"That was Academy Award stuff, Dave," Rosie said as we got in my truck.
"It doesn't hurt to make the batter flinch once in a while."
"You did more than that. You should have seen the lawyer's face when you started talking about the lynching."
"He's not the kind who's in it for the long haul."
As I started the truck a gust of wind sent a garbage can clattering down the sidewalk and blew through the oak grove across the street. A solitary shaft of sunlight broke from the clouds and fell through the canopy, and in a cascade of gold leaves I thought I saw a line of horsemen among the tree trunks, their bodies as gray as stone, their shoulders and their horses' rumps draped with flowing tunics. I pinched the sweat out of my eyes against the bridge of my nose and looked again. The grove was empty except for a black man who was putting strips of tape across the windows of his barbecue stand.
"Dave?" Rosie said.
"Yes?"
"Are you all right?"
"I just got a piece of dirt in my eye."
When we pulled out on the street I looked into the rearview mirror and saw the detailed image of a lone horseman deep in the trees, a plum-colored plume in his hat, a carbine propped on his thigh. He pushed up the brim of his hat with his gun barrel and I saw that his face was pale and siphoned of all energy and the black sling that held his left arm was sodden with blood.
"What has opened your wounds, general?"
"What'd you say?" Rosie asked.
"Nothing. I didn't say anything."
"You're worried about what Doucet said, aren't you?"
"I'm not following you."
"You think the Bureau might cut a deal with him."
"It crossed my mind."
"This guy's going down, Dave. I promise you."
"I've made a career of discovering that my priorities aren't the same as those of the people I work for, Rosie. Sometimes the worst ones walk and cops help them do it."
She looked out the side window, and now it was she whose face seemed lost in an abiding memory or dark concern that perhaps she could never adequately share with anyone.
Murphy Doucet lived in a small freshly-painted white house with a gallery and a raked, tree-shaded lawn across from the golf course on the north side of Lafayette. A bored Iberia Parish deputy and a Lafayette city cop sat on the steps waiting for us, flipping a pocket knife into the lawn. The blue Mercury was parked in the driveway under a chinaberry tree. I unlocked it from the key ring we had taken from Doucet when he was booked; then we pulled out the floor mats, laid them carefully on the grass, searched under the seats, and cleaned out the glove box. None of it was of any apparent value. We picked up the floor mats by the corners, replaced them on the rugs, and unlocked the trunk.
Rosie stepped back from the odor and coughed into her hand.
"Oh, Dave, it's—" she began.
"Feces," I said.
The trunk was bare except for a spare tire, a jack, and a small cardboard carton in one corner. The dark blue rug looked clean, vacuumed or brushed, but twelve inches back from the latch was
a dried, tea-colored stain with tiny particles of paper towel embedded in the stiffened fabric.
I took out the cardboard carton, opened the top, and removed a portable spotlight with an extension cord that could be plugged into a cigarette lighter.
"This is what he wrapped the red cellophane around when he picked up the girl hitchhiking down in Vermilion Parish," I said.
"Dave, look at this."
She pointed toward the side wall of the trunk. There were a half-dozen black curlicues scotched against the pale blue paint. She felt one of them with two fingers, then rubbed her thumb against the ends of the fingers.