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“That’s a possibility. You think you saw Smiley Wimple?”
“I ain’t sure.”
“You weren’t in the service, were you?”
“No, sir.” He waited. “How come you ask me that?”
“You’ve got your whole environment lit up. You’d make a great silhouette on a window shade.”
“I don’t study on things like that.”
“On what things?”
“Dying. I figure everybody has a time. Till it comes, I say don’t study on it.”
“Let’s take a look at your barn.”
He put on a raincoat with a hood, and we went out into the rain and walked under an oak tree and crossed a clear spot and entered the dry barn. He closed the door behind us and pulled the chain on a solitary lightbulb. Fresh shoe marks were stenciled in the dirt, though not to the extent that I could tell their size.
“Were you in here?”
“No, sir.”
“You stood outside?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the guy ran from here to that pecan grove?”
“Like I said.”
“Your clothes didn’t get wet?”
“They was sopping. That’s why I put on dry ones.”
“I was just wondering. I thought you might have secret powers.”
“You did, huh?”
It was too late to take back the wisecrack. “What else did Bailey have to say?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Sean—”
“To heck with you, Dave. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
He pulled the chain on the light and walked back to his house, the rain glistening on his raincoat, his profile as sharp as snipped tin.
• • •
I DIDN’T SLEEP THAT night. Early Sunday morning I drove to Clete’s motor court and banged on his door. The rain was still falling, a thick white fog rolling on the bayou, the air cold, like snow on your skin. Clete answered the door in his pajamas. “Have you gone nuts?”
“Thanks for the kind words,” I said, brushing past him.
He shut the door. “You had trouble with Bailey Ribbons?”
“Why do you think that?”
