"Yeah, hold the ladder for me. What's the problem?" he replied, still concentrated on his work.
"It's not overdue library books," I said.
He looked down at me.
"I think Max Coll capped a wise guy out at Whiskey Bay. I probably could have prevented it," I said.
He climbed down from the ladder and replaced his tools in a metal box and clicked it shut. "Run that by me again," he said.
We walked toward the bayou while I told him what had happened the abiding anger that had made me seek out a violent situation, the savage beating I had given Frank Dellacroce, my recognizing Coll among the crowd in front of the cafe, and, most serious of all, my releasing Dellacroce from custody when I knew, with a fair degree of certainty, I was turning him over to his executioner.
Father Jimmie picked up a pine cone and tossed it into the middle of the bayou. "Dave, if you share responsibility for this man's death, then so do I," he said.
"How?"
"I was uncooperative with N.O.P.D. I could have worked with them and helped bust Coll. He would have been past history now."
I sat down on a stone bench by the edge of the bayou. Its surfaces felt cold and hard through my trousers. The wind gusted and red and yellow leaves tumbled out of the trees into the water. "You going to give me absolution?" I asked.
"You were forgiven as soon as you were sorry for what you did. But you need to tell this to someone else or you'll have no peace of mind."
"Sir?"
"What's the new sheriff's name? The woman who used to be your partner? Let me know how it comes out," he said.
He walked back up the slope and removed a basketball from a cardboard box and swished it through the hoop. You got no free lunch from Father Jimmie Dolan.
Helen listened quietly while I told her about the events of the night I beat Frank Dellacroce within an inch of his life. Her elbows rested on the ink blotter, her chin resting on her thumbs, her fingers knitted together. "This guy Coll is wanted in Florida on two murders?" she said.
"For questioning, at the least."
"What do you think he's doing around here?"
"That's open to debate," I said.
"Meaning what?"
"He has an obsession with the priest who's staying at my house. He's obviously hunting down the people who are trying to take him out. His brains were probably in the blender too long. Take your choice."
She stood up from her chair and stared out the window, her fingers opening and closing against the heel of her palm. "So far there's no evidence it was Coll who shot Dellacroce?" she asked.
"No."
"And you never saw Coll in person?"
"Only in photographs."
"I think you're under a lot of strain. And that's where we're going to leave it for now."
She had given me a temporary free pass, a complicitous wink of the eye; all I had to do was acknowledge it. "My perceptions aren't the issue here. Coll called me at my house. He told me he was in the crowd the night I busted up Dellacroce."
"Coll called you?"
"That's right."
"This isn't police work. It's a soap opera. Are you drinking?"
"No."