Creole Belle (Dave Robicheaux 19)

Clete unscrewed the cap on the tequila and poured the two shot glasses full. The bottle felt cold and hard and full in his palm. “Can you show me that photo now?” he asked.

“I’ll be right back,” she replied.

He sat down at the table and salted a lime and took a hit off the tequila, then knocked back the whole shot and chased it with the Carta Blanca. The rush made him close his eyes and open his mouth, as though his body had just been lowered into warm water. Wow, he said to himself, and sucked on a salted lime. He heard the shower running in the back of the house.

He filled his shot glass again, until it brimmed, then sipped from the rim and gazed out the window at the long expanse of the bay, the brasslike color in the water fading to pewter, the sun no more than a spark on the horizon. Varina appeared in the doorway, wiping the back of her neck with a towel. She had changed into blue jeans and beaded moccasins and a cowboy shirt that glittered like a freshly sliced pomegranate. “Come in here,” she said.

“I poured you a shot,” he said. “Do you have another beer?”

“No, that one is for you. Here’s the photo I wanted to show you.”

The next room had no windows and was furnished with only a couch and a rollaway bed covered by a beige blanket with an Indian design. On the couch was a big brown teddy bear that she had propped up against the cushions, as though to surveil the room. Above the couch were two shelves filled with antique Indian dolls, stone grinding bowls, a tomahawk, a trade ax strung with dyed turkey feathers, and pottery whose discernible markings looked hundreds of years old. She pulled a scrapbook from under the rollaway and sat down on the mattress and began turning the stiffened pages in the book, never glancing up at him.

He sat down next to her. It was only then that she turned to the back pages of the scrapbook and removed an envelope filled with photos. “These pictures were taken with a camera Pierre and I both used,” she said. “I think he forgot about a couple of photos he took in a nightclub. I had them developed a couple of years back but never paid particular attention to them. I went to the house in Jeanerette yesterday and picked up a few things, including this scrapbook.”

She removed a photo from the envelope and handed it to him. In it, Pierre Dupree was standing in front of a bandstand festooned with strings of Christmas wreath and tinsel. A young Creole woman with cups of gold in her hair stood next to him. She wore a magenta evening gown, an orchid pinned to one strap. Neither person was touching the other.

“Is that the girl you and Dave Robicheaux were looking for?” Varina asked.

“That’s Tee Jolie Melton.”

“And Pierre denies knowing her?”

“According to Dave. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your husband.”

“I no longer think of him as my husband.”

“You think Mr. Dupree and Tee Jolie were an item?”

“I’m afraid you didn’t hear me the first time. In my mind, Pierre is not my husband. That means I quit tracking his extracurricular activities years ago. He inherited the worst traits on both sides of his family. His grandfather is an imperious aristocrat who thinks he’s genetically superior to others. His mother’s family made most of their money on the backs of rental convicts. They literally worked those poor devils to death. I hated going out in public with any of them.”

“Why?” Clete asked.

“They think the rest of the world is like St. Mary Parish. They expect waiters to grovel wherever they eat. They’re boorish and loud and never read a book or see a film or talk about anything except themselves. They never once invited my father to dinner. I’m sorry, I can’t stand them. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Was your marriage a great success? Is that why you’re single? You are single, right?”

Trying to follow her train of thought was exhausting. “My wife dumped me for a Buddhist guru in Boulder, Colorado. This was a guy who made people take off their clothes in front of the commune he ran. She also gave him most of our savings account. It took three years for the divorce to go through. By that time I was hiding out in El Salvador on a murder beef. You want to go for a walk?”

“You committed a murder?”

“Not exactly. I thought the guy had a piece in his hand. Anyway, he was a sorry sack of shit and had it coming. I need a drink.”

“Go ahead.”

“You want to go in the kitchen?” he asked.

“No, I want to stay here. This was my room when I was a child. It was always my room, even after I left home. What should I do with the photo?”

“Give it to Dave. If I take it, I might create a problem with the chain of evidence.”

“There’s a tray on the drainboard. Will you bring the drinks and the limes in? I’ll put the photo in my desk.”

“It’s pretty nice out. We can have our drinks outside, if you want.”

“No, I don’t want to go outside. The mosquitoes are terrible tonight. Would you rather not be here?”

Clete propped his hands on his knees and studied the far wall and the Indian artifacts on the shelves and the teddy bear staring back at him from the couch. “I shouldn’t be calling somebody else a sorry sack of shit, even the guy I popped in the hogpen. His name was Starkweather, like the kid who killed all those people in Nebraska. What I’m saying is I have a history. For a while I was mobbed up with some guys in Reno and on Flathead Lake in western Montana. These guys happened to be on a plane that crashed into the side of a mountain. I heard they looked like fricasseed pork when they were raked out of the fir trees. The shorter version is I’ve got a jacket that’s probably three inches thick.”

“Are you trying to scare me off?”