The New Iberia Blues (Dave Robicheaux 22)

“The issues are one and the same. The homicide is connected to money.”

“We don’t know that,” she said.

“Speak for yourself.”

“Cool out, Pops. We’re going to nail him, but right now I’m not sure for what.”

“Great choice of a verb.”

“I love you, bwana, but sometimes I think I committed an unpardonable sin in a former life, and you were put here to give me a second chance.”

“What if Desmond is our guy and he does it again?”

“I have a hard time thinking of him as a serial killer.”

“Our guy is not a serial killer. There’s a method to his madness.”

She didn’t answer; she obviously had given up the argument.

“What if he’s protecting the murderer and the murderer kills someone else?” I said. “Maybe another young woman like Lucinda Arceneaux?”

“You just made sure I won’t sleep tonight,” she replied.

• • •

THE NEXT DAY, we went to work on the origins of the bag. It had come from an online vendor in California that had gone out of business five years ago. There were latents on the deodorant can, but they weren’t in the system. Bailey came into my office. “I just got a call from Butterworth.”

“He called you? You didn’t call him first?”

“He said he wants to come in.”

“With an attorney?”

“No. He said he wants to clear the air.”

In any investigation a cop looks for what we call “the weak sister.” I believed we had just found ours. “Call him back. Tell him we’ll meet him in City Park at noon.”

“Not here?”

“We want him to feel comfortable, as though he’s among friends.”

“Sounds a little deceitful.”

“These guys invented deceit.”

“Okay,” she said. “Want to get together this evening?”

“Sure.”

“Because that’s not the impression I’ve been having.”

“You shouldn’t think that way, Bailey.”

“You don’t think less of me because of what I told you about my past?”

“No,” I replied, trying to keep my face empty.

“See you at six?”