“My ancestors were already picking it. What happened on the boat, Rowena?”
“You didn’t hear enough on that video? You know what it’s like to be filmed while you describe how someone ran his tongue all over you?”
“Tell me again.”
“He shoved me on the bunk. I tried to get up. I was stone drunk and couldn’t defend myself. I felt his knees come down on me. He ripped off my panties. Then he did all the things I described on that fucking tape.”
Her eyes were misting. The blood had drained from her cheeks into her throat.
“You said you ‘felt’ his knees on you. That’s a funny way to put it.”
“I couldn’t see. The pillowcase was on my head. He was crushing me alive. His mouth was all over me. I can’t keep it straight.”
“Take your time.”
“I don’t want to. I’ve said it over and over.”
“The defense will twist your words. They’ll make you contradict yourself, they’ll make issues out of minuscule details that have no bearing on anything. They’ll create a scenario that has nothing to do with reality, thereby forcing the prosecution to prove that the scenario did not happen. The prosecution will have to prove a negative, which they can’t do, hence creating reasonable doubt.”
She blew her nose into a Kleenex.
“Nightingale said he tried to give you coffee,” I said. “When was that?”
“Coffee? He’s the gentleman, is he? There was no coffee. There was only his penis and his tongue. Is that a sharp enough image for you?”
“I’m sorry about this, Miss Rowena. I lost my wife Annie to some killers who used shotguns on her in our bed. I’ve never gotten over it. I never will.” Her face seemed to freeze, as though she could not assimilate what I had said. I closed my notepad. “I appreciate your help today.”
She didn’t answer. She gazed out the window at the live oaks, the wind channeling through the new leaves, the dead ones tumbling on the bayou’s surface.
“Ms. Broussard, are you okay?” I said.
Her teeth were showing when she looked in my direction, but I couldn’t be sure she saw me. I walked down the stairs and out of the house, closing the door softly behind me. I was old enough to know that insanity comes in many forms, some benign, some viral and capable of spreading across continents, but I believed I had just looked into the eyes of someone who was genuinely mad and probably not diagnosable, the kind of idealist who sets sail on the Pequod and declares war against the universe.
WHEN I GOT home, there were two messages on the machine from Babette Latiolais. I played the first one: “Mr. Dave, I got to talk wit’ you. Call me back.”
She didn’t leave her number. I copied it from the caller ID. The second message was recorded forty-five minutes later: “Mr. Dave, where you at? I t’ink maybe I seen that guy last night. Please call me. Don’t come to the bar-and-grill, no. My boss seen us talking and axed if I was in trouble. I cain’t lose my job.” I called her number and went immediately to voicemail. I tried again that evening, with the same result.
Clete Purcel returned from two days of fishing, sunburned and flecked with fish blood and smelling of beer and sunblock and weed. He told me about his conversation with Kevin Penny.
“You think he’s going to treat his boy all right?” I said.
“Probably not. It was like having a conversation with a septic tank.”
“You did your best.”
“There’s only one solution for a guy like Penny.”
I saw the look in his eyes. “Negative on that, Cletus.”
“If he hurts that boy, I’m going to bust a cap on him.”
“And stack his time. How smart is that?”
“If either one of us was smart, we wouldn’t be who we are. Maybe we’d be wiseguys. Or stockbrokers. You got to be careful what you wish for.”
I had learned long ago to stay out of Clete’s head. If you let him alone, his moods usually passed. If they didn’t, you got out of his way.
He showered and put on fresh clothes at his motor court, and he and Alafair and I went to a movie. In the morning I called Babette again. There was no answer. I gave up and this time left no message.