Crusader's Cross (Dave Robicheaux 14)

But she gave me directions to their camp, anyway. I drove on a dirt track around the northern rim of the lake, through stands of swamp maples and persimmon and gum trees. The interior of the woods was dark with shade, the grass a pale green, the canopy rippling in the wind. On the east shore I saw a shack built on stilts by the water's edge, an outboard and a pirogue tied under it. A pickup with crab traps in back and a Tennessee plate was parked up on the high ground, a bullet hole in the rear window.

There are not many places left in the United States where people can get off the computer, stop filing tax returns, and in effect become invisible. The rain forests in the Cascades and parts of West Montana come to mind, and perhaps the 'Glades still offer hope to those who wish to resign from modern times. The other place is the Atchafalaya Basin.

I got out of the cruiser and stood behind the opened door, my right hand on the butt of my .45. "It's Dave Robicheaux, Iberia Parish Sheriff's Department. I need somebody to come down here and talk to me," I called up at the shack.

A dark-haired man with a ragged beard appeared in the back doorway, just above the wood steps that led down to dry ground. "Holy shit, you're a cop?" he said.

"Keep your hands where I can see them, please," I said. "Who else is in the camp?"

"Nobody. They went to run the trot line."

"Come down here, please," I said.

His body was so thin it looked skeletal. His jeans and T-shirt were filthy, his neck beaded with dirt rings. He walked slowly down the steps, as though his connective tissue barely held his bones together. It was impossible to tell his age or estimate his potential. He seemed ageless, without cultural reference, painted on the air. He had teeth on one side of his mouth and none on the other. There was a black glaze in his eyes, a long, tapered skinning knife in a scabbard on his belt. His odor was like scrapings from an animal hide that have burned in a fire.

"I sure didn't make you for no lawman," he said.

"What's your name, podna?"

"Same name it was when we met you 'cross the lake at the bar — Vassar Twitty."

"I'm not here to bother you guys about game regulations, Vassar. I don't care what kind of history you might have in other places, either. But I've got a personal problem I think you might be able to help me with. I went on a bender and don't know what I did."

It felt easier saying it than I had thought. He sat down on a step, his knees splayed, and looked about the ground with an idiotic grin on his face.

"Want to let me in on the joke?" I asked.

"You was pretty pissed off. We kept telling you to just have another drink and come coon hunting with us. But you was set on getting even with some guy."

"Which guy?" I said.

"Some TV newsman you said was jamming you up. We tried to get your keys away from you, but there wasn't nothing for it."

"For what?" I said, swallowing.

"When a man wants to rip somebody from his liver to his lights, you leave him alone. We left you alone. I reckon nothing bad happened or you wouldn't be driving a cruiser. Right? Boy, you was sure stewed," he said.

The wind gusted off the lake. It must have been ninety in the shade, but my face felt as cold and bright as if I had bathed it in ice water.

I wasn't in a good state of mind when I got back to the department. Could I have gone to Valentine Chalons's guesthouse and in a bloodlust attacked his sister? How do you reach memories that are locked inside a black box?

I had another problem, too, one I had kept pushing to the edges of my consciousness. I went into Helen's office and closed the door behind me. "You don't look too hot," she said.

"I found a guy in the Basin I was drinking with the night Honoria Chalons was murdered. He said I talked about ripping up Val Chalons. He said he and his friends tried to stop me but I took off in my truck."

"I think we know all that, don't we?"

"You've been protecting me, Helen."

"No," she said.

"I gave you that CD with a blood smear on it. You didn't turn it over to Doogie Dugas."

"Because it didn't come from the crime scene. Because Doogie is an incompetent idiot."

"I know that's Honoria's blood on it."

"No, you don't. Listen, Dave, Val Chalons has done everything in his power to put your head on a stick. But luminol doesn't lie. There were no blood traces in your truck, your clothes, or in your house. Now stop building a case against yourself."