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When I entered Helen’s office and saw her face, I knew we were not going to be talking about Alafair’s encounter with Vidor Perkins. A gold pen, inside a small Ziploc bag, was sitting on top of Helen’s desk blotter. “Recognize that?” she asked.
“Not offhand.”
“Look at it closely.”
I picked up the Ziploc bag and, with two fingers, held it up against the light from the window.
“Can you read the inscription?” she said.
“It says ‘Love to Clete from Alicia.’”
“Who’s Alicia?” she asked.
“Alicia Rosecrans, an FBI agent Clete was involved with in Montana.”
“Involved with?”
“They were an item for a while. What’s the big deal about the pen?”
“A pool cleaner found it at the bottom of Herman Stanga’s swimming pool this morning.”
“What’s the pool cleaner doing at the house of a dead man?”
“Stanga had paid three months in advance for the service. Why is the first thing out of your mouth a question about the maintenance man rather than how the pen got in Stanga’s swimming pool?”
“Maybe Clete went to see him.”
“I talked with Clete two days after Stanga was murdered. He said he had been by Stanga’s house but had never been on the property. You look a little uncomfortable.”
“Clete wouldn’t shoot somebody in cold blood.”
“By his own admission, he was in a blackout the night Stanga died. He doesn’t know what he did. How is it that you do? Tell me how you acquired this great omniscience, Dave.”
“Don’t buy into this crap, Helen.”
“You get your damn head on straight. This pen puts Clete at the scene of a homicide. He denies ever having been there, but he admits he had a blackout the night of the crime. What if a perp said that to you?”
I tried to speak, but she interrupted me. “You’ve spent years attending meetings. Why do people usually have alcoholic blackouts?” she said.
“They’re caused by a chemical assault on the brain.”
“Try again.”
“Sometimes drunks can’t deal with what they’ve done.”
“Good. We got that out of the way. Now get out of here and do some serious casework and stop fronting points for Clete. I’m really tired of it.”
“Has the pen been to the lab?”
“Yeah, it has.”
I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. “Whose prints are on it?” I said.
“Nobody’s.”
“That’s funny, isn’t it? Clete’s pen doesn’t have Clete’s prints on it? Maybe he was wearing latex when he put it in his pocket.” I could see her chest rising and falling, her irritation reaching critical mass, but I didn’t care. I went on, “Vidor Perkins put his hand on my daughter’s face this morning. At the fruit stand by the bayou.”
“Tell Alafair to file battery charges.”
