He broke the connection. Clete stared at me. The strap of his shoulder holster was pinched against his shirt. “What was that about?”
“I don’t know how to read it. I wish I had it on tape.”
“Got any idea where he was calling from?”
“Waves and wind in the background.”
“Cypremort Point?” he said.
• • •
THE TIDE WAS in, and the clouds in the west had turned to gold, and the waves were curling and exploding on the blocks of concrete
at the base of Desmond’s property. The garage doors below the house were open. No vehicles were inside. I cut the engine, and Clete and I walked up the two flights of wooden steps to the entrance. The door was slightly ajar. I tapped it with my fingertips. It drifted back on the hinges.
“Iberia Sheriff’s Department!” I called.
There was no answer. I went inside with Clete behind me, his snub-nose in his right hand. The sliding door to the deck was open, the room redolent with salt spray.
“Man,” Clete said, wincing.
Butterworth had slipped from a stuffed leather chair and was sitting on the floor, his head twisted to one side. There was an entry hole under his chin and a .22 semi-auto inches from his hand. The bullet had obviously traveled through the roof of his mouth and embedded or bounced around in the brainpan. One eye had eight-balled. The drip from the entry wound ran like a snake inside his silk shirt.
I started toward him. Clete clenched his fist in the air, the infantryman’s sign to stop. He went into all the rooms of the house and came back out. “Clear.”
I called Helen on my cell phone. “Send the bus to Desmond Cormier’s place. We’ve got another one.”
“Desmond?” she said.
“Butterworth. It looks like he capped himself. With a twenty-two auto. I have a feeling we’ll match the casing with the one in the back of his Subaru.”
“What are you doing there?”
“Butterworth called me. He wouldn’t tell me where he was. I thought he might be here.”
“Who’s with you?”
“Clete.”
“You took him out there and not Ribbons?”
“Affirmative. Out.” I shut my phone.
“Trouble?” Clete said.
“Always. You see anything wrong here?”
“About Butterworth? Hard to tell. He was the kind of guy who’s hell on his victim but can’t take the heat himself.”
“His Subaru is in the pound. How’d he get here?” I said.
“Maybe in a cab. Run the tape backward. Lucinda Arceneaux died of a heroin injection between the toes. Who uses needles like that except a junkie? You found Butterworth’s works during a search, right?”
“Desmond might be an intravenous user, too,” I said.
Clete was wearing his porkpie hat. He took it off and spun it on his finger. “Helen is pissed because I’m here?”
“Forget it. I’m probably winding down with the department anyway.”