"Is that it?" I said.
"No. A New Orleans homicide cop named Don Batter is waiting in your office," he replied. "Bitter's Vice."
"Good. Clear that up with him," the sheriff said, and leaned against the windowsill on his palms, stretching out his frame to ease the pain in his lower back.
Don Bjtter.the plainclothes detective Helen called the gel head, was sitting in a chair in front of my desk, cleaning his nails over the wastebasket with a gold penknife. His eyes lifted up at me. Then he went back to work on his nails.
"The sheriff says you're Homicide," I said.
"Yeah, I just changed over. I caught the Zipper Clum case."
"Really?"
"Who told you and Purcel to question people in New Orleans about Johnny Remeta?"
"He's a suspect in a house invasion."
"A house invasion, huh? Lovely. What are we supposed to do if you scare him out of town?"
"He says that's not his way."
"He says?"
"Yeah, he called me up last night."
Ritter brushed the detritus from his nails into the basket and folded his penknife and put it in his pocket. He crossed his legs and rotated his ankle slightly, watching the light reflect on his shoe shine. His hair looked like gelled pieces of thick twine strung back on his scalp.
"The home invasion? That's the break-in at Little Face Dautrieve's place?" he said.
"Little Face says you planted rock on her. She's trying to turn her life around. Why don't you stay away from her?"
"I don't know what bothers me worse, the bullshit about talking to Remeta or the injured-black-whore routine. You want to nail this guy or not?"
"You see Jim Gable?"
"What about it?"
"Tell him I'm going to look him up on my next trip to New Orleans."
He chewed with his front teeth on something, a tiny piece of food perhaps.
"So this is what happens when you start over again in a small town. Must make you feel like staying in bed some days. Thanks for your time, Robicheaux," he said.
I signed OUT of the office at noon and went home for lunch. As I drove down the dirt road toward the house, I saw a blue Lexus approach me under the long line of oak trees that bordered the bayou. The Lexus slowed and the driver rolled down her window.
"How you doin', Dave?" she said.
"Hey, Ms. Deshotel. You visiting in the neighborhood?"
"Your wife and I just had lunch. We're old school chums."
She took off her sunglasses, and the shadows of leaves moved back and forth on her olive skin. It was hard to believe her career in law enforcement went back into the 1960s. Her heart-shaped face was radiant, her throat unlined, her dark hair a reminder of the health and latent energy and youthful good looks that her age didn't seem to diminish.
"I didn't realize y'all knew each other," I said.
"She didn't remember me at first, but… Anyway, we'll be seeing you. Call me for anything you need."
She drove away with a casual wave of the hand.
"You went to school with Connie Deshotel?" I asked Bootsie in the kitchen.
"A night class at LSU-NO. She just bought a weekend place at Fausse Pointe. You look puzzled."
"She's strange."
"She's a nice person. Stop being psychoanalytical," Bootsie said.
"She was having lunch in Baton Rouge with an NOPD cop named Don Ritter. He's a genuine lowlife."
She hung a dishrag over the faucet and turned toward me and let her eyes rove over my face.
"What did he do?" she asked.
"He twists dials on black hookers. Helen says he used to extort gays in the Quarter."
"So he's a dirty cop. He's not the only one you've known."
"He's buds with Jim Gable."
"I see. That's the real subject of our conversation. Maybe you should warn me in advance."
"Gable has personal knowledge about my mother's death. I'm absolutely convinced of that, Boots."
She nodded, almost to herself, or to the room, rather than to me, then began slicing a roast on the counter for our sandwiches. She cut harder, faster, one hand slipping on the knob of bone she used for a grip, the blade of the butcher knife knocking against the chopping board. She slid the knife in a long cut through a flat piece of meat and halved and quartered a blood-red tomato next to it, her knuckles whitening. Then she turned around and faced me. "What can I tell you? That I loathe myself for the fact I slept with him? What is it you want me to say, Dave?"
At the end of the week I received a call from Connie Deshotel at the office.
"Dave, maybe we've had some luck. Do you know of a recidivist named Steve Andropolis?" she said.
"He's a spotter, what used to be called a jigger."
"He's in custody in Morgan City."
"What for?"
"Possession of stolen weapons. He says he knows you. This is his fourth time down. He wants to cut a deal."
"Andropolis is a pathological liar."
"Maybe. He says he has information on the Zipper Clum murder. He also says he knows how your mother died."
The sun was high and bright in the sky, the tinted windows of the cars in the parking lot hammered with white daggers. I felt my hand tighten on the telephone receiver.
"How did he come by his information?" I asked.
"I don't know. Two detectives from NOPD are going to interview him this afternoon. You want to meet them there?"
"Is one of them Ritter?"
"Probably. He caught the case."
"What's Andropolis' bond?"
"None. He's a flight risk."
"I'll make arrangements to go over there in the next two or three days. Thanks for passing this on, Ms. Deshotel," I said.
"You seem pretty casual."
"His crime isn't in our jurisdiction. I don't have the legal power to do anything for him. That means he wants to use me against somebody else. Let him sweat awhile."
"You should have been a prosecutor," she said.
"What's he have to offer on Remeta?" I said as an afterthought.
"Ritter thinks he might have sold Remeta the weapon used in the Clum killing. Maybe he knows who ordered the hit."
"The piece came from a sporting goods break-in. The thieves were black kids from the St. Thomas Project. Andropolis is taking Ritter over the hurdles."
"I thought I might be of help. Good luck with it, Dave. Give my best to your wife," she said, and quietly hung up.
That evening the sky was filled with yellow and red clouds when Clete Purcel and I put a boat in the water at Lake Fausse Pointe. I opened up the outboard down a long canal that was thickly wooded on each side. Green logs rolled against the bank in our wake and cranes and snow egrets and great blue herons lifted into the light and glided on extended wings out over the bay.
We passed acres of floating lilies and lotus flowers that had just gone into bloom, then crossed another bay that flowed into a willow swamp and anchored the outboard off a stand of flooded cypress and tupelo gums and watched our wake slide between the trunks that were as gray as elephant hide.
Clete sat on a swivel chair close to the bow, his porkpie hat low on his eyes, his blue denim shirt damp with sweat between the shoulder blades. He flipped his casting rod with his wrist and sent his treble-hooked balsa-wood lure arching through the air.
"How's it going with you and Passion?" I asked.
"Very solid, big mon," he replied, turning the handle on his spinning reel, the lure zigzagging through the water toward the boat.
I took a cold can of beer from the ice chest and touched the back of his arm with it. He took it from my hand without turning around. I opened a Dr Pepper and drank it and watched the breeze blow through the cypress, ruffling the leaves like green lace.
"Why don't you say what's on your mind?" Clete said.
"I went through the transcript of Letty Labiche's trial. Both Letty and Passion testified that Passion was auditioning at a Lake Charles nightclub for a record company scout the night Vachel Carmouche got it."