I kept my face empty, my arms folded on my chest. The front bumper was made from welded pipes. One taillight was broken. “Where are the paramedics?” I said.
“Fuck if I know.”
“How about it on the language?” I said.
I squatted down by the body. Dartez lay on his back, his shirtfront cut and bloodied perpendicularly. His teeth were knocked out; one eye had eight-balled.
My head was spinning as though I were in free fall.
Labiche had thrown his cigarette onto the road and stepped over the tape and was standing behind me. The weeds around the body were stippled with blood. The ground smelled sour from either night damp or the blood that had seeped into the soil. The sun was hot on my neck.
“He’s the guy who was in the accident with your wife?” Labiche said.
“That’s him.”
“Tough break.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I think the accident report sucked.”
I stood up, my knees hurting. “I didn’t hear you say anything about it at the time.”
“I’m still a new guy. I don’t express every opinion I might have.” He turned his head toward the convenience store. “Here comes queer-bait and the paramedics.”
“What did you call him?”
“Nothing. It was a joke.”
The coroner’s name was Cormac Watts. He was a crew-cut likable young guy from Virginia who wore seersucker pants high on his hips, long-sleeve white shirts, and a bow tie without a coat. He looked put together from sticks, with snowshoes for feet. Clete said Cormac made him think of a well-dressed scarecrow stepping over the rows in a tobacco field.
Helen had been on her cell phone. She folded it and stuck it into her pocket. Her breasts swelled against her shirt when she took a breath. “That was admissions at Iberia General. Dartez’s wife had to be sedated. The kids are with a social worker.”
“Who told her?” I asked.
“Who knows? Maybe we have a witness. Get on it, will you, Spade?”
“You want me to go to Iberia General?”
“No, go to the convenience store first. See if there are any witnesses. Then go to Iberia General.”
“I’m assigned the case, though?”
“That’s not what’s on my mind at the moment.”
“Yes, ma’am. Look, I know y’all were a team. I’m not trying to bust up anything.”
Helen’s fists were propped on her hips, her face pointed at the ground. “You did a good job. Call me from the hospital.” She waited until Labiche was out of earshot. “I don’t know if I want you on this one.”
“You don’t think I can be objective?”
She looked toward the convenience store and at Labiche walking to his car; she chewed her lip. “Did you do your drinking at home last night or in a bar? Please tell me a bar.”
“I didn’t say I was drinking.”
“Get cute with me and I’ll have you on the desk. Get cute with me twice and I’ll have you on suspension.”
“I don’t know where I went last night. Or what I did.”