Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux 8)

“It doesn't make any difference. If that's your land, it's your land.”

“What you mean if? Moleen Bertrand's grandfather give that land to us ninety-five years ago. Everybody knowed it.”

“Somebody didn't.”

“So what you gonna do about it?”

“I'll talk to Moleen.”

“Why don't you talk to your wastebasket while you're at it?”

“Give me your phone number.”

“You got to call up at the sto'. You know why Moleen Bertrand want that land, don't you?”

“No.”

“They's a bunch of gold buried on it.”

II

“That's nonsense, Bertie.”

“Then why he want to bulldoze out our li'l houses?”

“I'll ask him that.”

“When?”

“Today. Is that soon enough?”

“We'll see what we gonna see.”

My phone rang and I used the call, which I put on hold, as an excuse to walk her to the door and say good-bye. But as I watched her walk with labored dignity toward her car in the parking lot, I wondered if I, too, had yielded to that old white pretense of impatien

t charity with people of color, as though somehow they were incapable of understanding our efforts on their behalf.

It was two days later, at five in the morning, when a cruiser pulled a man over for speeding on the St. Martinville highway.

On the backseat and floor were a television set, a portable stereo, a box of women's shoes, bottles of liquor, canned goods, a suitcase full of women's clothes and purses.

“There's a drag ball I haven't been invited to?” the deputy said.

“I'm helping my girlfriend move,” the driver said.

“You haven't been drinking, have you?”

“No, sir.”

“You seem a little nervous.”

“You've got a gun in your hand.”

“I don't think that's the problem. What's that fragrance in the air?

Is it dark roast coffee? Would you step out of the car, please?”

The deputy had already run the plates. The car belonged to a woman named Delia Landry, whose address was on the St. Martin-Iberia Parish line. The driver's name was Roland Broussard. At noon the same day he was brought into our interrogation room by Detective Helen Soileau, a dressing taped high up on his forehead.