Purple Cane Road (Dave Robicheaux 11)

But she was wired. She had killed three perpetrators on the job, all three of them in situations in which she had unexpectedly walked into hostile fire.

We walked up the slope in the shadows of the live oaks. The air was cool and tannic with the autumnal smell of flooded woods, the windows of the house gold with the western light. I took out my .45 and we mounted the steps and stood on each side of the door.

“Iberia Sheriff’s Department, Ms. Deshotel. Please step out on the gallery,” I said.

There was no response. I could hear shower water running in the back. I pulled open the screen, and Helen and I stepped inside, crossed the small living room, and looked in the kitchen and on the back porch. Then Helen moved into the hallway and the back bedroom. I saw her stop and lift the shotgun barrel so that it was pointed toward the ceiling.

“You better come in here, Dave. Watch where you step,” she said.

Johnny Remeta lay on top of a white throw rug in his Jockey undershorts, his chest, one cheek, and his arm peppered with five entry wounds. A cut-down Remington twelve-gauge was propped in the corner. It was the same pump shotgun he had been carrying when he first visited my dock. He had not gone down all at once. The blood splatter was on the walls, the floor, and the bed sheets, and he had torn one of the curtains on the doors that gave onto a roofed deck.

The doors were open and I could see a redwood table on the deck, and on top of it a gre

en bottle of wine, a platter of sandwiches, a package of filter-tipped cigarettes, Connie’s gold-and-leather-encased lighter, and a big box of kitchen matches with a Glock automatic lying across it. The spent shell casings from the Glock were aluminum reloads and glinted on the deck like fat silver teeth.

I heard a faucet squeak in the bathroom, then the sound of the shower water died inside the stall. Helen pushed open the bathroom door and I saw her eyes go up and down the form of someone inside.

“Put a robe on and get out here, ma’am,” she said.

“Don’t worry. I heard you long before you started banging around inside. Call in the report for me, please. My phone’s out of order,” Connie Deshotel’s voice said.

Helen picked up a pink robe off the toilet tank and flung it at Connie.

“Get your ass out here, ma’am,” she said.

A moment later Connie emerged into the bedroom, flattening her hair back wetly on her head with a hairbrush. She wore no makeup, but her face was calm, dispassionate, ruddy from her warm shower.

“I don’t know if I can prove this, Dave, but I think you sent this man after me,” she said.

“You talked Remeta into the sack, then wasted him,” I said.

“He tried to rape me, you idiot. I got my gun out of my bag and shot him through the door. Otherwise I’d be dead.” Then she said “God!” between her teeth, and started to walk past us, as though we were only incidental elements in her day. Her slippers tracked Remeta’s blood across the floor.

Helen pushed her in the chest with her fingers. “You’re tainting a crime scene. You don’t do anything until we tell you,” she said.

“Touch my person again and you’ll be charged with battery,” Connie said.

“What?”

“I’m the chief law officer of Louisiana. Does that register with you at all? A psychopath tried to rape and sodomize me. Do you think I’m going to let you come in here and treat me like a perpetrator? Now, get out of my way.”

Helen’s face was bright with anger, a lump of cartilage flexing against her jaw. But no words came out of her mouth.

“Are you deaf as well as stupid? I told you to get out of my way,” Connie said.

Helen held the shotgun at port arms and shoved Connie through the side door onto the deck. “Sit in that chair, you prissy bitch,” she said, and snipped a cuff on Connie’s left wrist and hooked the other end to the handle on a huge earthen pot that was planted with bougainvillea.

“Are you placing me under arrest? I hope you are, because I’m going to ensure you live in penury the rest of your life,” Connie said.

“No, I’m restricting you from a crime scene. You want my job, you can have it,” Helen said.

I could hear lightning popping in the swamp and raindrops striking the tin roof. Helen began punching in numbers on her cell phone, then she hit the phone against the wall.

“I can’t get through. I’m going out front,” she said.

I followed her into the living room.

“Take it easy,” I said.