Purple Cane Road

  “You know who they are?”

  “No. That’s why I hung around.”

  I looked at him a long time. He dropped his eyes to the floor.

  “You told the cop at the museum you were an artist,” I said.

  “I paint ceramics. I’ve done a mess of them.”

  “Good luck, kid. I think you’re going to need it,” I said, and started to go.

  He rose from the bunk and stood at the bars. His face was no more than three inches from mine.

  “I’ve got money put away for a lawyer. I can beat the beef on Zipper Clum,” he said.

  “So?”

  “I have a feeling my kite’s going down before I ever see that lawyer.”

  His breath was like the stale odor of dead flowers.

  His grief was his own, I told myself as I went home later that evening.

  But I couldn’t rest. Zipper Clum’s dying statement, taped on the boom box in the lawn-mower shop off Magazine, said Johnny Remeta was the trail back to my mother’s death.

  I ate a late supper with Bootsie on the picnic table in the backyard and told her about Johnny Remeta’s fears. I expected her to take issue with my concerns, which I seemed to bring home as a matter of course from my job. After I stopped talking, she was pensive, one tooth biting into her bottom lip.

  “I think Remeta’s right. Zipper Clum was killed because of what he knew about your mother’s death. Now Connie Deshotel has taken a special interest in you. She called again, by the way.”

  “What about?”

  “She said she wanted to tell you Clete Purcel’s license problems have been straightened out. How nice of her to call us rather than him.”

  “Forget her.”

  “I’d like to. Dave, I didn’t tell you everything about my relationship with Jim Gable. He’s perverse. Oh, not with me. Just in things he said, in his manner, the way he’d stand in his undershorts in front of the mirror and comb his hair, the cruelty that was threaded through his remarks.”

  The blood had risen in her face, and her eyes were shiny with embarrassment.

  “You didn’t know what he was like, Boots.”

  “It doesn’t help. I think about him and want to wash my body with peroxide.”

  “I’m going to help Batist close up, then we’ll go for some ice cream,” I said.

  I walked down to the bait shop and called Dana Magelli, my NOPD friend, at his home and got the unlisted number for Jim Gable’s condo in New Orleans.

  “Why are you messing with Gable?” Magelli asked.

  “Cleaning up some paperwork, interdepartmental cooperation, that sort of thing.”

  “Gable leaves shit prints on everything he touches. Stay away from him. It’s a matter of time till somebody scrambles his eggs.”

  “It’s not soon enough.”

  I punched in Jim Gable’s number. I could hear opera music playing in the background when he answered the phone.

  “Y’all are picking up Johnny Remeta tomorrow,” I said.

  “Who is this?” he asked.

  “Dave Robicheaux. Remeta thinks somebody might want to blow up his shit.”

  “Hey, we owe you a big thanks on this one. You made the ID through that home invasion in Loreauville, didn’t you?”

  “He’d better arrive in New Orleans without any scratches on the freight.”

  “You’re talking to the wrong man, my friend. Don Ritter’s in charge of that case.”

  “Let me raise another subject. I understand you’ve made some remarks about my wife.”

  I could hear ice cubes rattle in a glass, as though he had just sipped from it and replaced it on a table.

  “I don’t know where you heard that, but it’s not true. I have the greatest respect for your wife,” he said.

  I stared out the bait shop window. The flood lamps were on and the bayou was yellow and netted with torn strands of hyacinths, the air luminescent with insects. My temples were pounding. I felt like a jealous high school boy who had just challenged a rival in a locker room, only to learn that his own words were his worst enemy.

  “Maybe we can take up the subject another time. On a more physical level,” I said.

  I thought I heard the voice of a young woman giggling in the background, then the tinkle of ice in the glass again.

  “I’ve got to run. Get a good night’s sleep. I don’t think you mean what you say. Anyway, I don’t hold grudges,” Gable said.

  The woman laughed again just before he hung up.

  But the two New Orleans detectives who were assigned to take Johnny Remeta back to their jurisdiction, Don Ritter and a man named Burgoyne, didn’t show up in the morning. In fact, they didn’t arrive at the department until almost 5 P.M.

  I stayed late until the last of the paperwork was done. Ritter bent over my desk and signed his name on a custody form attached to a clipboard, then bounced the ballpoint pen on my desk blotter.

  “Thanks for your help, Robicheaux. We won’t forget it,” he said.

  “You taking the four-lane through Morgan City?” I said.

  “No, I-10 through Baton Rouge,” Burgoyne, the other detective, said.

  “The southern route is straight through now. You can be in New Orleans in two hours and fifteen minutes,” I said.

  “The department uses prescribed routes for all transportation of prisoners. This one happens to go through Baton Rouge,” Burgoyne said. He grinned and chewed his gum.

  He was young, unshaved, muscular, his arms padded with hair. He wore a faded black T-shirt and running shoes and Levi’s with his handcuffs pulled through the back of his belt. He wore his shield on a cord around his neck, and a snub-nosed .38 in a clip-on holster on his belt.

  “We’ve had Remeta in a holding cell since this morning. He didn’t eat yet,” I said.

  “We’ll feed him at the jail. I’ll ask him to drop you a card and tell you about it,” Burgoyne said, his eyes merry, his gum snapping in his jaw.

  Ten minutes later I watched Ritter and Burgoyne lead Johnny Remeta, in waist and leg chains, to the back of a white Plymouth and lock him to a D-ring anchored on the floor. When they pulled out of the parking lot, Remeta stared out the side window into my face.

  I went back inside the building, the residue of a burned-out, bad day like a visceral presence on my skin.

  Why had they waited until quitting time to pick up Remeta? Why were they adamant about returning to New Orleans through Baton Rouge, which was the long way back? I was bothered also by the detective named Burgoyne. His clothes and looks and manner reminded me of the description that Micah, Cora Gable’s chauffeur, had given of one of the cops who had beaten and terrorized him.

  I signed out a cruiser, hit the flasher, and headed for the four-lane that led to Lafayette and Interstate 10 East.

  It was almost sunset when I crossed Henderson Swamp on the causeway. There was no wind, and the miles of water on each side of the road were bloodred, absolutely still, the moss in the dead cypress gray and motionless against the trunks. I stayed in the passing lane, the blue, white, and red glow of the flasher rippling across the pavement and cement railings in the dying light.

  Then I was on the bridge above the Atchafalaya River, rising above its wide breadth and swirling current and the deep green stands of gum trees along its banks. Only then did I realize the white Plymouth was behind me, off the highway, in the rest area on the west side of the river.

  I’d blown it. I couldn’t remember the distance to the next turnaround that would allow me to double back and recross the river. I pulled to the shoulder, put the cruiser in reverse, and backed over the bridge to the rest area exit while two tractor-trailers swerved around me into the passing lane.

  The rest area was parklike, green and freshly mowed and watered, with picnic tables and clean rest rooms, and a fine view of the river from the levee.

  But the Plymouth was not by the rest rooms. It was parked not far from the levee and a stand of trees, in a glade, its doors open, its parki
ng lights on.

  I entered the access road and clicked off the flasher and parked behind a truck and saw Ritter and Burgoyne walking from the Plymouth to the men’s room. Burgoyne went inside while Ritter smoked a cigarette and watched the Plymouth. Then Burgoyne came back outside and both of them sat at a picnic table, smoking, a thermos of coffee set between them. They watched the Plymouth and the T-shirted, waist-chained form of Johnny Remeta in the backseat.

  I thought they would finish their coffee, unlock Remeta from the D-ring, and walk him to the men’s room. The sodium lamps came on overhead and still they made no move toward the Plymouth.

  Instead, Ritter went to a candy machine. He peeled off the wrapper on a candy bar and dropped the wrapper on the ground and strolled out toward the parking lot and used a pay phone.

  The wind started to blow off the river, then I heard a solitary pop, like a firecracker, in a clump of trees by the levee.

  Johnny Remeta pitched forward in the seat, his shoulders curled down toward the floor, his chained wrists jerking at the D-ring. There were three more reports inside the trees; now I could see a muzzle flash or light reflecting off a telescopic lens, and I heard the rounds biting into metal, blowing glass out the back of the car.

  I pulled my .45 and ran toward the picnic table where Burgoyne still sat, his cigarette burning on the edge of the wood, his hands motionless in front of him. Ritter was nowhere in sight. The few travelers in the rest area had either taken cover or flattened themselves on the lawn.

  I screwed the .45 into Burgoyne’s spine.

  “You set him up, you shitbag,” I said, and hoisted him up by his T-shirt.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Walk in front of me. You’re going to stop it. You touch your piece and I’ll blow your liver out on the grass.”

  I knotted my fist in the back of his belt, pushing him ahead of me, into the mauve-colored twilight and the smell of cut grass and the wind that was filled with newspaper and dust and raindrops that stung like hail. I tried to see over his shoulder into the clump of trees by the levee, but the limbs were churning, the leaves rising into the air, and the light had washed out of the sky into a thin band on the earth’s rim.

  “I’m not part of this, Robicheaux. You got it all wrong,” Burgoyne said.

  “Shut up. Get your cuff key out. Throw it to Remeta.”

  We were on the lee side of the Plymouth now and Burgoyne’s face had gone white. He thumbed his key out of his watch pocket and threw it inside the backseat. He tried to turn his head so he could see my face.

  “Let me go, man. I’ll give you whatever you want,” he said.

  The shooter in the trees let off two more rounds. One whanged off the door jamb and the second round seemed to go long. But I heard a hollow throp, just like someone casually plopping a watermelon with his fingers. Burgoyne’s head slammed against mine and his knees collapsed under him. My hand was still hooked inside his belt, and his weight took me down with him.

  I was kneeling in the grass now, behind the shelter of the car, the events of the last few seconds out of sequence in my head. Johnny Remeta was working furiously to unlock his hands and ankles from his chains. His eyes were riveted on me, a look of revulsion on his face.

  “What’s the matter with you?” I said.

  “The guy’s brains are in your hair, man.”

  The shooter opened up again, firing indiscriminately, burning the whole magazine.

  “Get out of here,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The keys are in the ignition. When I put down masking fire, you get out of here.”

  I didn’t wait for him to answer. I crawled to the front of the car, then extended one hand out beyond the fender and began firing the .45 into the clump of trees. The sparks flew into the darkness and the recoil snapped my wrist four inches up in the air with each shot. I fired eight rounds in a row, the brass casings flicking past my eyes, until the breech locked open. Then I released the empty magazine and shoved in a fresh one.

  The Plymouth’s engine roared to life and the back tires spun in reverse on the wet grass. Johnny Remeta whipped the car around in the opposite direction, shifted into low, and floored the accelerator across the glade toward the entrance to the highway.

  A full minute must have passed; there was no sound except a boat engine starting up on the river and the whir of tires on the bridge. The people by the rest rooms rose to their feet and stood like figures in a trance under the smoky glow of the sodium lamps. I pulled off my shirt, my hands trembling, and wiped my hair and face with it. Then I vomited into the grass. The detective named Burgoyne lay on his side, his head on one arm, his jaws locked open, his eyes looking vacuously into space, as though a terrible revelation about his life had just been whispered in his ear.

  15

  The Sheriff paced back and forth in his office, reading from the folded-back front page of the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate. While he paced and read, he kept touching one eyebrow with a fingernail and widening his eyes, as though denying himself the luxury of an emotion that would turn his face crimson.

  The story was a long one, of the kind written by a journalist who has learned the advantages of professional credulity over skepticism:

  Henderson—In what authorities believe was an attempted gangland assassination gone awry, a New Orleans city police officer was killed and a murder suspect escaped custody by stealing an unmarked police vehicle and driving it through a hail of gunfire.

  Dead upon arrival at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Lafayette was Detective Sergeant James F. Burgoyne. Burgoyne and an Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Department detective, David Robicheaux, tried to save the life of the intended victim, John Remeta, a suspect in a New Orleans homicide, investigators on the scene said.

  The shooting took place in an I-10 rest area close by the Atchafalaya River. Remeta was being transported in chains from New Iberia to New Orleans.

  Both officers advanced across an open field into sniper fire while Remeta huddled on the backseat of the unmarked police vehicle. When the officers freed Remeta of his handcuffs, Remeta escaped in the confusion and a bullet meant for him struck Burgoyne in the head, according to the crime scene investigator.

  Authorities believe Remeta has ties to organized crime and that a contract was placed on his life. A second New Orleans police officer, Lieutenant Don Ritter, is credited with coming to the assistance of Robicheaux and Burgoyne, putting himself in the line of fire.

  A St. Martin Parish deputy sheriff on the scene said the behavior of all three officers was the bravest he had seen in his twenty years of police experience.

  And on and on.

  The sheriff tossed the newspaper on his desk and continued pacing, twisting the stem of his pipe in and out of the bowl.

  Then he picked up a fax of the scene investigator’s report and reread it and let it drift from his hand on top of the newspaper.

  “The dead cop, what’s his name, Burgoyne? He still had his piece in his holster. How do you explain that?” the sheriff said.

  “Ask the scene investigator.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “I’m not sure you want to know.” I looked at a spot on the wall.

  “Ritter impressed me as a self-serving asswipe. He had a sudden conversion and ran into incoming fire to help you out?”

  “I never saw Ritter. Not until the state police were coming down the ramp.”

  “You’d better tell me what happened out there.”

  “I made Burgoyne walk in front of me and give Remeta his cuff key. If Remeta hadn’t taken off in the unmarked vehicle, the shooter would have nailed us both.”

  The sheriff ran one hand through his hair. “I don’t believe this,” he said.

  “Ritter fabricated the story to cover himself. I didn’t contradict him. If I had, I would have been in custody myself.”

  “Did you hold a gun on Burgoyne?”

  “Yes.”

  “You got a cop killed, Da
ve.”

  “They had that kid staked out like a goat under a tree stand.”

  The sheriff was breathing hard through his nostrils. His face was dark, his candy-striped snap-button shirt tight across his chest.

  “I can’t quite describe how angry this makes me,” he said.

  “You wanted the truth.”

  “You’re damn right I do. Stay right there.”

  He went out the door and down the corridor, then came back five minutes later, his blood pressure glowing in his face, the lines around his eyes like white thread.

  “I’ve got Don Ritter and an IAD man in New Orleans on the line,” he said, and hit the button on his conference phone.

  “What are you doing, skipper?” I said.

  He held up his hand for me to be quiet. “Ritter?” he said, standing erect in the middle of the office.

  “What can I do for you, Sheriff?” Ritter’s voice said through the speaker.

  “Listen and keep your mouth shut. You set up a prisoner from my jail to be murdered and you almost got one of my people killed. You set foot in my parish again and I’m going to find a way to bury your sorry ass on Angola Farm. In the meantime, you’d better pray I don’t get my hands on you … Is that IAD man still there?”

  There was a pause, then a second voice said through the speaker, “Yes, sir, I’m right here.”

  “If the media want to buy that pig flop you people put out about y’all cleaning up your act, that’s their business. But you either get to the bottom of this or I’m going to put an open letter on the Internet and notify every law enforcement agency in the country of the kind of bullshit you pass off as police work. By the way, spell your full name for me,” the sheriff said.

  After the sheriff hung up, his throat was blotched with color.

  “Hypertension is going to put me in a box,” he said.

  “I wish it had worked out different. I never got a clear shot.”

  He drank a glass of water and took a deep breath, then his eyes settled on my face.

  “Burgoyne’s brains splattered on you?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “It happened to me in Korea. The guy was a prisoner I was taking back to the rear. I used to get up in the middle of the night and take showers and wash my hair and swim in the ocean and all kinds of crazy stuff. What’s the lesson? Better him than me.”