The Tin Roof Blowdown (Dave Robicheaux 16)

Just as I got to my truck, my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I flipped it open and placed it against my ear. “Dave Robicheaux,” I said.

“My wife says you want to talk with me,” a voice said.

“You in town, Sidney?”

“Why did you call my shop?”

“I warned you a long time ago about Ronald Bledsoe, but you wouldn’t listen. He’s got his own deal going on those blood diamonds. I think he’s planning to hurt my daughter as well. If that happens, you’re going to have the worst fucking experience of your life.”

“No, you’re the one who doesn’t listen, Robicheaux. Marco and Charlie and a few other guys from the Giacano family work for me. Bledsoe doesn’t. You got that straight? I want my goods back. It’s a pretty simple concept.”

“Then who does he work for?”

“Maybe the Fuller Brush Company. They hire a lot of bald-headed guys.”

There was still time for one more run at Sidney before he broke the connection. “After the loss of your little boy, did you kidnap your neighbor, Sidney? Did you take his legs off with a chain saw?”

“I’m going to give you a short answer here. Did I use a chain saw on somebody? No. Did a guy in Jefferson Parish disappear? Yeah, he did. Is he coming back? No, he ain’t. Tell Bertrand Melancon I’m the only person in this state who can keep him alive.”

The line went dead.

THAT AFTERNOON we attended Mass in Loreauville, then returned to the house. The wind was blowing hard out of the south, the surface of the bayou wrinkling like old skin. I went to an AA meeting upstairs at the Methodist church on Main, but I couldn’t shake my conviction that Bledsoe or one of his associates was about to make a move on us.

Bledsoe was the trigger, but the sense of angst I was experiencing had been a problem in my life long before I met him. Psychologists believe there is a form of long-term anxiety that is caused by turmoil in the natal home: the parents fighting, the child being shaken or dropped, someone constantly bursting through the door in a drunken rage. I can’t say where it comes from. For me it was not unlike seeing a mortar round fall short of your position, followed by a second round that goes long. In that moment you know with absolute certainty you’re registered and the next round is coming down the stack. The feeling you experience is like someone stripping off your skin.

The truth is, I wanted to drink. Maybe not a lot, just a couple of shots with a beer back, I told myself, just enough to turn down the butane on the burner. Or I wanted to load up my cut-down twelve-gauge pump or my AR-15 and kick it on up to some serious E-major rock ’n’ roll.

At dusk I looked out the front window just as a cruiser with a black uniformed female deputy behind the wheel pulled into the driveway. Catin Segura got out and gazed at the trees in the yard and the gold and red clusters of four-o’clock flowers opening in the shadows. “You have such a nice place here,” she said.

“It is,” I said.

“I was just going off shift and I thought I should mention something to you. I was patrolling the Loreauville Quarters and I saw Otis Baylor talking to a family on their gallery. The address was next door to the house rented by the owner of the hit-and-run tag I ran, Elizabeth Crochet. When I cruised the Quarters again, about ten minutes later, he was knocking on another door, one street over.

“I asked him if I could help him with anything. He said no, he was an insurance man and was just checking on a couple of clients. I told him I was the same sheriff’s deputy who had investigated the hit-and-run in front of his house. I told him I thought he was there for other reasons.”

“What did he say?”

“‘Thanks for your offer of help.’ Then he got in his car and drove away. What’s he after, Dave?”

“A guy named Bertrand Melancon.”

I used my cell phone in the yard to call the Baylor home. When Otis answered, I hung up. Molly and Alafair were going to the movies. I waited until they left, then I drove down Old Jeanerette Road and pulled into Otis’s driveway. He walked out on the front steps, a napkin tucked inside the top of his shirt.

“Was that you who called about fifteen minutes ago?” he asked.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you can’t leave us alone.”

“No, that’s not the problem at all, Mr. Baylor. The problem is the fact you were in the Loreauville Quarters. You knew who was driving the hit-and-run vehicle and you used your insurance connections to run the tag number and get the address of the owner. You were in the Loreauville Quarters looking for Bertrand Melancon. Except he wasn’t there, so you started questioning his neighbors.”

“If you know all this, why bother telling me about it?”

“I wouldn’t be clever, Mr. Baylor. What I don’t understand is your motivation. Melancon has done irreparable damage to your daughter and family, but evidently he’s tried to make amends. You still want to cancel the guy’s ticket?”

“What do you mean, ‘amends’?”

“I talked with Melancon. He said he tried to make it up to y’all. I don’t think he was lying. He knows he’ll probably end up as a contribution to landfill.”