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“Yeah, but where does that leave us?”
“I’ll let you know,” he said, taking off his coat. He knelt down and placed it over Julie Ardoin’s face. When he stood up, there was a tear in the corner of his eye. He coughed before he spoke again. “We pick up Pierre Dupree, but this time out, it doesn’t make the jail.”
“What if we’re wrong?”
“You want to wait around here for Helen and the coroner? Wake up. Nobody wants to screw with St. Mary Parish. There’s an old man in that plantation house who probably stuck whole families in ovens. Blue Melton floated up on the beach in a block of ice, and nobody could care less. You know how many unsolved female homicides there are in this state? You know what Alafair and Gretchen might be going through while we’re playing pocket pool up here?”
My head felt like a piece of ceramic about to crack. “You’re sure it’s
Dupree?”
“Take it to the bank.”
“We’re leaving something out. I just can’t put my hand on it.”
“Like what?” he said.
“I told you, I don’t know. It’s something about a song. I can’t remember.”
“Bad time for a memory blackout,” he said.
I heard footsteps on the stairs behind me. Clete and I turned around. Varina Leboeuf had climbed the steps and was standing halfway inside the loft, as though partially disembodied, her hair sparking with confetti, her face as heartbreakingly beautiful as it was when she was a young girl. “What are you two doing up here?” she said.
“What are you doing here?” Clete replied.
“I was talking to the ice-cream man. He told me y’all were looking for Alafair.”
“Why would you be talking to the ice-cream man about Alafair?” I asked.
“Pierre and his father own part of the frozen-food company. They deliver to offshore rigs. What’s going on?” When we didn’t answer, she glanced at the loft floor. “Where’d this blood come from?”
“There’s a lot more of it behind those boxes,” Clete said. “It belongs to Julie Ardoin. Take a look-see if you like.”
Her face seemed to wrinkle like a flower exposed to heat. “She’s been murdered?”
“Her throat was cut almost to the spine,” Clete said.
Varina pressed her hand to her mouth. I thought she was going to fall backward to the floor below. Clete reached down and helped her the rest of the way up the steps. She looked steadily into his eyes, as though reaching back into an intimate moment they shared. “I wish you’d killed him,” she said.
“Killed who?” Clete asked.
“Lamont Woolsey. I wish you would kill Amidee Broussard, too.”
“What do Broussard and Woolsey have to do with this?” I said.
“They’re evil. They use young girls. They deceive people with religion. It’s white slavery. That’s what it’s called, isn’t it? Is Julie behind those boxes?”
“She told me she hardly knew you,” I said.
“That’s not true. I want to see Julie.”
“This is a crime scene. You need to leave, Varina,” I said.
“Why were you down in the hallway?” Clete said.
“I sponsored the western band. I was going to write them a check,” she said.
“Where’s Pierre?” he asked.
