James Burke: Pegasus Descending

He sat on the top step of his gallery and listened to Monarch explain who I was and what I wanted, the cane fields around his house swirling with wind. It was obvious he was retarded or autistic, but paradoxically his expression was electric, one of fascination with the intrigue and sense of adventure that had been brought to his front door.

“You remember that day, Ripton, when the girl died?” I said.

“I ain’t seen her die,” he said, eager to be correct and to please, his words rushed yet syntactical.

“But you know she died that day you were collecting bottles and cans by the mill?” I said.

“Yes, suh. Heard all about it. Seen it on the TV, too. That’s why I come back the next day.”

“I’m not quite with you, Ripton,” I said.

“I gone back by the mill. See, I was way down the street when I heard it. I t’ought maybe it was my bicycle tire. When it pop, it make a sound just like that. In the wind and all, I t’ought it was my tire going pop.”

“You heard the shot?” I said.

“Yes, suh. I heard it. Then I seen a car go roaring by. So I went and knocked on Mr. Cesaire’s do’ and tole him what I seen.”

“You talked to Cesaire Darbonne?” I said.

“Yes, suh, that’s what I’m saying. I went back and tole Mr. Cesaire about it. A silver car went streaking on by. Gone by like a rocket, whoosh.”

“What kind of car was it?” I said.

“A silver one, just like I said.”

“Why didn’t you tell the police about this?” I asked.

“Mr. Cesaire said I ain’t had to. Since I’d already give him the numbers, he was gonna take care of it. Didn’t need to talk to no police.”

A flock of crows rose from the cane field and patterned against the sky. “What numbers, podna?”

“The first t’ree numbers on the license plate. Wrote ’em in down in my li’l book. I keep a li’l book on everyt’ing I pick up from the road ’case the taxman call me in. I still got them numbers inside. You want ’em?”

I could hear clothes popping on a wash line, or perhaps the sound was in my own ears.

I WENT EARLY to the office the next morning and ran the registration on Tony Lujan’s silver Lexus and looked once again at all my notes concerning Cesaire Darbonne’s background. But what stuck in my mind about Cesaire was not written down in a notebook. Instead, it was his absorption as a duck hunter and the fact he had told me the scars on his left hand and arm had come about from a hunting accident. I called Mack Bertrand at the crime lab.

“I’m doing a little background work on Cesaire Darbonne. Did you tell me he’s a distant cousin of your wife?” I said.

“That’s right,” he replied.

“He was in a duck-hunting accident?”

“Yeah, as I remember. He poked his shotgun barrel into the mud and almost blew his arm off.”

“What did he do with the gun?”

“Pardon?”

“After the barrel exploded, what did he do with it?” I asked.

“How should I know?”

“You told me a couple of guys tried to rob his bar and he ran them off by firing a gun in the air.”

“Yeah, about fifteen years back. Why you pumping me, Dave?”

“You know why.”

“Hasn’t the guy had enough grief?”

“That fact won’t change what happened. What did Cesaire do with the shotgun after it exploded?”

“Ask him. I’m signing off on this.”

“Sorry to see you take that attitude, Mack.”

“The guy is already down for one murder and you want to put Tony Lujan’s on him, too?” He hung up.

I searched the department computer but found nothing on an attempted robbery at the bar run by Cesaire Darbonne. I spent the next two hours searching through our paper files with the same result. Then I called a retired plainclothes by the name of Paul LeBlanc who had worked for the department forty years before deafness and diabetes forced him to hang it up. Now he lived in an assisted-care facility by Iberia General and at first did not recognize my name.

“Dave Robicheaux,” I said. “I was with NOPD before I went to work for Iberia Parish. I used to own a bait shop and boat-rental business south of town.”

“The one wit’ drinking problems?” he said.

“I’m your man.”

“How you doin’?” he said.

“You remember an attempted robbery at a bar owned by Cesaire Darbonne? It was a ramshackle hole-in-the-wall joint up the bayou. We’re talking about maybe fifteen years back.”

“No,” he said.

“You have no memory of it?”

“That wasn’t what I said. It wasn’t fifteen years back. It was seventeen. The spring of 1988.”

“What happened?”

“Wasn’t much to it. A couple of colored men tried to pry the back window while Cesaire was mopping up. He come out the back do’ and chased them out in a cane field. Fired a shell in the air. I think they were after booze instead of money. I don’t think I even wrote it up.”

“You didn’t write it up?”

“No, I don’t think I did.”

“What kind of weapon did Cesaire fire in the air, Mr. Paul?”

“Cain’t hear you. The earpiece on this phone ain’t no good.”

“You said he fired a shell, Mr. Paul. Did Cesaire fire a shotgun over these fellows’ heads?”

“Maybe it was.”

“Was it a cut-down twelve-gauge?”

The phone was silent. “Sir?” I said.

“I’m in my years now. My memory ain’t that good.”

“We’re not talking about an illegal gun charge, Mr. Paul. This is a homicide investigation. Was Cesaire in possession of a sawed-off shotgun?”

“Yes, suh, he was.”

“Thank you.” I started to lower the receiver into the cradle.

“Mr. Robicheaux?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I been knowing Cesaire Darbonne fifty years. He’s a good man.”

He was a good man, I said to myself.

After I hung up, I went into Helen’s office. “I think I got taken over the hurdles. I think Cesaire Darbonne murdered Tony Lujan,” I said.

She sat back in her chair, widening her eyes.

“I found a witness to the Yvonne Darbonne homicide. A retarded black man by the name of Ripton Armentor saw a silver car speeding away after he heard a gunshot. He wrote down three numbers from the license tag. He gave them to Cesaire Darbonne the next day.”

She closed then opened her eyes. “Oh, boy,” she said, more to herself than to me.

“I did some more research into Cesaire’s history, too. Seventeen years back, a plainclothes investigated an attempted break-in at Cesaire’s bar. Cesaire was in possession of a cut-down twelve-gauge that he probably salvaged from a shotgun that exploded on him after he got some mud in the barrel.”

“Cesaire followed Tony the night Tony was supposed to meet Monarch?”

“That’s my guess. He blew Tony apart, then planted the weapon in Monarch’s car.”

“Why Monarch’s?”

“Because everyone knows Monarch was selling dope to white teenagers. The autopsy showed Yvonne was full of drugs when she died. Cesaire probably blamed Monarch for her death as much as he did Tony.”

“We’re going to look like idiots going back to the grand jury on this guy for another homicide. It’s like we don’t have anyone else in the parish to charge for unsolved crimes,” she said.

“Want me to talk to Lonnie?”

“Screw Lonnie. We need to clean up our own mess.” She studied a legal pad on her desk, her fingers on her brow. “I just got off the phone with the FBI in New Orleans. They pulled a cell phone transmission out of the air on Lefty Raguza. They think he’s in Iberia or St. Martin Parish.”

“Lefty wants payback for the beating he took?”

“No, the Feds think he and Whitey Bruxal are going to try to get Whitey’s money back by peeling the skin off Trish Klein’s pretty ass.”