“There’s some soda in the refrigerator,” she said.
“That’s all right.”
She put the bottle in her mouth again and looked at me. I glanced away from her, then picked up a fork and flipped one of the chickens on the grill. The sauce piquante flared in the fire and steamed off in the breeze.
“Why didn’t you report the break-in, Drew?”
“I don’t know who it was. What good would it do?”
“Was it your father?”
“If he’s alive, he’d have no interest in me.”
“Do you think it was one of Joey Gouza’s people?”
“That gangster in New Orleans?”
“That’s right. I have a feeling he and Weldon are on a first-name basis.”
“If I knew who it was, I’d tell you.”
“Cut it out, Drew. You can’t get strung out one day, then the next day go back to the deaf-and-dumb routine.”
“I don’t like you talking to me like that, Dave.”
“You made a point of relaying your feelings through the dispatcher. It’s a small department, Drew. It’s a small town.”
“I don’t have those kinds of concerns, thank God. I’m sorry if you do.”
She took a bandana from her pocket and wiped the perspiration off the back of her neck. Her face suddenly looked soft and cool in the mauve-colored light off the bayou.
“I wasn’t doing very well yesterday,” she said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have called you. I shouldn’t have made it so personal, either.”
“Look, when somebody creeps your house, it’s for one of two reasons: either to steal from you or do you bodily harm, or perhaps both. When it happens, it frightens you. You feel violated. You want to take everything out of your closets and dresser drawers and wash them.”
She unsnapped the cap on another bottle of Jax and sat down on the picnic bench. But she didn’t drink from the bottle. She just kept drawing a line down through the moisture with her finger.
“I was in northern Nicaragua,” she said. “When the contras ‘violated’ someone, they cut the person up in pieces.”
“I was just trying to say that your reaction was understandable, Drew.”
“I bought a pistol this morning. The next time someone breaks into my house, I’m going to kill the sonofabitch.”
“That’s not going to make the bigger problem go away. You’re protecting Weldon from something, and at the same time you know if he doesn’t get help, he’s going to take a fall. I think you’ve got another problem, too. Weldon’s done something that goes against your conscience, and somehow he’s pulled you into it.”
“I wish I could be omniscient. It must be wonderful to have that gift.”
“Has he been mixed up with the contras?”
“No.”
I looked her steadily in the eyes.
“I said no,” she repeated.
“I’m going to say something you probably won’t like. Weldon worked for the CIA. Air America flew in and out of the Golden Triangle. Sometimes they ferried around warlords, who were in reality transporting narcotics. The station chiefs knew it, the pilots knew it. Weldon’s been involved in some nasty stuff. Maybe it’s time he took his own fall. I think he’s a chickenshit for hiding behind his sister.”
“Why’d you let everything go between us?”