Last Car to Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux 13)

I pinched my temples and looked down the bayou at the Evange-line Oak looming over the water and at the spire of the old French church, a sliver of moon rising behind the steeple.

"Maybe we can talk about it later," I said.

"Sure. I'm sorry for being here like this. Since my psychiatrist died .. . No, that's the wrong word. Since he shot himself I feel this terrible sense of guilt. I've got two days' sobriety now. That's pitiful, isn't it? I mean, taking pride in staying off the hooch for two days, like I invented the wheel?"

"I'll see you, Theo."

She exhaled her breath and I felt it touch my skin. She raised her eyebrows, staring inquisitively into my face, as though I needed to supply the endings to all her unfinished thoughts. Then she seemed to give it up and kissed the tips of two fingers, pressed them against my cheek, and walked out of the cemetery, a solitary firefly lighting in a tree above her head.

In the morning I called a homicide detective at the Lafayette City Police Department by the name of Joe Dupree. He had been in the 173 Airborne Brigade in Vietnam, but never spoke of the war and ate aspirin constantly for the pain he'd carried in his knees for thirty-five years. He was also one of the most thorough investigators I had ever known.

"What do you have on this psychiatrist who shot himself in Girard Park?" I said.

"Dr. Bernstine? It's going down as a suicide. Why do you ask?"

"A woman named Theodosha Flannigan has brought it up a couple of times."

"Merchie Flannigan's wife?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"Her name was in Bernstine's appointment book," he replied.

"You don't buy the suicide?"

"He took two .25 caliber rounds in the right side of the head. The muzzle burns were an inch apart, just above the ear. If the second round was discharged as a spastic reaction, why were the entry wounds almost identical?"

"Any witnesses?" I asked.

"None who could give a visual. But a kid said he heard two pops. At first he said they were a few seconds apart. Then he said they were together. Finally he said he couldn't be sure what he heard. Anyway,

Bernstine had powder residue on his right hand. I'd like to say he was left-handed so my suspicions would have more basis. But he was ambidextrous."

"What's bothering you, besides the kid originally saying there was a time lag between the shots?"

"Bernstine died on a Saturday. The Flannigan woman was scheduled to see him the following Tuesday. But there was no case record on her in his files."

"Maybe he had just started seeing her."

"No, I called Ms. Flannigan. She said she'd been going to Bernstine for six months. Anyway, Bernstine's wife calls me every day and tells me no way in hell he shot himself. Maybe not. But he'd lost his butt in the stock market and rumor has it he was messing around on his wife. So it's going down as a suicide."

"Thanks for your time, Joe."

"You haven't told me what Ms. Flannigan said to you."

"For some reason she feels guilty about Bernstine's death," I said.

"Think she was in the sack with him?"

"If she had been, she would have told you about it. She's a little neurotic," I said.

"I'm shocked you'd know anybody like that, Dave."

The following Monday Father Jimmie Dolan had just returned to the rectory after saying a 7:00 A.M. Mass when the phone rang in his office.

"Hello?" he said.

There was no reply. He heard a streetcar bell clanging in the background.