Last Car to Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux 13)

Father Jimmie could see the outline of the man's head. The ears looked like they had been carved around the edges with a paring knife. He heard the man snuff down in his nose and shift his weight on the kneeler.

"Been a while since I've visited one of these," the man said.

"Yes?"

"I'm a bit flummoxed. Hold on a bit, Father, while I organize my thoughts."

Father Jimmie heard what he thought was the man's lunch box clattering open inside the confessional. "What are you doing in there?" he asked.

"Nothing." The man was breathing hard now. "I met a Catholic sister on the train. I was rude to her. She's a friend of yours. So I apologize for that."

"Oh, you're the fellow. Well, she already called me. I'll pass on your apologies. Is that it?"

"I scared the shite out of her. She tell you that?"

"Don't do it anymore and it won't be a problem. Is that all you have to tell me. Because if it is "

"No, it is fucking not, sir."

"What did you say}"

The man was breathing hard through his nose now, a ray of light from outside the confessional glimmering on the planed surfaces of his face.

"I said give me a fucking minute, if you please," he said.

"Are you drunk?"

The man did not reply. He seemed to burn with energies he couldn't express. He rocked on the kneeler and twisted his head from side to side, then made a grinding noise in his throat. The lunch box clattered with sound again, as though the man had dropped a heavy object in it and snapped the latch on the lid.

"Tell the nun she's a splendid woman and I hope she lives long enough to have a bishop for a son. Send up a thanks to your patron saint, Father. Maybe buy a Powerball ticket while you're at it," the man said.

He flung open the door of the confessional and stalked through the vestibule and out the front of the church. Father Jimmie followed him as far as the front steps and watched him walk toward Canal, a golfer's cap pulled down on his head, his narrow shoulders hunched forward in the rain, his lunch box glistening with moisture. The man looked back over his shoulder at Father Jimmie, his face contorted, as though he had just fled a burning building.

It had rained through the night in New Iberia, and in the morning the sun rose like a pink wafer out of a blanket of fog that covered the cane fields. When I got to the office the parents of Lori Parks were waiting for me. Sometimes the survivors of family members who meet violent deaths have no place to direct their anger and loss other than at the police officer who is assigned to help them. Their rage is understandable, particularly when a cop is straight up and informs them the percentages are not in favor of justice being done. But sometimes the anger of the survivors has more to do with guilt than grief.

The father was sandy haired and tall, with an aquiline nose, the tops of his forearms sun freckled, his hands long and tapered. The wife was built like a stump, a ring of fat under her chin, her hair dyed dark red, her perfume a chemical fog.

"I hear you're questioning the employees of the daiquiri shops in town," the father said.

"Yes, sir, that's correct," I said.

He and his wife had not taken a seat when I offered them one. They looked down at me, from across my desk, stolid, angry, their defenses and denial rooted in concrete.

"Are you saying our daughter was DWI?" he asked.

"That's the conclusion of our lab."

He nodded silently, the color in his eyes deepening, the skin around the rim of his nostrils whitening.

"So the truck and bus drivers are off the hook?" he said.

"I don't think they're players in this," I said.

"Excuse me?" the wife said.

"I think your daughter and her friends were served alcohol illegally. I'd like to put the people in jail who empowered them to drink and drive. But to be truthful I don't think that's going to happen."

"Our daughter is responsible for her own death? Is that it? A seventeen-year-old girl burns to death and it's her goddamn fault?" the father said.