“I’m trying to be subtle here. I didn’t want this investigation, or at least not one that would cause a colleague problems. Tell Dave I think he was probably out at the Dartez place to talk about the accident, and he had occasion to put his hands on the driver’s window of the pickup.”
“How long have you been doing homicide investigations?”
“It’s not my area. I worked vice and narcotics at Miami-Dade. I was undercover in Liberty City.”
“Liberty City is all black.”
“I figured that out when they started throwing spears at me from the fire escapes.” There was a beat. “Oops. My bad.”
“Come back later, okay?” she said.
“If you work the inner city, you have to develop a sense of humor. Ask Purcel. I heard he had a way of dipping into the culture. What a character.” He lit a cigarette with a gold lighter, the smoke rising out of his cupped hand.
“Could you not do that, please?”
“You don’t let people smoke on your property?” he said.
She tried to crinkle her eyes but couldn’t. There was a bilious taste in her mouth that made her want to spit. He flipped his cigarette sparking into a camellia bush and rotated his head as though he had a stiff neck.
“It’s good you’re raking up all the leaves,” he said. “When they get into the bayou, the biodegradation uses up the oxygen and kills the fish.”
“Yep, that’s what it does,” she said. She propped the rake on the ground, her left hand on the shaft. She saw him use the opportunity to glance at her ring finger.
“There’s a lot of this area I still haven’t seen,” he said. “One day I’d like somebody to show me around. I could do the same for them in New Orleans, show them all the things nobody knows about, including where all the skeletons are hid. In the old days, the Mob dumped jackrollers in Lake Pontchartrain because they were bad for tourism. Cops would throw them out of a car at high speed by the Huey Long Bridge. They got things done back then. That was before your time.”
“I don’t think you’re looking for exculpatory evidence about Dave,” she said. “I don’t think you’re a friend. I think you have a lean and hungry look.”
“If there’s something I haven’t done to help your stepfather, tell me what it is, little lady, and I’ll get on it.”
“He’s not my stepfather, he’s my father. Call me ‘little lady’ again and see what happens.”
He sucked in his breath, smiling wetly, as though acknowledging his indiscretion. “I don’t choose my words very well. That’s probably why I’ve remained a single man.”
“I’d better finish my work. I’ll give Dave your message.”
He snapped his fingers. “Sorry, I forgot to ask you something.”
She waited.
“Call it deep background,” he said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the case itself. How many times did Dave have to bust a cap on a guy or break his spokes, particularly in a close-quarter situation? Like when he was arresting a guy or the guy got in his face and he lost it? I never met an old-school cop yet who took shit off mutts and pervs. Can you give me a ballpark number?”
IN THE LIFE, Clete was known as con-wise, even though he had never been a convict. The term in the criminal subculture is laudatory and indicates a level of knowledge and experience that cannot be acquired in a library. You also have to pay dues. A “solid” or stand-up con stacks his own time, does it straight up without early release, work furloughs, conjugal privileges, or snitching off fellow inmates for favorable treatment. It’s not easy. Ask anyone who’s stood on the oil barrel in Huntsville or chopped cotton inside the system in Arkansas or been thrown into a lockdown unit full of wolves.
Clete went his own way, didn’t impose it on others, and asked the same respect. He would not only lay down his life for a friend; he would paint the walls with his friend’s enemies. He grew up in the old Irish Channel and palled around with guys like Tony Cardo, who was probably the most intelligent and dangerous and successful old-school gangster New Orleans ever produced. When they were kids, Clete and Tony found a box of human arms outside the incinerator by the Tulane medical school, and hung them from the straps of the St. Claude streetcar just as all the employees from the cigar factory were boarding; one passenger leaped from the window and crashed on top of a sno’ball cart. Except for Tony, Clete’s old-time buds went to the can or the chair, and Clete went to Vietnam and came back with the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, and two Hearts, and cruised right back into the Big Sleazy without giving any of it a second thought.
I drove to his cottage at the motor court Thursday afternoon. He was standing amid the trees grilling a two-inch-thick steak, flipping it with a fork. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and a porkpie hat tilted on his brow and a pair of dark blue rayon workout pants that covered his shoelaces. “Big mon. I was just fixing to ask you and Alafair over.”
“How you doin’?” I said.
“Not bad.”
When Clete was equivocal, you tended to glance at the sky for thunderclouds, dust rising out of the fields, a splinter of lightning on the horizon.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“Have a seat.”
I sat down at a picnic table made of green planks and covered with bird droppings and needles from a slash pine.
“I’m worried about Kevin Penny,” he said. “I think he’s got you on the brain.”
“He’s not coming after me, Clete. If he does, we’ll punch his ticket. He knows that.”
“You don’t get it. He’s an obvious habitual, but he’s not on parole, he has no outstanding warrants, and he doesn’t have to register as a sex offender, even though he was up on sexual assault charges a couple of times. I don’t know how he got out of Raiford, either. They should have welded the door on him and poured concrete on top of it.”
“What was he in for?”
“Distribution of cocaine and assault with a deadly weapon. But they couldn’t get him for the bigger charge: He and two other guys tortured a dealer in Little Havana for his stash. They hung him from a hoist on a wrecker and put a propane torch on him.”
“You’re saying Penny is protected?”
“He has to be. Pukes in the projects do life for three street busts involving amounts of money you could steal from bubble-gum machines.”
“Who’s his protector?”
“I know you don’t like this, but I think Jimmy Nightingale is a player in this.”
“A player in what?”
“Setting you up.”
“Maybe I wasn’t set up. Maybe I killed T. J. Dartez.”
“This is what Penny just told me—”
“Wait a minute. You just saw Penny?”
“This morning. I saw the social worker who’ll be looking after his kid, too. I told Penny I’d be visiting him, kind of like an old friend. Penny says Nightingale is a geek. He says he’s AC/DC and humps his sister or half sister or whatever she is.”
“This guy has no credibility, Clete.”
“Penny says Nightingale is eaten up with guilt. Maybe he killed somebody.”
I didn’t reply.
“You don’t buy it?”
“I don’t know. Rowena Broussard says he raped her. He claims he never touched her. When I interviewed him, he almost had me convinced.”
“Go on.”
“I felt like he wanted to confess. But not to rape. Something else. Maybe Penny is right.”
He forked the steak off the flames and laid it on a plate. “Is that what you came by to tell me?”
“No, I got the loan on my house. You’re a quarter of a mil richer than you were this morning.”
“You actually did that?”
“Why not?”
His eyes were shiny. He wiped them on his forearm. “I’ve got to get out of this smoke.”
“Pay off those bums and get them out of your life.”
“You’re truly a noble mon, noble mon. I’ll brown us some bread.”
* * *
THAT EVENING, PUSHING a basket at Winn-Dixie, I saw a young woman with a small red mouth and amber-colored hair and a flush on her cheeks.
“There you are again,” she said. “ ’Member me?”
I had to think. “You’re Babette. From the bar-and-grill.”
“You ordered two doubles and a Heineken. You was waiting for your friend, but you drank it all.”
“I wish I hadn’t.”
“Your friend come in afterward. You’re a friend of Mr. Spade, ain’t you?”
We were in the middle of the aisle, but no one else was around. “Spade Labiche came in the bar after I left?”
“Yes, suh. He left his gold lighter. I run out after him. He was talking to another man, but he drove off befo’ I could catch him.”
“What’d you do with the lighter?”
“I put it in the drawer for a couple of days. When he didn’t come in, I dropped it t’rew the mail slot in the big building wit’ a note.”
“Did Mr. Spade tell you he was looking for me?”
“He was in the corner. He come over and axed if you’d gone in the bat’room. I tole him you was gone.”
“Do you know who Mr. Spade was with?”
Her eyes lingered on mine, as though she were standing on the edge of a cliff. “I seen him once befo’. I don’t know his name or nothing about him.”
“What’s he look like?”
“He’s got bad skin. It’s thick, like leather. Like his eyes are looking out of holes. I ain’t caused no trouble, no?”
“Of course not. You’re a nice person, Miss Babette. Did Mr. Spade thank you for returning his lighter?”
“No, suh, he ain’t said nothing.”
I took a business card out of my wallet and wrote my unlisted number on the back. “If you see that other guy again, give me a ring. Of if you have any problems with anything at all, give me a ring.”
I could see the uncertainty, the fear about her job, her paycheck, her relationship with her boss, the prospect of offending people with power and authority over others, the dark figure sitting in the shadows at the end of the bar when it’s closing time. I wondered how many people would understand her frame of reference.
She squeezed the card in her fist. “I better go.”
“Remember what I said. You’re a nice lady.”
“T’ank you,” she replied.
She pushed her basket to the cashier’s counter and didn’t look back.
* * *
ON FRIDAY MORNING, I went into Labiche’s office. It was hardly more than a cubicle, located in a corner without windows. “What’s the haps?” I said.
He looked up from his paperwork. He tried to grin. “What’s shaking, Robo?”
“Alafair told me about your visit to my house. You found my prints on some broken glass?”
“Like I told her, there’s probably an explanation. Maybe you didn’t have your latex on at the crime scene.”
“No, my gloves were on. Why didn’t you come to my office instead of my house?”
“Because you weren’t here.”
His lighter was on the desk blotter. He picked it up and began clicking the top up and down.
“Nice lighter,” I said. “Real gold?”
“A gift. What do you want, Slick?”
“Slick?”
“Get off your high horse.”
“I want you not snooping around my house. I want you not looking at my daughter in an inappropriate way.”
“I’ve tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. But that’s a waste of time. For arrogance, you take the cake.”
“I think you’re a Judas and a liar.”
“Do you know you smelled like puke at the crime scene? You’re a rummy, my friend. I don’t know why Helen keeps you around.”
I walked closer to his desk. I rested my fingertips on the edge, felt the grain of the wood. “Stay away from my daughter.”
He laughed under his breath.
“You’re amused?” I said.
“Yeah, by you. I’ll make sure I call you Dave from now on. See you later, Dave.”
I went back to my office, leaving the ceiling lights off, and sat behind my desk and stared through the window, my breath coming hard in my throat, a sound like the ocean whirring in my ears. Then I went downstairs and printed out the rap sheet and mug shots of Kevin Penny on file at the National Crime Information Center.
* * *
AFTER THE LUNCH crowd had left the bar-and-grill on the bayou, I parked an unmarked car under a shade tree on the street paralleling the bayou and entered the building through the kitchen. I saw Babette unloading dishes from a washer, her face bright with perspiration in the steam.
“Can I speak with you, Miss Babette?”
She wiped her nose with her wrist. “I’m working, Mr. Dave.”
“It’ll just take a minute.”
She looked around, then followed me out on the deck. The tables were empty, the sky blue, the wind gusting along the bayou; a black kid was flying a yellow kite above the oaks in front of the old convent. I had the photos of Penny in a manila folder. I opened and flattened it on the deck rail. “You know this guy?”
She stared at Penny’s face. Her eyes narrowed. “I ain’t sure.”
“It’s important, Babette.”
“A lot of people come in here. At night they all look the same.”
“I’m not asking you to appear at a lineup or testify at a trial. This guy has nothing to do with your life. I just want to know if you’ve seen him.”
“I need this job, Mr. Dave. I got a little girl. I ain’t got no husband.”
“This won’t have any effect on your job. I give you my word.”
“Maybe he was the guy talking wit’ Mr. Spade the night you was in.”
“Maybe?”
“Yes, suh,” she said, nodding.
“Take another look, Babette.”
“I don’t need to.”
“That’s the guy?”
“People look different in the daytime than they do at night. Has this guy done some bad t’ings?”
“A few.”
“I don’t want to lie to you, Mr. Dave. I just don’t want to say no more. I don’t never talk about people.”
I closed the folder and put it under my arm. “You don’t need to say any more, Babette.”
“What if he comes back?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.” I patted her on the arm.
“I’m all mixed up,” she said. “You’re giving me your word, ain’t you? Ain’t nothing gonna happen?”
“You’re not involved.”
“What do you call this?” she said.
* * *
AT FOUR-FIFTEEN THE same day, Jimmy Nightingale was in my office. The top of my desk was littered with photographs from a hit-and-run fatality on the four-lane south of town. There were bags under Jimmy’s eyes, a funky smell in his clothes. “You got to help me out, Dave.”
I was about to have another lesson on the number of manifestations that can live in the people we think we know best. “Have a seat.”
“Can you talk to my cousin Emmeline?”
“I heard she was your half sister.”
“I’m not sure what she is. My father’s penis roved over five continents. Tell her I didn’t do it. You’ve known me all my life. I don’t rape women, for God’s sake.”
“People do things when they’re drunk that they would never do sober.”
“I wasn’t that drunk.”
“You were drinking and took a married woman on your boat, in this case one who obviously had the hots for you. You think things wouldn’t get out of hand in a scenario like that?”
“I know what I did and what I didn’t do. She was plastered. She fell down outside the lounge. I had to pick her up and put her in the car. I didn’t want to take her back to her car; nor did I want to dump her drunk at her house. So we drove do
wn to Cypremort Point, and I showed her my boat and tried to get some coffee down her.”
I thought about the bruise inside Rowena’s thigh and the scratches on her hip and wondered if Jimmy was providing a fabricated explanation for them.
“I think you ought to get a lawyer,” I said.
“I have a half dozen of them. I don’t want this going into a courtroom. I want to work it out.”
“By denying you didn’t do anything wrong?”
“Right now I just want you to talk to Emmeline.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a straight shooter.”
“Wish I could help you.”
“She and I are close.”
“I’m not sure I want to hear what you’re telling me.”
“You’re going to hear it whether you like it or not.”
I shook my head. “Nope, this has nothing to do with the issue. Talk to a minister or a therapist, Jimmy. This is the wrong place for it.”
“She was in an orphanage in Mexico City. You can imagine what kind of place it was. I’m the center of her life.”
I got up from the desk and looked out the window, my back turned to him. “I don’t know how this one is going to play out, Jimmy.”
“Yeah, you do. I’m innocent, and you goddamn well know it.”
“But innocent of what? You say you didn’t touch Rowena. Maybe you guys got it on and she got caught and you lied. The defendant claiming consensual sex is a cliché. The change of pace is the best pitch in baseball.” I turned around. “You were a master at it, Jimmy.”
“Talk to Emmeline.”
“Adios. Next time come back with your attorney.”
He stood up. His lips were gray. A strand of his hair hung over one eye. “You ever do something really bad, something you can’t get rid of? It messes up your thinking.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Hell if I know. Sometimes I think life is a pile of shit. Sometimes I feel like putting my grits on the ceiling.”
“Bad way to think.”
“I try to be the best guy I can. Most people don’t believe that. Do you sleep through the night?”
“I killed people I had nothing against, Jimmy. That one doesn’t go away.”
“Join the fucking club,” he said.