“In calving season you spend about six weeks learning about natural and unnatural law.”
“You lost me,” I said.
“The cows have got sunburned bags and you’ve got shit, piss, and blood up to your right armpit. You hardly sleep, you’re cold most of the time, and you hear animals bawling day and night. When the mommies reject their calves, you graft the orphans to another mommy. You throw everybody a lot of cottonseed cake and pull it off and feel you’ve done a real good deed. Then one day you ship the whole bunch to the slaughterhouse. Some irony, huh?”
“I’ve always been poor at allegory,” I said.
“The point is our best efforts are seldom good enough. You told Miami-Dade P.D. your buddy Dallas Klein was probably working with the men who boosted his armored car. Consciously or unconsciously, I think you blamed yourself for his death. Are you still carrying guilt, Detective Robicheaux? Is that why you seem to have a remarkable lack of curiosity about his daughter’s behavior?”
She put a bright piece of red candy in her mouth and sucked on it. I looked her evenly in the eyes but did not answer her question, a bubble of anger rising in my chest like an old friend.
“Well,” she said finally, then turned to go, somehow saddened, even aged, by our exchange.
“Where are you from?” I said.
“Chugwater, Wyoming.”
“They must be frank as hell in Chugwater, Wyoming.”
“That’s what happens when you mess with cows,” she replied.
I didn’t need this. Chapter 4
T HAT EVENING I TOOK Yvonne Darbonne’s diary home with me, and after supper walked down to the bayou with a folding chair and began to reread the thirty pages of entries that offered a small glimpse into the soul of an eighteen-year-old Cajun girl who had fallen in love with the world.
The last four pages contained the following entries:
We ate ice cream on the square in St. Martinville and walked out on the dock behind the old church. The moon was high above the oaks, and the moss looked like silver thread against the moon. He kissed me and wrapped me inside his coat. I could feel him against me, down there….
Today we took a boat out to his father’s camp in the swamp. I know he wants to do it, but he’s afraid to ask. He touched my breast, then said he was sorry. I told him it’s not wrong if people love each other. His eyes are dark brown, the way water is when starlight is trapped inside it. He hasn’t asked me if I’m a virgin. I wonder if he’ll think less of me. His goodness is in everything he does….
Last night he introduced me to his friends. They’re nice boys, I think, except for one. He has a hawk’s eyes and a mouth that always looks hungry. I saw him watching me in the mirror when he thought no one was looking.
But Yvonne Darbonne’s concern with an imperfection in her new-found world was brief. Her last entry returned to the boyfriend:
I told him I wanted him to do it and for him not to be afraid. When we were finished, he kissed my nipples and the tops of my fingers. It was hot in the cabin and his hair was wet and fell in curls on his forehead. I know n
ow I love him in a way that’s different from anyone else I’ve loved. I can’t believe we’ll be going to college together this summer. He wants to meet my father. He told me never to be ashamed of the place I lived.
Molly walked down the slope and placed her hand on my shoulder. “What are you reading?” she asked.
“The diary of the Darbonne girl. How does a kid like this end up shooting herself?”
I handed the diary to her, with my thumb inserted between the last two pages of entries. Molly turned the pages into the light and read for a moment, then closed the covers and looked into space.
“Who’s the boy?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Her cell phone contained the number of Bello Lujan. Evidently he’s got a son at UL. Maybe he and Yvonne Darbonne were an item.”
“The Daily Iberian said her death has been ruled a suicide.”
“That doesn’t mean someone else isn’t responsible. Where did she get the revolver she shot herself with? Who’s the bastard who left her drunk and stoned in the yard with a handgun?”
“Maybe she already had it.”
“Her father says otherwise,” I replied.
“Family members feel guilty. They often lie.”