“You might have a Maltese cross tattooed on your ankle, but you’ll never be Geoffrey Chaucer’s good knight,” I said. “I don’t care how many showers you take, you’ve still got shit on your nose.”
He turned his face to the wind, his hair lifting, his wide-set eyes devoid of light, his expression as meaningless as a cake pan, his torso a piece of sculpted stone inside his shirt. Had he swung on me, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“He suffered?” he said.
“Butterworth? Maybe. He was listening to a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert before he signed off.”
“That sounds like him. He loves Flip Phillips.”
“The man I talked to was sweating ball bearings.”
“He was an artist,” he said. “In his way, a dreamer.”
“When he wasn’t hanging up working girls on coat hooks. You’re going to Arizona tomorrow?”
“At sunrise.”
“Make all the pictures you want,” I said. “I’m going to get you.” I walked away.
“You think you can hurt me?” he called to my back. “After what’s happened here? That’s what you think?”
I got into the truck and started the engine. Clete had been drowsing. “Hey! What’s going on with Cormier?” he asked.
“He was shocked and indignant,” I replied.
We drove back to the two-lane and headed home, an orange sun dissolving into the wetlands, threaded with smoke from stubble fires.
• • •
EARLY SUNDAY MORNING, Cormac the coroner called me at home. “I couldn’t sleep last night.”
“What’s the problem?” I said.
“I’ll probably have to declare Butterworth’s death a suicide, but it bothers me.”
“Why?”
“The broken tooth your friend Purcel found in the door track. The bullet went in behind the jaw and traveled upward through the tongue and the palate in a clean line. It’s possible the bullet deflected off the tooth, except I don’t see the evidence.”
“Call it like you see it,” I said.
“Here’s my other problem: I talked to the prosecutor last night. I think everyone wants to shut the book on this one.”
“Wimple and Butterworth get bagged and tagged, and everyone goes home happy?”
“People are people,” he said. “What’s your opinion?”
“Desmond Cormier knows the truth, b
ut he’s never going to tell us.”
“His half sister was murdered. What the hell is wrong with this guy?”
“Money and power,” I said. “You know a stronger drug?”
“How about getting up in the morning with a clear conscience?” he replied. “You talked with Butterworth before he went out. You believed he capped himself?”
“I think maybe someone was setting up Cormier, and I think he’s too dumb to know it.”