My father. Big Aldous, spoke a form of English that was hardly a language. Once, when explaining to a neighbor the disappearance of the neighbor's troublesome hog, he said, "I ain't meaned to hurt your pig, no, but I guess I probably did when my tractor wheel accidentally run over its head and broke its neck, and I had to eat it, me."
But when he spoke French he could translate his ideas in ways that were quite elevated. On the question of God's nature, he used to say, "There are only two things you have to remember about Him: He has a sense of humor, and because He's a gentleman He always keeps His word."
And that's what I told Molly Boyle on the back porch of her cottage, on a late Saturday afternoon in New Iberia, Louisiana, in the summer of the year 2004.
"Why are you telling me this?" she said.
"Because I say screw Val Chalons and his television stations. I also say screw anyone who cares to condemn us."
"You came over here to tell me that?"
"No."
"Then what?"
The sun went behind a rain cloud, burning a purple hole through its center. The cypress and willow trees along the bayou swelled with wind. "I say why do things halfway?"
"Will you please take the mashed potatoes out of your mouth?" she said.
"How about we get married tonight?"
"Married? Tonight?"
"Unless you're doing something else."
She started to remove a strand of hair from her eye, then forgot what she was doing. She fixed her eyes on mine, her face perfectly still, her mouth slightly parted. "Get married where?" she asked.
"In Baton Rouge. I have a priest friend who's a little unorthodox. I told him we wanted to take our vows."
"Without asking me?"
"That's why I'm doing it now."
She was wearing jeans without a belt, a Ragin' Cajun T-shirt, and moccasins on her feet. She made a clicking sound with her mouth, and I had no idea what it might mean. Then she stepped on top of my shoes and put her arms around my neck and pressed her head against my chest. "Oh, Dave," she said. Then, as though language were inadequate or she were speaking to an obtuse person, she said it again, "Oh, Dave."
And that's the way we did it – in a small church located among pine trees, twelve miles east of the LSU campus, while lights danced in the clouds and the air turned to ozone and pine needles showered down on the church roof.
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
We slept late the next morning, then had breakfast in the backyard on the old redwood table from my house that had burned. I had forgotten how fine it was to eat breakfast on a lovely morning, under oak trees on a tidal stream, with a woman you loved. And I also had forgotten how good it was to be free of booze again and on the square with my AA program, the world, and my Higher Power.
At first Tripod had been unsure about Molly, until she gave him a bowl of smoked salmon. Then she couldn't get rid of him. While she tried to eat, he climbed in her lap, sticking his head up between her food and mouth, turning in circles, his tail hitting her in the face. I started to put him in his hutch.
"He'll settle down in a minute," Molly said.
"Tripod has a little problem with incontinence."
"That's different," she said.
But before I could gather him out of her lap, his head lifted up suddenly and his nose sniffed at the wind blowing from the front of the house. He scampered up a live oak and peered back down at us from a leafy bough. I heard the doorbell ring.
"Be right back!" I said to Molly.
Raphael Chalons was at my front door, dressed in slacks and a sports coat out of the 1940s, a Panama hat hooked on one finger, his shoulders and back as straight as a soldier's. "You were very thoughtful in paying for my purchase yesterday at the Wal-Mart store. But I forgot to reimburse you," he said. He held up a five-dollar bill that was folded stiffly between two fingers.
I opened the screen and took the money from his hand. I had hoped his mission was a single-purpose one. But he remained on the gallery, gazing at the trees in the yard and the squirrels that darted across the grass. "Can I invite you in?" I said.
"Thank you," he said, and stepped inside, his eyes examining the interior of my home. "I want to hire you to find the man who murdered my daughter, Mr. Robicheaux."
"I'm a sheriff's detective, Mr. Chalons, not a private investigator."
"A man is what he does. Titles are a distraction created to deceive obtuse people. I want the monster who killed my daughter either in jail or dead."
"My fingerprints were at the crime scene. In some people's eyes I should be a suspect."
"Those might be my son's perceptions, but they're not mine. Valentine is sometimes not a good judge of character. You may have a penchant for alcohol, Mr. Robicheaux, but you're not a murderer. That's an absurdity. I know it and so do you."
"I'm complimented by your offer, but it's not an appropriate one."
"I think a degenerate or psychotic person wandered in from the highway and did this terrible thing to my daughter. But I can't seem to convince anyone else of that. Some speculate it's the Baton Rouge serial killer."
"The Baton Rouge guy abducts his victims and rapes them before killing them. Bondage is part of his M.O., as well as baiting the authorities. The guy who killed Honoria is somebody else."
He pulled at an earlobe. "I have to find out who. If nothing else, I have to exclude people who might have had opportunity or motivation," he said, glancing sideways at me. "I can't live in ignorance about the circumstances of her death. I just cannot do that. No father can."
There was no point in continuing the conversation. For a lifetime his money had bought him access and control, and now it was of no value to him.
"As you suggest, it may have been a random killing, Mr. Chalons. Deranged and faceless men wander the country. Sometimes they commit horrible crimes over a period of decades and are not caught." I made no reference to the fact a cross had been incised inside Honoria's hairline.
"So you do think that could be the case with my daughter?"
I saw what seemed a hopeful glimmer in his eye, as though I had presented him with good news. Or maybe I was reading him wrong. "I have no idea, sir," I replied.
He unhooked his hat from his finger and straightened the brim, then glanced through the back window into the yard. "Ah, the outlaw nun who's purchased you an inordinate amount of negative attention," he said.
"The outlaw nun is now my wife."
"Is that meant as a joke?"
"That's Molly Robicheaux out there, Mr. Chalons – not a nun, not an outlaw, but my wife."
"Well, she's a disciple of liberation theology and has been at odds with our government's policies in Central America, but no matter. Chacun a son gout, huh?"
He let himself out without saying goodbye, then paused on the gallery and fitted on his Panama hat. I followed him outside. "Run that statement by me again?"
"Your wife is a traitor, Mr. Robicheaux. Perhaps she's done many good deeds for the Negroes in our area, but she is nonetheless a traitor. If you choose to marry her, that's your business. I'm an old man and many of my attitudes are probably overly traditional."
I stepped close to him. "I don't wish to offend you, Mr. Chalons -" I began, a phosphorous match flaming alight somewhere in the center of my head.
"But what?"
I sucked in my cheeks and widened my eyes and looked out at the tranquility of the day. "Nothing, sir. My wife and I both wish you the very best and extend our sympathies and hope that all good things come to you and your family."