Black Cherry Blues (Dave Robicheaux 3)

“That’s right.”

“What for? Who had reason to kill her?”

“Check out Sally Dee’s record. Check on a guy named Harry Mapes, too.” I felt the heat start to rise in my voice, and I paused. “I’d give some thought to Purcel, too.”

“From what I’ve been told, these are all people you’ve had trouble with at one time or another. You think you’re being entirely objective here?”

“The Dios are animals. So is Mapes. Purcel killed a guy for some paramilitary crazies in New Orleans. I wouldn’t underestimate the potential of any of them.”

“Why would Purcel kill her?”

He looked at me with interest for the first time. I dropped my eyes to my shoes. Then I looked back at him.

“I was involved with Darlene,” I said. “He knew about it.”

The sheriff nodded and didn’t reply. He opened his desk drawer and took out a clipboard on which were attached Xeroxed copies of the kinds of forms that county medical examiners use in autopsies.

“You were right about the bruises,” he said. “She had them on her neck and her shoulders.”

I waited for him to continue.

“She also had a bump on the back of her head,” he said.

“Yes?”

“But it’s going down as a suicide.”

“What?”

“You got it the first time.”

“What’s the matter with you? You’re discounting your own autopsy report?”

“Listen, Robicheaux, I don’t have any evidence that she didn’t kill herself. On the other hand, I have every indication that she did. She could have hit her head on the tub. She could have gotten the bruises anywhere. Maybe you don’t like to hear this, but Indians around here get into trouble. They get drunk, they fight in bars, families beat the shit out of each other. I’m not knocking them. I’ve got nothing against them. I think they get a lousy break. But that’s the way it is. Look, if I suspected anybody, it’d have to be Purcel. But I don’t believe he did it. The guy’s really strung out on this.”

“What about Sally Dee?”

“You give me the motive, you put him in the house, I’ll cut the warrant.”

“You’re making a big mistake, Sheriff.”

“Tell me how. Fill me in on that, please.”

“You’re taking the easy choice, you’re letting them slide. The Dios sense weakness in you, they’ll eat you alive.”

He opened a deep drawer in the bottom of his desk and took out a baton. The layers of black paint were chipped, and the grip had been grooved in a lathe and drilled to hold a leather wrist loop. He dropped it loudly on the desktop.

“The guy I replaced gave me this the day I took office,” he said. “He told me, ‘Everybody doesn’t have to go to jail.’ And there’s days when maybe I got that kind of temptation. I see Dio in the supermarket and I shudder. This is good country. He doesn’t belong here. But I don’t bust heads, I don’t let my deputies do it, either. If that don’t sit right with somebody, that’s their problem.” He mashed out his cigarette without looking at me.

“I guess I’ll be on my way,” I said, and stood up. Then, as an afterthought, I said, “Did the autopsy show anything else unusual?”

“Not to me or the medical examiner.”

“What else?”

“I think we’ve ended this discussion.”

“Come on, Sheriff, I’m almost out of your day.”