James Burke - Robicheaux

Spade Labiche came from a big family in New Orleans that made a living out of law enforcement and jails. They were either cops, chasers in the Marine Corps, hacks in Angola or Huntsville or Parchman, or bail bondsmen. Without criminals, they would not have had a livelihood. Spade Labiche had worked vice at Miami-Dade and claimed he had resigned because he was homesick for Louisiana.

He had started off in uniform with our department and only recently made plainclothes. Twice, women of color had filed sexual complaints against him, but the complaints were dropped without explanation. Labiche was standing just outside the tape, wearing an ink-blue tie sprayed with tiny white stars and a suit that was as bright as tin. A pair of latex gloves hung out of his side pocket. He lit a cigarette with a match, cupping the flame in the wind; normally, he carried a gold lighter, because there was little he did that wasn’t ostentatious. He was blond and trim and worked out every night at Baron’s Health Club; his eyes were almost colorless, like glass with a tinge of blue.

“The body is on the other side,” he said. “You might check the window on the driver’s side first.”

“Where’s the coroner?” Helen said.

“Taking a whiz in the convenience store,” he said.

“Did he examine the body?”

“Yeah,” Labiche said.

“What did he say?” Helen asked.

“Nothing. He went blank on me. The way guys like that do.”

“Which kind of guys?” I asked.

He fixed his gaze on my face, a curl at the edge of his mouth. “Unusual ones.”

Helen and I put on latex gloves. I kept my hands down, out of sight, and tried not to flinch when I pulled the latex over my knuckles. The glass had been knocked out of the window. There was a ragged line of shards sticking out of the jamb, like shark’s teeth.

“There’s glass all over the dashboard and seat and on the weeds,” Labiche said. “There’s some pieces in the vic’s hair, too.”

“Did you run the tag?” Helen said.

“The truck is registered to T. J. Dartez,” he said.

I kept my face empty, my arms folded on my chest. The front bumper was made from welded pipes. One taillight was broken. “Where are the paramedics?” I said.

“Fuck if I know.”

“How about it on the language?” I said.

I squatted down by the body. Dartez lay on his back, his shirtfront cut and bloodied perpendicularly. His teeth were knocked out; one eye had eight-balled. My head was spinning as though I were in free fall.

Labiche had thrown his cigarette onto the road and stepped over the tape and was standing behind me. The weeds around the body were stippled with blood. The ground smelled sour from either night damp or the blood that had seeped into the soil. The sun was hot on my neck.

“He’s the guy who was in the accident with your wife?” Labiche said.

“That’s him.”

“Tough break.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means I think the accident report sucked.”

I stood up, my knees hurting. “I didn’t hear you say anything about it at the time.”

“I’m still a new guy. I don’t express every opinion I might have.” He turned his head toward the convenience store. “Here comes queer-bait and the paramedics.”

“What did you call him?”

“Nothing. It was a joke.”

The coroner’s name was Cormac Watts. He was a crew-cut likable young guy from Virginia who wore seersucker pants high on his hips, long-sleeve white shirts, and a bow tie without a coat. He looked put together from sticks, with snowshoes for feet. Clete said Cormac made him think of a well-dressed scarecrow stepping over the rows in a tobacco field.

Helen had been on her cell phone. She folded it and stuck it into her pocket. Her breasts swelled against her shirt when she took a breath. “That was admissions at Iberia General. Dartez’s wife had to be sedated. The kids are with a social worker.”

“Who told her?” I asked.

“Who knows? Maybe we have a witness. Get on it, will you, Spade?”

“You want me to go to Iberia General?”

“No, go to the convenience store first. See if there are any witnesses. Then go to Iberia General.”

“I’m assigned the case, though?”

“That’s not what’s on my mind at the moment.”

“Yes, ma’am. Look, I know y’all were a team. I’m not trying to bust up anything.”

Helen’s fists were propped on her hips, her face pointed at the ground. “You did a good job. Call me from the hospital.” She waited until Labiche was out of earshot. “I don’t know if I want you on this one.”

“You don’t think I can be objective?”

She looked toward the convenience store and at Labiche walking to his car; she chewed her lip. “Did you do your drinking at home last night or in a bar? Please tell me a bar.”

“I didn’t say I was drinking.”

“Get cute with me and I’ll have you on the desk. Get cute with me twice and I’ll have you on suspension.”

“I don’t know where I went last night. Or what I did.”

“Show me your hands.”

“They’re scraped.”

Her lips were crimped, her chest rising and falling.

“I’ve beaten them against brick walls when I was drunk,” I said. “It doesn’t matter what the issue is. I always hurt myself.”

“And a few others. Shit!”

Cormac Watts walked toward us, the ambulance following him, the weeds whispering under the bumper. Helen turned her back to me. “What do you have, my favorite pathologist?” she said to him.

“The door was locked,” Cormac said. “Somebody dragged him through the broken window, then went to work on him. I’d say he died of a broken neck and respiratory failure or maybe massive cranial damage. I don’t see any marks characteristic of a weapon, such as a hammer or tire iron.”

“You didn’t bother to share that with Labiche?”

“I thought I’d save it for y’all.”

“How long has the victim been dead?” she asked.

“Nine or ten hours.” He paused and exhaled loudly.

“What?” she said.

“The guy who did this must have been on meth. My guess is he did it with his bare hands. This is somebody who could eat his own pain while he flat tore somebody else apart. Know anybody like that around here?”

I didn’t go to a noon meeting. I went to the bank and applied for a loan against my house. My house was a humble one, built of cypress in the late nineteenth century, but the one-acre lot was located on one of the most scenic streets in the American South. I suspected the total value was around six hundred thousand dollars.

“How much you need, Dave?” the banker asked.

“Around a quarter of a million.”

“It shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll send the appraiser out. You’re not headed to Vegas, are you?”

“In a roundabout way.”

He looked a bit quizzical, then said, “Have a good one.”

I ate a ham-and-onion sandwich at home and brushed my teeth, then headed back to my office, not looking forward to the rest of the day. Helen followed me inside. “You’re off the case.”

“What?” I said.

“I’m giving the investigation to Labiche.”

I sat down behind my desk. “What’s going on?”

“Labiche interviewed Ms. Dartez. She says you called her husband last night and arranged to meet him at the convenience store and bait shop by Bayou Benoit.”

I stared at her, my scalp shrinking, a pain like a sliver of glass sliding through my bowels.

“You don’t remember?” she said.

“No.”

“Give me your cell phone.”

I handed it to her. She opened it and began clicking through my calls with her thumb. She stared into my face and folded the phone. My heart was in my throat.