“Repeat that about Weingart. You don’t think he’s behind this?” Clete said.
“You already said it. He’s a sexual predator and a con man and a bully, but he’s not a serial killer.”
“You think the old man killed the girls?”
“Think again.”
Clete bit the skin on the ball of his thumb, his green eyes dulling over; he was obviously wondering if both of us had not been played from the jump. “Sonofabitch,” he said. Then he said it again. “Sonofabitch.”
THE ROAD WAS empty as we drove into the southern end of Jeff Davis Parish and looked out on the sodden fields and the gum trees bending in the wind along the river. I could see car tracks winding through the grass toward the doorless Acadian cottage that was used to store hay. But there were no vehicles in the field.
I turned off the two-lane and approached the cottage, my headlights bouncing on the rusted tractor and the tips of the grass waving in the wind. The car tracks we had seen earlier went past the cottage and down to the river. I stopped the truck and cut the headlights. Steam was rising from the hood, the engine ticking with heat. I got out and approached the front of the cottage, my flashlight in one hand, my .45 in the other. Clete was to my right, his blue-black .38 pointed in front of him with both hands. He gave me the nod, and we both went in at the same time.
The building was a typical Acadian dwelling of the mid-nineteenth century. At one time, it had probably contained two small bedrooms, a front room, a kitchen, and a sleeping loft for visitors. But all the partitions had been knocked out, and the floor was stacked to the ceiling with hay bales that had long ago become moldy and home to field mice.
Except for one area in the center of the kitchen. Three bales had been piled lopsidedly, and muddy footprints led from them through the back door into the field. Clete stuck his .38 into his shoulder holster and shoved two of the bales tumbling into the wall, then dragged the third one aside, exposing a trapdoor that looked made of oak. At the bottom of the door was a hole the size of a quarter. I inserted my finger in it and lifted.
Underneath it was another door, this one constructed of several iron plates, cross-fitted with iron bands and big rivets that were orange and soft with rust. It was the kind of door you expected to see on a Civil War ironclad, one that could resist almost any assault short of a direct hit by an exploding cannon shell. An iron ring was attached at the bottom. And so was a padlock.
“Alafair?” I called, my voice breaking.
There was no response.
“It’s Dave and Clete,” I said. “Can you hear me?”
There was still no answer. I ran to the truck and opened the steel toolbox in back and returned with a crowbar. I wedged it inside the padlock and snapped it loose, then dropped the crowbar to the floor and pulled on the ring with both hands. Clete got his fingers under the lip of the door, and the two of us flung it back on its hinges. I shone my flashlight down into the darkness.
“Jesus, I can’t believe this,” Clete said.
A set of steep wood steps led down into a subterranean room whose walls were made up of the stones we had seen in the video. The walls were sweating with water seepage, coated with lichen at the bottom and inset with chains at the top. But the chains were not ancient ones that had fettered rebellious slaves. They were steel-link, shiny, practical, economical in design. They had probably been purchased at a local hardware store by somebody who looked just like the rest of us.
We went down the steps into the darkness. I touched the stones in the wall with my hand, then wiped it on my shirt. The air was dense and smelled of mold and feces and stagnant water and maybe human sweat. I could hear my own breathing and feel my pulse jumping in my throat. A plain wood table and a chair stood in the middle of the room. On top of the table was an opened toolbox. I did not want to look at the contents. I did not want to do that at all.
Clete bent over and picked up a piece of crumpled paper from the floor. He smelled it. “They were here. I think we just missed them,” he said.
“What is that?”
“A hamburger wrapper.” He wiped his fingers across it. “Look, the mustard is still fresh.”
“They were eating down here?” I said.
“Let’s follow the car tracks down to the river. The state troopers ought to be here soon,” he said.
“Don’t count on it. It’s not their bailiwick.” I was trying to think and not having much success. The only words that went through my mind were Where to now? And I had no answer to my own question. “Maybe they went back into St. Mary Parish,” I said.
Then headlight beams flooded into the kitchen area above our heads. I climbed back up the steps and went outside, my .45 hanging from my right hand, the mist damp on my face. I stared into the high beams of an unmarked car driven by the plainclothes detective Huffinton. He got out of his vehicle, hitching up his pants, his shapeless fedora pulled low on his brow, his expression as blank as a dough pan. “Y’all got here, huh?” he said.
“Where’ve you been?” I asked.
“I was here. I didn’t see anything. Then we had an armed robbery and a shooting by the exit on I-Ten. I took the call.”
“You looked in the cottage?”
“I didn’t say that. I pulled up on the road and put my spot on it. There wasn’t anybody around. Then I got the shots fired on the radio.”
“Two sets of car tracks go right past the cottage and down to the river. You didn’t check them out?”
“I saw maybe one vehicle down there. But that’s not unusual. High school kids fuck down there. What’s the big deal? You didn’t find anything, either, did you?”