Last Car to Elysian Fields (Dave Robicheaux 13)

Then I angled a line from Castille Lejeune's name to the names of Will Guillot and the dead daiquiri shop operator and Dr. Parks, who had died in Will Guillot's driveway.

To one side I placed the names of the New Orleans players Father Jimmie Dolan, Max Coll, the Dellacroce family, and Gunner Ardoin, the part-time porn actor.

The connections between the names and the deeds associated with them seemed byzantine on the surface, but for me the answers in the investigation lay in the past and the key was still the first name on the page, Junior Crudup.

Helen opened my office door. "The Lafayette Sheriff's Department just called. Get this," she said. "The archdiocese is having a clerical conference of some kind. One of the out-of-towners happened to be an Irish priest. His jokes were a big hit. Then a pistol fell out of his shoulder bag in the lobby of the Holiday Inn."

"Our man Max?"

"What's with this guy?"

"He's nuts."

"That's the best you can do?"

"Got a better explanation? Where'd he go?"

"They don't know. They think he was driving a rental."

"He'll be back."

"You sound almost happy."

"He saved my life. Maybe he has redeeming qualities," I said, grinning at her.

"The guy who said 'suck on this' and blew away two people?"

"It's only rock'n'roll," I said.

"Fire your psychiatrist," she said, and closed the door.

I studied the names and lines on my notepad. Years ago, after the murder of my wife Annie, I went twice a week to sessions with an analytically oriented therapist in Lafayette. He was one of those who believed most aberrations in behavior and personality development were caused by fairly obvious dysfunctions in the patient's environment. The problem in treating them, he maintained, was that they were so obvious the patient usually would not buy the connection between the cause and the problem.

Theodosha had told me her husband, Merchie, was having what she called another flop in the hay and that she couldn't blame him for it. I took that to mean she had a sexual problem of her own, one that had sent her husband elsewhere. But I also remembered a remark our dispatcher Wally had made about Merchie Flannigan, as well as one made by Clete Purcel.

I walked up front and leaned on the half-door that enclosed Wally in the dispatcher's cage. He was writing on a clipboard, the top of his head and his neatly parted, little-boy haircut bent down. His shirt pocket was stuffed with cellophane-wrapped cigars. "Whatchu want, Dave?" he asked without looking up.

"You told me Merchie Flannigan was a bum, that he was a guy you never liked. Let's clear that up," I said.

"So I got a big mout'," he replied.

"This is part of a murder investigation, Wally. I'm not going to ask you again."

"He's got a wife, but he messes around on the side."

"A lot of men do."

"He was driving my wife's niece home. She was working at his office in Lafayette. She was seventeen years old at the time. He axed her if she wanted to go swimming at his club. It was late and the club was closed, but he said it didn't matter 'cause he had a key and the owner and him was golf buddies. She didn't have a suit, but he said that wasn't no problem 'cause they'd get one from behind the counter and put it on his tab.

"There wasn't no lights on in the pool when she came out of the dressing room. She started swimming back and fort' across the shallow end, then he come up to her and axed her if she could swim on her back. She said she always got water up her nose, and he says just turn over and rest on my hands and I'll show you how to do it."

I waited for him to go on but he didn't.

"What happened?" I said.

"He tole her how pretty she was, how she had to be careful about young boys only got one thing on their mind. She tole him she was cold and she better go back inside and get dressed. He said it was okay, they'd come back another time, that she was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen."

He stopped again, ticking his pencil on the clipboard, looking at nothing.