Crusader's Cross

chapter TWENTY-SEVEN

Wednesday evening Molly and I towed my boat to Henderson Swamp and fished at sunset inside a grove of flooded cypress trees. In the distance we could see car headlights flowing across the elevated highway that traverses a chain of bays and canals inside the center of the Atchafalaya Basin. The air was breathless, the moon rising above the cypress into a magenta sky, the water so still you could hear the hyacinths popping open back in the trees.

We kept two largemouth bass that we caught on plugs and headed across a long bay toward the boat landing. In the dusk I could see cows standing on a green levee and lights inside the baitshop and restaurant at the landing. We winched the boat onto our trailer, then drove up the concrete ramp and went inside the baitshop for a cold drink. Through the window I saw a man on the gallery pouring a bag of crushed ice into his cooler, rearranging the fish inside. He put the plastic wrapper in a trash can and drank from a bottle of beer while he admired the sunset.

"Wait here a minute," I said to Molly.

"Somebody you know?" she said.

"I hope not," I said.

I approached the man on the gallery. The wind had come up, and I could see the leaves of the cypress trees lifting like green lace out on the water. The man felt my weight on the plank he was standing on. He lowered the bottle from his mouth without drinking from it and turned toward me. "Yeah, I remember you used to talk about fishing over here," he said.

"Always a pleasure to see you, Joh

He nodded, as though a personal greeting did not require any other response.

"How's your mother?" I asked.

"When you're that old and you smell the grave, you're thankful for little things. She don't complain."

He slid another bottle of beer out of his cooler and twisted off the cap. The fish in the cooler were stiff and cold-looking and speckled with blood and ice under the overhead light. Jericho Joh

I leaned on the railing, my arm only inches from his. "You can't do business in Iberia Parish, Joh

He raised his beer bottle to his mouth and took a small sip off it. He glanced over his shoulder at Molly, who sat at a table in the baitshop, reading a magazine. "That your lady?" he said.

"Look at me," I said. "Val Chalons is off limits. I don't care what kind of deal you cut with Clete Purcel."

He closed the lid on his cooler and latched it. "Purcel don't have anything to do with me, Robicheaux. You were nice to my mother. I was nice to you. In fact, twice I was nice to you. That means I go where I want. I do what I want," he said.

He placed his unfinished beer on the railing and walked toward his car, his cooler balanced on his shoulder, ice water draining down his shirtback as though his skin possessed no sensation.

I went to Clete Purcells office on Main Street during lunchtime the next day. His office had been a sports parlor during the 1940s,, then had been gutted by a fire and turned into a drugstore that went bankrupt after the Wal-Mart store was built south of town. In the last week an interior decorator had hung the ancient brick walls with historical photographs of New Iberia and antique firearms encrusted with rust that had been found in a pickle barrel under a nineteenth-century warehouse on the bayou. The new ambiance was stu

I walked through the litter and cigarette smoke and out the back door to the canvas-shaded brick patio where Clete often ate his lunch. He had planted palms and banana trees on the edge of the bricks, and had set up a huge electric fan by a spool table and sway-backed straw chair that served as his dining area. He was hunched over a crab burger, reading the Times-Picayune, the wind flapping the canvas over his head, when he heard me behind him.

"What's the gen, noble mon?" he said.

"You heard about Raphael Chalons's death?" I said.

"Yeah, tragic loss."

"I saw him just before he died. He asked me to stop his son."

"From doing what?"

"He didn't get a chance to say."

Clete set down his food and wiped his mouth. He gazed out at the whiteness of the sun on the bayou. "You're saying Val Chalons is a serial killer, maybe?"

"You tell me."

"He's a punk who thinks he can wipe his ass on other people. He made you out a perve and that's why I -"

"What?"

"Called up Jericho Joh

"That's the second reason I'm here. I saw him last night at Henderson Swamp."

Clete twisted in his chair, the straw weave creaking under his weight. "You saw Wineburger? Here?"

"I told him he wasn't going to do business in Iberia Parish. He told me to go screw myself."

"Dave, I called this guy back. I said I shouldn't have bothered him, that I was wired, that we didn't need his help, that Chalons is not worthy of his talents. We had an understanding."

"I didn't get that impression."

"Look, here's how it went down. Originally I told Joh

"Maybe his pride won't let him take a free ride."

"Wineburger? That's like a toilet bowl worrying about bad breath."

"Then what is he doing here?" I said.

"With a guy like that -" Clete blew air up into his face and gave me a blank look. "Don't let me roll any more Mexican imports, will you?"

A thunderstorm pounded through town that afternoon, then disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. When I got home from work, the lawn was scattered with wet leaves and the birdhouse Molly had nailed in the fork of a live oak had split across the nail holes and cracked apart on the ground, spilling all the birdseed in a yellow pile. I gathered up the broken pieces, dropped them in the garbage can, and found the listing for Andre Bergeron in the Jeanerette section of our local telephone directory.

"This is Dave Robicheaux," I said when he picked up the receiver. "I'd like to buy one of your birdhouses."

"You called at the right time. I got a sale on. One for twenty-five dol'ars or two for forty-nine ninety-five."

"I think I'll stick with one."

"Installation is free."

"Don't worry about it. Just drop it off at Molly's office and I'll send you a check."

"No, suh, I give door-to-door complete service. That's what you got to do to make a bidness a success today. Me and Tee Bleu got to go to the Wal-Mart. You go