Dixie City Jam (Dave Robicheaux 7)

The sheriff sniffed and blew his nose in a Kleenex.

'It doesn't sound like this is helping us a lot,' he said.

'It gets more interesting. The guy named Schwert seems to spend a lot of time overseas. Interpol has been tracking him for fifteen years. Berlin, London, Madrid, any place there're skinheads, Nazis, or Falangists.'

The light in the sheriff's eyes sharpened. He began poking in the papers on my desk.

'Where is it?' he said.

'What?'

'The Interpol jacket. The mug shots.

'

'There aren't any. Nobody's nailed him.'

'This isn't taking us anywhere, Dave. It looks like what you've got here is more smoke. We don't even know if Schwert is Buchalter.'

'Interpol says a guy named Willie Schwert broke out of an asylum for the criminally insane in Melbourne, Australia, seventeen years ago. He tore the window bars out of a maximum security unit with his bare hands.'

'Then where's the sheet?'

'The records on the guy are gone. A fire in their computer system or something.'

'What is it, a computer virus wiping out all the information on this character?'

'You're not impressed?' I said.

'I wish I could say I was.'

'It's the same guy.'

'You're probably right. And it does diddle-squat for us. He's still out there, fucking up people in any way he can. I wish Purcel had dropped the hammer on this guy when he had him at close range… Pardon my sentiment. I'm becoming convinced I'm not emotionally suited for this job.'

'The people who are shouldn't be cops, Sheriff,' I said.

That evening, as Bootsie and I washed the dishes at the sink, the breeze through the screen was dry and warm and the clouds above my neighbor's tree line looked like torn plums in the sun's afterglow. Her hands were chaffed, her knuckles white in the dishwater. For a second time, she began to wash a saucer I had already dried. I took it from her hand and placed it back on the drain rack.

'You want to go to a meeting?' I asked.

'Not tonight.'

'You tired?'

'A little.'

'Do you want to lie down?' I said. I rested my hand on the top of her rump.

'Not really. Maybe I'll just read.' Her eyes focused on a solitary mockingbird that stood in the middle of the picnic table.

I nodded.

'I don't seem to have any energy,' she said. 'I don't know what it is.'

'Long day,' I said, and dried my hands and turned away from her.

'Yes,' she said. 'I guess that's it.'