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He looked at me, then at Alafair, and seemed to realize we were not entertained. “I already have food on the terrace. Cook has created a new recipe, shrimp deep-fried in a mushroom batter. Have you ever tried it?”
“No, I haven’t,” I replied.
“I think you might find yourself addicted,” he said.
He was smiling, but I wasn’t sure at what. Had he chosen the word “addicted” deliberately? I heard a sound above me and looked upward into the glaze of sunlight on the tree branches and saw Alexis Dupree peering down at us from the second-story veranda.
“My grandfather told me about your visit to our office in New Orleans,” Pierre Dupree said. “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Robicheaux. Gran’père gets things confused sometimes. Rather than admit it, he becomes defensive. Please, let’s sit down.”
I did not want to sit down
, and I was becoming less and less inclined to be polite. Alafair intervened. “I’d love some shrimp, Pierre,” she said.
I gave her a look, but she refused to acknowledge it. So the three of us sat down at his table on the terrace in the cooling of the day and the glimmer of the late sun on Bayou Teche. The four-o’clocks were opening in the shade, and I could smell the horse stables and see the wind blowing plumes of cinnamon-colored dust out of the cane fields. In the middle of our table was a silver tray set with a decanter of brandy and several crystal glasses. Close by the French doors was an artist’s easel with a partially completed painting propped on it. I asked permission to look at it.
“Why, certainly,” Dupree said.
On the canvas was a peculiar scene, one that seemed to draw its meaning from outside itself: a weathered wood home with cornices and gables, a vegetable garden by a stream, oak trees pooled with shadow, a Victrola in the yard, a guitar leaning against the steps that led up to the gallery. There were no people or animals in the painting.
I sat back down. Alafair had accused me earlier of obsession. I wondered if she was right.
“Does something bother you about my painting?” Dupree said, his eyes bursting with so much goodwill that they were impenetrable.
“Yes, it does bother me,” I replied. Before I could continue, my cell phone chimed. I started to silence it, then saw who the call was from. “I’m sorry, I have to take this call.”
I got up from the table and walked through the trees and down the slope toward the bayou. “Where are you?” Helen asked.
“At Pierre Dupree’s home in Jeanerette.”
“Is Clete Purcel with you?”
“No, I haven’t seen him.”
“Dana Magelli just called from NOPD. Frankie Giacano got popped last night in the men’s room of the Baton Rouge bus depot. Three rounds in the head inside a toilet stall. Giacano’s neighbors say he left his garage apartment with a man in an antique Cadillac convertible. The ticket seller at the New Orleans depot identified Giacano’s photo and said a man fitting Clete’s description bought a ticket for him to Los Angeles.”
“Did Clete get on the bus with him?”
“No, he just paid for the ticket.”
“So why should Clete be a suspect for a homicide committed in Baton Rouge?”
“Ask Dana Magelli. Listen, Dave, if you see Clete Purcel, you tell him to get his big fat ass into my office.”
“Copy that,” I said.
“Don’t be clever. I’m really pissed off.”
“About what?”
“What are you doing at the Dupree house?”
“I’m not sure.”
She made a sound that wasn’t quite a word and hung up. When I got back to the table, Alafair and Pierre Dupree were eating jumbo shrimp that had been fried in a thick golden batter. “Dig in, Mr. Robicheaux,” he said. “What were you about to say about my painting?”
“It reminds me of a song by Taj Mahal. It’s called ‘My Creole Belle.’ Mississippi John Hurt wrote it, but Taj sings it. There’s mention of a house in the country and a garden out back and blues on a Victrola.”
“Really?” he said.
