The Glass Rainbow

of aspiration.

They remembered Timothy Abelard for his acts of charity, his intercession on behalf of a Negro servant locked in jail, his kindness to a deranged woman who begged food at people’s doors, his rehabilitation of a drunkard driven from his ministry by his own congregation. Abelard’s eviction of his tenants from their homes when they tried to join a farmworkers’ union was forgotten.

From across the street, I watched Robert Weingart and Kermit Abelard and four other pallbearers carry the casket down the steps to a hearse. Kermit’s face seemed to glow with the self-induced resilience of a person who is either heavily medicated or teetering on the edge of nervous collapse. In spite of the heat, he wore a heavy navy blue suit and white dress shirt and dark tie with a white boutonniere. After the casket was rolled into the back of the hearse, he seemed at a loss as to what he should do next. His truncated workingman’s physique seemed wrapped too tight, the heat in his suit visibly climbing up his neck.

Almost as though he had heard my thoughts, his gaze traveled across the street and met mine. He disengaged from the mourners and walked through the traffic to my truck, barely acknowledging the two vehicles forced to stop in order to let him pass. “I didn’t recognize your pickup,” he said.

“State Farm bought me a new one. After my old one got shot up and hauled off by some guys I’d like to have a talk with,” I said.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Please accept my sympathies,” I said.

“Do I have to restate the question?”

“Sometimes a killer shows up at the funeral service of his victim.”

“I don’t see your friend Mr. Purcel here.”

I let my eyes drift off his face, then return again. “I’m not sure how I should take that.”

“Take it any way you wish. I resent your presence.”

“Sorry to hear you say that.”

He placed his hand on the window jamb. “I cared for your daughter. You treated me with repugnance and disrespect every time we met.”

“You ‘cared’ for her?”

“I’m going to the cemetery now. I’m going to ask that you not follow us.”

“Maybe you should do a reality check, Kermit. Your father and mother may have been killed because of your grandfather’s iniquitous deeds. Number two, you’re not going to tell a police officer what he’s going and not going to do in a homicide investigation. Do you understand that?”

“You may have gone to college, Mr. Robicheaux, but you wear your lack of breeding like a rented suit,” he said.

He walked back onto the lawn of the mortuary home. Robert Weingart cupped his hand on Kermit’s shoulder and looked across the street at me, his eyes laughing.

I TALKED AGAIN to the sheriff of St. Mary Parish and told him of my suspicions about Robert Weingart.

“He’s got an alibi, Dave. He was at Harrah’s hotel in New Orleans or in the casino all night,” the sheriff said.

“Say that last part again?”

“He’s a gambler. He was either at the tables or in his room. We checked the time-in and time-out at the parking garage. His car never left the premises.”

“Who told you he was at the tables?”

“Kermit.”

“Kermit was in the casino with him? All night?”

“No, Kermit says he went to bed and Weingart went to the casino. But a blackjack dealer remembers him.”

“Weingart could have been at the Abelard house in an hour and a half.”

“I don’t think he’s a likely candidate. I think you’re too personally involved in this. Maybe it’s time to butt out.”

“Drop by the office, and I’ll show you a video that will stay with you awhile.”

“Video of what?” he said.

I eased the receiver back down in the cradle. I was at a dead end again. The deaths of Timothy Abelard and Emiliano Jimenez had changed nothing. But one pattern of behavior in the players had changed. Emma Poche, while drunk, had warned me over the telephone that I and anyone with me was in danger. She had also put Robert Weingart to his knees with a baton when he tried to work his seductive routine on Tee Jolie Melton. And only a few days ago, Emma had brought Clete a tray of sandwiches and attempted to apologize to him, although her confession avoided the admission that not only had she participated in the murder of Herman Stanga, but she had planted Clete’s pen at the crime scene.

I looked at my watch. It was 4:56 P.M. When I was on the dirty boogie, what was I always thinking about when the clock inched toward five? It came in frosted mugs and tumblers of ice and bottles that were smoke- colored or dark green or reddish-black or glowing with an amber warmth. A softly lit, air-conditioned bar with tropical sunsets painted on the walls was not an oasis in the desert. It was a Renaissance cathedral, a retreat for wayward souls whose secular communion waited for them in the first glass they could raise to their lips.

It wasn’t hard to find Emma. She had changed into street clothes and was drinking in the same lounge where Clete had met her during his surveillance of Carolyn Blanchet, outside St. Martinville. I sat down next to her at the bar and ordered a Dr Pepper in a glass of ice with a lime slice.

“I always thought that stuff tasted like iodine,” she said.

“It does,” I said. “You give up on meetings altogether?”

“Stop drinking today, gone tomorrow.”

“You know why drunks go to meetings?” I asked.

“Let me guess. Because they drink?”

“Because they feel guilty.”

“What a breakthrough, Dave.” She was drinking Wild Turkey on the rocks, cupping her hand all the way around the tumbler when she drank from it. Her cheeks looked filled with blood, the fuzz on them glowing against the light.

“Do you know why they feel guilty?”

“I’ll take another big leap here. Because they went through severe toilet training?”

“No, because they still have their humanity. The greater the pain, the greater the indication that they’re basically decent people.”

“Put it on a postcard and send it to the penguins, will you? I mean it, Streak. Let a girl come up for oxygen.”

“I have three still photos here. A guy in the department made them from a video that belonged to Herman Stanga. Take a look.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I think you should.”

“You don’t have to tell me about Herman Stanga.”

“This isn’t about Herman Stanga. It’s about the two girls in the video.”

“I’m off the clock. Bring them by the department.”

“No, this is between you and me. No histrionics. No throwing coffee in my face. Look at the pictures, Emma.”

“No.”

I spread the printouts on the bar right by her glass. “I need to know where that place is. Look at it.”

“No.”

“You stopped Robert Weingart from harming the girl named Tee Jolie. Your conscience is eating your lunch, Emma. You have to help me on this. It’s not up for discussion.”

Her eyes dropped to the first photo. She drank from her tumbler, the ice rattling against the glass, the whiskey clotting in her throat. “I don’t know what that is. I’ve never seen that before.”

“What do you mean by that? What is that? The terror in