"Was she raped?" I said.
"No marks around the vagina or thighs that I can see," he replied.
"Any sign of semen?"
"Traces in the pubic hair. St. Mary's forensic pathologist will call me after he gets inside her."
"Mack says her blood trail doesn't make any sense. The assailant attacked her at least three times, but she made no attempt to run away. There were no defensive wounds, either."
"Maybe she dug it."
"You enjoy pissing people off, Koko?"
"Yeah, when they still got booze on their breath and they're blowing it in my face while they're asking stupid questions," he replied.
A crime scene team from state police headquarters in Baton Rouge had just landed in a helicopter across the bayou, and a St. Mary Parish sheriff's cruiser was bringing them across the drawbridge to the Chalonses' house. The crime scene area had been soggy from the weekend rains, and now the St. Augustine grass had been trod into green mulch. Plainclothes detectives, cops in uniform, and crime scene investigators came and went with the freedom of people for whom the gates of an amusement park had suddenly been opened. I wondered how Raphael Chalons would deal with the intrusion of the twenty-first century into his cloistered domain.
A brief shower rolled across the sugar cane fields and pattered on the trees, then a few minutes later the sun came out and the trees were green and dripping like crystal against a brilliant blue sky. But still I had seen no sign of Valentine Chalons.
It had not been easy looking at Honoria. She had been a bizarre person, but probably no more so than any true artist is. In fact, I believe her pulp fiction sexual behavior and feigned iconoclastic attitudes hid a fragility and childlike emotional need that ultimately was harmful to no one but herself. She had also died with dignity under the worst of circumstances and proved she was capable of extraordinary courage.
Then I saw Val coming through the trees. I started to offer condolences but did not get the chance. His shoulder glazed across mine, as though I were not there, as he charged inside the guesthouse. "You left her uncovered?" he shouted. "The next one of you who points a camera at her is going to have it stuffed down his mouth!"
Mack Bertrand tried to explain that a sheet had been placed over Honoria's body but it had been removed upon the arrival of the investigative team from Baton Rouge.
"You're finished taking pictures, fellow. You want me to say it again?" Val said.
The entire crime scene became quiet. Not one person offered a rejoinder, less out of respect or embarrassment than collective acceptance that the Chalons family operated in rarefied air. Then, after a long beat, a Baton Rouge detective said, "We got all we need, Mr. Chalons. We're sorry about your loss."
But Val was not finished. He emerged from the guesthouse and pointed a finger at me. "You degenerate piece of shit! You dare come into my home?"
"Dial it down, Mr. Val," Helen said.
"He screwed my sister, for God's sakes, a girl who was ten years old inside," he said.
"If you have a charge to make about one of our personnel, you need to come into the office," Helen said.
"Maybe I'll just do this instead," he said. He advanced three steps in less time than I could blink and swung his fist into my face.
The blow knocked me across a garden sprinkler and against a glider that was suspended from a thick oak limb. My nose felt as though hundreds of needles had been shoved up it and into my brain. I grabbed a rope on the glider and sat down, my eyes watering uncontrollably.
"Get a towel," I heard Helen say.
I saw two St. Mary sheriff's deputies holding Val Chalons by his arms, his wrists cuffed behind him. Someone pushed a clutch of ice cubes wrapped in paper towels into my hands. I held the coldness against my face until my skin began to numb. When I looked at the ice it was speckled with blood. The yard, the trees, the flowers, and Honoria's body inside the open guesthouse door kept warping in the sunlight.
"You call it, bwana," Helen said.
Val glared at me, his cheeks splotched with color, his hair hanging in his eyes, the rims of his nostrils white, as though he were breathing subzero air.
"Cut him loose," I said.
"A little time in an isolation cell might take some of that prissiness out of him," Helen said.
"Val Chalons is a coward and a liar and has guilt painted all over him. Let him go," I said, loud
enough for everyone in the yard to hear.
In the background I saw a uniformed deputy climb down a ladder with a security camera that had been mounted high in the fork of an oak tree.