James Burke - Crusader's Cross

"That's different," she said.

But before I could gather him out of her lap, his head lifted up suddenly and his nose sniffed at the wind blowing from the front of the house. He scampered up a live oak and peered back down at us from a leafy bough. I heard the doorbell ring.

"Be right back!" I said to Molly.

Raphael Chalons was at my front door, dressed in slacks and a sports coat out of the 1940s, a Panama hat hooked on one finger, his shoulders and back as straight as a soldier's. "You were very thoughtful in paying for my purchase yesterday at the Wal-Mart store. But I forgot to reimburse you," he said. He held up a five-dollar bill that was folded stiffly between two fingers.

I opened the screen and took the money from his hand. I had hoped his mission was a single-purpose one. But he remained on the gallery, gazing at the trees in the yard and the squirrels that darted across the grass. "Can I invite you in?" I said.

"Thank you," he said, and stepped inside, his eyes examining the interior of my home. "I want to hire you to find the man who murdered my daughter, Mr. Robicheaux."

"I'm a sheriff's detective, Mr. Chalons, not a private investigator."

"A man is what he does. Titles are a distraction created to deceive obtuse people. I want the monster who killed my daughter either in jail or dead."

"My fingerprints were at the crime scene. In some people's eyes I should be a suspect."

"Those might be my son's perceptions, but they're not mine. Valentine is sometimes not a good judge of character. You may have a penchant for alcohol, Mr. Robicheaux, but you're not a murderer. That's an absurdity. I know it and so do you."

"I'm complimented by your offer, but it's not an appropriate one."

"I think a degenerate or psychotic person wandered in from the highway and did this terrible thing to my daughter. But I can't seem to convince anyone else of that. Some speculate it's the Baton Rouge serial killer."

"The Baton Rouge guy abducts his victims and rapes them before killing them. Bondage is part of his M.O., as well as baiting the authorities. The guy who killed Honoria is somebody else."

He pulled at an earlobe. "I have to find out who. If nothing else, I have to exclude people who might have had opportunity or motivation," he said, glancing sideways at me. "I can't live in ignorance about the circumstances of her death. I just cannot do that. No father can."

There was no point in continuing the conversation. For a lifetime his money had bought him access and control, and now it was of no value to him.

"As you suggest, it may have been a random killing, Mr. Chalons. Deranged and faceless men wander the country. Sometimes they commit horrible crimes over a period of decades and are not caught." I made no reference to the fact a cross had been incised inside Honoria's hairline.

"So you do think that could be the case with my daughter?"

I saw what seemed a hopeful glimmer in his eye, as though I had presented him with good news. Or maybe I was reading him wrong. "I have no idea, sir," I replied.

He unhooked his hat from his finger and straightened the brim, then glanced through the back window into the yard. "Ah, the outlaw nun who's purchased you an inordinate amount of negative attention," he said.

"The outlaw nun is now my wife."

"Is that meant as a joke?"

"That's Molly Robicheaux out there, Mr. Chalons – not a nun, not an outlaw, but my wife."

"Well, she's a disciple of liberation theology and has been at odds with our government's policies in Central America, but no matter. Chacun a son gout, huh?"

He let himself out without saying goodbye, then paused on the gallery and fitted on his Panama hat. I followed him outside. "Run that statement by me again?"

"Your wife is a traitor, Mr. Robicheaux. Perhaps she's done many good deeds for the Negroes in our area, but she is nonetheless a traitor. If you choose to marry her, that's your business. I'm an old man and many of my attitudes are probably overly traditional."

I stepped close to him. "I don't wish to offend you, Mr. Chalons -" I began, a phosphorous match flaming alight somewhere in the center of my head.

"But what?"

I sucked in my cheeks and widened my eyes and looked out at the tranquility of the day. "Nothing, sir. My wife and I both wish you the very best and extend our sympathies and hope that all good things come to you and your family."

Then I rejoined Molly in the backyard and did not mention my exchange with Raphael Chalons. Tripod climbed down from his perch in the live oak, and Snuggs appeared out of the bamboo, his tail pointed straight up, as stiff as a broomstick. The four of us commenced to share breakfast at the redwood table.

When the world presents itself in the form of a green-gold playground, blessed with water and flowers and wind and centuries-old oak trees, and when you're allowed to share all these things on a fine Sunday morning with people and animals you love, why take on the burden of the spiritually afflicted?

That afternoon I jogged through City Park and saw Clete sailing a Frisbee with a bunch of black kids by the baseball diamond. He was bare-chested, wearing only a pair of swim trunks and his porkpie hat, his skin running with sweat.

"Married?" he said.

"Right. Last night. Got something smart to say?" I said.

"Know somebody a few weeks, start a shitstorm all over town, then hit the altar with about three hours planning… Seems normal to me," he said.

I told him about Raphael Chalons's offer to put me on his payroll.

"That's what rich guys do. I don't see the big deal there," he said.

"No, I think he wants to prove to himself that someone close to him didn't kill his daughter."

Clete sailed the Frisbee to a black kid, then sat on a bench in the shade and drank from a glass of iced tea. He wiped his hair and chest with a towel. There were strawberry bruises ringed around his brow and scabs in his scalp where his tormentors in Miami had wrapped a chain around his head. "So you told the old man to fuck himself?" he said.

"Not in those words."

"You should have. We need to take it to them."

"In what way?" I said.

"Same rules as when we were at NOPD – bust 'em or dust 'em."

"That's why we're not at NOPD any longer."

"It's not over between me and this Lou Kale dude, either. By the way, where's Jimmie?"

"I think he may have gone to find Ida Durbin."

"Think?"

"I don't have his umbilical cord stapled to the corner of my desk. You're the one who brought back the story about Ida saving your ass. Now, give it a rest."

"Married life must really be agreeing with you."

"Clete, you can absolutely drive people crazy. I mean it. You need your own Zip code and time zone. Every time I have a conversation with you, I feel like I have blood coming out of my ears."

"What'd I say?" he replied, genuinely perplexed.

The only sound was the creak of the trees and the kids playing by the ball diamond. "Molly wants you to come over for dinner this evening. We called earlier but you weren't home," I said.

"Why didn't you try my cell?"

"I don't remember."

"Better check with your wife again."

You didn't put the slide on Clete Purcel. But at 6:00 p.m. he was at the house anyway, resplendent in a new blue suit, his face glowing with aftershave. He clutched a dozen red roses in each meaty paw, a wedding gift wrapped in ribbon and satin paper clamped under one arm. It contained a sterling silver jewelry box that probably cost him several hundred dollars. "I'm really happy for Dave," I heard him say to Molly when I was in another room. "He's got polka dot giraffes running around in his head, but he's the best guy I've ever known."

On Monday morning I undertook a task that no drunk willingly embarks upon. I tried to find out what I had done during a blackout, where I had gone, and the identity of the people who had seen me commit acts that were so embarrassing, depraved, or even monstrous that my conscious mind would not allow me to remember them.