“I must be the dumbest woman on the planet,” she said, and started toward the other waiting room.
“Are we back to my poodle again?”
Just then, the bottom broke out of the box and Tripod plummeted to the floor, landing on his back with a sickening thump.
Molly squatted down and picked him up, his bladder emptying down her forearms. “Poor Tripod,” she said.
“Madam, I’m not responsible for your diffi—” Lonnie began.
“Shut up,” she said. “I took my husband to task for punching you in the mouth. Now I wish he’d knocked your teeth down your throat. I’ve known some self-important idiots in public office, but you’re pathetic.”
“You’re Mrs. Robicheaux?”
“Duh.”
MOLLY CALLED MY OFFICE as soon as she returned home with Tripod.
“He was poisoned?” I said.
“The vet’s not sure, but that’s what he thinks,” she replied. “Tripod probably vomited most of it back up. The vet wants to see him again in two days, but most of the poison is probably out of his system.”
“What’s Tripod doing right now?”
“Sleeping on a blanket in front of the floor fan.”
“Run that stuff about Lonnie Marceaux by me again.”
“Who cares about a jerk like that? Come home for lunch,” she said.
“What did you say to him?”
“It’s not important. Why waste time talking about it? I’ll see you at lunch. Keep your powder dry.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Guess.”
MOLLY DIDN’T GO ABOUT THINGS HALFWAY. What some might refer to as a conjugal expression of amends was, in the case of Molly Boyle, like being subsumed by an Elizabethan sonnet devoted to celebration of Eros and the ethereal interludes he offered from all the dross of everyday life. Her skin, which was fine-grained and smooth and taut from years of farmwork in Central America, took on a flush that was like the cool burn of the sun out on the Gulf in late autumn. The pillow was imprinted with the smell of her hair, the sheets damp from the sweat on her thighs and back. When I closed my eyes, I thought of breakers sliding across a beach into clumps of bougainvillea and a coral cove where schooled-up kingfish flitted next to a patch of floating hot blue, and I thought of a great hard-bodied fish curling out of a wave and plunging into a rain ring. She came under me, her womb actually scalding, then got on top of me and did it again, her breath drawing slowly in and out as though a piece of ice were evaporating on her tongue.
We took a shower together and dressed, and I checked on Tripod again and smoothed his fur with a brush that was used for no other purpose. “Who did this to you, old partner?” I said.
I went into the backyard and checked Tripod’s bowls. There was clean water in one bowl and a half-eaten strip of a sardine in the other. Most of the time, if he was not in the house, he stayed on his chain and wasn’t allowed to roam because of his age and his propensity for getting into trouble. There seemed little chance that he had eaten either tainted or poisoned food by accident.
Through the bamboo border on the side yard, I saw Miss Ellen Deschamps sprinkling her rose garden in the shade. Miss Ellen was our one-woman, or rather one-lady, neighborhood crime watch program. Parish sheriffs, zoning boards, and city mayors could come and go, but Miss Ellen’s standards did not change with the political season. She served high tea on her upstairs balcony at exactly 3 p.m. every weekday and had her black yardman deliver handwritten invitations to her guests. Any resident on East Main who did not properly attend to the upkeep of his home and lawn and flower beds would receive a polite note from Miss Ellen. If that failed, she put on formal dress, including white gloves, and marched to the home of the offending party and invited him out on his own porch, in full view of the street, to have an extended conversation about the importance of setting a good example for the less fortunate.
“Miss Ellen, did you see anyone prowling around our house in the last day or so?” I asked.
She twisted the water faucet shut and walked toward me. She wore a wide straw hat and a blue sundress and an apron with big pockets for her garden tools. Miss Ellen had a way of never speaking to others from a distance, as though honesty and candor always required her to look directly into a person’s eyes when she spoke. “He said he was a friend of yours. He said he was staying with you.”
“Who?” I asked.
“A blond man who tied a canoe at the foot of your property. It was at dawn. He opened a can of sardines and fed the raccoon.”
“This wasn’t a friend. Tripod was poisoned.”
I saw something shrink inside her. “I thought he might have been vacationing here. He was very relaxed and polite. He came out of the fog and made a point of saying hello. He said he didn’t want to startle me.”
“Was he a tall o