After another fifteen minutes he turned the key and was a little surprised that the Camaro started up. It was almost buried in the shrubbery. Backing out without lights, he no longer cared about scratches on his paint. Worse things could and probably would happen. Very slowly he tried to retrace his steps, but was soon lost on the dirt roads. At least he was alone. Finally, aided by luck, he reached Highway 25 and had a decision to make. He did not believe that his assailant was an insane stranger who just liked shooting at people. He believed him to be a calculating murderer from New Orleans who intentionally wanted to kill him. If so, danger was to the city in the south, and refuge was to the horse farm in the north, back toward the protective arms of Peggy O’Flarity.

Tubby made his turn and went a mile in the dark before an oncoming truck beeped at him until he flipped on his headlamps. Driving slowly, checking all his mirrors, he found himself again at the O’Flarity driveway. Carefully and cautiously, he turned in. The house was dark when he parked out front, but a security lamp automatically switched on when he got out of the car.

There was a rustling noise inside when he rang the bell. A curtain by the door parted, then the door opened. She was wearing a plush white robe, and her hair was mussed up.

“Uh,” he said and held out his hands.

“You want a cup of coffee?” she asked. “You look like you’ve seen the loup-garou.”

XXII

A lot happened while Tubby was away. On that same Saturday morning while he was lingering over eggs at the diner, Cherrylynn found out that her boyfriend, Rusty, had not come home during the night. She knew he wasn’t in her bed, obviously, but neither was he on the sofa, where he sometimes crashed if he came in plastered. She thought about calling him up and speaking her mind then and there, but it dawned on her that she just didn’t care. This had been going on for too long, ever since he quit his offshore job. To say it straight, she was over him. This was a liberating revelation.

Delivering the news to Rusty wasn’t going to be much fun though. He had never dared to get violent with her, but he sure could get loud. Cherrylynn pondered this over a cup of herbal tea and made up her mind. She stuffed all of her boyfriend’s clothes and junk into the suitcase and duffle bag he stowed in a closet, then put them outside onto the apartment’s tiny front porch. She set the deadbolt on the front door so that it could only be opened from within.

Suddenly she was in a hurry to get out of there and avoid a confrontation, with all the yelling and door-pounding that might entail. She ran to grab her purse, a banana, and a yogurt and exited out the back. She had never given Rusty a key to that door.

Cherrylynn jumped into her Civic and, under a canopy of pink crape myrtles, she bumped out onto the street. Where could she go to kill a few hours? One of her girlfriends was in Atlanta for the weekend, and the other one wouldn’t be up this early on a Saturday. Might as well go to the office where there was Wi-Fi and parking. On the way she could drop off Tubby’s decibel register at Raisin’s girlfriend’s house.

* * *

Also on Saturday, before lunch, Jason Boaz went to Confession. His church had a new priest. He was a young guy whom Jason hoped he could relate to on a contemporary and worldly basis.

The penitent had to bide his time in the pews until a blue-haired woman finally emerged from the confessional, looking chastened and tired. There is nothing that woman could possibly need to confess, he thought to himself, but perhaps he was wrong. As soon as the light turned green, he hurried up the aisle and into the box.

Through the grill, he could make out the faint features of the priest.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, my last confession was two years ago,” he began.

“All right, my son, have you denied your faith?”

“Not at all, Father.” He would never do that.

“Have you profaned the use of God’s name in your speech?”

“Not very often, Father.”

“How about honoring Sundays?”

“Guilty, Father.”

“Sexual thoughts about someone to whom you are not married?”

“Yes, Father. I know that’s wrong. I mean, I guess. Whatever. But what I want to confess to is that think I may be killing somebody.”

“That’s very serious. In what sense do you mean that?”

“In the literal sense, Father. You see, I’ve built a miniature explosive device, which I’ve given to a man, and it’s set to go off and kill him under certain circumstances.”

“What circumstances?”

“Loud music. Actually, any very loud noise. You see…” and here Jason prattled on for a few minutes about how the device worked.

The priest let him talk until he wound down.

“Why did you do this?” the clergyman finally asked.

“It’s a long story,” Jason said, wanting to rush through this part, “but I was told to do it by some people that, frankly, I’m very afraid of.”

“Do you mean to say that you fear for your life?”

“Yes, I do,” Jason said earnestly.

“Well, you’ll just have to trust that the Lord will protect you. But you know that you absolutely have to stop this thing from blowing up.”

“I suppose you’re right.” He knew this would be the answer.

“Good, because if you don’t intend to call it off, I may have to tell the police about this Confession.”

Jason was astounded. “I thought this was private!” he exclaimed.

“There’s an exception to everything,” the young priest said.

“That certainly settles it then. I’ll get in touch with the man as soon as I walk out of the church and tell him to drown that phone in the sink.”

“You will have to take the consequences of this act as your penance. What else do you wish to confess?”

“I guess that’s about it,” Jason said.

“All right. Do your penance and you will be absolved. Go forth and sin no more.”

“For His word endures forever,” Jason mumbled as he hastened away.

But he couldn’t reach Tubby on the phone. The lawyer was at that moment out of cell phone range, riding a horse over the hills of St. Tammany Parish.

* * *

Cherrylynn leafed through the small file she had created on Mr. Dubonnet’s strange interest in the old shooting. She knew that her boss’s conversation with the policeman whose father had originally investigated the matter, Detective Kronke, had failed to produce anything useful. But maybe she could use her feminine smarts to make something happen.

There was that handwritten name on a piece of paper found in the old police records— Bert Haggarty— and there was the scribbled impression of the name Carlos Pancera. She knew that Flowers, Tubby’s private detective, was already making inquiries about Pancera. The possibility that she might cross paths with this investigator was very enticing, yet Tubby might not like her to be interfering. But what about this Haggarty? The note said “Indiana” beside his name, so she started there.

It was amazing how many oddball possibilities Google offered for that name. Scores, maybe hundreds. She thought about going into Westlaw but, at fifty-nine dollars per individual profile, Mr. Dubonnet would have a cow. She searched for the big cities in Indiana, since personally she couldn’t name any, and then ran through the White Pages available for Indianapolis, Bloomington, Evansville, etc. That gave her nearly two hundred more Haggarties, but only one Bert, and he was in Fort Wayne. Of course Bert may have been the name of the victim, or the victim’s now-deceased parent, or Bert might live in the country and not be in the city directories, or he might not have a phone, or… the chances were poor that this one name could be her guy. And what was she supposed to say when she called him? “Sir, do you know anything about a boy that got shot in New Orleans forty years ago?”