Purple Cane Road (Dave Robicheaux 11)

“The guy’s brains are in your hair, man.”

The shooter opened up again, firing indiscriminately, burning the whole magazine.

“Get out of here,” I said.

“What?”

“The keys are in the ignition. When I put down masking fire, you get out of here.”

I didn’t wait for him to answer. I crawled to the front of the car, then extended one hand out beyond the fender and began firing the .45 into the clump of trees. The sparks flew into the darkness and the recoil snapped my wrist four inches up in the air with each shot. I fired eight rounds in a row, the brass casings flicking past my eyes, until the breech locked open. Then I released the empty magazine and shoved in a fresh one.

The Plymouth’s engine roared to life and the back tires spun in reverse on the wet grass. Johnny Remeta whipped the car around in the opposite direction, shifted into low, and floored the accelerator across the glade toward the entrance to the highway.

A full minute must have passed; there was no sound except a boat engine starting up on the river and the whir of tires on the bridge. The people by the rest rooms rose to their feet and stood like figures in a trance under the smoky glow of the sodium lamps. I pulled off my shirt, my hands trembling, and wiped my hair and face with it. Then I vomited into the grass. The detective named Burgoyne lay on his side, his head on one arm, his jaws locked open, his eyes looking vacuously into space, as though a terrible revelation about his life had just been whispered in his ear.

15

The Sheriff paced back and forth in his office, reading from the folded-back front page of the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate. While he paced and read, he kept touching one eyebrow with a fingernail and widening his eyes, as though denying himself the luxury of an emotion that would turn his face crimson.

The story was a long one, of the kind written by a journalist who has learned the advantages of professional credulity over skepticism:

Henderson—In what authorities believe was an attempted gangland assassination gone awry, a New Orleans city police officer was killed and a murder suspect escaped custody by stealing an unmarked police vehicle and driving it through a hail of gunfire.

Dead upon arrival at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Lafayette was Detective Sergeant James F. Burgoyne. Burgoyne and an Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Department detective, David Robicheaux, tried to save the life of the intended victim, John Remeta, a suspect in a New Orleans homicide, investigators on the scene said.

The shooting took place in an I-10 rest area close by the Atchafalaya River. Remeta was being transported in chains from New Iberia to New Orleans.

Both officers advanced across an open field into sniper fire while Remeta huddled on the backseat of the unmarked police vehicle. When the officers freed Remeta of his handcuffs, Remeta escaped in the confusion and a bullet meant for him struck Burgoyne in the head, according to the crime scene investigator.

Authorities believe Remeta has ties to organized crime and that a contract was placed on his life. A second New Orleans police officer, Lieutenant Don Ritter, is credited with coming to the assistance of Robicheaux and Burgoyne, putting himself in the line of fire.

A St. Martin Parish deputy sheriff on the scene said the behavior of all three officers was the bravest he had seen in his twenty years of police experience.

And on and on.

The sheriff tossed the newspaper on his desk and continued pacing, twisting the stem of his pipe in and out of the bowl.

Then he picked up a fax of the scene investigator’s report and reread it and let it drift from his hand on top of the newspaper.

“The dead cop, what’s his name, Burgoyne? He still had his piece in his holster. How do you explain that?” the sheriff said.

“Ask the scene investigator.”

“I’m asking you.”

“I’m not sure you want to know.” I looked at a spot on the wall.

“Ritter impressed me as a self-serving asswipe. He had a sudden conversion and ran into incoming fire to help you out?”

“I never saw Ritter. Not until the state police were coming down the ramp.”

“You’d better tell me what happened out there.”

“I made Burgoyne walk in front of me and give Remeta his cuff key. If Remeta hadn’t taken off in the unmarked vehicle, the shooter would have nailed us both.”

The sheriff ran one hand through his hair. “I don’t believe this,” he said.

“Ritter fabricated the story to cover himself. I didn’t contradict him. If I had, I would have been in custody myself.”