Robicheaux (Dave Robicheaux 21)

“Tony Nine Ball keeps the Sabbath, does he?”

“What’s up, Detective?” I said.

She walked toward me. Her jeans were high up on her hips. She was wearing her gun and badge, her eyes locked on mine. There was an aggressiveness in her body language that was hard to deal with.

“You got a beef, don’t you?” she said.

“Me?”

“You don’t think I’m good for Clete.”

“It’s his life.”

“His image of himself has a lot to do with your opinion of him.”

“Young women feel safe in his company. Then they start feeling better about their situation and dump him.”

“I look like a dependent woman? That’s what you’re saying?”

“Clete’s my friend. I worry about him. Sometimes unnecessarily.”

“What’s the status on Labiche?” she asked.

“One step this side of a vegetable.”

“The cleaner did it?”

“We don’t know. Four rounds fired, one into the mattress. Large-caliber. It could be a .357.”

“Same caliber used on the deputy in St. Mary?” she said.

“Yes.”

“You think he did Penny?”

“Spade is a mean motor scooter, but torturing a man to death with an electric drill is on another level.”

“What kind of level?”

“Sexual vengeance comes to mind.”

“Levon Broussard for the rape of his wife?”

“That’s a hard fit.” I looked at my watch. “I was going to church at St. Edward’s.”

She looked down the street. Leaves were scudding along the sidewalk. “There’s something you’re not saying.”

“When you figure out what it is, tell me.”

“I hear Labiche is paranoid and fanatical about security systems,” she said.

“That’s Spade.”

“How’d the shooter get in?”

“He spray-painted the cameras, jumped the wiring, and probably turned a dead bolt with fishing line. He may have used a microcontroller to steal the pad code. Our guy is a total pro.”

“But you’re in doubt about who he is?”