James Burke - Sunset Limited

Jack Flynn was still alive in two of them. In one, he was on his hands and knees while men in black hoods with slits for eyes swung blurred chains on his back; in the other, a fist clutched his hair, pulling his head erect so the camera could photograph his destroyed face. But in the third photo his ordeal had come to an end. His head lay on his shoulder; his eyes were rolled into his head, his impaled arms stretched out on the wood of the barn wall. Three men in cloth hoods were looking back at the camera, one pointing at Flynn as though indicating a lesson to the viewer.

"This doesn't give us squat," Helen said.

"The man in the middle. Look at the ring finger on his left hand. It's gone, cut off at the palm," I said.

"You know him?"

"It's Archer Terrebonne. His family didn't just order the murder. He helped do it."

"Dave, there's no face to go with the hand. It's not a felony to have a missing finger. Look at me. A step at a time and all that jazz, right? You listening, Streak?"

IT WAS AN HOUR LATER. Terrebonne had not been at his home, but a maid had told us where to find him. I parked the cruiser under the oaks in front of the restaurant up the highway and cut the engine. The water dripping out of the trees steamed on the hood.

"Dave, don't do this," Helen said.

"He's in Iberia Parish now. I'm not going to have these pictures lost in a St. Mary Parish evidence locker."

"We get them copied, then do it by the numbers."

"He'll skate."

"You know a lot of rich guys working soybeans in Angola? That's the way it is."

"Not this time."

I went inside the foyer, where people waited in leather chairs for an available table. I opened my badge on the maître d'.

"Archer Terrebonne is here with a party," I said.

The maître d's eyes locked on mine, then shifted to Helen, who stood behind me.

"Is there a problem?" he asked.

"Not yet," I said.

"I see. Follow me, please."

We walked through the main dining room to a long table at the rear, where Terrebonne was seated with a dozen other people. The waiters had just taken away their shrimp cocktails and were now serving the gumbo off of a linen-covered cart.

Terrebonne wiped his mouth with a napkin, then waited for a woman in a robin's-egg-blue suit to stop talking before he shifted his eyes to me.

"What burning issue do you bring us tonight, Mr. Robicheaux?" he asked.

"Harpo Scruggs pissed in your shoe," I said.

"Sir, would you not-" the maître d' began.

"You did your job. Beat it," Helen said.

I lay the three photographs down on the tablecloth.

"That's you in the middle, Mr. Terrebonne. You chain-whipped Jack Flynn and hammered nails through his wrists and ankles, then let your daughter carry your guilt. You truly turn my stomach, sir," I said.

"And you're way beyond anything I'll tolerate," he said.

"Get up," I said.

"What?"

"Better do what he says," Helen said behind me.

Terrebonne turned to a silver-haired man on his right. "John, would you call the mayor's home, please?" he said.

"You're under arrest, Mr. Terrebonne. The mayor's not going to help you," I said.

"I'm not going anywhere with you, sir. You put your hand on my person again and I'll sue you for battery," he said, then calmly began talking to the woman in a robin's-egg-blue suit on his left.

Maybe it was the long day, or the fact the photos had allowed me to actually see the ordeal of Jack Flynn, one that time had made an abstraction, or maybe I simply possessed a long-buried animus toward Archer Terrebonne and the imperious and self-satisfied arrogance that he and his kind represented. But long ago I had learned that anger, my old enemy, had many catalysts and they all led ultimately to one consequence, an eruption of torn red-and-black color behind the eyes, an alcoholic blackout without booze, then an adrenaline surge that left me trembling, out of control, and possessed of a destructive capability that later filled me with shame.

I grabbed him by the back of his belt and hoisted him out of the chair, pushed him facedown on the table, into his food, and cuffed his wrists behind him, hard, ratcheting the curved steel tongues deep into the locks, crimping the veins like green string. Then I walked him ahead of me, out the foyer, into the parking area, pushing past a group of people who stared at us openmouthed. Terrebonne tried to speak, but I got the back door of the cruiser open and shoved him inside, cutting his scalp on the jamb.

When I slammed the door I turned around and was looking into the face of the woman in the robin's-egg-blue suit.

"You manhandle a sixty-three-year-old man like that? My, you must be proud. I'm so pleased we have policemen of your stature protecting us from ourselves," she said.

THE SHERIFF CALLED ME into his office early the next morning. He rubbed the balls of his fingers back and forth on his forehead, as though the skin were burned, and looked at a spot six inches in front of his face.

"I don't know where to begin," he said.

"Terrebonne was kicked loose?"

"Two hours after you put him in the cage. I've had calls from a judge, three state legislators, and a U.S. congressman. You locked him in the cage with a drag queen and a drunk with vomit all over his clothes?"

"I didn't notice."

"I bet. He says he's going to sue."

"Let him. He's obstructed and lied in the course of a murder investigation. He's dirty from the jump, skipper. Put that photo and his daughter in front of a grand jury and see what happens."

"You're really out to burn his grits, aren't you?"

"You don't think he deserves it?" I said.

"The homicide was in St. Mary Parish. Dave, this guy had to have stitches in his head. Do you know what his lawyers are going to do with that?"

"We've been going after the wrong guys. Cut off the snake's head and the body dies," I said.

"I called my insurance agent about an umbrella policy this morning, you know, the kind that protects you against losing your house and everything you own. I'll give you his number."

"Terrebonne skates?"

The sheriff picked up a pink memo slip in the fingers of each hand and let them flutter back to his ink blotter.

"You've figured it out," he said.

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, JUST as the sun dipped over the trees, Cisco Flynn walked down the dock where I was cleaning the barbecue pit, and sat on the railing and watched me work.

"Megan thinks she caused some trouble between you and your wife," he said.

"She's right," I said.

"She's sorry about it."

"Look, Cisco, I'm kind of tired of y'all's explanations about various things. What's the expression, 'Get a life'?"

"That guy who got thrown out the hotel window in San Antonio? Swede did it, but I helped set up the transportation and the alibi at the movie theater."

"Why tell me?"

"He's dead, but he was a good guy. I'm not laying off something I did on a friend."

"You got problems with your conscience about the hotel flyer, go to San Antone and turn yourself in."

"What's with you, man?"

"Archer Terrebonne, the guy who has money in your picture, killed your father. Come down to the office and check out the photos. I made copies before I turned the originals over to St. Mary Parish. The downside of the story is I can't touch him."

His face looked empty, insentient, as though he were winded, his lips moving without sound. He blinked and swallowed. "Archer Terrebonne? No, there's something wrong. He's been a guest in my home. What are you saying?" he said.

I went inside the bait shop and didn't come back out until he was gone.

THAT NIGHT THE MOON was down and leaves were blowing in the darkness outside, rattling against the trunks of the oak and pecan trees. When I went into the bedroom the light was off and Bootsie was sitting in front of her dresser in her panties and a T-shirt, looking out the window into the darkness.