“Yeah, it is. It’s related to blood diamonds, too. We need to get Melancon into a cage, for his own good as well as everyone else’s.”
“I’m sick of this.”
“Of what?”
“Ronald Bledsoe was here this morning. He told the room supervisor he’d like to be a volunteer. But his eyes were on me the whole time. He had that sick grin on his face.”
Outside the front door, children were playing on swing sets and seesaws under the oak trees. I could remember when Alafair was their age and doing the same kinds of things. “Have lunch with me,” I said.
“What are we going to do about this asshole, Dave?” she replied.
I returned to the department and knocked on Helen’s door. She wasn’t happy to hear the latest on Bertrand Melancon.
“Tell me if I missed anything? He raped the Baylor girl and another girl in the Lower Nine and tried to kill Sidney Kovick, and he’s in New Iberia, calling you with his problems of conscience.”
“I guess that about says it.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Get ahold of Otis Baylor and his daughter. Tell them Melancon is in the area and that we plan on picking him up. But make sure Baylor understands that Melancon belongs to us.”
“Got it.”
She stood up from the desk and put her hands on her hips. She was wearing western-cut tan slacks and a braided belt and tight shirt. Then unexpectedly she looked me straight-on in the face and her eyes and manner took on that peculiar androgynous cast that had a way of turning her into a lovely mystery, one that was both arousing and unsettling at the same time.
“I should have never sent you back to New Orleans,” she said.
“Why’s that?
“Because the Feds have money to clean up their own messes and we don’t. Because you’re a good cop and you never shut the drawer on your cases. Everybody in your caseload stays in your head. If you weren’t a cop, you’d have a Roman collar on.” Her eyes were violet-colored, warmer than they should have been.
“Can I have a raise?”
She jiggled her fingers at me. “Bwana go now.”
I SKIPPED LUNCH and drove out to Otis Baylor’s house on Old Jeanerette Road. He was in his yard, inside deep shade, a four-gallon tank of insect spray on his back. He worked his way along the side of the house, spraying the flower beds and the foundation. It was cool inside the shade, but the canvas loops of his spray tank had formed sweat rings on his shirt. I had a feeling Otis Baylor was pinching every dollar he could.
I sat on his front steps without invitation, as a neighbor might. Down the long green slope of his property, the bayou wrinkled in the wind and elephant ears grew thickly along the banks. Otis’s nineteenth-century house, with its rusted screens, tin roof, deep shade, and green mold on the foundation, was a humble setting. But inside the trees the air was cool-smelling and filled with the sounds of wind in the bamboo and the drift of pine needles across the roof. It was the kind of place where a man could be at peace with himself and his family and set aside the ambitions that never allow the soul to rest. But I doubted that Otis would ever find that kind of peace, no matter where he chose to live.
“I took your advice,” I said.
“About what?”
“Not to play Ronald Bledsoe’s game.”
He continued to spray along the bottom of the house, as though I hadn’t spoken. “These Formosa termites will flat eat your house up, won’t they?” he said. “If you don’t stay after them, they’ll eat right through the concrete.”
“One of the guys who attacked Thelma is in town,” I said. “He called me on a cell phone. His name is Bertrand Melancon. He’s the brother of the guy who took one through the throat.”
Otis nodded, his eyes flat, his spray wand hissing across the latticework at the base of the gallery. “Why would he call you?”
“He’s scared. I also think he’s remorseful for what he’s done.”
Otis pumped the handle that pressurized his tank, his eyes looking at nothing. “He should be.”
Should be scared or remorseful, which? Or both? I pulled on my earlobe. “My boss wants you to know that Bertrand Melancon belongs to us.”