Cadillac Jukebox (Dave Robicheaux 9)

"Is that right? I declare. Y'all do some fascinating investigative work in Iberia Parish."

"You're welcome to join us."

"Ms. LaRose says you got an obsession, that you're carrying out a vendetta of some kind. She thinks maybe you marked the back of the property for Aaron Crown."

"Karyn has a creative mind."

"Well, you know how people are, suh. They get inside their heads and think too much. But one of my troopers told me you were knoc

king around in the stables, where you didn't have no bidness. What you up to, Mr. Robicheaux?"

"I think Aaron's a dead man if he gets near your men."

"Really? Well, suh, I won't bother you any more today. Here's your oar lock back. You're not going to be throwing nothing else up in their yard, are you?"

"I'm not planning on it. Tell me something."

"Yes, suh?"

"Why would the LaRoses decide to put in a gazebo right where I thought there might be an unmarked burial?"

"You know, I thought about that myself. So I checked with the contractor. Mr. LaRose put in the order for that gazebo two months ago."

He rose and extended his hand.

I didn't take it.

"You're fronting points for a guy who's got no bottom, Mr. Tauzin. No offense meant," I said.

That night I went to bed early, before Bootsie, and was almost asleep when I heard her enter the room and begin undressing. She brushed her teeth and stayed in the bathroom a long time, then clicked off the bathroom light and lay down on her side of the bed with her head turned toward the wall. I placed my palm on her back. Her skin was warm through her nightgown.

She looked up into the darkness.

"You all right?" she said.

"Sure."

"About Jerry Joe, I mean?"

"I was okay today."

"Dave?"

"Yes?"

"No . . . I'm sorry. I'm too tired to talk about it tonight."

"About what?"

She didn't reply at first, then she said, "That woman . . . I hate her."

"Come on, Boots. See her for what she is."

"You're playing her game. It's a rush for both of you. I'm not going to say any more . . ." She sat on the side of the bed and pushed her feet in her slippers. "I can't take this, Dave," she said, and picked up her pillow and a blanket and went into the living room.

The moon was down, the sky dark, when I was awakened at five the next morning by a sound out in the swamp, wood knocking against wood, echoing across the water. I sat on the edge of the bed, my head still full of sleep, and heard it again through the half-opened window, an oar striking a log perhaps, the bow sliding off a cypress stump. Then I saw the light in the mist, deep in the flooded trees, like a small halo of white phosphorous burning against the dampness, moving horizontally four feet above the waterline.

I put on my khakis and loafers and flannel shirt, took a flashlight out of the nightstand and my .45 automatic out of the dresser drawer and walked to the end of the dock.