“He’d make one badass linebacker.”
Taking my shoulders, Ryan maneuvered me into my chair, unpocketed several mug shots, and tossed them on the blotter.
Goon. Goon. Cheech. Subgoon. Chong.
“Bachelors number three and five.” My skin burned where Ryan’s fingers had touched my face. I kept my eyes lowered.
Ryan tapped the goons I’d chosen. “Michael Mulally. Louis-Francois Babin.”
“And the rest of the dream team?” I swept a hand over Ryan’s lineup.
“Bastarache muscle.”
“Have you seen the contact sheet from Cormier’s hidey-hole?”
“Yes.” Pause. “I’m sorry.”
I studied Mulally’s face. Scraggly hair framing dark-stubbled cheeks. Gangsta glare. Babin was shorter and more muscular, but otherwise a clone.
“The e-mail. The phone call. The staircase.” Ryan leaned a haunch on my desk. “Give me your take.”
“It would be pure speculation.”
“Speculate.”
“I’ve been poking around in Tracadie and talking to Bastarache’s wife.” A vision surfaced in my consciousness. Obeline’s face outside the gazebo. I felt a cold heaviness in my chest. Kept talking. “I’m looking at Cormier. Cormier is hooked to Bastarache, but he doesn’t think I know that. Bastarache dislikes my snooping, so he whistles up the dogs to chase me away.”
“Why?”
“I’m chaseable.”
Ryan’s look said he wasn’t amused.
“OK. Say Bastarache can’t understand why I’d make a sudden visit to Tracadie, and make straight for Obeline. This concerns him. He tells Cheech and Chong to find out what I’m up to. Or to scare me off.”
“Cheech and Chong?”
“Mulally and Babin. You’ve talked to them?”
“Not yet. But I’m familiar with their rap sheets. Impressive.”
“Hippo says it’s too early to arrest Bastarache.”
“Hippo’s right. We don’t want to move until our case is airtight.”
“You know his whereabouts?”
“We’re on him.”
Ryan studied his shoe. Cleared his throat.
“Call me Ishmael.”
Surprised by his sudden swerve to game playing, and the pansy lob, I identified Ryan’s quote.
“The book’s about?”
“A guy chasing a whale in a wooden boat.” I smiled.
“The book’s about obsession.”
“Your point?”
“You’re being a pit bull with this Evangeline thing. Maybe you should ease back.”
The smile faded. “Ease back?”
“You’re acting obsessively. If the sister was on the level, the kid died over thirty years ago.”
“Or was murdered,” I snapped. “Isn’t that the point of cold case investigations?”
“Did you listen to what you said a few moments ago? Has it entered your thinking that Hippo may be justified in his concern for your safety?”
“Meaning?” I hate it when Ryan plays protector. I sensed him assuming the role, and it made me churlish.
“Obeline Bastarache is missing and presumed drowned. Cormier is definitely dead.”
“I know that.”
“Some asshole tried to take you out on a staircase yesterday. There’s a good possibility it was Mulally or Babin.”
“You suspect they sent the Death lyrics e-mail?”
“Everything I’m hearing says these clowns need instructions to use Velcro. The Internet may be beyond their learning curves.”
“Then who?”
