“You enjoying this, Dave?” Desmond said.
“No, I’m not. I always thought you represented everything that’s good in us. I thought you were a great artist and director, one for the ages.”
He looked like someone had struck a kitchen match on his stomach lining. Behind him, Sean McClain pulled a black gym bag from the pile and shook out a towel, a Ziploc bag with a bar of soap in it, a sweatshirt, a spray can of men’s deodorant, a pair of Levi’s, and a flowery blouse. Then he shook the bag again. A tennis shoe fell out.
“Better take a look at this, Dave,” Sean said.
“What do you have?”
Sean hooked his finger inside the shoe and lifted it from the pile. The shoe was lime green with blue stripes. “Size seven. Just like the one we found in the surf.”
I looked at Desmond. “What do you have to say?”
“I don’t know whose bag that is, and I never saw that shoe. Lucinda Arceneaux wore one like it?”
“Sell your doodah to somebody else,” I said.
“Am I under arrest?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” I said. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t plan any trips.”
“So you’re finished here?” he said.
Bailey stepped close to him, her eyes burning into his face. “Do yourself a favor. Stop acting like a twit and own up. You’re an embarrassment.”
His face twitched at the insult. I didn’t know Des was still that vulnerable.
“Let’s get back to work,” I said. “Lay everything out on the lawn.”
• • •
THAT AFTERNOON, LUCINDA Arceneaux’s father identified the flowery blouse as his daughter’s. He was unsure about the Levi’s, but the size matched the clothes still hanging in her closet. There was no doubt the tennis shoe was hers. At four that afternoon I told Helen about everything I had.
“Okay, I’ll talk to the DA’s office in the morning,” she said.
“Why not get an arrest warrant today? Don’t give Desmond a chance to blow Dodge.”
“We’ll see what the prosecutor says. I don’t think the clothes and shoe will be enough. The gym bag could belong to Butterworth.”
“Butterworth is not our guy. Or at least not our primary guy.”
“Why?”
“He wears his vices too openly. He’s a showboat.”
“Why your certainty about Desmond Cormier?”
“The killer is an iconoclast.”
“A what?”
“A breaker of images and totems. But our guy is also infatuated with them.”
“Sorry, that sounds like the kind of stuff Bailey comes up with.”
“What does it take?” I asked. “Desmond has been playing us from the day we pulled Lucinda Arceneaux out of the water.”
“But playing us about what? Most of his denial has to do with the source of his money. That doesn’t make him a killer. Besides, Lucinda Arceneaux was his half sister, for God’s sake.”