"Yeah, he's sitting in your office. What are you doing, Dave?"
"Give Purcel a call for me. Tell him I have some freight he ought to check out."
"Dave, you're not supposed to be down here."
"Just make the call. It's not a big deal."
"Maybe you should make it yourself."
I set the Nicaraguan down on a wooden bench and used the phone on the sergeant's desk to call Clete at home. I don't know what I had in mind, really. Maybe I was still pulling for him. Or maybe like a jilted lover I wanted to deliver a little more pain in a situation that was beyond bearing it.
"I can't come down there now. Maybe later. Lois is going apeshit on me," he said. "She took all the beer bottles out of the icebox and busted them all over the fucking driveway. On Sunday morning. The neighbors are watering their lawns and going to church while beer foam and glass are sliding down my drive into the street."
"Sounds bad."
"It's our ongoing soap opera. Drop around sometime and bring your own popcorn."
"Clete?"
"What is it?"
"Get down here."
I led the Nicaraguan through the traffic squad room, which was filled with uniformed cops doing paperwork, into my office, where Nate Baxter sat on the corner of my desk. His sports clothes and two-toned shoes and styled hair gave you the impression of a Nevada real-estate salesman who would sell you a house lot located on an abandoned atomic test site.
I threw the tape cassette into his lap.
"What's this?" he asked.
"His confession. Also some information about gun smuggling."
"What am I supposed to do with it?"
"Listen to it. I've got an interpreter on the tape, but you can get your own."
"You taking coerced statements from suspects?"
"He had his options."
"What the hell are you doing, Robicheaux? You know this isn't acceptable as evidence."
"Not in a courtroom. But you have to consider it in an IA investigation. Right?"
"I can tell you now it's got about as much value as toilet paper."
"Look, you're supposed to be an impartial investigator. There's a murder confession on that tape. What's the matter with you?"
"All right, I'll listen to it during working hours tomorrow. Then I'll tell you the same thing I told you today. But let's look at your real problem a minute. An unverifiable tape-recorded statement brought in by a suspended cop is worthless in any kind of investigation. You've been here fourteen years and you know that. Secondly, while you were on suspension you got yourself busted with a concealed weapon. I didn't do that to you. Nobody else around here did, either. So why not quit pretending I'm the bad actor that kicked all this trouble up your butt? You got to deal with your own fall, Robicheaux. That's real. Your rap sheet is real, and so is your drinking history."
"How about Andres here? Does he look like something I made up?"
My office enclosure was half glass, and the door was open and our voices carried out into the squad room.
"Is he going to make a statement?" Baxter asked.
"Is he go—"
"That's right. You got a tape. You got a guy. Now the tape's no good, so is the guy going to talk to us?"