James Burke - Black Cherry Blues

"Did you hear anything more from Dio?"

"Nope. Except two of his goons broke Parcel's hand. He says he took a couple of gold ashtrays out of Dio's house."

"Bad guy to steal from. Purcel must not have pressed charges, because we didn't hear anything about it."

"He said something strange when I went to see him in the hospital yesterday. He said, "Our man's going to have a sandy fuck." Or maybe I misunderstood him. I think Dio has a girlfriend named Sandy. Anyway, it didn't make any sense to me."

"Where is he?"

"St. Pat's in Missoula."

"Maybe it's time we have a talk with him. I'll see you a little later this morning. In the meantime, congratulations. You're a good cop, Robicheaux. Get your badge back."

"You've been a good friend, too, Dan."

"And, lastly, keep your name out of my paperwork for a while."

I drove back up the road in the rain and parked by the stream where I had entered the woods at dawn. Then the clouds moved eastward and the rain drifted away over the land behind me, and in the distance the sheer red cliffs of the mountains rose into the tumbling plateaus of ponderosa. When I closed my eyes and laid my head back against the seat I heard robins singing in a lone cotton-wood by the stream.

The next morning I drank almost two pots of coffee and waited for the phone to ring. I had spent nearly all of the previous day at the murder site, the Teton sheriff's department, and the coroner's office. I watched three deputies finish the exhumation and put the bodies gingerly in black bags, I gave a statement to the FBI and one to the sheriff's office, I talked to the pathologist after he had opened up the brain pans of both Indians with an electric saw and had picked out the 7.62 slugs that had been fired at close range into the back of their skull. I had them contact the St. Martin Parish sheriff's office about Dixie Lee's deposition in which he claimed to have overheard Vidrine and Mapes talking about the murder of the Indians I told them where to find Mapes in the Bitterroot Valley, where his girlfriend worked in Missoula, the kind of cars he drove; I talked incessantly, until people started to walk away from me and Nygurski winked at me and said he would buy me a hamburger so I could be on my way back to Missoula.

So I drank coffee on the back steps and waited for someone to call. Dixie Lee went to work and came back in the early afternoon, and still no one had phoned.

"Ease up, boy. Let them people handle it," he said.

We were in the kitchen, and I was shining my shoes over some newspapers that I had spread on the floor.

"That's what I'm doing," I said.

"You put me in mind of a man who spent his last cent on Ex-Lax and forgot the pay toilet cost a dime."

"Give me a break on the scatology."

"The what?"

"It's not a time for humor, Dixie."

"Go to a meet. Get your mind off it. They got his butt dead-bang. You're out of it, boy."

"You have them dead-bang when you weld the door on them."

Finally I called Nygurski's office. He wasn't in, he had left no message for me, and when I called the Teton sheriff's office a deputy there refused to talk with me. I had become a spectator.

I sat down at the kitchen table and started buffing my loafers again.

"While you were gone yesterday I put all Clete's stuff in the basement," Dixie Lee said.

"Was that all right?"

"Sure."

"He'll probably get out in a couple more days. He's got one rib that's broke bad, though. The doc says he's got ulcers, too."

"Maybe he'll go back to New Orleans and get started over again."

"There was something funny in his jeep."

"What's that?" But I really wasn't listening.

"A pillowcase. With sand in it."

"Huh."

"Why would he put sand in a pillowcase?"

"I don't know."

"He must have had a reason. Clete never does anything without a reason."

"Like I say, I don't know."

"But it's funny to do something like that. What d'you think?"

"I don't care, for God's sakes. Dixie, cut me some slack, will you?"

"Sorry." ' "It's all right."

"I just thought I'd get your mind off of things."

"Okay."

"I want to see you loosen up, smile a little bit, start thinking about Louisiana, let them people handle it."

"I'll do all those things. I promise," I said, and I went into the bathroom, washed my face, then waited out on the front porch until it was time for Alafair to get out of school.

But he was right. I was wired, and I was thinking and acting foolishly. In finding the bodies of the Indians I had been far more successful than I had ever thought I would be. Even if the FBI or the locals didn't find the Tokarev, Mapes would still remain the prime suspect in the murder because of motive and Dixie Lee's testimony, and he could be discredited as a prosecution witness against me in Louisiana. No matter how it came out, it was time to pack our bags for New Iberia.

And that's what I started doing. Just as the phone rang.

"Mr. Robicheaux?" a woman said.

"Yes."

"This is the secretary at the DEA in Great Falls. Special Agent Nygurski called a message in from his car and asked me to relay it to you."

"Yes?"

"He said, "They found the weapon. Mapes is in custody. Call in a couple of days if you want ballistic results. But he's not going to fly on this one. Enjoy your trip back to Louisiana." Did you get that, sir?"

"Yes."

"Did you want to leave a message?"

"Tell him Playgirl magazine wants him on a centerfold."

She laughed out loud.

"I beg your pardon?" she said.

"Tell him I said thank you."

Five minutes later Alafair came through the front door with her lunch box.

"How'd you like to head home day after tomorrow?" I said. Her grin was enormous.

We cooked out in the backyard that evening and had Tess Regan over, then Alafair and I climbed the switchback trail to the concrete M on the mountain behind the university. The whole valley was covered with a soft red glow. The wind was cold at that altitude, even though we were sweating inside our clothes, and rain and dust were blowing up through the Bitterroot Valley. Then the wind began to blow harder through the Hellgate, flattening the lupine and whipping grains of dirt against our skin. Overhead a U.S. Forest Service flre-retardant bomber came in low over the mountains and turned toward the smoke jumpers' school west of town, its four propellers spinning with silver light in the sun's afterglow.

The thought that had kept bothering me all afternoon, that I had tried to push into a closed compartment in the back of my mind, came back like a grinning jester who was determined to extend the ball game into extra innings.

When we got home I unlocked Clete's jeep and picked up the soiled pillowcase that was on the floorboard. I turned it inside out and felt the residue of dry sand along the seams. Then I called Sally Dio's number at the lake. It was disconnected. I had reserved the next day for packing, shutting off the utilities, greasing the truck, making sandwiches for our trip home, and having a talk with Tess Regan about geographic alternatives. But Sally Dee was to have one more turn in my life.

"What time are you going in to work?" I said to Dixie Lee at breakfast the next morning.

"I ain't. The boss man said he don't need me today. That's something I want to talk with you about, Dave. With you cutting out, I don't know what kind of future I got here. Part-time fork lifting ain't what you'd call a big career move."

"Will you watch Alafair while I go up to the lake?"

"Why you going up there?"

"I need to talk with Dio. If he's not there, I'll leave him a note. Then I'll be back."

"You're going to do what?" He set his coffee cup down on the table and stared at me.

I drove to Poison, then headed up the east side of the lake through the cherry orchards. I could have called Dan Nygurski or the sheriff's office, but that would have forced me to turn in Cletus, and I thought that a man with ulcers, a broken rib, a crushed hand, and stitches in his head had paid enough dues.