Last Car to Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux 13)

"That's up to other people, partner," I said, and put him in the backseat of the

cruiser, my hand on top of his head.

As we drove away I saw his mother walk out on the gallery and look in both directions, wondering where her son had gone.

That afternoon I called Lori Parks's father at his office. His receptionist told me he was not expected in that day.

"Is the funeral today?" I asked.

"It was yesterday," she replied.

"Would you give me his home number, please?"

"I'm not supposed to do that."

"We can send a cruiser out there and bring him in, if you like," I said.

When I called his home no one answered and the message machine, if he had one, was turned off. I checked out a cruiser and drove to Loreauville, nine miles up the Teche, and found his house in a wooded, hilly area on the bayou, just outside of town.

The one-story house was long and flat and constructed of what is called South Carolina brick, torn down from nineteenth-century buildings and shipped to Louisiana for use in custom-built homes. Apple green wood shutters that were ornamental rather than operational were affixed to the walls on each side of the windows and looked as if they had been painted on the brick. The porch ran the width of the house and was intersected with a series of miniature fluted columns. With its flat roof and squeezed windows, the house looked like a constipated man crouched back in the trees. It had probably cost a half million dollars to build.

Dr. Parks stood on a shady knoll overlooking the bayou, slashing golf balls across the water into a grove of persimmon trees. When I walked up behind him, leaves crackling under the soles of my shoes, he glanced at me for only a moment, then whacked another ball into the persimmons.

"I arrested Josh Comeaux this morning," I said.

"Glad to hear it," he said. His face was heated, freshly shaved, even though it was late in the day. He picked another ball out of a bucket and set it on a tee.

"He says you knocked him around."

"What's your business here, Detective?" He rested his driver by his foot. He wore doeskin gloves that had no fingers and a long-sleeve maroon polo shirt and casual slacks that accentuated the flatness of his stomach and the graceful line of his hips.

"I'd like to see the owners of these drive-by daiquiri stores run through a tree shredder. But you're taking out your anger on the wrong person, Dr. Parks," I said.

"I moved my family here from Memphis. We thought small-town America wouldn't have drugs and political officials on the take and bastards who sell children booze to kill themselves with. I've been a stupid man."

He took his position on the tee, lifted his golf club with perfect form, and whipped it viciously into the ball.

"Don't add to your grief, sir," I said.

He turned and faced me. "You have any idea of what it might have been like inside that car?" he said.

"The tox screen showed traces of marijuana in Lori's blood," I said.

"So what?"

"Maybe Josh Comeaux is a victim, too."

"I must have done something wrong in a former life," he said.

"Pardon?"

"My daughter was burned alive and the cop who should be kicking somebody's ass is a goddamn titty-sucking liberal. You need to leave my property."

I took my sunglasses out of their case, then replaced them and stuck the case back in my shirt pocket. The wind was cold blowing out of the trees and I could smell the heavy odor of the bayou in the shadows. The skin under Dr. Parks's right eye seemed to twitch uncontrollably.

"Are you hard of hearing?" he asked.

"The judge will probably go light on Josh's bond. That means he'll probably be back home in a day or so. Axe we clear on the implication, sir?" I said.