Robicheaux (Dave Robicheaux 21)

“No, ma’am, I was just about to head to the office.”

“I’m probably not supposed to make this call, but you’re such a nice man, and I know you want to be apprised of Homer’s situation.” She paused as though reluctant to continue. “We’re reinstating him with Mr. Penny today.”

“At the trailer?”

“Yes, a little earlier than I expected. But if not now, we would be taking him there later, and the circumstances wouldn’t be any different.”

“What time today?”

“At noon sharp.”

“This troubles me, Miss Carolyn. Mightily.” Why had he used such a strange word?

“Mr. Purcel?”

“Yes?”

The time seemed to drag like a chain down a stairs. “I’m terribly perturbed about this placement,” she said finally.

“I’m going to drop by the trailer.”

“I know you’re a good man. But don’t be confrontational with him. You know whom he’ll punish.”

“I’ll call you later,” he said. “I promise everything will be all right.”

“No, it won’t. But you’re kind to say that. You’re a good man, sir.”

He felt a blooming sensation in his chest that he couldn’t explain.

* * *

CLETE DROVE TO Lafayette and made a purchase at a sporting goods store, then got on I-10 to Jennings. Homer Penny had no memory of his mother, a meth addict and an attractive black prostitute whom her husband, Kevin, pimped out to middle-class white men from Lake Charles and Lafayette, including a well-known physician. Homer seldom spoke and always looked uncertain or frightened, as though standing in a canoe or pirogue, about to topple into a bayou filled with snakes. He had big ears and blue eyes and pale gold skin with big brown freckles like human camouflage. Clete could never get him to smile.

Clete pulled up in front of the trailer at 11:45. The dirt bike was gone. At noon a man in a state car came up the track, bouncing in the potholes, the passenger’s head barely visible above the dashboard. The passenger wore horn-rimmed glasses and a hand-folded paper hat, and had big ears and a tiny nose and a thin face and slits for eyes and made Clete think of a baby seabird peeping out of a nest. The driver parked and got out. He wore a dark blue coat that had dandruff on the shoulders. “You Mr. Purcel?”

Clete climbed out of the Caddy, a shopping bag in his hand. “I am.”

“I’m Herb Smith. With the state. Miss Carolyn said you’d be here. Looks locked up.”

“It is.”

Smith twisted his wrist to read his watch. “Three minutes to noon.” He squeezed his eyes shut and clicked them open again, like the eyelids on a mechanical doll.

“What?” Clete said.

“Some days I hope certain people don’t show up.”

“I brought something for Homer,” Clete said. He opened the sack so Smith could see inside. “You mind?”

“No, sir, go right ahead.”

Clete removed an Astros baseball cap and a softball and two gloves. “How about it, pal?” he asked the boy.

“I never played,” the boy said, his gaze askance.

“We’re going to change that. You get over there, and I’ll start lobbing them to you. Then you fireball them back.”

The boy couldn’t catch with a wheelbarrow. He tripped and fell down when he ran after the ball. He couldn’t throw thirty feet.