The New Iberia Blues (Dave Robicheaux 22)

“Yeah, she said she had a john who liked her to massage his back while he messed with her head. A white guy.”

“But he told her something about herself. Something that got her even more confused.”

Up ahead I saw the city limits sign and a deep-green grove of slash pines on the swale.

“He called her the Queen of Cups,” Clete said. “He also called her a chalice. He said she was chosen.”

“But the guy who killed her stuck a Christmas-tree star on her forehead.”

“I’m not getting the connection.”

“The Suit of Cups in the tarot represents love,” I said. “The chalice can also mean fertility and rebirth. Bailey thinks the star represents the Suit of Pentacles.”

“I still don’t get it,” he said.

“Pentacles has to do with prosperity. The killer was showing contempt. Hilary was a prostitute. She didn’t measure up.”

“I think you’re getting too deep into this guy’s head. You did that with the BTK guy. Bad mistake.”

“How else do you explain the symbols our guy is obviously using?”

“The day you figure out these guys is the day you eat your gun.”

“Quit it.”

“I have a funny feeling sometimes,” he said.

“About what?”

“That we’re all dead and don’t know it.”

I took the cell phone from my ear and looked at it and then put it back.

“My exit is just ahead,” I said. “Catch you down the track.”

I folded the phone and dropped it on the seat before he could say anything else.

• • •

AS I GOT out of the cruiser at Ennis Patout’s wrecker service, I could see him playing checkers with his mechanic on top of an oil can inside the bay. He was eating a sandwich with one hand, his gaze fixed on the game, dirty fingers pressed deep into the bread. The black man looked directly at me and shook his head in a cautionary fashion.

“Hello, Mr. Patout,” I said. “I’ll make it quick.”

Patout moved a checker with one finger. “Not quick enough.”

“Hugo Tillinger came to see you?”

“Yes, sir, he did.”

“What’d he have to say?”

“Nothing. I run him off.”

“Did you have a daughter, Mr. Patout?”

He put down his sandwich, his eyes still on the checkerboard. His neck was as corded as a cypress stump. “You stay out of my life.”

“The mother of your daughter was not the mother of Desmond Cormier?” I said.