“It’s called a vision of mortality,” I said.

“What is?”

“The feelings you experienced when you went back to your old house.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to die?”

“You saw the Big Sleazy die, Clete. It’s like having an affair with the Great Whore of Babylon. When you finally come to your senses and get her out of your life, you find out she was the only woman you ever loved.”

Clete upended the bottle again, his throat working rhythmically, watching me with one eye, as though someone had spoken to him from one of his dreams.

BUT CLETE WAS not the only friend or acquaintance from New Orleans seeking refuge in Iberia Parish. Two weeks after I had been sent to help investigate the shooting death of Kevin Rochon and the crippling of Eddy Melancon, Helen Soileau called me into her office. She spit a piece of her thumbnail off her tongue. “Otis Baylor just moved back to town with his family. Evidently they still own a home on Old Jeanerette Road,” she said.

I waited for her to go on.

“You think he dropped those two looters or not?” she said.

“You mean is he that kind of guy? No, I don’t think he is. But-”

“What?”

“His daughter had a terrible experience at the hands of three street pukes. I don’t know what I would do if I were in his shoes.”

“I didn’t hear that last sentence.”

“Maybe Baylor thought they were going to break into his house. Maybe his nerves were fried.”

“If this guy is dirty on a homicide, he’s not going to use our parish as a sanctuary. Talk to his wife and daughter.”

“I’d rather drop this one.”

“I’d rather not be present at my own death. Get out of here.”

Baylor’s home was a dark green nineteenth-century one-story house with tall windows and high ceilings and a peaked tin roof streaked with rust that had a purple cast in the shadows, not unlike my own. It had a wide screened-in gallery and was set back from Bayou Teche under pecan and palm trees and a solitary live oak dripping with Spanish moss. A glider hung on chains from one of the oak limbs, and a tan Honda was parked in the shale driveway, its paint spotted with bird droppings. A girl of about nineteen answered the door.

“I’m Dave Robicheaux, from the sheriff’s department,” I said, opening my badge. “Is Mr. Baylor here?”

“He’s at work,” she said.

She wore black sweatpants and a white T-shirt that was flecked with tiny pieces of leaves. “I was cleaning up the backyard when you rang the bell.”

“Are you Otis Baylor’s daughter?”

“I’m Thelma Baylor.”

“Is your mother here?”

“My stepmother is at the grocery store.”

“Could I talk with you? I’m investigating the shooting of the looters in front of your home in New Orleans. We have a lead or two, but I still can’t quite picture where these guys were when they were shot.”

“What does it matter? They were shot.”

“That’s true, isn’t it? Could I come in?”

“You can watch me rake leaves if you want.”

I followed her through the kitchen into the backyard. On both sides of her simple house were antebellum plantation homes of the kind one normally sees only on postcards. One hundred yards farther down the bayou, across the drawbridge, was a trailer slum where every form of social decay imaginable was a way of life. “You like New Iberia?” I asked.

“Are there always traffic jams at the Wal-Mart, or is that just because of the storm?” she said, drawing a bamboo rake through leaves that were black with mold.

I figured this one was going to be a long haul. I sat down on the back steps. “Did you hear the shots?”

Her eyes looked into neutral space, her rake missing a beat. “I heard a shot. It woke me up.”

“Just one shot?”

“Yes.”

“Where were you sleeping?”

Her face looked pale and round in the shade, devoid of expression, her lipstick glossy and unnatural, her bangs as precise as a nun’s wimple. “In my room.”

“Upstairs?”

“Yes, my room is upstairs. Do you want to talk to my father? I don’t see how any of this is helpful.”

“Do you think your next-door neighbor, Tom Claggart, is capable of popping a couple of looters?”

“Mr. Claggart is an upended penis with arms and legs and a face drawn on it. I don’t know what he’s capable of.”

Time to take a chance, I told myself. “I know about the attack on your person two years ago, Miss Thelma. I have a daughter a little older than you. If I thought she was in danger, particularly from the kind of men who hurt you, I’d take them off at the neck.”

Her rake slowed in the leaves, her chest rising and falling.

“I lost my mother and a wife to violent men,” I continued. “I think men who abuse women are invariably physical and moral cowards. I think a man who rapes a woman should be first in line at the injection table.”

She became motionless. Grains of dirt were stuck to the side of her mouth.

“I think you saw and know more than you’re telling me,” I said.

“I saw a guy floating facedown in the water. Another guy was wounded. A third guy started running through the water. A fourth guy was trying to hold the wounded guy in the boat.”

“That’s very detailed. I appreciate it.” I made a note on a pad and put away my pen, as though we were finished. “Where was your father?”

“In his bedroom.”

“Where was your mother?”

“She’s my stepmother. My real mother is dead.”

“Where was your stepmother?”

“In the bedroom with my father.”

“Did your old man shoot those guys?”

“If you won’t believe him, you won’t believe me. Why bother asking?”

“I think you carry a big burden, Miss Thelma. I’m not here to add to it.”

“You need to shut up, Mr. Robicheaux.”

“Pardon me?”

“Why do you assume you know what happened to me? Why do you assume my family wants revenge on people we have nothing against? I can’t stand people like you. You don’t have any idea of what it’s like to be a rape victim. If you did, you wouldn’t be patronizing and trying to manipulate me.”

“I apologize if I gave that impression.”

“It’s not an impression.”

I stood up from the steps and brushed off the seat of my trousers. “I’m sorry just the same.”

“Fuck you.”

As I left the yard, I glanced back over my shoulder. Her body seemed to float inside a nimbus of light particles and dust and smoke and bits of desiccated leaves. For just a moment, as she resumed her work, stroking the rake hard across the ground, the bamboo tines splintering on the root system of a cypress tree, the intensity of her concentration and anger gave her a kind of integrity that I always associated with Alafair.

THE FOLLOWING DAY I called the Baylor house and asked Mrs. Baylor to come into the department for an interview.

“More about the looters who were shot?” she said.

“That’s correct.”

“Is this absolutely necessary?”

“Yes, ma’am, it is,” I said.

“We’re out on Old Jeanerette Road, just past Alice Plantation. Why don’t you come here if you want to talk?”

I realized Thelma had not told her stepmother of my visit. “I’d be happy to.”

“Mr. Robicheaux, let’s do this on another basis. I seriously believe you’re wasting your time with us, but nonetheless we’d like to be your friend. Can we take you and your family to dinner? I think you’ll see we’re truthful people and want to assist you in any way we can. But the reality is we’re bystanders who have no idea who shot those men.”

“That’s kind of you. But there’s a protocol I have to pursue. Will you be home in the next half hour?”

“No, I have a doctor’s appointment.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“I’m not sure. May I call you?”

“I need to make an appointment with you right now, Mrs. Baylor.”

“Unfortunately that’s not possible. I’ve tried to be cooperative, Mr. Robicheaux. But this is starting to get a little tiresome. I’d better say good-bye now. I wish you success in your investigation.”