“Yes, suh.”
“Did something bad happen at Mr. Vidor’s house today, Clara?”
In the silence, I could hear the slash pines swaying in the wind, the pine needles tinkling on the rain gutters.
“Clara, nothing bad will happen to you for telling the truth. Did Mr. Vidor do something he shouldn’t have?”
“I want to go back home now.”
“I’ll take you there, I promise. But you need to tell me what Mr. Vidor did.”
“Took my picture.”
“In what way?”
“Suh?”
“How were you dressed when he took your picture?” I heard the whapping sound from the backyard again. “Were you wearing your dress and your shirt just like you are now?”
“Mr. Vidor tole me to lie on the couch. He tole me to put my thumb in my mout’. Then he tole me to put my hands behind my head.”
“How many pictures did he take of you, Clara?”
“Two or t’ree.”
“Did Mr. Vidor touch you at all in a place he shouldn’t have?”
“No, suh. He just took the pictures. I tole him I didn’t want to do that no more, and he stopped.”
“Okay, Clara. I want you to wait here while I straighten out a couple of things with Mr. Vidor. Then I’ll take you home and a lady will come out from the sheriff’s department and stay with you until your mommy gets off work. But you remember what I say: You’re a good little girl. You’ve helped out a police officer, and that’s what good guys do. You’re one of the good guys, do you understand that?”
I walked around the side of the house just as Vidor Perkins pulled back an archer’s bow and drove an arrow into a plastic bull’s-eye draped across a stack of hay bales. He glanced over his shoulder at me, then pulled another arrow from the quiver on his back and fitted the shaft on the bow string. “I figured you’d be along directly,” he said. He lifted the bow, pulling back the string, his shoulders taut with tension. A second after he released the shaft, it whapped dead center in the target, quivering with a sound like a twanged bobby pin.
“Help me out here, Mr. Perkins,” I said. “I think Robert Weingart told you to give my daughter the worst time you could. But I think the motivation is more than simple jealousy. You guys want to become known as victims of police harassment because you know you’re going to be suspects in a homicide investigation. Let me take my theory one step further. You have a personal agenda, and it involves selling out both the Abelards and your jailhouse podjo and maybe even Layton Blanchet.”
“Cain’t say as I know Mr. Blanchet, although I’ve heard his name. But I’ll give your words some study and get back to you on that.”
“My daughter has applied for a concealed-weapons permit. In the meantime, I’m giving her a Smith and Wesson Airweight thirty-eight. If you come near her again, she’s going to blow your head off. If she doesn’t, I will. We’ll sort out the legalities later. But you won’t be there to see it.”
He took another arrow from his quiver but did not notch it on the bow string. He blew on the feathers, then stroked them into shape with his fingers. “She smells like peaches when you peel the skin off,” he said. “Must be a treat to have something like that around the house.”
“I want you to go inside now and get your camera and bring it back out here.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because the photos you took of that little girl probably don’t meet the standard of prosecutable evidence. In a borderline case like this, you’ll probably skate. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be allowed to keep the pictures or put them on the Internet. What that means, Mr. Perkins, is you’re going to voluntarily destroy the memory card or the film or whatever is in your camera.”
“Come back with a warrant and you can discuss it with my attorney.”
“I see,” I said.
“You look like you got shit on your nose, Mr. Robicheaux.”
“We don’t come up against your kind every day, so you’ll have to excuse me. You’re pretty slick.”
He gazed at me a long time, his skin a chemical yellow in the sun’s glow, the wind puffing his shirt, his arrow notched now, his fingers relaxed on the string. “Your daughter could have filed battery charges, but she didn’t. Know why?” he said. “She don’t want to admit in a courtroom she cain’t handle a man’s attentions. They all got the same weakness. The big V. Vanity. Like the Bible says.”