot himself, Carolyn. I believe he was murdered.”
“By whom?” she said.
“Let’s look at motivation,” I said. “Layton was a big liability. He was sick mentally and emotionally and seemed determined to go down with the
“I always liked you and treated you well, Dave. You’re saying ugly things about me, and I think I know the source. She’s standing right next to you. When you walked onto the court, you began talking about a book you found at this female deputy’s house. You served a warrant on her house in St. Martin Parish, where you have no jurisdiction?”
“We have various resources,” I said.
“You’re lying. Both of you are.” She knew Alafair had been our source, and she knew that we knew she knew. She stood up and adjusted the sweatband on her hair. She took a long drink from her glass and set it back down on the table, the ice sliding to the bottom. “I thought that bunch of federal nerds I just got rid of were inept,” she said. “But you two are establishing new standards.”
“I have morgue photos of two dead girls in my file cabinet,” I said. “Somehow their deaths are connected to the Abelards and your late husband and some properties in Jefferson Davis Parish. Both girls were abducted, and I believe both suffered terrible deaths. You can be clever from now to Judgment Day, Carolyn, but if you were mixed up in the murder of those girls, I’m going to hang you out to dry, woman or not.”
I saw Helen turn and stare at me.
We walked back through the side yard, past the heavy, warm fragrance of the flower beds and the smell of chemical fertilizer and the odor of something dead under the house, neither of us speaking, a sound like wind roaring in my ears. Helen started the cruiser, and we headed down the driveway toward the service road. In the silence, I could hear tiny pieces of gravel clicking in the tire treads.
“I screwed it up. I’m sorry,” she said.
I looked out at the shade on the lawn and at a shaft of sunlight shining through the trees on a sundial.
“She figured out Alafair was our source, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to do anything about it,” Helen said. “Trust me, Carolyn doesn’t let her emotions get in the way of her agenda.”
“Someone who practices sadomasochism? Someone who may have murdered her husband or had someone do it for her? Someone you call a degenerate and a slut who uses and discards people like Kleenex?”
“You don’t take prisoners, do you, Streak?”
“No, I don’t,” I replied.
I didn’t speak again until we were back at the department, and then it was only to ask the time because my watch had stopped.
THAT EVENING CLETE and I drove across the drawbridge in the Caddy and sat down in one of the picnic shelters in City Park down by the water in the gloaming of the day, the air dense, the sky purple and pink and marbled with fire-lit clouds in the west. “So you figure Emma is in the sack with Carolyn Blanchet and maybe the two of them planted my gold pen in Stanga’s swimming pool?” he said.
“I’d call it a strong possibility,” I replied.
