She stopped and looked at me but said nothing. Her eyes were turquoise and elongated, like an Oriental's, and her cheekbones were rouged high up on her face.
'Could I talk with you a minute?' I asked.
'What is it?'
'I'm Dave Robicheaux. You left a message for me with Cletus Purcel.'
'Yes?'
'I came in and filed a report with Sergeant Motley yesterday.'
She looked at me, her face as still and expressionless as a picture painted upon the air.
'I was at Calucci's Bar,' I said. 'You asked me to come in and file a statement.'
'I understood you. What can I help you with?' she said.
'I have a friend back there in the tank. The black man, Batist Perry. He's already been booked.'
'What do you want from me?'
'How about getting him moved into a holding cell?'
'You'l
l have to talk to the officer in charge.'
'That's what I've been trying to do. For an hour and a half.'
'I can't help you. I'm sorry.'
She walked away to her desk, which was located in the squad room, among the uniformed officers, rather than in an enclosed office. Ten minutes later Baxter stepped out of his office door, studying some papers in his hand, then glanced in my direction and beckoned to me with one finger.
While I sat down across from him, he tipped his cigarette ashes in an ashtray and continued to concentrate on the papers on his desk blotter. He looked rested and fresh, in a sky blue sports coat and a crinkling shirt that was the color of tin.
'You're really charging Batist with murder?' I said.
'That decision comes down from the prosecutor's office, Robicheaux. You know that.'
'The man's never been in trouble. Not in his whole life. Not even for a misdemeanor. What's the matter with you?'
'Well, he's in trouble now. In a big way.' He leaned forward and tipped his ashes into his ashtray, cocking his eyebrows at me.
'I don't think you have a case, Nate. I think this is all smoke.'
'His prints are on the door at the crime scene.'
'That's impossible.'
'Tell that to our fingerprint man. Does this look like smoke to you?' He removed a half dozen eight-by-ten glossy black-and-white photographs from his desk drawer and dropped them in front of me. 'You ever see that much blood at a crime scene? Check out the chest wound. Has your friend ever been into voodoo?'
'You're using a homicide investigation to settle an old score, Nate. Don't tell me you're not.'
'Is the light in here bad? That must be the problem. The killer sawed the guy's heart out. That wasn't enough for him, either. He stuffed purple roses into the heart cavity.'
'What's your point?'
'Your friend wears a dime on a string around his ankle,' Baxter said. 'He carries a shriveled alligator's foot in his pocket. He had bones in his suitcase. The murder has all the characteristics of a ritual killing. If you were in my place, who would be your first suspect? Is there any chance it might be a superstitious backwater black guy who had already assaulted and threatened the victim the same day of the homicide and then left his prints at the crime scene? No, don't tell me. Just go think about it somewhere and drop me a card sometime.'