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

"I think they're rubber heel marks," she said. "What kind of shoes was Cherry LeBlanc wearing?"

"Flats with leather soles. And the dead girl in Vermilion didn't have on anything."

"All right, let's get it towed in and start on the house. We really need—"

"What?"

"Whatever he got careless about and left lying around."

"Did you call the Bureau yet?"

"No. Why?"

"I was just wondering."

"What are you trying to say, Dave?"

"If you want a handprint set in blood to make our case, I don't think it's going to happen. Not unless there's some residue on that utility knife we can use for a DNA match. The photograph is a bluff, at least as far as indicting Doucet is concerned. Like you said earlier, everything else we've got so far isn't real strong."

"So?"

"I think you already know what your boss is going to tell you."

"Maybe I don't care what he says."

"I don't want you impairing your career with Fart, Barf, and Itch because you think you have to be hard-nosed on my account, Rosie. Let's be clear on that."

"Cover your own butt and don't worry about mine," she said, took the key ring out of my hand, and walked ahead of me up the front steps of the house and unlocked the door.

The interior was as neat and squared away as a military barracks. The wood floors were waxed, the stuffed chairs decorated with doilies, the window plants trimmed and watered, the kitchen sink and drainboards immaculate, the pots and pans hung on hooks, the wastebaskets fitted with clean plastic liners, his model planes dusted and suspended on wires from the bedroom ceiling, his bedspread tucked and stretched so tightly that you could bounce a quarter off it.

None of the pictures on the walls dealt with human subjects, except one color photograph of himself sitting on the steps of a cabin with a dead eight-point deer at his feet. Doucet was smiling; a bolt-action rifle with iron sights and a sling lay across his lap.

We searched the house for an hour, searched the garage, then came back and tossed the house again. The Iberia Parish deputy walked through the front door with an icecream cone in his hand. He was a dark-haired, narrow-shouldered, wide-hipped man who had spent most of his five years with the department as a crosswalk guard at elementary schools or escorting misdemeanor prisoners to morning arraignment. He stopped eating and wiped the cream out of his mustache with the back of his wrist before he spoke.

"Jesus Christ, Dave, y'all tore the place apart," he said.

"You want to stay behind and clean it up?" I said.

"Y'all the ones done it, not me."

"That's right, so you don't have to worry about it," I said.

"Boy, somebody didn't get enough sleep last night," he said. When I didn't answer he walked into the center of the room. "What y'all found in that trunk?"

When I still didn't answer, he peered over my shoulder.

"Oh man, that's a bunch of little girl's underwear, ain't it?" he said.

"Yes, it is," I said.

The deputy cleared his throat.

"That fella been doin' that kind of stuff, too, Dave?"

"It looks like it."

"Oh, man," he said. Then his face changed. "Maybe somebody ought to show him what happens when you crawl over one of them high barb-wire fences."