In The Electric Mist With The Confederate Dead Part 41

"Well, I guess this covers it," I said.

Through the door I saw his hand with the cigarette stop in midair and his eyes lock on the utility knife.

He stepped toward us as we came out of the building.

"What do you think you're doing?" he said.

"You have a problem with something that happened here?" I said.

"You planted that," he said, pointing at the bag with the utility knife in it. "You sonofab.i.t.c.h, you planted it, you know you did."

"How could I plant something that belongs to you?" I said. "This is one of the tools you use on your airplane models, isn't it?"

Rosie was looking at me strangely.

"This woman's a witness," he said. "You're salting the shaft. That knife wasn't there."

"I say it was. I say your fingerprints are all over it, too. It's probably going to be hard to prove it's not yours, Murph."

"This pepper-belly b.i.t.c.h is in on it, isn't she?" he said.

I tapped him on the cheek with the flat of my hand. "You say anything else, your day is going to deteriorate in a serious way," I said.

Mistake.

He leaped into my face, his left hand like a claw in my eyes, his right fist flailing at my head, his knees jerking at my groin. I lost my balance, tried to turn away from him and raise my arm in front of my face; his fists rained down on the crown of my skull.

Rosie pulled her .357 from her purse, extended it straight out with both hands, and pointed the barrel into his ear.

"Down on the ground, you understand me?" she shouted. "Do it! Now! Don't look at me! Get your face on the ground! Did you hear me? Don't look at me! Put your hands behind your head!"

He went to his knees, then lay p.r.o.ne with the side of his face in the gra.s.s, his lined, deeply tanned neck oozing sweat, his eyes filled with the mindless light that an animal's might have if it were pinned under an automobile tire.

I slipped my handcuffs from the back of my belt and snipped them onto his wrists. I pulled his revolver and can of Mace from his gunbelt, then raised him to his feet. His arm felt like bone in my hand.

"You're under arrest for a.s.saulting an officer of the law, Murph," I said.

He turned toward me. The top b.u.t.ton of his s.h.i.+rt was torn and I could see white lumps of scar tissue on his chest like fingers on a broken hand.

"It won't stick. You've got a b.u.m warrant," he said.

"That knife is the one you used on Cherry LeBlanc, isn't it?" I said.

Rosie walked behind me into his office and used his phone to call for a sheriff's car. His eyes watched her, then came back onto me. He blew pieces of gra.s.s out of his mouth.

"She let you m.u.f.f her?" he said.

We brought him in through the back door of the sheriff's department, fingerprinted and booked him, let him make a phone call to an attorney in Lafayette, then took him down to our interrogation room. Personnel from all over the building were finding ways to get a look at Murphy Doucet.

"You people get back to work," the sheriff said in the hallway. "This man is in for a.s.saulting an officer. That's all he's charged with. Have y'all got that?"

"There's three news guys outside your office, sheriff," a deputy said.

"I'd like to know who called them down here, please," he said.

"Search me," the deputy said.

"Will you people get out of here?" he said again to the crowd in the hall. Then he pushed his fingers through his hair and turned to me and Rosie. "I've got to talk to these reporters before they break a Jack the Ripper story on us. Get what you can from this guy and I'll be right back. Who's his lawyer?"

"Jeb Bonin," I said.

"We'll still have Doucet till his arraignment in the morning. When are y'all going to search his place?"

"This afternoon," Rosie said. "We already sent a deputy over there to sit on it for us."

"Was the blue Merc out at Spanish Lake?" the sheriff said.

"No, he drives a pickup to work. The Merc must be at his house," I said.

"All right, get on it. Do it by the numbers, too. We don't want to blow this one."

The sheriff walked back toward his office. Rosie touched me lightly on the arm.

"Dave, talk with me a second before we go inside," she said.

"What is it?"

She didn't reply. She went inside our office and waited for me.

"That utility knife you took out of his drawer," she said. "He was completely surprised when you found it. That presents a troubling thought for me."

"It's his knife, Rosie. There's no question abut it."

"Why was he so confident up until that moment?"

"Maybe he just forgot he'd left it there."

"You got into that security building during the night, removed the knife, then replaced it this morning, didn't you?"

"Time's always on the perp's side, Rosie. While we wait on warrants, they deep-six the evidence."

"I don't like what I'm hearing you say, Dave."

"This is our guy. You want him to walk? Because without that knife, he's sure going to do it."

"I see it differently. You break the rules, you arm the other side."

"Wait till you meet his lawyer. He's the best in southwest Louisiana. He also peddles his a.s.s to the Teamsters, the mob, and incinerator outfits that burn PCBs. Before he's finished, he'll turn Doucet into a victim and have the jury s...o...b..ring on their sleeves."

Her eyes went back and forth thoughtfully, as though she were asking herself questions and answering them. Then she raised her chin.

"Don't ever do anything like this again, Dave. Not while we're partners," she said, and walked past me and into the interrogation room, where Murphy Doucet sat in a straight-backed chair at a small table, surrounded by white walls, wreathed in cigarette smoke, scratching at whiskers that grew along the edges of the white chicken's foot embossed on his throat.

I stepped inside the room with Rosie and closed the door.

"Where's my lawyer at?" he asked.

I took the cigarette from his fingers and mashed it out on the floor.

"You want to make a statement about Cherry LeBlanc?" I said.

"Yeah. I've given it some thought. I remember busting a wh.o.r.e by that name three years ago. So now y'all can tell me why I'd wait three years to kill somebody who'd been in my custody."

"We think you're a pimp for Julie Balboni, Mr. Doucet," Rosie said. "We also think you're supplying girls for his p.o.r.nography operation."

His eyes went up and down her body.

"Affirmative action?" he said.

"There's something else you don't know about, Murph," I said. "We're checking all the unsolved murders of females in areas around highways during the time you were working for the state police. I have a feeling those old logs are going to put you in the vicinity of some bodies you never thought would be connected to you."

"I don't believe this," he said.

"I think we've got you dead-bang," I said.

"You've got a planted knife. This girl here knows it, too. Look at her face."

"We've not only got the weapon and the photo of you with the victim, we know what happened and why."

"What?"

"Cherry LeBlanc told Julie he was a tub of guts and walked out on him. But people don't just walk out on Julie. So he got on the phone and called you up from the motel, didn't he, Murph? You remember that conversation? Would you like me to quote it to you?"

His eyebrows contracted, then his hand went into his pocket for a cigarette.

"No. You can't smoke in here," I said.

"I got to use the can."

"It's unavailable now," I said.

"She's here for another reason. It ain't because of a dead hooker," he said.

"We're all here because of you, Murph. You're going down hard, partner. We haven't even started to talk about Kelly Drummond yet."

He bit a piece of skin off the ball of his thumb.

"What's the bounce on the pimp beef?" he said.

"You think you're going to cop to a procuring charge when you're looking at the chair? What world are you living in?" I said.

"Ask her. She's here to make a case on Balboni, not a security guard, so clean the s.h.i.+t out of your mouth. What kind of bounce am I looking at?"

"Mr. Doucet, you're looking at several thousand volts of electricity cooking your insides. Does that clarify your situation for you?" Rosie said.

He looked into her face.

"Go tell your boss I can put that guinea away for twenty-seven years," he said. "Then come back and tell me y'all aren't interested in a deal."

The sheriff opened the door.

"His lawyer's here," he said.

"We're going to your house now, Murph," I said. "Is there anything else you want to tell us before we leave?"

The attorney stepped inside the room. He wore his hair shaved to the scalp, and his tie and s.h.i.+rt collar rode up high on his short neck so that he reminded you of a light-brown hard-boiled egg stuffed inside a business suit.

"Don't say anything more to these people, Mr. Doucet," he said.

I leaned on the table and stared into Murphy Doucet's face. I stared at his white eyebrows, the jittering of his eyeb.a.l.l.s, the myriad lines in his skin, the slit of a mouth, the white scar on his throat that could have been layered there with a putty knife.

"What? What the f.u.c.k you staring at?" he said.

"Do you remember me?" I said.

"Yeah. Of course. When you were a cop in New Orleans."

"Look at me. Think hard."

His eyes flicked away from my face, fastened on his attorney.

"I don't know what he's talking about," he said.

"Do you have a point, detective?" the attorney said.

"Your hired oil can doesn't have anything to do with this, Murph," I said. "It's between me and you now. It's 1957, right after Hurricane Audrey hit. You could smell dead animals all over the marsh. You remember? Y'all made DeWitt Prejean run with a chain locked around his chest, then you blew his leg out from under him. Remember the kid who saw it from across the bay? Look at my face."

He bit down on his lip, then fitted his chin on top of his knuckles and stared disjointedly at the wall.

"The old jailer gave you guys away when he told me that DeWitt Prejean used to drive a soda pop truck. Prejean worked for Twinky Lemoyne and had an affair with his wife, didn't he? It seems like there's always one guy still hanging around who remembers more than he should," I said. "You still think you're in a seller's market, Murph? How long do you think it's going to be before a guy like Twinky cracks and decides to wash his sins in public?"

"Don't say anything, Mr. Doucet," the attorney said.

"He doesn't have to, Mr. Bonin," I said. "This guy has been killing people for thirty-five years. If I were you, I'd have some serious reservations about an ongoing relations.h.i.+p with your client. Come on, Rosie."

THE WIND SWIRLED DUST AND GRIT BETWEEN THE CARS IN THEparking lot, and I could smell rain in the south.

"That was Academy Award stuff, Dave," Rosie said as wegot in my truck.