"That was it?" I said.
"It was enough for her daddy. He was gonna go over to Flannigan's house and break his jaw but his wife hid the car keys. So the next morning he walked into Flannigan's office and made sure the door was open so everybody could hear it and tole him his daughter wouldn't be coming back to work no more."
"Thanks, Wally."
"What do I know?" he said.
A lot, I thought.
I went back to my office and started in on the paperwork that had built up during the days I was off. The phone on my desk rang.
"Tell me what I'm hearing isn't true," the voice of Clotile Arce-neaux said.
"I'm not too keen on rumors."
"Did you and your buddy Purcel brace Sammy Fig out in Metairie Friday night?"
"Maybe."
"Some federal agents are seriously pissed off about this, as well as somebody else, meaning myself. What gives you the right to go into another jurisdiction and intimidate other people's witnesses?"
"I don't read it that way."
"Well, read this. Sammy Fig thinks either I or federal agents gave you information that sent you over to Metairie. He says he'll no longer be cooperating with us and we can shove Witness Protection up our ass."
"That's the way it flushes sometimes."
"I love your metaphors. I even like you. But right now I'd like to push you off a tall building."
"Where's Sammy now?"
"I left that part out, did I? We have no idea. Gone. My guess is he's gonna try to take it to them before they get to him first."
"Take it to whom?"
"To whom} I love talking to cops who need to show me how educated they are. How would we know, since eighteen months of casework just got dumped in the toilet? You're something else, Robi-cheaux. I hope you come out of this all right, but remind me to be on vacation the next time I catch a case you're involved with. Did you and Purcel really take a bunch of hookers to Galatoire's?"
"I think we've got a bad connection. Let me call you back later."
"Not necessary. I've had all the horse shit I can take in one day," she said.
Top that.
At noon I signed out of the office and drove up the bayou to Hogman Patin's house. He was building a chicken coop under a pecan tree in his side yard and pretended not to see me when I turned into the drive. He slipped his hammer through a hole in a leather pouch on his belt, looking intently at his creation, then walked around the back of his house, out of sight.
I left my truck on top of the oyster-shell drive, the engine ticking with heat, and followed him. He was sitting on his steps, his big hands cupped on his knees, the knife scars on his arms like the backs of worms that had burrowed under the skin. The sun's reflection wobbled brightly on the bayou's surface, but he stared at it without blinking. "Ain't goin' to let the past alone, are you?" he said.
"You have to confront it to get rid of it, Hogman," I replied.
"I done tole you almost all I know. Why don't you let it be?"
"What happened to Jackson Posey, the guard who had to keep taking Junior up to Miss Andrea's house?"
"Cancer eat him up. Heard he died at Charity Hospital in Lafayette. Died hard, too."
I picked up a handful of moldy pecans from a shady, damp area and began chunking them into the bayou. "You've never told anybody why you made a bottle tree in your backyard, have you?" I said.
"Ain't nobody else's bid ness