The New Iberia Blues (Dave Robicheaux 22)

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AXEL DEVEREAUX DIDN’T show up for the 0800 roll call. Instead, he called Helen from his home. She walked down to my office and opened the door without knocking. “Get Bailey and go over to Devereaux’s place. Somebody creeped his house.”

“You want us to investigate a B and E?”

“It sounds like it’s more than a B and E,” she said. “Maybe justice is finally catching up with this asshole.”

Bailey checked out a cruiser, and the two of us rode up the bayou to the drawbridge south of Loreauville where Axel lived by himself in a smudged stucco house with Styrofoam litter and car parts and two boats and stacks of crab traps in the yard. He met us at the door in a rage.

“Calm down,” I said.

“Look at my place. He did it in my sleep,” he said.

“Who did?” I said, stepping inside.

“The exterminator,” he said.

“Which exterminator?” I asked.

“A freelancer,” Axel said. “He was going from door to door yesterday.”

“You don’t use a regular service?” Bailey said.

So far he had not acknowledged her presence. “I take care of the termites myself. The guy gave me a deal.”

“How do you know the exterminator is the vandal?” she said.

“I keep a spare set of keys on the dresser,” Axel said. “I didn’t notice they were missing until this morning. Nobody else has been in here except me.”

The living room was a masterpiece of destruction, one that had obviously been accomplished with silent perfection. The couch and chairs had been sliced, perhaps with an X-Acto knife or a barber’s razor, the stuffing pulled out, the cheap decorative prints on the walls and the photos on the mantel slashed and pulled from the frames, the carpets and wood floor layered with paint. In the kitchen and bathroom, the intruder or intruders had poured concrete mix down the drains and oil sludge and glue in the appliances. A deer rifle and a shotgun and a German Luger had been taken from a closet, five hundred dollars from a desk drawer, a gold watch and a derringer from a jewelry box.

Bailey peered out the window at the backyard. A new electric-blue Ford pickup was parked by a tin boat shed. She went out the screen door.

“Where’s she going?” Axel said.

“Obviously to look around. You want us here or not?”

“What’s with you, Robicheaux? I never had a beef with you.”

“You’ve got a beef with the world, Axel. What was the exterminator’s name?”

“I didn’t get it. He’s an exterminator.”

“You didn’t look at his license or proof of insurance?”

“Crawling under the house and spraying poison on Formosan termites doesn’t take a college degree.”

“You didn’t hear anything during the night? While he was demolishing your house?”

“I had a couple of drinks. Somebody left a bottle of Dewar’s on the gallery.”

“That didn’t seem odd to you?” I asked.

“People leave me gifts.”

“For doing what?”

“For helping them,” he replied. “For doing my job.”