"Ain't no problem here, Dave," he said.

After I hung up I called Bootsie back, then began replacing the case folders I had removed from my file cabinet. A piece of lined yellow paper on which I had scribbled several notations with a felt pen became unstuck from the outside of a manila folder and floated to the floor.

The notations had to do with the telephone call I had received from Marie Guilbeau, the cleaning lady in St. Mary Parish who had been molested by an intruder at her house and had felt obliged to tell me she had flirted the same day with a guest at the motel where she worked.

It took about ten minutes to create what is called a photo lineup,, in this case six mug shots that I pulled from the department's files. Actually, her identifying the man at the motel would do little to make a case against the intruder, but the report she had filed had been treated casually by the authorities in St. Mary Parish and by me as well, and perhaps now was an opportunity to make it right. I called Marie Guilbeau's home and was told by a niece that her aunt was at the motel on the four-lane where she worked.

But I didn't drive directly to the motel. First I called Batist at the bait shop.

"Is that fellow still there?" I asked.

"It's raining too hard for him to go nowhere. I'll give him a ride to town later on," Batist replied.

"Tell him to stay there. I'll be along in a few minutes," I said.

When I got to the bait shop, the swamp looked colorless and stricken in the rain, except for the canopy of cypresses, which was a dull green against an infinite gray sky. Most of the concrete boat ramp was under water and a flock of mallards and pintails had taken shelter under the dock. I opened an umbrella over my head and ran for the bait shop.

The man who claimed to have been a medic from my outfit was looking out the window at the rain dancing on the bayou. He was dressed in clean denims, his short sleeves turned up in cuffs, steel-toed oil-field boots laced on his feet.

"Take a ride with me down to St. Mary Parish, Doc," I said.

"What for?" he asked.

"Nothing in particular. You got anything else to do?" I said.

"Nope," he said.

We walked up the dock together, under the umbrella, while lightning banged and flashed around us and thunder peeled across the sky like incoming mail from a distant war.

The motel out on the four-lane was a run-down two-story building that had once belonged to a chain but was now operated by the owner of the truck stop next door. I parked the cruiser by a walkway and asked my friend, the ex-soldier, to wait for me. I found Marie Guilbeau in a laundry room, stuffing sheets into a washing machine. Her dark hair was pinned on the back of her head, her maid's uniform stretched tight against the thickness of her body when she bent over the machine.

"I'd like for you to look at a man for me, Ms. Guilbeau," I said.

"The one who was staying at the motel?" she said, her face stark

"Let's find out," I replied. "Take a walk with me to the cruiser.

She hesitated, then set down her laundry and followed me through an alcove to the outside walkway. I stepped out into the rain and held my umbrella over the passenger's door and tapped on the glass.

"Hey, Doc, I want you to meet someone," I said, making a rotating motion with my finger.

He rolled down the window and looked at me.

"This is a friend of mine, Ms. Guilbeau," I said.

"Hi," he said.

She folded her hands and lowered her eyes and said nothing in reply.

The ex-soldier glanced at me, unsure of what was happening.

"I'll be with you in a minute, Doc," I said, then stepped back into the alcove with Marie Guilbeau.

"You know that fellow?" I asked.

"Yeah, why you bringing him here?"

"He's the man who made an inappropriate remark to you?"

"No. He's a homeless person. He walks all over New Iberia. Carrying his t'ings on his back. I seen him there," she replied.

"Okay, take a look at these pictures," I said, and removed a piece of mounting board from a manila envelope. Six mug shots were slipped into viewing slots in two rows of threes, one on top of the other.

It didn't take her five seconds to place her finger on one photo in particular.

"That's the one," she said. "He was nice at first. Then he got the wrong idea and said somet'ing fresh. Like he t'ought I was a prostitute." Maybe it was simply the light, but the memory of the incident seemed to climb in her face like a bruise.

"You're sure this is the guy?" I asked.

"That's the guy. You better believe that's the guy," she said, tapping the picture again, her eyes angry now. "What's his name?"

"Marvin Oates. He sells Bibles," I said.

"I'm gonna remember his name. I'm gonna remember his name a long time. It was him broke in my house, wasn't it?" she said.

"I don't know."

"I t'ink you do," she replied.

I turned the cruiser around in the parking lot and headed back toward New Iberia. The broken frond from a palm tree spun crazily out of the sky and bounced off my windshield.

As we drove under the oaks at the city limits sign outside New Iberia, I glanced across the seat at the ex-soldier. His face looked reflective, philosophical, a pocket of air in one cheek.

"You never told me what you wanted to talk about," I said.

"Getting a job. I can do lots of different things. Run a forklift, clerk, fry-cook, swamp out your bait shop," he said.

"I suspect we can work out something."

"I sold the rest of the downers I been taking. I probably should have thrown them away, but I needed the money."

"The V.A. has no record on you. How do you explain that?"

"Some of my records were burnt up in a fire. That's what the VA. says, anyway."

"You're a man of mystery, Doc."

"No, I ain't. If I live right, I get time off from the stuff that's in my head. For some people that's as good as it gets," he said.

He cracked a piece of peppermint in his jaw and smiled for the first time since I had seen him in New Iberia.

He had no place to stay. I drove home and gave him the room in the back of the bait shop. It contained a bunk, a table with a lamp, a chest of drawers, and a shower inside a tin stall, and I put fresh linen on the bunk and soap and a towel in the shower. When I left the bait shop, he was sound asleep, with all his clothes on, a sheet drawn up to his chin.

I walked up the dock to the house, the wind almost ripping the umbrella from my hand.

CHAPTER 29

In the morning the rain had slackened when I arrived at work. I walked down to the sheriff's office and knocked on the door. He looked up from some papers on his desk, his face darkening. He had on a pinstripe coat and a silver cowboy shirt unbuttoned at the collar. His Stetson hung on a rack, spotted with raindrops.

"Real good of you to check in," he said.

"Sir?" I said.

"You decked Perry LaSalle?"

"He swung on me."

"Thanks for letting me know that. He's called twice. I also just got off the phone with Joe Zeroski. I want this stuff cleaned up. I'm sick of my department being dragged into a soap opera."

"What staff?" I said.

"LaSalle says Legion Guidry intends to do serious harm to Barbara Shanahan and your friend Purcel. At least as far as I could make out. In the meantime, Joe Zeroski says Marvin Oates is bothering his niece again. What the hell is going on there?"

"Zerelda Calucci deep-sixed Marvin; I think he's a dangerous man, skipper. Maybe more dangerous than Legion Guidry."

"Marvin Oates?"

"I think he broke into a woman's house in St. Mary Parish and molested her. I think he should be our primary suspect in the murder of Linda Zeroski."