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The only other consolation I had was the fact my bender had not hurt my animals. When I bought my house I had created a small swinging door in the back entrance so Tripod and Snuggs, in case of emergencies, could get to a bag of dry food on the floor. But I couldn't take credit for having thought about them. A drunk on a drunk thinks about nothing except staying drunk.
I got in the shower, turned on the water as hot as I could stand it, and stayed there until the tank was almost empty. Then I dressed in fresh clothes and shaved while my hand trembled on the razor. I could hear Molly clanking pans in the kitchen.
I went into the living room and loaded the CD into my stereo. There was no seal or logo on it, and I suspected it contained nothing more than an Internet download of music someone had not bothered to pay for. But who had left it in my truck? The poachers the Creole woman had mentioned?
I pushed the "play" button on the stereo and the long-dead voice of Harry Choates, singing his signature song, "Jolie Blon," filled the room. That's why I had heard those words over and over in my head when I had woken up that morning, I told myself. Perhaps someone with a cut on his hand had given me Choates's song and I had probably played it repeatedly in my truck's stereo. A blackout didn't necessarily mean I had committed monstrous acts. I had to control my imagination. Yes, that was it. It was all a matter of personal control.
Then a second song began to play, one titled "Two Bottles of Wine," which had been written by Delbert McClinton for Emmylou Harris in the late 1970s. But the singer was not Emmylou. The band was raucous, the recording probably done in a bar or at a party, and the voice on it was the same voice as on the old 45-rpm recording Jimmie believed to have been cut by Ida Durbin.
"Everything in there okay, Dave?" Molly called from the kitchen.
chapter SIXTEEN
Monday morning the Garden of Gethsemane was the 7:35 traffic backup at the railroad crossing. It also included a horn blowing like a shard of glass in the ear, the hot smell of tar and diesel fumes, undigested food that lay greasy and cold in the stomach, waiting to fountain out of my throat. Then, to demonstrate I was in control of things and not bothered by the metabolic disaster inside my body, I blew my horn at a passing streak of freight cars.
I had attended an AA meeting the previous night, determined to leave my weekend bender behind, and this morning I had dressed in pressed slacks, shined shoes, a striped tie, and a white shirt that crinkled with light. But as I walked into the office I knew my affectation of freshness and confidence was the cheap ruse of a willful man who had thrown away years of sobriety, betrayed his friends in AA, and perhaps mortgaged a long series of tomorrows.
By midmorning I could feel a tension band begin to tighten on the right side of my head. I constantly touched at my scalp, as though I were wearing a hat that had begun to shrink. I chewed gum, washed my face with cold water in the lavatory, and tried not to think about where I might go when the clock finally struck noon. But that problem was about to be taken away from me.
The chief of police in Jeanerette was Doogie Dugas. He was not a bad fellow, simply a showboat and political sycophant. But like most sycophants he was inept and lived in fear of p
eople who had power. I was walking past Helen's open door when I saw her talking on the telephone, snapping her fingers at me. "Hang on, Chief, Dave Robicheaux just walked in," she said. "I'm going to put you on the speakerphone. Dave's the lead detective in our own investigation."
"— get the impression Mr. Val isn't a big fan of Dave Robicheaux," Doogie's voice said.
"Uh, you're on the speakerphone now, Chief," Helen said.
There was a pause. "You got any evidence this guy is local?" Doogie said.
"Which guy?" I said.
"The Baton Rouge serial killer," he said.
"No, we don't have any evidence to that effect. What's going on?" I said.
"What's going on is it looks like a butcher shop in there. The sheriff and me got road stops set up on the parish line, but I'm gonna need some lab hep here," he replied.
"Sir, I have no idea what you're talking about," I said.
"Honoria Chalons, somebody cut all over her. I never seen anyt'ing like this. Y'all coming over here or not?" he said.
Helen and I and our forensic chemist, Mack Bertrand, drove to the Chalons home on the far side of Jeanerette. The homicide had taken place in the guesthouse sometime during the weekend, when Val and his father were in New Orleans on business. Val claimed he had returned shortly after nine on Monday morning and had found the body.
Crime scene tape had already been strung through the trees, sealing off the immediate area around the guesthouse, which was located by a swimming pool that had long ago been abandoned to mold and the scales of dead vines. Crime scene technicians from three parishes were already inside the guesthouse, photographing the body, the walls, the furniture, the tile floors., the glass in the windows, even the ceiling.
Honoria was nude, her body reclining on a white sofa, the incision in her throat so deep she was almost decapitated. But the wounds in the rest of her body had bled so profusely it was obvious that the mortal blow was not the first one the killer had struck.
"Good Lord," I heard Mack say softly beside me.
The guesthouse was actually the residence of Val Chalons, and so far no one had offered an explanation for Honoria's presence there. The initial assault seemed to have occurred just as she was about to enter the shower. One strip of blood angled down the wall mirror and there was a smear against the doorjamb, as though she had bumped against it on her way to the living room. A second attack must have taken place in front of a huge television screen and stereo center, causing her to lose large amounts of blood that probably drained over the tops of her feet.
The oddity that no one could explain was the pattern of the footprints. They were evenly spaced, firmly patterned in the rug, as though she had still been in control of her movements and was unhurried about her destination. Mack believed she had sat down with deliberation on the couch, and had lain back with her head on a cushion, perhaps even lifting her chin in anticipation of the blow across the throat.
The front door had been unlocked. There was no sign of a weapon on the premises.
I looked at the white furniture, the black marble in the wet bar, the gleaming stainless-steel perfection of the kitchen area, the stereo player that was still turned on, its dials glowing with a soft green luminescence, and I felt I had been there before. But perhaps I was just remembering the interior of Val Chalons's office at the television station in Lafayette, which was similar in decor, I told myself.
Koko Hebert, our coroner, had gone outside, under a tree beyond the crime scene tape, to smoke a cigarette. His clothes smelled like an ashtray. His lungs made sounds as if he had just labored up a mountainside.
