Clete was staring at me as I hung up. “So?” he said.
“They’ll probably put us in straitjackets,” I replied.
Clete and I drove back up the road, wondering how long the response would take. Surprisingly, two cruisers showed up at the field at the same time we did, their spotlights piercing deep into the darkness, sweeping over the Acadian cottage and the rusted tractor and the acres of grass and weeds that stretched all the way back to the line of trees along the riverbank. I could still see swaths of tire tracks in the grass. I could see the coulee that I had raced down and hidden inside. I could even see the two slash pines where I had exited the tree line. But all the vehicles, including my pickup truck, were gone.
“Do you believe this?” Clete said.
“No, I don’t,” I said.
A plainclothes detective named Huffinton walked with us through the field. The rain had slackened, and the sky was turning pale at the edges. He was a big man whose clothes fit him badly, and he wore a felt hat with a wide wilted brim and a necktie that was twisted in a knot. Halfway across the field, I pointed out the spot where Vidor Perkins had died.
“There’s nothing there but dirt,” Huffinton said.
“That’s the point. Somebody spaded out the grass,” I said.
He walked a few feet from me and swept a flashlight over the ground. “This is about where you took cover behind your truck and started firing at the van? Because if it is, I don’t see any brass.”
“You’re not supposed to. If they’d take my truck, they’d take everything else.”
He nodded. Then he lit a cigarette. He puffed on it in the breeze, the smoke damp and smelling of chemicals and blowing back into my face. I knew any serious investigation of the crime scene was over. Huffinton stared at a golden flood of sunlight under the cloud layer in the west. “Let’s take a look down by the river,” he said.
We walked along the coulee and stood on the spot where I had shot the hooded man. My .45 shell casings were nowhere to be found. The body of the man I had killed was gone. There was no visible trace of blood on the ground. Nor did we find any ejected shells inside the stand of trees that grew along the river embankment. There were boot and shoe marks in the dirt, but none of a defined nature. The only tactile evidence of the gun battle were the gouges in the tree trunks from the AR-15 and a thin spray of blood on a persimmon branch at the spot where I had taken off the man’s fingers with the twelve-gauge.
“Come on down to the department and we’ll write it up,” Huffinton said.
“This isn’t our parish. Dave’s job is not to ‘write it up.’ Dave’s truck is probably on a semi headed for a compactor,” Clete said. “Call the state police.”
“Why don’t you do it?” Huffinton said.
Clete looked away at a distant spot, hiding the angry light in his eyes. “There was a crop duster flying around. Where’s the closest airport?” he said.
“Anywhere there’s a flat space. You have someplace else you need to be?” Huffinton said.
“I’ll be back tomorrow and take care of the paperwork,” I said.
“Yeah, I’d appreciate it,” Huffinton said. “No offense meant, but somebody might say you were back on the sauce when this one happened.”
“Tell me which it is: Streak is delusional or I’m a liar,” Clete said.
“Say again?”
“Forget it,” Clete said.
Huffinton walked toward his vehicle, his back to us, his blunt profile pointed into the freshening breeze.
“I hope his wife has congenital clap,” Clete said.
“During the firefight, I saw a steamboat down by the mouth of the river.”
“You mean a floating casino?”
“That’s not what it was. I’ve seen it before. On Bayou Teche.”
“I don’t know if I want to hear this.”
“I thought that was where I was going. I thought they were waiting for me.”
“Who?”
“The people on board.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“You’re the best, Cletus.”
“No, we’re the best. One is no good without the other. The Bobbsey Twins from Homicide have one agenda only. We make the dirtbags want to crawl back in their mothers’ wombs. We’re gonna hunt down the cleaners or whatever they are and salt their hides and nail them to the barn door.”
“You’ve already said it for both of us. It’s only rock and roll.”
“That’s because I was ninety-proof. You don’t have permission to die.” He grabbed my shirt. “You hearing me on this?”
“I was just telling you what I saw. Who else am I going to tell?”
I cupped my hand on the back of his neck as we walked to his car. I could feel the hardness in his tendons and the heat and oil in his skin. I could feel his heartbeat and the fury and mire of his blood in his veins, and in his intelligent green eyes I could see the misty shine that my words would not make go away.
MONDAY MORNING I went into Helen Soileau’s office and told her everything that had happened in the field and river basin during the storm on the southern end of Jeff Davis Parish. She listened and did not speak, her gaze never leaving my face. When I finished, she continued to stare at me, her lips pressed together, her chest rising and falling.
Unconsciously I cleared my throat. “I’m going back over there in a few minutes,” I said.
“Really? That’s interesting.”
“I’m going to the courthouse and try to find what I can on the seven arpents of land owned by Bernadette Latiolais.”
“Can you tell me what Clete was doing with you yesterday?”
“He saved my life.”
“What you mean is he had to save your life. That’s because you went over there without backup or informing me or coordinating with the Jeff Davis Sheriff’s Department.” Before I could reply, she raised her hand for me to be silent. “You killed one man and wounded another?”
“I did.”
“You shot one guy’s hand off with the twelve-gauge?”
“His fingers.”
“But you’re sure you wounded him, and you’re sure the guy you hit with your forty-five is dead?”
“I don’t know how else I can say it, Helen.”
“I don’t get Vidor Perkins’s relationship to these guys.”
“There was a red knot on his collarbone with two puncture marks in it. I think he was tortured with a stun gun. They made him walk to me and shot him by mistake.”
Her irritation with me had passed; she was looking at the broadening circumstances of the case. “And you saw a plane you think might have been the control center for these guys?”
“I saw the plane. Its purpose is a matter of speculation.”
“We can start checking the hospitals for gunshot admissions, but I doubt the wounded man sought conventional treatment if he’s working for the sophisticated operation you describe. You think these guys work for Timothy Abelard?”
“It’s a possibility. He was a big defense contractor. He’d have the connections.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I don’t want to believe it of Mr. Abelard,” I said.
“Am I developing a hearing defect?”
“I want to believe Mr. Abelard is an anachronism, a decayed vestige of the old oligarchy. All of them weren’t bad. Some of them probably did the best they could with what they had.”
“Hermann Göring loved his mother, too,” she said. “The guy you shot with your forty-five?”
“What about him?”
“You okay with it today?”
“He dealt the play. I identified myself and told him to throw his weapon away.”
“That’s the ticket,” she said. “But it wouldn’t hurt to take a couple of days off, would it?”
I didn’t even bother to answer. My eyes were lidless, staring into hers. She smiled to herself.
“Something funny?” I said.
“Why is it in
any conversation with you I always know what you’re going to say and not say? Why do I even have conversations with you, Pops?”
It was a light moment, reminiscent of the days when she and I were investigative partners and both prone to err on the side of immediate retaliation in dealing with the army of miscreants who like to make life unpleasant for the rest of us. But I knew Helen’s cheerful expression was only a temporary respite from the morgue photos that were still in my file cabinet.
I got up from my chair and walked to her window. Helen’s potted petunias were overflowing in the vase, and down below I could see the trusty gardeners from the stockade trimming the grass around the grotto that was dedicated to Jesus’s mother. I propped my hands on the windowsill.
“Did you want to drink last night?” she asked.
“I thought about it.”
“You think you ought to find a meeting today?”
“I have drunk dreams every third night. They’re not dreams of desire. They’re nightmares.”
“I don’t understand what you’re telling me.”
“Wanting to drink is not really wanting to drink. It’s like a desire to cup your hand over a candle flame and snuff it out.”
She stood next to me and touched my arm. I didn’t want to look at her. Two or three women lived inside Helen’s skin, and one of them was not only androgynous but had no erotic parameters. “Slow down, bwana. We’re going to avenge those girls. I give you my word.”
I kept my eyes straight ahead. I felt her fingers on top of my wrist, felt them run along the hairs on the back of my hand and rest on my knuckles. Then her fingers moved away from me, and in the silence I could hear her breathing.
“I think there are two sets of killers in this case, two sets of interests, and two sets of motivation,” I said.
She didn’t reply until I was forced to turn and look into her face. Her gaze was steady and curious, her head tilted slightly to one side, her mouth red, her cheeks somehow leaner than they were a few minutes earlier. “What do you base that on?” she asked.
I had to concentrate in order to answer. “I think our mistake is that we keep looking for a single motive that will fit only one or two individuals. That’s natural in a sex-related homicide. But we keep discovering information that doesn’t fit the profile. Now we’re dealing with guys who seem to be cleaners. Guys like this don’t get involved in sex crimes. What I’m saying is we need to turn the pyramid upside down.”
“Too abstract, Pops.”
“You said Hermann Göring loved his mother. That’s the point.”
“What point?”
“He probably did love his mother. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a sonofabitch. There’s nothing reasonable about human behavior. Did you see Citizen Kane?”
“About William Randolph Hearst?”
“On his deathbed, he whispers the word ‘Rosebud.’ No one can figure out what it means. Rosebud was the name of the sled he played with in the snow when he was a little boy. All his life this man who created a war in order to sell newspapers was driven by memories of his lonely childhood.”
“That’s what you think we’re dealing with?”
“Maybe. But whatever it is, we’re looking right at it. We just don’t see it.”
“I’m going with you to Jeff Davis.”
“What for?”
“I don’t like the way they treated you,” she replied. I started to speak. She raised one finger. “Not a word.”
TWO HOURS LATER, in the Jefferson Davis Parish courthouse, I didn’t find any documents that were revelatory in themselves. However, I did find a pattern. During the previous three years, within an area of approximately five hundred acres, blocks and strips of land had been sold at nominal prices to seven buyers. Most of the acreage was fallow or partially underwater. It possessed neither great agricultural or mineral value. The buyers were located in Louisiana, Dallas, Oklahoma City, and Jackson, Mississippi. In the middle of the five hundred acres were the seven arpents apparently inherited by Bernadette, all fitting like narrow pieces of a pie along the bank of the river where I had almost been killed. Under old Napoleonic law, inherited land had to be divided evenly among all the children of the deceased. When access to a navigable waterway was involved, the key issue was equal access: Hence the strange pie-slice divisions along a riverbank.
The land around Bernadette’s arpents had been sold eighteen months ago. Bernadette’s land was still in her name, although I suspected the title had reverted to the grandmother.
I made a list of the seven buyers and underlined the name of the group that had purchased other land that was part of the Latiolais estate: Castaways, Ltd., in New Orleans.
A floating casino operation? It was possible. When it comes to twenty-four-hour casinos that serve free booze to lure the compulsive and the uneducated into their maw, the altruistic oversight provided by people from Vegas and Atlantic City, the state of Louisiana is always ready to rock.
Or maybe somebody had a marina in mind. But people who build marinas don’t have young girls killed because they happen to inherit a small amount of land on a mud-choked river in a part of the country known for its poverty and illiteracy.
It had to be a casino.
When Helen and I got back to New Iberia, I dialed the number of Castaways, Ltd. The man who answered sounded young and earnest, with a voice like that of a scrubbed-face Bible-college student tapping on your door. When I told him who I was, he seemed anxious to please.
“I was looking at some properties in Jeff Davis Parish,” I said. “I see that your company purchased some acreage down by the river. Can you tell me if y’all are planning to build a marina there?”
“Could be. I remember that deal. We build boat docks and waterfront resorts and such. But you might be talking to the wrong guy.”
“How’s that?”
“We got all kinds of initiatives going here, particularly since Katrina and Rita. Let me switch you over to Edward. He’s more up to speed on that Jeff Davis deal.”
“Who is Edward?”
“I’m fixing to put him on right now. Just hang on. Thanks for calling Castaways.”
Thirty seconds later, someone else picked up on the line. “This is Edward Falgout for the St. Jude Project. How can I help you?” the voice said.
I leaned forward in my chair, the phone pressed a little tighter against my ear. “The St. Jude Project?” I said.
“Yes, sir, what can I do for you today?”
“I’m trying to clear up some title information regarding a tract in Jeff Davis Parish,” I said. “Specifically the Latiolais estate.”
“If this is about oil rights, we don’t own them. You’ll have to check the courthouse for that information.”
“My name is Dave Robicheaux. I’m with the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Department. We’re investigating a shooting that took place near the old Latiolais property.”
“Sorry, I was confused. I thought you were a landman with an oil company. We get a lot of inquiries about oil rights.”
“I’m writing up a report, and I was confused about some land boundaries. The Latiolais land belongs to the Castaways Corporation?”
“Yes, sir, to my knowledge. Right now it does.”
“I didn’t catch that last part.”
“It does and it doesn’t. The St. Jude Project is a charitable group. I think that piece of land you’re talking about is being transferred to us. We get land donations from various corporations. One of those corporations we work real close with is Castaways.”
“Yes, I think I’ve heard of you guys. You all do a lot of good,” I said.
“Castaways and the St. Jude try to create what we call ‘empowerment zones,’” he said. “I’m not qualified to speak on it, but the short version is that Castaways buys run-down properties and rejuvenates and donates them to the St. Jude, more or less to put local people back to work.”
“That sounds like a noble endeavor. I’m glad to learn this. My questio
n concerns seven arpents in the name of Bernadette Latiolais. Know anything about them?”
“No, sir, afraid not.”
“Just out of curiosity, does that empowerment zone include a casino?”
“Not likely.”
“Say again?”
“These are religious people. They don’t believe in legalized gambling. The St. Jude Project is real big on the work ethic, what they call ‘workfare, not welfare.’”
“Do you know what they might be building down there? That’s one of my favorite duck-hunting spots.”
“Maybe nothing. Or maybe something ten years from now.”
“What kind of something?”
“I got no idea.”
“I appreciate your time.”
“Yes, sir, happy to help,” he replied.
I set the phone back on its base. The man named Edward Falgout may not have given me the keys to the dark tower, but inadvertently he had dropped the dime on the St. Jude Project, which meant he had put Robert Weingart and Kermit Abelard and, by extension, Timothy Abelard right back in the middle of the investigation.
CHAPTER
18
AS IT TURNED out, we didn’t need the personnel at Castaways, Ltd., or the St. Jude Project to focus our attention once again on Robert Weingart. He did it for us.
That same afternoon Weingart went to a branch bank located in a residential neighborhood where most of the transactions involved the commonplace deposits and withdrawals of middle-income people. Weingart wanted to close out an account that had over two hundred thousand dollars in it. So far, no problem. Weingart wanted to have the money wired to a bank in British Columbia. The teller consulted with the branch manager, who was a black woman, and said a phone call or two would have to be made and wire and account numbers might have to be confirmed, but the transfer would be made that day.