It was still raining Monday morning, the air cold, the fog heavy among the crypts in St. Peter's Cemetery as I pulled into the parking lot at the courthouse.
Wally, our leviathan dispatcher, made a face when he saw me come through the front door. "Dave, you ain't suppose to be here," he said.
"Pretend I'm not," I said.
"Don't jam me up here. I'm your friend, remember?"
"Is anybody working the Guillot homicide?" I said.
"I didn't even hear you say that. I'm deaf and dumb here. Go home," he replied.
Helen's door was ajar. I went inside without knocking. "What's happening in Franklin with the Guillot shooting?" I said.
"None of your business," she said.
"They made Max Coll for the hit?"
"One in the temple, one down the throat. The signature of a pro," she said.
"I don't buy it."
"What you need to buy is a hearing aid. You were suspended as of yesterday. Now haul your ass out of here."
"I talked with Castille Lejeune late yesterday afternoon. He says he walked in on Coll while Coll was creeping his house. If Coll was going to pop anybody, he would have done it then."
"You went out to Lejeune's, after I pulled your badge?"
"I told him I was suspended. It was a personal visit."
She shook her head, nonplussed. "We have an attorney in lawyer jail right now. I'm about to put you in there with him," she said.
"Coll isn't the shooter."
"Don't be on the premises when I get back." She walked down the hall and into the women's restroom, glancing back at me just before she pushed open the door, as though my argument for Coil's innocence had just sunk a hook on the edge of her mouth.
Louisiana is a small state, with a comparatively small population. In the year 2002 over 950 people were killed and 55,000 injured on our state highways. Booze was a major factor in most of the fatalities. Hence, the presence of a drunk person behind the wheel of an automobile in Louisiana is hardly an anomaly. So I had no reason to be surprised when I picked up the phone in my kitchen and heard a woman's voice say, "Why don't you do something about this goddamn traffic light out here on the four-lane?"
"Who is this?" I asked.
"Donna Parks, who does it sound like? The man in front of me is driving a shit box that's smoking up the whole town. He won't turn left because there's no arrow on the traffic light and I have to
breathe his goddamn exhaust fumes."
For just a moment I had the uncharitable thought that her husband, Dr. Parks, was better off dead.
"What could I do for you, Ms. Parks?"
"I want to file rape charges."
"You've been sexually assaulted?"
"Like my deceased husband said, you people are really dumb. I'll come over there and explain it to you. Where are you?"
"Since you dialed me at my home number, I think we should both conclude I'm at home."
She belched softly, then I heard what was probably her car horn blowing just before the line went dead.
With luck she would have an accident before she got to my house, I thought.