“Was it a he or a she?” Labiche said.
“We’re just interested in what you saw, Baby Cakes,” Helen said. “Let’s not worry about this other person right now.”
“I was scared,” Baby Cakes said.
“Of who?” Helen said.
“People that beat up on people like me.”
“Because you’re gay?” she said.
“Because I ain’t sure what I am.”
“Kind of late finding out, aren’t you?” Labiche said.
“Wait outside for me, Detective.”
“I think I should be here,” Labiche replied.
“Now,” Helen said.
Labiche came out the front door and walked across the gallery loudly. He leaned against the cruiser and lit a cigarette and scratched at one nostril with a thumbnail.
“I want you to look at these photos,” Helen said.
“Who these people?” Baby Cakes said.
“They could be anybody. Do you recognize anyone?”
The seconds passed one tick at a time. “Maybe this one here. Maybe he was the guy who come running from the road.”
“Maybe?”
“The lightning flashed. I ain’t seen him but a second. He’s a big man, ain’t he?”
“Tell me what he looked like.”
“The man I seen come running was big. Maybe he picked up a rock or a brick. I couldn’t see the face of the other man, the one fighting t’rew the window.”
“Walk outside with me.”
I turned my back to the house as they exited the front door.
“Dave, would you come here, please?” Helen said.
I walked toward the gallery. Even though the day was warm, my face felt cold in the wind, my mouth dry, my ears ringing.
“Know this man?” she said to Baby Cakes.
His hair was peroxided the color of brass, his eyes blue, his earlobes pierced. “He’s in the pictures you just showed me.”
“This is Detective Robicheaux,” she said.
“How you do, suh?” the boy said.
“Have you seen him anywhere besides the photo I showed you?”
“No, ma’am, I ain’t seed him before.”
“The man you identified is named Kevin Penny. Have you seen him anywhere else?”
“No, ma’am, I ain’t.”
“Don’t talk about this to anyone,” Helen said. “Can you do that for me?”
“Am I gonna have trouble? I mean wit’ this guy?”
“No, your name will not be given to anyone,” Helen said.
“What about at a trial?”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Helen said.
“I knowed it.”
“You knew what?” she asked.
“I’m gonna pay the price.”
“Here’s my card,” Helen said. “Call me if you have questions or trouble of any kind.”
I could not count the times I had used a business card to provide solace for people we hung out to dry. That wasn’t Helen’s intention, but it’s what we did with regularity. She and Labiche and I got into the cruiser. Helen started the engine.
“I know when a nigger is lying,” Labiche said.
She looked at his profile. “How do you intuit that?”
“They give you that look. Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.”
“You’re a reminder from God, Spade,” she said.
“Didn’t catch that.”
“Whenever I hear people talk about white superiority, I have to pause and think back on some of the white people I’ve known. It’s a depressing moment.”
She turned onto the two-lane and didn’t speak again until we were back at the office. Just outside the back door, she told Labiche to coordinate with the Jefferson Davis Sheriff’s Department and arrange an interview with Kevin Penny. Labiche seemed to lose his balance, like a seasick man reaching for the gunwale.
That afternoon Clete got a call from Carolyn Ardoin. “Homer ran away from home. A policeman found him wandering around by I-10.”
“Where is he now?” Clete said.
“With me at the office. I’m not going to send him back.”
“Can you do that?” he asked.
“I don’t care about the rules on this one.”
“Go easy with Penny.”
“I’m furious.”
“What did he do?”
“It’s enough that he’s his hateful self. I’m furious at our system.”
“What if I come over there and get Homer?”
“What about when you’re at work?”
“I can pay somebody to watch him.”
“He’s in school.”
“I’ll enroll him here.”
“I have to think through the paperwork. Sometimes I hate my job.”
“Quit and come live with me.”
“You’re serious?”
“There’re probably worse fates,” he said.
“This is a lot at one time, Clete.”
She was right, but he saw his own face on Homer’s and knew what awaited the boy when a social worker took him back to Kevin Penny’s trailer.
“Hire an attorney, some guy who’s not afraid to make a stink and embarrass local officials,” Clete said. “I’ll take care of the fees.”
“That doesn’t work. Right now I have to talk to my supervisor. I’ll call you later.”
“You’ve got to think about yourself, Carolyn. Penny’s potential has no bottom. Then there’re those two rodents who work for Tony Nemo.”
“I can handle myself,” she replied. “It’ll work out. Good-bye.”
“Don’t hang up, Carolyn.”
Too late.
I mentioned my speculation that Helen Soileau may have had several people living inside her, none of them entirely normal. That afternoon, at 4:57, she buzzed my phone and told me to come to her office. I walked down the corridor and went inside.
“Shut the door and sit down,” she said.
I took a chair. She walked past me and lowered the blinds on the glass. I waited for her to return to her desk, but she didn’t. I felt her standing behind me, saw her shadow fall across mine. There was a lump in my throat. “What’s going on, boss lady?”
She placed a hand on each of my shoulders.
“I’ve wanted to do this all day,” she said.
She tucked her elbows in under my chin and pulled my head into her breasts.
“Jesus Christ, Helen!”
“Shut up. I don’t know what happened at Bayou Benoit, but you didn’t kill T. J. Dartez.” She kissed my hair. “Now go home.”
Top that.
I love the rain, whether it’s a tropical one or one that falls on you in the dead of winter. For me, rain is the natural world’s absolution, like the story of the Flood and new beginnings and loading the animals two by two onto the Ark. I love the mist hanging in the trees, a hint of wraiths that would not let heavy stones weigh them down in their graves, the raindrops clicking on the lily pads, the fish rising as though in celebration.
I took great comfort on nights like these, and on this particular night I sat down in a cloth-covered chair in the living room and began reading a novel by Ron Hansen titled The Kid, the best story I ever read about the Lincoln County cattle wars. The rain was drumming on our tin roof, pooling in the yard, shining like glass in the glow of the streetlamps. I had opened the front window to let in the cold air. I heard a loud thump and looked up to see a humped silhouette on the screen.
“How you doin’, Mon Tee Coon?” I said. “Comment est la vie?”
He tilted his head.
“You need a snack, little guy?” I said.
He pawed at the screen. His coat was glistening with water, his whiskers white at the tips.
“I’m going to open a can of tuna and get you a pan of water and set them on the gallery. Hang loose.”
Just as I got out of the chair, a sports car turned sharply into the driveway, splashing water into the yard. Mon Tee Coon dropped heavily onto the gallery and was gone. Someone ran from the car with a newspaper over his or her head and twisted the bell not once but three times. I tossed my book onto the chair and opened the door.