But Layton didn’t laugh. He looked at the backs of his hands, then at the bayou and at the old convent building on the other side of the drawbridge, deep in the shadow of the oaks. “I think I got a problem with my wife,” he said. “One that’s eating my lunch.”
“You have security people who can handle that, Mr. Blanchet.”
“It’s Layton. ‘Mister’ is for the country club. My corporate employees don’t need to know my family business. Carolyn is a good girl, but I think she’s having an affair. Maybe it’s middle age. Maybe she thinks she’s losing her looks. Maybe she’s tired of a man who talks about money all the time, although she has no trouble spending boxcar-loads of it. But she’s getting it on with somebody, and I want to know who the guy is.”
“How do you know she’s unfaithful to you?”
“I can tell.”
“How?”
“Do I have to go into detail?”
“It doesn’t leave my office. It doesn’t go into a written file.”
“About nine o’clock she goes into the library and buries herself in a book. Or she’s got a stomachache. Or she pulled a muscle on the tennis court. Look, I’m a realist. I’m fifteen years older than she is. But if some guy is in my wife’s pants, he’s not going to be out there laughing at me behind my back. Get me?”
“Not exactly.”
“What is it I’m not clear about?” Layton asked.
“Are we talking about breaking somebody’s wheels?”
“What difference does it make? You give me the information, then you’re out of it.”
“I don’t like being party to a domestic homicide,” Clete said. “Let me share a secret with you. Sometimes clients with problems like yours come in and tell me only half of the story. They’re having affairs themselves, they’re full of guilt, and they transfer it to the wife. So they spend a lot of money and accuse me of colluding with their old lady when I come up with nothing.”
Layton stared out into the sunlight, his eyes as clear as blue glass. “You’re good at what you do, Mr. Purcel, or I wouldn’t be here. I don’t assault or kill people, and I don’t pay others to do it, either. As far as my own behavior is concerned, yeah, there have been instances when I haven’t always done the right thing. But that’s not the problem. I know my wife, and I know how she thinks, and I know she’s pumping it with somebody. Can you help me or not?”
“It’s a hundred and fifty dollars an hour and expenses.”
“Done.”
Clete rubbed at his mouth, wondering why Layton Blanchet had bothered him, wondering why a tuning fork was vibrating in his chest. The wind ruffled the canvas umbrella over his head. Layton continued to stare at Clete, either waiting for him to speak or taking his inventory or secretly savoring the moment after imposing his will on Clete. The Daily Iberian still lay on the tabletop. Its thickness was folded across the lead story. Clete flipped it open, exposing the headline. “That’s too bad, isn’t it?” he said to change the subject and end the conversation.
“What is?” Layton asked.
“Another young girl killed and dumped on a country road.”
“It’s going to continue till we get to the root of the problem.”
“Pardon?” Clete said.
“Welfare, illegitimacy, people with their hand out. That’s where it all starts. They’ve got their boy in the White House now. They’ll be lining up for every dollar they can stuff in their pockets. Most of them would strangle on their own spit if you didn’t swab out their throats for them.”
Clete kept his face empty. “I’ll give you a call when I have some information for you, Mr. Blanchet,” he said.
“It’s Layton.”
HELEN SOILEAU HAD told me to bring in Herman Stanga and put him in the box. But Herman was an elusive quarry. He was not at his house, nor down on Hopkins or Railroad Avenue in New Iberia’s old red-light district. I called the Gate Mouth club in St. Martinville, the place where Clete Purcel had broken open Herman Stanga’s head against an oak tree. The man who answered the phone said, “You got the Gate Mout’. What you need?”
“Is Herman there?” I said.
“Who wants to know?”
I hung up without replying and called my fellow A.A. member Emma Poche at the St. Martinville Sheriff’s Department and asked her to sit on the club till I got there.
“Maybe this is providential,” she said. “I was thinking of calling you today.”