"Her wrists were bound, probably with plastic cuffs. There were teeth marks on the ring finger. I think she used her teeth to work the ring off her finger and swallow it. What difference does it make?"
"Because if she was that determined to keep this bastard from taking her ring, maybe she figured out a way to leave us a message about his identity," I said, my blood rising.
"Yeah, that's a possibility, isn't it?" he replied.
I replaced the receiver in the cradle without saying good-bye.
A mockingbird flew into my window glass, flecking it with a pinpoint of white matter. I got up from the desk and looked down onto the lawn. The bird lay still in the shade, one wing at a broken angle.
It was not a good morning. And it was about to get worse.
Just before noon, Honoria Chalons called the office to ask how I was feeling.
"Excuse me?" I said.
"My first husband is buried at the church cemetery in St. Martinville. I saw you there this morning. You didn't look well. Are you all right?" she said.
"Yes, I'm fine."
"Can you have a drink with me this afternoon?"
"I traded in sour mash for AA. That was after it chewed me up and spit me out."
"So I'll buy you an iced tea."
"Another time."
"You think I'm a mentally ill person?"
"Guys like me don't get to judge other people's stability."
"The things I said to you about death yesterday? They're all true."
"I believe you."
"What I said about the nun is true, too. My father and Val genuinely fear her. They won't even go inside the little church she attends."
"Which nun are we talking about?"
"Have that drink with me?"
"Give me a number where I can call you after work," I said.
I went downstairs and caught Helen on her way to lunch. "You know a nun who's had some run-ins with the Chalons family?" I said.
She thought about it. "There's one on Old Jeanerette Road. Years ago, she stoked up the sugar cane workers in St. Mary Parish. She runs a group that builds houses for the poor now. Why?"
"I was out to the Chalons house. The nun came up in the conversation."
Helen sucked in her cheeks, her eyes studying a dead space between us. "Nothing I say has any influence, does it?" she said.
"Had you rather I not tell you what I'm doing?"
Helen put her hand inside her shirt collar and picked at a mosquito bite on her shoulder, her gaze wandering along the corridor wall, her breath audible in the silence. "If I remember right, about two years back somebody slashed up her car tires. Check the file. Her name is Molly Boyle. Her middle name is 'trouble.' She's your kind of gal."
I went to lunch at Bon Creole and tried not to think about my brief run-in with Helen. When I came out of the restaurant, the sun was like a white flame in the sky, the highway rippling with heat, the air smelling of salt, and water evaporating from backed-up storm ditches. At the office, I pulled a file on the nun and a series of complaints, all involving harassment and vandalism, that she had lodged with the sheriff's department. The deputies' entries in the file were matter-of-fact and made no conclusion about possible perpetrators, other than a mention that several black teenagers in the area had been questioned.
I took a handful of loose mug shots from my desk drawer, dropped them in my shirt pocket, and went to find Sister Molly Boyle.