Robicheaux (Dave Robicheaux 21)

Behind her, one of the deputies pretended to draw two pistols and fire at either me or her. I let her walk ahead of me into my office. I closed the door.

“Tell the two needle dicks at the cooler that I heard their comments,” she said.

“Report them to Sheriff Soileau. She doesn’t put up with that kind of thing.”

“There’re no helpful prints inside the trailer,” she said.

“How about on the fast-food trash you picked up by the shed?”

“They’re not in the system.”

“What did you get off the drill?”

“The latents aren’t in the system.”

I twiddled a ballpoint on my desk pad. “Why are you here, Detective?”

“The social worker, Carolyn Ardoin, she and Purcel are an item, right?”

“Anybody who knows Clete will tell you he’s not capable of doing something like this. I won’t even discuss it.”

“Where is he now?”

“I’m not his keeper.”

“That’s a joke.”

She was sitting in front of my desk. She wore starched, Cloroxed jeans and a white snap-button western shirt. Her hair was thick and had the same purplish-black sheen in it as Alafair’s. “I’ve seen Purcel’s sheet. He has a way of settling scores on his own.”

This time I grinned and said nothing.

She looked away, her frustration obvious. I suspected she didn’t get a lot of support from her peers in Jennings.

“I’d start with Fat Tony Nemo and a couple of guys named Maximo Soza and JuJu Ladrine,” I said.

“With respect, you don’t know shit about this case, Detective Robicheaux. Kevin Penny was a confidential informant for the FBI.”

“How do you know this?”

“An agent told me. Penny set up his wife’s brother. The brother hanged himself in his cell. The agent told me Penny couldn’t have cared less.”

“So maybe Tony Nemo is your guy.”

“I knew Tony when I was with the St. Bernard Sheriff’s Department. He’s not stupid enough to torture and kill a federal CI.”

“What else can I tell you?” I said.

“Evidently, you worked a couple of the Jeff Davis Eight cases,” she said.

“That’s right.”

“You just shut the drawer on them?”

“Nobody shuts the drawer on a corpse, particularly a young girl’s.”

“What a laugh.”

She got up to go. The two deputies who had made comments about her walked past the door glass. She dropped her business card onto the chair. “I think you’re in the right place.”