nute, Miss Bailey?” he said.
“No, I cannot,” she said. “Where do you get off with that attitude?”
“I was just wondering about McClain,” he said.
“What about him?” she said.
“He told me he might be going out to Hollywood. That Cormier might be casting him.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” she said. “He’s a kid.”
“I thought he was North Lousiana’s answer to the Lone Ranger,” Clete said.
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“That he shouldn’t be palling around with a guy who might be aiding and abetting a murderer,” Clete said.
I stared at Sean in the sunlight. He wore a department hat that made his face look gray and dusty under the brim, as if he had been working all day in a field. He tried to smile at me, but his lip seemed to catch on a bottom tooth.
“You sure that kid’s not hinky?” Clete said.
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Lou Wexler.
Chapter Forty-Two
“I’M GLAD I caught you,” he said.
My hand was trembling on the phone. “Where are you, Mr. Wexler?”
“Trying to find Alafair. Lose the formality. We’re on the same side.”
“Alafair is not with you?”
“Desmond has her. Stop listening to that man’s lies.”
“We’re at your house in St. Martinville. I saw the tarot. I saw your trophies in the attic.”
“What trophies?”
“The wallets and purses and shoes and bandanas.”
“Those are props from a film we made about a serial killer.” He gave me the title and named the actors and the directors. My head was throbbing. I couldn’t process his words.
“I don’t know anything about a tarot,” he went on. “If you found it in my house, Des put it there. He’s been salting the mineshaft. Isn’t that the term for it?”
“How do you account for the shooting in City Park?”
“You’ve got me on that one. My Lamborghini was in the shop, so I borrowed Antoine’s Subaru. I was having a go of it with a local lady when this nasty little sod walked up on me and tried to put out my wick. So I clicked off his switch. I shouldn’t have run. I was going to turn myself in today. I have an attorney. You can check out my story.”
“Tell me where you are.”
“I’m not quite sure about my safety at this point.”
“You think we’re going to kill you in custody?”
“I’ve seen the way you and your Falstaffian friend do business, sir. The other problem is I don’t think you have a bloody clue what’s been going on in your own life.”
“Repeat that?”