“What’s the trouble?” I said, walking up to the three of them.

“Who are you?” one of the deputies asked.

“Dave Robicheaux,” I said. I already had my badge holder in my hand. I opened and closed it before he could take a good look at it. “What’d y’all come up with?”

He held up a bone-colored mask inside a large Ziploc bag. The mask was made of plastic and was shiny and ribbed with streaks of blue when the light struck its angular surfaces. “I think we may have our guy,” the deputy said.

“Which guy?” I said.

“The one who’s been killing people around here. You’re not working with Joe Bim?” the deputy said.

“I have. I’m here to help in any way I can,” I said.

“You were conducting the search without gloves, you idiot,” Alicia Rosecrans said to the deputy. “You didn’t try to obtain a telephone warrant, either. You may have already queered the evidence.”

The deputy had a brush mustache and salt-and-pepper hair. He shook his head and looked at me. “You know her?” he asked.

“Do you want to say something to me?” Alicia Rosecrans asked.

“No ma’am,” the deputy replied. He laughed to himself and looked at his partner.

“Then you’d better change your fucking attitude,” she said.

“What else did you guys find?” I asked.

“A transfer of ownership in the glove box. It looks like this guy just bought his truck from somebody named Leslie Wellstone.”

“Where was the mask?” I asked.

“Under the backseat, wrapped in an old shirt.”

“I don’t want to break in on all you swinging dicks here, but none of you are to put your hands on that truck,” Alicia Rosecrans said. “We have jurisdiction on this investigation, and as of this moment you’re out of it. In about five minutes, three people who talk like me are going to be kicking a telephone pole up your ass.”

“Yes ma’am. Whatever you say. We got it. We’re here to please. So sayonara or hasta la vista, whichever you prefer,” the deputy said, bowing slightly, his hands pressed together in prayerful fashion. “When you’re at the Asian Garden restaurant, you and your fellow agents have a big plate of shiitake on us.”

“What did you say? What did you say?” she asked.

Both deputies walked off without replying, glancing absently at the smoke that was beginning to veil the stars, and I was left alone with Special Agent Alicia Rosecrans. Her small wire-framed glasses were full of light.

“You like sexist and racist humor, Mr. Robicheaux?”

“They were out of line, but they’re not bad guys. The feds talk down to them. So they get defensive.”

“How grand and kind. I wish I had that level of humanity. It must bring you great comfort.”

Don’t take the bait, I told myself. “You had Whitley under surveillance?”

She paused as though deciding whether I was worth continuing a conversation with. “We got a report off the police band. I was a few blocks away.”

I didn’t believe her, but I let it go. “You think Whitley is the guy who tried to burn Clete?”

“Maybe. What has Clete Purcel told you?”

The fact that she didn’t refer to Clete in the familiar wasn’t insignificant. “You haven’t talked with him?” I asked.

“Someone else will be doing that.” She was looking toward the cruiser where Troyce Nix and Candace Sweeney were sitting, her eyes not meeting mine.

“Clete’s personal relationships have nothing to do with what happened here tonight,” I said. “Clete hasn’t done anything wrong. I don’t think you have, either.”

“I noticed the religious chain and medal around your neck. Are you Catholic, Mr. Robicheaux?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Have you ever considered taking a Trappist vow of silence?” she asked.

I went inside the club to find Clete. He was standing at the far end of the bar, knocking back shots from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, chasing it with a can of Bud. The customers who had come back into the club were avoiding him, and so was the bartender.

“Pouring your own drinks these days?” I said.

“Yeah, suddenly I’m butt crust.”

“Did you see your girlfriend?”

“Alicia’s here?”

“Amerasian, likes to call county cops ‘swinging dicks’? I think that might be her.”

“She get in your face about something?”

“Let’s get you out of here before the feds arrive in force.”

“What’d Alicia say to you?”

“Nothing. I think you’re nuts, that’s all.”

“I get this from you every time I meet a new woman.”

“Yeah, I think that’s what Henry the Eighth said to his confessor once.”

“What?”

I saw a red smear on the back of Clete’s thumb. I wiped it off with a paper napkin and crumpled the napkin and dropped it on the floor. He looked dumbly at the spot I had cleaned. “He fell on top of his piece. I took it out of his hand so his weight wouldn’t discharge it,” he said.

“You did everything you had to do, Clete. You saved the girl’s life and probably Gribble’s, too. No matter how this plays out, you’re the best.”

But my words were probably too late and too few. He sat down on the bar stool like an elephant that has tired of its own performance and has decided to sit down on a small chair in the middle of the ring. I could almost hear a wheeze of air from his chest. His shot glass was half empty. There was a smear of salt on his lip from his beer chaser. His eyes looked scorched in the glow of the beer sign behind the bar. “You think the feds might use this to get me for the Sally Dio plane crash?”

“Who knows? They’ve got their own agenda. They don’t share knowledge of it with others. We brass it out.”

He pinched his temples and closed and opened his eyes. “Some life, huh?”

I cupped my hand on the back of his neck. It was as hot as a sunburn. “Going up or coming down, it’s only rock and roll,” I said.

But we both knew better.

CHAPTER 20

AT SUNRISE THE next day, Albert Hollister found his truck in his driveway but did not see J. D. Gribble. Nor did he find J.D. at his cabin on the other side of the ridge. At noon, while I was out in the yard, I saw Alicia Rosecrans drive past the arch over Albert’s driveway and turn in to the dirt lane that led to our cabin, north of the barn.

I wasn’t anxious to see her again. She and Clete had created a problematic personal relationship that could cause her to lose her career. Second, Clete knew that Gribble was probably a fugitive from the law and had not yet told her. Who said you should never go to bed with a woman who has more problems than you? Actually, it doesn’t matter who said it, because the admonition was not one I could have passed on to Clete. Why is that? Because I’ve never met a woman who had more problems than he did.

“Have you seen J. D. Gribble?” she said.

“No, I haven’t,” I replied.

“I called Mr. Hollister earlier. He said Gribble left his pickup in the driveway before dawn. He said he thinks Gribble may be in town.”

“Could be.”

“Mr. Robicheaux, I seem to get one of two responses from you. You’re either handing out moral observations, or you’re the laconic Spartan who has trouble putting two words together.”

“I guess that’s the way it flushes sometimes,” I said.

“Clete Purcel’s fingerprints are on the twenty-five auto that was found next to Quince Whitley’s body.”

“Whitley fell on top of his gun. Clete removed it from his hand so it wouldn’t discharge and hit somebody in the parking lot. What difference does it make? There were eyewitnesses. Candace Sweeney was there, and so was Nix.”

“Candace Sweeney has an arrest record for possession of heroin.”

“So what? She saw what happened. Why should she lie about it?”

“I don’t think she’s lying. She says after Whitley threw acid at her, she crouched in front of the SUV. She thinks Gribble knocked Whitley down with his guitar case. When she got up, somebody’s headlights were shining in her eyes. She says she started to run and heard Whitley say something, then the headlights went out of her eyes and she saw Clete aim his weapon with both hands and blow Whitley’s brains out. She was close enough to him that blood splattered on her blouse. But she didn’t see a gun in Whitley’s hand.”