Light of the World (Dave Robicheaux 20)

“What’s wrong, little guy?” I said. “It’s not that bad. Just don’t do it again.”

“You said the tomatoes are for the black people. Now I smushed them, and they’re not going to have anything to eat, and everybody is going to get mad at me,” she said.

Many years down the road, the same little girl was still in my life, no different in my mind from when we lived in an idyllic world south of New Iberia. When I returned from the courthouse in Missoula, I went into the kitchen to fix a sandwich. Through the window, I could see Alafair watering the potted petunias and geraniums on the deck with a sprinkler can. She swept the can back and forth over the flowers, hitting the deck as often as the pots. Then she refilled it and started watering the pots a second time. “Did you water last night?” I said through the screen. “Your catch saucers are overflowing.”

“Oh, I didn’t see that. Sorry,” she said, setting down the can.

“You want something to eat?”

“No, I’m fine.”

She gazed at the lawn and at the horses drinking from the tank in the south pasture and at two chipmunks eating the shells that had spilled from the bird feeder.

“Something on your mind?” I said.

She turned and looked me full in the face. “What kind of morning have you had?”

“Sheriff Bisbee indicated he didn’t need to see me in his office for a long time.”

“Can you come out here?”

“I’m fixing lunch. Come inside.”

“I think I’d rather not be in a confined space right now.”

I opened the sliding screen door and sat down at a table with a ceramic top that Albert had bought in Mexico.

“Gretchen made contact with Asa Surrette,” Alafair said.

I nodded, keeping my expression blank. “When?”

“Saturday.”

I watched the shadows of clouds moving across the pasture and up the hillsides and over the fir and larch and cedar trees on the ridges. I looked at the sun and felt a pain that was like a laser burning through my retinas. “This happened three days ago?”

“She ran a notice in the personals. She told Clete about it.”

“But not about Surrette calling?”

“No, she hasn’t told him about that.”

“Is there any reason you’ve kept this information from me?”

“I waited for Gretchen to tell y’all. I made a mistake.”

“You didn’t think you could trust me?”

“Dave, we can’t be sure she actually talked to Surrette. Any crank could have read her notice in the paper.”

“Stop it.”

She had one hand resting on the deck rail, as though the wind were affecting her balance. “You didn’t want me to go to Kansas and interview him. I wouldn’t listen to you. I’m to blame for a lot of what’s happened.”

“I don’t know if I want to hear this, Alafair.”

“I have another problem,” she said. “After I met Surrette, I wrote articles that were meant to inflame the reader. I wanted to see him sent to the injection table. No, that’s not accurate. I wanted to see him boiled in his own grease.”

“That’s what he deserves,” I said.