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

I threw the tire iron on the front seat of the Buick.

"What do you feel now?" she said.

"What do you mean?" I was surprised at the level of irritation in my voice.

"You know what I mean."

My eyes burned and filmed in the haze. I saw the three oaks in the vacant lot go out of focus, as though I were looking at them inside a drop of water.

"Everyone thinks I killed an unarmed woman. What do you think I feel?" I said. I had to swallow when I said it.

"It was a setup, Dave. We both know it."

"If it was, what happened to the gun? Why aren't there any holes in the bar?"

"Because the guy behind this is one smart perp. He got a woman, probably a chippy, to make calls to your dispatcher to give the impression your fly was open, then he got you out of your jurisdiction and involved you in another hooker's death. I think this guy's probably a master at control."

"Somehow that doesn't make me feel a lot better, Rosie."

I looked at the stain on the Buick's carpet. The heat was rising from the ground now and I thought I could smell a salty odor like dead fish. I closed the passenger door.

"I really walked into it, didn't I?" I said.

"Don't worry, we're going to bust the guy behind this and lose the key on him." Her eyes smiled, then she winked at me.

I had brought a garden rake from home. I took it out of Rosie's car and combed a pile of mud and soggy weeds from the bottom of the ditch next to the Buick. Then Rosie said, "Dave, come over here and look at this."

She stood next to the vegetable patch that was located on the edge of the vacant lot. She pointed at the ground.

"Look at the footprints," she said. "Somebody ran through the garden. He broke down the tomato stakes."

The footprints were deep and wide-spaced in the soft earth. The person had been moving away from the street toward the three oak trees in the center of the lot. Some of the tomato and eggplant bushes were crushed down flat in the rows.

A wrecker came around the corner with two men in it and stopped behind the Buick. The driver got out and began hooking up the rear end of the Buick. A middle-aged plain-clothes detective in short sleeves with his badge on his belt got out with him. His name was Doobie Patout, a wizened and xenophobic man, with faded blue tattoos on his forearms; some people believed he'd once been the official executioner at Angola.

He didn't speak. He simply stared through the heat at me and Rosie.

"What's happening, Doobie?" I said.

"What y'all doin' out here?" he said.

"Looking for a murder weapon," I said.

"I heard you were suspended."

"Word gets around."

"You're not supposed to be messin' 'round the crime scene."

"I'm really just an observer."

"Who's she?" He raised one finger in Rosie's direction.

"Special Agent Gomez," Rosie said. "This is part of an FBI investigation. Do you have a problem with that?"

"You got to coordinate with the city," he said.

"No, I don't," she said.