“Are you going to invite me in?”
“Yes, please come in,” I said.
She stepped inside and blew out her breath. “It’s about your friend Levon and his wife.”
“Take it to the department.”
“Just drop in and chat up the boys in the coffee room?”
“No, talk to me in my office.”
“You’re getting jerked around, Detective.”
She was good. “What’s the information on Mr. and Ms. Broussard?”
“She was raped by two black men in Wichita, Kansas. The prosecutor’s office wouldn’t do anything about it.”
“Where’d you get this?”
“I hired a private investigator.”
“How long ago did this happen?”
“Twenty years, maybe more. She was a visiting artist at Wichita State University. She was young and maybe drunk when she left the bar with the two black men. Nobody would believe her story.”
“You need to bring everything your PI has to the department.”
“Did I do wrong coming here?” she said.
Yes, she did. And there was no doubt she had a design. Nonetheless, if the information was true, it presented a problem for the prosecutor and was a gift to the defense. There was a good possibility that Rowena would be victimized by the system again.
“Could I have a drink?” Emmeline said.
“I don’t have any alcohol in the house.”
“A Dr Pepper, a Coca-Cola, a glass of lemonade.”
“Yes, I think I can find something.”
“I love the sound the rain makes on a tin roof. Your house is so quaint.”
“I have another question for you, Miss Emmeline. What did Jimmy do in Latin America that haunts him? Why are you two always at the center of other people’s misfortune when you never seem to pay dues yourself?”
“I think that is the most arrogant and ugly thing anyone has ever said to me.”
She was probably right. I didn’t like to speak that way to a woman or, for that matter, to anyone. Age does that to you. Sometimes charity toward others is the only respite you get from thoughts about death. And in that spirit, I said, “Let me get you a diet Dr Pepper.”
I don’t think she had a brain seizure, but close.
THE RAIN CAME down hard on the house and trees and yard through the night, and in the morning the bayou was running yellow and fast and high on the banks, the eddies frothy and filled with twigs and leaves. I raked a can of tuna for Mon Tee Coon on top of Tripod’s old hutch and washed my hands and made breakfast for Alafair and me. I told her about Emmeline Nightingale’s visit.
“Jimmy Nightingale’s lawyers will make Rowena Broussard look like a meltdown or a slut,” she said. “She’ll have to convince the jury not only of Nightingale’s guilt but also of the guilt of the two black guys in Wichita. That’s the place where BTK killed people under the cops’ noses for years.”
“What do you know about Jimmy Nightingale’s activities in Latin America?”
“He inherited his father’s company and worked down there awhile, then sold the company.”
“Why’d he sell it?”