In The Electric Mist With The Confederate Dead Part 35

He held out his hands, palms front.

"Nope, none of that," he said. "I learned in Korea a good officer takes care of his men. I didn't get this ulcer over Rufus Arceneaux's stupidity. I got it because I was listening to some local guys I should have told to b.u.t.t out of sheriff's department business."

"n.o.body's supposed to bat a thousand, sheriff."

"I want you back at work today. I'll talk to Rufus about his new status. That old black woman is part my responsibility. I don't know why I made that guy plainclothes. You don't send a warthog to a beauty contest."

I shook hands with him, walked across the street to a barbecue stand in a grove of live oaks, ate a plate filled with dirty rice, pork ribs, and red beans, then strolled back to the office, sipping an ice-cold can of Dr Pepper. Rufus Arceneaux was gone. I clipped my badge on my belt, sat in the swivel chair behind my desk, turned the air-conditioner vents into my face, and opened my mail.

ROSIE WAS BEAMING WHEN SHE CAME THROUGH THE OFFICEdoor an hour later.

"What's that I see?" she said. "With a haircut and a shoe s.h.i.+ne, too."

"How's my favorite Fed?"

"Dave, you look wonderful!"

"Thanks, Rosie."

"I can't tell you how fine it is to have you back."

Her face was genuinely happy, to such an extent that I felt vaguely ill at ease.

"I owe you and Lou Girard a lot on this one," I said.

"Have you had lunch yet?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Too bad. Tomorrow I'm taking you out, though. Okay?"

"Yeah, that'd be swell."

She sat down behind her desk. Her neck was flushed and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose against her blouse when she breathed. "I got a call this morning from an old Frenchman who runs a general store on Highway 35 down in Vermilion Parish. You know what he said? 'Hey, y'all catch the man put dat young girl in dat barrel?' "

I filled a water gla.s.s for her and put it on her desk.

"He knows something?" I said.

"Better than that. I think he saw the guy who did it. He said he remembers a month or so ago a blond girl coming in his store at night in the rain. He said he became worried about her because of the way a man in the store was watching her." She opened her notebook pad and looked at it. "These are the old fellow's words: 'You didn't need but look at that man's face to know he had a dirty mind.' He said the girl had a canvas backpack and she went back out in the rain to the highway with it. The man followed her, then he cameback in a few minutes and asked the old fellow if he had any red balloons for sale."

"Balloons?"

"If you think that sounds weird, how about this? When the old fellow said no, the man found an old box of Valentine candy on the back shelf and said he wanted that instead."

"I'm not making connections here," I said.

"The store owner watched the man with the candy box through the window. He said just before he pulled out of the parking lot he threw the candy box in the ditch. In the morning the old fellow went out and found it in the weeds. The cellophane wrapping was gone." She watched my face. "What are you thinking?"

"Did he see the man pick up the girl?"

"He's not sure. He remembers the man was in a dark blue car and he remembers the brake lights going on in the rain." She continued to watch my face. "Here's the rest of it. I looked around on the back shelves of the store and found another candy box that the owner says is like the one the man in the blue car bought. Guess what tint the cellophane was."

"Red or purple."

"You got it, slick," she said, and leaned back in her chair.

"He wrapped it around a spotlight, didn't he?"

"That'd be my bet."

"Could the store owner describe this guy?"

"That's the problem." She tapped a ballpoint pen on her desk blotter. "All the old fellow remembers is that the man had a rain hood."

"Too bad. Why didn't he contact us sooner?"

"He said he told all this to somebody, he doesn't know who, in the Vermilion Parish Sheriff's Department. He said when he called again yesterday, they gave him my number. Is your interagency cooperation always this good?"

"Always. Does he still have the candy box?"

"He said he gave the candy to his dog, then threw the box in the trash."

"So maybe we've got a guy impersonating a cop?" I said.

"It might explain a lot of things."

Unconsciously I fingered the lump behind my ear.

"What's the matter?" she said.

"Nothing. Maybe our man is simply a serial killer and psychopath after all. Maybe he doesn't have anything to do with Julie Balboni."

"Would that make you feel good or bad?"

"I honestly can't say, Rosie."

"Yeah, you can," she said. "You're always hoping that even the worst of them has something of good in him. Don't do that with Balboni. Deep down inside all that whale fat is a real piece of s.h.i.+t, Dave."

Outside, a jail trusty cutting the gra.s.s broke the bra.s.s head off a sprinkler with the lawnmower. A violent jet of water showered the wall and ran down the windows. In the clatter of noise, in the time it takes the mind's eye to be distracted by shards of wet light, I thought of horses fording a stream, of sun-browned men in uniform looking back over their shoulders at the safety of a crimson and gold hardwood forest, while ahead of them dirty puffs of rifle fire exploded from a distant treeline that swarmed with the shapes of the enemy.

It's the innocent we need to worry about, he had said. And when it comes to their protection, we shouldn't hesitate to do it under a black flag.

"Are you all right?" she said.

"Yeah, it's a fine day. Let's go across the street and I'll buy you a Dr Pepper."

THAT EVENING, AT SUNSET, I WAS SPRINKLING THE GRa.s.s AND the flower beds in the backyard while Elrod and Alafair were playing with Tripod on top of the picnic table. The air was cool in the fading light and smelled of hydrangeas and water from the hose and the fertilizer I had just spaded into the roots of my rosebushes.

The phone rang inside, and a moment later Bootsie brought it and the extension cord to the back screen. I sat down on the step and put the receiver to my ear.

"h.e.l.lo," I said.

I could hear someone breathing on the other end.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"I want to talk to you tonight."

"Sam?"

"That's right. I'm playing up at the black juke in St. Martinville. You know where that's at?"

"The last time I had an appointment with you, things didn't work out too well."

"That was last time. I was drinkin' then. Then them womens was hangin' around, made me forget what I was supposed to do."

"I think you let me down, partner."

He was quiet except for the sound of his breathing.

"Is something wrong?" I said.

"I got to tell you somet'ing, somet'ing I ain't tole no white man."

"Say it."

"You come up to the juke."

"I'll meet you at my office tomorrow morning."

"What I got to say can put me back on the farm. I sure ain't gonna do it down there."

Elrod picked Tripod up horizontally in his arms, then bounced him up and down by tugging on his tail.

"I'll be there in an hour or so," I said. "Don't jerk me around again, Sam."

"You might be a policeman, you might even be different from most white folks, but you still white and you ain't got no idea 'bout the world y'all give people of color to live in. That's a fact, suh. It surely is," he said, and hung up.

I should have known that Hogman would not be outdone in eloquence.

"Don't pull his tail," Alafair was saying.

"He likes it. It gets his blood moving," Elrod said.

She sighed as though Elrod were unteachable, then took Tripod out of his arms and carried him around the side of the house to the hutch.

"Can you take yourself to the meeting tonight?" I asked Elrod.

"You cain't go?"

"No."

"How about I just wait till we can go together?" He rubbed the top of the table with his fingers and didn't look up.

"What if I drop you off and then come back before the meeting's over?"

"Look, this is a, what do you call it, a step meeting?"

"That's right."

"You said it's about amends, about atoning to people for what you did wrong?"

"Something like that."

"How do I atone for Kelly? How do I make up for that one, Dave?" He stared out at the late red sun over the cane-field so I couldn't see his eyes.

"You get those thoughts out of your head. Kelly's dead because we have a psychopath in our midst. Her death doesn't have anything to do with you."

"You can say that all you want, but I know better."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah."

I could see the clean, tight line of his jaw and a wet gleaming in the corner of his eye.

"Tell me, did you respect Kelly?" I asked.

He swiveled around on the picnic bench. "What kind of question is that?"

"I'm going to be a little hard on you, El. I think you're using her death to feel sorry for yourself."

"What?" His face was incredulous.

"When I lost my wife I found out that self-pity and guiltcould be a real rush, particularly when I didn't have Brother Jim Beam to do the job."

"That's a lousy f.u.c.king thing to say."

"I was talking about myself. Maybe you're different from me."

"What the h.e.l.l's the matter with you? You don't think it's natural to feel loss, to feel grief, when somebody dies? I tried to close the hole in her throat with my hands, her blood was running through my fingers. She was still alive and looking straight into my eyes. Like she was drowning and neither one of us could do anything about it." He pressed his forehead against his fist; his flexed thigh trembled against his slacks.

"I got four of my men killed on a trail in Vietnam. Then I got drunk over it. I used them, I didn't respect them for the brave men they were. That's the way alcoholism works, El."

"I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me be for a while."

"Will you go to the meeting?"