I drove to the little settlement of Cade and the trailer home of Arceneaux’s father, located on cinder blocks behind his clapboard church. The bottle tree next to the church tinkled in the wind. When the reverend opened the door, he looked ten years older than he had at the time of his daughter’s death. I was holding the dress and the tennis shoe inside a paper bag.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“I’m Dave Robicheaux, Reverend. I wondered if I could talk with you a few minutes.”
“You’re who?”
“Detective Robicheaux. I was assigned the investigation into your daughter’s death.”
“Oh, yes, suh. I remember now,” he said, pushing open the door. His hand was quivering on his cane, his eyes jittering.
I stepped inside. “I need you to look at this dress.” I pulled it from the bag. Sand and salt were still in the folds.
“Why you want me to look at it?”
“Lucinda was wearing this when she died. Have you seen it before?”
“I don’t remember her wearing a dress like that. But I cain’t be sure, suh.”
“I see.”
“What else you got in there?”
“A tennis shoe. Do you recognize it as hers?”
He took it from my hand. The wet shine in his eyes was immediate.
“She was wearing tennis shoes like these the last time you saw her?” I said.
“Yes, suh. When she left for the airport.”
“Sir, why don’t you sit down? Here, let me help you.”
“No, I’m all right. Can I have her shoe?”
“We have to keep it a while. I’ll make sure it’s returned to you.”
“That dress couldn’t be hers,” he said.
“Why not?”
“She always called her green and blue shoes her ‘little girl’ shoes. She wore them with jeans. She always dressed tasteful.”
“What do you know about Desmond Cormier?”
“He paid for her burial. He’s a nice man.”
“You ever hear of a man named Antoine Butterworth?”
“No, suh.”
“Did Lucinda talk about Mr. Cormier?”
“I never axed her much about those Hollywood people. She said most of them were no different from anybody else. How’d she get that dress on? They took her clothes off when she was dead? Who would want to degrade her like that? I don’t understand. How come this was done to her?”
His voice broke. He couldn’t finish.
I silently made a vow that one day I would have an answer to that question, and I would put a mark on the perpetrator that he would carry to the grave, if not beyond.