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“You think she’s going to call you?”
“Probably. She seems interested in the
treatment I’m doing on Levon Broussard’s Civil War novel.”
“Maybe that’s a project you should drop, Alf.”
“Because of her?”
“Because it’s going to drag you into contact with Levon and his wife. I think Rowena Broussard is a sick person.”
“You don’t believe she was raped?”
“She’s an unhappy person who has a tendency to work out her problems on the backs of other people.”
“That’s two thirds of Hollywood,” she said.
“Did you talk to Levon about the treatment?”
“On the phone. He said it was fine with him, but he thought it was a waste of time.”
“What do you think?”
“It’s really good. The battle scenes at Shiloh, the Yankee occupation, the story of the slave girl and her white father who founded Angola Prison.”
“Why hasn’t someone adapted it?”
“Confederates are the new Nazis. Have you seen the raccoon again?”
“Not yet. He’ll be back,” I said.
“Are you okay, Dave?”
“You bet.”
“Shit,” she said. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Don’t use that kind of language, Alf.”
She put down her coffee mug and stood up and hugged me and pressed her face into my shoulder. I felt the wetness in her eyes.
“What’s this about?” I said.
She wiped her eyes on my shirt.
“Answer me, Alafair.”
“I hate what they’re doing to you,” she said. “I’d like to shoot every motherfucking one of them.”
“Don’t use that language in our home.”
She hit me, again and again, her fists bouncing on my chest.
* * *
THE SOCIAL WORKER in Jennings was named Carolyn Ardoin. She was a matronly white-haired woman with lovely skin and a blush on her cheeks and soft hands. When Clete’s cell phone woke him up at 8:05 on Monday morning, he was surprised by how happy he felt to receive her call. He had met her only once, in her office, to talk about Kevin Penny’s eleven-year-old boy. Their conversation had been all business, with little time to speak of anything other than the child’s safety. But her perfume and her manner and the freshness of her clothes lingered with him.
“I hope I didn’t call too early, Mr. Purcel,” she said.
