“I called to tell you I’ll take the heat. If it costs me my job, that’s the way it is. I don’t want you compromised.”
“I’m having a hard time with this show of magnanimity.”
“I did what I felt I had to. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you or the department,” I said. “I know Raguza, Helen. He’s the kind of guy you put out of action before he burns your house down.”
It was quiet a moment, then I heard a sound like dry bread being crunched and I realized she was eating toast. I thought our conversation was over, that my moment in the confessional box had come and gone. As was often the case in my dealings with the complexity of Helen Soileau, I was wrong.
“One day they’re going to kill you, Pops. When that happens, a big part of me is going to die with you,” she said.
I went outside and worked in the yard, flinging shovel-loads of compost into the flower beds, my eyes burning with s
weat. Then I jogged two miles in the park, but Helen’s words stayed with me like an arrow in the chest. Just as I returned home, out of breath, aching for a shower, Betsy Mossbacher pulled a steel-gray Toyota into my drive.
“Hello,” I said.
She didn’t reply. She got out of her car and looked me flat in the face. Her jeans were belted high on her hips, her cowboy boots powdered with dust.
“What’s the trouble?” I said.
“You are.”
“You’ll have to explain that to me.”
“You went over to Lafayette and beat the crap out of Lefty Raguza.”
“What about it?” I said.
My cavalier attitude seemed to light a fire in her chest. Her eyes stayed fixed on my face, as though she was deciding how much information she should convey to a fool. “You listen,” she said. “We have knowledge about the inner workings of Whitey Bruxal’s circle that you don’t. You understand the connotations of what I’m saying?”
“You’ve got him tapped?”
She didn’t acknowledge my question. “Bruxal thinks Trish Klein and her merry pranksters are planning to take down one of his operations. He also thinks your fat friend Clete Purcel is involved. So what do you guys do? You remodel Raguza’s head and stuff a tube of Super Glue down his throat.”
“It was roach paste,” I said.
She blinked, I suspected from a level of anger that she could barely contain. “You think this is funny?”
“No, I don’t,” I replied.
“Good. Because we now have the sense Whitey believes you and Purcel may both be working with Trish Klein. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if you are.”
“Wrong. Look, you know anything about Whitey’s house getting creeped?”
“No,” she said, surprised.
“I think Trish Klein’s friends did it. They convinced Whitey’s wife they were from the gas company.”
I could see the consternation in her face. It was obvious the Lafayette P.D. was not sharing information with her, perhaps because she was a woman, perhaps because she was a Fed, or perhaps both.
“What were they after?” she asked.
“You got me. But whatever it is, Purcel is not part of it.”
“That’s not the impression we have. Your friend’s anatomy seems turned around. I think his penis and main bowel are located where his brains should be,” she said.
“You don’t have the right to talk about him like that,” I said.
“You still don’t get it, do you? I work with a few people who aren’t as charitable as I am. They wouldn’t be totally unhappy if Whitey decided to have your friend clipped. Of if Whitey decided to put up a kite on an Iberia Parish detective who’s known for his hostility toward the Bureau.”