Last Car to Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux 13)

"I know you're listening, Father. Would you please have the courtesy to pick up the fucking phone," the voice said.

"What is it this time?" Father Jimmie said.

"Because of you I'm up to my bottom lip in Shite's Creek and the motorboat is about to go roaring by."

"Could you do something about your language, please?"

"My language?" Coll said, his voice like a nail being pried out of dry wood. "I took ten thousand dollars up front for the whack on you. Now I have to pay it back or prepare to go through life with no thumbs."

"Then return it."

"I lost it at the dog track."

"Change your way, Coll."

"Sir, please don't be talking to me like that. I'm miserable enough."

"I called the police on you yesterday. If you won't worry about your soul, you might give some thought to what New Orleans' finest will do to you."

"If there's a trace on your line, it won't help. I'm on a cell."

"You're close by the little alcove in the French Market. I know the pianist who plays there. She's playing her theme song, "Down Yonder," right now."

"You leave a man no dignity. Can you help with the ten thousand? Maybe I could borrow it from one of your charities?"

"I'm hanging up now. I don't want you to contact me again."

"Oh, sir, don't do this to me. Don't fucking do this to a man who "

"Who what?"

"Maybe wants to remember who he used to be."

Father Jimmie replaced the receiver in the phone cradle, the plastic surface as warm as human tissue against his palm, his hand trembling for reasons he couldn't readily explain.

Early the next morning I drove to Abbeville and interviewed Gretchen Peltier, the woman whose name had been given to me by Will Guillot as his alibi witness. She was middle-aged, slightly overweight, her hair dyed a deep black to hide the white roots. She worked as a secretary for an insurance agency and her hands trembled on the desktop when I asked her about her whereabouts Monday night. Her employer was inside a glass-windowed office, his door closed.

"Can't we do this somewhere else?" she said.

"Sorry," I replied.

"I was with Mr. Will. At his camp. We're friends."

"What hours were you with him?"

"I left his camp at dawn. The next day. Does that satisfy you?" Her eyes were filmed with embarrassment.

Later the same morning, Helen Soileau and I and another plain-clothes served the search warrant on Dr. Parks at his home. His face looked sleepless; he had just finished shaving and a piece of bloody tissue paper was stuck to a cut on his chin. He stared at the warrant incredulously. "Search for what?" he said.

"Let's start with your shoes. Take them off, please," I said.

He stared long and hard at me, then the resolution seemed to go out of his eyes. He sat on a footstool in the living room and unlaced each of his black dress shoes and handed them to me. The shoes were new and the leather on them was buffed and smooth and bright as mirrors. "Let's take a look in your closet, Doctor," I said.

We went inside the master bedroom. The curtains were closed, the air oppressive. I felt almost claustrophobic inside the room. "Could you open the curtains, please?" I said.

He started to turn on the overhead lighting.

"No, sir. Open the curtains," I said.