James Lee Burke Robicheaux 11 Purple_Cane

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"You sure of all this, Dave?"
"No. But Johnny went crazy when I convinced him he'd been betrayed."
"So you set Connie up?" Before I could reply, she picked up a ballpoint
and drew lines on a piece of paper and said, "You'll never prove she was one
of the cops who killed your mother."
"That's true."
"Maybe we should just let things play out," she said. Her eyes drifted
back on mine.
I looked out the window. The sky was the color of brass and smoke, and
the wind was gusting in the streets.
"A storm is coming in. I have to get out on the lake," I said.
Helen remained seated in her chair.
"You didn't do Gable. You want to nail Connie Deshotel yourself," she
said.
"The other side always deals the play. You coming or not?"
"Let me be honest with you, bwana. I had a bad night last night. I
couldn't get Letty Labiche out of my mind. I guess it's because I was molested
myself. So lose the attitude."
Wally, the dispatcher, stopped us on the way out of the office. He had a
pink memo slip in his hand.
"You wasn't in your office. I was fixing to put this in your
pigeonhole," he said to me.
"What is it?"
"A cop in St. Martinville said Clete Purcel wants to talk to you. It's
suppose to be important," Wally said.
"I'll take care of it later," I said.
Wally shrugged and let the memo slip float from his fingers into my box.
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Helen and I towed a department outboard on the back of my truck to
Loreauville, a few miles up the Teche, then drove through the sugarcane fields
to the landing at Lake Fausse Pointe. The wind was blowing hard now, and I
could see waves capping out on the lake and red leaves rising in the air
against a golden sun.
Helen laced on a life preserver and sat down in the bow of the boat, and
I handed her a department-issue cut-down twelve-gauge pump loaded with
double-ought buckshot. She kept studying my face, as though she were taking
the measure of a man she didn't know.
"You've got to tell me, Dave," she said.
"What?" I smiled good-naturedly.
"Don't shine me on."
"If Remeta's there, we call in backup and take him down."
"That's it?"
"She's the attorney general of Louisiana. What do you think I'm going to
do, kill her in cold blood?"
"I know you, Dave. You figure, out ways to make things happen."
"Really?" I said.
"Let's get something straight. I don't like that snooty cunt. I said she
was dirty from the get-go. But don't jerk me around."
I started to say something, then let it go and started the engine. We
headed down the canal bordered by cypress and willow and gum trees, then
entered the vast lily-dotted expanse of the lake itself.
It was a strange evening. In the east and south the sky was like a black ink
wash, but the clouds overhead were suffused with a sulfurous yellow light. In
the distance I could see the grassy slope of the levee and the live oaks that
shadowed Connie Deshotel's stilt house and the waves from the lake sliding up
into the grass and the wildflowers at the foot of her property. An outboard
was tied to her dock, straining against its painter, knocking against one of
the pilings. Helen sat hunched forward, the barrel of her shotgun tilted away
from the spray of water off the bow.
I cut the engine and we drifted on our wake into the shallows, then I
speared the bottom with the boat paddle and the hull snugged onto the bank.
The lights were on inside the house and I could hear music playing on a
radio. A shadow crossed a screen window. Helen stepped out into the shallows
and waded out to the moored boat and placed her hand on the engine's housing.
"It's still warm," she said, walking toward me, the twelve-gauge in both
hands. She studied the house, the skin twitching slightly below her left eye.
"You want to call for backup?" I asked.
"It doesn't feel right," she said.
"You call it, Helen."
She thought about it. "Fuck it," she said, and pumped a round into the
chamber, then inserted a replacement round into the magazine with her thumb.
But she was wired. She had killed three perpetrators on the job, all
three of them in situations in which she had unexpectedly walked into hostile
fire.
We walked up the slope in the shadows of the live oaks. The air was cool
and tannic with the autumnal smell of flooded woods, the windows of the house
gold with the western light. I took out my .45 and we mounted the steps and
stood on each side of the door.
"Iberia Sheriff's Department, Ms. Deshotel. Please step out on the
gallery," I said.
There was no response. I could hear shower water running in the back. I
pulled open the screen, and Helen and I stepped inside, crossed the small
living room, and looked in the kitchen and on the back porch. Then Helen moved
into the hallway and the back bedroom. I saw her stop and lift the shotgun
barrel so that it was pointed toward the ceiling.
"You better come in here, Dave. Watch where you step," she said.
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Johnny Remeta lay on top of a white throw rug in his Jockey undershorts,
his chest, one cheek, and his arm peppered with five entry wounds. A cut-down
Remington twelve-gauge was propped in the corner. It was the same pump shotgun
he had been carrying when he first visited my dock. He had not gone down all
at once. The blood splatter was on the walls, the floor, and the bed sheets,
and he had torn one of the curtains on the doors that gave onto a roofed deck.
The doors were open and I could see a redwood table on the deck, and on
top of it a green bottle of wine, a platter of sandwiches, a package of
filter-tipped cigarettes, Connie's gold-and-leather-encased lighter, and a big
box of kitchen matches with a Glock automatic lying across it. The spent shell
casings from the Glock were aluminum reloads and glinted on the deck like fat
silver teeth.
I heard a faucet squeak in the bathroom, then the sound of the shower
water died inside the stall. Helen pushed open the bathroom door and I saw her
eyes go up and down the form of someone inside.
"Put a robe on and get out here, ma'am," she said.
"Don't worry. I heard you long before you started banging around inside.
Call in the report for me, please. My phone's out of order," Connie Deshotel's
voice said.
Helen picked up a pink robe off the toilet tank and flung it at Connie.
"Get your ass out here, ma'am," she said.
A moment later Connie emerged into the bedroom, flattening her hair back
wetly on her head with a hairbrush. She wore no makeup, but her face was calm,
dispassionate, ruddy from her warm shower. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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