Clete Purcel was the most thorough and insightful and successful investigative lawman I ever knew. If he hadn’t wiped out his career with hooch and pills and weed and strippers and other women who glowed with neurosis, he could have had a job in the Department of Justice. Instead, he ended up working with the Mob in Vegas and Reno. I’ll take it a step further. He ended up working for a degenerate killer named Sally Dio, also known as Sally Ducks, who had his boys slam Clete’s hand in a car door. Later, Sally was on his private plane with his boys when the engines failed and the plane crashed into the side of a mountain near Flathead Lake. The coroner had to comb Sally’s remains from a tree with a rake. The National Transportation Safety Board said the fuel lines were clogged with sand. For unexplained reasons, Clete immediately grabbed a flight to Mexico City with only his toothbrush and a shaving kit.
Clete drove his Caddy down East Plaquemine Street in Jennings to the sheriff’s office. The sky was lidded with steel-gray clouds, the air muggy and superheated by the asphalt, the live oaks and palm trees motionless. The building was located in a strange piece of green landscape that had a few small frame houses on it, none of them with fences, like a semirural neighborhood from a simpler time.
He left his .38 snub and holster in the glove box, put on his porkpie hat, locked his car, and went up the walk, touching his face with a folded handkerchief, his collar and his own odor bothering him. The problem did not lie in the weather. Clete could have overcome his reputation for vigilantism and chaotic behavior, but his brief association with the Mob and his accidental shooting of a federal witness followed him wherever he went, in part because he was a better man and a better and more honorable cop than his detractors could ever be. But that was poor consolation. Among those who should have been his colleagues and friends, he was a pariah and a turncoat.
“I’d like to see Detective Picard,” he said to the desk sergeant.
“Name?”
“Purcel.”
“Ohhh, yeah,” the sergeant said.
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s been that kind of day.”
“How about it, top? Is she here or not?”
“Down the hall.”
“Would you mind telling her I’m here? I don’t have an appointment.”
“She’ll be glad for the company.”
He removed his porkpie hat and ran a comb through his hair and put the comb away. He yawned, his eyes empty. “You got any openings? I’d really dig working in a place like this. It reminds me of El Sal when it was run by the death squads.”
“I’ll make a note of that,” the sergeant said.
Clete went down the hall and tapped on Sherry Picard’s half-open door. She was on the phone but waved him in. She smiled when she hung up. “How you doin’, Mr. Purcel?”
“Clete.”
“How you doin’, Mr. Clete?”
He gave her a look. “I want to run a couple of things by you regarding the Penny homicide.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Am I about to put my head in a bear trap?” he said.
“I was on the phone with social services.”
“About Homer?”
“I think maybe they found a good home for him.”
He felt a thorn pierce his heart. “He’s got one now.”
“It’s only temporary. You have to accept that.”
“Right is right, wrong is wrong. I’m not big on rule books.”
“How did you make it through the Corps?”
“The Crotch was a breeze after New Orleans.”
“What’d you want to tell me?”
“Remember when we were talking about the latents at the Penny crime scene that weren’t in the system? You said it bothered you because a guy like Penny didn’t hang out with normal people.”
“Right.”
“Run everybody who works for Jimmy Nightingale. Also start looking hard at Spade Labiche.”
“I can’t randomly pull in people and fingerprint them, particularly when they’re from St. Mary Parish.”
“There’re other ways.”
“I know your methodology. I want to keep my job. I’ve got another problem, too.”
“Like what?”
“You and Dave Robicheaux have a way of getting into it with rich guys. It doesn’t do a lot for your credibility.”
“I’ll try to explain that. Most rich people here made their money off somebody else’s back.”
She looked him up and down, biting the edge of her lip. Unconsciously, he put his thumb in his belt and tightened his shirt.
“You got anything on Nightingale?” she said.
“Penny said he made deposits for Nightingale and delivered skanks to Nightingale’s house.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t like Nightingale. I think he’s a bum. Not because he’s rich. Around here, you screw down and marry up. He doesn’t marry up. He just screws everybody. In answer to your question, nothing Penny said was trustworthy. He told me Nightingale’s sister came on to him. I have a hard time buying that.”
“The feds used him for a long time. They must have believed him.”
“Yeah, they did the same with Whitey Bulger. Look, I came here because I thought you could use a friend.”
“Why do I need a friend?” she said.
“You work in a shithole.”
“You’re here to tell me I work in a shithole?”
“It’s all relative. Can I sit down?” he said.
“I have a lot of work to do.”
“Don’t take Homer away.”
“It’s not in my hands. The system is the system.”
“I say fuck the system, Miss Sherry.”
“Where has that gotten you, sir?”
He felt his eyes go out of focus and wondered if it had to do with the brightness of the sun shining through the window. “I’m a PI. When I had a real badge, I never jammed anybody. I didn’t do it then, I don’t do it now.”
Her eyes left his.
“They give you a bad time here?” he asked.
“I get time off from purgatory,” she said. “Watch your ass, bub.”
When he went outside, his Caddy was being hauled away by a wrecker. The desk sergeant was watching from the curb. “You were in a no-parking zone.”
Alafair was coming out of Victor’s Cafeteria when she saw Labiche. He was driving a cruiser, looking in the rearview mirror. When he saw her, he swung out of his lane, causing two other drivers to brake. He parked in the shade and got out. He had a gold-tipped cigarette in his mouth. He looked warily up and down the street. “Got a minute?”
“Not really,” she said.
“It’s important. About our last conversation. Misunderstandings that got to be cleared up.”
“There’s nothing to be cleared up, Detective.”
He turned his face and exhaled the smoke into the wind, then dropped the cigarette onto the sidewalk and stepped on it. “Your father thought I was putting moves on you or something. Robey gets steamed up.”
“Robey?”
“Whatever.” He gazed down the street. “It’s warming up. I hear this movie deal is coming together.”
“News to me.”
“Come on, Levon Broussard is hooking up with Tony Nemo. You’re writing the script. It’s all around town.”
“Talk to Levon.”
“Like I told you before, I know the locale. Or maybe they want to use some real cops.”
“Could be.”
“I was an extra in a Miami Vice episode. They didn’t do the real story, though. You know the real story about Miami?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Jimmy Carter let all the boat people in. It took Reagan to stop it.” He squinted across the street at the square and the sun glinting on the Teche. His forehead was shiny, his upper lip beaded. He cleaned the humidity out of his eyes with his fingers. “Don’t look right now, but do you see a guy over there?”