“I’d better blow.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” I looked around the living room. The sun had started its descent into the bay. The light was shining in the hallway on the framed still photos. “Earlier you said we’d missed something.”
“Yeah, three women have been killed. What do they have in common?”
“Bella Delahoussaye was a singer,” I replied. “Hilary Bienville was a part-time hooker. Lucinda Arceneaux wanted to get innocent people off death row. All of them were black.”
“They all had qualities,” he said. “The guy who killed them hated and desired them. How about the guy in the shrimp net? What was his name?”
“Joe Molinari,” I said.
“He’s the one who doesn’t fit.”
Clete went out onto the deck. The wind was blowing hard, spotting his Hawaiian shirt with raindrops. He started back inside, then stopped and looked down at something in the track of the sliding door. He dug it out with the tip of his ballpoint and picked it up between his fingers. “Take a look.”
“A tooth?”
“Part of one,” he said. “There’s blood on it.”
“Maybe the round knocked it out of Butterworth’s mouth.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Think we’re getting played?”
“Before Butterworth hung up on me, he praised Desmond.”
“Like he was being forced to?”
“I’m not sure. He was obviously distraught. The last thing he said was ‘Someday you’ll read between the lines.’?”
“Got any idea where Cormier is?” Clete said.
“No, but when we find him, he’ll appear shocked and indignant and dismayed.”
“Congratulations,” he said. “I think you’re finally catching on to this guy.”
I turned in a circle to look at the room again. Butterworth’s tenor sax was propped against the couch; the mouthpiece lay on the couch’s arm. A large vintage Stromberg-Carlson record player stood against one wall, its top open, its console lit. I looked at the LP on the spindle. It was a recording of Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic, which included Flip Phillips, the legendary tenor sax man Desmond had told me Butterworth admired.
“You give me too much credit,” I said to Clete. “I haven’t caught on to squat.”
• • •
I HAD NO IDEA where to start looking for Desmond. Bailey showed up with the ambulance and Cormac the coroner and the forensic team. Clete stayed down by the water, his back to the house.
“No idea where Des is, huh?” Bailey said.
“Des?”
“Don’t take your anger out on me, Dave.”
“No, I don’t know where he is.”
“He’s a moody, sentimental guy,” she said.
“What’s that mean?”
“I hear the whole crew is headed back to Monument Valley in the morning,” she said. “I think he’ll sell his house and we’ll never see him again.”
I had to give it to her. She was always ahead of the game. I wondered what things would have been like if I had met her fifty years ago. “Will you take over here?”