“Frank Dubois,” I said.
“Where was he from?”
“New Orleans. He went to Tulane. A former AB kid named Spider Dupree said that Dubois had a coat of arms tattooed on his back and spoke Latin or Greek.”
“Dave, I need to apologize to you. I acted like a real bitch.”
“You may be lots of things, but that’s not one of them,” I said.
“That’s why I love you, Pops.”
I called Bailey and told her what I’d learned.
“You think Molinari was payback for the suffocation death?” she said.
“Yeah, I do.”
“So who’s the tie-in with Molinari?”
“I don’t know. Maybe one of our movie friends.”
“I need to tell you something,” she said. “Desmond called me last night.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything, Bailey.”
“He asked me to go to Arizona with him. I told him no.”
“Bailey—”
“I don’t know if it’s over between us or not,” she said.
“It was wrong from the jump. Not on your part. Mine. I took advantage of the situation.”
“I’m a victim?” she said. “I’m too young and inexperienced to know what I’m doing?”
“Got to go, Bailey.”
“Every time we talk, I feel like someone extracted my heart.”
I eased the phone down in the cradle and stood at the window, looking down at the Teche and the sunlight flashing as brightly as daggers on the current.
I called Desmond Cormier’s home number. There was no answer. I called Sean McClain on his cell phone. “This morning at the airport, who’d you see get on the plane?”
“There was two planes,” Sean said.
“Okay, who’d you see get on?”
“I don’t know their names.”
“You saw Desmond Cormier?”
“No, sir.”
“How about Lou Wexler?”
“I don’t know who that is. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know where Alafair is.”
“You think—”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I think, and it scares the hell out of me.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go back to the airport and find out who was on those planes.”
“Maybe Alafair will show up, Dave. Don’t get too worried.”
“Do you remember what Hilary Bienville’s body looked like?” I asked.
I went from house to house up and down East Main, asking my neighbors if they had seen Alafair leave our simple shotgun home. I mention its simplicity at this point in my story to indicate the contrast I felt between the loveliness of the morning, the leaves blowing along the sidewalks, the flowers blooming in the gardens, the massive live oaks spangled with light and shadow, all of these gifts set in juxtaposition to the violence and cruelty that had fallen upon us like a scourge and now seemed to have cast their net over my daughter.
I walked past the Steamboat House, which sat like a dry-docked ornate paddle wheeler in an ambience of Victorian and antebellum splendor that often belied the realities of slavery and, later, the terrorism of the White League during Reconstruction. Farther down the street, an elderly lady was on her hands and knees, weeding the garden in the old Burke home, a pair of steel-frame spectacles on her nose. She looked up at me and smiled. “How do you do, Mr. Robicheaux?”
“Just fine,” I said. “Alafair went somewhere with a friend while I was at Mass. I wondered if you might have seen her.”
“I didn’t see her, but I did see an unusual car stop in front of your home,” she replied, still on her hands and knees. “I’ve seen it before.”
“Unusual in what way?”
“I think the name is Italian.”
“A Lamborghini?”
“I’m not much on the names of cars.”
“What color was it?”
“Definitely cherry-red. No question about that.”
Wexler.
“Have I upset you?” she asked.
“You’ve been very helpful,” I said, the backs of my legs shaking. “Thank you.”
I hurried away, my stomach sick.
Chapter Forty-One
I called Alafair’s cell phone again, and again it went straight to voicemail. I called Sean.
“Yo, Dave,” he said.
“What’s your twenty?”
“Just coming back from the airport. Couldn’t find anybody who knew anything positive. One guy said he thought he saw Cormier get on a private plane, but he wasn’t sure.”
“Lou Wexler rents a place in St. Martinville, but I don’t know where. He drives a cherry-red Lamborghini. Go to the St. Martin Sheriff’s Department and find out. We ROA there.”
“You can probably beat me there.”
“I’m picking up Clete Purcel.”
“What’s the deal on Wexler?”
“I don’t know. I missed something on him. Something Clete told me. Or maybe Alafair told me. I can’t remember.”
“Copy that,” he said. “Out.”
I got into my truck and drove past the Shadows, then swung over to St. Peter’s Street and headed for Clete’s motor court. On Sundays, Clete usually washed or waxed his convertible and barbecued a pork roast or a chicken on the grill under the oaks by the bayou. If the weather was warm, he wore his knee-length Everlast boxing trunks and LSU or Tulane or Raging Cajuns sweatshirt, his upper arms the circumference of a fully pressurized fire hose. With luck, his metabolism would be free of the toxins that had impaired much of his life.
This morning, however, none of the foresaid applied. He was walking up and down in front of his cottage, cell phone to his ear, wearing a Hawaiian shirt outside his slacks; his shoes were shined, his hair wet-combed. He looked thinner, twenty years younger, wired to the eyes. I stopped the truck and got out, the engine still running. “What’s going on?”
“I was just calling you. Where’s Alafair?”
“Maybe with Lou Wexler.”
He looked into space, then back at me. “Wexler?”
“Yes.”
“I thought maybe—”
“What?”
“I’m confused. I saw Cormier drive by early this morning.”
“Are you sure?”
“How many guys around here have an expression like a skillet and look carved out of rock? I thought maybe he went to your house.”
I rarely saw fear in the face of Clete Purcel. He pinched his mouth.
“What is it?” I said.
“I just got a call from Alafair.”
“You talked to her?”
“No. There was just a little hiccup of a voice, like she’d butt-dialed and was talking to somebody else and clicked off again. At least, that’s what I thought I was hearing.”
“You’re not making sense, Cletus.”
“I think maybe she was saying ‘Help.’ ”
I felt a hole open in the bottom of my stomach. “Was Desmond driving a Lamborghini?”
“No, he was in a Humvee, same one he was driving at the res.”
“The lady who lives in the old Burke home saw a cherry-red Lamborghini stop at my house.”
“It was Wexler?”
“There’s no other Lamborghini around here. Just a minute.” I called Helen at home. No one answered. I called Bailey Ribbons. “I think either Lou Wexler or Desmond Cormier has got his hands on Alafair,” I said.
“That doesn’t sound right,” she said. “Des is probably in Arizona now.”
“He’s not. Clete saw him a short while ago.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“It’s not difficult. Desmond Cormier is a liar.”
“You don’t have to talk that way,” she said.
I hung up.
“What do you want to do?” Clete said.
“We’re supposed to ROA with Sean McClain in St. Martinville.”
“I need my piece.”
“Get it,” I said.