James Burke: Pegasus Descending

She saw the look on my face. “That’s the language this FBI jerk used. Don’t blame me,” she said. “Where’s Clete Purcel, Dave? Don’t lie to me, either.”

I didn’t have to lie. I didn’t know. Not exactly, anyway.

THAT NIGHT, Molly and I went to a movie and had dinner in Lafayette. The summer light was still high in the sky when we drove back home, and I could see fishermen in boats out on Spanish Lake, the cypress snags shadowing on the water against the late sun.

“You worried about Clete?” she asked.

“A little. If NOPD gets their hands on him, they’re going to put him away.”

“He’s always come through before, hasn’t he?”

“Except that’s not what he wants. He’s been committing suicide in increments his whole life. He tries to keep the gargoyles away with booze and aspirin and wonders why he always has a Mixmaster roaring in his head.”

I could feel her eyes on me. Then I felt her put away whatever it was she had planned to say.

“Buy me some ice cream?” she asked.

“You bet,” I replied.

The next morning was Friday. I called Nig Rosewater and Wee Willie Bimstine and Clete’s offices in both New Iberia and New Orleans and was told that Clete was out of town and that his whereabouts were unknown. The only semblance of cooperation came from Alice Werenhaus, the part-time secretary and former nun at the office on St. Ann in the Quarter.

“He’s fine, Mr. Robicheaux. He doesn’t want you to worry,” he said.

“Then why does he keep his cell turned off?”

“May I be frank?”

“Please.”

“He doesn’t want you compromised. Now stop picking on him.”

“I think his life may be in danger, Miss Alice.”

She was quiet a long time. “Mr. Purcel will always be Mr. Purcel. He won’t change for either of us. I’ll do what I can. You have my word.”

So much for that.

My other ongoing problem was Cesaire Darbonne. I had gone bond for a man who was probably innocent of the murder he was accused of committing and guilty of a homicide for which he wasn’t charged. The greater irony was that the boy Cesaire had probably murdered was not responsible for his daughter’s death and the man he had not killed was.

After lunch I went to Lonnie Marceaux’s office and told him everything I had learned about Cesaire Darbonne’s probable guilt in the murder on Tony Lujan.

“Nobody can screw up a case this bad. Are you drinking again?” he said.

“Glad to see you’re handling this in the right spirit, Lonnie. No, I’m not drinking. But since you went full tilt on insisting we indict an innocent ian for Bello Lujan’s death, I thought I should drop by and give you a heads-up.”

“Me a heads-up?”

“Yeah, because the shitprints lead right back into your office.”

“I think you have your facts wrong. Of course, that’s no surprise. Scapegoating others is a symptom of the disease, isn’t it?”

“Say again?”

“It’s what alcoholics do. Scapegoating other people, right? It’s always somebody else’s fault. My office acted on the information you provided, Dave. You want to contest the factual record, have at it. I think you’re long overdue for an I.A. review.”

I glanced out the window at the storm clouds building in the south and the tops of trees bending in the wind. “At my age I don’t have a lot to lose. There’s a great sense of freedom in that, Lonnie,” I said.

“Care to explain that?”

“You’ll figure it out.”

I BELIEVED WHITEY BRUXAL had set up Cesaire Darbonne for the murder of Bellerophon Lujan. But my speculation, and that’s all it was, posed a problem I had not yet resolved: If Whitey had indeed framed Cesaire, how did Whitey know that Bello had probably raped Cesaire’s daughter, giving Cesaire motivation to take his life?

I went to see Valerie Lujan for an answer. She was obviously preparing to go somewhere when I pushed the bell and the maid opened the front door.

“I won’t take much of your time,” I said.

She was in her wheelchair, wearing a yellow dress that matched her hair, a lavender corsage pinned on her shoulder. A picnic basket containing a pink cake and two bottles of champagne and two glasses rested on the tabletop behind her. “Let him in,” she said to the maid.

I sat down in a deep white chair, leaning forward, my back stiff, so as not to look relaxed or accommodating. “Cesaire Darbonne didn’t kill your husband, Mrs. Lujan,” I said.

“Just a moment,” she said, and turned to the maid. “Finish up in the kitchen and tell Luther to bring around the car.” Then she addressed me again. “To be honest, I really don’t care who killed my husband.”

“But we do. Whitey Bruxal thought Bello was going to roll over on him and he used a stable mucker by the name of Juan Bolachi to take him out.”

“Then you must arrest him.”

“Except there’s another problem. Whitey decided to frame Cesaire Darbonne for the homicide, but that means Whitey knew we’d eventually discover that Bello raped Yvonne Darbonne and that her father would be a perfect suspect when a pickax stolen from Cesaire’s toolshed was used to tear Bello apart.”

She looked at a tiny gold watch on her wrist. The color of her skin and the veins in her arms made me think of milk and pieces of green string. “I’d like to be of assistance, but I’m on my way to the cemetery,” she said. “It’s Tony’s birthday. He always loved strawberry cake with pink icing.”

“Who told Whitey that Bello probably raped Yvonne?” I asked.

“I certainly didn’t, and I resent your suggesting I did.”

“That wasn’t my intention. But there is one man you do confide in. He’s your friend and spiritual counselor, someone who claims to be a man of God, someone you trust, a man you believe would never betray you.”

Her eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that seemed far greater than her failing powers were capable of generating. I knew I had hit home.

“You’re saying Colin Alridge passed on information about my husband to Whitey Bruxal?” she said.

“You bet I am. No matter what he tells you, Alridge’s vested interest is with the gambling industry and the lobbyists who support it. He sold both you and Bello down the drain.”

At this stage in her life, she probably believed nothing else could be taken from her. But I had just proved her wrong. She looked out the front window at the turbulence in the sky and the oak leaves flying from the trees in the yard.

“My car is waiting outside, Mr. Robicheaux. I’ll be at Tony’s graveside the rest of the afternoon,” she said. “I hope you’ll be gracious and decent enough not to disturb me there. I believe the dead can hear the voices of the living, although we cannot hear theirs. I’ll ask my son to forgive you for not finding his killer and for concentrating your efforts instead on tormenting his mother.”

I stood up to go, but I didn’t want to leave her with the impression that I accepted her victimhood. She wore her infirmity and her personal loss as a shield against the system, and chances were she would take on the permanent role of martyr and saint and be venerated as an icon of bereavement and moral courage until the day of her death. But I believed Valerie Lujan’s contract with the devil had been signed many years ago, and she knew that every dollar in her possession had come into Bello ’s hands through the deprivation of others.

I started to say these things and perhaps other things even more injurious to her. But what was the point? Saints are made of plaster and they neither bleed nor hear. So I simply said, “I was drunk for many years, Mrs. Lujan. But I finally learned everybody has to pay his tab. Good luck to you. The Garden of Gethsemane is a tough gig.”