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"Ms. Parks, Lori might have known someone who simply worked at the pipeline company."
"This number goes into Flannigan's office. It's his extension. Why are you covering up for him? I hate you people," she said.
She was obviously still drunk, but I couldn't fault her for her rage. Her daughter had burned to death in an automobile after being sold liquor illegally, and her husband, who had survived a tour as a combat medic, had been killed with impunity by Will Guillot, the investigation written off by a cop on a pad. But family survivors of homicide victims are seldom mentioned in follow-up news stories, even though the grief they carry is like the daily theft of sunlight from their lives.
The window on my cell phone cleared. Donna Parks was off the line now, but either because of the weather or my location I was losing service as I tried to punch in a 911 call. I heard someone's feet crunch on the hailstones behind me.
"You must have been a Marine, Mr. Robicheaux. I think you're the most determined man I've ever met."
I turned and looked into the face of Castille Lejeune. He wore a silver shooting jacket, one with ammunition loops sewn on the sleeves, a flat-brimmed, pearl-gray Stetson hat, and khaki trousers tucked inside fur-lined, half-topped boots. In his right hand he held a blue-black revolver with walnut grips. But he did not point it at me. Up on the slope, by the carriage house, I could see Merchie Flannigan's Mercedes.
"You got the jump on me, Mr. Lejeune. You and your son-in-law just pull in?" I said.
"The question is what do I do with you, Mr. Robicheaux."
"You didn't just pop o
le Max, did you? You executed him."
"Could I see your search warrant?"
"Don't happen to have it with me."
"Ah."
"Merchie has been screwing both you and your daughter, Mr. Lejeune. He stole a single-action Army colt from Will Guillot and used it to kill the daiquiri store operator. Then he threw the gun down so we'd put it on Guillot and by extension on you and your enterprises."
"Why would he kill a liquor salesman?"
"Merchie was banging a seventeen-year-old girl by the name of Lori Parks. She died in a car wreck after she bought booze from a drive-by store you own."
I could see the connections coming together in Lejeune's eyes. Behind him Merchie Flannigan was walking down the slope, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, his shoulders hunched under an Australian flop hat.
Lejeune glanced over his shoulder, then focused on my face again. "You uncovered evidence in a homicide without a warrant, which destroys the probative value of the discovery," he said. "But you're not a stupid man. Something else is going on here. You quit the sheriff's department, didn't you?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "We've got your ass in the bear trap, Mr. Lejeune. How's it feel?" I said, and actually laughed.
Up on the slope I saw Theodosha Flannigan park her Lexus and walk into the front of the house, carrying a guitar case.
"Open your coat," Lejeune said, raising his pistol toward my chest. "Use your left hand, unsnap the strap on your sidearm, and drop it on the ground."
"Nope," I said.
"Say again?"
"A police officer never surrenders his weapon."
"You're not a police officer anymore."
"Old habits die hard."
I'd like to say my behavior was brave, my principles inviolate, but in reality I didn't feel personally threatened by Castille Lejeune. He didn't care enough about me or the social class I represented to hate or fear me, and in all probability he still retained some of the fatalistic views that had allowed him to survive the Korean War as a decorated combat pilot. The system had served him for a lifetime why should it fail him now?
But on another level I misjudged him. He could abide a professional enemy such as myself, but treachery inside the castle walls was another matter. He pulled back my coat, removed my .45 from the clip-on holster I wore, and tossed it in the mud.
Merchie Flannigan was standing now on the rim of the depression, his face disjointed as he stared down at the half-exhumed body of Max Coll. "Who's this dead guy? What's happening here?" he said.
"You were having an affair with a seventeen-year-old girl?" Le-Jeune said.
