Wish it worked that way, I thought. But I didn’t try to argue.
• • •
ON MONDAY MY office phone rang at 8:06 a.m.
“Detective Robicheaux speaking,” I said.
“I tried to get you all weekend,” a man’s voice said. “Nobody would give me your number.”
“That’s because it’s unlisted,” I said. “Who is this?”
“Never mind who I am. You’re the guy working the Travis Lebeau homicide, right?”
“I’m one of them.”
“You figure the AB did it?”
“You need to tell me who you are, partner.”
“No, you need to listen. Maybe the AB caught up to Travis, maybe not. Or maybe some of your own people did it.”
I punched in Helen’s number on my cell phone and placed the phone on my desk so she could overhear my conversation with the man as soon as she picked up. “Am I talking to Mr. Tillinger?” I asked.
“Call me Hugo. You know my history, right? The fire, the trial, me busting out of that hospital?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I didn’t kill either my daughter or my wife. I wouldn’t harm a woman or a child under any circumstance.”
“Why’d you come here?”
“To find Miss Lucinda. To ask her for money so I didn’t have to steal it, then get as much gone from here as I can.”
“Who killed her?”
“That’s why I called. I aim to get those who done it.”
“We don’t have any leads,” I said. “Maybe I can establish a back channel with you.”
“Yeah, in a heartbeat. Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“A guy who’s con-wise, a fellow who perhaps went down on a bad beef.”
There was a brief silence. “Did Miss Lucinda suffer?”
“She wasn’t tortured or violated, if that’s what you mean.”
“But she suffered?”
“She was injected with heroin. Maybe she just went to sleep.”
“But she suffered just the same, didn’t she?”
“You know the answer to that,” I said.
“Who’s the last person she saw?”
“We ask the questions,” I said.