“Who’s standing in the middle of all this and doesn’t get touched?” he said. “Who’s got a reason to do you some serious injury? In this case by degrading and then killing Bella Delahoussaye?”
“I know where you’re going. Get off it.”
“Who has an obsession with John Ford’s work and Henry Fonda and Wyatt Earp and Clementine Carter and the actress who played her and the woman here in New Iberia who looks just like the actress?”
“It’s not Desmond. That’s crazy.”
“You’re sleeping with Bailey Ribbons, Dave. In Desmond Cormier’s mind, you stole his dream. Wake the fuck up.”
On Tuesday morning, a nurse called me from Iberia General. “Hello, Mr. Robicheaux. I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“Not at all,” I said. I looked at my watch.
“I know how busy you are,” she said.
“What could I help you with?”
“I almost didn’t call. It’s about your friend. Please don’t take this the wrong way. He seems like a good person.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m not quite connecting here.”
“Oh, you know, that cuddly little fellow.”
“Cuddly?”
“He brought a box of Ding Dongs and a comic book and a teddy bear to Mr. Tillinger’s room. I had to explain to him that Mr. Tillinger is comatose and perhaps will never be otherwise. But he shouldn’t have come into the ward at five a.m. I wondered if you could speak to him. Without hurting his feelings.”
I sat forward in my chair. “He didn’t give his name?”
“It slips my mind. I’m glad I’m retiring this year. He has a lisp.”
“Wimple?”
“Sorry, that wasn’t it. Oh, wait a minute. It was a nickname. How silly of me. He said his friends call him Smiley. He said you were his friend.”
“I didn’t catch your name.”
“Alice Mouton.”
“Miss Alice, I don’t wish to upset you, but the man we’re talking about is a psychopath. If you see him or if he contacts you again, do not indicate that you know his identity. Call us. Are you following me on this?”
The line was silent.
“Miss Alice?”
“Yes.”
“You did everything correctly. You’re not at risk. His enemies are usually people who have harmed children.”
“What do you want me to do with the things he left for Mr. Tillinger?”
“Is there any receipt with them, a label that shows their origins?”
“Not that I see.”
“I’ll pick them up. In the meantime, leave them with Mr. Tillinger.”
“That’s where they are now. The man tucked the teddy bear under Mr. Tillinger’s arm.”
One hour later, I got the call I knew was coming. “Mr. Robicheaux?”
“I hear you visited Mr. Tillinger, Smiley,” I said.
“The lady told you?”
“Nobody had to tell me. Everybody knows when you’re in town.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Not me.”
“That deputy named Sean shot an innocent man.”
“You’ve got it wrong.”
“Some colored people saw it from their car.”
“Tillinger was armed. He was pointing a German Luger at both me and the deputy.”
“But you didn’t shoot. The deputy did. That means you knew Mr. Tillinger wasn’t going to shoot.”
He had me again. “Don’t go near my colleague.”
“I go where I want.”
“Not in this instance.”
“I am very angry. Mr. Tillinger was brave. He told the truth about his family. He stood up to me under very difficult circumstances. Y’all have committed an evil act, Mr. Robicheaux.”
“It’s Detective Robicheaux. But I want you to call me Dave. You know what Witness Protection is?”
“Don’t try to trick me.”
“You could be of great value to us. But you’ve got to disengage from settling scores on your own. Things aren’t always what they seem. None of us is God.”
The phone line was silent.
“Don’t hang up on me, Smiley,” I said. “The young deputy who shot Mr. Tillinger made a mistake. You’ve made mistakes, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Sean is a good kid. He’s feeling a lot of guilt right now. He needs a friend, not an enemy. I bet Mr. Tillinger would tell you that. Right or wrong?”
“Maybe.”
“We’ve got a deal?”
“About the deputy?”
“Yes, the deputy.”
“All right,” he said.
I was sweating and my heart was pounding. I got up from my desk, the phone in my hand. I felt as though I had stepped into a vortex. Down below I could see the bayou and a pirogue spinning emptily in the center of the current.
“You still with me?” I said.
“We’re on the same side now?”
“You bet.”
“But you know there’s a difference between us, don’t you?”
“I don’t know how to respond to that.”
“I don’t have restraints. I do things other people have seen only in their dreams. And I don’t feel bad about that at all.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
That evening I went home in a funk. I felt powerless. We had no viable suspects in the series of murders that had begun with Lucinda Arceneaux; a deranged man like Smiley Wimple was making calls to me that I couldn’t trace; and outsiders and sybarites like Antoine Butterworth were wiping their feet on us.
Alafair had already fixed supper and was putting it on the table when I walked into the kitchen. She was wearing a white dress and makeup.
“Where are you going tonight?” I asked.
“Lou and I are seeing Kiss of Death with Richard Widmark at UL.”
“Wexler again?” I said.
“Give it a break, Dave.”
“I just think he’s too old for you.”
Talk about feeding one to the batter.
“Do you realize how absurd that sounds, coming from you?” she said.
Rain was pelting the trees in the yard, the sky running with ink. I opened the screen door and let Snuggs and Mon Tee Coon inside, mud and all. “I majored in being ridiculous.”
“I’m glad you’re going out with Bailey,” she said.
That was my daughter.
“You’re a good guy, Alf.”
“Lou thinks Kiss of Death is too strong for me,” she said.
“When Tommy Udo pushes the old woman in the wheelchair down the staircase?”
“Lou didn’t know I came from El Salvador. When I told him what happened in my village, he got upset. He’s very protective.”
“I might come in late tonight,” I said.
“You’re seeing Bailey?”
“No.”
She waited for me to go on. But I didn’t. Her face clouded.
“I’m putting in some overtime,” I said.
“Are you and Clete up to something?”
“This has nothing to do with Clete.”
“That’s like one side of the coin saying it has nothing to do with the other side.”
“Watch out for Tommy Udo,” I said.
I drove down to Cypremort Point. The sky was sealed with black clouds except for a band of cold light along the horizon. The tide was coming in, the waves dented with rain and thudding as heavy as lead against the shore. Up ahead, Desmond’s house glistened against the sky. I parked on the road and walked up the steps in the wind and rain. I had no plan in mind. I could not even say why I was there, except that Clete Purcel had planted the seeds of doubt in my mind about Desmond Cormier.
In his work, Desmond was fascinated by light and shadow. But was that a result of his artistic compulsion or an externalization of a struggle within him? His physical energies and appetites were enormous, his latent anger sometimes flickering alight in the recesses of his eyes, as though the child in him would have its way. Even his goodness was like a child’s, brightening a room one moment, gone the next. His unknowability and mercurial behavior and insularity caused awe and fear in others. If he had an artistic antecedent, it was Leonardo, chipping away at a block of marble, releasing a statue that could be either a Madonna or a gargoyle.