James Burke: The Glass Rainbow

“That shack or whatever full of hay bales where we got into the shoot-out?” Clete said. “There was a rusted-out tractor next to it. You think that’s the place where the girls were?”

“Maybe,” I said.

Above us on the road, someone was setting up a generator-powered bank of flood lamps. Suddenly, the coulee was lit by an eye-watering white brilliance. The state trooper in charge of the accident scene was silhouetted against the glare, the rain blowing like bits of crystal in the wind. “We got the Jaws,” he called down. “You guys find out anything?”

“The guy’s name was Andy Swan,” Clete hollered up the slope. “He worked with the execution team that fried Bundy. He’s probably checking in with him about now.”

But Clete’s cynical remark served as a poor disguise for our mood and the hopelessness of our situation. Our investigation into the accident by the coulee had eaten up time that Alafair may not have had. While we dithered, she suffered. We got back on Interstate 10 and headed west toward Jeff Davis Parish while I tried to get through to someone in the sheriff’s department there. Finally the 911 operator patched me through to a plainclothes detective who was working an extra duty shift that night. His name was Huffinton. At first the name didn’t register. Then I remembered him. “What is it this time?” he said.

This time? “You responded to the ‘shots fired’ at the river?” I said.

“I’m the guy,” he replied, sucking on a tooth or a mint. “What do you need?”

He was the same detective who had gotten into it with Clete and who had made a remark about my history with alcohol. “Down by the river, at the same location where I had to pop those guys, there’s an old Acadian cottage. It’s stacked with bales of hay. There’s a tractor not far from it.”

“What about it?”

“My daughter has been abducted. I’m not sure where she’s being held, but one of the perps in the abduction described a house or cabin just like the one by the river. I’m on I-Ten west of Crowley, but I need you guys to jump on the place right now. You copy on that?”

“No, I don’t copy anything. A kidnap victim is being held in a shack full of hay?”

“I think it was a barracoon.”

“A what ?”

“A place where slaves were kept. We have video that came from-”

“Is this a put-on?”

“I’m talking about an underground jail. It may be underneath that old Acadian house. It’s the place where Bernadette Latiolais may have been murdered.”

There was a pause. “I tell you what. I’ll drive out there. I’ll look around, just so everybody is happy. Then I’m going to forget our conversation. But I think you need to get some help, Robicheaux.”

“Did you hear me? My daughter was abducted.”

“Yeah, I heard you. That doesn’t change anything. Every time you and your fat friend come here, you leave shit prints all over the place.”

“Call me when you get to the river.”

“No, I’ll call you when I have something to report. In the meantime, don’t patch in to my radio again. Out.”

I handed my cell phone to Clete as the truck veered toward the shoulder. “Get the state police,” I said.

“Take it easy, Dave.”

“You didn’t hear that idiot.”

“Which idiot?”

“Huffinton, that Jeff Davis plainclothes who got in your face. If this goes south for Alafair-” My throat was closing on my words, and I couldn’t finish the statement.

Clete was dialing 911 with his thumb, looking at me in the dash glow, his eyes full of pity. “We’re going to get her back, big mon. Andy Swan was working for old man Abelard. I suspect Weingart took over control of the old man’s affairs, then decided to do some payback on Alafair. But he’s a survivor, Dave. He’s not going down in flames just to get revenge against you and me.”

“What if Weingart isn’t pulling the strings?”

The 911 operator picked up before Clete could answer. He handed me the cell phone, and I made the same request to the state police that I had made to the Jefferson Davis Sheriff’s Department.

“Repeat that about Weingart. You don’t think he’s behind this?” Clete said.

“You already said it. He’s a sexual predator and a con man and a bully, but he’s not a serial killer.”

“You think the old man killed the girls?”

“Think again.”

Clete bit the skin on the ball of his thumb, his green eyes dulling over; he was obviously wondering if both of us had not been played from the jump. “Sonofabitch,” he said. Then he said it again. “Sonofabitch.”

THE ROAD WAS empty as we drove into the southern end of Jeff Davis Parish and looked out on the sodden fields and the gum trees bending in the wind along the river. I could see car tracks winding through the grass toward the doorless Acadian cottage that was used to store hay. But there were no vehicles in the field.

I turned off the two-lane and approached the cottage, my headlights bouncing on the rusted tractor and the tips of the grass waving in the wind. The car tracks we had seen earlier went past the cottage and down to the river. I stopped the truck and cut the headlights. Steam was rising from the hood, the engine ticking with heat. I got out and approached the front of the cottage, my flashlight in one hand, my.45 in the other. Clete was to my right, his blue-black.38 pointed in front of him with both hands. He gave me the nod, and we both went in at the same time.

The building was a typical Acadian dwelling of the mid-nineteenth century. At one time, it had probably contained two small bedrooms, a front room, a kitchen, and a sleeping loft for visitors. But all the partitions had been knocked out, and the floor was stacked to the ceiling with hay bales that had long ago become moldy and home to field mice.

Except for one area in the center of the kitchen. Three bales had been piled lopsidedly, and muddy footprints led from them through the back door into the field. Clete stuck his.38 into his shoulder holster and shoved two of the bales tumbling into the wall, then dragged the third one aside, exposing a trapdoor that looked made of oak. At the bottom of the door was a hole the size of a quarter. I inserted my finger in it and lifted.

Underneath it was another door, this one constructed of several iron plates, cross-fitted with iron bands and big rivets that were orange and soft with rust. It was the kind of door you expected to see on a Civil War ironclad, one that could resist almost any assault short of a direct hit by an exploding cannon shell. An iron ring was attached at the bottom. And so was a padlock.

“Alafair?” I called, my voice breaking.

There was no response.

“It’s Dave and Clete,” I said. “Can you hear me?”

There was still no answer. I ran to the truck and opened the steel toolbox in back and returned with a crowbar. I wedged it inside the padlock and snapped it loose, then dropped the crowbar to the floor and pulled on the ring with both hands. Clete got his fingers under the lip of the door, and the two of us flung it back on its hinges. I shone my flashlight down into the darkness.

“Jesus, I can’t believe this,” Clete said.

A set of steep wood steps led down into a subterranean room whose walls were made up of the stones we had seen in the video. The walls were sweating with water seepage, coated with lichen at the bottom and inset with chains at the top. But the chains were not ancient ones that had fettered rebellious slaves. They were steel-link, shiny, practical, economical in design. They had probably been purchased at a local hardware store by somebody who looked just like the rest of us.

We went down the steps into the darkness. I touched the stones in the wall with my hand, then wiped it on my shirt. The air was dense and smelled of mold and feces and stagnant water and maybe human sweat. I could hear my own breathing and feel my pulse jumping in my throat. A plain wood table and a chair stood in the middle of the room. On top of the table was an opened toolbox. I did not want to look at the contents. I did not want to do that at all.