“The cultist at Waco?” I said.
“Yeah. There’s one other factor. He messed around with acid in high school. In other words, he was into the same heavy-metal bands his daughter was. Later on he sees her as him, and burns down his house with her in it, and the mother for good measure.”
“You’re thinking too much,” I said.
“Travis Lebeau was in my office this afternoon. He says he saw Tillinger in Walmart.”
“Stop letting this guy jerk you around. And stop building a case against yourself.”
Clete rested his arm across my shoulders. It felt like a pressurized fire hose. “I worry about you. Guys like me can live alone. Guys like you shouldn’t. One day Alafair is going to leave for California or New York and not come back.”
“Say anything more and I’m going to hit you.”
“You got another problem,” he said. “You take the weight for others and won’t admit it. Just like me.”
“I mean it, Clete. Knock it off.”
“How’s your new partner working out?”
“Fine.”
“I saw her in front of city hall today,” he said.
I waited.
“She’s not your ordinary female plainclothes,” he said.
“And?”
“Nothing. I was just wondering how she’s working out.”
He made a study of Snuggs and Mon Tee Coon, his loafers tapping up and down on the step.
• • •
AT 3:17 P.M. on Tuesday, Bailey Ribbons tapped lightly on my office door. She and Helen had spent most of the day at a seminar with an FBI agent in Lafayette.
“Good afternoon,” I said.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she said.
“Not at all.”
I got up and closed the door behind her.
“Desmond Cormier has called me twice,” she said. “The first time to invite me to dinner. The second time to apologize for the first time. There’s a message on my machine I haven’t listened to.”
She was standing less than two feet from me, her face lifted to mine, her hands on her purse.
“I’ll talk with him,” I said.
“He didn’t say anything rude.”
“He knows he’s compromising your situation.”
“You won’t be too hard on him, will you?”
“No, ma’am.”