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“Whom do you think you work for, Mr. Robicheaux?” he said.
“That’s a valid question.”
“Will you answer it?” he said.
“Mr. Woolsey was on a boat that was used in the abduction of a homicide victim. Is this the kind of guy you associate with?”
“Do I need an attorney?”
“That’s up to you.”
“I think we’re finished,” he said.
“No, we’re not.”
“Then please tell me why you’re following me.”
“Who are you?” I said.
“What difference does it make? Do you think harassing me and Lamont Woolsey is going to stop oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico?”
“What did Blue Melton know about y’all that was so important you had to kill her? She was seventeen years old. Does that weigh on you at all, Mr. Donnelly?”
“I’ve killed no one. You have no right to say that.”
“Get your nose out of the air, bud,” Clete said. “As we speak, Varina Leboeuf is selling your snooty ass down the drain.”
“Tell me, Mr. Purcel, if what you say is true, why are you staging this little show for us? I don’t wish to offend you gentlemen, but don’t you think it’s time to grow up? An oil company doesn’t deliberately destroy its own drilling apparatus. It was an accident, a blip that is nothing compared to the daily environmental and human cost in the Middle East. I don’t hear you objecting to the things that go on over there. The Saudis cut off people’s heads.”
Clete lit his cigarette, the smoke drifting out of his mouth, his eyes focused on nothing. “This is our state, Jack. You and your friends are tourists,” he said.
“I have news for you, friend,” Donnelly said. “The sidewalks you stand on are paid for with money you borrow from foreigners.”
Donnelly and Woolsey got in the backseat of the Buick. The two security men looked at us from behind their shades, their expressions flat. The wind blew the coat of the man with the bump on his nose, exposing the strap of a shoulder holster. Then all of them drove away, leaving Clete and me in the parking lot, leaves swirling around our shoes.
“How did that just happen?” Clete said.
“We came on their turf. It was a mistake,” I said. “Take a look across the street.”
“At what?”
“The guy in the pickup truck. It’s Jesse Leboeuf,” I said.
“What’s he doing here?”
“I hate to guess,” I replied. I began punching in a 911 on my cell phone, but Leboeuf pulled into the traffic before I had finished.
WHEN I GOT back to the department, I asked Wally, our head dispatcher, if he had received any reports on Jesse Leboeuf. Wally had been with the department for thirty-two years and still lived with his mother and never answered a question directly if there was a chance of turning it into a two-cushion bank shot. A conversation with Wally was as close to water torture as it comes. “You mean the Breat’alyzer test or causing a disturbance on Railroad Avenue?” he said.
“His daughter told me he was drunk. I guess she knew what she was talking about,” I said, determined not to take the bait.
“I t’ink he got a free pass on the Breat’alyzer.”
“Really? Thanks for the feedback.”
I started toward my office.
“Down on Railroad, it was a li’l different,” he said.
