I began raking again, the tines biting into the dirt.
“He did some checking on your partner, Detective Ribbons,” Butterworth said. “Want to hear the results?”
My hands were tingling. I raked harder, a bead of sweat running down my nose.
“Not curious at all?” he said. “My, my.”
I stopped, the rake propped in my hand. “Say it.”
“Bailey was a bad little girl and was playing with matches.”
I held my eyes on his. How could either Wexler or Butterworth know about the arson deaths of the three rapists on an Indian reservation in western Montana? According to Bailey, she had never told anyone what she had done except me and the Indian woman with whom she lived.
“Cat got your tongue?” he said.
“I’m off the clock now,” I said. “I’m also on my own property.”
“Meaning?”
“You might be having your next meal through a glass straw.”
“I’ll leave this private investigator’s report for you to read at your leisure. Ta-ta.”
“Why would Wexler be interested in the background of Detective Ribbons?”
“It’s not Wexler. Outside of posing in front of a mirror, his chief interest in life is lessons in classical Latin, if you get my drift. Put it this way—he loves to shoot films in Thailand. Desmond told him to check out your partner.”
“Why her?”
“You and she are hurting Des financially. That said, by extension, you’re hurting Lou and me.”
“Get off my property.”
“Not interested in the tykes who got burned in a schoolhouse fire?”
Then I realized he wasn’t talking about the death of the rapists. My stomach felt sick, my face sweaty and cold in the wind. “Where’d this happen?”
“In Holy Cross, in the Lower Ninth Ward. None of the children died. But a certain little girl was in a lot of trouble for a while. The welfare worker said she was ‘disturbed.’ Broken home, alcoholic mother, poverty, all that Little Match Girl routine, no pun intended.”
I went back to raking, my hands dry and stiff on the rake handle, my eyes out of focus.
“No clever remarks?” he said.
“I think you’re full of it.”
“Just going to let it roll off your back?”
I didn’t look up. “What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you?”
“Let’s see. Three things, actually. I took a couple of AK rounds that probably had feces on them. One of my wives gave me the clap. And spending time in this place.”
I took the manila envelope from his hands, walked him to his vehicle, and slammed him into the seat hard enough to jar his teeth. Then I tore his envelope into pieces and sprinkled them on his head.
“Keep being the great example you are,” I said. “We know you can do it.”
Then I got into my truck, drove around his Subaru—scraping the fender with my bumper—and headed up Loreauville Road to Bailey’s cottage, my heart the size and density of a cantaloupe.
• • •