“So?”
“The use of electrodes. People hung by their wrists with a sack of insecticide pulled over their heads.”
“Worse than that,” he said.
“How far would you be willing to go yourself?”
He set down his knife and fork and stared at the two candles burning on the table. “I don’t think I heard you right.”
“Maybe you went looking for evidence on your own. Maybe you used a PI to check out Nightingale’s employees and came up with Kevin Penny’s name. Maybe you thought he was a guy who’d have some useful information.”
“I tortured somebody to death?” he said.
“It’s the stuff of the Inquisition.”
“I can’t take any more of this,” Rowena said.
She left the table and went through the kitchen door into the house. I leaned over the table as though to speak to him and let my hand tip his wineglass. It rolled off the table and shattered on the brick. “I’m sorry.”
“You can say that again,” he said. He got up, wiping his trousers, then went in the house for a broom and dustpan. I used my handkerchief to pick up his butter knife and drop it into my pocket. He came back outside. “You’re still here?”
“I always respected you and your wife, Levon. Don’t pretend I didn’t.”
“You pretend about everything, Dave. Jimmy Nightingale has all the trappings of a fascist. Tell me that’s not so.”
“He shitcanned Bobby Earl.”
“That’s because he doesn’t need him anymore,” he said. “Why don’t you genuflect before him while you’re at it?”
“See you around,” I said.
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” he replied.
I went to the lab early Tuesday morning. They lifted Levon’s prints off the knife, and I took them on a card to Jennings and left them with a desk sergeant for Sherry Picard. She called me the next day. I had not given her any directions or information about the source of the latents on the knife, maybe in part because I didn’t want to confirm my own suspicions.
“They’re a match,” she said.
“With what?”
“The latents in Penny’s trailer. That’s why you sent them, right?”
“Correct.”
“Whose are they?” she asked.
“Levon Broussard’s.”
“The author?” she said.
“Yep.”
“They were on two doorknobs. They were also on the drill.”
My heart was in my throat. “Were there any others on the drill?”
“Just his.”
“I guess you guys better get a warrant.”
I don’t believe I ever spoke sadder words.
The next day Labiche was not only in my office, he was hooking one haunch on the corner of my desk, flipping a half dollar and catching it. “Good detective work, Robey.”
“Which detective work?”
“Bringing down that snooty ass-wipe on Loreauville Road.”
“Levon Broussard?”
“Him and his wife both think their shit doesn’t stink.”
“What did you hear?”
“He’s in custody. He’ll probably bail out this afternoon. From what I understand, you nailed his dick to his forehead. I guess this might screw up his wife’s rape claim, too.”
“What does one have to do with the other?”
“Everything?”
Labiche was right. I just didn’t want to admit it. “How well did you know Kevin Penny, Spade?”
“Me? Just from the interview. Why would I know him otherwise?”
“You worked vice in Miami. Penny was an active guy thereabouts.”
“Where do you come up with these scenarios?”
“I think you’re a dirty cop,” I said.
He stood up, his face constricting. “I gave you a way out of the Dartez beef. I covered for your drunk ass because I’ve had problems of my own.”
“Good show. No cigar.”
“Yeah?” He blew air out his nose and smiled. He caught the half dollar and put it away. “You couldn’t carry my jockstrap, Robo.”
Labiche was wrong about Levon making bail that afternoon. Unlike his counterpart Jimmy Nightingale, Levon didn’t make friends with authorities or politicians he didn’t like. The South has changed in many ways, but beyond the sophistry and hush-puppy platitudes is a core group that is as malignant and hot and sweaty as a torchlit mob flinging a rope over a tree limb. The judge before whom Levon appeared was the Honorable Bienville Tomey. His face had the choleric intensity of a dried squash and the same level of humanity. He wore his irritability like a flag.
“What the hell do you have to say for yourself?” he asked Levon.
“Nothing, Your Honor,” Levon answered.
“You’re entering a plea of not guilty?”
“Yes, that’s correct, Your Honor,” Levon’s attorney said.
“I didn’t ask you. The defendant will answer my question.”
“Yes, sir,” Levon said.
“Yes, sir, what?”
Levon looked out the window and didn’t reply.
“Are you deaf?”
“I don’t have anything to say, sir.”
“You mean ‘Your Honor.’ ”
Levon continued to stare out the window. “I didn’t torture or kill anyone. Interpret that in any way you wish.”
“Remanded in custody,” the judge said. He snapped down his gavel as he would a fly swatter.
I was allowed to see Levon in a holding cell. It was an old one with a concrete floor that sloped down to a drain hole with a yellow-streaked perforated iron lid. There was no bench or chair to sit on. He stood at the door in an orange jumpsuit, his hands on the bars.
“Why were you in Penny’s trailer?” I said.
“Rowena remembered something. Actually, it was in a dream. In her dream, the assault by the two black guys was mixed up with the assault on Nightingale’s boat. Then she heard a voice. It was a man with his mouth right by her ear. The pillowcase was over her head, so she couldn’t see his face. She thought it was one of the black guys. It wasn’t. The voice said, ‘Here’s a penny for your thoughts.’ The voice wasn’t Nightingale’s, either.”
“Go on,” I said.
When you question a suspect, you do not offer any information unless you want him to think you know more than you do. In this instance, I wanted Levon to give up details that only a perpetrator would know. Unbeknownst to him, he might also give up details that could set him free.
“When Rowena told me about the dream, I began to think maybe Nightingale wasn’t her attacker, or maybe there was more than one attacker, somebody who held her down. I know a guy who used to work for Nightingale. He gave me the names of almost everybody on his payroll. That’s how I made the connection between Kevin Penny and Rowena’s dream.”
“Go on.”
“I went to see him. Nobody answered. The door was unlocked. I opened it and went inside. That’s when I heard him.”
“Heard him?”
“He was alive. Moaning. His wrists were bolted to the floor, above his head, like the hanged man in the tarot deck.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything. He was choking on his vomit. The drill was hanging out of his ear. I removed it and turned his cheek to let his mouth drain. Then he died.”
“What did you do next?”
“I left.”
“Why didn’t you call 911?”
He brushed at his nose. “I don’t know.”
“Your lawyer will tell you that ‘I don’t know’ is not the way to win people’s hearts and minds.”