“I don’t blame you for your feelings,” he said. “I have a teenage daughter. I don’t think I could handle it if she were abducted by a predator. I don’t know how any parent does.”
“You’re sure the two girls are with him?” I said.
“The older one, Kate, was scheduled to be at work at Dairy Queen at six. She didn’t show up. Lavern was supposed to go to a birthday party this evening. There’re some messages for her on the phone. Truth is, we don’t have a clue about this guy’s whereabouts. Why do you think he didn’t kill the girls inside, when he had the chance?”
“A friend of mine thinks he’s going into meltdown and planning to take it out on the girls.”
“Why’s he going into meltdown?”
“Felicity Louviere is stronger than he is, and he knows it.”
Clete Purcel was talking to a sheriff’s detective by a cruiser. The agent watched him curiously. “I think you guys are operating as vigilantes, Detective Robicheaux,” he said. “I think you plan to cool out Surrette.”
“That’s news to me.”
“A guy with the AG’s office in New Orleans says Clete Purcel may have poured liquid Drano down a Nazi war criminal’s throat.”
“I wouldn’t believe everything I hear down there,” I replied.
“The guy says you were probably there when it happened.”
“Some days I think I have Alzheimer’s.”
“Maybe you ought to see a doc. Take Purcel with you.”
“What for?”
“There’s blood in his barf,” he said. “Maybe he drank some of that Drano himself.”
AT EIGHT-FIFTEEN THAT evening, Gretchen Horowitz went up to Alafair’s bedroom. Alafair was working at her desk, wearing jeans and loafers without socks and a man’s long-sleeved khaki shirt. Shadows had already started to fall on the pasture and the barn, and the crests of the hills had taken on a golden glow in the sunset. “I was wondering where you were,” Alafair said.
Gretchen sat down on the edge of the bed. “I had a visit with Caspian Younger.”
“Did Dave tell you what happened at the house up the road?”
“Clete told me. I need to talk to you about something.”
“You know about the abduction of the two girls? They used to feed carrots to Albert’s horses.”
“Yeah, I heard all about it, Alafair. Did you hear what I said? I’ve got to talk with you.”
Alafair set down the sheet she had been working on and took off her glasses. “You need to rein it in, Gretchen.”
“I did a beat-down on Caspian Younger and that ex-detective Jack Boyd.”
“Clete already tore them up.”
“I thought a second helping wouldn’t hurt. My head is bursting. Will you please listen to me?”
“Yes, please tell me, whatever it is.”
“You don’t have to get bent out of shape. Rhonda Fayhee told me she was kept in a basement of some kind. She could hear water lapping against a boat or a dock or a beach. She also heard an airplane taking off and landing, but it was below the level of the window. She heard wind through a lot of trees close by. Here’s the last part: Not far away, people were singing a hymn of some kind. Rhonda remembered the words ‘Life is like a mountain railroad, with an engineer that’s brave.’ ”
“Those details don’t go together very well,” Alafair said. “The plane was beneath the level of the window?”
“She could hear water chucking at the same time.”
“She was on a hillside by a lake, one big enough for an amphibian?”