Alafair stepped back, unsure what she should do next. Then she took a breath and knocked hard on the door. The inside of the house went silent. “Ms. Poche, it’s Alafair Robicheaux. I need to speak to you,” she said.
She heard the sound of feet moving across the floor and a door opening in back. She knocked again, this time harder. “Ms. Poche, one way or another, you’re going to talk to me,” she said.
She walked around to the side of the house. Someone wearing a flop hat and a raincoat was walking rapidly through the trees and down the slope to the bayou. The electricity leaping between the clouds lit the moored speedboat and the banks of flooded elephant ears and the small waves capping among the cypress knees. The person picked up the weighted painter and stepped up on the speedboat’s bow in a single motion, then pushed the electric starter on the engine and backed into the current. In seconds, the boat was splitting a trough down the middle of the bayou.
Alafair went back to the gallery. Emma Poche was standing behind the screen door, backlit by a lamp she had turned on in the living room. She wore jeans and a blouse that exposed a bra strap. “What do you want?” she said, her hair in disarray, her breath rife with the odor of cigarettes and alcohol.
“You called my father this afternoon.”
“What about it?”
“You said someone was going to kill him and anybody he was with.”
“I have no memory of a conversation like that.”
In the glow of the lamp, Alafair could see the streaked makeup on Emma Poche’s face, the swollen eyes, the smear of lipstick on her teeth. “I answered the phone,” Alafair said. “I handed the receiver to my father. I listened while he talked to you. Don’t lie to me.”
“What did you say?”
“May I come in?”
“No, you can’t,” Emma replied, reaching for the latch on the screen.
But Alafair jerked open the door and went inside. “If you want to call 911 and report an intruder, you can use my cell.” When Emma didn’t reply, Alafair said, “Who was the person who just left?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything. Who do you think you are? Your father has hallucinations. Everybody knows it. He’s one of those dry alcoholics who would be better off drunk.”
“My father is the kindest, most decent human being you’ll ever meet. I feel sorry for you, Ms. Poche—”
“It’s Deputy Poche.”
“I advise you to shut your mouth and listen, Deputy Poche. I found out where you live from Clete Purcel. I also found out you were the woman who tried to set him up for the murder of Herman Stanga. That’s about as low as it gets. I had a hard time imagining what kind of woman could do that to a man like Clete. I tried to see you in my mind’s eye, but I couldn’t. Then I stood on your gallery and heard you begging affection from somebody to whom you’re obviously a throwaway fuck. If you weren’t so pathetic, I’d slap you all over your own house.”
“You little bitch, you can’t talk to me like that.”
“Who are the men who tried to kill Dave?”
“I don’t know.”
Involuntarily, Alafair raised her hand.
“You listen to me, girl,” Emma said. “We can die and become humps out in a field, and two days after we’re gone, nobody but our families will remember who we were. Look around you. You see the trailer slums on the bayou and the crack dealers on the street? You think Dave or you or me can change the way things work here? We’re little people. You think I’m the only person around here who’s a disposable fuck? You like the way you got treated by Kermit Abelard?”
“What do you know about Kermit?”
“Better question, what don’t I know about him? He used you. But while he was getting in your pants, he was taking it between the cheeks from Robert Weingart.”
Alafair used the full flat of her hand to slap Emma Poche across the face. She hit her so hard, spittle rocketed from Emma’s mouth.
Emma sat down on the couch, her left cheek glowing from the blow, her eyes out of focus. “You feel sorry for me? I have a high school degree. You’re a Stanford law student. Which one of us got used the worst? Which one of us shared her lover with a sleazy con man who date-rapes teenage girls? I could have you locked up and charged, but I’m gonna let you slide. Now get out of my house.”
Alafair’s gaze dropped to the coffee table. “What are you doing with this book?” she asked.
“Reading it?”
“Who just left here?”
“No one. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve imagined everything that’s happened here tonight.”