They proceeded down the main street, and Charles observed more signs of liquor for sale. “I wouldn’t have thought a place this size could support so many bars.”

“Those’re all New Church hospitality houses,” said the sheriff. “There’s not one liquor license in the pack. No money changes hands, no tax revenues. But you need a church voucher to get a drink”

The sheriff slowed the car to a roll and pointed out a two-story house on the left side of the street. “That’s a real landmark there – Ed Laurie’s old bar. Thirty years ago, the only Lauries in this parish all lived on the second floor.”

It was like the other buildings, naked wood and spare in form, but older than the rest. The sunporch roof sagged in an evil smile, and bright-glowing beer logos blinked on and off in the window. And now Charles noticed the relative quiet. He could hear the noise of distant car engines, but no birds. He had become accustomed to their music everywhere he went. Apparently, birds did not sing in Owltown.

The sheriff stopped the car in front of the bar. “That’s where Babe got his start when he was five years old. He was called Baby Laurie then. His daddy would sit him on top of the jukebox so the boy could preach scripture, and worse. If you wanted live theater, you went to Ed’s bar to see who Baby Laurie was gonna hex that night.”

“Hex? Are we talking about voodoo?”

“Nothing that sophisticated, Mr. Butler. But the little bastard was real good at predictions. If he said your wife would have a stillborn child, she might accidentally connect with a baseball bat in the gut before she come to term. ‘Course you could ask Baby Laurie to pray you and yours away from the wrath of the Lord. And if you made a contribution to the ministry, then lo and behold, your baby would be born alive.”

“A protection racket? So the father was – ”

“Or one of Babe’s big brothers did the work. The other boys were full-grown by then. Their father was the most hated man in St. Jude Parish. If Ed hadn’t died of a drunk’s liver, eventually we would’ve found him floating face down in the bayou. And don’t you know, Babe was just the image of his father.”

“So you’re saying there’s more than a few people who wanted to see Babe dead?”

But the sheriff said nothing at all as he set the car in motion once more. Either the man was evading the question, or he simply didn’t care who killed Babe Laurie.

“Sheriff, you said Babe’s brothers were full-grown when he was five. But that was thirty years ago. Surely Malcolm couldn’t be much over thirty.”

“Malcolm is fifty-one. Just a few years younger than I am.” Charles stared at the lines and jowls of the sheriff’s face, and the graying hair that Malcolm didn’t have. This was not possible. He couldn’t have been so far from the mark in -

“Malcolm is a strange one,” said the sheriff. “He encourages rumors that he’s even older. Makes people think he’s onto a secret, and maybe he is.” But Jessop’s tone lacked conviction and bordered on sarcasm. “Years back, Babe and Malcolm looked almost like twins. But when Babe died at thirty-six, he looked ten years older. Could be Malcolm used his brother like that magic portrait of Dorian Gray’s. Babe becomes debauched, and Malcolm stays young forever.”

Charles was still stunned by the age factor, but the sheriff misunderstood the surprise in his eyes.

“Don’t get excited, Mr. Butler. I’m sure I got that literary reference off the back of one of my bubble gum cards.”

“I remember bubble gum,” said Charles, not missing a beat, not rising to the bait. “It was wonderful. Do they still make it?”

“Why you poor ignorant man.” Jessop pointed to the glove compartment. “In there. Help yourself.”

Charles opened the small door in the dashboard, and a pile of card-size packets spilled out with the rich timeless smell of gum and an Officer Friendly logo printed on the wrappers.

“I give them out to the kids.” Sheriff Jessop pulled a few packets from the pile that Charles was stuffing back into the glove compartment.

“So Babe was debauched?” The landscape crawled by the car window, and Charles looked at his watch. Still lots of time. “Not leading the exemplary life of an evangelist?”

“Babe was no saint – that’s a fact. These past few years, he was stoned on drugs or drink every time I saw him. That sorry, diseased son of a bitch.”

“Diseased?”

“You bet. Every last soul in Dayborn remembers his party at the Dayborn Bar and Grill. It was his nineteenth birthday, but the Lauries were really celebrating Babe’s first case of the clap. That VD party was a legend. It went on for three days.” He put his hand into the pile of clutter on the dashboard and extricated a folded sheaf of papers bearing today’s date and the seal of a medical examiner. He handed it to Charles. “Cut to the second page, top of the sheet.”

Charles scanned the lines. According to the autopsy report, Babe Laurie had died in an advanced stage of venereal disease. Various drugs and alcohol were listed in the contents of the stomach. Charles turned to the sheriff, who was nodding, saying, “Yeah, he was diseased all right.”

Approaching the fairgrounds, they traveled by a cluster of trailers. Men in sleeveless T-shirts were standing in groups, drinking beer for their breakfast. Now a shoving match ensued and one man hit the ground in a hurry. He was kicked in the ribs by another man, and the content of a beer can was poured over the fallen man’s prone body. But the sheriff seemed not to care about this infraction of the law against assaulting one’s fellow citizen.

Charles unwrapped the packet in his hand and released the spicy aroma of bubble gum. He discarded the baseball trading card and held the bright piece of gum to his nose, seriously assessing the bouquet. It even smelled pink. When he popped it into his mouth, the taste evoked a flood of memories. That summer on the road with Cousin Max, bubble gum had been a staple of his diet.

Before they pulled into the parking lot, he had outdone himself by blowing a larger bubble than the sheriff could manage with twice the chewy pink waddage. Then Charles did a bit of showboating by blowing a bubble within a bubble. The grand finale was a resounding pop, and the sheriff took his hands off the wheel to applaud.

The car rolled to a stop in a dirt parking lot, and the two men sat companionably for a few minutes of highly competitive chewing and bubble blowing.

“You know, Sheriff,” Pop. “I haven’t seen a single child in Owltown.”

Pop. “The families with kids live in Dayborn. Most of this roadie trash around here is drunks, junkies, hookers and the odd pervert – the staff and clientele of the Owltown business district.”

Pop. “How many Lauries are there?”

“With cousins, second cousins, and relations by marriage? I guess a few hundred people. When the family business got too big for Mal and his brothers to manage it, they brought in relatives from Texas and the Carolinas. Now the whole pack of them work for the New Church.”

Pop. Pop.

“How does a church support so many people?”

“When the tent show’s touring up north in the Bible Belt, they pull in at least thirty grand on a bad night. The Lauries who stay behind in Owltown make even more money running the mail order business.”

Charles aborted a bubble. “Mail order religion?”

Pop. “Oh, yeah. For a five-dollar donation you can have an envelope full of dirt from the Holy Land. I’m afraid I crunched up a lot of that holy dirt when I pulled into this parking lot.”

Pop. “God forgives you,” said Charles. “How much for a piece of the true cross?”

“Twenty dollars. However, those sawdust shavings are laminated in a strip of plastic. You can use them to mark your favorite scripture in the autographed Bible.”

Pop. “Autographed by…?”