In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead (Dave Robicheaux 6)

"That left one's clipped in half," Sykes said.

"Yep. That's where he was shot when he tried to run away from two white men."

"You clairvoyant or something?" Sykes said.

"No, I saw it happen. About a mile from here."

"You saw it happen?" Sykes said.

"Yep."

"What's going on here?" the deputy said behind us. "You saying some white people lynched somebody or something?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. When we get back we'll need to talk to your sheriff and get your medical examiner out here."

"I don't know about y'all over in Iberia Parish, but nobody around here's going to be real interested in nigger trouble that's thirty-five years old," the deputy said.

I worked the willow branch around the base of the bones and peeled back a skein of algae over the legs, the pelvic bones, and the crown of the skull, which still had a section of grizzled black hair attached to the pate. I poked at the corrugated, blackened work boots and the strips of rag that hung off the pelvis.

I put down the branch and chewed on the corner of my thumbnail.

"What are you looking for, Mr. Robicheaux?" Sykes said.

"It's not what's there, it's what isn't," I said. "He wasn't wearing a belt on his trousers, and his boots have no laces."

"Sonofabitch probably did his shopping at the Goodwill. Big fucking deal," the deputy said, slapped a mosquito on his neck, and looked at the red and black paste on his palm.

Later that afternoon I went back to work on the case of the murdered girl, whose full name was Cherry LeBlanc. No one knew the whereabouts of her father, who had disappeared from Mamou after he was accused of molesting a black child in his neighborhood, but I interviewed her grandparents again, the owner of the bar in St. Martinville where she had last worked, the girls she had been with in the clapboard jukejoint the night she died, and a police captain in Lafayette who had recommended probation for her after she had been busted on the prostitution charge. I learned little about her except that she seemed to have been an uneducated, unskilled, hapless, and fatally beautiful girl who thought she could be a viable player in a crap game where the dice for her kind were always shaved.

I learned that about her and the fact that she had loved zydeco music and had gone to the jukejoint to hear Sam "Hogman" Patin play his harmonica and bottleneck blues twelve-string guitar.

My desk was covered with scribbled notes from my note pad, morgue and crime-scene photos, interview cassettes, and Xeroxes from the LeBlanc family's welfare case history when the sheriff walked into my office. The sky outside was lavender and pink now, and the fronds on the palm trees out by the sidewalk were limp in the heat and silhouetted darkly against the late sun.

"The sheriff over in St. Mary Parish just called," he said.

"Yes?"

"He said thanks a lot. They really appreciate the extra work." He sat on the corner of my desk.

"Tell him to find another line of work."

"He said you're welcome to come over on your days off and run the investigation."

"What's he doing with it?"

"Their coroner's got the bones now. But I'll tell you the truth, Dave, I don't think it's going anywhere."

I leaned back in my swivel chair and drummed my fingers on my desk. My eyes burned and my back hurt.

"It seems to me you've been vindicated," the sheriff said. "Let it go for now."

"We'll see."

"Look, I know you've got a big workload piled on you right now, but I've got a problem I need you to look into when you have a chance. Like maybe first thing tomorrow morning."

I looked back at him without speaking.

"Baby Feet Balboni," he said.