“In everything.”
“That could be a problem,” I said.
* * *
I DROVE UP loreauville Road to the Broussard home and rang the door chimes. Tiny black strings of ash were floating down on the lawn and driveway and the steps and camellia bushes. I thought they were from the sugar mill.
Levon came around the side of the house, a leaf rake in his hand. “Back here.”
I followed him into the backyard, where he was burning huge piles of blackened leaves in three perforated oil drums. The curds of smoke were drifting into his neighbor’s windows and hanging like dirty cotton on the bayou.
“When’s the last time you burned your leaves?” I said.
“A couple of years ago. Why?”
“No reason. Emmeline Nightingale has been bugging Alafair.”
He hefted a giant sheaf of compressed leaves and dropped them into the flames, his face swelling in the heat. “What does that have to do with us?”
“Maybe nothing. Except Tony Nemo is on Clete Purcel’s back and also in my face, directly or indirectly because of a sword your great-grandfather carried. At least that’s where all this started.”
“So you’ve come out here to tell me my great-grandfather’s sword is the origin of your problems?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then why are you upset?” he asked.
“I’m not upset.”
“You could fool me,” he said.
“Have you ever been knocked down in your own backyard?”
He began packing more leaves in the barrels, his armpits looped with sweat, ash raining down on his head and bare forearms.
“Levon?”
“Go home.”
“I’m an officer of the law. This isn’t a courtesy call.”
I waited for him to respond. He jabbed the leaves into the flames with the butt of the rake.
“Sir, don’t you turn your back to me,” I said.
“I’ll do what I damn please.”
“No, you will not.” I put my hand on his arm and turned him around. “This case isn’t about just you and your wife. It concerns Tony Nine Ball, and something Jimmy Nightingale did in South America, and a lowlife named Kevin Penny, and something you’re not telling me about your wife.”
“That’s a goddamn lie.”
“What is?”
“All your bullshit, Dave. I don’t have anything to do with gangsters or lowlifes or friends of yours. Rowena was raped. End of fucking story.”
“It’s just the beginning.”
“If it wasn’t for your age, I’d pop you one.”