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I checked out a cruiser and was at Julian’s house in fifteen minutes. The screen door hung open. I stepped up on the gallery. The living room was a wreck. Through the hallway, I saw a big man in a brown suit leaning into the refrigerator, rattling things inside. His head looked as hard and large as a bowling ball. He held his fedora in one hand. His partner was flipping the mattress off Julian’s bed. Julian was watching both detectives at the same time, his face tight with anger.
“What’s with you guys?” I said to the detective in the brown suit.
He turned around, holding a saucer with four sugar cubes on it. “What’s this look like?” he said.
“Sugar cubes?” I replied.
He tilted them off the saucer into a Ziploc. “We’ll take them to the lab.”
“You’re talking about acid? In the refrigerator of a priest?”
“I know your reputation, Robicheaux,” he said. “I used to have a drinking problem myself. I know you just got reinstated. Leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone.”
“Why the search warrant on Father Julian?” I asked, hoping they had nothing of evidentiary consequence.
“There were some postage stamps stuck on Firpo’s shoe,” he said. “The stamps had the good father’s prints on them. His prints were also on file with the NCIC. Two federal busts for trespassing at the School of the Americas.”
Julian took a step toward the detective. “Those stamps were stolen from my house. Those sugar cubes aren’t mine, either.”
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“You’re sure, Julian?” I said.
“I saw the other detective open the refrigerator earlier,” he said. “It looked like he put something inside.”
“How about it?” I said to Niles.
“Maybe the maid left the cubes in there,” Niles said. “But tell me this: Why didn’t the good father report the theft of the stamps?”
Julian started to speak, but I lifted my hand. “Father Julian gives odd jobs to people who have been in the system. He figures they’ve got enough grief without his adding to it.”
Niles didn’t answer. He was a hard man to read. Were he and his partner on a pad? Or was he just a burnt-out old-time flatfoot who had smoked too many cigarettes?
“What’s your opinion, Detective Niles?” I said.
“Firpo was mixed up with child porn,” he said. “Maybe Father Hebert did everybody a good deed. Maybe he’s like us. He’s tired of the degenerates running society. Maybe he decided to put his thumb on the scale.”
I glanced through the front door. An Iberia Parish cruiser was pulling onto the grass. Two people were in front, one a blond woman. She got out of the cruiser and stretched her arms. She was wearing navy blue slacks and a starched white shirt; her gold badge hung from a lanyard on her chest. I stepped out on the gallery.
Carroll LeBlanc, the pro tem sheriff, got out from behind the wheel and gazed at me over the top of the cruiser.
“Why the grin?” I said.
“Guess who your new boss is,” he replied.
Helen Soileau, my old Homicide partner, walked up the steps. She opened the screen and let it slam behind her. “What’s this crap about two Baton Rouge homicide roaches who didn’t check in?” she said.
“Long time no see, Soileau,” Niles said.
“Not long enough,” she replied. “And it’s Sheriff Soileau to you.”
Niles’s partner came out of the bedroom. He had a hooked nose and a head that looked like it had been squeezed inside a waffle iron. “I’ll be,” he said.
“Pardon?” she said.
“Weren’t you a meter maid at NOPD?” he said.
She looked at the disarray in the living room, then at Niles. “Y’all want to explain this?”
