“You want to know? You really want to know?”
“Dave, don’t get angry with me.”
“It’s something dark. Clete sensed it when we were at the Abelard house. He said he could smell it on the old man. As sure as I’m standing in my own living room, we’re dealing with something that’s genuinely evil. Alafair is getting pulled into the middle of it, and I can’t do anything about it.”
Molly stared emptily into space.
THE NEXT MORNING the rain was still blowing in the streets when I went into Helen Soileau’s office. The coroner’s and the crime-scene investigator’s reports were already on her desk. “I could have used you last night,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I was at Henderson. I left my cell phone in the truck.”
“It was after nine-thirty when I called you. You were still on the water?”
“I didn’t check the time.”
She was standing behind her desk, not quite looking at me, her thoughts hidden. A cassette player rested on her desk blotter. “The only witness we have wasn’t at the crime scene,” she said.
“Repeat that?”
“Monroe Fontenot, Stanga’s cousin. Herman left two messages on Monroe’s answering machine early last night, then made a third call that was recorded while the shooter was on the grounds. Here, listen.” She pushed a button on the cassette player.
I had hated Herman Stanga, but I doubted that any civilized human being could take pleasure in the naked fear of a small, uneducated, pitiful man who had grown up carrying buckets filled with the washed-out product of other people’s lust. While the tape played, I walked to the window and watched the rain dance on the surface of Bayou Teche. The last sounds on the tape were gunfire and the voice of Herman Stanga’s cousin shouting into the phone. Helen pushed the eject button on the cassette player.
“We found only one slug,” she said. “It hit the corner of the house. It’s in pretty bad shape, but the lab says it’s probably from a forty-five auto. There were no shell casings.”
I nodded and didn’t reply.
“What kind of shooters pick up their brass, Dave?” she said.
“Professional killers?”
“Who else?”
“All cops.”
“Who else?”
“Ex-cops.”
“Which leads us to a bad question. Maybe it’s one you and I wouldn’t ask, but somebody probably will.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“Who had the most motivation to blow Herman Stanga out of his socks?”
“Anyone who had the misfortune to know him.”
“Wrong. Herman did business around here for a quarter century. He made money for lots of people. He greased cops and politicians and didn’t make enemies of anyone who had the power to hurt him.”
“I know that, Helen.”
“Was Clete with you last night?”
“Ask him.”
“I asked you.”
“No, Clete was not with me.”