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“What about the St. Martin deputies?” Sean said.
I shook my head.
“Is that smart?” he said.
I looked at him without speaking.
“It’s your show,” he said.
• • •
WE PULLED INTO a shady lot on the Teche, just outside the city limits. The house was a large, weathered gingerbread affair, the wide, railed gallery overgrown with banana fronds, the rain gutters full of leaves and moss, the tin roof streaked with rust. The chimney was cracked, a broken lightning rod hanging from the bricks. There were no vehicles in the yard or garage. I got out and banged on the door, then circled the house. My caution about the St. Martin Parish authorities was unnecessary; no one was home. I splintered the front door out the jamb and went inside.
Every room was immaculate and squared away. I began pulling clothes off hangers and raking shelves onto the floor.
“What are you doing?” Clete said.
“Finding whatever I can.”
“We don’t know that Wexler has Alafair. Cormier is out there somewhere.”
“It’s Wexler. She was here. I can feel it.”
Clete looked at me strangely.
“It’s something a father knows,” I said.
Sean McClain was still outside. Through the open front door, I saw Bailey Ribbons pull into the lot in a cruiser. She got out and walked into the living room. “Helen says we’ll have the whole department on this, Dave. What do you have so far?”
“We found out from a St. Martin deputy that Wexler’s Lamborghini was in the shop. He’d probably borrowed Butterworth’s Subaru when Wimple accosted him.”
“You dumped his closets and shelves?” she said.
“I’m just getting started.”
“Maybe dial it down a little bit? We don’t want to lose something in the shuffle.”
She was right. I was in overdrive. “Check the kitchen. I’m going in the attic.”
I pulled down the drop door in the bedroom ceiling and climbed up the steps. I shone a penlight around the attic walls. A heavy trunk, a wardrobe box, and a handwoven basket-like baby carriage were in one corner. The wardrobe box was stuffed with historical costumes that smelled of mothballs. The baby carriage was filled with bandanas, women’s shoes, empty purses and wallets, and old Polaroids of third-world women in bars and cafés. All the women were smiling. The trunk was unlocked. I lifted the top. It was packed with video games, the kind that award the shooters or drivers points for the victims they rack up.
I dumped the trunk and wardrobe box, then the baby carriage. As the purses and wallets and women’s clothing and photos spilled
on the floor, I saw the one object I did not want to find, one that sucked the air from my chest.
I picked it out of the pile and went down the ladder and eased the drop door back into the ceiling, then went into the kitchen. Bailey was sitting at the table. “What is it?”
I set the box on the table. “The tarot.”
“Shit,” Clete said behind me.
I sat down and put the deck in Bailey’s hand. “See if there’s anything significant about the deck. Missing cards or whatever.”
She began separating the suits, then stopped and set one card aside. It was a card called the Empress. It was also disfigured. She resumed sorting the deck and put four other cards with the Empress. “The Queen of Cups, the Queen of Pentacles, the Hanged Man, the Ten of Wands, the Empress, the Ace of Wands, and the Fool all have X’s cut on them,” she said. “The Queen of Cups is Bella Delahoussaye. The Queen of Pentacles is Hilary Bienville. The Hanged Man and the Ten of Wands could be Joe Molinari. The Fool might be Antoine Butterworth. The Empress is Lucinda Arceneaux. The Ace of Swords is for sure Axel Devereaux.”
“You’re sure about this?” Clete said.
“No,” she replied. “That’s all guesswork.”
