The Tin Roof Blowdown (Dave Robicheaux 16)

Betsy was quiet most of the way. I had the feeling she was not comfortable with her assignment that evening, either. Betsy was always the odd piece in the puzzle box, a straight arrow whose clumsiness and cowgirl manners gave her an unjustified reputation as an eccentric. As in the case of Helen Soileau, her male colleagues often made jokes about her behind her back. The truth was most of them weren’t worth the parings of her fingernails.

“You say he’s still got the Springfield?” the man behind the wheel said.

“That was the last indication he gave me,” I replied.

The agent driving wore his hair boxed on his neck. He kept his hands in the ten-two position on the wheel, his eyes always on the road, never glancing in the rearview mirror when he spoke to me.

“Why wouldn’t he dump the Springfield?” he said.

“Because he knows that’s the first thing a guilty man would do.”

“You’re saying he’s dirty for this?”

“No, I’m saying Otis is smart. I’m also saying he’s probably taking somebody else’s weight,” I replied.

“Oh yeah? How did you arrive at that?” he asked.

“Hundreds if not thousands of New Orleans residents drowned who didn’t have to. I suspect that’s because some of the guys in Washington you work for couldn’t care less. So a guy who sells insurance gets a chain saw up his ass. That’s the way it shakes out sometimes.”

This time his eyes shifted into the rearview mirror. “You guys down here have issues about something?”

“Not us. We’re happy as clams,” I replied.

Betsy gave me a look that would scald the paint off a battleship.

The grounds and trees outside Otis’s house were dark with shadow when we arrived, the inside brightly lit, the air cool and filled with a fragrance of flowers and freshly baked bread in the kitchen and rainwater leaching out of the oaks into the leaves. His home was the picture of a family at peace with the world. But nothing could have been further from the truth, particularly after our arrival.

Betsy walked up on the screened-in gallery and knocked hard on the door, her mouth crimped, her ID in her hand. In the gloaming of the day, her hair had the bright yellow color of straw. She glanced at her watch and hit on the door again, this time harder, with the flat of her fist.

Otis answered, wearing a white shirt and tie, a piece of fried chicken in his hand.

“Are you Mr. Baylor?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied, his eyes going from Betsy to me, as though somehow I were his betrayer.

“I’m Special Agent Betsy Mossbacher. We have a warrant to search your house. I want you and your family to sit in the living room while we do. Where is your rifle, Mr. Baylor?”

“I’ll get it for you,” Otis replied.

“No, you won’t. You and your wife and daughter and anyone else who is in the house will sit down in the living room, then you’ll tell me where it is,” she said.

“What the hell is this?” he said.

“Do what she says, Mr. Baylor,” I told him.

He went back in the kitchen and returned with Thelma and Mrs. Baylor. After they sat down, the three of them looked up at us expectantly, as children might, caught between their inveterate American desire to obey the law and the fact that strangers who were basically no different or more powerful than themselves could walk into their home, during dinner, and treat them like livestock.

“The rifle is in the closet of the master bedroom,” Otis said. “A box of shells is on the shelf. That’s the only firearm in the house.”

“Why are you doing this now? I thought all this was settled,” Mrs. Baylor said. She had brought her drink from the table. It was tea-colored but had no ice in it. She was trying to appear poised, her back straight, her drink resting on her knee, but somehow she made me think of a china plate threaded with hairline cracks. “Is this being given to the media? Do you know what that will do to my husband’s business?”

“No, ma’am, we don’t report to the media,” Betsy said. “We try to treat you in a respectful fashion. We try to be as unobtrusive as possible.”

“Then why do you keep bothering us? This is where our tax money goes? For God’s sakes, Otis, say something.”

“The men who were shot in front of your house were shot in cold blood, Ms. Baylor. By anyone’s definition, that’s capital murder,” Betsy said. “The seventeen-year-old had no criminal record and lost his life for committing a burglary. Vigilantes were hunting people of color in uptown New Orleans. My boss isn’t going to let that stand.”

“I’d like to contact my attorney. At this point I don’t think we should have any further conversation with you,” Otis said.