I knocked on the door of the gingerbread house. But the nuns did not answer. Father Julian Hebert did. “Are you here about Marcel LaForchette?” he said, his voice quavering as though he did not want to hear the answer to his own question.
Chapter Twenty-three
I stepped inside. “What happened?”
“Marcel went crazy and came through the door and terrified all the personnel,” Julian said. “The sisters called me and thought I could settle him down. Fat chance.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Gone. The sisters went after him. But I don’t think there’s an answer for Marcel. At least I don’t have one.”
“Bad message from a man of the cloth,” I said.
“He’s either afflicted, or what he told the sisters and me is true.”
“Told y’all what?” I said.
“This man Gideon gave him a thousand dollars to leave New Iberia. Marcel tried to give the money to the Center. He’s afraid of it.”
“How did Gideon know Marcel needed to get out of town?” I asked.
“I don’t know. The implications of all this business about a green man in a cowl are more than I want to deal with.”
“What’s our choice?” I said.
“The biggest frailty in our makeup is our willingness to engage evil, Dave. It’s always a trap. When you engage it, it becomes part of you. That’s the only way I can think about this.”
“How do you not engage it?” I said. “Heinrich Himmler viewed the inmates in the camps before they were sent to the gas chamber. They had to look into his face through the wire. I can’t imagine what that would be like.” I saw the hurt in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Julian.”
“Marcel said Gideon pressed the money into his palm. When Marcel tried to resist, Gideon grabbed Marcel’s wrist and forced the money on him.”
I waited. “What’s the rest of it?”
“There was an abrasion around Marcel’s wrist. With pustules in it, like tiny pearls.”
“I’m not buying in to this, Julian.”
“I’m telling you what I saw.”
“Marcel must be working a con of some kind,” I said.
“Don’t be surprised if your best thinking gets you nowhere.”
“There’s another possibility,” I said.
“What?”
“Maybe Adonis Balangie is making a move on the Shondell family,” I said. “Maybe all this other stuff is theater. Maybe Penelope Balangie is as greedy as he is.” I swallowed when I put Penelope in the same category as Adonis.
“You may be correct about Adonis, but you’re mistaken about Penelope,” Julian said. “Her problem is she thinks a good cause justifies any means. Did she catch your eye?”
“Pardon?”
“You heard me,” he said.
“She’s attractive, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said.
“What you mean is she’s beautiful and not easy to forget in the middle of the night.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said dishonestly.
“You’re right. I sometimes convince myself that my weaknesses are the weaknesses of everyone.”
How had I gotten into this? Here was a man dedicated to God who got credit for nothing and blamed for everything and often lived under the authority of dictatorial men who could make life miserable for a diocesan priest. Now he had me to put up with.
“You’re the absolute best of everything that’s good in Christianity, Father Julian,” I said. “Anyone who says otherwise should have his butt kicked around the block.”
I waited for him to speak, but he didn’t.
“Julian?” I said.
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m not important. You are. And so is Clete Purcel and also Marcel LaForchette. One thing, however: I do not fear the green man.”
“You don’t?”
“The real evil in our community is Mark Shondell.”
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“In one fashion or another, the man in the cowl seems to be a historical figure, a wandering soul, perhaps. He tried to help the prostitute and Marcel. Mark Shondell is homegrown and revered in our culture, a man who has the stench of an incinerator on him.”
I walked back to the cruiser. Leslie was sound asleep. Elizabeth peeked at me from under the quilt, her blue eyes as clear as water. They reminded me of the eyes of the mixed-blood children I had encountered in Henderson Swamp. I woke up Leslie and moved her and her daughter into the Center, then drove to the department on East Main, my head throbbing.
I had the dispatcher put out an APB on Marcel LaForchette. It was 4:46 P.M. The grotto next to our building was deep in shadow, the sun a red spark in the live oaks overhead.
“Armed and dangerous?” the dispatcher asked.
“No.”
“Then why are we picking him up?” he said.
I had to think about it. “For his own safety.”
The dispatcher’s name was Wally. He was a big fat man who ate candy bars and fried pies all day and seldom missed an opportunity to make a sardonic comment. “You moved a stripper into the nuns’ place?”
“Who told you that?”
“You left the door to LeBlanc’s office open.”
“Thanks for eavesdropping, Wally.”
“What’s your secret wit’ the ladies?”
“Maybe if you took the peach pie out of your mouth, I could understand what you’re saying.”
“The woman in the waiting room,” he said. “I’d go on a diet for something like that. Scout’s honor.” He spread his fingers on his heart.
I walked to the door of the waiting room. I couldn’t believe it. Penelope Balangie was sitting stiffly in a folding metal chair at the back of the room, her knees crossed, wearing a lavender suit and hose and a pillbox hat with a veil, like a woman out of the 1940s.
“That’s who I t’ink it is, right?” Wally said behind me. “Adonis Balangie’s old lady?”
“No, that’s Mother Teresa.” I walked to the back of the room and sat down next to Penelope. She was breathing as though she had run up stairs, which she had not. “If you or Adonis want to file charges against me, do it,” I said. “Then leave me alone.”
“Someone has to help me,” she said.
“I’m not the man for it. I showed that this morning.”
She leaned close to my face, her eyes riveted on mine, her face bloodless. “You’re not understanding me. This is about a man who is going to be killed. Am I supposed to say nothing?”
“Who’s going to be killed?”
“I don’t know his name. People who work for Adonis told him there’s an open something-or-other on this man.”
“An open contract?”
“Yes, that’s what he called it. Does that mean what I think it does?”
“The target has a DOA tag on his big toe. Adonis didn’t explain any of this to you?”
“Mark Shondell is the one ordering the man’s death. I don’t want to talk any more about Adonis. You brought his mistress to New Iberia?”
“She doesn’t think of herself as a mistress.”
“I don’t want to talk in here. Where can we go?”
“I’m very tired, Miss Penelope. Don’t tell me you don’t like to be called ‘Miss,’ either. I’m going home now. I’m going to politely ask that you not come here again.”
“You’re supposed to be a man of conscience. I’m trying to warn you about a man’s impending death.”
“Is the target Marcel LaForchette?”