“We just ran into Dixon on the dirt road below Albert Hollister’s house,” I said. “He was on his way to see Gretchen Horowitz. He seemed perfectly relaxed talking to us. Does that sound like a guilty man to you?”
Pepper’s eyes looked from me to Alafair and back to me. “Are they cooking up something? Maybe claiming I abused Dixon?”
This time I didn’t respond. There was a tic below his left eye, a twitch by his mouth.
“Just tell us what you found out from the sporting goods salesman,” Alafair said. “What did the purchaser of the hunting bow look like?”
“Middle-aged. He paid with cash. It could be anybody,” he said. “Maybe it doesn’t mean anything.”
“That’s not what you told Love Younger,” Alafair said. “You told him the purchaser was wearing the kind of bracelet Dixon sold the Indian girl.”
“I’m leaving now. I don’t have time for this,” Pepper said.
“I think your boat left the dock a little early today,” I said.
“Say again?”
“You’re ninety proof, partner. I used to start at lunchtime, too, particularly when I was warming up for the weekend. By Saturday morning I’d glow in the dark.”
I saw a strange light come into his eyes, as though he had shifted gears inside his head and was no longer thinking about any of the things he had just said. “You’re from down there. You know how they do business,” he said.
“From down where? Who is they? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“It’s got to do with Albert Hollister and the girl. They think I’m involved. I’m out. That’s what I’m saying.”
“Sir, you’re not making any sense,” I said.
“Mr. Robicheaux?”
“What is it?”
He seemed to collect himself, like a man wanting a friend. “I’m sorry for what I did. They’ve got me figured out wrong. I think I’m gonna go back to Mobile. I always liked it there, living by the salt water and pole-fishing with the nigras at sunset. It’s a peaceful life there on the bay.”
Alafair and I stared at him. It was like watching a man disappear before our eyes. “Sorry you did what?” I asked.
“For my actions. I’d undo them if I could.”
“I think you need some help,” I said.
He closed the door just as the clouds broke and started to pour down, the raindrops hitting the rooftop and sidewalks as hard as hail. If there is a charnel house for souls, I believed Bill Pepper had just found it.
ALBERT WAS GONE when we returned to the house. The rain had quit and the sky had turned into an ink wash, and Molly and I grilled steaks on the deck and took them inside and ate at the dining room table with Alafair and watched the moon rise above the Bitterroots. Albert came in later, holding a FedEx delivery, his face ruddy from the wind. “This is for Gretchen. It was by the garage,” he said. “Where is she?”
“At the cabin, I think,” I replied. “Alafair and I had a talk with one of the cops who was up at the cave. Bill Pepper. Do you know him?”
“No more than I know any of them.”
“He was half in the bag and scared about something. He said it had to do with you and somebody he called ‘the girl.’ ”
Albert shook his head. “Isn’t he the one who beat up the cowboy?”
“Yeah, he knocked Wyatt Dixon around.”
“Why spend time talking with a man like that?” Albert said. He set the FedEx box on the table. The return address was a geological lab in Austin, Texas.
AFTER SUPPER, GRETCHEN had gone into her bedroom and lain down on top of the covers, her arm across her eyes, the
n turned toward the wall and fallen asleep. Clete sat at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of him, and watched her sleep. He tried to think about the choices available to him. Have a quiet talk with the sheriff? Gretchen would end up shark meat. The sheriff would pull her jacket from Miami-Dade, and no credence would be given to anything she said. And the larger problem went way beyond Gretchen’s background. Again and again, victims of sexual assault were put on the stand and torn apart while the perpetrator either smirked at the defense table or shook his head in feigned disbelief. Rapes were downgraded to battery; child molesters were given probation. There was another problem, too. There was a sick culture in law enforcement, particularly among vice cops, and everyone knew it, Clete in particular: the corner-of-the-mouth jokes, the smug moral superiority, the collective rush in having set up a successful sex sting, the legal proximity to a sybaritic world where you could get laid in any way you wanted by just flipping out your badge.