Last Car to Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux 13)

"No."

"The revolver registered in your name is part of a homicide investigation, Mr. Guillot. If I were you, I'd get my priorities straight."

"Homicide?" he said, genuinely surprised.

"You own a brown pickup truck?"

"I don't. The company does. What about it?"

But I was looking at the back of the electrician who had walked away, and was not listening to William Guillot anymore.

"Did you hear me? What the hell is going on? Why are you staring at my electrician like that?"

"Is he your subcontractor?"

"What about it?"

"He installed defective wiring in the walls of my house. It burned to the ground," I said.

Guillot's eyes narrowed and dropped briefly to my person, as though he were filing away my inventory in a private compartment. "Follow me to my house," he said.

Twenty minutes later I stood in his home office, the sunlight breaking through a pecan tree by the side window, while he searched his desk, a wall safe, and the drawers of a gun cabinet. "It's gone," he said.

"You have a break-in recently?"

"Six or seven months ago."

"You reported it?"

"Yeah, but I didn't miss the .38. Why would somebody steal only the .3 8 and none of my other guns?"

"Write down the names of the person or persons you were with Monday night."

"Maybe I don't want to do that."

"I see. Maybe you can work through that problem in a jail cell."

He wrote a woman's name and address and telephone number on the top page of a scratch pad and handed it to me. "My wife and I are separated. Her lawyer is trying to clean my clock. This isn't information that will help my situation," he said.

"It's not our intention to compromise your privacy," I said.

But his eyes grew heated, as though he were remembering an unfinished, angry thought. "Back there at the house site, you made a serious accusation about my electrician. Did you file charges against him?" he said.

"In New Iberia we have no inspection system outside the city limits. Also, in Louisiana an electrical contractor has no liability one year after the work is done. You like building homes in Louisiana, Mr. Guillot?"

"I think you've got an ax to grind, Mr. Robicheaux. Let me say this up front. When I get pushed, I push back."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really," he said.

I tossed my business card on his desk. "Give me a call when I can be of service," I said.

That same afternoon the phone rang on the desk in Father Jimmie Dolan's office. He stared at the phone as it rang four times, then listened to the voice that came through the speaker on the message machine.

"Are you there, Father? Excuse me if I sound strange, but I have a broken nose, a mouth that looks like a smashed plum, and a tooth knocked out of my head. All done by a Catholic priest," the voice said.

In the background Father Jimmie could hear piano music and the sounds of street traffic.