“Could you type them up, please?”
After she went on her jog, I called Tony Nemo’s office. The office was closed because it was Sunday, but I knew he monitored his voicemail day and night. Sundays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas might be days of rest or gratitude or celebration for some, but Tony’s deity had a dollar sign for a face and gave no days off to his adherents. “Tony, this is Dave Robicheaux,” I said. “I think I might have a breakthrough in your movie situation. I need your fax number.” I poured a cup of coffee and hot milk, sat at the kitchen table, and outlined the general story of Levon Broussard’s Civil War novel. The phone rang seventeen minutes later.
“What’s this crap about?” Tony said.
“I knew you were interested in getting together with Levon Broussard, so I thought I’d pass on some info.”
“You’re a movie agent now?”
“I know a few people out there, Tony. I’ve heard talk. Your name came up.”
“Take the shit out of your mouth.”
“I know you’re frustrated about not putting a deal together with Levon. But there’s a way around that.”
“What’s the trade-off?”
“Trade-off?”
“Yeah, what are you getting out of it?”
“I want you to give Clete Purcel some slack and quit this bullshit about buying his markers. I paid off those markers, Tony. When you jam him, you’re jamming me. I also don’t like you sending those two shitheads after him.”
“Too fucking bad.”
“You want to hear what I have to say or should I bugger off?”
“Should you what?”
“Yes or no?”
There was a pause. “So what breakthrough are we talking about?”
I looked at my outline. “You don’t have to pay for the rights to the story line in Levon’s novel. The story is based on a real account. His ancestor came home from Shiloh shot to pieces in mind and body, and taught a slave girl how to read and write. The slave girl was the illegitimate daughter of the man who founded Angola Prison. In the meantime, the Confederate soldier fell in love with an abolitionist who nursed him back to health and restored his humanity.”
“So I don’t got to pay for any of this?”
“Nobody can copyright history.”
“Just go make the picture?”
“I’ve got a list of the names. These are big guys. If you do the pitch yourself, they’ll listen.”
“Why?”
“You scare the shit out of them.”
I could hear him take a hit from his oxygen tank. “They know my name? My work?”
“You bet.”
“I’m gonna give you my fax number. You better not be taking me over the hurdles.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Stomp ass and take names, big guy.”
The list included a producer who washed heroin money; another who hung prostitutes from ropes and beat them with his fists; and one who put LSD in the food of his Puerto Rican maid and videoed her stumbling around his Beverly Hills home and showed the video to his employees. These were the kind who would be terrified of Tony the Squid and too afraid to ignore his call or put down the receiver once they were on the line. I hoped all of them enjoyed the ride.
* * *
HELEN WAS WAITING outside City Hall when I got to work Monday morning, something she had never done before.
“Any problem?” I said.
Two uniformed deputies walked past us and went inside.
“Depends on how you read it,” she said. “We’ve got a witness.”
“To the Dartez homicide?”
“A young black guy. He says he was parked in the trees with a girl and saw it.”
“Why’d he wait to come forward?” I said.
“The girl is married. But not to him. Also, the girl may not be a girl.”
I couldn’t get her words straight in my head. “What gave him the change of heart?”
“The minister at his church told him he’d better tell us what he saw or he’s going to hell.”
I was hardly listening. My heart was gelatin. Sometimes witnesses who come out of the woodwork have had too much time to think and give a distorted account. Minority witnesses are often intimidated and seek to please, particularly when questioned by someone like Spade Labiche. But last and foremost, I might have to accept an unpleasant truth, namely, that I was a murderer.
“Why’d you stop me out here?”
“Because I haven’t told Labiche yet. I’m going to interview the kid at his home. I’m taking Labiche with me. I’m giving you the option to come along.”
“You’ll taint the investigation.”
“Hear me out,” she said. “You have to stay in the vehicle. The witness will not see you.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Professionally, you don’t have the right to be there,” she said. “Ethically, you do. I have a photo lineup.”
“I’m in it?”
“Big-time,” she replied.
* * *
HELEN DROVE THE cruiser out to a small frame house by Bayou Benoit, with me in the back and Labiche in the passenger seat. Labiche gazed out the window at the new cane bending in the fields. “What’s this guy’s name again?”
“Baby Cakes Babineau,” Helen said.
“He takes it in the ass?” Labiche said.
“Lose those kinds of references, Detective,” she said.
“Excuse me,” he said.
We pulled in to the dirt driveway. Helen and Labiche got out, Labiche tightening the tuck in his shirt with his thumbs. His badge holder and a holstered .38 hung from his belt. “Not coming?” he said to me.
“I know I’m in good hands,” I said.
He leaned down to the window. “Maybe you and me will have a private talk about all this, Robicheaux. I think you’ve had a free pass too long.”
“Do your job and get out of my face,” I said.
“Fuck you,” he replied.
I got out on the opposite side of the cruiser and walked into the yard, under a pecan tree, and picked up a handful of pecans, still in the husks, and chunked them at the tree trunk, a tuning fork trembling in my chest.
A heavyset older woman with enormous calves and hips came out the back door and began hanging wash. I walked up behind her. “Are you Ms. Babineau?”
She had blue eyes and skin the color of a new penny and features that were Indian and Afro-American. “Who you?”
“Dave Robicheaux.”
“Don’t y’all be hurting my grandson, no.”
“Why would we do that?”
“The one wit’ the badge. I seen the look in his face.”
“Detective Labiche?”
“Call him what you want.”
She picked up her basket and waddled back inside. I could hear voices through the window screen.
“So why were you parked in the trees?” Labiche said.
“To drink a couple of beers wit’ my friend,” a young male voice said. “I got out to take a leak and seed the truck crash t’rew the fence. Then this guy come running from the road and was fighting wit’ the guy in the truck.”
“Inside the truck?” Helen said.
“He was messing with the glass, then got mad and busted it and was fighting wit’ the guy inside. He pulled him t’rew the window. That’s when this other guy come running up. It was dark except for the lightning in the clouds.”
“Which guy came running up?” Labiche said.
“Some guy from the road. Maybe all t’ree of them was fighting. I couldn’t tell what was going on.”
“What’s the name of the person who was with you?” Labiche said.
“I cain’t tell you that.”
“Was it a he or a she?” Labiche said.
“We’re just interested in what you saw, Baby Cakes,” Helen said. “Let’s not worry about this other person right now.”
“I was scared,” Baby Cakes said.
“Of who?” Helen said
.
“People that beat up on people like me.”
“Because you’re gay?” she said.
“Because I ain’t sure what I am.”
“Kind of late finding out, aren’t you?” Labiche said.
“Wait outside for me, Detective.”
“I think I should be here,” Labiche replied.
“Now,” Helen said.
Labiche came out the front door and walked across the gallery loudly. He leaned against the cruiser and lit a cigarette and scratched at one nostril with a thumbnail.
“I want you to look at these photos,” Helen said.
“Who these people?” Baby Cakes said.
“They could be anybody. Do you recognize anyone?”
The seconds passed one tick at a time. “Maybe this one here. Maybe he was the guy who come running from the road.”
“Maybe?”
“The lightning flashed. I ain’t seen him but a second. He’s a big man, ain’t he?”
“Tell me what he looked like.”
“The man I seen come running was big. Maybe he picked up a rock or a brick. I couldn’t see the face of the other man, the one fighting t’rew the window.”
“Walk outside with me.”
I turned my back to the house as they exited the front door.
“Dave, would you come here, please?” Helen said.
I walked toward the gallery. Even though the day was warm, my face felt cold in the wind, my mouth dry, my ears ringing.
“Know this man?” she said to Baby Cakes.
His hair was peroxided the color of brass, his eyes blue, his earlobes pierced. “He’s in the pictures you just showed me.”
“This is Detective Robicheaux,” she said.
“How you do, suh?” the boy said.
“Have you seen him anywhere besides the photo I showed you?”
“No, ma’am, I ain’t seed him before.”
“The man you identified is named Kevin Penny. Have you seen him anywhere else?”
“No, ma’am, I ain’t.”
“Don’t talk about this to anyone,” Helen said. “Can you do that for me?”
“Am I gonna have trouble? I mean wit’ this guy?”
“No, your name will not be given to anyone,” Helen said.
“What about at a trial?”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Helen said.
“I knowed it.”
“You knew what?” she asked.
“I’m gonna pay the price.”
“Here’s my card,” Helen said. “Call me if you have questions or trouble of any kind.”
I could not count the times I had used a business card to provide solace for people we hung out to dry. That wasn’t Helen’s intention, but it’s what we did with regularity. She and Labiche and I got into the cruiser. Helen started the engine.
“I know when a nigger is lying,” Labiche said.
She looked at his profile. “How do you intuit that?”
“They give you that look. Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.”
“You’re a reminder from God, Spade,” she said.
“Didn’t catch that.”
“Whenever I hear people talk about white superiority, I have to pause and think back on some of the white people I’ve known. It’s a depressing moment.”
She turned onto the two-lane and didn’t speak again until we were back at the office. Just outside the back door, she told Labiche to coordinate with the Jefferson Davis Sheriff’s Department and arrange an interview with Kevin Penny. Labiche seemed to lose his balance, like a seasick man reaching for the gunwale.
* * *
THAT AFTERNOON CLETE got a call from Carolyn Ardoin. “Homer ran away from home. A policeman found him wandering around by I-10.”
“Where is he now?” Clete said.
“With me at the office. I’m not going to send him back.”
“Can you do that?” he asked.
“I don’t care about the rules on this one.”
“Go easy with Penny.”
“I’m furious.”
“What did he do?”
“It’s enough that he’s his hateful self. I’m furious at our system.”
“What if I come over there and get Homer?”
“What about when you’re at work?”
“I can pay somebody to watch him.”
“He’s in school.”
“I’ll enroll him here.”
“I have to think through the paperwork. Sometimes I hate my job.”
“Quit and come live with me.”
“You’re serious?”
“There’re probably worse fates,” he said.
“This is a lot at one time, Clete.”
She was right, but he saw his own face on Homer’s and knew what awaited the boy when a social worker took him back to Kevin Penny’s trailer.
“Hire an attorney, some guy who’s not afraid to make a stink and embarrass local officials,” Clete said. “I’ll take care of the fees.”
“That doesn’t work. Right now I have to talk to my supervisor. I’ll call you later.”
“You’ve got to think about yourself, Carolyn. Penny’s potential has no bottom. Then there’re those two rodents who work for Tony Nemo.”
“I can handle myself,” she replied. “It’ll work out. Good-bye.”
“Don’t hang up, Carolyn.”
Too late.
* * *
I MENTIONED MY speculation that Helen Soileau may have had several people living inside her, none of them entirely normal. That afternoon, at 4:57, she buzzed my phone and told me to come to her office. I walked down the corridor and went inside.
“Shut the door and sit down,” she said.
I took a chair. She walked past me and lowered the blinds on the glass. I waited for her to return to her desk, but she didn’t. I felt her standing behind me, saw her shadow fall across mine. There was a lump in my throat. “What’s going on, boss lady?”
She placed a hand on each of my shoulders.
“I’ve wanted to do this all day,” she said.
She tucked her elbows in under my chin and pulled my head into her breasts.
“Jesus Christ, Helen!”
“Shut up. I don’t know what happened at Bayou Benoit, but you didn’t kill T. J. Dartez.” She kissed my hair. “Now go home.”
Top that.
* * *
I LOVE THE rain, whether it’s a tropical one or one that falls on you in the dead of winter. For me, rain is the natural world’s absolution, like the story of the Flood and new beginnings and loading the animals two by two onto the Ark. I love the mist hanging in the trees, a hint of wraiths that would not let heavy stones weigh them down in their graves, the raindrops clicking on the lily pads, the fish rising as though in celebration.
I took great comfort on nights like these, and on this particular night I sat down in a cloth-covered chair in the living room and began reading a novel by Ron Hansen titled The Kid, the best story I ever read about the Lincoln County cattle wars. The rain was drumming on our tin roof, pooling in the yard, shining like glass in the glow of the streetlamps. I had opened the front window to let in the cold air. I heard a loud thump and looked up to see a humped silhouette on the screen.
“How you doin’, Mon Tee Coon?” I said. “Comment est la vie?”
He tilted his head.
“You need a snack, little guy?” I said.
He pawed at the screen. His coat was glistening with water, his whiskers white at the tips.
“I’m going to open a can of tuna and get you a pan of water and set them on the gallery. Hang loose.”
Just as I got out of the chair, a sports car turned sharply into the driveway, splashing water into the yard. Mon Tee Coon dropped heavily onto the gallery and was gone. Someone ran from the car with a newspaper over his or her head and twisted the bell not once but three times. I tossed my book onto the chair and opened the door.
“Thank go
odness you’re home, Dave,” Emmeline Nightingale said, wiping the rain out of her hair. “Is Alafair here?”
“No.”
“Where is she?”
“She doesn’t tell me everywhere she goes.”
“I have some important information. I was going to tell her and let her tell you.”
Emmeline seemed to lie the way all narcissists do. Whatever they say, regardless of its absurdity, becomes the truth.
“Tell me what?”
“Are you going to invite me in?”
“Yes, please come in,” I said.
She stepped inside and blew out her breath. “It’s about your friend Levon and his wife.”
“Take it to the department.”
“Just drop in and chat up the boys in the coffee room?”
“No, talk to me in my office.”
“You’re getting jerked around, Detective.”
She was good. “What’s the information on Mr. and Ms. Broussard?”
“She was raped by two black men in Wichita, Kansas. The prosecutor’s office wouldn’t do anything about it.”
“Where’d you get this?”
“I hired a private investigator.”
“How long ago did this happen?”
“Twenty years, maybe more. She was a visiting artist at Wichita State University. She was young and maybe drunk when she left the bar with the two black men. Nobody would believe her story.”
“You need to bring everything your PI has to the department.”
“Did I do wrong coming here?” she said.
Yes, she did. And there was no doubt she had a design. Nonetheless, if the information was true, it presented a problem for the prosecutor and was a gift to the defense. There was a good possibility that Rowena would be victimized by the system again.
“Could I have a drink?” Emmeline said.
“I don’t have any alcohol in the house.”
“A Dr Pepper, a Coca-Cola, a glass of lemonade.”
“Yes, I think I can find something.”
“I love the sound the rain makes on a tin roof. Your house is so quaint.”
“I have another question for you, Miss Emmeline. What did Jimmy do in Latin America that haunts him? Why are you two always at the center of other people’s misfortune when you never seem to pay dues yourself?”
“I think that is the most arrogant and ugly thing anyone has ever said to me.”
She was probably right. I didn’t like to speak that way to a woman or, for that matter, to anyone. Age does that to you. Sometimes charity toward others is the only respite you get from thoughts about death. And in that spirit, I said, “Let me get you a diet Dr Pepper.”