“How could I forget? How many federal agents track horseshit on your carpet?” Helen said.
Lonnie gave her another look, then began playing with his rubber band again. I had the feeling Helen was one of the few people who could stick thumbtacks deep into Lonnie’s scalp. “They’re after Bello and Whitey Bruxal,” he said. “However, my guess is they have some conflicts among themselves about the real goal of their investigation. The Mossbacher woman seems more intent on bringing down this televangelist Colin Alridge. You ever meet him?”
I had. Colin Alridge was a homegrown product who had returned to New Orleans a national celebrity. He was not simply telegenic, either. In person, he seemed to exude goodness and rectitude. Outside of Mickey Rooney in his role as Andy Hardy, I could not think of a public figure who was more representative of Norman Rockwell’s America. But I didn’t respond to Lonnie’s question, in part because I wanted to know Lonnie’s attitude toward Alridge. More candidly, I didn’t trust Lonnie. His prosecutorial eye seemed to be selective, and he chose his enemies with discretion.
“Alridge has probably been fronting points for the Indian casinos in the central portion of the state at the expense of those on the Texas state line,” he said. “A lot of people around here have no objection to a guy like Alridge helping the local economy. A lot of these same people get their paychecks from Bello Lujan and by extension Whitey Bruxal. Which means a lot of people around here might not like the idea of Crustacean Man messing up the cash flow. You with me?”
“You want to back off on the warrant for right now?” Helen said.
“Helen, why not listen a little more attentively to what’s being said? My point is the Feds are already investigating crimes committed in our backyard. So how does that make us look? Like bumbling hicks. So the question presents itself: How do we take the initiative away from the FBI and act like the elected servants we’re supposed to be? The answer is we drop the hammer on our own miscreants and, while we’re at it, see if we can’t show this televangelical asshole that just because you were born in Louisiana, you don’t get to wipe your feet on Iberia Parish. Is this starting to gel for you, Helen?”
It was so quiet I could hear the air-conditioning in the vents. “We’ll have Bello and his son in custody by close of business,” I said.
“Good,” Lonnie said, rocking back in his chair, raising one finger in the air. “One other thing—I want daily updates on every aspect of this investigation. Any memoranda are eyes-only. All conversations regarding the investigation stay within our immediate circle. Any sharing of information with federal authorities will be performed by this office and this office only. Are we all on the same page here?”
“I’ll notify you as soon as we bring Bello and Tony Lujan in,” I said.
I had slipped his punch, but he didn’t seem to take note of it. “Helen?” he said.
Her face was thoughtful, even placid, before she spoke. “No, I can’t think of a thing to say, Lonnie. Nothing at all. But if I do, I’ll give you a buzz.”
THE NEXT MORNING, Friday, Bello Lujan was placed under arrest for destruction of evidence in a vehicular homicide. He was not told that simultaneously his son was being removed from a classroom at UL by me, a uniformed Iberia Parish sheriff’s deputy, and a Lafayette City Police detective. When Tony Lujan protested, we cuffed his wrists behind him and led him across the quadrangle, just as a bell rang and his peers poured out of the surrounding buildings and filled the colonnaded walkway that surrounded the main campus. Tony’s face was as red as raw hamburger.
We left him cuffed behind the wire screen in the cruiser and headed for New Iberia, with me in the passenger seat and Top, our retired Marine Corps NCO, behind the wheel.
“You treated me like I’m a rapist or a drug dealer in front of all those people. You can’t do that unless you charge me with something,” Tony said.
“We don’t have to charge you, because you’re not under arrest,” I said.
“Then why am I in handcuffs?”
“You gave us a bad time,” I replied.
“If I’m not under arrest, take the cuffs off.”
“When we stop,” I said.
I saw Top look into the rearview mirror. His red hair was turning gray and two pale furrows ran through it on each side of his pate. His mustache looked as stiff as a toothbrush. “I’m not as forgiving as Dave, here,” he said.
“What I’d do?”
“You stepped on my spit shine. You scratched the leather on my brand-new shoes. Those are forty-dollar shoes.”
“I’m sorry,” Tony said.
“How would you like it if somebody stepped on your new shoes?” Top said.
“This is crazy. I want to call my father.”
“Your father is under arrest. I don’t think he’s going to be of much help to you,” I said.
“Arrest for what?”
I turned around in the seat so he could look directly into my face. “Either you or he or your mother killed a homeless man with your automobile. Y’all thought you could get away with something like that, Tony? How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty.” The handcuffs were on tight and he had to lean forward on the car seat to keep from pinching them into his wrists.
“You’re studying to be a doctor?” I said.
“I’m in my second year of premed.”
“And you’re starting out your career with blood splatter all over you?” I said.
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
“How did the dead guy’s blood get on your headlight?” Top said.
“I’m not saying anything else. I want to talk to my father. I want to talk to a lawyer.”
“Glad to hear that, kid, because I’m very upset over what you did to my shoes,” Top said. “You just graduated from ‘friend of the court’ to ‘punch of the day’ in the stockade shower. I hear if you close your eyes and pretend you’re a girl, it’s not so bad after a couple of months.”
Then both Top and I turned to stone and watched the billboards and fields of young sugarcane slide past the windows. After we had crossed into Iberia Parish, I gestured toward a turnoff. We left the four-lane and drove through a community of shacks and rain ditches that were strewn with litter and vinyl bags of raw garbage that had been flung from passing vehicles. Thunderclouds moved across the sun and the countryside dropped into shadow. The wind smelled like rain and chemical fertilizer and dead animals that had been left on the roadside. Beyond a line of trees I could see the ugly gray outline of the parish prison and the silvery coils of razor wire along the fences.
“Stop here,” I told Top.
“He wants to lawyer-up. He’s a fraternity punk who deserves to fall in his own shit. Don’t end up with a bad jacket, here,” Top said.
“I’m going to do it my way. Now stop the car.”
I got out of the cruiser and opened the back door. Tony looked at me cautiously. “Outside,” I said.
“What are we doing?”
I reached inside and pulled him out on the road, then marched him toward a clump of cedar trees. He twisted his head back toward the road, his face stretched tight with fear. “People at UL know we left together. You can’t do this,” he said.
“Shut up,” I said. I pushed him into the shade of the trees. He began to struggle, and I shoved him against a tree trunk and held him there. “I’m going to uncuff you now. The conversation we have out here is between you and me. You’re being treated like an intelligent man. Try to act like one.”
I unlocked the cuffs, pulled them free of his wrists, and turned him around. His face was gray, his breath rife with funk.
“Your old man didn’t kill the homeless man, did he?”
“No, sir.”
“Did your mother?”
“She has bad night vision. She doesn’t even have a license. You can check.”
“So that leaves you.”
He was shaking his head even before I finished the sentence. “If I’d killed a homeless guy,
it would have been an accident. Why would I want to hide it?”
“But it’s obvious you know when and how it happened.”
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
“You said your mother has bad night vision. How do you know the homeless guy was struck at night?”
He closed then opened his eyes, like a man who has just stepped on the trapdoor of a hangman’s scaffold. “You got to let me see a lawyer. It’s in the Constitution, isn’t it? I’m guaranteed at least a phone call, right?”
“Listen to me. A man with no name was killed by an automobile your family owns and drives. The dead man was probably a wino, a guy with few if any friends, no family, and no known origins. He was the kind of guy who gets bagged and tagged and dropped in a hole in ground, case closed. Except that’s not going to happen here. That guy had a right to live, just like you and I do. Whoever ran over him is going to be indicted and sent to trial. I give you my absolute word on that, Tony. You believe me when I say that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re a young man and young people make mistakes. Usually the cause is a lack of judgment. People get scared, they can’t think straight, they make bad decisions. They want to run from the deed they’ve committed because it’s almost as though it didn’t happen, it’s not them, it’s like someone else did it. If they could only go home, this terrible moment in their lives would be erased. That’s what happened, didn’t it, Tony? You just didn’t think straight. It’s only human in a situation like that. Tell us your version of events before somebody else does. Don’t take a fall you don’t deserve. That’s not stand-up, it’s dumb. Just tell the truth and trust the people trying to help you.”
He watched me carefully while I spoke, his face turned slightly aside, as though he didn’t want the full measure of my words to undo his defenses. But I had not convinced him. I took another run at ip.
“You ever read Stephen Crane?” I said.
“The writer?”
“Yeah, the writer.”
“No,” he said.
“Crane said few of us are nouns. Most of us are adverbs. No tragedy is orchestrated by one individual. An event we blame ourselves for may have been years in the making and may have much more to do with others than ourselves. Without recognition of that fact, we never acquire any wisdom about anything. Our case name for the homeless guy is Crustacean Man. Help us give back this guy his name. You can start correcting things, turning them around, right now, as we speak. It’s that easy.”
His eyes were locked on mine, his eyelids stitched to his brows. His bottom lip was white on the corner where he was biting down on it, to the point I thought the skin would break. I could almost hear words forming in his throat. Then his gaze broke and the moment was lost. “I want to talk to my father. What have you done with him?” he said.
“Your old man can take care of himself,” I replied.
“He might actually go to prison?”
“It’s a good possibility.”
He started to cry. It was the first time I had seen Tony Lujan show any concern for anyone but himself. I took out a clean, folded handkerchief and handed it to him. “We’re done here. I’m not going to question you any more. Other people will talk to you later,” I said.
He cleared his throat and spit. He looked at the clouds scudding across the sky and the gray outline of the parish stockade. “I need to confess something,” he said.
I waited for him to speak, but he didn’t. “What is it?” I said.
“I’m holding.”
“You’re dealing?”
“No,” he said. He unbuttoned his shirt pocket and removed a small plastic bag rolled around three joints. “I smoke one or two a day, that’s all. I know if I’m arrested at the jail, I’ll be searched and then charged for holding.”
I took the bag from him, shook the joints out, and ground them under my heel. “So you’re not holding now,” I said, and stuffed the bag back in his pocket.
I started walking toward the cruiser, with Tony perhaps ten feet behind me. I heard him quicken his step to catch up with me.
“That was a pretty decent thing to do, Mr. Robicheaux,” he said.
“Don’t deceive yourself, kid. What I told you back there in the trees wasn’t a ruse. You had your chance and you blew it. The people I work with are going to twist your head off and spit in it,” I replied.
I HAD NOT SEEN Clete Purcel since Saturday evening, when he had driven away from the boat landing at Henderson Swamp with Trish Klein, his face and hers glowing like those of youthful lovers in the sunset. I left three messages on his cell phone, and also went by his office, only to find it closed. Friday I went by his office again, and this time his part-time secretary, Hulga Volkmann, was behind the desk. She was a big, rosy-complected, cheerful, and scatterbrained woman who wore flower-print dresses and perfume that would numb the olfactory senses of an elephant.
“He went to New Orleans for a day or so, then called from Cancún. He’ll be back tonight,” she said.
“Clete’s in Mexico?” I said.
“Or was it Bimini?” she said.
Clete Purcel’s romantic problems did not occur as a result of his having love affairs with biker girls and neurotic artists and strippers. Instead, they usually began when he got involved with any woman who was halfway normal, in other words, the type of person he didn’t believe he deserved. Any attempt to convince him that he was attractive to women other than pipeheads and narcissistic meltdowns was futile. In Clete’s mind, he was still the son of a milkman in the Irish Channel, with skinned knuckles from fights on the school ground and welts across his butt from his father’s razor strop. Nice girls didn’t hang with a guy who had a scar like a pink inner-tube patch through one eyebrow, put there by a black warlord from the Gird Town Deuces. Nice girls didn’t hang with a former jarhead who still heard the downdraft of helicopter blades in his sleep.
“Is Clete with a lady by the name of Trish Klein?” I asked the secretary.
“He was with someone. I heard a lot of noise in the background. I think he was in a casino,” Hulga said.
Clete lived down the bayou in a Depression-era motor court, one that still did not have telephones in the cottages and was covered by the shade of oaks hundreds of years old. At ten Saturday morning, I knocked on his door. He answered it in his skivvies and an undershirt, smiling sleepily. “How you doin’, big mon?” he said. A square bandage was taped high up on his left shoulder.
“Why don’t you tell your friends where you are once in a while?”
“Oh, Trish and I drove over to the Big Sleazy for the day, then one thing led to another. You know how it goes. You want coffee?”
“I don’t want to hear Darwin’s history of the planet. Did you let her hustle you?”
“Lighten up on the terminology,” he replied, filling a metal coffeepot at the sink.
“What happened to your shoulder?”
“Nothing. A scratch. I had to get a tetanus shot.”
“I think Trish Klein is playing you, Cletus,” I said, instantly regretting my words.
“Hell, yes. Why would a great-looking broad be interested in an over-the-hill P.I. who’s got a worse jacket than most perps?”
“I didn’t say that. Your weakness is your good heart. People take advantage of it.”
“Good try. Get the milk out of the icebox, will you? God!”
“God what?”
“I woke up feeling great. I haven’t had any booze in two days. Trish and I are going to a street dance in Lafayette tonight. Then you come in here and walk around on my libido with golf shoes. Plus you insult Trish.”
“I worry about you. You were gone four days without telling me where you were.”
He tossed a loaf of bread into my hands. “Make some toast.”
“What happened in New Orleans?”
“Ever hear of a guy named Lefty Raguza?”
“He’s a psychopath who works for a bookie and general shithead by the name of W
hitey Bruxal.”
“I had to straighten him out. It wasn’t a major event. You don’t figure him for a listener, huh?”
“What have you done, Clete?”
Then he told me of the beginnings of his romantic involvement with the girl whose nickname he had taken from a song by Jimmy Clanton. Chapter 9
L AST SUNDAY MORNING he and Trish Klein had headed down the four-lane toward New Orleans, the top down, the cane blowing in the fields on each side of them, then they skirted a sun-shower at Morgan City and turned into a convenience store to put up the top. It was still early and there were few vehicles on the highway. A Ford Explorer that had been a quarter mile behind Clete went past the convenience store, a blond man at the wheel, then the road was empty again, the wind balmy and flecked with rain.
“I love it here. You can almost smell the Gulf. That’s the only thing I miss about Miami—the smell of the ocean in the morning,” Trish said.
“You lived by the water?” Clete said.
She had taken a bandanna off her head and was shaking out her hair. Clete couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Nor could he read her or her intentions, or judge whether or not he had any chance with her. All he knew was she had the most beautiful blue eyes and heart-shaped face he had ever seen. “We had a house in Coconut Grove. My grandmother kept a sailboat. We used to sail down into the Keys when the kingfish were running,” she said.
“That must have been great,” he said, his gaze wandering over her eyes and mouth, her words not really registering.
“You want to go now?” she asked.
“Pardon?”
“It’s starting to rain.”
“Right,” he said.
They drove back onto the four-lane and crossed the bridge over the wide sweep of the Atchafalaya River. From the bridge’s apex, Morgan City looked like a Caribbean port, with its palm-dotted streets, red-tiled roofs, biscuit-colored stucco buildings, and shotgun houses fronted by ceiling-high windows and ventilated green shutters. As Clete descended the bridge, he glanced into the rearview mirror and saw the Ford Explorer again. The blond man was hunched over the wheel, wearing shades, cutting in and out of the passing lane. Then he dropped behind a semi and disappeared from view.