Purple Cane Road (Dave Robicheaux 11)

“Why, no, I don’t think I ever knew anyone by that name. Mae? No, I’m sure of it,” he replied.

I got back into the truck and backed into the road and headed toward the crossroads.

Clete reached under the seat and removed his half pint bottle of whiskey and unscrewed the cap with one thumb, his eyes on the sugarcane and the rain ditches that swept past both sides of the truck. He took a sip from the bottle and put a Lucky Strike in his mouth.

“How about eighty-sixing the booze while we’re driving?” I said.

“Gable knows something about your mother’s death?” he said.

“Put it in the bank,” I said.

4

On Monday I drove to the women’s prison at St. Gabriel, ten miles south of Baton Rouge, and waited for a female guard to walk Letty Labiche from a lockdown unit to an interview room. While I waited a television crew and a male and female journalist from a Christian cable channel were packing up their equipment.

“You interviewed Letty?” I asked the woman.

“Oh, yes. Her story’s a tragic one. But it’s a beautiful one, too,” she replied. She was middle-aged, blond and attractive, her hard, compact body dressed in a pink suit.

“Beautiful?” I said.

“For a Christian, yes, it’s a story of forgiveness and hope.” Her face lifted into mine, her blue eyes charged with meaning.

I looked at the floor and said nothing until she and the other journalist and their crew were gone.

When Letty came into the room with the female guard she was wearing prison denims and handcuffs. The guard was as broad as an ax handle, pink-complected, with chestnut hair, and arms like an Irish washerwoman. She turned the key in the handcuff locks and rubbed Letty’s wrists.

“I got them a little tight. You gonna be okay here, hon?” she said.

“I’m fine, Thelma,” Letty said.

I could not tell the difference between Letty and her twin sister, except for a rose with green leaves tattooed on her neck. They had the same skin, the same smoke-colored, wavy, gold-streaked hair, even the same powerful, physical presence. She sat down with me at a wood table, her back straight, her hands folded in front of her.

“You’re going to be on cable television, huh?” I said.

“Yes, it’s pretty exciting,” she said.

But she caught the look in my eyes.

“You don’t approve?” she said.

“Whatever works for you is the right thing to do, Letty.”

“I think they’re good people. They been kind to me, Dave. Their show goes out to millions of homes.”

Then I saw the consuming nature of her fear, her willingness to believe that exploitative charlatans could change her fate or really cared what happened to her, the dread and angst that congealed like a cold vapor around her heart when she awoke each morning, one day closer to the injection table at Angola. How much time was left? Six weeks? No, it was five weeks and four days now.

I remembered a film clip that showed Letty at a religious service in the prison chapel, rising from her knees in front of the cross, her clasped hands extended high above her head in a histrionic portrayal of prayer. It was almost embarrassing to watch. But I had learned long ago that unless you’ve had your own ticket punched in the Garden of Gethsemane, you shouldn’t judge those whose fate it is to visit there.

“What can you tell me about a black woman named Little Face Dautrieve?” I asked.

“Tell you?”

“You know her, don’t you?”

“The name’s not real familiar,” she said.

“Why do you and Passion refuse to confide in me?” I said.