James Burke - The New Iberia Blues

“Actually, I don’t work with Desmond,” he said. “I help produce his films. Nobody ‘works’ with Desmond. He’s his own man. In the best way, of course.”

“How about this fellow Butterworth?” I said.

“You’ve met Antoine, have you?”

“Twice.”

Wexler’s eyes were sparkling. “And?”

“An unusual fellow,” I said.

“Don’t take him seriously,” Wexler said. “Nobody does. He’s a bean counter posing as an artist.”

“I heard he was in a couple of wars,” I said.

“He was best at scaring the natives in the bush, rattling around in a Land Rover, and showing up for photo ops. South Africa was full of them.”

“That’s your home?” I asked.

“For a while. I was born in New Orleans. I live in Los Angeles now.”

If he’d grown up in New Orleans, he had acid-rinsed the city from his speech.

“We pulled a body out of the salt just south of Desmond Cormier’s house,” I said. “The body was tied to a cross. I spotted the cross through a telescope. Our man Butterworth took a peep but couldn’t see a thing. Neither could Desmond, although this morning he told me he had bad eyesight. Butterworth didn’t seem bothered one way or another.”

The room was silent. Alafair stared at me.

“Can you run that by me again?” Wexler said.

I repeated my statement.

“Well, that’s something, isn’t it?” Wexler said. “Sorry, I haven’t been watching the time. I have to get a new gym bag. Then I need to pick up some fellows in Lafayette. We’re searching out a couple of locations. Perhaps you can help us.”

His level of self-involvement was hard to take.

“I probably wouldn’t know what you’re looking for,” I said.

He touched at his mouth with his napkin and set it aside. “It’s been grand meeting you, Mr. Robicheaux.”

“Likewise.”

“Don’t get up.”

I didn’t intend to. Alafair walked him to the door. Then she came back into the kitchen, her jaw clenched. “Why do you have to be so irritable?”

“You’re a success on your own. You don’t need these phony bastards.”

“You stigmatize an entire group because of this Butterworth character?”

“They’re nihilists.”

“Desmond’s not. He’s a great director. You know why? Because he paid his goddamn dues.”

“How about it on the language, Alf?”

“Sometimes you really disappoint me,” she said.

I felt my face shrink. I took my plate outside and finished eating at the picnic table with Snuggs and Mon Tee Coon. Then I went back inside. Alafair was brushing her hair in front of the mirror in the bedroom. She was five-ten and dark-skinned, with beautiful hair that fell to her shoulders. She had a black belt in karate and ran five miles every morning. Sometimes I couldn’t believe she was the same little El Salvadoran girl I’d pulled from a submerged airplane near Southwest Pass.

“What was that guy doing here, anyway?” I said.

“Inviting me out. For supper. This evening,” she said. “Thanks for asking.”

During the next three days I talked with Lucinda Arceneaux’s employer and fellow employees at the catering service in Los Angeles, and her former roommate, and a boy in Westwood who used to go to the public library with her. They all spoke of her good character and gentle disposition. None had an explanation for her disappearance.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice referred me to three correctional officers who had known Hugo Tillinger. Two had no opinion of him; the third, an old-time gunbull, said, “Tillinger? Yeah, I knew that lying son of a bitch. Turn your back on him and he’d gut you from your belly button to your chin. Anything else you want to know?”

On Friday I went into Helen’s office and told her what I had.

“What are your feelings about Tillinger?” she said.

“I don’t see him as a viable suspect in the murder of Lucinda Arceneaux. An escaped convict in a prison uniform would have more on his mind than committing a ritualistic homicide with a cross and a hypodermic needle.”

Helen looked at a legal pad on her desk. “There were break-ins at three fish camps not far from Cypremort Point. A white shirt with blue tabs on it was found half buried by a boathouse. He’s here. The question is why.”

“He jumped on the first freight he could find going out of Texas.”

“What if he had a partner?” she said.

“We’re looking at the wrong guy, Helen.”

“He burned his wife and daughter to death. Don’t tell me he’s the wrong guy.”

“I want to talk to Desmond Cormier and Antoine Butterworth again.”

“You’ve got a bias, Streak. You don’t like Hollywood people.”

“That isn’t true. I don’t like anyone who thinks he’s entitled.”

She twiddled her ballpoint on her desk blotter. “Okay. By the way, you have a new partner.”

“Pardon?”

“Her name is Bailey Ribbons.”

“Who is Bailey Ribbons?”

“I hired her two days ago. She’s twenty-eight years old. She was a middle school teacher in New Orleans and has a graduate degree in psychology. She was a dispatcher with NOPD for eighteen months.”

“That’s her entire experience?”

“What she doesn’t know, you’ll teach her.”

“Is this an affirmative-action situation?” I said.

“I hired her because of her intelligence. I’m going to get a lot of criticism for that. I don’t need it from you. Stay here.”

She left the office and returned three minutes later with a woman who seemed to have walked out of a motion picture that had little connection to the present. She had dark brown hair and clear skin and eyes like light trapped in sherry, and she wore black shoes and a white blouse with a frilly collar buttoned at the throat and a skirt that hung well below the knees. What struck me most were her warm smile and her erect posture. I felt strange, even awkward and boyish, when I took her hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Detective Robicheaux,” she said.

“You, too, Miss Bailey,” I said. “Call me Dave.”

“Hi, Dave.”

I started to speak but couldn’t remember what I’d wanted to say.

“Bring Bailey up to date on the Arceneaux investigation,” Helen said.

“Sure,” I said. “Helen?”

“What?”

Again my head went blank. Bailey Ribbons was too young, too inexperienced, too likely to be resented by older members of the department.

“I’ll check out a cruiser,” I said. “If Bailey is free, we can head down to Cypremort Point.”

“She’s free,” Helen said. “Bye, Dave.”

I walked downstairs and out the door with Bailey Ribbons. She smelled like flowers. I felt my palms tingling and a fish bone in my throat.

“Did I say something inappropriate?” she asked.

“No, ma’am, it’s a pleasure to have you aboard.”

“I appreciate your courtesy. I realize some might think I don’t have the qualifications for the job, but I’ll give it my best.”

I looked at her profile, the radiance in her face, and felt my heart beating.

God, don’t let me be an old fool, I prayed.

We drove down to the southern tip of Cypremort Point and walked along the bib of sand and salt grass and concrete blocks where I had found the tennis shoe. The wind was hot and scudding brown waves up on the sand.

“We had three 911 calls about a woman screaming,” I said. “One caller thought the scream came from a lighted cabin cruiser. The cabin cruisers that are docked here were all accounted for.”

Bailey looked across the long expanse of the water, the humps of greenery and sandspits that resembled swampland rather than a saltwater bay. “This is all disappearing, isn’t it?”