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He walked back onto the lawn of the mortuary home. Robert Weingart cupped his hand on Kermit’s shoulder and looked across the street at me, his eyes laughing.
I TALKED AGAIN to the sheriff of St. Mary Parish and told him of my suspicions about Robert Weingart.
“He’s got an alibi, Dave. He was at Harrah’s hotel in New Orleans or in the casino all night,” the sheriff said.
“Say that last part again?”
“He’s a gambler. He was either at the tables or in his room. We checked the time-in and time-out at the parking garage. His car never left the premises.”
“Who told you he was at the tables?”
“Kermit.”
“Kermit was in the casino with him? All night?”
“No, Kermit says he went to bed and Weingart went to the casino. But a blackjack dealer remembers him.”
“Weingart could have been at the Abelard house in an hour and a half.”
“I don’t think he’s a likely candidate. I think you’re too personally involved in this. Maybe it’s time to butt out.”
“Drop by the office, and I’ll show you a video that will stay with you awhile.”
“Video of what?” he said.
I eased the receiver back down in the cradle. I was at a dead end again. The deaths of Timothy Abelard and Emiliano Jimenez had changed nothing. But one pattern of behavior in the players had changed. Emma Poche, while drunk, had warned me over the telephone that I and anyone with me was in danger. She had also put Robert Weingart to his knees with a baton when he tried to work his seductive routine on Tee Jolie Melton. And only a few days ago, Emma had brought Clete a tray of sandwiches and attempted to apologize to him, although her confession avoided the admission that not only had she participated in the murder of Herman Stanga, but she had planted Clete’s pen at the crime scene.
I looked at my watch. It was 4:56 P.M. When I was on the dirty boogie, what was I always thinking about when the clock inched toward five? It came in frosted mugs and tumblers of ice and bottles that were smoke-colored or dark green or reddish-black or glowing with an amber warmth. A softly lit, air-conditioned bar with tropical sunsets painted on the walls was not an oasis in the desert. It was a Renaissance cathedral, a retreat for wayward souls whose secular communion waited for them in the first glass they could raise to their lips.
It wasn’t hard to find Emma. She had changed into street clothes and was drinking in the same lounge where Clete had met her during his surveillance of Carolyn Blanchet, outside St. Martinville. I sat down next to her at the bar and ordered a Dr Pepper in a glass of ice with a lime slice.
“I always thought that stuff tasted like iodine,” she said.
“It does,” I said. “You give up on meetings altogether?”
“Stop drinking today, gone tomorrow.”
“You know why drunks go to meetings?” I asked.
“Let me guess. Because they drink?”
“Because they feel guilty.”
“What a breakthrough, Dave.” She was drinking Wild Turkey on the rocks, cupping her hand all the way around the tumbler when she drank from it. Her cheeks looked filled with blood, the fuzz on them glowing against the light.
“Do you know why they feel guilty?”
“I’ll take another big leap here. Because they went through severe toilet training?”
“No, because they still have their humanity. The greater the pain, the greater the indication that they’re basically decent people.”
“Put it on a postcard and send it to the penguins, will you? I mean it, Streak. Let a girl come up for oxygen.”
“I have three still photos here. A guy in the department made them from a video that belonged to Herman Stanga. Take a look.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I think you should.”
