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He remained motionless in his swivel chair. The tips of his mustache were as white as ash. The clarity in his blue eyes made me think of an empty, sunlit sky. He was one of those whose decency and sense of honor were not an issue. A less patient man would have been far more severe in his attitude toward Clete and Gretchen Horowitz and me. Elvis Bisbee believed the world was a rational place and that procedure in many ways was an end in itself. Without his kind, we probably would have chaos. However, there is a caveat to that kind of thinking. Those who are rapacious and prey upon the weak and who would undo the system are not bound by procedure, and they take great delight in the presence of those who are.
“Rhonda Fayhee is alive, Sheriff. I don’t think we have a lot of time,” I said. “I was almost sure Surrette had killed her. He has never kept his victims alive, except to torture them. This time he decided to do it differently.”
“Why?”
“He doesn’t telegraph his pitch. He hides it in his glove or behind his thigh.”
“Why are you so sure it’s Surrette?”
“Because he’s getting better and better at what he does. He could have picked up the prescriptions himself. Instead, he used and degraded a kid who looks like a sack of broken Popsicle sticks. He also knew the kid would report him and we’d figure out the girl is still alive. Except we have no idea where she is or what she’s going through while we’re wasting time in your office.”
“Waste of time, is it?”
I got up from the chair. “Surrette is about to send us something. They all do. I don’t know what it will be. I don’t even want to think about it. But that’s what he’s going to do. Something is troubling me about our conversation, Sheriff.”
“Don’t hold back.”
“You’re an intelligent man. I think you already know all these things. Surrette is here for the long haul, and your department isn’t equipped to deal with him. So it becomes a whole lot easier to swat at flies rather than admit you’ve got a real monster in your midst. I don’t blame you for being impotent about your situation. I do blame you for pretending to be ignorant of it.”
He picked up the pen from his desk and balanced it on one end, then on the other, and finally let it topple onto the blotter. “Good-bye, Mr. Robicheaux. If you have any other information for me, phone it in. I make this request of you because I would like you to stay the hell out of my office for a very long time.”
WHEN SHE WAS little, Alafair could never hide secrets. Her emotions immediately showed on her face, with a transparency that was like looking through glass. She used to get into raging confrontations with Batist, the elderly black man who worked at our bait shop and boat dock. The issue was always the same: Tripod, her pet raccoon, who had only three legs but was a master burglar when it came to breaking into Batist’s stock of energy bars and fried pies. In one instance, I looked down the slope from our old home and saw Alafair racing from the bait shop with Tripod cradled in her arms and Batist in full pursuit, a broomstick cocked over h
is head. She powered up the slope through the pecan trees and live oaks and streaked past me into the house, Tripod’s tail flopping like a spring.
“What happened down there?” I said.
“Batist is mean! I hate him!”
“You shouldn’t talk about Batist like that, Alafair. Did Tripod do something that got him upset?”
“He didn’t do anything. Batist said he was going to cook him in a pot. I hope he falls in the water and gets hit by a boat. Why doesn’t he take his smelly cigars and go home?”
“Can you explain why Tripod has chocolate on his paws and all over his mouth?”
Her face was as round as a plate, her bangs hanging in her eyes. She looked sideways. “He probably found a candy bar on the dock.”
“Yeah, a lot of people throw their candy bars on the dock. Did you notice that Tripod’s stomach looks like a balloon full of water?”
“He was going to hurt Tripod, Dave. You didn’t see his face.”
“Batist can’t read or write, but he takes great pride in the work he does for us. When Tripod tears up the counter, Batist feels like he’s let us down. You and Tripod have to see things from his point of view.”
Her face crumpled and she began to cry. When I tried to pat her on the head, she ran out the back door, slamming it as hard as she could, Tripod bouncing in her arms.
She had a horse named Tex that I let her ride only when I was close by. While my wife, Annie, and I were gone one afternoon, Alafair put on Tex’s bridle and bit and used the slat fence to climb up on his back. She was wearing her Baby Orca T-shirt and the Donald Duck cap with a quacking bill that we had bought at Disney World. For whatever reason, she decided to start quacking the bill. Tex responded by pitching her end over end into our tomato plants. When we returned from town, Alafair had dirt in her hair and a scrape on the side of her face, but she refused to tell us what had happened. I looked through the side window and saw Tex standing by the shed, his reins hanging in the dirt.
“Did you ride Tex while we were gone?” I asked.
She squinted as though she couldn’t quite recall the event. “Maybe for a little bit. Yeah, I think I did.”
“You fell off?”
“No, he went up in the air and threw me over his head!”
“Okay, so let’s not do that again. What if you had been knocked unconscious?” I said.
She shut her eyes, tears leaking down both cheeks.
