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“How you doin’, Miss Bertha?” I said. “Can I help you?”
“You can. He can’t,” she replied, pointing to Clete.
“Is something going on with Wyatt?” I asked.
“Yes, and I’m very frightened about it. I need to talk with you, Mr. Robicheaux. Does this man have to be here?”
“Yes, he does,” I said.
“I’ll be at the cabin,” Clete said.
“No, stay here,” I said. “Miss Bertha, Clete is on our side. The good guys need to stick together. Did Wyatt go see Love Younger today?”
“How did you know?”
“Clete was out there, too.”
“Wyatt reads lips. Love Younger was telling an ugly story to an ex–county detective, a man who worked with my brother. It was about Wyatt’s mother. Mr. Younger was bragging on seducing a cleaning girl in a motel years ago. Earlier he had asked Wyatt for the name of his mother. Wyatt told her it was Irma Jean. Mr. Younger told the detective that wasn’t the same woman he seduced.”
“I’m not sure what you’re saying, Miss Bertha,” I said.
“Mr. Younger said the cleaning girl’s name was Josie, so that meant she wasn’t Wyatt’s mother, and Wyatt couldn’t possibly be his son. What Mr. Younger didn’t know was that Wyatt’s mother was Josie Irma Jean Holliday. She used the name Josie at work, but to her family, she was always Irma Jean.”
“Love Younger is Wyatt’s father?” I said incredulously.
“His mother was working in the motel when Younger’s company was drilling not far from Wyatt’s home.”
“You’re saying Wyatt feels betrayed or rejected?”
“Have you seen his back? That’s what his stepfather did to him. He was punished every day of his life for his mother’s infidelity. Rejected? Where did you get such a stupid word?”
“Can I talk with him?” I asked.
“I don’t know where he’s gone. I thought he might be here.”
“Why here?” I said.
“He respects you.”
“What for?”
“He says you two are alike, that you see things that aren’t there. He also says you have blood on your hands that no one knows about. That isn’t true, is it?”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”
Clete leaned against his Caddy and lit a cigarette with his Zippo, the smoke breaking apart in the wind, his green eyes dulled over, locked on mine. He removed a piece
of tobacco from his tongue and flicked it off his fingertip. I could see his shoulder holster and snub-nosed .38 under his seersucker coat. How many times had he and I operated under a black flag?
“Wyatt left the house with his bowie knife,” she said. “He has that old rifle in his truck, too. I have to find him.”
“If you see him, tell him to keep his mouth shut about the Bobbsey Twins from Homicide,” Clete said.
“I don’t like your tone,” Bertha said.
“Few people do,” Clete replied.
She turned back to me. “You have to help him, Mr. Robicheaux. He’s tortured by what Love Younger has done to his life. He also has uninformed religious attitudes that were taught to him as a child. Wyatt has both too little and too much knowledge about certain things. And he’s confused by the name this killer may have been using.”
