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

"My family?" I said.

"If you're brave and honorable and your enemies can't destroy you personally, they'll seek to destroy what you love."

He gestured with his crutch to a sergeant, who led a saddled white gelding around the side of the bleachers.

"Wait a minute, general. That's not good enough," I said.

"It's all I have," he answered, now seated in the saddle, his back erect, the reins wrapped around his gloved fist.

"Who would try to hurt them? What woul

d they have to gain?"

"I don't know. Keep the Sykes boy with you, though. He's a good one. You remember what Robert Lee once said: 'Texans move them every time.' Good day to you, lieutenant. It's time we go give Bonnie Nate Banks his welcome to southwestern Louisiana." Then he cut the spur on his left boot into his horse's flank, galloped to the head of his infantry, and hollered out brightly, "Hideeho, boys! It's a fine day for it! Let's make religious fellows of them all!"

Sometime later, I sat up on the ground in the rain, my clothes soaked, the base pad in my lap, a knot as hard and round as a half-dollar throbbing three inches behind my ear. An elderly black yardman bent over me, his face filled with concern. Down the street I could see an ambulance coming toward me through the rain.

"You okay, mister?" the black man said.

"Yes, I think so."

"I seen you there and t'ought you was drunk. But it look like somebody done gone upside yo' head."

"Would you help me up, please?"

"Sho. You all right?"

"Why, yes, I'm sure I am. Did you see a man on horseback?"

"The Popsicle man gone by. His li'l cart got a horse. That's what you talkin' about?"

The black man eased me down on the bottom plank of the bleachers. It was starting to rain hard now, but right next to me, where the general had been sitting, was a pale, dry area in the wood that was as warm to the touch as living tissue.

Chapter 15

The sky was clear when I woke in the morning, and I could hear gray squirrels racing across the bark of the trees outside the window. The icebag I had put on the lump behind my ear fell to the floor when I got out of bed to answer the phone.

"I called your office and found out you're still suspended," Lou Girard said. "What's going on over there?"

"Just that. I'm still suspended."

"It sounds like somebody's got a serious bone on for you, Dave. Anyway, I talked to this FBI agent, what's her name, Gomez, as well as your boss. We vacuumed the Buick. Guess what we found?"

"I don't know."

"Paper wadding. The kind that's used to seal blank cartridges. It looks like somebody fired a starter's gun at you. He probably leaned down through the passenger window, let off a couple of rounds, then bagged out."

"What'd the sheriff have to say when you told him?"

"Not much. I got the feeling that maybe he was a little uncomfortable. He doesn't look too good, right, when one of his own men has to be cleared by a cop and a pathologist in another parish? I thought I could hear a little Pontius Pilate tap water running in the background."

"He's always been an okay guy. He just got too close to a couple of the oil cans in the Chamber of Commerce."

"Your friends don't stand around playing pocket pool while civilians kick a two-by-four up your butt, either."

"Anyway, that's real good news, Lou. I owe you a red-fishing trip out to Pecan Island."

"Wait a minute, I'm not finished. That Gomez woman has some interesting theories about serial killers. She said these guys want control and power over people. So I got to thinking about the LeBlanc girl. If your FBI friend is right and the guy who killed her is from around here, what kind of work would he be in?"