ONCE IN A while, even the slowest of us has an epiphany, a brief glimpse through the shroud when we see the verities reduced to a simple equation. For someone whose profession requires him to place himself inside the mind of aberrant people, the challenge is often daunting. Then, as if you’re tripping on a rock in the middle of a foot-worn, clay-smooth path, you suddenly become aware that the complexity you wish to unravel exists to a greater degree in your own mind than in the problem itself.
Early Sunday morning, while Molly and Alafair were still asleep, I walked down East Main in the fog, past The Shadows, hoping to find a breakfast spot open. On the far side of The Shadows, where a gravel drive leads down to the bayou between a long wall of green bamboo and the old brick Ford dealership that has been converted into law offices, I thought I heard footsteps behind me. When I turned around, I could see nothing but fog puffing through the piked fence on The Shadows’ lawn, swallowing the streetlamps, rising into the live oaks overhead. I crossed the gravel drive and continued down the street toward the drawbridge, where I could hear a boat blowing its horn to gain the tender’s attention. Then I heard footsteps behind me again. This time, when I turned around, I held my ground and waited, my gaze fastened on the figure walking out of the mist toward me.
A small pink digital camera, one that a woman might own, hung on a strap from one shoulder. A leather carrying case, one that could have held either binoculars or just odds and ends, hung from the other. Notebooks and several pens were stuffed in his shirt pockets. He wore a flat-brimmed straw hat that had a black band around the crown, the kind a nineteenth-century planter might have worn. But his shirt was tucked in and he wasn’t wearing a coat and his hands were empty, and I thought it unlikely he had a weapon on his person.
What is the lesson that most cops and traditional mainline cons have learned since the 1960s regarding America’s prisons? It’s simple. With the exception of those caught up in the three-strikes-and-you’re-out legislation of the 1990s, almost anyone who does time today either is incurably defective or wants to be inside. If you don’t believe me, check out who’s on the yard. The swollen deltoids and shaved heads and outrageous one-color tats are cosmetic. The first thing a frightened pagan does is paint his face blue and disfigure his skin. The simian brow and the wide-set eyes and the mouth that is like a raw slit tell the story of the crowd on the yard much more accurately. From the time most of them threw a curbstone through a window or set fire to their middle school or boosted a car and drove it across spike strips at one hundred miles an hour, they were looking for a way to punch a hole in the dimension and return to a place where people grunted in front of their caves and knocked down their food with a rock. I can’t say I blame them. We’re running out of space. But I think the crowd by the weight sets on the yard would be the first to say that societal injustice has little to do with the factors that put them in prison.
“You wouldn’t bird-dog a fellow on Sunday morning, would you, Mr. Perkins?” I said.
“I was just taking a walk, not unlike yourself, Detective Robicheaux,” he said.
“You’re ten miles from your house, Mr. Perkins.”
“That’s true. But I love New Iberia’s downtown area. As long as you’re here, I’d like to ask you some questions regarding my book. I watched Miss Alafair at Mr. Abelard’s house through my field glasses yesterday.”
“You did what?”
“She was in no danger, sir. I had my eye on her the whole time she was there. If anything had happened, I would have called you right away. Or I might have taken action myself.”
“You’re spying on my daughter or the Abelards?”
“I’m not spying on nobody. I’m doing research on my book. But I have to admit I’ve taken a liking to you. Your daughter, too, yes, sir. You’re dealing with a dangerous bunch. You’re an educated and respectable man, so you see these people from the top down. I see them from the bottom up. I’m not sure what the bigger scheme is, but I know these people ain’t what they pretend to be. Robert Weingart thinks he’s got them outsmarted, but when they’re done with him, he’d best look out, that’s all I can say. What about you and me teaming up?”
“Say again?”
“We ain’t so different. You got a keen eye about people, Detective Robicheaux. You know the Abelards for what they are. Their kind wouldn’t spit in my mouth if I was dying of thirst in the Sahara. From what I hear, you grew up pretty much like I did. The Abelards and their ilk treat your folks pretty good?”
I gazed at the lunatical vacuity in his eyes and was convinced that whatever motives drove him, that whatever thoughts he actually had, that whatever his real life experience was, none of it would ever be known by anyone except God.
“Don’t follow me anymore, Mr. Perkins. If you do, I’ll have a cruiser pick you up,” I said.
“That downright hurts my feelings.”
“Call my business number if you need to. Or come by the office. Send me a postcard. But do not follow me or come near my house.”
“I been watching your back. Your daughter’s, too. Wake up and learn who your friends are. Maybe show a little humbleness and gratitude.”
I crossed the street and headed toward Clementine’s, hoping that an employee would be there and let me in and give me a cup of coffee and a beignet.
“Robert’s got two hundred thousand dollars stashed away. That’s the kind of money he’s siphoned off the deal they got going,” Perkins called after me.
I stopped and turned around again. I could see the drawbridge lifting in the fog, its girders beaded with moisture. “What deal?” I said.
“I don’t know. That’s why you and me got to team up. The weather is fixing to take a turn. The weatherman says a real frog stringer is about to blow in on us. I’d dress for it.”
“Get away from me,” I said.
I would find out later that my admonition had been neither wise nor fair.
WHEN I RETURNED home, Molly and Alafair were eating breakfast in the kitchen. Through the tree trunks and the gray-green shadows in our backyard, I could see the tidal flow of the bayou reversing itself, the surface undulating as though the current had been infused with a great cushion of air. I told Molly and Alafair that I was
going to take a drive into Jeff Davis Parish and that I would be home after lunch.
“What for?” Molly said.
I didn’t want to explain, so I said, “I have to check out a couple of things about the Latiolais girl.”
“It’s Sunday. Why not do it on the clock?” Molly said.