THIRTY-FOUR

IF THERE WAS ANY DRAMA at the crime scene later, it was not in our search for evidence or even in the removal of Lila's body from under the crushed roof of the Cadillac. Archer Terrebonne arrived at the scene twenty minutes after the crash, and was joined a few minutes later by Billy Holtzner. Terrebonne immediately took charge, as though his very presence and the slip-on half-top boots and red flannel shirt and quilted hunting vest and visor cap he wore gave him a level of authority that none of the firemen or paramedics or sheriffs deputies possessed.

They all did his bidding or sought sanction or at a minimum gave an explanation to him for whatever they did. It was extraordinary to behold. His attorney and family physician were there; also a U.S. congressman and a well-known movie actor. Terrebonne wore his grief like a patrician who had become a man of the people. A three-hundred-pound St. Mary Parish deputy, his mouth full of Red Man, stood next to me, his eyes fixed admiringly on Terrebonne.

"That ole boy is one brave sonofabuck, ain't he?" he said.

The paramedics covered Lila's body with a sheet and wheeled it on the gurney to the back of an ambulance, the strobe lights of TV cameras flowing with it, passing across Terrebonne's and Holtzner's stoic faces.

Helen Soileau and I walked through the crowd until we were a few feet from Terrebonne. Red flares burned along the shoulder of the road, and mist clung to the bayou and the oak trunks along the bank. The air was cold, but my face felt hot and moist with humidity. His eyes never registered our presence, as though we were moths outside a glass jar, looking in upon a pure white flame.

"Your daughter's death is on you, Terrebonne. You didn't intend for it to happen, but you helped bring the people here who killed her," I said.

A woman gasped; the scattered conversation around us died.

"You hope this will destroy me, don't you?" he replied.

"Harpo Scruggs said to tell you he'd be expecting you soon. I think he knew what he was talking about," I said.

"Don't you talk to him like that," Holtzner said, rising on the balls of his feet, his face dilating with the opportunity that had presented itself. "I'll tell you something else, too. Me and my new co-director are finishing our picture. And it's going to be dedicated to Lila Terrebonne. You can take your dirty mouth out of here."

Helen stepped toward him, her finger lifted toward his face.

"He's a gentleman. I'm not. Smart of again and see what happens," she said.

We walked to our cruiser, past the crushed, upside-down shell of Clete's Cadillac, the eyes of reporters and cops and passersby riveted on the sides of our faces.

I heard a voice behind me, one I didn't recognize, yell out, "You're the bottom of the barrel, Robicheaux."

Then others applauded him.

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING Helen and I began re-creating Lila Terrebonne's odyssey from the movie set on the levee, where she had dinner with her father and Billy Holtzner, to the moment she must have realized her peril and tried to outrun the contract assassin named Jacques Poitier. We interviewed the stage grip who saw the blue Ford pull out of the fish camp and follow her back down the levee; an attendant at a filling station in St. Martinville, where she stopped for gasoline; and everyone we could find from the Flynns' lawn party.

The New York and overseas friends of Megan and Cisco were cooperative and humble to a fault, in large part because they never sensed the implications of what they told us. But after talking with three guests from the lawn party, I had no doubt as to what transpired during the encounter between Megan and the French Canadian named Poitier.

Helen and I finished the last interview at a bed-and-breakfast across from The Shadows at three o'clock that afternoon. It was warm and the trees were speckled with sunlight, and a few raindrops were clicking on the bamboo in front of The Shadows and drying as soon as they struck the sidewalks.

"Megan's plane leaves at three-thirty from Acadiana Regional. See if you can get a hold of Judge Mouton at his club," I said.

"A warrant? We might be on shaky ground. There has to be intent, right?"

"Megan never did anything in her life without intending to."

OUR SMALL LOCAL AIRPORT had been built on the site of the old U.S. Navy air base outside of town. As I drove down the state road toward the hangars and maze of runways, under a partially blue sky that was starting to seal with rain clouds, my heart was beating in a way that it shouldn't, my hands sweating black prints on the steering wheel.

Then I saw her, with three other people, standing by a hangar, her luggage next to her, while a Learjet taxied around the far side of a parking area filled with helicopters. She wore her straw hat and a pink dress with straps and lace around the hem, and when the wind began gusting she held her hat to her head with one hand in a way that made me think of a 1920s flapper.

She saw me walking toward her, like someone she recognized from a dream, then her eyes fixed on mine and the smile went out of her face and she glanced briefly toward the horizon, as though the wind and the churning treetops held a message for her.

I looked at my watch. It was 3:25. The door to the Lear opened and a man in a white jacket and dark blue pants lowered the steps to the tarmac. Her friends picked up their luggage and drifted toward the door, glancing discreetly in her direction, unsure of the situation.

"Jacques Poitier stopped his car on the swale in front of your party. Your guests heard you talking to him," I said.

"He said his car was broken. He was working on it," she replied.

"He asked you if the woman driving Clete's Cadillac was Holtzner's daughter."

She was silent, her hair ruffling thickly on her neck. She looked at the open door of the plane and the attendant who waited for her.

"You let him think it was Geraldine Holtzner," I said.

"I didn't tell him anything, Dave."

"You knew who he was. I gave you the composite drawing."

"They're waiting for me."

"Why'd you do it, Meg?"

"I'm sorry for Lila Terrebonne. I'm not sorry for her father."

"She didn't deserve what happened to her."

"Neither did my father. I'm going now, unless you're arresting me. I don't think you can either. If I did anything wrong, it was a sin of omission. That's not a crime."

"You've already talked to a lawyer," I said, almost in amazement.

She leaned down and picked up her suitcase and shoulder bag. When she did, her hat blew off her head and bounced end over end across the tarmac. I ran after it, like a high school boy would, then walked back to her, brushing it off, and placed it in her hands.

"I won't let this rest. You've contributed to the death of an innocent person. Just like the black guy who died in your lens years ago. Somebody else has paid your tab. Don't come back to New Iberia, Meg," I said.

Her eyes held on mine and I saw a great sadness sweep through her face, like that of a child watching a balloon break loose from its string and float away suddenly on the wind.