Purple Cane Road (Dave Robicheaux 11)

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I had to get out of New Orleans for a while. This homicide guy Magelli was bugging me yesterday about Zipper Clum getting popped. Like I have knowledge about every crime committed in Orleans and Jefferson parishes,” Clete said.

“You usually do.”

“Thanks. Let’s get something to go and eat in the park. I want to have a talk with you, big mon.”

“About what?”

“I’ll tell you in the park.”

We ordered two Styrofoam containers of fried catfish and coleslaw and dirty rice and drove across the drawbridge that spanned Bayou Teche at Burke Street. The bayou was dented with rain rings. Clete parked the Cadillac by one of the picnic shelters under the oaks in City Park, and we sat under the tin roof in the rain and warm breeze and ate lunch. Inside all of Clete’s outrageous behavior was the secular priest, always determined to bail his friend out of trouble, no matter how unwanted his help was. I waited for the sermon to begin.

“Will you either say it or stop looking at me like that?” I said finally.

“This homicide hotshot, Magelli? He’s heard you’ve been moving the furniture around about your mother’s death. He thinks you might just do a number on somebody.”

“Who cares what he thinks?”

“I think he’s right on. You’re going to coast along, not saying anything, stonewalling people, then when you think you’ve found out enough, you’re going to blow up their shit.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“It’s not your style, noble mon. That’s why I’m going to be in town for a little while. I was out at Passion Labiche’s place early this morning.”

“What for?”

“Because I’m not sure the hit on Zipper Clum is related to your mother’s death. These political fucks in Baton Rouge want Letty Labiche executed, body in the ground, case closed, so they can get back full-time to the trough. You keep turning over rocks, starting with sticking a gun in Zipper Clum’s mouth up on that roof.”

“Me?”

“So I helped a little bit. That Passion Labiche is one hot-ass-looking broad, isn’t she? Is she involved with anybody?”

“Why don’t you give some thought to the way you talk about women?”

“It was a compliment. Anyway, you’re right, she’s hiding something. Which makes no sense. What do she and her sister have to lose at this point?”

I shook my head.

“I think we should start with the hitter, the cracker on the tape,” I said.

“I got a question for you. Jack Abbott, this mainline con a writer got out of the Utah Pen some years back? Where’d he go after he knifed a waiter to death in New York?”

“Morgan City.”

“What can I say? Great minds think alike. I already put in a couple of calls,” Clete said, grinning while he wiped food off his mouth.

But I didn’t have great faith in finding the killer of Zipper Clum in Morgan City, even though it was known as a place for a man on the run to disappear among the army of blue-collar laborers who worked out of there on fishing vessels and offshore drilling rigs. Clete had not heard the tape on which Zipper had said his killer had never done outside work and had skin like milk. I also believed Clete was more interested in monitoring me than the investigation into my mother’s death. He came to the sheriff’s department at quitting time, expecting to drive down together to Morgan City.

“I can’t go today,” I said.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Commitments at home.”

“Yeah?” He was standing in the middle of my office, his porkpie hat slanted down on his head, his stomach hanging over his belt, an unlit Lucky Strike in his mouth. He tossed the cigarette end over end into the wastebasket. “I refuse to light one of these things ever again. Why are you giving me this bullshit, Streak?”

“Come have dinner with us.”