A Private Cathedral (Dave Robicheaux 23)

Carroll LeBlanc and I arrived at the café at a quarter past midnight, just after the first ambulance and fire truck had gotten there. The Thibodaux woman was sitting at a table, smoking a cigarette, her lipstick smeared on the cigarette butt, her hand shaking as violently as her teeth were chattering. A blanket was wrapped around her. She looked like a frightened Eskimo.

“He had silver hair?” Carroll said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Wit’ yellow in it, like dirty soap was ironed into it. His voice was way down inside himself. I don’t t’ink he’s from around here.”

“He had a foreign accent?” I said.

“No, suh. Maybe Texas or Mississippi.” She looked toward the service window in the kitchen. There was a sorrow in her face that I’ve seen only among civilians in war zones or in the aftermath of fatal accidents or natural catastrophes.

“Start over,” Carroll said.

“He come in and sat down and left his hat on. His eyes didn’t have no color.”

“What do you mean, no color?” Carroll said.

“Like cataracts. I brought him his pie and chocolate milk, and he called me back and said did I know Clete Purcel. I tole him Mr. Clete comes in late at night, but he ain’t come in tonight, maybe ’cause of the storm and all. He axed me what time he comes in when he comes in. I tole him I wasn’t sure.”

“That’s what got him jacked up?” Carroll said.

“No, suh,” she said. “I was walking away and he said, ‘This pie tastes like dog turds.’ I tole him that wasn’t a nice way to talk. He said, ‘Talk to me like that again, you cunt, and I’ll put somet’ing in your mout’ ain’t gonna be pie.’?”

She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her wrist.

“Go on,” I said.

“I went in the kitchen and got a fresh piece of apple pie and give it to him.” She drew in on her cigarette and exhaled slowly, staring into the smoke as though she wanted to hide in it.

“Tell us about the homeless man,” Carroll said.

“He come in off the road dragging a suitcase, wit’ ice in his hair, coughing in his hand somet’ing awful. He wanted a cup of coffee, but he only had fifty cents. I tole him I’d make up the difference, me, but I couldn’t give him no food. Troot’ is, I’d get in trouble for letting him stay inside.”

“Go on,” I said.

“The man in the hat tole me I’d better get that pile of stink away from him. I went into the kitchen and got the homeless man a piece of apple pie and tole Tee Boy, that’s the cook, I knowed I was stealing from the café, but I cain’t let nobody starve. I said, ‘At least I’m serving him pie ain’t got no germs on it.’ Tee Boy axed what I meant, and I tole him I spit in the apple pie I give Mr. White Trash for calling other people names.”

She looked for a place to put her cigarette. Carroll took it from her and got up from his chair and flicked it out the door. I waited for him to come back. “What’s the rest of it, Miss Emily?” I said.

“The service window was open,” she said. She looked into space, as though her words were written on air

and she would have to look at them the rest of her life. She started to cry.

“This isn’t your fault, Miss Emily,” I said. “This man who came in here is evil. Don’t let him hurt you any more than he has.”

“Tee Boy got seven children.”

Tee Boy was black and must have been six and a half feet tall. I had not looked at the body yet. And I didn’t want to. Through the window, I could see uniformed deputies stringing crime-scene tape around the parking lot and the building. More emergency vehicles were coming down the four-lane, flashers rippling in the rain.

“What happened then?” Carroll said.

“I went back out and started wiping off the tables, like we do before we close, even though we wasn’t closing. I seen a shadow cover my shoulder and arm and hand and then the table, like the shadow was alive. I turned around and he was standing right behind me.”

“How was he dressed?” Carroll said.

“He had on a blue suit and a gray vest that didn’t look like they belonged together. Everyt’ing about him was like that. He had a funny smell, like bedclothes when a man and woman has been lying on them and doing t’ings.”

“Where was the homeless man all this time?” I said.

“In the bat’room,” she said. “If Mr. Fontenot finds out he was in there, I’m gonna lose my job.”