The New Iberia Blues (Dave Robicheaux 22)

“You know the will and mind of God?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“Why are you calling me?” I said.

“Bet you’ve already forgotten Travis Lebeau.”

“He was dragged to death on asphalt. That’s a hard image to forget.”

“Lebeau was in the Aryan Brotherhood, and the Aryan Brotherhood was providing the skanks that dirty cop was pimping for. Those AB boys thought they were going to be players. Didn’t work out too good, did it? For the dirty cop, either.”

“Axel Devereaux?”

“The one who got a baton shoved down his windpipe.”

“I’ve got a theory about you, Mr. Tillinger. You want to be in the movies, even if it costs you your life.”

“Miss Lucinda knew something that got her killed, Mr. Robicheaux.” His voice had changed, like that of a man who had spent a lifetime hiding who he really was. “I talked with Desmond Cormier’s father.”

“You did what?”

“I followed you and the woman to Ennis Patout’s wrecker service in Opelousas.”

“You’ve been following Detective Ribbons and me?”

“Free country.”

“Not for you it isn’t,” I said.

“You want to hear what Patout told me?”

I could hear my breath against the phone receiver. I wanted to hang up on him but knew I couldn’t. “Yes.”

“He didn’t say anything except to threaten me.”

“I think you have some kind of cerebral damage, partner.”

“Try this. I checked birth records in the courthouses hereabouts. Patout had a daughter twenty-five years ago.”

“You said ‘had.’?”

“That old boy didn’t let race get in his way, either,” Tillinger said. “Starting to put it together? See you around.”

• • •

THE BLOOD VEINS in my head were dilating. I went down to Bailey’s office. She was out of the building. I checked out a cruiser and headed for Opelousas. I tried to piece together all the random bits of information that showed a possible motive or pattern in the murders of Lucinda Arceneaux, Joe Molinari, Travis Lebeau, Axel Devereaux, and Hilary Bienville. Each was, in some fashion, ritualistic. Perhaps the tarot and the Maltese cross were involved. So were cruelty and rage. But as soon as I linked one homicide to a second or third, my logic would fall apart.

Lucinda Arceneaux had been injected and perhaps died without knowing she was being murdered. Yet the killer, if he was the same man, had beaten Hilary Bienville without mercy. Why her? She was a harmless uneducated woman trying to raise a child by herself

and each night allowing her body to be pe

netrated and degraded and smeared with the fluids of unshaved men who stank of alcohol and dried sweat and filling station grease. Don’t let anyone tell you prostitution is a victimless crime. The men who strike women are moral and physical cowards. Every street cop, every detective, sees violence against women with regularity, more today than in past decades. For the misogynist, women like Hilary Bienville are plump fruit waiting to be picked. My mother was the victim of men like the killer of Hilary Bienville. They appear in my dreams, their bodies naked and sweaty, their hands like the claws on crabs.

What’s the point? Hilary Bienville had gone to Clete for help. She told him she was involved with a white man who had gotten inside her head and seemed to have total power over her. But she had also said something that didn’t fit with the details of the homicide. Just outside Opelousas, I hit the speed dial on my cell phone.

Clete answered on the first ring. “Talk to me, big mon.”

“Remember when you told me about Hilary Bienville visiting you at the motor court?”