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“I’ve been kind of busy of late.”
“I guess you have.”
I looked down at the two black children, both of whom were about five or six years old. “I have a six-pack of Dr Pepper on the seat of my truck. Why don’t you guys go get it for us?” I said.
They looked at Drew for approval.
“Y’all go ahead,” she said.
“You know a sheriff’s deputy was murdered last night at Weldon’s house?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why would some people want to kill your brother, Drew?”
“Isn’t he the one to ask?”
“He seems to think that being a standup guy is the same thing as allowing someone to blow his head off. Except now an innocent man is dead.”
She wiped the sweat out of her eyebrows with the back of her hand. The sun winked brightly off the bayou.
“Come inside and I’ll give you some iced tea,” she said, wiped both of her hands on her rump, and walked ahead of me into the shade at the rear of her house. She pulled her damp T-shirt off her breasts with her fingers and shook the cloth as she opened the screen door. There was something too cavalier about her attitude, and I had the feeling that she had anticipated my visit and had already made a private decision about the outcome of our conversation.
She took a pitcher of tea out of the icebox, picked up two glasses, and we walked through a dark, cool room that gave onto a side porch. On the wall above her desk were several framed photographs: Weldon in a navy aviator’s uniform; Lyle with his zydeco band, the name CATHAHOULA RAMBLERS written in white letters at the bottom; and a cracked black-and-white picture of two little boys and a little girl standing in front of a man and woman, with a Ferris wheel in the background. The little girl had a paper windmill in her hand, and the boys were smiling over the tops of their cotton candy. The woman was expressionless and thick-bodied, her shoulders slightly rounded, her straw purse the only ornament or bright thing on her person. The man was dark and had a narrow face and wore cowboy boots, a bolo tie, and a cowboy hat at a slant on his head. He was looking at something outside the picture.
Drew had stopped in the doorway to the porch.
“I was just admiring your photographs. Are those your parents?”
She didn’t answer.
“I don’t remember them very well,” I said.
“What are you asking me, Dave?”
“Lyle says your father’s alive.”
“My father was a sonofabitch. I don’t concern myself thinking about him.”
“His picture’s hanging here, Drew.”
She set down the iced tea and the glasses on the porch and came back in the room.
“I keep it because my brothers and mother are in it,” she said. “It’s the only one I have of her. The day he drove her out of the house her car went through the railing on the Atchafalaya bridge. She drowned in fifty feet of water, down where it was so dark they had to use electric lights to find her.”
“I don’t think your father has any connection with this case. But I had to ask anyway. I’m sorry to bring up bad memories.”
“It’s the past. Who cares about it?”
“But if you thought your father had anything to do with it, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you, Drew?” I looked her directly in the eyes. Her stare remained as intent as mine.
“You should discount most of what Lyle tells you, Dave.”
“And if you knew, you’d also tell me why three guys would tear Weldon’s house apart?”
She pushed her tongue into her cheek an
d let her eyes rove over my face. No matter what the situation, Drew always gave me the feeling that she was about to step two inches from my face.
