Robert Crais - Voodoo River

I didn't answer. Her eyes were red-rimmed and filling. I wanted to comfort her and tell her that everything would be fine, but I could not lie to her.

I said, "I saw Boudreaux earlier today. He's going to talk about all of this with Edie tonight, and we'll see how they want to play it tomorrow. I'm sorry, Jodi."

Jodi Taylor walked out. Lucy went after her, and I heard them at the front door, but I could not make out their words. I put my palms on the counter and stared between them. The Corian was flat and gray and seemed of great depth. It was a lovely surface, and I pressed against it and wondered how much pressure it could take. I thought about hot frying pans being placed upon it, and I wondered how often the pans might be placed and how hot they might be before the Corian would be forever changed.

Lucy was gone for a long while, and then there were footsteps and she was standing beside me again, leaning with her back to the counter, her arms crossed She said, "You look like hell, Studly."

"Thanks."

Lucy took a deep breath, then said, "I know you were in Vietnam, but I have to ask this. Have you killed men in the course of your job?"

"Yes."

"Have you committed murder?"

"No. Each time, I was threatened. Each time, I was trying to help an innocent person whose life was in imminent danger."

"Have you acted to create those moments?"

I thought about it. There have been so many moments. Freckles on the arm of a man who works in the sun. "When you involve yourself in these things, you assume a measure of risk. There always comes a point when you can turn it over to the police, but at that point the risk expands. Will the police blow it? Will the client be helped or harmed? Will justice be served? There are always questions. The answers are not always clear, and are often unknown even after the fact."

She let the breath out. "In a given moment you opt to trust yourself."

"Yes," I said. "Always."

She said nothing for several moments, then she turned sideways and reached up to touch my hair. "Well. At least you're honest."

"As the day is long." I tried to smile, but it wasn't much.

"I'm having trouble with this."

"I know."

"The framework of the law is how we define and protect justice. If everyone were to subjectively define justice, order and law would cease and there would be no justice. There would be only anarchy."

"Easy for you to say."

She frowned. Humor often fails when we need it most.

"But you're right. Of course."

She said, "You don't have to do this. You could just walk away, or you could act unilaterally and go directly to the Justice Department to give them Rossier, but you haven't. You're still in it, even though it troubles you."

I looked at her and tried to frame how I felt. "I help people. I work with their problems and try to stay within the parameters that they set and bring them to a conclusion that is just. Their confidence is sacrosanct to me. Do you see?"

"You define yourself through your service to your clients."

"In a way."

"And you've never breached that confidence, or that service."

I shook my head.

"And now you might, for a justice that you see as greater than your client."

"Yes." My voice was phlegmy.

Lucy pulled me around to face her. She gripped each of my biceps and looked up at me. I watched her look at the different parts of my face and head and ears and hair. Her eyes drifted lower, glancing at my chest, maybe the buttons there, maybe the folds of my shirt, as if whatever answers she sought might be in the fabric. She closed her eyes and snuggled into me. "You're a good man, Elvis. You're a very good man."

She went to the kitchen phone, pressed a speed dial button, then asked someone if Ben could stay over. She said that she would be happy to drive car pool in the morning if he could. The someone must have agreed. Lucy said thank you, hung up, then came back to me and took my hand. She gave me one of the gentlest smiles that I have ever seen. She said, "Did you hear?"

"Yes."

"Will you come to the bedroom with me?"

"Can I think about it?"

Her smile got wider and she squeezed my hand.

"Well. Okay."

She hooked her arm in mine and walked me to her bedroom, but this night we made a different kind of love. We lay upon her bed, still in our clothes, and held each other until dawn.

Lucy was driving car pool the next morning when her office called, telling her phone machine that Jo-el Boudreaux had phoned, looking for me. I picked up the phone midmessage and Darlene said, "Well, well. Fancy meeting you there."

"You'll probably be a riot in the unemployment line, too."

"Oh, we're testy in the morning." These assistants are something, aren't they? "May I speak widi Ms. Chenier?"

"She's unavailable. What did Boudreaux want?"

"There were two messages on the machine and he sounded anxious. He left a number." She gave it to me and then she hung up.

I called the number, got the Evangeline Parish Sheriff's office, Eunice Substation, and then I got Boudreaux. He said, "I can't just murder somebody. Jesus Christ. I can't do anything like that."

"All right. But doing nothing is no longer an option. So what are you going to do?"

You could hear background noise and the squeaks a chair makes when someone large shifts position.

I said, "Talk to me, Jo-el."

"Edie says you're right. She says it's time to stop hidin' from yesterday. She said that from the beginning, but I guess I was too scared to listen." He was working his way through the guilt, and not just the guilt about his wife. He'd probably seen the old man and the little girl a thousand times last night. He said, "I'm gonna arrest the sonofabitch. I should've arrested him six months ago. I should've arrested him when he came to my house with this stuff and started his blackmail."

I said, "It's the right thing, Jo-el."

"It's not just that old man. It's the whole operation. Prima. The poor bastards they been sneaking in through my parish. I can't get that little girl out of my head."

I said, "You want it to stop."

"Yes. Hell, yes. I don't want any more little girls like that. Oh, hell, yes." His voice sounded thick when he said it. "Jesus Christ, I'm just a hick cop. I don't know how to do this stuff."

"Jo-el, have you spoken with the parish prosecutor about this?"

"Unh-unh. Edie and I want to talk to the kids. We want to let'm know about us and their grandfather before they hear it in the news. I pop Rossier and he'll be screaming."

"Maybe there's a way to put this together, Jo-el."

"You mean get 'em all?"

"Maybe. Let me talk to Lucy about it. We'll need to know the legal end because we'll want to avoid entrapment, but maybe there's a way."

I hung up, then showered and dressed and was standing on the patio with the black-and-white dog when Lucy returned from car pool. She was carrying a wax-paper bag and two large containers of coffee. She offered one of the coffees. "Good morning again."

"Darlene called with a message from Jo-el Boudreaux. I'm afraid I've compromised our liaison."

"Oh, don't worry. She's used to it." These dames.

I told her about the call to Jo-el and asked her opinion. Lucy took a single plain donut from the bag and held it for me to take a bite. I did. Tender and light and still warm from the frying. Not too sugary. She took a bite after me and shook her head. "I have no experience in criminal law, Studly, but there are several ex-prosecutors at the firm."

"Think we could round one up for a quick trip to Eunice?"

She had more of the coffee and fed a small piece of the donut to the dog. "It's possible. After this donut, I'll make some calls."

"Great."