Burning Angel (Dave Robicheaux 8)

“So?” I opened my palms inquisitively.

“Nobody was home when I went through the window. I cleaned out the place and had it all loaded in her car. That's when some other broad dropped her off in front, so I hid in the hedge. I'm thinking, What am I gonna do? I start the car, she'll know I'm stealing it. I wait around, she turns on the light, she knows the place's been ripped off.

Then two guys roar up out of nowhere, come up the sidewalk real fast, and push her inside. ”What they done, I don't like remembering it, I closed my eyes, that's the truth, she was whimpering, I'm not kidding you, man, I wanted to stop it. What was I gonna do?“

”Call for help.“

”I was strung out, I got a serious meth problem, it's easy to say what you ought to do when you're not there. Look, what's-your-name, I've been down twice but I never hurt anybody. Those guys, they were tearing her apart, I was scared, I never saw anything like that before.“

”What did they look like, Roland?“

”Gimmie a cigarette.“

”I don't smoke.“

”I didn't see their faces. I didn't want to. Why didn't her neighbors help?“

”They weren't home.“

”I felt sorry for her. I wish I'd done something.“

”Detective Soileau is going to take your statement, Roland. I'll probably be talking to you again.“

”How'd you know I didn't do it?“

”The ME says her neck was broken in the bathroom. That's the only room you didn't track mud all over.“ I passed Helen Soileau on my way out.

Her eyes were hot and focused like BB's on the apprehensive face of Roland Broussard. ”He's been cooperative,“ I said. The door clicked shut behind me. I might as well have addressed myself to the drain in the water fountain. Moleen Bertrand lived in an enormous white-columned home on Bayou Teche, just east of City Park, and from his glassed-in back porch you could look down the slope of his lawn, through the widely spaced live oak trees, and see the brown current of the bayou drifting by, the flooded cane brakes on the far side, the gazebos of his neighbors clustered with trumpet and passion vine, and finally the stiff, block like outline of the old drawbridge and tender house off Burke Street. It was March and already warm, but Moleen Bertrand wore a long-sleeve candy-striped shirt with ruby cuff links and a rolled white collar. He was over six feet and could not be called a soft man, but at the same time there was no muscular tone or definition to his body, as though in growing up he had simply bypassed physical labor and conventional sports as a matter of calling. He had been born to an exclusionary world of wealth and private schools, membership in the town's one country club, and Christmas vacations in places the rest of us knew of only from books, but no one could accuse him of not having improved upon what he had been given. He was Phi Beta Kappa at Springhill and a major in the air force toward the end of the Vietnam War. He made the Law Review at Tulane and became a senior partner at his firm in less than five years. He was also a champion skeet shooter. Any number of demagogic politicians who were famous for their largess sought his endorsement and that of his family name. They didn't receive it. But he never gave offense or was known to be unkind. We walked under the trees in his backyard. His face was cool and pleasant as he sipped his iced tea and looked at a motorboat and a water-skier hammering down the bayou on pillows of yellow foam.

”Bertie can come to my office if she wants. I don't know what else to tell you, Dave,“ he said. His short salt-and-pepper hair was wet and freshly combed, the part a razor-straight pink line in his scalp.

”She says your grandfather gave her family the land.“

”The truth is we haven't charged her any rent. She's interpreted that to mean she owns the land.“

”Are you selling it?“

”It's a matter of time until it gets developed by someone.“

”Those black people have lived there a long time, Moleen.“

”Tell me about it.“ Then the brief moment of impatience went out of his face. ”Look, here's the reality, and I don't mean it as a complaint. There're six or seven nigra families in there we've taken care of for fifty years. I'm talking about doctor and dentist bills, schooling, extra money for June Teenth, getting people out of jail.

Bertie tends to forget some things.“

”She mentioned something about gold being buried on the property.“

”Good heavens. I don't want to offend you, but don't y'all have something better to do?“

”She took care of me when I was little. It's hard to chase her out of my office.“ He smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. His nails were immaculate, his touch as soft as a woman's. ”Send her back to me,“ he said.

”What's this stuff about gold?“

”Who knows? I always heard Jean Lafitte buried his treasure right across the bayou there, right over by those two big cypress trees.“

Then his smile became a question mark. ”Why are you frowning?“

”You're the second person to mention Lafitte to me in the last couple of days.“